14
Fundamentals of Christian Education
Many children have been ruined for life by urging the intellect,
and neglecting to strengthen the physical powers. Many have died in
childhood because of the course pursued by injudicious parents and
school-teachers in forcing their young intellects, by flattery or fear,
when they were too young to see the inside of a school room. Their
minds have been taxed with lessons, when they should not have been
called out, but kept back until the physical constitution was strong
enough to endure mental effort. Small children should be left as free
as lambs to run out-of-doors, to be free and happy, and should be
allowed the most favorable opportunities to lay the foundation for
sound constitutions.
Parents should be the only teachers of their children until they
have reached eight or ten years of age. As fast as their minds can
comprehend it, the parents should open before them God’s great book
of nature. The mother should have less love for the artificial in her
house, and in the preparation of her dress for display, and should
find time to cultivate, in herself and in her children, a love for the
beautiful buds and opening flowers. By calling the attention of her
children to their different colors and variety of forms, she can make
them acquainted with God, who made all the beautiful things which
attract and delight them. She can lead their minds up to their Creator,
and awaken in their young hearts a love for their heavenly Father, who
has manifested so great love for them. Parents can associate God with
all His created works. The only schoolroom for children from eight to
ten years of age should be in the open air, amid the opening flowers
and nature’s beautiful scenery. And their only textbook should be the
treasures of nature. These lessons, imprinted upon the minds of young
children amid the pleasant, attractive scenes of nature, will not soon
be forgotten.
In order for children and youth to have health, cheerfulness, vi-
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vacity, and well-developed muscles and brains, they should be much
in the open air, and have well-regulated employment and amusement.
Children and youth who are kept at school and confined to books,
cannot have sound physical constitutions. The exercise of the brain
in study, without corresponding physical exercise, has a tendency to
attract the blood to the brain, and the circulation of the blood through
the system becomes unbalanced. The brain has too much blood, and
the extremities too little. There should be rules regulating their studies