LETTER I.

MY DEAR ANNA,--I had heard of your intention of keeping school before you wrote to me, and had rejoiced for the good cause as only one can do who knows your peculiar qualifications for it. I have been full of the purpose of answering your letter, to tell you how joyfully I look forward to the realization of some of my wishes through your help, such as that of perfecting some beautiful plan of education, which you and I, with our faith in perfectibility, might invent, but which I could not make alone. When we parted many years since, in one of those beautiful porticos of the temple of knowledge, where we had together been warmed by the fires of genius, and where our sympathy (perhaps I should say _yours_) had rekindled a certain torch of enthusiasm that had been long quenched by adversity--(I sadly fear it is smouldering again under the ashes of freshly-buried hope)--I little expected to meet you again in my favorite walk, made fragrant by the breath of little children. If we had chanced to meet often enough since then, we should have found much to reunite us, for my best teachers have been certain wise mothers;--indeed, the only schools in which I have found the instruction I needed, have been the nurseries and firesides to which I have been admitted, often through my loving interest in the little flowers that bloomed around them. I could tell you, if I dared, how many times I have wished I could be queen of such kingdoms, for the sake of the younger subjects of those realms, for I have learned quite as much from the mistakes as from the wisdom I have witnessed.

My desire to gather all I could, from the efforts and experience of others, once tempted me on an exploring expedition through our much vaunted Primary Schools. What would you say if I were to tell you that I met with but one spirit kindred to my own in the whole circuit? Among all the hard, knotty women, young and old, whom I found presiding over youthful destinies in this extensive organization, I found one lovely young creature who _loved_ all her scholars, and who, by the power of this love, contrived partially to mitigate the horrors of benches without backs, long rote spelling-lessons, crowded and ill-ventilated rooms, tedious periods of idleness in which little darlings had to sit up straight and not speak or fidget (which last I consider one of the prerogatives of childhood). Her face radiated sunshine, her voice was music itself, and yet firm, and she often varied her routine of exercises, prescribed by the primary school committee, with a pleasant little story to illustrate some principle she wished the children to act upon. She was the only one who had interpolated a regular entertaining lesson into the routine, and this she effected by nipping some of the prescribed lessons five minutes each, so as to save twenty for her little treatise upon some interesting subject of natural history. I quite agreed with her that it was a species of petty larceny for which she would be acquitted in the courts above.

I could describe sad, heart-breaking scenes of youthful misery and terror, injustice and daily cruelty in these schools. In several cases my indignation was so much aroused that I was obliged to leave the room to avoid showing my excited feelings. My sympathy for suppressed yawns, limbs suddenly outstretched, or wry faces made behind the teachers' backs; tearful eyes, sleepy little heads nodding on fat shoulders, was so great, that I often smiled upon them when the teacher did not see _me_. I returned to my own little free republic, after spending one of my vacation weeks thus, more resolved than ever not to coerce babes into the paths of knowledge. Many a spine had its first bend there, I doubt not, and many a child learned to hate school in such scenes of discomfort. I have no doubt there were among the teachers many conscientious ones who did as well as they knew how under such a system. If such schools could be presided over by genius, and such geniuses could be left to their own judgment about what to teach and how to teach it, the experience of Mr. Alcott in his first Infant School among the poor of the North End proves that primary Education can be made for all, what we can make it who have the advantage of teaching in our own parlors.

It is astonishing to me that greater improvements have not already been made in this public school education. Often when I am sitting in my pleasant school-room with these favored children of wealthy parents around me, my thoughts recur to those crowded rooms, and the only remedy I see is, that school committees shall be formed of _women_. I believe many of the women I saw teaching in those primary schools would do better if left to their own instincts about the children. They have no liberty whatever, except such stolen liberty as I mentioned in the case of Miss E. What do _men_ know about the needs of little children just out of nurseries? If I were one of the school committee, with _carte blanche_, I would have "stir-the-mush" or "puss-in-the-corner" among the exercises, with singing every hour, and marching and clapping of hands. And I would have well-ventilated rooms instead of such hot, suffocating places, warmed by large iron stoves.

