Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham].

  • Amariah Brigham
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    some account of tlic sermon>i In addition to these labours, many children have numerous books, journals or magazines to read; which are designed for youth. I have known some required to give strict attention to the chapter read in the family in the morning, and to give an account of it; and have been astonished and alarmed at the wonderful pow'er of memory exhibited on such occasions by children w’hen but five or six years of age, I have knowm other children, in addition to most of the above performances, induced to learn additional hymns, chapters of scripture, or to read certain books, by the promise of presents from their parents or friends. [|4‘l An excellent plan for giving cliildron a disgust at religion. “I was educated,” says a friend, ” in tlie house of a clergyman, and so extremely strict was the observance of the Sabbath—so severe the tasks demanded from us all, in the shape of attending church throe times daily, giving an account of the sermons, learning hymns by heart, to say nothing of long morning and evening prayers and rigid confinement to the house, when not engaged going to and from fi church, that the Sabbath, instead of being welcomed as a day of rest and blessedness, was regarded as one of dreadful penance and mor- tification. Of all days in the week it was the most unwelcome—list- ening to sermons, the most monotonous drudgery; and the learning of hymns, the severest of penalties. No better plan for rendering religion odious could be devised, and I fear that some of those who [j went through this severe purgatorial process in boyhood may trace [i their present apathy in matters of religion to it alone.—R. M.] I ^45 The detestable practice of bribing children to do any one thing, however good or necessary in itself, cannot be too soon abandoned. It fosters habits of intense selfishness and greed, destroys every kindly and generous feeling in the young mind, and makes the child a base, grasping, avaricious creature. Some parents bribe their chil- dren to go to school, to speak the truth, and to take medicine. If a _