The following article was written during Blavatsky’s
time in London and gives some simple, common sense reflections that are still
relevant today and retain a freshness that can be seen in the educational
philosophy of modern alternative education schools. Some Thoughts About Fairies,
Lucifer v5 January, 1890, p382, by the
same author, has some related matter of interest.
"Ye open
the Eastern windows, That look towards the sun."
(Children,
HenryWadworth Longfellow, Birds of Passage, 1858)
The Natural Child-like quality
IN these two
lines a great poet expresses one of his thoughts about children, and the idea
is full of suggestion to anyone who has come in contact with the fresh and
natural mind of a child, who has watched its intuitive powers, and its simple
faith that accepts truth without question, — nay, not only without question,
but with clear understanding, as if, indeed, it still retained some glow from
those "trailing clouds of glory" which so soon grow dim and
"fade into the light of common day". These little ones do,indeed,
"open the Eastern windows" for us, letting in sunlight and air on our
shadowed and stifled lives; and by our very love for them they draw us into a
higher life, and often do more to educate us than we do to train them.We see in
the natural child the unconsciousness of self that we have lost —the simple
regard for things as they are, stripped of the world's opinion of them — the
frank, outspoken word and revealment of their thought, which puts to shame our
use of language to conceal thought, the natural modesty and refinement which is
as far as possible removed from our grown-up propriety, which is measured only
by what other people say. All these contrasts between ourselves and them bring
before us many thoughts. And two specially prominent questions occur to us: (1)
Why do we not make ourselves more child-like?(2) Why do we not endeavour to
keep our children child-like?
Materialistic Education
If we are
earnest Theosophists — that is, if we are earnestly trying to live up to the
spiritual truths in our own form of religious belief, which it is one of the
great aims of Theosophy to show us — we have already answered the first
question by trying to cultivate the teachable mind, the open heart and clear
spirit, without which very little growth can go on;we are trying to make
thought and life harmonious, to put aside shams and selfishness, prejudice and
pride, and in very truth to "become as little children". And our
efforts with ourselves, our struggles in our own growth, bring forcibly home to
us the need for looking seriously into the defects in modern methods of
educating children. Seeing the hard task of uprooting so much that has become
ingrained in our characters, the difficult warfare against habits, mental and
bodily, which we have only just begun to try and conquer — seeing all this, we
must ask ourselves, Can we not save our children the same long, hard struggle,
or, at any rate, mitigate it by equipping them at the outset with proper
weapons, and teaching them how to use them ? Whilst we are striving to become
more child-like, we see the children growing rapidly into old men and women,
becoming hard and materialistic, almost before they can speak plainly, and
losing that lovely freshness and clearness of soul so valuable to the
aftergrowth, so necessary to spiritual development.
Excessive Stimulation of the Mind
To
acknowledge the evil is the first step, to remedy it, a harder task, but one
that as earnest Theosophists we must not shirk. For, as each one of us has to
find the truth within himself — and only so can it be perceived and known — so
it behoves us to help our children to keep the clear mirror of the soul untainted,
and free from everything that can distort the Divine images reflected on its
surface.Our first aim should be to promote the harmonious development of all
the faculties; to strive after bodily, mental, and spiritual perfection, and to
endeavour to make the advance equal in each. If we strain the mind and starve
the body, we warp and destroy both. To starve the mind and soul produces
equally disastrous results; but perhaps our worst error nowadays is the
excessive stimulation of the mind, especially the lower critical faculty, and
the almost total disregard and stunting of the imagination.The senses should be
cultivated; indeed, they are not trained sufficiently, but, at the same time,
they should not be regarded as the only avenues to knowledge.
Training the Senses
To train a
child to see — really to see an object on which its eye rests — not only
quickens and sharpens the sense of sight, but gives it a power of creating and
holding mind pictures which stand out clear and strong, and also develops
higher powers and greater capacity for abstract thought than we can have any
idea of until we have tried the experiment upon ourselves; so with all the
senses. We do not want our brains burdened with confused masses of acts and
images, and half-blurred memories, a kaleidoscopic tangle of colours and forms
and ideas coming and going whether we wish it or not. How much more, then,
should we try to train the young growing brain of a child, to give it few
ideas, and those clear ones — few images, and those distinct — to nourish its
mind with a small quantity of easily digested food, instead of pouring a
perpetual stream of miscellaneous knowledge into its brain, the very amount
alone preventing its being of any use. Pouring in— not drawing out — such is
modern education to a very great extent. Together with this cultivation of the
senses should the reasoning faculties grow, but kept in subjection as
half-developed powers, not dragged into prominence, otherwise conceit and
self-confidence shut out further knowledge. In children,and in uneducated people,
the intuitive powers are strong; but as the logical faculty develops, the
intuition becomes less prominent, and, if resolutely set aside, disregarded,
and unused, will wither and lie entirely dormant; and as an unused limb hampers
and warps the body, so will this dormant faculty hamper and warp the soul. The
logical powers, trained side by side with the intuitional, will produce the
highest form of intellect — the intellect that may be more rightly named
genius.
