Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Children often imagine, that what they like for the present minute, they shall continue to like for ever; they have not learnt from experiment, that the most agreeable sensations fatigue, if they are prolonged or frequently repeated; they have not learnt, that all violent stimuli are followed by weariness or ennui. The sensible preceptor will not insist upon his pupil’s knowing these things by inspiration, nor will he expect that his assertions or prophecies should be implicitly believed; he will wait till the child feels, and at that moment he will excite his pupil to observe his own feelings. “You thought that you should never be tired of smelling that rose, or of looking at that picture; now you perceive that you are tired: remember this; it may be of use to you another time.” If this be said in a friendly manner, it will not pique the child to defend his past choice, but it will direct his future judgment.

  Young people are often reproached for their imprudence in preferring a small present pleasure to a large distant advantage: this errour also arises from inexperience, not from want of judgment, or deficiency in strength of mind. When that which has been the future, has in its turn become present, children begin to have some idea of the nature of time, and they can then form some comparisons between the value of present and future pleasures. This is a very slow process; old people calculate and depend upon the distant future more than the young, not always from their increased wisdom or prudence, but merely from their increased experience, and consequent belief that the future will in time arrive. It is imprudent in old people to depend upon the future; if they were to reason upon the chance of their lives, they ought not to be secure of its arrival; yet habit in this instance, as in many others, is more powerful than reason: in all the plans of elderly people, there is seldom any errour from impatience as to the future; there often appear gross errours in their security as to its arrival. If these opposite habits could be mixed in the minds of the old and of the young, it would be for their mutual advantage.

  It is not possible to infuse experience into the mind; our pupils must feel for themselves: but, by teaching them to observe their own feelings, we may abridge their labour; a few lessons will teach a great deal when they are properly applied. To teach children to calculate and compare their present and future pleasures, we may begin by fixing short intervals of time for our experiments; an hour, a day, a week, perhaps, are periods of time to which their imagination will easily extend; they can measure and compare their feelings within these spaces of time, and we may lead them to observe their own errours in not providing for the future. “Now Friday is come; last Monday you thought Friday would never come. If you had not cut away all your pencil last week, you would have had some left to draw with to-day. Another time you will manage better.”

  We should also lead them to compare their ideas of any given pleasure, before and after the period of its arrival. “You thought last summer that you should like making snow balls in winter, better than making hay in summer. Now you have made snow-balls to-day; and you remember what you felt when you were making hay last summer; do you like the snow-ball pleasure, or the hay-making pleasure the best?” V. Berquin’s Quatre saisons.

  If our pupils, when they have any choice to make, prefer a small present gratification to a great future pleasure, we should not, at the moment of their decision, reproach their imprudence, but we should steadily make them abide by their choice; and when the time arrives at which the greater pleasure might have been enjoyed, we should remark the circumstance, but not with a tone of reproach, for it is their affair, not ours. “You preferred having a sheet of paper the moment you wanted it last week, to the having a quire of paper this week.” “Oh, but,” says the child, “I wanted a sheet of paper very much then, but I did not consider how soon this week would come — I wish I had chosen the quire.” “Then remember what you feel now, and you will be able to choose better upon another occasion.” We should always refer to the pupils’ own feelings, and look forward to their future advantage. The reason why so few young people attend to advice, is, that their preceptors do not bring it actually home to their feelings: it is useless to reproach for past imprudence; the child sees the errour as plainly as we do; all that can be done, is to make it a lesson for the future.

  To a geometrician, the words by proposition 1st. stand for a whole demonstration: if he recollects that he has once gone over the demonstration, he is satisfied of its truth; and, without verifying it again, he makes use of it in making out the demonstration of a new proposition. In moral reasoning, we proceed in the same manner; we recollect the result of our past experiments, and we refer to this moral demonstration in solving a new problem. In time, by frequent practice, this operation is performed so rapidly by the mind, that we scarcely perceive it, and yet it guides our actions. A man, in walking across the room, keeps out of the way of the tables and chairs, without perceiving that he reasons about the matter; a sober man avoids hard drinking, because he knows it to be hurtful to his health; but he does not, every time he refuses to drink, go over the whole train of reasoning which first decided his determination. A modern philosopher, calls this rapid species of reasoning “intuitive analogy;” applied to the business of life, the French call it tact. Sensible people have this tact in higher perfection than others; and prudent people govern themselves by it more regularly than others. By the methods which we have recommended, we hope it may be successfully cultivated in early education.

