Letter XXX. April 10, 1819

My dear Greaves,

When I recommend to a mother to avoid (wearying) a child by her instructions I do not wish to encourage the notion that instruction should always take the character of an amusement or even of a play. I am convinced that such a notion, where it is entertained and acted upon by a teacher, will for ever preclude solidity of knowledge and from a want of sufficient exertions on the part of the pupils will lead to that very result which I wish to avoid by my principle of a constant employment of the thinking powers.

A child must very early in life be taught a lesson which frequently comes too late and is then a most painful one - that exertion is indispensable for the attainment of knowledge. But a child should not be taught to look upon exertion as an unavoidable (evil). The motive of (fear) should not be made a stimulus to exertion. It will destroy the interest and will speedily create disgust.

This (interest) in study is the first thing which a teacher, and in the instances before us, which a mother should endeavour to excite and keep alive. There are scarcely any circumstances in which a want of application in children does not proceed from a want of interest; and there are perhaps none under which a want of interest does not originate in the mode of treating adopted by the teacher. I would go as far as to lay it down as a rule that whenever children are inattentive, and apparently take no interest in a lesson, the teacher should always first look to himself for the reason. When a quantity of dry matter is before a child, when a child is doomed to listen in silence to lengthy explanations or to go through exercises which have nothing in themselves to relieve or attract the mind; this is a tax upon his spirits which a teacher should make it a point to abstain from imposing. In the same manner, if the child, from the imperfection of his reasoning powers, or his unacquaintance with facts, is unable to enter into the sense or to follow the chain of ideas in a lesson; when he is made to hear or to repeat what to him is but "sound without sense;" - this is perfectly absurd. And when to all this the fear of punishment is added - besides the tedium, which in itself is punishment enough - this becomes absolutely cruel.

Of all tyrants it is well known that little tyrants are the most cruel; and of all little tyrants the most cruel are (school tyrants). Now, in all civilized countries, cruelty of every description is forbidden, and even cruelty to animals is very properly punished, in some by the law of the land, and in all stigmatised by public opinion. How then comes cruelty to children to be so generally overlooked or rather thought a matter of course? Some, forsooth, will tell us that their own measures are wonderfully humane, - that their punishments are less severe, or that they have done away with corporal punishments. But it is not to the severity of them that I object - nor would I venture to assert, in an unqualified manner, that corporal punishments are inadmissible under any circumstances in education. But I do object to their application - I do object to the principle (that the children are punished when the master or the system is to blame).

As long as this shall continue, - as long as teachers will not take the trouble or will not be found qualified to inspire their pupils with a living interest in their studies - they must not complain of the want of attention nor even of the aversion to instruction, which some of them may manifest. Could we witness the indescribable tedium which must oppress the juvenile mind while the weary hours are slowly passing away, one by one, in an occupation which they can neither relish nor understand its use; could we remember the same scenes which our own childhood has undergone, we would then no longer be surprised at the remissness of the school-boy, "creeping, like snail, unwillingly to school."

In saying this I do not mean to make myself the advocate of idleness or of those irregularities which will now and then be met with even in the best conducted schools. But I would suggest that the best means to prevent them from becoming general is to adopt a better mode of instruction by which the children are less left to themselves, less thrown upon the unwelcome employment of passive listening, less harshly treated for little and excusable failings, - but more roused by questions, animated by illustrations, interested and won by kindness. There is a most remarkable reciprocal action between the interest which the teacher takes and that which he communicates to his pupils. If he is not with his whole mind present at the subject; if he does not care whether it is understood or not, whether his manner is liked or not, he will never fail of alienating the affections of his pupils and of rendering them indifferent to what he says. But real interest taken in the task of instruction - kind words, and kinder feelings - the very expression of the features and the glance of the eye - are never lost upon children. (PSW 26, p. 125-127)