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 *..f 
 
 
PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 MARIA EDGEWORTH, 
 
 u 
 
 AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FOR LITERARV LADIES," &C. 
 
 RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH, 
 
 F.R.S. AND M.R.I. A. 
 COMPLETE IN ONK VOLUME. 
 
 N E W - Y O R K : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 NO 82 CLIFF-STREET, 
 
 AND SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS THROrGHOlT THK 
 UNITED STATK?. 
 
 183 5. 
 
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 -7-J'.l* ,vi<f 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 We shall not imitate the invidious example of some 
 authors, who thmk it necessary to destroy the edifices of 
 others, in order to clear the way for their own. We 
 have no peculiar system to support, and, consequently, 
 we have no temptation to attack the theories of others ; 
 and we have chosen the title of " Practical Education," 
 to point out that we rely entirely upon practice and expe- 
 rience. 
 
 To make any progress in the art of education, it must 
 be patiently reduced to an experimental science : we are 
 fully sensible of the extent and difficulty of this under- 
 taking, and we have not the arrogance to imagine, that 
 we have made any considerable progress in a work which 
 the labours of many generations may, perhaps, be insuffi- 
 cient to complete ; but we lay before the public the re- 
 sult of our experiments, and in many instances the exper- 
 iments themselves. In pursuing this part of our plan, 
 we have sometimes descended from that elevation of style 
 which the reader might expect in a quarto volume ; we 
 have frequently been obliged to record facts concerning 
 children which may seem trifling, and to enter into a 
 minuteness of detail which may' appear unnecessary. 
 No anecdotes, however, have been admitted without due 
 deliberation ; nothing has been introduced to gratify the 
 idle curiosity of others, or to indulge our own feelings of 
 domestic partiality. 
 
 In what we have written upon the rudiments of science, 
 we have pursued an opposite plan ; so far from attempt- 
 ing to teach them m detail, we refer our readers to the 
 excellent treatises on the ditFerent branches of science, 
 and on the various faculties of the human mind, which 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 are to be found in every language. The chapters that 
 we have introduced upon these subjects, are intended 
 merely as specimens of the manner in which we think 
 young children should be taught. We have found, from 
 experience, that an early knowledge of the first princi- 
 ples of science may be given in conversation, and may be 
 insensibly acquired from the usual incidents of life ; if 
 this knowledge be carefully associated with the technical 
 terms which common use may preserve in the memory, 
 much of the difficulty of subsequent instruction may be 
 avoided. 
 
 The sketches we have hazarded upon these subjects, 
 may to some appear too slight, and to others too abstruse 
 and tedious. To those who have explored the vast mines 
 of human knowledge, small specimens appear trifling and 
 contemptible, while the less accustomed eye is some- 
 what dazzled and confused by the appearance even of a 
 small collection ; but to the most enlightened minds, new 
 combinations may be suggested by a new arrangement 
 of materials, and the curiosity and enthusiasm of the in- 
 experienced may be awakened, and excited to accurate 
 and laborious researches. 
 
 With respect to what is commonly called the educa- 
 tion of the heart, we have endeavoured to suggest the 
 easiest means of inducing useful and agreeable habits, 
 well-regulated sympathy, and benevolent affections. A 
 witty writer says, " II est permis d'ennuyer en moralites 
 d'ici jusqu'a Constantinople." Unwilling to avail our- 
 selves of this permission, we have sedulously avoided dec- 
 lamation, and, wherever we have been obliged to repeat 
 ancient maxims and common truths, we have at least 
 thought it becoming to present them in a new dress. 
 
 On religion and pohtics we have been silent, because 
 we have no ambition to gain partisans, or to make pros- 
 elytes, and because we do not address ourselves exclu- 
 sively to any sect or to any party. The scrutinizing eye 
 of criticism, in looking over our table of contents, will 
 also, probably, observe that there are no chapters on 
 courage and chastity. To pretend to teach courage to 
 Britons, would be as ridiculous as it is unnecessary ; and, 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 except among those who are exposed to the contagion 
 of foreign manners, we may boast of the superior dehcacy 
 of our fair countrywomen ; a dehcacy acquired from do- 
 mestic example, and confirmed by pubhc approbation. 
 Our opinions concerning the female character and under- 
 standing, have been fully detailed in a former publica- 
 tion;* and, unwilling to fatigue by repetition, we have 
 touched but slightly upon these subjects in our chapters 
 on Temper, Female Accomplishments, Prudence, and 
 Economy. 
 
 We have warned our readers not to expect from us 
 any new theory of education ; but they need not appre- 
 hend that we have written without method, or that we 
 have thrown before them a heap of desultory remarks and 
 experiments, which lead to no general conclusions, and 
 which tend to the establishment of no useful principles. 
 We assure them that we have worked upon a regular 
 plan, and where we have failed of executing our design, 
 it has not been for want of labour or attention. Con- 
 vinced that it is the duty and the interest of all who write, 
 to inquire what others have said and thought upon the 
 subject of which they treat, we have examined attentively 
 the works of others, that we might collect whatever 
 knowledge they contain, and that we might neither arro- 
 gate inventions which do not belong to us, nor weary the 
 public by repetition. Some useful and ingenious essays 
 may probably have escaped our notice ; but we flatter 
 ourselves that our readers will not find reason to accuse 
 us of negligence, as we have perused with diligent at- 
 tention every work upon education that has obtained the 
 sanction of time or of public approbation ; and, though we 
 have never bound ourselves to the letter, we hope that 
 we have been faithful to the spirit, of their authors. 
 Without encumbering ourselves with any part of their 
 systems which has not been authorized by experience, we 
 have steadily attempted immediately to apply to practice 
 such of their ideas as we have thought useful ; but while 
 we have used the thoughts of others, we have been anx- 
 
 * Letters for Literary Ladies. Vide p. 185, vol. vii. Harper's Ed 
 
 A3 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 ious to avoid mean plagiarism ; and wherever we have 
 borrowed, the debt has been carefully acknowledged. 
 
 The first hint of the chapter on Toys vs^as received 
 from Dr. Beddoes ; the sketch of an introduction to 
 cliymistry for children was given to us by Mr. Lovell 
 Edgeworth ; and the rest of the work was resumed from 
 a design formed and begun twenty years ago. When a 
 book appears under the name of two authors, it is natural 
 to inquire what share belongs to each of them. All that 
 relates to the art of teaching to read in the chapter on 
 Tasks, the chapters on Grammar and Classical Litera- 
 ture, Geography, Chronology, Arithmetic, Geometry, and 
 Mechanics, were written by Mr. Edgeworth, and the rest 
 of the book by Miss Edgeworth. She w^as encouraged 
 and enabled to write upon this important subject, by 
 having for many years before her eyes the conduct of a 
 ■ judicious mother in the education of a large family. The 
 chapter on Obedience was written from Mrs. Edge worth's 
 notes, and was exemplified by her successful practice in 
 the management of her children ; the whole manuscript 
 was submitted to her judgment, and she revised parts oi. 
 it in the la.st stage of a fatal disease. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. Toys 13 
 
 II. Tasks 38 
 
 III. On Attention 64 
 
 IV. Sei-vants 96 
 
 V. Acquaintance - - - - - 106 
 
 VI. On Temper 120 
 
 VII. On Obedience 133 
 
 VIII. On Truth 146 
 
 IX. On Rewards and Punishments - - 172 
 
 ' X. On Sympathy and Sensibility - - 200 
 
 XI. On Vanity, Pride, and Ambition - - 225 
 
 XII. Books 238 
 
 XIII. On Grammar and Classical Literature - 287 
 
 XIV. On Geography and Chronology - - 309 
 XV. On Arithmetic 314 
 
 XVI. Geometry 329 
 
 XVII. On Mechanics 332 
 
 XVIII. Chymistry 356 
 
 XIX. On PubUc and Private Education - 362 
 
 XX. On Female Accomplishments, &;c. - 376 
 
 XXI. Memory and Invention - - - 401 
 
 XXII. Taste and Imagination - - - 435 
 
 XXIII. Wit and Judgment - - - - 466 
 
 XXIV. Prudence and Economy - - - 494 
 XXV. Summary 511 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Notes, containing Conversations and Anecdotes of 
 
 Children - 524 
 
PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Why don't you play with your playthings, my dear? 
 I am sure that I have bought toys enough for you ; why 
 can't you divert yourself with them, instead of break- 
 ing them to pieces V says a mother to her child, who 
 stands idle and miserable, surrounded by disjointed dolls, 
 maimed horses, coaches, and one-horse chairs without 
 wheels, and a nameless wreck of gilded lumber. 
 
 A child in this situation is surely more to be pitied 
 than blamed ; for is it not vain to repeat, " Why don't 
 you play with your playthings," unless they be such as 
 he can play with, which is very seldom the case ; and 
 is it not rather unjust to be angry with him for breaking 
 them to pieces, when he can by no other device render 
 them subservient to his amusement ? He breaks them, 
 not from the love of mischief, but from the hatred of 
 idleness ; either he wishes to see what his playthings 
 are made of, and how they are made ; or, whether he 
 can put them together again, if the parts be once separ- 
 ated. All this is perfectly innocent ; and it is a pity 
 that his love of knowledge and his spirit of activity 
 should be repressed by the undistingoishing correction 
 of a nursery-maid, or the unceasing reproof of a French 
 governess. 
 
 The more natural vivacity and ingenuity young people 
 possess, the less are they likely to be amused with the 
 toys which are usually put into their hands. They 
 require to have things which exercise their senses or 
 their imagination, their imitative and inventive powers. 
 The glaring colours, or the gilding of toys, may catch 
 
14 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 the eye, and please for a few minutes ; but unless some 
 use can be made of them, they will, and ought to be 
 soon discarded. A boy, who has the use of his limbs, 
 and whose mind is untainted with prejudice, would, in 
 all probability, prefer a substantial cart, in which he 
 could carry weeds, earth, and stones, up and down hill, 
 to the finest frail coach and six that ever came out of a 
 toyshop : for what could he do with the coach after 
 having- admired and sucked the paint, but drag it cau- 
 tiously along the carpet of a drawing-room, watching the 
 wheels, which will not turn, and seeming to sympathize 
 with the just terrors of the lady and gentleman within, 
 who are certain of being overturned every five minutes ? 
 When he is tired of this, perhaps, he may set about to 
 unharness horses which were never meant to be unhar- 
 nessed ; or to currycomb their woollen manes and tails, 
 which usually come off" during the first attempt. 
 
 That such toys are frail and useless, may, however, 
 be considered as evils comparatively small : as long as 
 the child has sense and courage to destroy the toys, 
 there is no great harm done ; but, in general, he is 
 taught to set a value upon them totally independent of 
 all ideas of utility, or of any regard to his own real feel- 
 ings. Either he is conjured to take particular care of 
 them, because they cost a great deal of money, or else 
 he is taught to admire them as miniatures of some of 
 the fine things on which fine people pride themselves ; 
 if no other bad consequence were to ensue, this single 
 circumstance of his being guided in his choice by the 
 opinion of others is dangerous. Instead of attending 
 to his own sensations, and learning from his own ex- 
 perience, he acquires the habit of estimating his pleas- 
 ures by the taste and judgment of those who happen 
 to be near him. 
 
 " I liked the cart best," says the boy, " but mamma 
 and everybody said that the coach was the prettiest ; 
 so I chose the coach." — Shall we wonder if the same 
 principle afterward governs him in the choice of " the 
 toys of age ?" 
 
 A little girl, presiding at her baby tea-table, is pleased 
 with the notion that she is like her mamma ; and, before 
 she can have any idea of the real pleasures of conver- 
 sation and societ)^ she is confirmed in the persuasion, 
 that tattling and visiting are some of the most enviable 
 privileges of grown people ; a set of beings whom she 
 
TOYS. 15 
 
 believes to be in possession of all the sweets of hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Dolls, beside the prescriptive right of ancient usage, 
 can boast of such an able champion in Rousseau, that it 
 requires no conmion share of temerity to attack them. 
 As far as they are the means of inspiring girls with a 
 taste for neatness in dress, and with a desire to make 
 those things for themselves for which women are 
 usually dependant upon milliners, we must acknowl- 
 edge their utility ; but a watchful eye should be kept 
 upon the child, to mark the first symptoms of a love of 
 finery and fashion. It is a sensible remark of a late 
 female writer, that while young people work, the mind 
 will follow the hands ; the thoughts are occupied with 
 trifles, and the industry is stimulated by vanity. 
 
 Our objections to dolls are offered with great submis- 
 sion and due hesitation. With more confidence we may 
 venture to attack baby-houses ; an unfurnished baby- 
 house might be a good toy, as it would employ little 
 carpenters and seamstresses to fit it up ; but a com- 
 pletely furnished baby-house proves as tiresome to a 
 child, as a finished seat is to a young nobleman. After 
 peeping, for in general only a peep can be had into each 
 apartment, after being thoroughly satisfied that nothing 
 is wanting, and that consequently there is nothing to be 
 done, the young lady lays her doll upon the state bed, 
 if the doll be not twice as large as the bed, and falls fast 
 asleep in the midst of her felicity. 
 
 Before dolls, baby-houses, coaches, and cups and sau- 
 cers, there comes a set of toys, which are made to imi- 
 tate the actions of men and women, and the ne^tes or 
 noises of birds and beasts. Many of these are ingenious 
 in their construction, and happy in their effect ; but that 
 effect, unfortunately, is transitory. When the wooden 
 w' Oman has churned her hour in her empty churn ; when 
 the stiff-backed man has hammered or sawed till his 
 arms are broken, or till his employers are tired ; v/hen 
 the gilt lamb has baaed, the obstinate pig squeaked, and 
 the provoking cuckoo cried cuck-oo, till no one in the 
 house can endure the noise ; what remains to be done? 
 —Wo betide the unlucky little philosopher, who should 
 think of inquiring why the woman churned, or how the 
 bird cried cuck-oo ; for it is ten to one that in prosecu- 
 ting such an inquirvs just when he is upon the eve of dis- 
 covery, he snaps the wire, or perforates the bellows, 
 
16 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 and there ensue " a deathlike silence and a dread re- 
 pose." 
 
 The grief which is felt for spoiling a new plaything 
 might be borne, if it were not increased, as it commonly 
 is, by the reproaches of friends ; much kind eloquence, 
 upon these occasions, is frequently displayed, to bring 
 the sufferer to a proper sense of his folly, till, indue time, 
 the contrite corners of his mouth are drawn down, his 
 wide eyes fill with tears, and, without knowing what he 
 means, he promises never to be so silly any more. The 
 future safety of his worthless playthings is thus pur- 
 chased at the expense of his understanding, perhaps of 
 his integrity ; for children seldom scrupulously adhere 
 to promises which they have made to escape from im- 
 pending punishment. 
 
 We have ventured to object to some fashionable toys ; 
 we are bound at least to propose others in their place ; 
 and we shall take the matter up soberly from the nursery. 
 
