mind of a child

---

narration of book 1, chapter 2

---

What is in the mind of a child? Does he have the capacity to think, imagine, reason? How does he process information? What motivates him to be self-educated?

Every child is born into the world with the capacity to learn. He has a mind: the spiritual instrument of his education, and a brain: the physical instrument. He has a will: the ability to do what he ought instead of what he wants. He has a conscience and a heart. Even infants soon come to understand the difference between right and wrong, and small children often surprise adults with their capacity for love and compassion. Together the mind, will, heart, and conscience are the core instruments of education; the tools we use to gather knowledge and form character.

The child is born a complete person, he is fully equipped with these essential tools from birth. It is not the teacher’s role to give them to the child, but to nourish these innate capacities and help them to grow and develop.

In many ways, education is less complicated than it would seem. Ideas and information are part of our every day lives. Who among us has not learned a new word one day, only to hear it in conversation and read it in books and newspapers multiple times over the course of the next week? Or perhaps after hearing for the first time of some idea or concept, it suddenly seems to be in every news broadcast or magazine? The idea is planted by the first exposure to the idea, and then our minds naturally gather information to support and furnish the idea with facts. Every day, we learn through this natural science of relations; layering idea upon idea until we have a vivid understanding of the whole.

It is the same for a child. His mind naturally gravitates towards certain ideas; perhaps a concept relating to natural philosophy, such as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, or perhaps an ethical value, such as whether it is right for a character in a book to act in a certain way. Great ideas spark an interest in the mind, which is then fed and nourished through books, nature, and conversation. The child’s own interest in the original concept enflames his desire to learn more, and this additional learning happens naturally and fluidly as he encounters ideas.

Because ideas are so rudimentary to the learning process, it is important for parents and teachers to carefully consider what materials are presented to a child. Education is not solely for acquiring knowledge, but also for the continuing development of the mind, will, and character. Therefore, the ideas presented should not be flimsy or weak, but rich and beautiful and good. They must be the life-giving ideas that cultivate moral courage, ethical values, and habits of self-control. Every idea presented should in some way support the child’s conscience and reinforce his ability to do what he ought to do rather than what he may want to do.

Furthermore, a child does not thrive on a diet of so-called “easy to understand” materials. Early readers that are so simplified as to have lost the depth and beauty of the language only bore and discourage children, while great literature stimulates the mind, encouraging it to eagerly latch onto the ideas presented. In the same way, a child does not require illustrations, coloring pages, or visual displays in order to understand literary passages. His imagination is vivid and active, and infinitely more colorful than many of the illustrative materials supplied in picture books and textbooks. While beautiful illustrations and paintings—especially those done by master artists—are an essential and wonderful part of education, the child’s own imagination should be respected and brought into use. He should be given the opportunity to follow the story without visual aid, to see the action in his mind’s eye and imagine his own backdrop for the characters to act on.

A child is a person. Yes, he is a child— a young life, a young mind, a stunningly large capacity for learning, wondering, and delighting in the world around him. He is not an adult. But he is a person, and ought to be valued, respected, and treated as a human being capable of logic and understanding.

The question remains—how are adults to interact with young pupils? In a classroom or homeschool setting, what is the role of a teacher or parent?

---

key ideas

---

• Children are born persons, with a mind capable of learning, imagining, and logical thinking.
• The mind is not the result of an education, it is the instrument or tool of an education.
• Simplified materials are not necessary or always beneficial to a child.

---

quotes

---

“The other view is that the beautiful infant frame is but the setting of a jewel of such astonishing worth that, put the whole world in one scale and this jewel in the other, and the scale which holds the world flies up unbalanced.”

“If we have not proved that a child is born a person with a mind as complete and as beautiful as his beautiful little body, we can at least show that he always has all the mind he requires for his occasions: that is, that his mind is the instrument of his education and that his education does not produce his mind.”

“Reason is present in the infant as truly as imagination.”

“How many teachers know that children require no pictures excepting the pictures of great artists, which have quite another function than that of illustration? They see for themselves in their own minds a far more glorious, and indeed more accurate, presentation than we can afford in our miserable daubs.”

“No one can employ leisure fitly whose mind is not brought into active play every day; the small affairs of a man’s own life supply no intellectual food and but small and monotonous intellectual exercise. Science, history, philosophy, literature, must no longer be the luxuries of the ‘educated’ classes; all classes must be educated and sit down to these things of the mind as they do to their daily bread.”