"Yes."
"Can you think now what the word agreeable is made from?"
He could not think.
"A thing agrees with something in me that does not agree with something in you, perhaps. I do not like the perfume of a narcissus. It does not _agree_ with my sense of smell, but it agrees with some people"s sense of smell."
He was pleased with this, and saw that _agree_ was the word.
"From what is _lively_ made?" I asked.
He hesitated.
"What does it mean?" said I.
"Oh, _lively_, why it means _very_ lively!"
"Can a table be lively?"
"No, it must be something that is alive. Oh, I know now--_alive_ is the word."
"What is alive made from?"
"Living," he answered.
"All these words are made from the name of something."
This brought him to the word _life_, and then he sprung up and clapped his hands and whirled round.
I do not always check these natural gymnastics.
Such lessons as these I am teased for continually. Those who have studied I can carry still farther in derivation. I sometimes reverse the process and ask for all the words that are made from _life_, _action_, &c.
Often when I give the children their slates to amuse themselves a little while, they bring me lists of words made on this principle of a.n.a.lysis; and I a.s.sure you that when I read to them, I am never allowed to pa.s.s by a word that is not understood. Several times when I have deliberately p.r.o.nounced a very long word that I expected to be questioned upon, it has brought half a dozen of my little audience to their feet.
I was very fond, when a child, of listening to lessons upon figures of speech, given in my mother"s school; and was quite expert in hunting up metaphors, tropes, hyperboles, and personifications. So I impart the same pleasure. The spiritual applications of words is pleasantly educed out of their sensuous qualities, also. "The sweet apple," and "the sweet child," are equally significant; and it is well to trace back words thus figuratively used to their original meaning in the sensuous world, for they are felt to be more significant when thus verified. It leads to sound thinking. There are so many poetical expressions in common parlance, that it is very easy to put children upon this track.
I have lately set up a little cla.s.s in thinking, preliminary to giving some idea of the construction of sentences. I do not attempt to teach grammar technically to such little people as mine; but I contrive to induct it into them by certain devices, not wholly original, for they are recorded in the "Record of a School." Allow me to repeat the drilling with which I began.
I called them around me one day to have a _new lesson_, which is always joyfully acceded to by these little lovers of new things, and nothing pleases them better than to be set to thinking.
I asked them if they knew what their five senses were.
Not one had ever heard those words used together, apparently.
I enumerated; sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste.
Several individuals jumped up, whirled round, and sat down again.--
I then asked each in turn to name some object, and tell me by which of their senses they could perceive it; and by how many?
This they did readily again and again. They could see, and smell, and touch, and taste a rose, but they could not _hear_ it. So of other things.
I then said, "I have a thought; do you know what it is?"
"No."
"Cannot you see, or hear, or smell, or touch, or taste my thought?"
"No."
"Now each one of you think of some object, but do not speak till I ask you for your thought."
"Can you see your thought?"
Some answered "No," others "Yes."
I asked each in turn for their thoughts. They were a bird, a house, a horse, &c., all visible objects.
I said, "All these things can be seen when they are before you; but can you see the thought?"
Some answered "Yes" to this, which I found meant that they could see the image of the thing in the mind; others said "No."
"Can you see your thinking?"
"No."
"Can you not send your thoughts out into the country, where you have sometimes taken a ride?"
"Yes."
"Can you see, smell, hear, taste, or touch your mind?"
"No."
"But is not mind a real thing? Have not you a mind that you think with?"
"Yes."
"There are some real things, then, beside those we can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch?"
"Yes."
"What other things beside your mind?"
No one answered.
"Have you any love?"