McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson CIII · Part 10: Elephants, the sea and a happy life

109. The Art of Discouragement (Arthur Helps)

Goal: Your child explains, with Helps's examples, what a "cold-water pourer" is and why discouragement does harm.

⏱ About 35 minutes · 6 steps

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You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook or lined paper and a pencil

What's in the book

An essay by Arthur Helps. A humorous friend describes the "cold-water pourers" who discourage every new idea, imagining how the first inventor of the wheel was told it could never go uphill. Helps says discouragement comes from timidity, envy or love of power, and spoils even small pleasures. Definitions follow.

The lesson, step by step

  1. About the author

    The book says Arthur Helps (b. 1817, d. 1875) graduated from Cambridge, England, in 1835, wrote "Friends in Council" and "Companions of My Solitude," and in 1859 became secretary of the privy council.

  2. Words and meanings

    The words and meanings are printed at the end of the lesson. Read a few together before the reading, so they don't trip your child up:

    Yam, the root of a climbing plant, found in the tropics, which is used for food.

    Dilate, to speak largely, to dwell in narration.

    Projector, one who forms a scheme or design.

    Your child reads each meaning aloud, then uses the word in a sentence of their own.

  3. Read aloud

    Your child reads the essay aloud. Enjoy the imagined speech to the first wheel-maker:

    We seem to have gone on very well for thousands of years without this rolling thing.

    Put aside the vain fancies of a childish mind, and finish the planting of your yams.

  4. Talk about it

    SayWhat is a "cold-water pourer"? Why that name?

    SayHelps gives three reasons people discourage others. What are they?

    SayThe essay is funny, but it has a serious point. What is it?

    SayHow could you encourage someone's new idea, even if it has a flaw?

  5. Tell it back

    Close the book.

    SayExplain what Helps means by "the art of discouragement," with one of his examples.

    Older children can write their narration in a short paragraph instead. Don't correct while they talk; just listen.

  6. Copywork

    Your child copies:

    That flaw, — that little flaw, — was all in all to him.

    Notice how the dashes make you pause on "little flaw."

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