§ 1. Just as it is free to take a wife, so it is necessary to bring up and educate offspring brought into the light, and one must take complete care that they not be deprived of resources and aid.
Therefore those who introduce into the state a savage and ἄστοργον, unnaturally unloving, law do injury to nature. Such was that law of Romulus: “Let monstrous offspring be killed without penalty.” Cruel too was the paternal power that usurped a right of life and death over children, because the unconsidered anger of fathers destroyed many and domestic slanders still more. Disinheritance, by which one was denied to be a son, was harsh, but nevertheless established by law and statutes. Yet gravest of all is the cruelty of parents who expose children ignorant of their condition and deserving nothing, either in deserted places or in places from which they can be taken and brought up. The law of the Thebans concerning this was just and full of humanity: it decreed capital punishment if anyone exposed an infant in solitude, for it was not only homicide but the slaughter of an innocent. Aelian, book 2 of Various History. But if anyone could not nourish a newborn, he carried it with its swaddling bands to the magistrate, by whom it was sold into slavery for a small price. Best and most merciful is the law of Christians, who indeed impose punishment upon those who expose children: they both remove the children from paternal power and afflict the parents with other punishments—lighter than they deserve—because they consult the safety of newborns, lest the parents prefer to kill and conceal them rather than expose them. The edict of the Caesars Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian is: “Let each nourish his own offspring; but if he thinks it should be exposed, he will be subject to the penalty that has been established.”
§ 2. What care, therefore, must be applied to a son or daughter during the first five years, or lustrum?
Since at that age the mind is weak and cannot be instructed, care will be taken of the little body alone, but in such a way
that those things are observed which conduce to the integrity and vigor both of the external and internal senses. “For what,” says St. Jerome, Epistle 17, “would you exhort to continence the child who desires cakes, who babbles with chattering voice in her mother’s bosom, to whom honey is sweeter than words? Should she hear the deep things of the Apostle, when she delights more in old women’s tales? Should she perceive the enigmas of the Prophets, when the sterner face of her nursemaid disturbs her? Should she understand the majesty of the Gospel, at whose thunderbolts every mortal sense is blunted? Should I exhort her to be subject to her parent, when with a tender hand she strikes her laughing mother?”
There are nevertheless things which I may prescribe to the father and mother concerning such little children. Good education needs preparation.
§ 3. The first is that before the fifth year those things be done which are the rudiments of future hope. Plato commanded nurses and boys to assemble in the crossroads, both so that they might enjoy a freer air and so that the morals of the nurses might be observed in public.
Next, even at this little age, let there be a diligent, careful, and fastidious selection of nursemaids, serving-women, and little servants who guard and care for the little son. Let them be of honorable morals, for children reproduce the morals of those whom they first behold. Care must be taken that by old women’s tales they do not thrust depraved and absurd opinions upon them:
In the beginning, the infancy of boys Drinks in error together with milk.
But I have given warning concerning these things above.
§ 4. Those who deal with the tender pupil will also lay the foundations of speech and will not imitate his babbling through blandishments and jokes, because children thus learn to speak perversely. A prudent father will devote the greatest effort to forming speech.
What greater thing could a sweet nursemaid wish for her pupil Than that he be wise and able to speak what he thinks?
Since sounds, the articulation of sounds, sibilants, and accents depend upon habit, persons should be chosen who use clear, sweet, and native pronunciation. Thus it will happen that from those from whom the little child receives signs of things he may also imbibe the habit of corrected pronunciation. The Gracchi learned eloquence in their mother’s bosom. The practice of nations also admonishes us of this: for what person of a foreign nation so sounds a language that he does not at the same time breathe forth his fatherland? Even when Dorians spoke Attic there was πλατυστομία, breadth of mouth, for they drew out words with a broad mouth. We also can distinguish by nation those speaking Latin from the sound of the voice. But whence is it that they never unlearn the manner of pronunciation which they imbibed in their first years? Because what we first learn clings most closely to the mind, as though a second nature. Why did the tribe of Ephraim retain its national defect, so that they could not say Shibboleth but Sibboleth, with a softer sound? It came from a mother, nursemaid, or some serving-girl who formed the infancy either of Ephraim himself or of his sons. Therefore, just as care is applied lest tender legs or little arms grow crookedly, so also the tongue must be formed—not by commands, of which that age is not yet capable, but by articulate and pure utterance. For he will learn to speak rightly if he hears no one pronounce badly.
§ 5. So tender an age will also be able to learn some things, if it has a suitable master; but it will learn by playing, not by laboring. This care is not childish, although it is exercised upon a child. Certainly Jerome, a man of great talent and holiness, did not think it beneath either his office or his age to teach a child amid his sublime studies of sacred literature. The present Church admires the ancient tongue which he heard, and which heresies feared like the sharp weapon of a thunderbolt; yet he was ready to form the words of a tender virgin. In Epistle 7 he speaks thus: “If you send Paula, I myself promise to be both her master and her fosterer. I shall carry her upon my shoulders; an old man, I shall form her babbling words, far more glorious than the philosopher of the world, since I shall educate not a king of the Macedonians destined to perish by Babylonian poison, but a serving-woman and bride of CHRIST to be offered to the heavenly kingdoms.”
