RALEIGH INFANT SCHOOL, 1830.
Infant School.—We visited a few days since, for the first time, the Infant School recently commenced in this City, under the superintendance of a lady of character, experience and tenderness, and rarely have we been more gratified. We had read and heard a good deal of this system of instruction, and had formed a favorable opinion of its utility, but we confess that we had no adequate idea of its beneficial tendency in developing the intellectual & moral faculties of children. We were delighted to see little creatures, scarcely able some of them of walk without assistance, learning habits of attention, obedience and order—learning to distinguish between good and evil, and to choose good rather than evil. The great error in almost all schools, consists in placing before the mind, exercises that are too hard for it to master. Instead of giving light and easy lessons at the onset, and such as the mind of the youthful learner is capable of sustaining, a load is placed before them, and they are called upon to solve questions which would stagger more mature intellect and age. All things must be progressive —we must learn to stand before we can walk—to pronounce, ere we can expect to read. Hence to send children to schools intended for youth, is at once to retard the progress of the dawning mind, and to confuse and weary the infantile scholar.
But in Infant Schools, few books, if any are wanting. It is found more useful to excite the children by external objects.—Pictures are to be preferred to books, because through them, ideas of things are more deeply fixed in the mind. By this mode of instruction, the children are accustomed to a habit of observation and thought, from which the most beneficial results may be expected. The happy countenances of the children whose minds are unfolding by this mode of training, satisfactorily prove their delight in it.—Instead of teaching each in succession, as in a school where there is a great diversity of age and attainment, the instruction intended for one is intended for all, and thus all are kept occupied. Their attention is attracted, fixed and strengthened by applying it successively to plates, cards, maps & various other apparatus, while the maternal conversation of the teacher comes in to explain & give interest to each subject. To prevent any thing like fatigue of mind, and. at the same time to furnish exercise by gratifying their love of motion, the children are taught to march, in regular order, after certain simple tunes which they learn to sing with great animation and in astonishing concert.
Our only object, however, in taking up our pen, was to express the gratification personally derived from a visit to the School in this City, and to recommend to parents this mode of preparing their children to enter upon the higher schools.—If no greater good were accomplished by sending children to Infant Schools, than the mere keeping them out of mischief, we speak from experience when we say, the system is worthy of patronage. But when instead of being engaged in upsetting chairs and tables, tumbling down tongs, dragging brooms, and a thousand other nameless acts of innocent but troublesome mirth, these Schools have the effect of [Several words torn off the page.—C. L. C] their minds, developing their intellectual and moral faculties, and training their minds to habits of reasoning & accurate thought, who is there having the care of children, that will not gladly avail them of the opportunity of participating in this Instruction?
—Raleigh Register, September 23, 1830.
(Source: North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1790-1840, By Charles L. Coon 1914)
