Читать книгу The Educational Writings of Richard Mulcaster онлайн

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Anyone who deserves to be a parent should be prepared to judge for himself as to his young son’s ripeness for school life, and surely no one is so destitute of friends that he has not some one to consult if necessary. Those who fix upon a definite age for beginning have an eye to that knowledge which they think may be easily gained in these early years, and which it would be a pity to lose. I agree with them that it would be a pity to lose anything needlessly that could be gained without much effort and without injuring the child. But it would be a greater pity for so small a gain to risk a more important one, to win an hour in the morning, and lose the whole day after. If the child has a weak body, however bright his understanding may be, let him grow on the longer till his strength equals his intelligence. For experience has taught me that a young child with a quick mind pushed on for people to wonder at the sharpness of its edge has thus most commonly been hastened to its grave, through weakness of body, to the grief of the child’s friends and the reproach of their judgment; and even if such a child lives, he will never go deep, but will always float on the surface without much ballast, though perhaps continuing for a time to excite wonder. Sooner or later, however, his intelligence will fail, the wonder will cease, while his body will prove feeble and perish. Wherefore I could wish the brighter child to be less upon the spur, and either the longer kept from learning altogether, lest he suffer as the edge of an oversharp knife is turned, or at least be given very little, for fear of his eagerness leading to a surfeit.