Some Views on Children and Education
Thomas Traherne
Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, then I when I was a child. My knowledge was Divine, I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason. My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as one brought into the Estate of Innocence. (Centuries of Meditation, 17th c.)
John Locke
Would you have your son obedient to you when past a child? Be sure then to establish the authority of a Father, as soon as he is capable of submission and can understand in whose Power he is. If you would have him stand in Awe of you, imprint it in his Infancy; and, as he approaches more to a Man, admit him nearer to your familiarity: So shall you have him your obedient subject (as is fit) whilst he is a child, and your affectionate Friend, when he is a Man.
It seems to me, that the Principle of all Vertue and Excellency lies in a Power of denying ourselves the Satisfaction of our own Desires, where Reason does not authorize them. This Power is to be got and improved by Custom, made easy and familiar by early Practice .... I would advise, that, contrary to the ordinary way, Children should be used to submit to their Longings even from their very Cradles. The first thing they should learn to know should be that they were not to have anything because it pleased them, but because it was thought fit for them. (Treatise of Education)
He that attentively considers the state of a child, at his first coming into the world, will have little reason to think him stored with plenty of ideas, that are to be the matter of this future knowledge. It is by degrees that he comes to be furnished with them. And though the ideas of obvious and familiar qualities imprint themselves before the memory begins to keep a register of time or order, yet it is often so late before some unusual qualities come in the way, that there are few men that cannot recollect the beginning of their acquaintance with them. And if it were worth while, no doubt a child might be so ordered as to have but very few, even of the ordinary ideas, till he were grown up to a man. But all that are born into the world, being surrounded with bodies that perpetually and diversely affect them, variety of ideas, whether care be taken of it or not, are imprinted on the minds of children. Light and colours are busy at hand everywhere, when the eye is but open; sounds and some tangible qualities fail not to solicit their proper senses, and force an entrance to the mind; --but yet, I think, it will be granted easily, that if a child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but black and white till he were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster, or a pineapple, has of those particular relishes. (Essay on Human Understanding)
Isaac Watts
Nature has soft but pow'rful bands,
Thoughtless they act th' old serpent's part;
And reason she controls;
While Children with their little hands
Hang closest to our souls.
What tempting things they be!
Lord, how they twine about our heart,
And draw it off from thee! ...Dear Sovereign, break these fetters off,
And set out spirits free,
God in himself is bliss enough,
For we have all in thee. (Horae Lyricae)
It is the great business of sinners to fulfil the lusts of the flesh, and make provision for it. The things that relate to the flesh, and the enjoyments of this sensible and present life, are the objects of sinful appetites, or of lawful appetite in a sinful degree and therefore sin is called flesh. Sin is also called flesh because it is communicated and propagated to us by the parents of our flesh. It is by our flesh that we are akin to Adam, the first great sinner, and derive a corrupted nature from him. (Sermon IV, Works)
John Wesley
To humour children is, as far as in us lies, to make their disease incurable. A wise parent, on the other hand, should begin to break their will, the first moment it appears... Never, on any account, give a child any thing that it cries for... Teach your children, as soon as possible you can, that they are fallen spirits... Show them that, in pride, passion, and revenge, they are now like the Devil. And that in foolish desire and grovelling Appetites, they are like the beasts of the field.... A wise and truly kind parent will take the utmost care, not to cherish in her children the desire of the flesh, their natural propensity to seek happiness in gratifying the outward senses. ("On the Education of Children")
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Everything is good as it comes from the hand of the Creator; everything degenerates in the hands of man.
Men, be humane, this is your first duty: be so for all conditions, all ages, all that is germane to man. What does wisdom avail you except as it concerns humanity? Cherish childhood, look with favor on its games, it pleasures, its friendly instincts. Who of you has not at times longed for that age when laughter is always bursting forth and the soul is ever at peace? Why do you want to rob these young innocents of the pleasures of such brief and fleeting hours and of such precious gifts, which they are too young to misuse? Why wish to fill with bitterness and grief those early years that pass so quickly and will not return for them any more than for us? Fathers, do you know the moment that death awaits your child? Do not prepare for yourselves as life of sorrow by robbing them of the brief moment that nature gives them: as soon as they are able to sense the pleasure of existing, see to it that they enjoy themselves, see to it that at whatever hour God calls them, they do not die without having tasted of life....
What must we think then, of the barbarous education which sacrifices the present for an uncertain future, which surrounds a child with all sorts of fetters and begins by making him wretched in order to prepare him for a hypothetical future happiness that he will probably never life to enjoy? (Émile)
Robert Lowell
But the downward glide
and bias of existing wrings us dry--
always inside me is the child who died,
always inside me is his will to die--
one universe, one body... ("Night Sweat")