 The first toys for infants should be merely such things 
 as may be grasped without danger, and which might, by 
 the difference of their sizes, invite comparison : round 
 ivory or wooden sticks should be put into their little 
 hands ; by degrees they will learn to lift them to their 
 mouths, and they will distinguish their sizes : square 
 and circular bits of wood, balls, cubes, and triangles, 
 with holes of different sizes made in them, to admit the 
 sticks, should be their playthings. No greater appara- 
 tus is necessary for the amusement of the first months 
 of an infant's life. To ease the pain which they feel 
 from cutting teeth, infants generally carry to their 
 mouths whatever they can lay their hands upon ; but 
 they' soon learn to distinguish those bodies which re- 
 lieve their pain from those which gratify their palate ; 
 and, if Hiey are left to themselves, they will always 
 choose what is painted in preference to every thing 
 else ; nor must we attribute the look of delight with 
 which they seize toys that are painted red, merely to 
 the pleasure which their eye takes in the bright colour, 
 but to the love of the sweet taste which they suck from 
 the paint. What injury may be done to the health by 
 the quantity of lead which is thus swallowed, we will 
 not pretend to determine ; but we refer to a medical 
 name of high authority,* whose cautions probably will 
 
 * Pr. Fotherffill. 
 
TOYS. 17 
 
 not be treated with neglect. To gratify the eye with 
 g-littering objects, if this be necessary, may be done 
 with more safety by toys of tin and polished iron : a 
 common steel button is a more desirable plaything to a 
 young child than many expensive toys ; a few such but- 
 tons tied together, so as to prevent any danger of their 
 being swallowed, would continue for some time a source 
 of amusement. 
 
 When a nurse wants to please or to pacify a child, she 
 stuns its ear with a variety of noises, or dazzles its eye 
 with glaring colours or stimulating light. The eye and 
 the ear are thus fatigued without advantage, and the 
 temper is hushed to a transient calm by expedients, 
 which in time must lose their effect, and which can 
 have no power over confirmed fretfulness. The pleas- 
 ure of exercising their senses is in itself sufficient to 
 children, without any factitious stimulus, which only ex- 
 hausts their excitabiUty, and renders them incapable of 
 being amused by a variety of common objects, which 
 would naturally be their entertainment. We do not 
 here speak of the attempts made to sooth a child who 
 is ill : " to charm the sense of pain," so far as it can be 
 done by diverting the child's attention from his own 
 sufferings to outward objects, is humane and reasonable, 
 provided our compassion does not induce in the child's 
 mind the expectation of continual attendance, and that 
 impatience of temper which increases bodily suffering. 
 It would be in vain to read lectures on philosophy to a 
 nurse, or to expect stoicism from an infant ; but, per- 
 haps, where mothers pay attention themselves to their 
 children, they will be able to prevent many of the con- 
 sequences of vulgar prejudice and folly. A nurse's wish 
 is to have as little trouble as possible with the child 
 committed to her charge, and at the same time to flatter 
 the mother, from whom she expects her reward. The 
 appearance of extravagant fondness for the child, of 
 incessant attention to its humour, and absurd submission 
 to its caprices, she imagines to be the surest method of 
 recommending herself to favour. She is not to be im- 
 posed upon by the faint and affected rebukes of the fond 
 mother, who exclaims, " Oh, nurse, indeed you do spoil 
 that child sadly! — Oh, nurse, upon my word, she gov- 
 erns you entirely ! — Nurse, you must not let her have 
 her own way always. — Never mind her crying, I beg, 
 nurse." — Nurse smiles, sees that she has gained her 
 
18 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 point, and promises what she knows it is not expected 
 she should perform. Now if, on the contrary, she per- 
 ceived that the mother was neither to be flattered nor 
 pleased by these means, one motive for spoiling the 
 child would immediately cease : another strong one 
 would, it is true, still remain. A nurse wishes to save 
 herself trouMe, and she frequently consults her own con- 
 venience when she humours an infant. She hushes it 
 to sleep, that she may leave it safely ; she stops it from 
 crying, that she may not hear an irritating noise, that 
 she may relieve herself as soon as possible from the 
 painful weakness of compassion, or that she may avoid 
 the danger of being interrogated by the family as to the 
 cause of the disturbance. It is less trouble to her to 
 yield to caprice and ill-humour than to prevent or cure 
 it, or at least she thinks it is so. In reality it is not ; 
 for a humoured child in time plagues its attendant infi- 
 nitely more than it would have done with reasonable 
 management. If it were possible to convince nurses of 
 this, they would sacrifice perhaps the convenience of a 
 moment to the peace of future hours ; and they would 
 not be eager to quell one storm at the hazard of being 
 obliged to endure twenty more boisterous ; the candle 
 would then no more be thrust almost into the infant's 
 eyes to make it take notice of the light through the 
 mist of tears, the eternal bunch of keys would not dance 
 and jingle at every peevish summons, nor would the 
 roarings of passion be overpowered by insulting songs, 
 or soothed by artful caresses ; the child would then be 
 caressed and amused when he looks smiling and good- 
 humoured, and all parties would be much happier. 
 
 Practical education begins very early, even in the 
 nursery. Without the mountebank pretence, that mira- 
 cles can be performed by the turning of a straw, or the 
 dictatorial anathematizing tone, which calls dowji ven- 
 geance upon those who do not follow to an iota the in* 
 junctions of a theorist, we may simply observe, that 
 parents would save themselves a great deal of trouble, 
 and their children some pain, if they would pay some 
 attention to their early education. The temper acquires 
 habits much earlier than is usually apprehended ; the 
 first impressions which infants receive, and the first 
 ■habits which they learn from their nurses, influence 
 the tamper and disposition long after the slight causes 
 which produced them are forgotten. More care and 
 
tOYS. 10 
 
 judgment than usually fall to the share of a nurse are 
 necessary, to cultivate the disposition which infants 
 show to exercise their senses, so as neither to suffer 
 them to become indolent and torpid from want of proper 
 objects to occupy their attention, nor yet to exhaust 
 their senses by continual excitation. By ill-timed re- 
 straints or injudicious incitements, the nurse frequentlj- 
 renders the child obstinate or passionate. An infant 
 should never be interrupted in its operations ; while it 
 wishes to use its hands, we should not be impatient to 
 make it walk ; or when it is pacing, with all the atten- 
 tion to its centre of gravity that is exerted by a rope- 
 dancer, suddenly arrest its progress, and insist upon its 
 pronouncing the scanty vocabulary which we have com- 
 pelled it to learn. When children are busily trying ex- 
 periments upon objects within their reach, we should 
 not, by way of saving them trouble, break the course 
 of their ideas, and totally prevent them from acquiring 
 knowledge by their own experience. When a foolish 
 nurse sees a child attempting to reach or lift any thing, 
 she runs immediately — " Oh, dear love, it can't do it, it 
 can't !— ril do it for it, so I will !" If the child be try- 
 ing the difference between pushing and pulling, rolling 
 or slidmg, the powers of the wedge or the lever, the offi- 
 cious nurse hastens instantly to display her own knowl- 
 edge of the mechanic powers : " Stay, love, stay ; that 
 is not the way to do it — I'll show it the right way — see 
 here — look at me, love." Without interrupting the 
 child in the moment of action, proper care might be 
 previously taken to remove out of its way those things 
 which can really hurt it ; and a just degree of attention 
 must be paid to its first experiments upon hard and 
 heavy, and more especially upon sharp, brittle, and 
 burning bodies ; but this degree of care should not de- 
 generate into cowardice ; it is better that a child should 
 tumble down or burn its fingers, than that it should not 
 learn the use of its limbs and its senses. We should 
 for another reason take care to put all dangerous things 
 effectually out of the child's reach, instead of saying 
 perpetually, " Take care, don't touch that ! — don't do 
 that ! — let that alone !" The child, who scarcely under- 
 stands the words, and not at all the reason of these 
 prohibitions, is frightened by the tone and countenance 
 with which they are uttered and accompanied, and he 
 either becomes indolent or cunning ; either he desists 
 
20 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 from exertion, or seizes the moment to divert himself 
 with forbidden objects, when the watchful eye that 
 guards them is withdrawn. It is in vain to encompass 
 the restless prisoner with a fortification of chairs, and 
 to throw him an old almanac to tear to pieces, or an old 
 pincushion to explore ; the enterprising adventurer soon 
 makes his escape from his barricado, leaves his goods 
 behind him, and presently is again in what the nurse 
 calls mischief 
 
 Mischief is with nurses frequently only another name 
 for any species of activity which they find troublesome ; 
 the love which children are supposed to have for putting 
 things out of their places, is in reality the desire of see- 
 ing things in motion, or of putting things into different 
 situations. They will like to put the furniture in a room 
 in its proper place, and to arrange every thing in what 
 we call order, if we can make these equally permanent 
 sources of active amusement ; but when things are once 
 in their places, the child has nothing more to do ; and 
 the more quickly each chair arrives at its destined 
 situation, the sooner comes the dreaded state of idle- 
 ness and quiet. 
 
 A nursery, or a room in which young children are to 
 live, should never have any furniture in it which they 
 can spoil ; as few things as possible should be left within 
 their reach which they are not to touch, and at the same 
 time they should be provided with the means of amusing 
 themselves, not with painted or gilt toys, but with pieces 
 of wood of various shapes and sizes, which they may 
 build up and pull down, and put in a variety of different 
 forms and positions ; balls, pulleys, wheels, strings, and 
 strong little carts, proportioned to their age, and to the 
 things which they want to carry in them, should be their 
 playthings. 
 
 Prints will be entertaining to children at a very early 
 age ; it would be endless to enumerate the uses that 
 may be made of them ; they teach accuracy of sight, 
 thej'' engage the attention, and employ the imagination. 
 
 In 1777 we saw L , a child of two years old, point 
 
 out every piece of furniture in the French prints of Gil 
 Bias: in tlie print of the Canon at Dinner, he distin- 
 guished the knives, forks, spoons, bottles, and every 
 thing upon the table : the dog lying upon the mat, and 
 the bunch of keys hanging at Jacintha's girdle ; he told, 
 with much readiness, the occupation of every figure in 
 
TOYS. 21 
 
 the print, and could supply, from his imagination, what 
 is supposed to be hidden by the foremost parts of all the 
 objects. A child of four years old was asked what was 
 meant by something that was very indistinctly repre- 
 sented as hanging round the arm of a figure in one of 
 the prints of the London Cries. He said it was a glove ; 
 though it had as little resemblance to a glove as to a 
 riband or a purse. When he was asked how he knew 
 that it was a glove, he answered, " that it ought to be 
 a glove, because the woman had one upon her other 
 arm, and none upon that where the thing was hanging." 
 Having seen the gown of a female figure in a print 
 hanging obliquely, the same child said, " The wind 
 blows that woman's gown back." We mention these 
 little circumstances from real life, to show how early 
 prints may be an amusement to children, and how 
 quickly things unknown are learnt by the relations 
 which they bear to what was known before. We should 
 at the same time observe, that children are very apt to 
 make strange mistakes and hasty conclusions, when 
 they begin to reason from analogy. A child having 
 asked what was meant by some marks in the forehead 
 of an old man in a print, and having been told, upon 
 some occasion, that old people were wiser than young 
 ones, brought a print containing several figures to his 
 mother, and told her that one, which he pointed to, was 
 wiser than all the rest ; upon inquiry, it was found that 
 he had formed this notion from seeing that one figure 
 was wrinkled, and that the others were not. 
 
 Prints for children should be chosen with great care ; 
 they should represent objects which are familiar ; the 
 resemblances should be accurate, and the manners 
 should be attended to ; or, at least, the general moral 
 that is to be drawn from them. The attitude of Se- 
 phora, the boxing lady in Gil Bias, must appear unnatural 
 to children who have not lived with termagant heroines. 
 Perhaps the first ideas of grace, beauty, and propriety, 
 are considerably influenced by the first pictures and 
 prints which please children. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells 
 us, that he took a child with him through a room full of 
 pictures, and that the child stopped, with signs of aver- 
 sion, whenever it came to any picture of a figure in a 
 constrained attitude. 
 
 Children soon judge tolerably well of proportion in 
 drawing, where they have been used to see the objects 
 
22 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 which are represented : but we often give them prints 
 of objects, and of animals especially, which they have 
 never seen, and in which no sort of proportion is ob- 
 served. The common prints of animals must give children 
 false ideas. The mouse and the elephant are nearly of 
 the same size, and the crocodile and whale fill the same 
 space in the page. Painters, who put figures of men 
 among their buildings, give the idea of the proportionate 
 height immediately to the eye : this is, perhaps, the 
 best scale we can adopt; in every print for children 
 this should be attended to. Some idea of the relative 
 sizes of the animals they see represented would then 
 be given, and the imagination would not be filled with 
 chimeras. 
 
 After having been accustomed to examine prints, and 
 to trace their resemblance to real objects, children will 
 probably wish to try their own power of imitation. At 
 this moment no toy which we could invent for them, 
 would give them half so much pleasure as a pencil. If 
 we put a pencil into their hands, even before they are 
 able to do any thing with it but make random marks all 
 over a sheet of paper, it will long continue a real amuse- 
 ment and occupation. No matter how rude their first 
 attempts at imitation may be ; if the attention of chil- 
 dren be occupied, our point is gained. Girls have gen- 
 erally one advantage at this age over boys, in the ex- 
 clusive possession of the scissors : how many camels, 
 and elephants with amazing trunks, are cut out by the 
 industrious scissors of a busy, and therefore happy little 
 girl, during a winter evening, which passes so heavily, 
 and appears so immeasurably long, to the idle. 
 
 Modelling in clay or wax might probably be a useful 
 amusement about this age, if the materials were so pre- 
 pared that the children could avoid being every mo- 
 ment troublesome to others while they are at work. 
 The making of baskets, and the weaving of sash-line, 
 might perhaps be employment for children ; with proper 
 preparations, they might atleast be occupied with these 
 things ; much, perhaps, might not be produced by their 
 labours, but it is a great deal to give early habits of in- 
 dustry. Let us do what we will, every person who has 
 ever had any experience upon the subject, must know 
 that is scarcely possible to provide sufficient and suit- 
 able occupations for young children ; this is one of the 
 first difficulties in education. Those who have never 
 
TOYS. 23 
 
 tried the experiment, are astonished to find it such a 
 difficult and laborious business as it really is, to find em- 
 ployments 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 60 V should be spoken in sorrow 
 rather than in anger. When they see other people em- 
 ployed and happy, children feel mortified and miserable 
 to have nothing to do. Count Rumford's was an excel- 
 lent scheme for exciting sympathetic industry among 
 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 ex- 
 tremely uneasy in their own situation, and became very 
 anxious to be employed. We need not use any com- 
 pulsion or any artifice ; parents in every family, we sup- 
 pose, 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 play- 
 things, 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 employ- 
 ments 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 play- 
 things, we had better give tliem 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 
 away before they are weary of them. Nor should we 
 discourage the inquisitive genius from examniing into 
 
24 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 the structure of their toys, whatever they may be. The 
 same ingenious arid active dispositions which prompt 
 these inquiries, will secure children from all those nu- 
 merous temptations to do mischief, to which the idle 
 are exposed. Ingenious children are pleased with con- 
 trivances which answer the pur}x>ses for which they are 
 intended ; and they feel sincere regret whenever these 
 are injured or destroyed : this we mention as a further 
 comfort and security for parents, who, in the company 
 of young mechanics, are apt to tremble for their furni- 
 ture. Children who observe, and who begin to amuse 
 themselves with thought, are not so actively hostile in 
 their attacks upon inanimate objects. We were once 
 present at the dissection of a wooden cuckoo, which 
 was attended with extreme pleasure by a large famil}'- 
 of children ; and it was not one of the children who 
 broke the precious toy, but it was the father who took 
 it to pieces. Nor was it the destruction of the play- 
 thing which entertained the company, but the sight of 
 the manner in which it was constructed. Many guesses 
 were made by all the spectators about the internal struc- 
 ture of the cuckoo, and the astonishment of the company 
 was universal, when the bellows were cut open and the 
 simple contrivance was revealed to view; probably, more 
 was learned from this cuckoo, than was ever learned from 
 any cuckoo before. So far from being indifferent to the 
 
 destruction of this plaything, H , the little girl of four 
 
 years old to whom it belonged, remembered, several 
 months afterward, to remind her father of his promise 
 to repair the mischief he had done. 
 
