Margaret Cavendish
"Of the Breeding of Children"
Children should be taught at first, the best,
plainest, and purest of their language, and the most significant
words; and not, as their nurses teach them, a strange kind of
gibbridge, broken language of their own making, which is like
scraps of several meats heapt together, or hash'd, mixt, or minced:
so do they the purest of their language; as for example, when
Nurses teach children to go, instead of saying go, they say do,
do, and instead of saying come to me, they say tum to me, and
when they newly come out of a sleep, and cannot well open their
eyes, they do not say My Child cannot well open his, or her eyes,
but my chid tant open its nies... Likewise they learn them the
rudest language first, as to bid them say such a one Lies, or
to call them Rogues and the like names, and then laugh as if it
were a witty jest. And as they breed them in their language, so
they breed them in their sports, pastimes, or exercises, as to
play with children at boe-peep, blind-man-buff, and Cocks hod,
as they call them, that is, to muffle their head and eyes, and
then they run about to knock their heads against the doors, posts,
and tables, to break their Legs over stools, thresholds, or to
run into the fire, where many times they deform themselves with
the mischiefs that follow; or to hide themselves behind hangings
and old cubbords, or dirty holes, or the like places, where they
foul their cloaths, disaffect the Brain with stincks, and are
almost chokt with durt and dust Cobwebs, and Spiders, Flys and
the like getting upon them; also to role upon the ground, likewise
to stand upon their heads, when dancing might be learned with
the feet, as easy as tumbling in several postures, and to stand
upon the head; and is it not as easy to learn them to write, and
read, as to build houses with Cards? they are both but making
of figures, and joyning together; and is it not as easy to learn
them the Globe, as to play at Cards? and is it not as easy to
tell them of Arts and Sciences, as to tell them feigned and foolish
tales of Tom Thum, and of Spirits, and the like, frighting them
so much as makes them of timorous natures, and Effeminat Spirits?
when Children would take as much delight in Arts and Sciences,
nay more, if they were taught them at first. (pp. 60-61)