The Two Methods exemplified

Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young
by Jacob Abbott

(Page 15 of 28)

There are, for example, two arts which children have to learn, in the process of their mental and physical development, in which their faults, errors, and deficiencies are never pointed out, but in the dealings of their parents with them all is commendation and encouragement. They are the arts of walking and talking.

The first time that a child attempts to walk alone, what a feeble, staggering, and awkward exhibition it makes. And yet its mother shows, by the excitement of her countenance, and the delight expressed by her exclamations, how pleased she is with the performance; and she, perhaps, even calls in persons from the next room to see how well the baby can walk! Not a word about imperfections and failings, not a word about the tottering, the awkward reaching out of arms to preserve the balance, the crookedness of the way, the anxious expression of the countenance, or any other faults. These are left to correct themselves by the continued practice which encouragement is sure to lead to.

It is true that words would not be available in such a case for fault-finding; for a child when learning to walk would be too young to understand them. But the parent's sense of the imperfections of the performance might be expressed in looks and gestures which the child would understand; but he sees, on the contrary, nothing but indications of satisfaction and pleasure, and it is very manifest how much he is encouraged by them. Seeing the pleasure which his efforts give to the spectators, he is made proud and happy by his success, and goes on making efforts to improve with alacrity and delight.

It is the same with learning to talk. The mistakes, deficiencies, and errors of the first rude attempts are seldom noticed, and still more seldom pointed out by the parent. On the contrary, the child takes the impression, from the readiness with which its words are understood and the delight it evidently gives its mother to hear them, that it is going on triumphantly in its work of learning to talk, instead of feeling that its attempts are only tolerated because they are made by such a little child, and that they require a vast amount of correction, alteration, and improvement, before they will be at all satisfactory.

Indeed, so far from criticising and pointing out the errors and faults, the mother very frequently meets the child half way in its progress, by actually adopting the faults and errors herself in her replies. So that when the little beginner in the use of language, as he wakes up in his crib, and stretching out his hands to his mother says, "I want to get up" she comes to take him, and replies, her face beaming with delight, "My little darling! you shall get up;" thus filling his mind with happiness at the idea that his mother is not only pleased that he attempts to speak, but is fully satisfied, and more than satisfied, with his success.

The result is, that in learning to walk and to talk, children always go forward with alacrity and ardor. They practise continually and spontaneously, requiring no promises of reward to allure them to effort, and no threats of punishment to overcome repugnance or aversion. It might be too much to say that the rapidity of their progress and the pleasure which they experience in making it, are owing wholly to the commendation and encouragement they receive - for other causes may co-operate with these. But it is certain that these influences contribute very essentially to the result. There can be no doubt at all that if it were possible for a mother to stop her child in its efforts to learn to walk and to talk, and explain to it, no matter how kindly, all its shortcomings, failures, and mistakes, and were to make this her daily and habitual practice, the consequence would be, not only a great diminution of the ardor and animation of the little pupil, in pressing forward in its work, but also a great retardation in its progress.

Example of the other Method.

Let us now, for the more full understanding of the subject, go to the other extreme, and consider a case in which the management is as far as possible removed from that above referred to. We can not have a better example than the method often adopted in schools and seminaries for teaching composition; in other words, the art of expressing one's thoughts in written language - an art which one would suppose to be so analogous to that of learning to talk - that is, to express one's thoughts in oral language - that the method which was found so eminently successful in the one would be naturally resorted to in the other. Instead of that, the method often pursued is exactly the reverse. The pupil having with infinite difficulty, and with many forebodings and anxious fears, made his first attempt, brings it to his teacher.

The teacher, if he is a kind-hearted and considerate man, perhaps briefly commends the effort with some such dubious and equivocal praise as it is "Very well for a beginner," or "As good a composition as could be expected at the first attempt," and then proceeds to go over the exercise in a cool and deliberate manner, with a view of discovering and bringing out clearly and conspicuously to the view, not only of the little author himself, but often of all his classmates and friends, every imperfection, failure, mistake, omission, or other fault which a rigid scrutiny can detect in the performance. However kindly he may do this, and however gentle the tones of his voice, still the work is criticism and fault-finding from beginning to end. The boy sits on thorns and nettles while submitting to the operation, and when he takes his marked and corrected manuscript to his seat, he feels mortified and ashamed, and is often hopelessly discouraged.

About the Author

Jacob Abbott (November 14, 1803 - October 31, 1879) was an American writer of children's books. He was a prolific author, writing juvenile fiction, brief histories, biographies, religious books for the general reader, and a few works in popular science. He died in Farmington, Maine, where he had spent part of his time after 1839.