CHAPTER XXII.

INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.--THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTIES.

The young mind is very well entertained for a time by the exercise of its reasoning powers,--if, instead of being baffled, they are encouraged and trained. But, there is a higher set of faculties still which begin to work ere long; and usually in such proportion to the reasoning powers as would seem to indicate some connexion between them. Or it may be that the moral fervour which gives great advantage to the reasoning powers is exactly that which is essential to the development of the highest of human faculties,--the Imagination. Certain it is that the children who most patiently and earnestly search out the reasons of things,--either looking deep into causes, or following them high up to consequences, are those who most strongly manifest the first stirrings of the heavenly power which raises them highest in the ranks of being known to exist. They may, or they may not, have shown a power of Fancy before this time. They may, or they may not, have manifested a strong conceptive faculty; a power of forming images of objects already well known or clearly described; but, if they can so think of unseen things, so compare them and connect them, as to bring truth out at last,--if, in short, they reflect and reason well, the probability is that they will prove to have a good portion of the higher faculty of Imagination. At least, we may be sure that a child of high imaginative faculty has good reasoning powers.

During the first exercise of the reasoning powers a child may, and probably will, become thoughtful. He will look grave at times, and be buried in reflection for awhile: but this gravity does not make him less cheerful; and when he has done thinking about the particular thing his head was full of, he is as merry as ever. But a little later, and his thoughtfulness becomes something quite different from this. If there is some mingling of melancholy with it, the parents must not be uneasy. It is all natural, and therefore right. He is beginning to see and to feel his position in the universe; to see and to feel that by the powers within him he is connected with all that exists, and can conceive of all that may exist: and his new consciousness gives a light to his eye and a meaning to his countenance that were never seen there before. While he was an infant, he was much like any other young animal for his thoughtless and unconscious enjoyment of all the good things that were strewed in his daily path. Then, he began to see deeper,--into the reasons of things, and their connexions; and now he had become higher than other young animals,--for they cannot perceive the truths of numbers, or discover by thought anything not before known in any science. But now, he has become conscious of himself; he can contemplate himself as he can contemplate any other object of thought; and he is occupied in connecting his own thoughts,--his own mind--with every object of thought. It is upon his consciousness and his thoughts united that his imaginative power has to act. By it, he sees everything in a new light, and feels everything with a new depth: and though he often finds this a glorious pleasure, he is sometimes much oppressed by it: and then comes the kind of gentle melancholy before referred to.

