Chapter II: Part I

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
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Children are public trusts--Mothers owe ‘a thinking love’
to their children--The training of children ‘dreadfully
defective’--How parents usually proceed 1

I. A METHOD OF EDUCATION

Traditional methods of education--Method a way to an end--A
system easier than a method 6

II. THE CHILD’S ESTATE

The child in the midst--Code of education in the Gospels 11

III. OFFENDING THE CHILDREN

Children are born law-abiding--They must perceive that their
governors are law-compelled--Parents may offend their
children by disregarding the laws of health--And of the
intellectual life--And of the moral life 13

IV. DESPISING THE CHILDREN

Children should have the best of their mothers--Nurse--
Children’s faults are serious 17

V. HINDERING THE CHILDREN

A child’s relationship with Almighty God--Nursery theology 19

VI. CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY BRAIN-ACTIVITY

All mind-labour means wear of brain--Exercise--Rest--Rest
after meals--Change of occupation--Nourishment--Certain
causes affect the quality of the blood--Concerning meals--Talk
at meals--Variety in meals--Air as important as
food--‘The children walk every day’--Oxygen has its
limitations--Unchanged air--‘I feed Alice on beef tea’--
Wordsworth’s _Lucy_--Indoor airings--Ventilation--Night
air wholesome--Sunshine--Free perspiration--Insensible
perspiration--Daily bath and porous garments 20

VII. ‘THE REIGN OF LAW’ IN EDUCATION

Common sense and good intentions--Law-abiding lives often
more blameless than pious lives--‘Mind’ and ‘matter’
equally governed by law--Antagonism to law shown by
some religious persons--Parents must acquaint themselves
with the principles of physiology and moral science 37