And as I see the poor and neglected children in the streets, or in their own wretched houses, and how they live and grovel in low practices, gradually losing the sweet innocence of infantile expression, and becoming coarse and violent, even brutal, I wonder still more at the torpidity of society upon this subject. Nothing is such a proof of its selfishness as this neglect. Nothing makes me feel so keenly the need of a new organization of things. I do not like the thought of merging the sacred family relation in communities where all live together in public as it were, but it seems as if something might be done for the children of the needy that is not yet done. These poor city children are sequestered even from the influences of Nature. How strange that the more favored individuals should not seek every means to give them what culture they can have amid these brick walls. So much might be done by the help of the salient imagination of childhood, that we should be helped more than half way by blessed Nature herself. I often take an unfashionable walk inside the Mall on Sunday afternoon, when the Irish people bring their babes to play upon the green. I think it is the best institution in the city, and it would be a good idea to appoint a Commissioner in each ward to bring all the street children there every day and watch them while they play, and see that all have fair play. If school committees were formed of women, I think such an office might be created.

What faith we need to forgive heaven for the things that are! "How much that is, is _not_ right," I am sometimes tempted to exclaim. I have no idea, however, that Pope meant anything but the eternal IS, when he wrote "Whatever is, is right." It would have been better for superficial thinkers, if he had never said it however, for I often hear it quoted to defend what I consider the marring, not the making of God's plans. I have no doubt there is a remedy for every individual case of misery in this world, if eyes were only open to see it, but this couching process is the needful thing, and _that_ God has left us to think out for ourselves. We know that there are millions who live and die in ignorance of all that makes God _God_, or a Father. To these he is only the being that created them, and they may well ask, "Why did he make us? to suffer? to sin?"--for they are conscious only of the irregularities of that creation by which they are tortured. They never see the wonderful adaptation of things to each other;--they know nothing of the harmonies of their being with the being of others, or with Nature. The sort of education they get in cities, where life is stirring briskly around them, and each one seems scrambling to get the best morsel for himself, only makes them worse, unless something is done to evoke order for them out of this chaos. Their belief in Deity is a superstitious feeling about some supernatural power that exercises dominion over them, and subjects them to an imperious necessity. In the agony of death they cry aloud for fear; for they know they have made their fellow-men suffer, and death is a mirror that holds them up to themselves. Conscience breathes upon the glass, and in the dissolving picture its countenance is recognized,--but this is a base fear, and cannot be called an aspiration. To make sure the foundations of faith in God, one must know what God has done for him. Man must be made acquainted with his own nature before God's benevolence can be realized. If I did not think ignorance was at the root of all human evil, I should not have any hope; but though its kingdom is very large, no despot can be so easily driven from the throne. I hope all this does not seem irrelevant to the matter we are discussing; it brings me nearer to the point I wished to reach. I believe in that redemption which knowledge and principle combined bring to the soul that has slumbered in darkness. Its recuperative power is its most glorious attribute. The tendency of the character is so often imparted in earliest youth, that if this is right, if the first impressions of life and its author are the true ones, the rest of the education may almost with impunity be left to what is called chance. But if a child lives to the age of eight or ten years, without a ray of light which will explain his existence and position to himself; or lead him through Nature up to God; it must be difficult to inspire him afterwards with the true filial feeling toward his heavenly parent. And if, by a longer period of darkness, he has found that in a certain sense he can live without God in the world, he will stand a poor chance of realizing that he cannot do so in ordinary life after the period of impressible youth is past. I believe the soul will to all eternity have renewed chances to redeem itself; but I cannot easily give up this first life. When I think of the beautiful adaptations of the world to our wants; of the exquisite gratification the knowledge of these brings to the mind; of the harmonies of our existence with all other existences; and of the power of virtue to triumph over the earthward tendencies of this double human nature, and to sacrifice the present to the future good;--when I think of what the perfect man can be,--I cannot be reconciled that one should live and not have the keys to unlock this part of the universe. Childhood is in our power. The helpless little beings must be taken care of. The world waits upon the babe, as has truly been said; and is not this one of those beautiful provisions of Nature which show us how

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them as we will!"