See the difference, to the child of dull imagination, or of an age too young for it, and the child superior in years or in faculty,--when they contemplate Nature, or Human Life, or anything whatever;--when they read the History of England, or Conversations on Chemistry, or Shakspere's Plays, or anything you please. Show them the sky as you are coming home at night. The one will learn to know the constellations as easily perhaps as the other, and will show somebody else the next night which is the Great Bear, and which is Orion: but the duller or younger child sees nothing more than what is before its eyes; or, if told that all those stars are worlds, believes it without seeing or feeling anything beyond the mere fact as conveyed in the words. But at the same moment the faculty of Imagination in the other child is kindling up within him,--and kindling all his other powers. He sees, by his mind, far far beyond the bounds of human measurement and the human sight;--sees the universe full of rolling suns; worlds for ever moving in their circles, and never clashing; worlds of which there are myriads vaster than our own globe. All this he sees, not by gazing at the sky; for he sees it better when his head is on his pillow,--or when his hands are busy with some mechanical employment, the next day. If he feels how, with all his busy mind and swelling heart, and whole world of ideas, he is yet but an atom in this great universe, almost too small for notice, is not this enough to make him thoughtful? and if there is a tinge of melancholy in his seriousness, may it not be allowed for? Again, in reading the History of England,--the duller or younger child may remember the kings, and the great men, and the great battles, and the great famine and plague; and perhaps almost all the events told: and, if he has some considerable conceptive faculty, he may have pictures in his mind of the ancient Britons, and then of King Alfred and his people; and then of the Normans coming over and landing, and establishing themselves in our island. But the superior child sees all this, and very much more. The minds of all the people he reads of are as manifest to him as the events of their lives. He feels the wild valour of the old Britons while he reads of them; and his soul melts in reverence, and grief, and pity for King Alfred; and then it glows with courage; and then it grows calm with faith as he sees the courage and faith that were in King Alfred. And so on, through the whole history. And even more than this. He sees more than the individuals of whom he reads could see of themselves. The kingdom and the nation are ideas in his mind, as vivid as his idea of the personages he reads of. He feels when the nation is rising or falling; rejoices when a great and good man,--a sage, or a patriot, or a martyr--arises to bless his race, and burns with indignation and grief when the wicked have their own way. Is there not something here to make him thoughtful? and if there is a tinge of melancholy in his seriousness, may it not be allowed for? Suppose these two to read "Conversations on Chemistry," or "Scientific Dialogues,"--they will see and feel as differently as in the former cases. The inferior child will find some entertainment, and particularly if allowed to try chemical experiments: but these experiments will be to him a sort of cookery;--a putting things together, in order to succeed in producing some result,--amusing or pretty. His smattering of Chemistry is to him now a plaything, whatever it may become when he is wiser. But how different is it with the elder one, whose awakened imagination now silently enters with him into every chamber of his own mind and every scene of nature--opening his vision with a divine touch, and showing him everything in its vastness and its inner truth! He does not want to try chemical experiments. He would rather think quietly of the great agents of Nature, and see them, with the eye of his mind, for ever at their work;--Heat, spreading through all things, and even hiding in the polar ice;--Electricity, darting and streaming through all substances, and being the life of all that lives; and the flowing together and mixing of three airs to make air that we can breathe,--this flowing together and mixing having gone on ever since there were breathing creatures on the globe;--these great images, and those of the forces of the waters, the pressure of the atmosphere, the velocities of motion,--the mechanical action, in short, of the great forces of Nature, occupy and move him more than any outward methods of proof of what has been laid open to him. Or, if he tries experiments, the thing that impresses him is something far higher than amusement:--it is wonder and awe, and perhaps delight that he can put his hand in among the forces of Nature, and take his share, and set Nature to work for him. Is it any wonder that his heart throbs, and his eyes swim or kindle, and that he had rather think than speak? And may he not be left undisturbed at such a moment, till his mind takes a lower tone?

It is this faculty which has produced the highest benefits to the human race that it has ever enjoyed. The highest order of men who have lived are those in whom the power of Imagination has been the strongest, the most disciplined, and the most elevated. The noblest gifts that have been given to men are the ideas which have proceeded from such minds. It is this order of mind alone that creates. Others may discover, and adapt, and improve, and establish: but it is the imaginative order of mankind that creates,--whether it be the majestic steam-engine, or the immortal picture, or the divine poem. It should be a joyful thing to parents,--though it must be a very serious one,--to see clear tokens in any child of the development of this faculty,--the faculty of seeing things invisible,--of "seeing things that are not as though they were." If it is only of average strength, it is a true blessing, inasmuch as it ennobles the views and the life of the individual, if its benefit extends no further in a direct manner. If it appears in any marked degree, the parents' hearts cannot but be elated, though they may be anxious. It is a sign of natural nobility,--of a privilege higher than hereditary or acquired honour: and greater than a monarch can bestow. Through it, if it be rightly trained, its possessor must enjoy the blessings of largeness of heart and wealth of mind, and probably of being a benefactor, more or less, to his race.

Now,--what are the tokens of this endowment? and how should it be treated?

When a young person's views extend beyond the objects immediately presented to him, it is naturally seen in his countenance, manner, speech and habits. The questions he asks, the books he reads, his remarks on what he reads or hears, all show whether his mind is deeply employed. He is probably a great reader; and if he has been religiously brought up, he probably becomes intensely religious about the time of the development of his higher faculties.--He must be treated with great consideration and tenderness. If he is of an open disposition, apt to tell of his day dreams and aspirations, there must be no ridicule,--no disrespect from any part of the household. There ought to be none; for it is pretty certain that any day dreams and aspirations of his are more worthy of respect than any ridicule with which they can be visited. The way to strengthen and discipline his mind is not, as we have often said already, to repress any of its faculties, but to employ them well. In no case is this management more important than in the present.

