They learn from the child
as they teach the child. In the first place, none are permitted to
teach who are not by nature, as well as by education, qualified to
teach; nature must give the gentleness, the kindness, and the patience,
with the capacity to impart instruction. They learn, first, the child's
nature, the peculiarities of temper, and fashion these to obedience and
affection; they first teach the heart to love--not fear; they warn
against the evils of life--teach the good, and the child's duties to
its parents, to its brothers and sisters, to its teachers, to its
playmates, and to its God. When the heart is mellowed and yields
obedience in the faithful discharge of these duties, and the brain
sufficiently matured to comprehend the necessity of them, then
attention is directed to the mind; its capacities are learned and
known, and it is treated as this knowledge teaches is proper: it is, as
the farmer knows, the soil of his cultivation, and is prepared by
careful tillage before the seed is sown. The vision of the child's mind
is by degrees expanded; the horizon of its knowledge is enlarged, and
still the heart's culture goes on in kindness and affection.
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