A practical treatise on the management and diseases of children / by Richard T. Evanson and Henry Maunsell.
- Evanson, Richard Tonson, 1800-1871.
- Date:
- 1843
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A practical treatise on the management and diseases of children / by Richard T. Evanson and Henry Maunsell. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
68/412
![these the well-being of society mainly depends; if not encouraged in early childhood, they are of all others the most likely to remain, dormant; but if once well developed in the child, a long course ot vice will scarcely effect their overthrow. The progress of mental knowledge may be brought into useful operation in this part of our work, if we direct the growing faculties of the child to a contemplation of such portions of the general plan of nature as may be within its comprehension. Thus, admiration of the skill of Providence may, at a very early age, be excited by calling attention to the more obvious adaptations of means to ends, as in the forms of animals, in the benefits conferred by the mode of distribution of water over the earth, and in a thousand other examples which will constantly suggest themselves, and a perception of beauty can be called up in a very young mind, by the colours and fragrance of flowers, and the influence of music. From all these the watchful parent can derive practical lessons of humility and love, which would be sought, in vain, in the maxims of a dry morality.* * We were sorry to observe that Dr. James Johnson, in his able and justly popu- lar work upon the Economy of Health, has, in his desire to prevent the abuse of music, been led away .^rom a fair appreciation of its use as an agent in moral education. We would heartily join with him in discountenancing the system which leads to a periling of the health of our young ladies for the purpose of con- verting them into opera singers ; but this is altogether different from the wholesome use of music as a language proper for giving expression to the milder, and for taming the fiercer qualities of our nature — as the gentlest, and yet most enduring of our social bonds. So far, perhaps, the advantages of music are generally appreciated, at least in the case of the upper classes of society ; but its suitableness as an agent for the moral education of the poor, is, we regret to say, totally overlooked in this country, and yet the education which the poor man chiefly requires is to have his fierceness tamed, and his gentler affections called into play — to be bound to his fellow-man by partaking in a common source of enjoyment, rather than to be divided from him by that jealousy which must exist between the poor and the rich, when- ever the intellects of the former are educated without simultaneous attention to their physical comforts, and simultaneous instruction of their moral nature. The poor man, as well as the rich, requires recreation after labour, a fact which appears to be totally forgotten by our philanthropists, who, while they enjoy the indulgences of their comfortable homes, can see no excuse for the intemperance of the hard- worked labourer, or artisan ; whiskey, however, is merely resorted to as the only attainable means of relieving the exhaustion of protracted toil, and the first effec- tual temperance institution will be the placing within reach of the poor, some tran- quillizing and social amusement. Those who have mixed in the society of the lower class of beer-houses and gardens, in the North of Germany, will not deny that music may be made to answer this end. Many will admit the justice of the foregoing views, but will ask, how are they to be acted upon ? We answer — let those who have the direction of the great ex- periments of education, at present in progress, abandon polemical controversies, and seek for guidance by examining the merits and demerits of systems which have been tried in other countries. If they inquire into the state of the Prussian and Saxon schools, and their enviable results in the happy condition of the people of those nations, they will, or we are much mistaken, change their course. They will probably be content with training the minds of the children to work without burdening those who are to live by manual labour with much intellectual know- ledge : they will especially try to regulate the moral nature of their pupils, and they will, we hope, make musical instruction, as it is in Saxony and Prussia, a part of the system of every school. [Note to 2d Edition.] ' ^ We are rejoiced to find that the views put forward in the foregoing Note are be-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21118346_0068.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