Now, in this important period of youthful life, it is the greatest possible blessing if the son or daughter be on terms of perfect confidence with the mother. It is a kind of new life to a mother who has kept her mind and heart active and warm amidst her trials and cares, to enter into sympathy with the aspirations and imaginations of her ripening children. She has a keen enjoyment in the revival of her own young feelings and ideas;--some of the noblest she has known: and things which might appear extravagant at another time or from other persons, will be noble and animating as coming from those whose minds,--minds which she has watched from their first movements,--are now rapidly opening into comparative maturity. To her, then, the son or daughter need not fear to speak freely and openly. To her they may pour out their admiration of Nature, their wonder at the sublimities of science; their speculations upon character; their soundings in the abysses of life and death; their glorious dreams of what they will be and do. The more she sympathises with them in their intellectual pleasures and tendencies, the more will her example tell upon them as a conscientious doer of the small duties of life: and thus she may silently and unconsciously obviate one of the chief dangers of this period of her children's lives. If they see that the mother who glows with the warmth of their emotions, and goes abroad through the universe hand in hand, as we may say, with them, to note and enjoy all that is mighty and beautiful, all that is heroic and sweet,--is yet as punctual in her everyday duty as the merest plodder and worldling, they will take shame to themselves for any reluctance that they feel to commonplace ideas and what seems to them drudgery. Full confidence and sympathy are the first requisites of the treatment of this period.

But the wise parent will have laid up material for the employment of the imaginative faculty, long before it can appear in any strength. The child will have been familiarised with a high and noble order of ideas; and especially of moral ideas: for the picturesque or scientific will be pretty sure to make themselves duly appreciated by the awakened ideal faculties. Whatever the parent can tell of heroic conduct, of lofty character, of the grave crises and affecting changes of human life, will be so much material laid in for the virtuous and salutary use of those awakening faculties which might otherwise be occupied in selfishness and other mischief. Let the mind be abundantly ministered to. This may be done in the most homely households where there is any nobility of mind. Every parent has known some person who is noble and worthy of contemplation for character and conduct. Every parent can tell some moving or striking tale of a human lot. To all, the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, are open for contemplation. In every household, there is the Bible: and in the houses of all who read this, there is, no doubt, Milton, on the shelf beside the Bible. With these parents have means enough for the education of their children's highest faculties. In these they hold a greater treasure than any other that can be found in royal abodes: and the kingdom of Nature is a field which their children have free license to rove with the highest. Let them have and enjoy these treasures abundantly. Let them read all tales of noble adventure that can be obtained for them;--of the heroes that have struggled through Polar ice and burning African sands; that have sailed on past the horizon of hope in the discovery of new continents, and have succeeded through faith, courage and patience. Let the reading of good fiction be permitted, where the desire is strong. Some of the highest interests of English history have been opened to the present generation by the novels of Scott, as to many a preceding one by the Plays of Shakspere. My own opinion is that no harm is done, but much good, by an early reading of fiction of a high order: and no one can question its being better than leaving the craving mind to feed upon itself,--its own dreams of vanity or other selfishness,--or to seek an insufficient nourishment from books of a lower order. The imagination, once awakened, must and will work, and ought to work. Let its working be ennobled, and not debased, by the material afforded to it.