"The child is father of the man," indeed; and while the heart bounds lightly, let us teach this youthful father the religion of Nature, which he can understand. When he comes to riper years he will be ready to comprehend the religion of the Spirit, without danger of superstition or bigotry.

One obstacle to such instruction in Christendom is, doubtless, the very prevalent feeling that the study of Nature leads to scepticism about revealed religion. This injury has been done to religion's self by the fact that a few learned men have been scoffers at Christianity, or rather at what has been accepted as Christianity, and it is the association of their names which is the foundation of the prejudice. The discrepancy also between the discoveries of science and the imagery of the Hebrew poets who _sang_ about creation, is another cause; but since Mr. Silliman has ventured to say that there probably were a great many deluges, the ice of that difficulty has been cracked in _our_ community.

I see no reason why simple religious lessons, like those Mr. Waterston gives in his Sunday-school, may not be given in the public schools. You will say, we must have Mr. Waterston to do it, (and that is true indeed, now,) but when the public mind is ready for such instruction, such teachers will come up to supply the demand.

My first introduction to natural science was in listening to instruction of this kind given to children older than myself, under the sanction of a mother's authority. They were lessons in Astronomy and Chemistry, given before there were any elementary books upon such subjects; and they so kindled my imagination, when a very young child, and gave me such a realizing sense of the presence of God around me, whom I had already known as a Heavenly Father, who took care of me and of all men, by night as well as by day, that from that time I never lost the child's sense of nearness, or felt any of those fears of the supernatural which haunt the imagination of uninstructed childhood. And yet I was in the habit of listening to the stories of an old crone who believed in the witches of Salem, where she had always resided, as firmly as she believed in the God that made her. When I first heard the remark that the study of Nature tended to make men atheistic, I resented it with indignation, though but a child.

This, then, is the kind of teaching that I think adapted to childhood. It need not be exclusive, but let it predominate. Other faculties, beside the emotions of wonder and veneration, may be cultivated side by side with these. Memory, comparison, judgment, and calculation may be strengthened by a judicious and well-proportioned teaching of the elements of languages and numbers, thus insuring the tools for future acquisition. But this is not direct food for the soul. The young heart is full of love for its parents, of delight at the knowledge of new things, and these affections may be guided into adoration of Supreme Intelligence; this love of knowledge turned to its source, as easily and naturally as the stream flows from the mountain to the sea.

Side by side with this higher cultivation I would teach the eye, the hand, and the ear to practise, and to work readily. The pencil should ever be in the hand, the picture before the eye,--especially when the objects of Nature cannot be, and sweet sounds in the ear. The love of activity is sufficient aid without the debasing influence of emulation. Facts are divine teaching, and a clear perception of them the basis of all theories; therefore they should be clearly and sharply presented and discriminated. When children are led to see their own ignorance, let them understand that we, who appear to them the concentration of all wisdom, ("Pallas-Minervas," as one of my little readers of Homer called me one day), are also ignorant in presence of the universe, which is full of things to be known, and they will not be discouraged, but only more eager to learn what they can of these worlds of knowledge; and will think of those still to be conquered rather than of any little acquirements of their own, thus escaping the dangers both of despondency and vanity. Let children lead this happy life till they are eight or nine, and let it be so full and blessed by love, sympathy, and the play of the creative imagination, that it will lift them over the rough places for many more years, while they shall build stone walls and towers of facts, as starting-places for future flights. It is the observation of every experienced heart that the most hardened sinner may be more easily redeemed, if he can be reminded of an infancy of purity and golden sunshine. If true, it is an argument for prolonging that infancy as far as possible, that the recollection of it, if unfortunately dimmed, may the more surely revive in those deep moments of existence, when the soul is thrown back upon itself for support and consolation; whether they be moments of guilt or of sorrow, of disappointed ambition or disappointed hope, of wounded pride, or wounded faith.

