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[No. III.

HINTS TO PARENTS.

FIRST EXERCISES

IN

NUMBER;

OR,

The Elements of Arithmetic

VISIBLY REPRESENTED

IN THE

SPIRIT OF PESTALOZZI'S METHOD.

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:

Printed for

HARVEY AND DARTON, GRACECHURCH-STREET.

1827.

PRICE ONE SHILLING.

Harvey, Darton, & Co. Printers, Gracechurch-street, London.

HINTS

ΤΟ

PARENTS.

THE difficulty of providing rational and agreeable employment for very young children, is a general subject of complaint. This difficulty, it is presumed, would not be found insuperable, could PARENTS be induced to devote their time and their powers to a province peculiarly their own*.

* The well-educating of their children is so much the duty and concern of Parents, and the welfare and prosperity of the nation so much depend on it, that I would have every one lay it seriously to heart.-Locke.

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The more entirely a Mother gives herself

to the discharge of duties for which she is eminently qualified; to the sacred task of watching and assisting the development of the minds and hearts of her infants, the greater will be her success, and the more perfect her happiness. It is from steady application and perseverance that she must look for strength; she will learn more from hourly observation and instruction of her children, than from the study of the best treatises on education, and the most perfect exercises that can be provided. "If the spirit be there, ingenuity will not be wanting; and if the spirit be not there, in vain will rules supply its place."-For a MOTHER's care, for a MOTHER'S cultivation, for a MOTHER'S love, there can be found no substitute.

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Guided by affection and by a solicitude for their welfare, of which a PARENT alone is capable, difficulties will vanish by persevering trial: she will daily become conscious of a growing skill, of a deeper interest; she will witness the success of her efforts; she will read in the smiling intelligent looks of her young pupil's, and she will feel in her own

heart the reward of her honourable, her sacred, her happy work.

"Then why resign into a stranger's hand
A task as much within your own command?
That God and Nature, and your int❜rest too,
Seem with one voice to delegate to you."

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Even at a more advanced stage of education, when it may be deemed necessary to introduce an Instructor into the family, the duties of PARENTS are by no means moved, or even lessened. Indeed, such is the propensity of our nature to indolence-so plausible and ready our excuses for neglect of duty-that it would be safer to consider these duties as increased; and so far from allowing such an event to slacken parental cares, it would be wiser to let it serve as an incitement to augmented vigilance, and a stimulus to greater exertion.

There are feelings, there are responsibilities which belong exclusively to PARENTS; there are offices, there are duties, to the discharge of which, no other can be competent. Let them never forget that they are the "lords of the soil;" they have to look not only to present, but to future and permanent produce.

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