CHILD TRAINING.* Tins is a book to interest any parent
or guardian of a child under seven years old. " Character," says the author, " is
nothing more than the sum total of habits." We do not quite believe this ; neither, we suspect, does he ; but partial belief
in such a theory as the sentence epitomizes is necessary to fit even the most intelligent teacher to deal with young children. They must make habits, that is inevitable, and the habits if left to chance may be good or bad:— "Education's business, therefore, is to make as large a part of the habits as it can good,—good in the sense of useful to the indi- vidual and society—the habit of dressing quickly and carefully instead of slowly and in a slovenly way ; of eating properly the right things instead of wrongly the wrong things ; of speaking correctly and pleasingly, instead of incorrectly ; of working skil- fully, efficiently and industriously instead of slip-shodly and lazily ; of playing hard, well and fairly instead of lackadaisically, poorly and in bad spirit ; of thinking logically and justly instead of whimsi- cally and prejudicially—of acting in a thousand right ways instead of the many thousand wrong."
Now, since it is obvious that habits come only from repetition, some sort of " habit drill " must be attempted if good habits are to be cultivated and bad habits reformed. The habit of obedience is the key to all other good habits, and Mr. Hillyer
writes interestingly of how obedience should be deliberately instilled. All sorts of simple orders should, he thinks, be given to a child. He should be told to sit, stand, turn, look at the speaker, fetch this or that, and prompt obedience should be
insisted on in such a manner as to make him think he is playing or carrying out some interesting piece of work. When a child has learned elementary obedience, and will instantly obey,
provided no special difficulty presents itself, Mr. Hillyer puts him through what may be called a more advanced course. It is
here that we think most readers will be tempted to adverse criticism. The children are to be told, for instance, not to talk, and then the teacher is to try to surprise them into talking ; or they are to be told to keep a secret, and then questioned in a manner to make them let it out. This advanced " drill " is too much like teasing altogether to commend itself to the average mother. Mr. Hillyer constantly draws parallels between the training of dogs and the training of children ; but no dog could be trained like this—his temper would be spoiled in a week. Again, the " imagination drill " here suggested we should have thought might be fraught with great inconvenience :-
"Have a child go to the window and from that position give the class an account of what, in imagination, he sees there, for example, a circus parade. Pass a book or a newspaper round the class and give each child in turn a few minutes to ' read ' an imaginary story from it or describe an imaginary picture."
The teacher is warned that children " should return at once to the serious actualities at hand the moment they are required, for an unrestrained imagination may lead to very serious conse- quences." The " returning at once " would involve, we think, a new and far more diffioult drill.
The book is illustrated with charming photographs of " drilled " and " drilling " children. The look of attention which the photographer has caught upon their faces is even more attractive than the look of momentary concentration which we sometimes see on the face of an always engaging but usually scatter-brained puppy. It is a relief to read something about early education which is not too sentimental or too deeply serious. Mr. Hillyer
is neither. He says that he thinks it is "usually a better working basis to consider the child a chip of the old block' than ' a manifestation of the divine ' or a part of the infinite.' "
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