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    instantly discarded from an Infant School . There is a numeration table ; an addition and subtraction table ; a multiplication and division table ; a pence table ; a shillings' table ; a practice table ; a time table ; tables of troy weight ,

    avoirdupoise weight , and apothecaries' weight , and wool weight ; tables of wine measure , ale and beer measure , coal measure , dry measure , solid or cubic measure , long measure , cloth measure , land or square measure ; a table on hay brings up the rear . What on earth have little children , between the ages of two and six , to do with wool weight and hay , and wine measure , and cubic measure , and apothecaries' weight ? Will any one of these ever be useful to any one of these children ? In

    all probability they will not ; but if they should be wanted when the child is grown up , by that time they will most assuredly have been completely forgotten . The gross ignorance of the real use of arithmetic , as a practical instrument , and as a discipline for the mind , and the barbarism and cruelty , mentally and bodily , which characterise the attempts to teach the simplest and clearest of the sciences , cannot be sufficientl y deplored .

    Infant School Geometry appears to be a similar piece of rote-work ; the names of half-a-dozen plane figures , and of as many solids , are taught to the children . It is fortunate they go no further , for on this plan the more they learn the less they acquire . If , under the name of Geometry , the children

    were led into the way of investigating the forms of objects for themselves , a delightful and practically useful amusement would be obtained , while the faculties of observation , judgment , and invention would be most agreeably exercised . But this would be a very different thing from the dry and senseless verbiage , called geometry by schoolmasters .

    The attempts to teach Geography at the best Infant Schools , though very imperfect , are somewhat more rational . We think , that drawing might also occasionally be introduced with advantage , as an exercise for the eye and powers of observation , and as a preparation for penmanship . In the caution so strongly and frequently recommended in this bookacrainst overtasking little children , and attempting to make

    them advance rapidly " in their learning , " we most cordially concur . It is to be regretted that parents are so ignorant as to urge this ; and that teachers are so ignorant or so weak as to yield to these importunities , and to the desire of making puppetshows of their schools , and thence overtask the children . More than half the time of infant scholars should be passed in the play-ground : direct intellectual training ought to be considered quite Secondary to moral and physical education ; it should neither tusk the memory , nor give labour to the faculties . 4 t Conversant with objects more th ^ n words , it should

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    No . III . \ t

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    Infant Education . 1 $$

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1836, page 145, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2655/page/17/