The time to teach it is in that unsettled "middle age" of
childhood when its exuberant feeling is in search of an ideal, when
large moral effects can be appreciated, when there is some opening
understanding of the value of character.
If the first period of childhood delights in what is strange, this
second period gives its allegiance to what is strong, by preference to
primitive and simple strength, to uncomplex aims and marked characters;
it appreciates courage and endurance, and can bear to hear of sufferings
which daunt the fastidiousness of those who are a few years older;
perhaps it can endure so much because it realizes so little, but the
fact remains true. This age exults in the sufferings of the martyrs and
cannot bear the suggestion that plain duties may be heroic before God.
There is a great deal that may be done for minds in this period of
development by the teaching of history if it is not crippled in its
programme. To make concrete their ideals of greatness in the right
personalities--a work which is as easily spoiled by a word out of season
as a fine porcelain vase is cracked in a furnace--to direct their ideas
of the aims of life towards worthy and unselfish ends, to foster true
loyalty because of God from whom all authority comes--and this lesson has
its pathetic poignancy for us in the history of our English martyrs--to
show the claims that our country has upon the devotion of its sons and
daughters, and to inspire some feeling of responsibility for its honour,
especially to show the supreme worth of character and self-sacrifice,
all these things may and must be taught in this middle period of
children's education if they are to have any strong hold upon them in
after life.
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