In the parents' sympathy must be included forbearance; forbearance with the uncertainty of temper and spirits, the extravagance of ideas, the absurd ambition, or fanaticism or, (as it is generally called) "romance" which show themselves more or less, on the opening of a strong imaginative faculty. It should be remembered that the young creature is half-living in a new world; and that the difficulty of reconciling this beloved new world with the familiar old one is naturally very trying to one who is just entering upon the struggles of the mind and of life. He cannot reconcile the world and its ways and its people with the ideals which are presenting themselves to him; and he becomes, for a time, irritable, or scornful, or depressed. One will be fanatical, for a time, and sleep on the boards, and make and keep a vow never to smile. Another will be discontented, and apparently ungrateful, for a time, in the idea that he might be a hero if he had certain advantages which are not given him. Another looks down already on all his neighbours on account of the great deeds he is to do by and by: and all are convinced,--every youth and maiden of them all,--that nobody can enter into their feelings,--nobody understand their minds,--nobody conceive of emotions and aspirations like theirs. At the moment, this is likely to be true; for their ideas and emotions are vast and stirring, beyond their own power to express; and it can scarcely happen that any one is at hand, just at the right season, to receive their out-pourings, and give them credit for more than they can tell.--With all the consequences of these new movements of the mind, the parents must have forbearance,--even to the point (if it must be) of witnessing an intimacy with some young companion, not very wise, who is the depository of more confidence than is offered to those who should be nearest and dearest. These waywardnesses and follies may have their day, and prove after all to have been, in their way, wholesome discipline. Every waywardness brings its smart; and every folly leaves its sting of shame in the mind that is high enough to manifest any considerable power of imagination. They will punish and cure themselves; and probably in a short time. Nature may be trusted here, as everywhere. If we have patience to let her work, without hindrance and without degradation, she will justify our confidence at last. Give her free scope,--remove out of her way everything that is low and sordid, and needlessly irritating, and minister to her everything that is pure and gentle, and noble and true, and she will produce a glorious work. In the wildest flights of haughty and undisciplined imagination, the young aspirant will take heed enough to the beauty and dignity of a lowly, and dutiful and benignant walk in life, to come down and worship it when cruder visions have passed away. It is only to wait, in gentleness and cheerfulness, and the wild rhapsodist, or insolent fanatic will work his way through his snares into a new world of filial, as well as other duty, and, without being less of a poet, but because he is more of one, will be a better son and brother and neighbour,--making his life his highest poem.

It will be said that we have here, in treating of the training of the Intellectual faculties, recurred to the department of morals. And this is true. No part of human nature can work in isolation; and when we treat of any function by itself, it is for the convenience of our understandings, and not as a following of nature. No intellectual faculty can act independently of the moral; and the higher the faculties, the closer we find their interaction; till we arrive at the fact that Veneration, Benevolence, Hope, Conscientiousness and Firmness cannot act to perfection except in company with a vigorous faculty of Imagination, and strong Reflective powers: and again, that the Reasoning and Imaginative powers can never work to their fullest capacity unless the highest of the moral powers are as active as themselves. In all true poetry, there is a tacit appeal to the sanction of Conscience, and Veneration and Benevolence are the heavenly lights which rise upon the scene: while, on the other hand, no Reverence is so deep, Benevolence so pure, as those which are enriched by the profoundest Thought, and refined and exalted by the noblest Idealism.

These truths bring us to a practical consideration as serious as any which our minds can receive and dwell upon. My own sense of it is so strong, and so confirmed by the experience of a life, that I feel that if I had the utmost power of thought and language that were ever possessed by the human being, I could do no justice to it:--that the only means of improving the _morale_ to the utmost is by elevating the ideal of the individual. It is well to improve the conduct, and satisfy the conscience of the child by calling upon its resolution to amend its faults in detail,--to control its evil tempers, and overcome its indolence and laxity: but this is a temporary method, insufficient for its ultimate needs. The strength of resolution fails when the season of youth is past, or is employed on other objects; and it is rare, as we all know, to see faults amended, and bad habits overcome in mature years: and then, if improvement proceeds, radically and continuously, it is by the mind being placed under good influences, operating both powerfully and continuously. Of good influences, the most powerful and continuous is the presence in the mind of a lofty ideal. This is the great central fire which is always fed by the material it draws to itself, and which can hardly be extinguished. When the whole mind is possessed with the image of the godlike, ever growing with the expansion of the intelligence, and ever kindling with the glow of the affections, every passion is consumed, every weakness grows into the opposite strength; and the entire force of the moral life, set free from the exclusive care of the details of conduct, and from the incessant anxiety of self-regards, is at liberty to actuate the whole harmonious being in its now necessary pursuit of the highest moral beauty it can conceive of. To this godlike inspiration, strong and lofty powers of Thought and Imagination are essential: and if parents desire that their children should be what they are made to be,--"but a little lower than the angels,"--they must cherish these powers as the highest sources of moral inspiration.