  Rousseau, in expressing his contempt for those who make habit their only guide of action, goes, as he is apt to do in the heat of declamation, into the errour opposite to that which he ridicules. “The only habit,” cries he, “that I wish my Emilius to have, is the habit of having no habits.” Emilius would have been a strange being, had he literally accomplished his preceptor’s wish. To go up stairs, would have been a most operose, and to go down stairs, a most tremendous, affair to Emilius, for he was to have no habits: between every step of the stairs, new deliberations must take place, and fresh decisions of the judgment and will ensue. In his moral judgments, Emilius would have had as much useless labour. Habit surely is necessary, even to those who make reason the ultimate judge of their affairs. Reason is not to be appealed to upon every trivial occasion, to rejudge the same cause a million of times. Must a man, every time he draws a straight line, repeat to himself, “a right line is that which lieth evenly between its points?” Must he rehearse the propositions of Euclid, instead of availing himself of their practical use?

  “Christian, can’st thou raise a perpendicular upon a straight line?” is the apostrophe with which the cross-legged emperor of Barbary, seated on his throne of rough deal boards, accosts every learned stranger who frequents his court. In the course of his reign, probably, his Barbaric majesty may have reiterated the demonstration of this favourite proposition, which he learned from a French surgeon about five hundred times; but his majesty’s understanding is not materially improved by these recitals; his geometrical learning is confined, we are told, to this single proposition.

  It would have been scarcely worth while to have singled out for combat this paradox of Rousseau’s, concerning habit, if it had not presented itself in the formidable form of an antithesis. A false maxim, conveyed in an antithesis, is dangerous, because it is easily remembered and repeated, and it quickly passes current in conversation.

  But to return to our subject, of which we have imprudently lost sight. Imprudence does not always arise from our neglect of our past experience, or from our forgetting to take the future into our calculations, but from false associations, or from passion. Objects often appear different to one man, from what they do to the rest of the world: this man may reason well upon what the majority of reasonable people agree to call false appearances; he may follow strictly the conviction of his own understanding, and yet the world will say that he acts very imprudently. To the taste or smell of those who are in a fever, objects not only appear, but really are, to the patients different from what they appear to persons in sound health: in the sa
me manner to the imagination, objects have really a different value in moments of enthusiasm, from what they have in our cooler hours, and we scarcely can believe that our view of objects will ever vary. It is in vain to oppose reason to false associations; we must endeavour to combat one set of associations by another, and to alter the situation, and consequently, the views, of the mistaken person. Suppose, for instance, that a child had been in a coach and six upon some pleasant excursion (it is an improbable thing, but we may suppose any thing:) suppose a child had enjoyed, from some accidental circumstances, an extraordinary degree of pleasure in a coach and six, he might afterwards long to be in a similar vehicle, from a mistaken notion, that it could confer happiness. Here we should not oppose the force of reasoning to a false association, but we should counteract the former association. Give the child an equal quantity of amusement when he is not in a coach and six, and then he will form fresh pleasurable associations with other objects which may balance his first prepossession. If you oppose reason ineffectually to passion or taste, you bring the voice and power of reason into discredit with your pupil. When you have changed his view of things, you may then reason with him, and show him the cause of his former mistake.

  In the excellent fable of the shield that was gold on one side and silver on the other, the two disputants never could have agreed until they changed places. — When you have, in several instances, proved by experiment, that you judge more prudently than your pupil, he will be strongly inclined to listen to your counsels, and then your experience will be of real use to him; he will argue from it with safety and satisfaction. When, after recovering from fits of passion or enthusiasm, you have, upon several occasions, convinced him that your admonitions would have prevented him from the pain of repentance, he will recollect this when he again feels the first rise of passion in his mind; and he may, in that lucid moment, avail himself of your calm reason, and thus avoid the excesses of extravagant passions. That unfortunate French monarch, who was liable to temporary fits of frenzy, learned to foresee his approaching malady, and often requested his friends to disarm him, lest he should injure any of his attendants.

  In a malady which precludes the use of reason, it was possible for this humane patient to foresee the probable mischief he might do to his fellow-creatures, and to take prudent measures against his own violence; and may not we expect, that those who are early accustomed to attend to their own feelings, may prepare against the extravagance of their own passions, and avail themselves of the regulating advice of their temperate friends?