 " Several toys which are made at present, are calcu* 
 lated to give pleasure merely by exciting surprise; and 
 of course give children's minds such a tone, that they 
 are afterward too fond of similar useless baubles.""* This 
 species of delight is soon over, and is succeeded by a 
 desire to triumph in the ignorance, the creduhty, or the 
 cowardice, of their companions. Hence that propensity 
 to play tricks, which is often injudiciously encouraged 
 by the smiles of parents, who are apt to mistake it for 
 a proof of wit and vivacity. They forget, that " gentle 
 dulness ever lov'd a joke ;" and that even wit and viva- 
 city, if they become troublesome and mischievous, will 
 be feared and shunned. Many juggling tricks and puz- 
 
 * Dr. Beddoes. 
 
TOYS. 25 
 
 zles are highly ingenious ; and, as far as they can exer- 
 cise the invention or the patience of young people, they 
 are useful. Care, however, should be taken to separate 
 the ideas of deceit and of ingenuity, and to prevent chil- 
 dren from glorying in the mere possession of a secret. 
 
 Toys which afford trials of dexterity and activity, 
 such as tops, kites, hoops, balls, battledoors and shut- 
 tlecocks, ninepins, and cup-and-ball, are excellent ; and 
 we see that they are consequently great and lasting fa- 
 vourites with children; their senses, their understand- 
 ing, and their passions, are all agreeably interested and 
 exercised by these amusements. They emulate each 
 other ; but, as some will probably excel at one game, 
 and some at another, this emulation will not degenerate 
 into envy. There is more danger that this hateful pas- 
 sion should be created in the minds of young competi- 
 tors at those games, where it is supposed that some 
 knack or mystery is to be learned before they can be 
 played with success. Whenever children play at such 
 games, we should point out to them how and why it is 
 that they succeed or fail ; we may show them, that in 
 reality, there is no knack ov mystery in anything, but that 
 from certain causes certain effects will follow ; that, 
 after trying a number of experiments, the circumstances 
 essential to success may be discovered ; and that all the 
 ease and dexterity which we often attribute to the 
 power of natural genius, is simply the consequence of 
 practice and industry. This sober lesson may be taught 
 to children without putting it into grave words or formal 
 precepts. A gentleman once astonished a family of 
 children by his dexterity in playing at bilboquet; he 
 caught the ball nine or ten times successively with great 
 rapidity upon the spike : this success appeared miracu- 
 lous ; and the father, who observed that it had made a 
 great impression upon the little spectators, took that 
 opportunity to show the use of spinning the ball, to 
 make the hole at the bottom ascend in a proper direc- 
 tion. The nature of centrifugal motion, and its effect 
 in preserving the parallelism of motion, if we may be al- 
 lowed the expression, were explained, not at once, but at 
 different intervals, to the young audience. Only as 
 much was explained at a time as the children could un- 
 derstand, without fatiguing their attention ; and the ab- 
 struse subject was made famihar bythe mode of illustra- 
 tion that was adopted. 
 
26 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 It is surprising how much children may learn from 
 their playthings, when they are judiciously chosen, and 
 when the habit of reflection and observation is asso- 
 ciated with the ideas of amusement and happiness. A 
 little boy of nine years old, who had had a hoop to play 
 with, asked why a hoop, or a plate, if rolled upon its 
 edge, keeps up as long as it rolls, but falls as soon as it 
 stops, and will not stand if you try to make it stand still 
 upon its edge 1 Was not the boy's understanding as 
 well employed while he was thinking of this phenome- 
 non, which he observed while he was beating his hoop, 
 as it could possibly have been by the most learned pre- 
 ceptor] 
 
 When a pedantic schoolmaster sees a boy eagerly 
 watching a paper kite, he observes, " What a pity it is 
 that children cannot be made to mind their grammar as 
 well as their kites !" And he adds, perhaps, some pee- 
 vish ejaculation on the natural idleness of boys, and that 
 pernicious love of play against which he is doomed to 
 wage perpetual war. A man of sense will see the same 
 thing with a different eye ; in this pernicious love of 
 play he will discern the symptoms of a love of science, 
 and, instead of deploring the natural idleness of children, 
 he will admire the activity which they display in the 
 pursuit of knowledge. He will feel that it is his busi- 
 ness to direct this activity, to furnish his pupil with ma- 
 terials for fresh combinations, to put him or to let him 
 put himself, in situations where he can make useful ob- 
 servations, and acquire that experience which cannot be 
 bought, and which no masters can communicate. 
 
 It will not be beneath the dignity of a philosophic tutor 
 to consider the difl'erent effects which the most common 
 plays of children have upon the habits of the understand- 
 ing and temper. Whoever has watched children put- 
 ting together a dissected map, must have been amused 
 with the trial between Wit and Judgment. The child, 
 who quickly perceives resemblances, catches instantly 
 at the first bit of the wooden map that has a single hook 
 or hollow that seems likely to answer his purpose; he 
 makes, perhaps, twenty different trials before he hits 
 upon the right ; while the wary youth, who has been 
 accustomed to observe differences, cautiously examines 
 with his eye the whole outline before his hand begins 
 to move ; and, having exactly compared the two inden- 
 tures, he joins them with sober confidence, more proud 
 
TOYS. 27 
 
 of never disgracing his judgment by a fruitless attempt, 
 than ambitious of rapid success. He is slow, but sure, 
 and wins the day. 
 
 There are some plays which require presence of mind, 
 and which demand immediate attention to what is actu- 
 ally going forward, in which children, capable of the 
 greatest degree of abstract attention, are most apt to be 
 defective. They have many ideas, but none of them 
 ready ; and their knowledge is useless, because it is rec- 
 ollected a moment too late. Could we, in suitably dig- 
 nified language, describe the game of " birds, beasts, and 
 fishes," we should venture to prescribe it as no very 
 painful remedy for these absent and abstracted person-' 
 ages. When the handkerchief or the ball is thrown, 
 and when his bird's name is called for, the absent little 
 philosopher is obliged to collect his scattered thoughts 
 instantaneously, or else he exposes himself to the ridi- 
 cule of naming, perhaps, a fish or a beast, or any bird 
 but the right. To those children, who, on the contrary, 
 are not sufficiently apt to abstract their attention, and 
 who are what Bacon calls "bird wilted," we should rec- 
 ommend a solitary-board. At the solitary-board, they 
 must withdraw their thoughts from all external objects, 
 hear nothing that is said, and fix their attention solely 
 upon the figure and the pegs before them, else they will 
 never succeed ; and, if they make one error in their cal- 
 culations, they lose all their labour. Those who are 
 precipitate, and not sufficiently attentive to the conse- 
 quences of their own actions, may receive many salu- 
 tary lessons at the draught or chess-board — happy, if 
 they can learn prudence and foresight by frequently 
 losing the battle. 
 
 We are not quite so absurd as to imagine, that any 
 great or permanent effects can be produced by such 
 slight causes as a game at draughts, or at a solitary- 
 board ; but the combination of a number of apparent tri- 
 fles is not to be neglected in education. 
 
 We have never yet mentioned what will probably first 
 occur to those who would invent employments for chil- 
 dren. We have never yet mentioned a garden; we 
 have never mentioned those great delights to children, 
 a spade, a hoe, a rake, and a wheelbarrow. We hold 
 all these in proper respect ; but we did not sooner men- 
 tion them, because, if introduced too early, they are 
 useless. We must not expect that a boy six or seven 
 B2 
 
28 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 years old, can find, for any length of time, sufiicient 
 daily occupation in a garden : he has not strength for 
 hard labour ; he can dig soft earth ; he can weed ground- 
 sel, and other weeds, which take no deep root in the 
 earth ; but after he has weeded his little garden, and 
 sowed his seeds, there must be a suspension of his la- 
 bours. Frequently children, for want of something to 
 do, when they have sowed flower-seeds in their crooked 
 beds, dig up the hopes of the year to make a new walk, 
 or to sink a well in their garden. We mention these 
 things, that parents may not be disappointed, or expect 
 more from the occupation of a garden than it can, at a 
 very early age, aff'ord. A garden is an excellent re- 
 source for children, but they should have a variety of 
 other occupations : rainy days will come, and frost and 
 snow, and then children must be occupied within doors. 
 We immediately think of a little set of carpenter's tools, 
 to supply them with active amusement. Boys will prob- 
 ably be more inclined to attempt making models than 
 drawings, of the furniture which appears to be the most 
 easy to imitate ; they will imagine that, if they had but 
 tools, they could make boxes, and desks, and beds, and 
 chests of drawers, and tables and chairs innumerable. 
 But, alas ! these fond imaginations are too soon dissi- 
 pated. Suppose a boy of seven years old to be provided 
 with a small set of carpenters' tools ; his father thinks, 
 perhaps, that he has made him completely happy; but 
 a week afterward the father finds dreadful marks of the 
 file and saw upon his mahogany tables : the use of these 
 tools is immediately interdicted until a bench shall be 
 procured. Week after week passes away, till at length 
 the frequently reiterated speech of " Papa, you bid me 
 put you in mind about my bench," has its effect, and the 
 bench appears. Now the young carpenter thinks he is 
 quite set up in the world, and projects carts and boxes, 
 and reading-desks and writing-desks for himself and for 
 his sisters, if he have any ; but when he comes to the 
 execution of his plans, what new difficulties, what new 
 M^ants arise— the wood is too thick or too thin ; it splits, 
 or it cannot be cut with a knife ; wire, nails, glue, and 
 above all, the means of heating the glue, are wanting. At 
 last some frail machine, stuck together with pegs or pins, 
 is produced, and the workman is usually either too. much 
 ridiculed or too much admired. The step from pegging 
 to mortising is a very difficult step, and the want of a 
 
TOYS. 29 
 
 morlising-chisel is insuperable : one tool is called upon 
 to do the duty of another, and the pricker comes to an 
 untimely end in doing the hard duty of the punch ; the 
 saw wants setting; the plane will plane no longer; and 
 the mallet must be used instead of the hammer, because 
 the hammer makes so much noise, that the ladies of the 
 family have voted for its being locked up. To all these 
 various evils the child submits in despair ; and finding, 
 after many fruitless exertions, that he cannot make any 
 of the fine things he had projected, he throws aside his 
 tools, and is deterred by these disappointments from 
 future industry and ingenuity. Such are the conse- 
 quences of putting excellent tools into the hands of chil- 
 dren before they can possibly use them : but the tools 
 which are useless at seven years- old, will be a most 
 valuable present at eleven or twelve, and for this age it 
 will be prudent to reserve them. A rational toyshop 
 should be provided with all manner of carpenters' tools, 
 with wood properly prepared for the young workman, 
 and with screws, nails, glue, emery-paper, and a variety 
 of articles which it would be tedious to enumerate ; but 
 which, if parents could readily meet with in a convenient 
 assemblage, they would willingly purchase for their chil- 
 dren. The trouble of hunting through a number of dif- 
 ferent shops, prevents them at present from purchasing 
 such things ; besides, they may not perhaps be sufii- 
 ciently good carpenters to know distinctly every thing 
 that is necessary for a young workman. 
 
 Card, pasteboard, substantial but not sharp-pointed 
 scissors, wire, gum and wax, may, in some degree, sup- 
 ply the want of carpenters' tools at that early age when 
 we have observed that the saw and plane are useless. 
 Models of common furniture should be made as toys, 
 which should take to pieces, so that all their parts, and 
 the manner in which they are put together, might be 
 seen distinctly ; the name of the different parts should 
 be written* or stamped upon them : by these means the 
 names will be associated with realities ; children will 
 retain them in their memory, and they will neither learn 
 by rote technical terms, nor will they be retarded in 
 their progress in mechanical invention by the want of 
 language. Before young people can use tools, these 
 models will amuse and exercise their attention. From 
 
 * We are indebted to Dr. Beddoes for this idea. 
 
30 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 models of furniture we may go on to models of arcliitec- 
 ture ; pillars of different orders, the roofs of houses, the 
 manner of slating and tiling, &c. Then we may proceed 
 to models of machines, choosing at first such as can be 
 immediately useful to children in their own amusements, 
 such as wheelbarrows, carts, cranes, scales, steelyards, 
 jacks, and pumps, which children ever view with eager 
 eyes. 
 
 From simple, it will be easy to proceed gradually to 
 models of more complicated machinery : it would be 
 tiresome to give a list of these ; models of instruments 
 used by manufacturers and artists should be seen ; many 
 of these are extremely ingenious ; spinning-wheels, 
 looms, papermills, windmills, watermills, might with 
 great advantage be shown in miniature to children. 
 
 The distracting noise and bustle, the multitude of ob- 
 jects which all claim the attention at once, prevent 
 young people from understanding much of what they 
 see, when they are first taken to look at large manufac- 
 tories. If they had previously acquired some general 
 idea of the whole, and someparticular knowledge of the 
 different parts, they would not stare when they get into 
 these places ; they would not " stare round, see nothing, 
 and come home content," bewildered by the sight of 
 cogs and wheels ; and the explanations of the workmen 
 would not be all jargon to them ; they would understand 
 some of the technical terms, which so much alarm the 
 intellects of those who hear them for the first time. 
 
 We may exercise the ingenuity and judgment of chil- 
 dren by these models of machines, by showing them 
 first the thing to be done, and exciting them to invent 
 the best means of doing it ; afterward, give the models 
 as the reward for their ingenuity, and let them compare 
 their own inventions with the contrivances actually in 
 use among artificers ; by these means, young people 
 may be led to compare a variety of different contri- 
 vances ; they will discern what parts of a machine are 
 superfluous, and what inadequate, and they will class 
 particular observations gradually under general princi- 
 ples. It may be thought, that this will tend to give chil- 
 dren only mechanical invention ; or we should call it, 
 perhaps, the invention of machines : and those who do 
 not require this particular talent, will despise it as un- 
 necessary in what are called the liberal professions. 
 Without attempting to compare the value of different 
 
TOYS. 31 
 
 intellectual talents, we may observe, that they are all 
 in some measure dependant upon each other. Upon 
 this subject we shall enlarge more fully, when we come 
 to consider the method of cultivating the memory and 
 invention. 
 
