Sight is the most direct inlet for knowledge.  Whatever we have seen makes a much stronger impression upon us.  Perception is the first power of mind which is brought into action, and the one made use of with most ease and pleasure.  For this reason object lessons are indispensable in an infant school, consisting both of real substances and of pictures.  The first lesson in Paradise was of this kind, and we ought therefore to draw instruction from it.  “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them:  and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name of it.”

CHAPTER XVII

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

Exercise—­Various positions—­Exercise blended with instruction—­Arithmetical and geometrical amusements.

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“Would you make infants happy, give them variety, for novelty has charms that our minds can hardly withstand.”

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As an Infant School may be regarded in the light of a combination of the school and nursery, the art of pleasing, forms a prominent part in the system; and as little children are very apt to be fretful, it becomes expedient to divert as well as teach there.  If children of two years old and under are not diverted, they will naturally cry for their mothers:  and to have ten or twelve children crying in the school, it is very obvious would put every thing into confusion.  But it is possible to have two hundred, or even three hundred children assembled together, the eldest not more than six years of age, and yet not to hear one of them crying for a whole day.  Indeed I may appeal to the numerous and respectable persons who have visited Infant Schools, for the truth of this assertion; many of whom have declared, in my hearing, that they could not have conceived it possible that such a number of little children could be assembled together, and all be so happy as they had found them, the greater part of them being so very young.  I can assure the reader, that many of the children who have cried heartily on being sent to school the first day or two, have cried as much on being kept at home, after they have been in the school but a very short time:  and I am of opinion that when children are absent, it is generally the fault of the parents.  I have had children come to school without their breakfast, because it has not been ready; others have come to school without shoes, because they would not be kept at home while their shoes were mending; and I have had others come to school half dressed, whose parents have been either at work or gossipping; and who, when they have returned home, have thought that their children were lost; but to their great surprise and joy, when they have applied at the school, they have found them there.