I am aware that the public schools are the hope of our land and its glory, and schools are the best world for children to grow up in when properly regulated; but I wish they need not be so large, so that there need be but one sovereign in each. Still more desirable is it, however, that none but living souls should ever have the privilege of unlocking the treasures of knowledge and thought for children. It is not enough to have deep and varied acquirements, but there must be a native delight in communicating, and a sympathy--a living sympathy--with every human being. These alone will awaken the love of excellence and call forth the powers of the mind. No one should ever have the care of children who does not love them because they _are_ children, or who can ever feel the undertaking an irksome task. I always regret to see the occupation entered upon as a last resort for a livelihood, or by those whose spirits can no longer respond to the touch of childhood. It must be a strong spirit that, in such instances, can rise again to meet the bounding hopes of fresh being. It is like going back to principles, when our experience fails to answer our just demands for highest happiness. In the faith of childhood, which knows no doubt, we can see that one experience is not the test of what our birthright is; and while we do not neglect the warnings we have had, we must never think that our single experience has exhausted the source whence truth flows.

I believe, too, that the germ of everything is in the human soul; and this faith seems to me essential to a teacher. Education is not the creation, but only the bringing forth of these germs, and that alone is a true education which brings them forth in fair proportions. To make children learn something tangible, if I may so speak, and to keep them quiet, are the usual aims of a teacher, and success in these is the usual test of his value; but they seem to me not to be his highest merit. I have often waited long, and I have learned to wait patiently, for anything like _results_. There is a certain harmonious play of the faculties, to the production of which I direct my efforts, and which I watch for with intense interest in my children, (for they seem to me mine,) and this can never be cultivated if one is bound by any formulas. I consider myself fortunate that my own mind has always enjoyed its birthright of freedom; that no iron habits have bound me to any mechanical system. My advantage is a negative one, perhaps, for I never had much training of an intellectual kind, my physical education being the chief object in my childhood. I was at least saved from such formality as enabled the teacher of a distinguished school to say in my presence, that "the less boys understood or were interested in their lessons, the better the discipline of study." This was surely making the process as mechanical a one as the motions of a trip-hammer. But there you have an immense advantage over me. You have been well trained, and yet measured by no Procrustean bed, for your most living teacher never wore any fetters herself, and could not impose any. Am I not right? Your summer retreat has been "twice blessed" in having such advantages of highest education, added to the influences of Nature, which you so dearly love. You are bound to open your eyes as beamingly as she does, upon all who come under their glance, to show your gratitude for such teachings. I well remember your frequent descriptions of those "large orbs" that presided over the most interesting part of your youthful training. I have seen those eloquent eyes myself, and can conceive their power when animated with the inspiring pleasure of pouring the treasures of thought into a receiving soil. And you are not the only one whom I have heard discourse of this source of inspiration. Your best study, too, was in the season when the reins are generally relaxed. The time when I received most benefit from study, solitary and unaided, and even _stolen_ as it was, (for the family decree was that, I being an invalid, must not study,) was when I pursued my lessons in an orchard, and generally in a tree, or sitting in the baby's breakfast-chair, in the midst of a shallow, rushing river, under a sweeping willow. I was brought up so much out of doors, that walls were oppressive to me. Indeed, I look back upon it as the only time of my childhood when any variety of influences acted upon me at once; and one which I ought not to omit to mention, was a much admired friend, who knew how to point out to me, leaf and flower in hand, what riches of knowledge were stored up in Nature for her children. I do not know but what my love of these hidden treasures was stimulated by the fear of being deprived of them. Owing to this fear I probably arrived earlier in life at that point which I have always contended was the great point in education,--the time when one takes it into one's own hands. But I do not think that your "two outward advantages" of motherhood and education, constitute all your qualifications for the task you have undertaken. I know what soil was warmed into fruitfulness by the rays shed from the sun of genius. Now, you are bound to fulfil my hopes, and if my own path is not smoothed by your help, I shall call you to account for my disappointment. I will give you my small experience, and tell you how I found out methods, because they were _not_ practised upon me; and I bid forth your power of deducing theories and improvements that will cheer us both onward. For want of more interested auditors, I often pour out my plans for educing order out of the little chaoses committed to my care, to ears that stretch to their utmost for politeness' sake, and for my sake, perhaps; but not for the thing I wish to impart.