 Chymical toys will be more difficult to manage than 
 mechanical, because the materials requisite to try many 
 chymical experiments are such as cannot safely be put 
 into the hands of children. But a list of experiments, 
 and of the things necessary to try them, might easily 
 be drawn out by a chymist who would condescend to 
 such a task ; and if these materials, with proper direc- 
 tions, were to be found at a rational toyshop, parents 
 would not be afraid of burning or poisoning their chil- 
 dren in the first chymical lessons. In some famiUes, 
 girls are taught the confectionary art ; might not this be 
 advantageously connected with some knowledge of 
 chymistry, and might not they be better taught than by 
 Mrs. Rafteld or Mrs. Glass 1* Every culinary operation 
 may be performed as an art, probably, as well by a cook 
 as by a chymist ; but, if the chymist did not assist the 
 cook now and then with a little science, epicures would 
 have great reason for lamentation. We do not, by any 
 means, advise that girls should be instructed in confec- 
 tionary arts, at the hazard of their keeping company 
 with servants. If they learn any thing of this sort, there 
 will be many precautions necessary to separate them 
 from servants : we do not advise that these hazards 
 should be run ; but if girls learn confectionary, let them 
 learn the principles of chymistry, which may assist in 
 this art.f 
 
 Children are very fond of attempting experiments in 
 dying, and are very curious about vegetable dies ; but 
 they can seldom proceed for want of the means of boil- 
 ing, evaporating, distilhng, and subliming. Small stills, 
 and small tea-kettles and lamps, would be extremely 
 useful to them : these might be used in the room with 
 the children's parents, which would prevent all danger : 
 they should continue to be the property of the parents, 
 and should be produced only when they are wanted. No 
 great apparatus is necessary for showing children the first 
 
 * We do not mean to do injustice to Mrs. RafFeld's professional 
 skill. 
 
 t V. Diderot's ingenious preface to " Chymie de gout et da 
 Todorat." 
 
82 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 simple operations in chymistry; such as evaporation, 
 crystallization, calcination, detonation, effervescence, 
 and saturation. Water and fire, salt and sugar, lime and 
 vinegar, are not very difficult to be procured ; and a wine- 
 glass is to be found in every house. The difference be- 
 tween an acid and alkali should be early taught to chil- 
 dren ; many grown people begin to learn chymistry, 
 without distinctly knowing what is meant by those 
 terms. 
 
 In the selection of chymical experiments for young 
 people, it will be best to avoid such as have the appear- 
 ance of jugglers' tricks, as it is not our purpose to excite 
 the amazement of children for the moment, but to give 
 them a permanent taste for science. In a well-known 
 book, called " Hooper's Rational Recreations,'''' there are 
 many ingenious experiments ; but through the \vholc 
 work there is such a want of an enlarged mind, and such 
 a love of magic and deception appears, as must render 
 it not only useless, but unsafe, for young people, in its 
 present state. Perhaps a selection might be made from 
 it in which these defects might be avoided : such titles 
 as " The real apparition ; the confederate counters ; the 
 Jive beatitudes; and the book of fate, '^ may be changed 
 for others more rational. Receipts for " Changing ivinter 
 into spring, ^^ for making " Self-raising pj/ramids, enchanted 
 mirrors, and intelligent jlies,'" might be omitted, or ex- 
 plained to advantage. Recreation the 5th, " To tell by 
 the dial of a watch at what hour any person intends to 
 rise ;" Recreation the 12th, " To produce the appear- 
 ance of a phantom on a pedestal placed on the middle 
 of a table ;" and Recreation the 30th, " To write several 
 letters which contain no meaning, upon cards ; to make 
 them, after they have been twice shuffled, give an answer 
 to a question that shall be proposed ;" as, for example, 
 *' What is love V scarcely come under the denomination 
 of Rational Recreations, nor will they much conduce to 
 the end proposed in the introduction to Hooper's work ; 
 that is to say, in his own words, " To enlarge and for- 
 tify the mind of man, that he may advance with tranquil 
 steps through the flowery paths of investigation, till ar- 
 riving at some noble eminence, he beholds, with awful 
 astonishment, the boundless regions of science, and be- 
 comes animated to attain a still more lofty station, while 
 his heart is incessantly wrapped with joys of which the 
 grovelling herd have no conception." 
 
TOYS. 33 
 
 Even in those chymical experiments in this book, 
 which are really ingenious and entertaining, we should 
 avoid giving the old absurd titles, which can only con- 
 fuse the understanding and spoil the taste of children. 
 The tree of Diana, and " Philosophic wool," are of this 
 species. It is not necessary to make every thing mar- 
 vellous and magical to fix the attention of young peo- 
 ple : if they are properly educated, they will find more 
 amusement in discovering, or in searching for the cause 
 of the effects which they see, than in a blind admiration 
 of the juggler's tricks. 
 
 In the papers of the Manchester Society, in Franklin's 
 letters, in Priestley's and Percival's works, there may 
 be found a variety of simple experiments which require 
 no great apparatus, and which will at once amuse and 
 instruct. All the papers of the Manchester Society, 
 upon the repulsion and attraction of oil and water, are 
 particularly suited to children, because they state a va- 
 riety of simple facts ; the mind is led to reason upon 
 them, and induced to judge of the diff"erent conclusions 
 which are drawn from them by diff'erent people. The 
 name of Dr. Percival or Dx. Wall will have no weight 
 with children ; they will compare only the reasons and 
 experiments. Oil and water, a cork, a needle, a plate, 
 and a glass tumbler, are all the things necessary for these 
 experiments. Mr. Henry's experiments upon the influ- 
 ence that fixed air has on vegetation, and several of 
 Reaumur's experiments, mentioned in the memoirs of the 
 French Academy of Sciences, are calculated to please 
 young people much, and can be repeated without ex- 
 pense or difficulty. 
 
 To those who acquire habits of observation, every 
 thing that is to be seen or heard becomes a source of 
 amusement. Natural history interests children at an 
 early age ; but their curiosity and activity are often re-, 
 pressed and restrained by the ignorance or indolence 
 of their tutors. The most inquisitive genius grows tired 
 of repeating, " Pray look at this — What is it ? What 
 can the use of this bel" when the constant answer is, 
 " Oh ! it's nothing worth looking at, throw it away, it 
 will dirty the house." Those who have attended to the 
 ways of children and parents well know that there are 
 many little inconveniences attending their amusements, 
 which the sublime eye of the theorist in education over- 
 looks, which, nevertheless, are essenticfl to practical 
 B3 
 
34 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 success. *' It will dirty the house," puts a stop to many 
 of the operations of the young philosopher ; nor is it 
 reasonable that his experiments should interfere with 
 the necessary regularity of a well-ordered family. But 
 most well-ordered families allow their horses and their 
 dogs to have houses to themselves ; cannot one room be 
 allotted to the children of the family 1 If they are to 
 learn chymistry, mineralogy, botany, or mechanics ; if 
 they are to take sufficient bodily exercise without tor- 
 menting the whole family with noise, a room should be 
 provided for them. We mention exercise and noise in 
 particular, because we think they will, to many, appear 
 of the most importance. 
 
 To direct children in their choice of fossils, and to 
 give them some idea of the general arrangements of 
 mineralogy, toyshops should be provided with speci- 
 mens of ores, &c. properly labelled and arranged in 
 drawers, so that they may be kept in order. Children 
 should have empty shelves in their cabinets, to be filled 
 with their own collections ; they will then know how 
 to direct their researches, and how to dispose of their 
 treasures. If they have proper places to keep things 
 in, they will acquire a taste for order by the best means, 
 by feeling the use of it : to either sex, this taste will be 
 highly advantageous. Children who are active and in- 
 dustrious, and who have a taste for natural history, 
 often collect, with much enthusiasm, a variety of peb- 
 bles and common stones, which they value as great curi- 
 osities, till some surly mineralogist happens to see 
 them, and condemns them all with one supercilious 
 " pshaw !" or else a journey is to be taken, and there is 
 no way in making up the heterogeneous, cumbersome 
 collection, which must, of course, be abandoned. Nay, 
 if no journey is to be taken, a visiter, perhaps, comes 
 unexpectedly ; the little naturalist's apartment must be 
 vacated on a few minutes' notice, and the labour of years 
 falls a sacrifice, in an instant, to the housemaid's undis- 
 tinguishing broom. 
 
 It may seem trifling to insist so much upon such slight 
 things ; but, in fact, nothing can be done in education 
 without attention to minute circumstances. Many who 
 have genius to sketch large plans, have seldom patience 
 to attend to the detail which is necessary for their ac- 
 complishment. This is a useful, and, therefore, no hu- 
 miliating drudgery. 
 
TOYS. 36 
 
 With the little cabinets which we have mentioned, 
 should be sold cheap microscopes, which will unfold a 
 world of new delights to children ; and it is very prob- 
 able that children will not only be entertained with look- 
 ing at objects through a microscope, but they will con- 
 sider the nature of the magnifying glass. They should 
 not be rebuffed with the answer, " Oh, it's only a com- 
 mon magnifying glass," hut they should be encouraged 
 in their laudable curiosity ; they may easily be led to try 
 slight experiments in optics, which will, at least, give 
 the habits of observation and attention. In Dr. Priest- 
 ley's History of Vision, many experiments may be 
 found which are not above the comprehension of chil- 
 dren of ten or eleven years old ; we do not imagine that 
 any science can be taught by desultory experiments, but 
 we think that a taste for science may early be given by 
 making it entertaining, and by exciting young people to 
 exercise their reasoning and inventive faculties upon 
 every object which surrounds them. We may point out 
 that great discoveries have often been made by attention 
 to slight circumstances. The blowing of soap-bubbles, 
 as it was first performed as a scientific experiment by 
 the celebrated Dr. Hook, before the Royal Society, 
 makes a conspicuous figure in Dr. Priestley's chapter on 
 the reflection of light ; this may be read to children, and 
 they will be pleased when they observe that what at 
 first appeared only a trifling amusement, has occupied 
 the understanding, and excited the admiration, of some 
 great philosophers. 
 
 Every child observes the colours which are to be seen 
 in panes of glass windows ; in Priestley's History of 
 Vision, there are some experiments of Hook's and Lord 
 Brereton's upon these colours, which may be selected. 
 Bufl'on's observations upon blue and green shadows are 
 to be found in the same work, and they are very enter- 
 taining. In Dr. Franklin's letters there are numerous 
 experiments, which are particularly suited to young 
 people ; especially, as in every instance he speaks with 
 that candour and openness to conviction, and with that 
 patient desire to discover truth, which we should wish 
 our pupils to admire and imitate. 
 
 The history of the experiments which have been tried 
 in the progress of any science, and of the manner in 
 which observations of minute facts have led to great 
 discoveries, will be useful to the understanding, and will 
 
36 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 gradually make the mind expert in that mental algebra^ 
 on which both reasoning and invention (which is, per- 
 haps, only a more rapid species of reasoning) depend. 
 In drawing out a list of experiments for children, it will, 
 therefore, be advantageous to place them in that order 
 which will best exhibit their relative connexion; and, 
 instead of showing young people the steps of a dis- 
 covery, we should frequently pause to try if they can in- 
 vent. In this, our pupils will succeed often beyond our 
 expectations ; and, whether it be in mechanics, chymis- 
 try, geometry, or in the arts, the same course of educa- 
 tion will be found to have the same advantages. When 
 the powers of reason have been cultivated, and the in- 
 ventive faculty exercised ; when general habits of vol- 
 untary exertion and patient perseverance have been ac- 
 quired, it will be easy, either for the pupil himself, or 
 for his friends, to direct his abilities to whatever is ne- 
 cessary for his happiness. We do not use the phrase, 
 success in the xoorld, because, if it conveys any distinct 
 ideas, it implies some which are, perhaps, inconsistent 
 with real happiness. 
 
 While our pupils occupy and amuse themselves with 
 observation, experiment, and invention, we must take 
 care that they have a sufficient variety of manual and 
 bodily exercises. A turning-lathe and a work-bench 
 will afford them constant active employment ; and when 
 young people can invent, they feel great pleasure in the 
 execution of their own plans. We do not speak from 
 vague theory ; we have seen the daily pleasures of the 
 work-bench, and the persevering eagerness with which 
 young people work in wood, and brass, and iron, when 
 tools are put into their hands at a proper age, and when 
 their understanding has been previously taught the simple 
 principles of mechanics. It is not to be expected that 
 any exhortations we could use could prevail upon a 
 father, who happens to have no taste for mechanics or 
 for chymistry, to spend any of his time in his children's 
 laboratory, or at their work-bench ; but in his choice of 
 a tutor, he may perhaps supply his own defects ; and 
 he will consider, that even by interesting himself in the 
 daily occupations of his children, he will do more in the 
 advancement of their education than can be done by 
 paying money to a hundred masters. 
 
 We do not mean to confine young people to the 
 laboratory or the work-bench for exercise ; the more 
 
TOYS. 37 
 
 varied exercise is, the better. Upon this subject we 
 shall speak more fully hereafter : we have in general 
 recommended all trials of address and dexterity, except 
 games of chance, which we think should be avoided, a& 
 they tend to give a taste for gambling ; a passion, which 
 has been the ruin of so many young men of promising 
 talents, of so many once happy families, that every 
 parent will think it well worth his while to attend to 
 the smallest circumstances in education, which can pre- 
 vent its seizing hold of the minds of his children. 
 
 In children, as in men, a taste for gaming arises from 
 the want of better occupation, or of proper emotion to 
 relieve them from the pains and penalties of idleness ; 
 both the vain and indolent are prone to this taste, from 
 different causes. The idea of personal merit is insensi- 
 bly connected with what is called good liwk, and before 
 avarice absorbs every other feeling, vanity forms no 
 inconsiderable part of the charm which fixes such num- 
 bers to the gaming-table. Indolent persons are fond of 
 games of chance, because they feel themselves roused 
 agreeably from their habitual state of apathy, or be- 
 cause they perceive, that, at these contests, without 
 any menial exertion, they are equal, perhaps superior, 
 to their competitors. 
 
 Happy they who have early been inspired with a 
 taste for science and literature ! They will have a 
 constant succession of agreeable ideas ; they will find 
 endless variety in the commonest objects which sur- 
 round them ; and feeling that every day of their lives 
 they have sufficient amusement, they will require no 
 extraordinary excitations, no holyday pleasures. They 
 who have learned, from their own experience, a just con- 
 fidence in their own powers ; they who have tasted the 
 delights of well-earned praise, will not lightly trust to 
 chance for the increase of self-approbation ; nor will 
 those pursue, with too much eagerness, the precarious 
 triumphs of fortune, who know, that in their usual pur- 
 suits, it is in their own power to command success 
 proportioned to their exertions. Perhaps it may be 
 thought, that we should have deferred our eulogium 
 upon literature till we came to speak of Tasks ; but if 
 there usually appears but little connexion in a child's 
 mind between l3ooks and toys, this must be attributed 
 to his having had bad books and bad toys. In the 
 hands of a judicious instructer, no means are too small 
 
3S PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 to be useful; every thing is made conducive to his 
 purposes ; and instead of useless baubles, his pupils will 
 be provided vi'ith playthings which may instruct, and 
 with occupations which may at once amuse and improve 
 the understanding. 
 
