In Rousseau's view (1762). . . most of the problems of education are problems of motivation, as teachers try to rush things. They ...talk of geography before the child knows the way around his own backyard. They teach history before the child understand anything about adult motivation. . . . It would be far better, to let questions arise naturally. . . . When a child is self-motivated, the teacher cannot keep him from learning.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In proper English households . . . one writer remembered in the 1630s as a time when, "The child perfectly loathed the sight of hi...s parents, as the slave his Torturer. Gentlemen of 30 or 40 years old, fitt for any employment in the commonwealth, were to stand like great mutes and fools bare headed before their parents; and the Daughters (grown women) were to stand at the Cupboards side during the whole time of the proud mothers visit, unless (as the fashion was) 'twas desired that leave (forsooth) should be given to them to kneele upon cushions brought them by the servingman, after they had done sufficient Penance standing."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Fountaine of parents duties is Love....Great reason there is why this affection should be fast fixed towards their children. F...or great is that paine, cost, and care, which parents must undergoe for their children. But if love be in them, no paine, paines, cost or care will seeme too much.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Reprehension is a kind of middle thing betwixt admonition and correction: it is sharpe admonition, but a milde correction. It is r...ather to be used because it may be a meanes to prevent strokes and blowes, especially in ingenuous and good natured children. [Blows are] the last remedy which a parent can use: a remedy which may doe good when nothing else can.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is cheering to note that [Martin] Luther (1524) did not see why schools should not be fun as well: "Now since the young must le...ap and jump, or have something to do, because they have a natural desire for it which should not be restrained (for it is not well to check them in everything) why should we not provide for them such schools, and lay before them such studies?"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Teachers . . . were not much appreciated. As one Englishman put it (in 1678): "Were the particular salaries of school-masters thro...ughout the Land set forth in a table, it is not to be feared that their amply patrimony would excite the covetousness or envy of the reader."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If you are not willing to lose all the labour you have been at to break the will of your child, to bring his will into subjection ...to yours that it may be afterward subject to the will of God, there is one advice which, though little known, should be particularly attended. . . . It is this; never, on any account, give a child anything that it cries for. . . . If you give a child what he cries for, you pay him for crying: and then he will certainly cry again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »