he subject, must know that it is scarcely
possible to provide sufficient and suitable occupations for young
children: this is one of the first difficulties in education. Those
who have never tried the experiment, are astonished to find it such a
difficult and laborious business as it really is, to find employments
for children from three to six years old. It is perhaps better, that
our pupils should be entirely idle, than that they should be half
employed. "My dear, have you nothing to do?" should be spoken in
sorrow rather than in anger. When they see other people employed and
happy, children feel mortified and miserable to have nothing to do.
Count Rumford's was an excellent scheme for exciting sympathetic
industry amongst the children of the poor at Munich; in the large
hall, where the elder children were busy in spinning, there was a
range of seats for the younger children, who were not yet permitted to
work; these being compelled to sit idle, and to see the busy
multitude, grew extremely uneasy in their own situation, and became
very anxious to be employed. We need not use any compulsion or any
artifice; parents in every family, we suppose, who think of educating
their own children, are employed some hours in the day in reading,
writing, business, or conversation; during these hours, children will
naturally feel the want of occupation, and will, from sympathy, from
ambition and from impatience of insupportable ennui, desire with
anxious faces, "to have something to do." Instead of loading them with
playthings, by way of relieving their misery, we should honestly tell
them, if that be the truth, "I am sorry I cannot find any thing for
you to do at present. I hope you will soon be able to employ yourself.
What a happy thing it will be for you to be able, by and by, to read,
and write and draw; then you will never be forced to sit idle."

The pains of idleness stimulate children to industry, if they are from
time to time properly contrasted with the pleasures of occupation. We
should associate cheerfulness, and praise, and looks of approbation,
with industry; and, whenever young people invent employments for
themselves, they should be assisted as much as possible, and
encouraged. At that age when they are apt to grow tired in half an
hour of their playthings, we had better give them playthings only for
a very short time, at intervals in the day; and, instead of waiting
till they are tired, we should take the things aw