  In the education of girls, we must teach them much more caution than is necessary to boys: their prudence must be more the result of reasoning than of experiment; they must trust to the experience of others; they cannot always have recourse to what ought to be; they must adapt themselves to what is. They cannot rectify the material mistakes in their conduct, Timidity, a certain tardiness of decision, and reluctance to act in public situations, are not considered as defects in a woman’s character: her pausing prudence does not, to a man of discernment, denote imbecility; but appears to him the graceful, auspicious characteristic of female virtue. There is always more probability that women should endanger their own happiness by precipitation, than by forbearance. — Promptitude of choice, is seldom expected from the female sex; they should avail themselves of the leisure that is permitted to them for reflection. “Begin nothing of which you have not well considered the end,” was the piece of advice for which the Eastern Sultan paid a purse of gold, the price set upon it by a sage. The monarch did not repent of his purchase. This maxim should be engraved upon the memory of our female pupils, by the repeated lessons of education. We should, even in trifles, avoid every circumstance which can tend to make girls venturesome; which can encourage them to trust their good fortune, instead of relying on their own prudence. Marmontel’s tale, entitled “Heureusement,” is a witty, but surely not a moral, tale. Girls should be discouraged from hazarding opinions in general conversation; but amongst their friends, they should be excited to reason with accuracy and with temper. It is really a part of a woman’s prudence to have command of temper; if she has it not, her wit and sense will not have their just value in domestic life. Calphurnia, a Roman lady, used to plead her own causes before the senate, and we are informed, that she became “so troublesome and confident, that the judges decreed that thenceforward no woman should be suffered to plead.” Did not this lady make an imprudent use of her talents?

  In the choice of friends, and on all matters of taste, young women should be excited to reason about their own feelings. “There is no reasoning about taste,” is a pernicious maxim: if there were more reasoning, there would be less disputation upon this subject. If women questioned their own minds, or allowed their friends to question them, concerning the reasons of their “preferences and aversions,” there would not, probably, be so many love matches, and so few love marriages. It is in vain to expect, that young women should begin to reason miraculously at the very moment that reason is wanted in the guidance of their conduct. We should also observe, that women are called upon for the exertion of their prudence at an age when young men are scarcely supposed to possess that virtue; therefore, women should be more early, and more carefully, educated for the purpose. The important decisions of woman’s life, are often made before she is twenty: a man does not come upon the theatre of public life, where most of his prudence is shown, till he is much older.

  Economy is, in women, an essential domestic virtue. Some women have a foolish love of expensive baubles; a taste which a very little care, probably, in their early education, might have prevented. We are told, that when a collection of three hundred and fifty pounds was made for the celebrated Cuzzona, to save her from absolute want, she immediately laid out two hundred pounds of the money in the purchase of a shell cap, which was then in fashion. Prudent mothers, will avoid showing any admiration of pretty trinkets before their young daughters; and they will oppose the ideas of utility and durability to the mere caprice of fashion, which creates a taste for beauty, as it were, by proclamation. “Such a thing is pretty, but it is of no use. Such a thing is pretty, but it will soon wear out” — a mother may say; and she should prove the truth of her assertions to her pupils.

  Economy is usually confined to the management of money, but it may be shown on many other occasions: economy may be exercised in taking care of whatever belongs to us; children should have the care of their own clothes, and if they are negligent of what is in their charge, this negligence should not be repaired by servants or friends, they should feel the real natural consequences of their own neglect, but no other punishment should be inflicted; and they should be left to make their own reflections upon their errours and misfortunes, undisturbed by the reproaches of their friends, or by the prosing moral of a governess or preceptor. We recommend, for we must descend to these trifles, that girls should be supplied with an independent stock of all the little things which are in daily use; housewives, and pocket books well stored with useful implements; and there should be no lending and borrowing amongst children. It will be but just to provide our pupils with convenient places for the preservation and arrangement of their little goods. Order is necessary to economy; and we cannot more certainly create a taste for order, than by showing early its advantages in practice as well as in theory. The aversion to old things, should, if possible, be prevented in children: we should not express contempt for old things, but we should treat them with increased reverence, and exult in their having arrived under our protection to such a creditable age. “I have had such a hat so long, therefore it does not signify what becomes of it!” is the speech of a promising little spendthrift. “I have taken care of my hat, it has lasted so long; and I hope I shall make it last longer,” is the exultation of a young economist, in which his prudent friends should sympathize.

  “Waste not, want not,” is an excellent motto in an English nobleman’s kitchen. The most opulent parents ought not to be ashamed to adopt it in the
economic education of their children: early habits of care, and an early aversion and contempt for the selfish spirit of wasteful extravagance, may preserve the fortunes, and, what is of far more importance, the integrity and peace of mind of noble families.

  We have said, that economy cannot be exercised without children’s having the management of money. Whilst our pupils are young, if they are educated at home, they cannot have much real occasion for money; all the necessaries of life are provided for them; and if they have money to spend, it must be probably laid out on superfluities. This is a bad beginning. Money should be represented to our pupils as what it really is, the conventional sign of the value of commodities: before children are acquainted with the real and comparative value of any of these commodities, it is surely imprudent to trust them with money. As to the idea that children may be charitable and generous in the disposal of money, we have expressed our sentiments fully upon this subject already. We are, however, sensible that when children are sent to any school, it is advisable to supply them with pocket-money enough to put them upon an equal footing with their companions; otherwise, we might run the hazard of inducing worse faults than extravagance — meanness, or envy.