Therefore some unfairly criticize our Society: because it lowers itself to schools for boys, they believe it serves God less religiously and would prefer it to be occupied in theology alone. I shall dispute against them when necessary. For now I wish them to consider this one thing: that most human beings, before they are rendered fit for those studies, need very much and very exact discipline.
The prudently humble man did not remain silent about what he thought should be learned. Epistle 12: “Therefore let our Pacatula, who will later read this little letter, for the present merely recognize the elements of letters; let her join syllables, learn names, connect words. And so that she may meditate upon them in her little piping voice, let little cakes, honeyed drink, rewards, and whatever is sweet to the taste, whatever blooms in flowers, whatever glitters in gems, whatever delights among dolls, be offered to her, so that she hastens to receive them. Meanwhile let her try to draw threads with her tender thumb; let her often break the strands, that she may someday not break them. After labor let her rejoice in games; let her hang upon her mother’s neck; let her snatch kisses from her relatives; let her sing psalms for a reward. Let her love what she is compelled to learn, so that it may be not work but delight, not necessity but will.”
He gives almost the same precepts at greater length, but they possess ancient wisdom, Epistle 7: “The soul which is to be a temple of God must be educated thus: let it learn to hear nothing and to speak nothing except what pertains to the fear of God. Let her not understand base words; let her be ignorant of the songs of the world; while still tender, let her tongue be imbued with sweet psalms. Let the wanton age of boys be far away; let the girls and female attendants themselves be barred from worldly company, lest they teach worse what they have learned badly. Let letters be made for her, whether of boxwood or ivory, and let them be called by their names. Let her play with them, so that the play itself may also be instruction; and let her not only retain the order of the letters, so that the memory of the names passes into a song, but let their order among themselves frequently be disturbed, the last mixed with the middle and the middle with the first, so that she may know them not only by sound but also by sight. But when she begins to draw the stylus in wax with a trembling hand, or to hold it while another’s hand is placed over hers, let her fingers be guided; or let the elements be carved upon a tablet, so that her traces may be drawn through the same furrows, enclosed by margins, and may not be able to wander outside. Let her join syllables for a reward and be invited by little gifts by which that age can be won over. Let her have companions in learning whom she may envy and by whose praises she may be stung. She must not be rebuked if she is slower, but her talent must be aroused by praise, so that she may rejoice at having conquered and grieve at having been conquered. Above all, care must be taken lest she hate studies and lest the bitterness of them, perceived in infancy, pass beyond the unformed years. The very names through which she gradually becomes accustomed to connect words should not be accidental, but fixed and deliberately accumulated—namely those of the Prophets and Apostles; and let the entire series of the Patriarchs from Adam descend from Matthew and Luke, so that while she does one thing she may be prepared for future memory.”
§ 6. Let the father of the household preside over these exercises of his sons, even if he is a king and prince, and let him regard it as a far more glorious function than
that once performed by the judges of contests at Greek spectacles or Roman ones. There the destruction of morals and deaths are carried out; here the beginnings of virtues.
§ 7. I shall finish when I have given some precepts concerning the care of the body. They were accustomed to govern bodies with instruments so that they would not be distorted; thus Aristotle, book 7, chapter 17 of the Politics.
He warns of another thing which is in no way in use, yet could be recalled:
Συμφέρει δὲ εὐθὺς, ὡς πρὸς τὰ ψύχη, συνεθίζειν μικρῶν παίδων.
It is advantageous immediately from childhood to accustom them to cold. For this is most useful both for health and for military affairs; therefore the barbarians do it, and it can indeed be done, since on account of native heat boys can easily endure cold. The Celts hardened their newborns at rivers; Olaus Magnus attributes the same to his Goths. The Thracians too educated their own to endurance of cold. Sidonius, poem 2:
Here ice receives the newborn, and snow from a stream other than the mother’s Hardens the soft limbs of the infants, their fellow citizens.
The ancient Britons, as Caesar has it in book 5 of The Gallic War, hid themselves most swiftly in marshes amid dangers, being most tolerant of cold.
He also prudently warns that during those years children are to be applied neither to labor nor discipline, lest these impede growth. It is agreed that they will attain this by play, but the playful exercises themselves ought to be certain imitations of future occupations. Nor is it fitting to inhibit tears and wailings, for they take the place of exercise: they dilate and strengthen the veins and arteries and, as Aristotle teaches, assist growth, for they are γυμνάσια τοῖς σώμασιν, exercises for the bodies. There is no other reason why in the earliest years the offspring of peasants is rather strong and that of the rich weaker, than that the latter is deprived of natural exercise, while the former enjoys it abundantly, their busy mothers being turned to other things and neglecting their crying and wailing.