Humility
A natural
child is humble and anxious to learn, ready to reverence and respect what is
higher and wiser than itself, and this reverence should be fostered and
carefully guarded, not by parents and others in authority setting themselves up
on a pedestal, and all the time allowing the child to see weaknesses and want
of dignity that destroy the authority and respect at once, but by influencing
and commanding their obedience and regard by showing them that we are fallible
as they are, struggling against temptation and faults, doing wrong and getting
punished for it like themselves, but still trying to follow a high ideal, and
reverencing all that is wiser than ourselves. If we show them ourselves thus
striving, we step down and take them by the hand and draw them upwards with us,
instead of landing on what is to a child an unreachable level of supposed
goodness, with the chance of the child losing all faith in that goodness by
seeing we are but human after all. First, then, train the senses in due order
and with full knowledge of their limitations, letting the child see that where
these stop short, faith begins — that side by side with the visible, tangible
world, lies that larger and more real invisible world, to be believed in first,
and afterwards to be apprehended and known as the child grows and develops.
Self-Knowledge and Self-Control
So we lay a
groundwork on which to build self-knowledge, and together with this must be
built its inseparable companion, self-control. From the very beginning a child
should be taught this, and the little efforts at self-command and the conquest
of uncontrolled impulses give a child a sense of power, strength and reliance
that cannot be given by any outward authority. Let it see that faults and
tendencies to wrong-doing are not to be excused on the ground of natural defect
or bad example of others, but as so many difficulties to be overcome, so many
opportunities for self-conquest, so many lessons set for us to learn, for our
final good and well-being. Never let a child say, "I cannot do this".
Put in its way only such tasks as are within its power, and see that the required
effort is made, or better leave it unattempted. For successful effort braces
and inspirits the whole being, and gives confidence, whilst nothing so
deteriorates the character as half-done work.
Gentle Discipline
Unquestioning
obedience is another most necessary factor in education. But commands should be
few and certain. Wavering indecision in issuing commands is fatal to authority.
No child should be irritated with a host of petty orders and rules, but the
habit of instant obedience, when once the word of command has gone forth,
should be established early. No one can rule till he has learned to obey. It is
difficult in a short space to touch on the wide and important question of
punishment, but a few general remarks may be made. Theosophists should bear in
mind the law of Karma, and carry it out in their training. Punishments should
rather be called consequences — the inevitable result of a cause. A child
should be made to see that certain effects follow certain of its actions as
surely as night follows day. And due warning of the effect should be given. If
you do such or such an action, this or that penalty will follow! Parents should
never punish in anger, never lose temper with a child; but calmly administer
the previously threatened payment for breach of law. Children are very quick to
perceive, and the certainty of the effect is the only deterrent to the act in
future. Punishments depriving children of food or play, or any of the
necessaries of life, should be avoided, likewise long tasks that try the brain
or nerves; and, of course, all threats of unknown bogies or other methods of
working on their fears are as wicked as they are useless. Too many people
punish offences against custom and manners as heavily, if not more so, than
moral delinquencies. This gives a child a very false idea of the relative
proportion of human and Divine law. In all our action and attitude towards
children, love, and love alone, should be apparent as our motive power.
Discipline and teaching alike prompted by our desire for their final welfare.
Pain and sorrow, pleasure and happiness, given in the same loving spirit, for
the same wise and good end; and the more we realize that our own education goes
on in the same way, the more will our children see and understand the use of
our discipline.
The Secret Power of Thought
And here we
touch on the root of the whole subject. It is our growth, our education, that
affects them. It is what we think and what we believe that has most effect on
them. When we realize, as all students of Occultism must realize, that our
unspoken word, our most secret thought, is given out by usunconsciously, and
either taints or purifies the subtle atmosphere around us, and takes effect for
good or evil on those with whom we come in contact, then, and then only, do we
wake up to our terrible responsibilities, and the need for the most searching
cleansing of those thoughts, the need for high and lofty ideals for perpetually
dwelling in thought on all that is good and beautiful, that no inward taint of
ours may sully their purity, nor infect them with evil. They can in this way
imbibe our faith, our deepest religious beliefs, our love of and trust in the
Divine, just as they will no less surely catch our want of faith,our doubt and
cynical discontent with life. Let us, then, as children too, members of the one
great family, by our striving, our own growth in goodness, our own sense of the
unity and harmony of all things, make an atmosphere of sunshine and purity for
our children to live in, and from the very beginning of their young lives
inculcate those larger lessons of universal Brotherhood which Theosophists are
endeavouring to teach, so shall we no less than they open windows towards the
East for them and for ourselves.
Francis
Annesley - Some Hints on the Theosophical Training of Children - March, 1890 ,“Theosophical Siftings” Volume 3 The Theosophical
Publishing Society, England"
The author of this article may possibly
be Charles
Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941), an English architect and furniture and textile
designer.
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