 It would be superfluous to give a greater variety of 
 instances of the sorts of amusements which are ad- 
 vantageous ; we fear that we have already given too 
 many, and that we have hazarded some observations, 
 vi^hich will be thought too pompous for a chapter upon 
 Toys. We intended to have added to this chapter an 
 inventory of the present most fashionable articles in 
 our toyshops, and a list of the new assort?ne?il. to speak 
 in the true style of an advertisement ; but we are 
 obliged to defer this for the present ; upon a future oc- 
 casion we shall submit it to the judgment of the pub- 
 lic. A revolution, even in toyshops, should not be at- 
 tempted, unless there appear a moral certainty that we 
 both may, and can, change for the better. The danger 
 of doing too much in education is greater even than 
 the danger of doing too little. As the merchants in 
 France answered to Colbert, when he desired to know 
 " how he could best assist them," children might, per- 
 haps, reply to those who are most officious to amuse 
 them; " Leave us to ourselves." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Why don't you get your task, instead of playing 
 with your playthings from morning till night ? You are 
 grown too old now to do nothing but play. It is high 
 time you should learn to read and write, for you cannot 
 be a child all your life, child ; so go and fetch your hook^ 
 and learn your task."" 
 
 This angry apostrophe is probably addressed to a 
 child, at the moment when he is intent upon some 
 agreeable occupation, which is now to be stigmatized 
 with the name of Play. Why that word should all at 
 once change its meaning; why that should now be a 
 
TASKS. 39 
 
 crime, which was formerly a virtue ; why he, who had 
 so often been desired to go and play, should now be 
 reviled for his obedience, the young casuist is unable 
 to discover. He hears that he is no longer a child : this 
 he is willing to believe ; but the consequence is alarm- 
 ing. Of the new duties incumbent upon his situation, 
 he has yet but a confused idea. In his manly charac- 
 ter, he is not yet thoroughly perfect : his pride would 
 make him despise every thing that is childish, but no 
 change has yet been wrought in the inward man, and 
 his old tastes and new ambition are in direct opposition. 
 Whether to learn to read be a dreadful thing or not, is 
 a question he cannot immediately solve ; but if his 
 reasoning faculty be suspended, there is yet a power 
 secretly working within him, by which he will involunta- 
 rily be governed. This power is the power of associa- 
 tion : of its laws, he is, probably, not more ignorant 
 than his tutor ; nor is he asvare that whatever word or 
 idea comes into his mind with any species of pain, will 
 return, whenever it is recalled to 'his memory, with the 
 same feelings. The word Task, the first time he hears 
 it, is an unmeaning word, but it ceases to be indifferent 
 to him the moment he hears it pronounced in a terrible 
 voice. " Learn your task," and " fetch your book," 
 recur to his recollection with indistinct feelings of pain ; 
 and hence, without further consideration, he will be dis- 
 posed to dislike both books and tasks ; but his feelings 
 are the last things to be considered upon this occasion; 
 the immediate business is to teach him to read. A new 
 era in his life now commences- The age of learning 
 begins, and begins in sorrow. The consequences of a 
 bad beginning are proverbially ominous ; but no omens 
 can avert his fate, no omens can deter his tutor from 
 the undertaking ; the appointed moment is come ; the 
 boy is four years old, and he must learn to read. Some 
 people, struck with a panic fear, lest their children 
 should never learn to read and write, think tliat they 
 cannot be in too great a hurry to teach them. SpeUing- 
 books, grammars, dictionaries, rods and masters, are 
 collected ; nothing is to be heard of in the house but 
 tasks ; nothing is to be seen but tears. 
 
 " No tears ! no tasks 1 no masters ! nothing upon com- 
 pulsion !" say the opposite party in education. " Chil- 
 dren must be left entirely at liberty ; they will learn 
 every thing better than you can teach them ; their 
 
40 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 memory must not be overloaded with trash ; their reason 
 must be left to grow." 
 
 Their reason will never grow unless it be exercised, 
 is the reply ; their memory must be stored while they 
 are young, because, in youth, the memory is most tena- 
 cious. If you leave them at liberty for ever, they will 
 never learn to spell ; they will never learn Latin ; they 
 will never learn Latin grammar ; yet, they must learn 
 Latin grammar, and a number of other disagreeable 
 things ; therefore, we must give them tasks and task- 
 masters. 
 
 In all these assertions, perhaps, we shall find a mix- 
 ture of truth and error ; therefore, we had better be gov- 
 erned by neither party, but listen to both, and examine 
 arguments unawed by authority. And first, as to the 
 panic fear, which, though no argument, is a most pow- 
 erful motive. We see but few examples of children so 
 extremely stupid as not to have been able to learn to 
 read and write between the years of three and thirteen ; 
 but we see many whose temper and whose understand- 
 ing have been materially injured by premature or injudi- 
 cious instruction ; we see many who are disgusted, per- 
 haps irrecoverably, with literature, while they are flu- 
 ently reading books which they cannot comprehend, or 
 learning words by rote to which they affix no ideas. It 
 is scarcely worth while to speak of the vain ambition 
 of those who long only to have it said, that their chil- 
 dren read sooner than those of their neighbours do ; for, 
 supposing their utmost wish to be gratified, that their 
 son could read before the age when children commonly 
 articulate, still the triunvph must be of short duration, 
 the fame confined to a small circle of " foes and friends," 
 and, probably, in a few years, the memory of the phe- 
 nomenon would remain only with his doting grand- 
 mother. Surely, it is the use which children make of 
 their acquirements which is of consequence, not the 
 possessing them a few years sooner or later. A man 
 who, during his whole life, could never write any thing 
 that was worth reading, would find it but poor consola- 
 tion for himself, his friends, or the public, to reflect, 
 that he had been in joining-hand before he was five 
 years old. 
 
 As it is usually managed, it is a dreadful task indeed 
 to learn, and, if possible, a more dreadful task to teach 
 to read. With the help of coimters, and coaxing, and 
 
TASKS. 41 
 
 gingerbread, or by dint of reiterated pain and terror, the 
 names of the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet 
 are, perhaps, in the course of some weeks, firmly fixed 
 in the pupil's memory. So much the worse ; all these 
 names will disturb him, if he have common sense, and 
 at every step must stop his progress. To begin with 
 the vowels : each of these have several different sounds, 
 and, consequently, ought to have several names, or dif- 
 ferent signs, to distinguish them in different circum- 
 stances. In the first lesson of the spelling-book, the 
 child begins with a-b makes ab ; b-a makes ba. The 
 inference, if any general inference can be drawn from 
 this lesson, is, that when a comes before h, it has one 
 sound, and after b, it has another sound ; but this is con- 
 tradicted by-and-by, and it appears that a after b has 
 various sounds, as in ball, in bat, in bare. The letter z in 
 fire, is t, as we call it in the alphabet, but in fir it is 
 changed ; in pin it is changed again ; so that the child, 
 being ordered to affix to the same sign a variety of 
 sounds and names, and not knowing in what circum- 
 stances to obey and in what to disregard the contra- 
 dictory injunctions imposed upon him, he pronounces 
 sounds at hazard, and adheres positively to the last ruled 
 case, or maintains an apparently sullen, or truly philo- 
 sophic and skeptical silence. Must e in pen, and e in 
 where, and e in verse, and e in fear, all be called e alike 1 
 The child is patted on the head for reading u as it ought 
 to be prononncfid in future ; but if, remembering this en- 
 couragement, the pupil should venture to pronounce u 
 in gun and bun, in the same manner, he will, inevitably, 
 be disgraced. Pain and shame impress precepts upon 
 the mind : the child, therefore, is intent upon remember- 
 ing the new sound of u in bun ; but when he comes to 
 busy, and burial, and prudence, his last precedent will 
 lead him fatally astray, and he will again be called a 
 dunce. O, in the exclamation Oh ! is happily called by 
 its alphabetical name ; but in to, we can hardly know it 
 again, and in morning and ivonder, it has a third and a 
 fourth additional sound. The amphibious letter y, which 
 is either a vowel or a consonant, has one sound in one 
 character, and two sounds in the other ; as a consonant, 
 it is pronounced as in yesterday ; in try, it is sounded as 
 i ; in any, and in the termination of many other words, 
 it is sounded like e. Must a child know all this by intui- 
 tion, or must it be whipped into him 1 But he must know 
 
42 PRACTICAL EDUCATIOST. 
 
 a great deal more before he can read the most common 
 words. What length of time should we allow him for 
 learning when c is to be sounded like k, and when like 
 .f ? and how much longer time shall we add for learning 
 when s shall be pronounced sh, as in sure, or z, as in 
 has ; the sound of which last letter, c^, he cannot, by any 
 conjuration, obtain from the name zed, the only name 
 by which he has been taught to call it ? How much time 
 shall we allow a patient tutor for teaching a docile pupil, 
 when g is to be sounded soft and when hard \ There 
 are many carefully worded rules in the spelling-books, 
 specifying before what letters and in what situations 
 g shall vary in sound ; but, unfortunately, these rules 
 are difficult to be learned by heart, and still more diffi- 
 cult to understand. These laws, however positive, are 
 not found to be of universal application, or at least, a 
 child has not always wit or time to apply them upon 
 the spur of the occasion. In coming to the words inge- 
 nious gentleman, get a good grammar, he may be puzzled 
 by the nice distinctions he is to make in pronunciation 
 in cases apparently similar ; but he has not yet become 
 acquainted with all the powers of this privileged letter : 
 in company with h, it assumes the character of/, as in 
 tough; another time he meets it, perhaps, in the same 
 company, in the same place, and, as nearly as possible, 
 in the same circumstances, as in the word though ; but 
 now g is to become a silent letter, and is to pass incog- 
 nito, and the child will commit an unpardonable error 
 if he claimed the incognito as liis late acquaintance /. 
 .Still, all these are slight difficulties ; a moment's reflec- 
 tion must convince us, that by teaching the common 
 names of every consonant in the alphabet, we prepare a 
 child for misery when he begins to spell or read. A 
 consonant, as saith the spelling-book, is a letter which 
 cannot be pronounced without a vowel before or after 
 it : for this reason B is called be, and L, el ; but why the 
 vowel should come first in one case, or last in the sec- 
 ond, we are not informed ; nor are we told why the 
 names of some letters have no resemblance whatever 
 to their sounds, either with a vowel before or after 
 them. Suppose, that after having learned the alphabet, 
 a child was to read the words 
 
 Here is some apple-pye. 
 He would pronounce the letters thus : 
 
 Acheare ies esoeme apepcelc peivie. 
 
TASKS. 43 
 
 With this pronunciation the child would never decipher 
 these simple words. It will be answered, perhaps, that 
 no child is expected to read as soon as he has learned his 
 alphabet : a long initiation of monosyllabic, dissyllabic, 
 trissy liable, and polysyllabic words is previously to be 
 subnjitted to ; nor, after this inauguration, are the nov- 
 ices capable of performing with propriety the ceremony 
 of reading whole words and sentences. By a different 
 method of teaching, all this waste of labour and of time, 
 all this confusion of rules and exceptions, and all the 
 consequent confusion in the understanding of the pupil, 
 may be avoided. 
 
 In teaching a child to read, every letter should have a 
 precise single sound annexed to its figure ; this should 
 never vary. Where two consonants are joined together, 
 so as to have but one sound, as ph, sh, &c., the two let- 
 ters should be coupled together by a distinct, invariable 
 mark. Letters that are silent should be marked in such 
 a manner as to point out to the child that they are not 
 to be sounded. Upon these simple rules our method of 
 teaching to read has been founded. The signs or marks, 
 by which these distinctions are to be effected, are arbi- 
 trary, and may be varied as the teacher chooses ; the 
 addition of a single point above or below the com- 
 mon letters is employed to distinguish the different 
 sounds that are given to the same letter, and a mark 
 underneath such letters as are to be omitted, is the only 
 apparatus necessary. These marks were employed by 
 the author in 1776, before he had seen Sheridan's or any 
 similar dictionary ; he has found that they do not con- 
 fuse children as much as figures, because when dots are 
 used to distinguish sounds, there is only a change of 
 place, and no change of form ; but any person that 
 chooses it may substitute figures instead of dots. It 
 should, however, be remembered, that children must 
 learn to distinguish the figures before they can be use- 
 ful in discriminating the words. 
 
 All these sounds, and each of the characters which 
 denote them, should be distinctly known by a child be- 
 fore we begin to teach him to read. And here at the 
 first step we must entreat the teacher to have patience ; 
 to fix firmly in her mind, we say her mind, because we 
 address ourselves to mothers ; that it is immaterial 
 whether a child learns this alphabet in six weeks or in six 
 months ; at all events, let it not be inculcated with ro- 
 
44 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 straint, or made tiresome, lest it should retard the whole 
 future progress of the pupil. We do not mean to rec- 
 ommend the custom of teaching in play, but surely 
 a cheerful countenance is not incompatible with appli- 
 cation. 
 
 The three sounds of the letter (a) should first be 
 taught ; they may be learned by the dullest child in a 
 week, if the letters are shown to him for a minute or 
 two, twice a day. Proper moments should be chosen 
 when the child is not intent upon any thing else ; when 
 other children have appeared to be amused with read- 
 ing ; when the pupil himself appears anxious to be in- 
 structed. As soon as he is acquainted with the sounds 
 of (a) and with their distinguishing marks, each of these 
 sounds should be formed into syllables, with each of the 
 consonants ; but we should never name the consonants 
 by their usual names ; if it be required to point them 
 out by sounds, let them resemble the real sounds or 
 powers of the consonants ; but in fact, it will never be 
 necessary to name the consonants separately, till their 
 powers, in combination with the different vowels, be 
 distinctly acquired. It will then be time enough to teach 
 the common names of the letters. To a person un- 
 acquainted with the principles upon which this mode of 
 teaching is founded, it must appear strange, that a child 
 should be able to read before he knows the names of 
 his letters ; but it has been ascertained, that the names 
 of the letters are an encumbrance in teaching a child to 
 read. 
 
 In the quotation from Mrs. Barbauld, at the bottom 
 of the alphabetical tables, there is a stroke between the 
 letters Z» and r in February, and between t and h in there, 
 to show that these letters are to be sounded together, 
 so as to make one sound. The same is to be observed 
 as to {ng) in the word long, and also as to the syllable 
 ing, which, in the table No. 4, column 4, is directed to 
 be taught as one sound. The mark ( . ) of obliteration, 
 is put under (y) in the word days, under e final in there, 
 and also under one of the Z's and the {w) in yellow, to 
 show that these letters are not to be pronounced. The 
 exceptions to this scheme of articulation are very few; 
 such as occur are marked, with the number employed 
 in Walker's dictionary, to denote the exception ; to 
 which excellent work the teacher will, of course, 
 refer. 
 
f 
 
 y/ 
 
 ^V/V-'/y 
 
 ^ 
 
 / 
 
 '/•> 
 
 >/>/////// 1 
 
 
 .Vr f/^f' 
 
 /../ ,f.v /// 
 
 
 .•<)■//// 
 
 ,//V ,/s '/// 
 
 A' ./,///'/ 
 
 ('l-//Si'//tl///S 
 
 a 
 
 
 /'"' 
 
 en 
 
 
 / <■ Y ,'/ // 
 
 *• 
 
 '■"/' 
 
 <i 
 
 
 /./ 
 
 
 
 
 (" 
 
 ■■''/. ■ 
 
 a 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 t^' 
 
 
 /- 
 
 .4i 
 
 /// f/< // f //< 
 
 '■ 
 
 
 ///./ 
 
 ia 
 
 
 // /f/// 
 
 y 
 
 r-' 
 
 t; 
 
 
 /.; 
 
 
 
 
 <j' 
 
 ..</. 
 
 r 
 
 
 ../... 
 
 .«' 
 
 
 ^ / /■ 
 
 no- 
 
 /r /ty 
 
 • 
 
 
 // //^ 
 
 
 
 
 iiio- 
 
 //,/,,.'^ 
 
 "i 
 
 
 f /f 
 
 ie 
 
 
 /// f // f r/t 
 
 ■ tf- 
 
 .///; 
 
 1 
 
 
 A../ 
 
 
 
 
 IM' 
 
 /// ■/ f 
 
 {) 
 
 
 
 Ol 
 
 
 rf',re 
 
 S 
 
 /f////-jfr 
 
 (') 
 
 
 r// 
 
 OM 
 
 
 /,„„,/ 
 
 sk 
 
 .>/, 
 
 () 
 
 
 /■r. 
 
 
 
 
 SHHi 
 
 /u<:i(C// 
 
 ... 
 
 
 //f r / / 
 
 ow 
 
 
 /u^u^ 
 
 ti. 
 
 ■//I 
 
 -. 
 
 
 /'"■■ 
 
 
 
 
 ti 
 
 ,//;/..//,,,/ 
 
 M 
 
 
 /■„..y 
 
 ■if/ // 
 
 WW 
 
 
 "■■"'7' 
 
 lion 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 ///// 
 
 111 
 
 
 ff/ ////// f //. 
 
 OlHill 
 
 /< //.'/// 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 t>y 
 
 
 /'7 
 
 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^; 
 
 V/./V 
 
 '////// ^> 
 
 
 
 l)a ca .la 
 
 la 
 
 oa 
 
 ha ja 1 
 
 va la 
 
 ma 
 
 
 
 iia pa (jiia 
 
 IVl 
 
 sa 
 
 l.i va > 
 
 \a va 
 
 za 
 
 V 
 
 TA7S 
 
 ///////;• iiii//./<i 
 
 /,//. 
 
 /•s//,- 
 
 V.s //iftf /'/ /.V // 
 
 / A' A ///>■ 
 
 ■/rf//fii,,/ >is 
 
 
 
 riollt 
 
 ii/ 1 
 
 ■///;■// 
 
 it'll '//>■ fii'f 
 
 \-(>ll/n/' ,/ . 
 
 
TASKS. 45 
 
 Parents, at the first sight of this new alphabet, will 
 perhaps tremble lest they should be obliged to learn the 
 whole of it before they begin to teach their children ; 
 but they may calm their apprehensions, for they need 
 only point out the letters in succession to the child, and 
 sound them as they are sounded in the words annexed 
 to the letters in the table, and the child will soon, by 
 repetition, render the marks of the respective letters 
 familiar to the teacher. We have never found anybody 
 complain of difficulty who has gone on from letter to 
 letter along with the child who was taught. 
 
 As soon as our pupil knows the different sounds of (a) 
 combined in succession with all the consonants, we may 
 teach him the rest of the vowels joined with all the 
 consonants, which will be a short and easy work. Our 
 readers need not be alarmed at the apparent slowness 
 of this method : six months, at the rate of four or five 
 minutes each day, will render all these combinations 
 perfectly farniliar. One of Mrs. Barbauld's lessons for 
 young children, carefully marked in the same manner 
 as the alphabet, should, when they are well acquainted 
 with the sounds of each of the vowels wuth each of the 
 consonants, be put into our pupil's hands.* 
 
 The sound of three or four letters together will im- 
 mediately become familiar to him ; and when any of trffe 
 less common sounds of the vowels, such as are con- 
 tained in the second table, and the terminating sounds, 
 tion, Zy, «fec. occur, they should be read to the child, and 
 should be added to what he has got by rote from time 
 to time. When all these marks and their correspond- 
 ing sounds are learned, the primer should be abandoned ; 
 and from that time the child will be able to read slowly 
 the most difficult words in the language. We must ob- 
 serve, that the mark of obliteration is of the greatest 
 service ; it is a clew to the whole labyrinth of intricate 
 and uncouth orthography. The word though, by the 
 obliteration of three letters, may be as easily read as 
 the or that. 
 
 It should be observed that all people, before they can 
 read fluently, have acquired a knowledge of the general 
 appearance of most of the words in the language, in- 
 dependently of the syllables of which they are com- 
 
 * Some of these lessons, and others by the authors, will shortly be 
 printed, and marked according to this method. 
 
46 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 posed. Seven children in the author's family were 
 taught to read in this manner, and three in the coumion 
 method ; the difference of time, labour, and sorrow, be- 
 tween the two modes of learning-, appeared so clearly, 
 that we can speak with confidence upon the subject. 
 We think that nine tenths of the labour and disgust 
 of learning to read, may be saved by this method; 
 and that, instead of frowns and tears, the usual har- 
 bingers of learning, cheerfulness and smiles may initiate 
 willing pupils in the most difficult of all human attain- 
 ments. 
 
 A. and H., at four and five years old, after they had 
 learned the alphabet, without having ever combined the 
 letters into syllables, were set to read one of Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld's little books. After being employed two or three 
 minutes every day, for a fortnight, in making out the 
 words of this book, a paper, with a few raisins well con- 
 cealed in its folds, was given to each of them, with 
 these words printed on the outside of it, marked ac- 
 cording to our alphabet : 
 
 " Open this, and eat what you find in it." 
 
 In twenty minutes they read it distinctly, without any 
 assistance. 
 
 The step from reading with these marks to reading 
 without them, will be found very easy. Nothing more 
 is necessary than to give children the same books, 
 without marks, which they can read fluently with them. 
 
 Spelling comes next to reading. New trials for the 
 temper ; new perils for the understanding ; positive 
 rules and arbitrary exceptions ; endless examples and 
 contradictions ; till at length, out of all patience with 
 the stupid docility of his pupil, the tutor perceives the 
 absolute necessity of making him get by heart, with all 
 convenient speed, every word in the language. The 
 formidable columns in dread succession arise, a host of 
 foes ; two columns a day, at least, may he conquered. 
 Months and years are devoted to the undertaking ; but 
 after going through a whole spelling-book, perhaps a 
 whole dictionary, till we come triumphantly to spell 
 Zeugma, we have forgotten to spell Abbot, and we must 
 begin again with Abasement. Merely the learning to 
 spell so many unconnected words, without any assist- 
 ance from reason or analogy, is nothing, compared 
 with the difficulty of learning the explanation of them 
 by rote, and the still greater difficulty of understanding 
 
TASKS. 47 
 
 the meaning of the explanation. When a child has 
 got by rote, 
 
 " Midnight, the depth of night ;" 
 
 " Metaphysics, the science which treats of immaterial 
 beings, and of forms in general abstracted from 
 matter ;" 
 has he acquired any distinct ideas, either of midnight 
 or of metaphysics "? If a boy had eaten rice pudding, 
 till he fancied himself tolerably well acquainted with rice, 
 would he find his knowledge much improved, by learn- 
 ing from his spelling-book, the words — 
 
 " Rice, a foreign, esculent grain ]" 
 Yet we are surprised to discover, that men have so few 
 accurate ideas, and that so many learned disputes ori- 
 ginate in a confused or improper use of words. 
 
 " All this is very true," says a candid schoolmaster ; 
 " we see the evil, but we cannot new-model the lan- 
 guage, or write a perfect philosophical dictionary ; and, 
 in the meantime, we are bound to teach children to 
 spell, which we do with the less reluctance, because, 
 though we allow that it is an arduous task, we have 
 found from experience that it can be accomplished, 
 and that the understandings of many of our pupils sur- 
 vive all the perils to which you think them exposed 
 during the operation. 
 
 The understandings may, and do survive the opera- 
 tion ; but why should they be put in unnecessary dan- 
 ger ] and why should we early disgust children with 
 literature, by the pain and difficulty of their first lessons ? 
 We are convinced, that the business of learning to 
 spell is made much more laborious to children than it 
 need to be: it may be useful to give them five or six 
 words every day to learn by heart, but more only loads 
 their memory ; and we should at first select words of 
 which they know the meaning, and which occur most 
 frequently in reading, or conversation. The alphabeti- 
 cal list of words in a spelling-book contains many which 
 are not in common use, and the pupil forgets these as 
 fast as he learns them. We have found it entertain- 
 ing to children, to ask them to spell any short sen- 
 tence as it has been accidentally spoken. " Put this 
 book on that table." Ask a child how he would spell 
 these words, if he were obliged to write them down ; 
 and you introduce into his mind the idea that he must 
 learn to spell before he can make his words and 
 
48 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 thoughts understood in writing. It is a good way to 
 make children write down a few words of their own 
 selection every day, and correct the spelling ; and also 
 after they have been reading, while the words are yet 
 fresh in their memory, we may ask them to spell some 
 of the words which they have just seen. By these 
 means, and by repeating, at different times in the day, 
 those words which are most frequently wanted, his vo- 
 cabulary will be pretty well stocked without its having 
 cost him any tears. We should observe that children 
 learn to spell more by the eye than by the ear, and that the 
 more they read and write, the more likely they will be 
 to remember the combination of letters in words which 
 they have continually before their eyes, or which they 
 feel it necessary to represent to others. When young 
 people begin to write, they first feel the use of spelling ; 
 and it is then that they will learn it with most ease and 
 precision. Then the greatest care should be taken to 
 look over their writing, and to make them correct every 
 word in which they have made a mistake ; because bad 
 habits of spelling, once contracted, can scarcely be 
 cured : the understanding has nothing to do with the 
 business ; and when the memory is puzzled between the 
 rules of spelling right, and the habits of spelling wrong, 
 it becomes a misfortune to the pupil to write even a 
 common letter. The shame which is annexed to bad 
 spelling excites young people's attention, as soon as 
 they are able to understand that it is considered as a 
 mark of ignorance and ill-breeding. We have often 
 observed, that children hsten with anxiety to the re- 
 marks that are made upon this subject in their presence, 
 especially when the letters or notes of grown up people 
 are criticised. 
 
 Some time ago, a lady, who was reading a newspaper, 
 met with the story of an ignorant magistrate, who gave 
 for his toast, at a public dinner, the two K's, for the King 
 and Constitution. " How very much asliamed the man 
 must have felt, when all the people laughed at him for 
 his mistake ! they must have all seen that he did not 
 know how to spell ; and what a disgrace for a magis- 
 trate too !" said a boy who heard the anecdote. It made 
 a serious impression upon him. A few months after- 
 ward he was employed by his father in an occupation 
 which was extremely agreeable to him, but in which he 
 continually felt the necessity of spelling correctly. He 
 
TASKS. 49 
 
 was employed to send ii^essages by a telegraph ; these 
 messages he was obliged to write down hastily, in little 
 journals kept for the purpose ; and as these were seen 
 by several people, when the business of the day came to 
 be reviewed, the boy had a considerable motive for or- 
 thographical exactness. He became extremely desirous 
 to teach himself, and consequently his success was from 
 that moment certain. As to the rest, we refer to Lady 
 Carlisle's comprehensive maxim, "Spell well if you 
 can." 
 
 It is undoubtedly of consequence to teach the rudi- 
 ments of literary education early, to get over the first 
 difficulties of reading, writing, and spelling ; but much 
 of the anxiety, and bustle, and labour of teaching these 
 things, may be advantageously spared. If more atten- 
 tion were turned to the general cultivation of the under- 
 standing, and if more pains were taken to make litera- 
 ture agreeable to children, there would be found less 
 difficulty to excite them to mental exertion, or to induce 
 the habits of persevering application. 
 
 When we speak of rendering hterature agreeable to 
 children, and of the danger of associating pains with the 
 sight of a book, or with the sound of the word task, we 
 should at the same time avoid the error of those who, in 
 their first lessons, accustom their pupils to so much amuse- 
 ment, that they cannot help afterward feeling disgusted 
 with the sobriety of instruction. It has been the fashion 
 of late to attempt teaching every thing to children in 
 play ; and ingenious people have contrived to insinuate 
 much useful knowledge without betraying the design to 
 instruct ; but this system cannot be pursued beyond cer- 
 tain bounds without many inconveniences. The habit 
 of being amused not only increases the desire for amuse- 
 ment, but it lessens even the relish for pleasure ; so that 
 the mind becomes passive and indolent, and a course 
 of perpetually increasing stimulus is necessary to awaken 
 attention. When dissipated habits are acquired, the 
 pupil loses power over his own mind ; and, instead of 
 vigorous voluntary exertion, which he should be able to 
 command, he shows that wayward imbecility which can 
 think successfully only by fits and starts : this paralytic 
 state of mind has been found to be one of the greatest 
 calamities attendant on what is called genius ; and inju- 
 dicious education creates or increases this disease. Let 
 us not, therefore, humour children in this capricious 
 O 
 
60 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 temper, especially if they have quick abiUties ; let us 
 give rewards proportioned to their exertions with uni- 
 form justice, but let us not grant bounties in education, 
 which, however they may appear to succeed in effect- 
 ing partial and temporary purposes, are not calculated 
 to ensure any consequences permanently beneficial. 
 The truth is, tliat useful knowledge cannot be obtained 
 without labour ; that attention long continued is labori- 
 ous, but that without this labour nothing excellent can 
 be accomplished. Excite a child to attend in earnest 
 for a short time, his mind will be less fatigued, and his 
 understanding more improved, than if he had exerted 
 but half the energy twice as long : the degree of pain 
 which he may have felt will be amply and properly com- 
 pensated by his success ; this will not be an arbitrary, 
 variable reward, but one within his own power, and that 
 can be ascertained by his own feelings. Here is no de- 
 ceit practised, no illusion ; the same course of conduct 
 may be regularly pursued through the whole of his edu- 
 cation, and his confidence in his tutor will progressively 
 increase. On the contrary, if, to entice him to enter 
 the paths of knowledge, we strew them with liowers, 
 how will he feel when he must force his way through 
 thorns and briers ! 
 
 There is a material difference between teaching chil- 
 dren in play, and making learning a task ; in the one case 
 we associate factitious pleasure, in the other factitious 
 pain, with the object : both produce pernicious eflfects 
 upon the temper, and retard the natural progress of the 
 understanding. The advocates in favour of " scholastic 
 badinage" have urged that it excites an interest in the 
 minds of children similar to that which makes them en- 
 dure a considerable degree of labour in the pursuit of 
 their amusements. Children, it is said, work hard at 
 play, therefore we should let them play at work. Would 
 not this produce effects the very reverse of what we 
 desire 1 'I'he whole question must at last depend upon 
 the meaning of the word play : if by play be meant every 
 thing that is not usually called a task, then undoubtedly 
 much may be learned at play : if, on the contrary, we 
 mean by the expression to describe that state of fidget- 
 ing idleness, or of boisterous activity, in which the in- 
 tellectual powers are torpid, or stunned with unmeaning 
 noise, the assertion contradicts itself. At play so de- 
 fined, children can learn nothing but bodily activity ; it 
 
TASKS. 51 
 
 IS certainly true, that when children are interested about 
 any thing, whether it be about what we call a trifle, or 
 a matter of consequence, they will exert themselves in 
 order to succeed ; but from the moment the attention 
 is fixed, no matter on what, children are no longer at 
 idle play, they are at active work. 
 
 S , a little boy of nine years old, was standing 
 
 without any book in his hand, and seemingly idle ; he 
 was amusing himself with looking at what he called 3 
 
 rainbow upon the floor ; he begged his sister M U 
 
 look at it ; then he said he wondered what could makt? 
 it; how it came there. The sun shone bright througli 
 the window ; the boy moved several things in the room, 
 so as to place them sometimes between the light and the 
 colours which he saw upon the floor, and sometimes in a 
 corner of the room where the sun did not shine. As he 
 moved the things, he said, " This is not it" — " nor this" 
 — " this hasn't any thing to do with it." At last he 
 found, that when he moved a tumbler of water out of the 
 place where it stood, his rainbow vanished. Some vio- 
 lets were in the tumbler ; S thought they might be 
 
 the cause of the colours which he saw upon the floor, 
 or, as he expressed it, " Perhaps these may be the thing." 
 He took the violets out of the water ; the colours re- 
 mained upon the floor. He then thought that " it 
 might be the water." He emptied the glass ; the colours 
 
 remained, but they were fainter. S immediatel}'^ 
 
 observed that it was the water and glass together that 
 made the rainbow. " But," said he, " there is no glass in 
 the sky, yet there is a rainbow, so that I think the water 
 alone would do, if we could but hold it together without 
 the glass. Oh, 1 know how 1 can manage." He poured 
 the water slowly out of the tumbler into a basin, which 
 he placed where the sun shone, and be saw the colours 
 on the floor twinkling behind the water as it fell : this 
 delighted him much ; but he asked why it would not do 
 when the sun did not shine. The sun went behind a 
 cloud while he was trying his experiments : " There 
 was light," said he, " though there was no sunshine." 
 He then said he thought that the diflerent thickness of 
 the glass was the cause of the variety of colours : after- 
 ward he said he thought that the clearness or muddiness 
 of the difl'erent drops of water was the cause of the dif- 
 ferent colours. 
 
 A ri2:id prfceptor, who thinks that everv boy must be 
 C2 
 
62 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 idle who has not a Latin book constantly in his hand, 
 
 would perhaps have reprimanded S for wasting his 
 
 time at play, and would have summoned him from his 
 rainbow to his task; but it is very obvious to any person 
 free from prejudices, that this child was not idle while 
 he was meditating upon the rainbow on the floor ; his 
 attention was fixed ; he was reasoning ; he was trying 
 experiments. We may call this play if we please, and 
 we may say that Descartes was at play when he first 
 verified Antonio de Dominis, Bishop of Spalatro's, trea- 
 tise of the rainbow, by an experiment with a glass 
 globe :* and we may say that Buffon was idle, when his 
 pleased attention was first caught with a landscape of 
 green shadows, when one evening at sunset he first ob- 
 served that the shadows of trees, which fell upon a white 
 wall, were green. He was first delighted with the ex- 
 act representation of a green arbour, which seemed as 
 if it had been newly painted on the wall. Certainly 
 the boy with his rainbow on the floor was as much 
 amused as the philosopher with his coloured shadows ; 
 and, however high-sounding the name of Antonio de 
 Dominis, Bishop of Spalatro, it does not alter the busi- 
 ness in the least; he could have exerted only his utmost 
 attention upon the theory of the rainbow, and the child 
 did the same. We do not mean to compare the powers 
 of reasoning, or the abilities of the child and the philoso- 
 pher ; we would only show that the same species of at- 
 tention was exerted by both. 
 
 To fix the attention of children, or, in other words, to 
 interest them about those subjects to which we wish 
 them to apply, must be our first object in the early cul- 
 tivation of the understanding. This we shall not find a 
 diflicult undertaking if we have no false associations, no 
 painful recollections to contend with. We can connect 
 any species of knowledge with those occupations which 
 are immediately agreeable to young people ; for instance, 
 if a child is building a house, we may take that oppor- 
 tunity to teach him how bricks are made, how the arches 
 over doors and windows are made, the nature of the key- 
 stone and hutments of an arch, the manner in which all 
 the diff'erent parts of the roof of a house are put to- 
 gether, &c. ; while he is learning all this he is eagerly 
 and seriously attentive, and we educate his understand- 
 
 * See Priestley's History of Vision, vol. i. p. 51. 
 
TASKS. 63 
 
 ing in the best possible method. But if, mistaking the 
 apphcation of the principle, that literature should be 
 made agreeable to children, we should entice a child to 
 learn his letters by a promise of a gilt coach, or by tel- 
 ling him that he would be the cleverest boy in the world 
 if he could but learn the letter A, we use false and fool- 
 ish motives ; we may possibly, by such means, effect 
 the immediate purpose, but we shall assuredly have 
 reason to repent of such imprudent deceit. If the child 
 reasons at all, he will be content after his first lesson 
 with being " the cleverest boy in the world," and he 
 will not, on a future occasion, hazard his fame, having 
 much to lose, and nothing to gain ; besides, he is now 
 master of a gilt coach, and some new and larger re- 
 ward must be proffered to excite his industry. Be- 
 sides the disadvantage of early exhausting our stock of 
 incitements, it is dangerous in teaching to humour pu- 
 pils with a variety of objects by way of relieving their 
 attention. The pleasure of tJmiking, and much of the 
 profit, must frequently depend upon preserving the 
 greatest possible connexion between our ideas. Those 
 who allow themselves to start from one object to another, 
 acquire such dissipated habits of mind, that they can- 
 not, without extreme difficulty and reluctance, follow 
 any connected train of thought. You cannot teach 
 those who will not follow the chain of your reasons ; 
 upon the connexion of our ideas, useful memory and 
 reasoning must depend. We will give you an instance : 
 arithmetic is one of the first things that we attempt to 
 teach children. In the following dialogue, which passed 
 between a boy of five years old and his father, we may 
 observe that, till the child followed his father's train of 
 ideas, he could not be taught. 
 
 Father. S , how many can you take from one ? 
 
 None. 
 
 None ! Think ; can you take nothing from 
 
 None, except that one. 
 
 Except ! Then you can take one from one % 
 
 Yes, that one. 
 Father. How many, then, can you take from one ? 
 
 ,S. . One. 
 
 Father. Very true ; but now, can you take two from 
 one? 
 
 5 . Yes, if they were figures I could with a rub- 
 
54 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 ber-Qut. (This child had frequently sums written for 
 him with a black lead pencil, and he used to rub out his 
 figures when they were wrong with India-rubber, which 
 he had heard called rubber-out.) 
 
 Father. Yes, you could ; but now we will not talk of 
 figures, we will talk of things. There may be one horse 
 or two horses, or one man or two men. 
 
 5. . Yes, or one coat or two coats. 
 
 Father. Yes, or one thing or two things, no matter 
 what they are. Now, could you take two things from 
 one thing 1 
 
 S . Yes, if there were three things I could take 
 
 away two things, and leave one. 
 
 His father took up a cake from the tea-table. 
 
 Father. Could I take two cakes from this one cake ? 
 
 )S . You could tal^^e two pieces. 
 
 His father divided the cake into halves, and held up 
 each half, so that the child might distinctly see them. 
 
 Father. What would you call these two pieces ! 
 
 >S . Two cakes. 
 
 Father. No, not two cakes. 
 
 jS . Two biscuits. 
 
 Father. (Holding up a whole biscuit :) What is this T 
 
 >S . A thing to eat. 
 
 Father. Yes, but what would you call it I 
 
 <S . A biscuit. 
 
 His father broke it into halves, and showed one half. 
 
 Father. What would you call this I 
 
 iS was silent, and his sister was applied to, who 
 
 answered, " Half a biscuit." 
 
 Father. Very well ; that's all at present. 
 
 The father prudently stopped here, that he might not 
 confuse his pupil's understanding. Those only who 
 have attempted to teach children can conceive how ex- 
 tremely difficult it is to fix their attention, or to make 
 them seize the connexion of ideas, which it appears to 
 us almost impossible to miss. Children are well occu- 
 pied in examining external objects, but they must also 
 attend to words as well as things. One of the great 
 difficulties in early instruction arises from the want of 
 words: the pupil very often has acquired the necessary 
 ideas, but they are not associated in his mind with the 
 words which his tutor uses ; these words are then to 
 him mere sounds, which suggest no correspondent 
 
TASKS. 65 
 
 thoughts. Words, as M. CondjUac well observes,* are 
 essential to our acquisition of knowledge ; they are the 
 medium through which one set of beings can convey 
 the result of their experiments and observations to 
 another ; they are, in all mental processes, the algebraic 
 signs which assist us in solving the most difficult prob- 
 lems. What agony does a foreigner, knowing himself 
 to be a man of sense, appear to suffer, when, for want 
 of language, he cannot in conversation communicate 
 his knowledge, explain his reasons, enforce his argu- 
 ments, or make his wit intelligible 1 In vain he has re- 
 course to the language of action. The language of ac- 
 tion, or, as Bacon calls it, of "transitory hieroglyphic," 
 is expressive, but inadequate. As new ideas are col- 
 lected in the mind, new signs are Wcinted ; and the prog- 
 ress of the understanding would be early and fatally 
 impeded by the want of language. M. de la Condamine 
 tells us that there is a nation who have no sign to express 
 the number three but this word, poellartarrorincourac. 
 These people having begun, as Condillac observes, in such 
 an incommodious manner, it is not surprising that they 
 have not advanced further in their knowledge of arith- 
 metic : they have got no further than the number 
 three ; their knowledge of arithmetic stops for ever at 
 poellartarrorincourac. But even this cumbersome sign is 
 better than none. Those who have the misfortune to 
 be born deaf and dumb, continue for ever in intellectual 
 imbecility. There is an account in the Memoires de 
 I'Academie Royale, p. xxii — xxiii, 1703, of a young man 
 born deaf and dumb,t who recovered his hearing at the 
 age of four-and-twenty, and who, after employing him- 
 self in repeating low to himself the words which he 
 heard others pronounce, at length broke silence in com- 
 pany, and declared that he could talk. His conversation 
 was but imperfect; he was examined by several able 
 theologians, who chiefly questioned him on his ideas of 
 God, the soul, and the morality or immorality of actions. 
 It appeared that he had not thought upon any of these 
 subjects; he did not distinctly know what was meant 
 by death, and he never thought of it. He seemed to 
 pass a merely animal life, occupied with sensible, present 
 
 * "Art.de Penser." 
 
 t See Condillac's Art de Penser. la the chapter " on the use of 
 signs," this young man is mentioned. 
 
56 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 objects, and with a few ideas which he received by hfs 
 sense of sight ; nor did he seem to have gained as much 
 knowledge as he might have done, by the comparison 
 of these ideas ; yet it is said that he did not appear 
 naturally deficient in understanding. 
 
 Peter, the wild boy, who is mentioned in Lord Mon- 
 boddo's Origin of Language,* had all his senses in re- 
 markable perfection. He lived at a farmhouse within 
 half a mile of us in Hertfordshire for some years, and 
 we had frequent opportunities of trying experiments 
 upon him. He could articulate imperfectly a few words, 
 in particular, King George, which words he always ac- 
 companied with an imitation of the bells, which rang at 
 the coronation of George the Second ; he could in a 
 manner imitate two or three common tunes, but without 
 words. Though his head, as Mr. Wedgewood and 
 many others had remarked, resembled that of Socrates, 
 he was an idiot : he had acquired a few automatic habits 
 of rationality and industry, but he could never be made 
 to work at any continued occupation : he would shut 
 the door of the farmyard fi.ve hundred times a day, bat 
 he would not reap or make hay. Drawing water from 
 a neighbouring river was the only domestic business 
 which he regularly pursued. In 1779 we visited him, 
 and tried the following experiment. He was attended 
 to the river by a person who emptied his buckets re- 
 peatedly, after Peter had repeatedly filled them. A shil- 
 ling was put before his face into one of the buckets 
 when it was empty ; he took no notice of it, but filled it 
 with water and carried it homeward : his buckets were 
 taken from him before he reached the house and emptied 
 on the ground ; the shilling, which had fallen out, was 
 again shown to him, and put into the bucket. Peter re- 
 turned to the river again, filled his bucket, and went 
 home ; and when the bucket was emptied by the maid 
 at the house where he Hved, he took the shilling and 
 laid it in a place where he was accustomed to deposite 
 the presents that were made to him by curious strangers, 
 and whence the farmer's wife collected the price of his 
 daily exhibition. It appeared that this savage could not 
 be taught to reason for want of language. 
 
 Rousseau declaims with eloquence, and often with 
 justice, against what he calls a knowledge of words., 
 
 * vom. 
 
TASKS. 57 
 
 Words without correspondent ideas are worse than 
 useless ; they are counterfeit coin, which imposes upon 
 the ignorant and unwary : but words which really rep- 
 resent ideas, are not only of current use, but of ster- 
 ling value ; they not only show our present store, but 
 they increase our wealth, by keeping it in continual cir- 
 culation ; both the principal and the interest increase 
 together. The importance of signs and words in our 
 reasonings, has been eloquently explained since the 
 time of Condillac, by Stewart. We must use the ideas 
 of these excellent writers, because they are just and 
 applicable to the art of education ; but while we use, 
 it is with proper acknowledgments that we borrow, 
 what we shall never be able to return. 
 
 It is a nice and difficult thing in education, to pro- 
 portion a child's vocabulary exactly to his knowledge, 
 dispositions, or conformation ; our management must 
 vary ; some will acquire words too quickly, others too 
 slowly. A child who has great facility in pronouncing 
 sounds, will, for that reason, quickly acquire a number 
 of words ; while those whose organs of speech are not 
 so happily formed, will, from that cause alone, be ready 
 in forming a copious vocabulary. Children who have 
 many companions, or who live with people who con- 
 verse a great deal, have more motive, both from sym- 
 pathy and emulation, to acquire a variety of words, than 
 those who live with silent people, and who have few 
 companions of their own age. All these circumstances 
 should be considered by parents, before they form their 
 judgment of a child's capacity from his volubility or his 
 taciturnity. Volubility can easily be checked by simply 
 ceasing to attend to it, and taciturnity may be van- 
 quished by the encouragements of praise and affection ; 
 we should neither be alarmed at one disposition nor at 
 the other, but steadily pursue the system of conduct 
 which will be most advantageous to both. When a 
 prattling, vivacious child pours forth a multiplicity of 
 words without understanding their meaning, we may 
 sometimes beg to have an explanation of a few of them, 
 and the child will then be obliged to think, which will 
 prevent him from talking nonsense another time. When 
 a thoughtful boy, who is in the habit of observing every 
 object he sees, is at a loss for words to express his ideas, 
 his countenance usually sliows, to those who can read 
 the countenance of children, that he is not stupid ^ 
 e 3 
 
58 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 therefore, we need not urge him to talk, but assist him 
 judiciously with words " in his utmost need :" at the 
 same time we should observe carefully, whether he 
 grows lazy when we assist him ; if his stock of words 
 does not increase in proportion to the assistance we 
 give, we should then stimulate him to exertion, or else 
 he will become habitually indolent in expressing his 
 ideas ; though he may think in a language of his own, 
 he will not be able to understand our language when 
 we attempt to teach him : this would be a source of 
 daily misery to both parties. 
 
 When children begin to read, they seem suddenly to 
 acquire a great variety of words : we should carefully 
 examine whether they annex the proper meaning to 
 these which are so rapidly collected. Instead of giving 
 them lessons and tasks to get by rote, we should cau- 
 tiously watch over every new phrase and every new 
 word which they learn from books. There are but few 
 books so written that young children can comprehend 
 a single sentence in them without much explanation. 
 It is tiresome to those who hear them read to explain 
 every word ; it is not only tiresome, but difficult ; be- 
 sides, the progress of the pupil seems to be retarded ; 
 the grand business of reading, of getting through the 
 book, is impeded ; and the tutor, more impatient than 
 his pupil, says, " Read on ; I cannot stop to explain 
 that to you now. You will understand the meaning of 
 the sentence if you will read to the end of the page. 
 You have not read three lines this half hour ; we shall 
 never get on at this rate." 
 
 A certain dame at a country school, who had never 
 been able to compass the word Nebuchadnezzar, used 
 to desire her pupils to " call it Nazareth, and let it 
 pass." 
 
 If they be obliged to pass over words without com- 
 prehending them in books, they will probably do the 
 same in conversation ; and the difficulty of teaching 
 such pupils, and of understanding what they say, will 
 be equally increased. At the hazard of being tedious, 
 we must dwell a little longer upon this subject, because 
 much of the future capacity of children seems to de- 
 pend upon the manner in which they first acquire lan- 
 guage. If their language be confused, so will be their 
 thoughts ; and they will not be able to reason, to invent, 
 or to write, with more precision and accuracy than they 
 
TASKS. 59 
 
 speak. The first words that children learn are the 
 names of things: these are easily associated with the. 
 objects themselves, and there is little danger of mistake 
 or confusion. We will not enter into the grammatical 
 dispute concerning the right of precedency, among pro- 
 nouns, substantives, and verbs ; we do not know which 
 came first into the mind of man ; perhaps, in different 
 minds, and in different circumstances, the precedency 
 must have varied ; but this seems to be of little conse- 
 quence ; children see actions performed, and they act 
 themselves : when they want to express their remem- 
 brance of these actions, they make use of the sort of 
 words which we call verbs. Let these words be strictly 
 associated with the ideas which they mean to express, 
 and no matter whether children know any thing about 
 the disputes of grammarians, they will understand 
 rational grammar in due time, simply by reflecting 
 upon their own minds. This we shall explain more 
 fully when we speak hereafter of grammar ; we just 
 mention the subject here, to warn preceptors against 
 puzzling their pupils too early with grammatical subt- 
 leties. 
 
 If any person unused to mechanics were to read Dr. 
 Desagulier's description of the manner in which a man 
 walks, the number of a-b-c's, and the travels of the 
 centre of gravity, it would so amaze and confound him, 
 that he would scarcely believe he could ever again per- 
 form such a tremendous operation as that of walking. 
 Children, if they were early to hear grammarians talk 
 of the parts of speech, and of syntax, would conclude, 
 that to speak must be one of the most difficult arts in 
 the world ; but children, who are not usually so unfor- 
 tunate as to have grammarians for their preceptors, 
 when they first begin to speak, acquire language, with- 
 out being aware of the difficulties which would appear 
 so formidable in theory. A child points to, or touches 
 the table, and when the word table is repeated, at the 
 same instant he learns the name of the thing. The 
 facility with which a number of names are thus learned 
 in infancy is surprising ; but we must not imagine that 
 the child, in learning these names, has acquired much 
 knowledge ; he has prepared himself to be taught, but 
 he has not yet learned any thing accurately. When a 
 child sees a guinea and a shilling, and smiling says, 
 " That's a guinea, mamma ! and that's a shilling !" the 
 
60 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 mother is pleased and surprised by her son's intelli- 
 gence, and she gives him credit for more than he really 
 possesses. We have associated with the words guinea 
 and shilling a number of ideas, and when we hear the 
 same words pronounced by a young child, we perhaps 
 have some confused belief that he has acquired the 
 same ideas that we have ; hence we are pleased with 
 the mere sound of words of high import from mfantine 
 lips. 
 
 Children, who are delighted in their turn by the ex- 
 pression of pleasure in the countenance of others, repeat 
 the things which they perceive have pleased ; and thus 
 their education is begun by those who first smile upon 
 them, and listen to them when they attempt to speak. 
 They who applaud children for knowing the names of 
 things, induce them quickly to learn a number of names 
 by rote ; as long as they learn the names of external 
 objects only, which they can see, and smell, and touch, 
 all is well ; the names will convey distinct ideas of cer- 
 tain perceptions. A child who learns the name of a 
 taste, or of a colour, who learns that the taste of sugar 
 is called sweet, and that the colour of a red rose is 
 called red, has learned distinct words to express certain 
 perceptions ; and we can at any future time recall to his 
 mind the memory of those perceptions by means of 
 their names, and he understands us as well as the most 
 learned philosopher. But, suppose that a boy had 
 learned only the name of gold ; that when different 
 metals were shown to him, he could put his finger upon 
 gold, and say, " That is gold ;" yet this boy does not 
 know all the properties of gold ; he does not know iii 
 what it differs from other metals ; to what uses it is 
 applied in arts, manufactures, and commerce ; the name 
 of gold, in his mind, represents nothing more than a 
 substance of a bright yellow colour, upon which people^ 
 he does not precisely know why, set a great value. 
 Now, it is very possible, that a child might, on the con- 
 trary, learn all the properties, and the various uses of 
 gold, without having learned its name : his ideas of this 
 metal would be perfectly distinct ; but whenever he 
 wished to speak of gold^ he would be obliged to use a 
 vast deal of circumlocution to make himself under- 
 stood ; and if he were to enumerate all the properties 
 of the metal every time he wanted to recall the general 
 idea,, his conversation would be intolerably tedious tO: 
 
TASKS. 61 
 
 others, and to himself this useless repetition must be 
 extremely laborious. He would certainly be glad to 
 learn that single word gold, which would save him so 
 much trouble ; his understanding would appear suddenly 
 to have improved, simply from his having acquired a 
 proper sign to represent his ideas. The boy who had 
 learned the name, without knowing any of the properties 
 of gold, would also appear comparatively ignorant, as 
 soon as it is discovered that he has few ideas annexed 
 to the word. It is, perhaps, for this reason, that some 
 children seem suddenly to shine out with knowledge, 
 which no one suspected they possessed ; while others, 
 who had appeared to be very quick and clever, come to 
 a dead stop in their education, and appear to be blighted 
 by some unknown cause. The children who suddenly 
 shine out, are those who had acquired a number of 
 ideas, and who, the moment they acquire proper words, 
 can communicate their thoughts to others. Those 
 children who suddenly seem to lose their superiority^ 
 are those who had acquired a variety of words, but who 
 had not annexed ideas to them. When their ignorance 
 is detected, we not only despair of them, but they are 
 apt to despair of themselves : they see their companions 
 get before them, and they do not exactly perceive the 
 cause of their sudden incapacity. Where we speak of 
 sensible, visible, tangible objects, we can easily detect 
 and remedy a child's ignorance. It is easy to discover 
 ■whether he has or has not a complete notion of such a 
 substance as gold ; we can enumerate its properties, 
 and readily point out in what his definition is defective. 
 The substance can be easily produced for examination ; 
 most of its properties are obvious to the senses ; we 
 have nothing to^do but to show them to the child, and 
 to associate with each property its usual name ; her© 
 there can be no danger of puzzling his understanding ; 
 but when we come to the explanation of words which 
 do not represent external objects, we shall find the affair 
 more difficult. We can make children understand the 
 meaning of those words which are the names of simple- 
 feelings of the mind, such as surprise, joy, grief, pity ; 
 because we can either put our pupils in situations 
 where they actually feel these sensations, and then we- 
 may associate the name with the feelings ; or we may, 
 by the example of other people, who actually suffer 
 pain or enjoy pleasure, point out what we moan by 
 
62 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 the words joy and grief. But how shall we explain 
 to our young pupils a number of words which represent 
 neither existing substances nor simple feelings, when 
 we can neither recur to experiment nor to sympathy 
 for assistance ? How shall we explain, for instance, 
 the words virtue, justice, benevolence, beauty, taste, 
 &c. 1 To analyze our own ideas of these is no easy 
 task ; to explain the process to a young child is scarcely 
 possible. Call upon any man, who has read and re- 
 flected, for a definition of virtue ; the whole " theory of 
 moral sentiments" rises, perhaps, to his view at once, 
 in all its elegance ; the paradoxical acumen of Mande- 
 ville, the perspicuous reasoning of Hume, the accurate 
 metaphysics of Condillac, the persuasive eloquence of 
 Stewart ; all the various doctrines that have been sup- 
 ported concerning the foundation of morals, such as the 
 fitness of things, the moral sense, the beauty of truth, 
 utility, sympathy, common sense ; all that has been said 
 by ancient and modern philosophers, is recalled in tran- 
 sient, perplexing succession, to his memory. If such be 
 the state of mind of the man who is to define, what 
 must be the condition of the child who is to understand 
 the definition ? All that a prudent person will attempt, 
 is to give instances of different virtues ; but even these, 
 it will be difficult properly to select for a child. General 
 terms, whether in morals or in natural philosophy, 
 should, we apprehend, be as much as possible avoided 
 in early education. Some people may imagine that 
 children have improved in virtue and wisdom, when 
 they can talk fluently of justice, and charity, and hu- 
 manity ; when they can read with a good emphasis any 
 didactic compositions in verse or prose. But let any 
 person of sober common sense be allowed to cross- 
 examine these proficients, and the pretended extent of 
 their knowledge will shrink into a narrow compass ; 
 nor will their virtues, which have never seen service, 
 be ready for action. 
 
 General terms are, as it were, but the endorsements 
 upon the bundles of our ideas; they are useful to those 
 who have collected a number of ideas, but utterly use- 
 less to those who have no collections ready for classifi- 
 cation : nor should we be in a hurry to tie up the bun- 
 dles, till ,we are sure that the collection is tolerably com- 
 plete ; the trouble, the difficulty, the shame of untying 
 them late in life, is felt even by superior minds. " Sir," 
 
TASKS. 63 
 
 said Dr. Johnson, " I don't like to have any of my opin- 
 ions attacked. I have made up my fagot, and if you 
 draw out one you weaken the whole bundle." 
 
 Preceptors sometimes explain general terms and ab- 
 stract notions vaguely to their pupils, simply because 
 they are ashamed to make that answer which every sen- 
 sible person must frequently make to a child's inquiries. 
 "I don't know."* Surely it is much better to say at 
 once, " I cannot explain this to you," than to attempt an 
 imperfect or sophistical reply. Fortunately for us, chil- 
 dren, if they are not forced to attend to studies for wliich 
 they have no taste, will not trouble us much with moral 
 and metaphysical questions ; their attention will be fully 
 employed upon external objects ; intent upon experi- 
 ments, they will not be very inquisitive about theories. 
 Let us then take care that their simple ideas be accu- 
 rate, and when these are compounded, their complex 
 notions, their principles, opinions, and tastes, will neces- 
 sarily be just ; their language will then be as accurate 
 as their ideas are distinct ; and hence they will be ena- 
 bled to reason with precision and to invent with facility. 
 We may observe, that the great difficulty in reasoning 
 is to fix steadily upon our terms ; ideas can be readily 
 compared, when the words by which we express them 
 are defined ; as in arithmetic and algebra, we can easily 
 solve any problem, when we have precise signs for all 
 the numbers and quantities which are to be considered. 
 
 It is not from idleness, it is not from stupidity, it is 
 not from obstinacy, that children frequently show an 
 indisposition to listen to those who attempt to explain 
 things to them. The exertion of attention which is 
 frequently require(i from them, is too great for the pa- 
 tience of childhood : the words that are used are so in- 
 accurate in their signification, that they convey to the 
 mind sometimes one idea and sometimes another ; we 
 might as well require of them to cast up a sum right 
 while we rubbed out and changed the figures every in- 
 stant, as expect that they should seize a combination of 
 ideas presented to them in variable words. Whoever 
 expects to command the attention of an intelligent child, 
 must be extremely careful in the use of words. If the 
 pupil be paid for the labour of listening by the pleasure 
 of understanding what is said, he will attend, whether it 
 
 * Rousseau. 
 
64 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 be to his playfellow or to his tutor, to conversation or 
 to books. But if he has by fatal experience discovered, 
 that, let him listen ever so intently, he cannot under- 
 stand, he will spare himself the trouble of fruitless ex- 
 ertion ; and, though he may put on a face of attention, 
 his thoughts will wander far from his tutor and his tasks. 
 
 " It is impossible to fix the attention of children," 
 exclaims the tutor ; " when this boy attends he can do 
 any thing, but he will not attend for a single instant." 
 
 Alas ! it is in vain to say he ivill not attend ; he cannot. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON ATTENTION. 
 
 Pere Bourgeois, one of the missionaries to China, at- 
 tempted to preach a Chinese sermon to the Chinese. 
 His own account of the business is the best we can give. 
 
 " They told me Chou signifies a book, so that I thought 
 whenever the word Chou was pronounced, a book was 
 the subject of discourse ; not at all. Chou, the next 
 time I heard it, I found signified a tree. Now I was to 
 recollect Chou was a book and a tree ; but this amount- 
 ed to nothing. Chou I found also ex'^xesse^ great heats. 
 Chou is to relate. Chou is the Aurora. Chou means, to 
 be accustomed. Chou expresses the loss of a ivager^ dfc. 
 I should never have done were I to enumerate all its 
 mPrininp"S #####'^####### 
 
 " I recited my sermon at least fifty times to my ser- 
 vant before I spoke it in public ; and yet I am told, 
 though he continually corrected me, that of the ten 
 parts of the sermon (as the Chinese express themselves) 
 they hardly understood three. Fortunately,, the Chinese 
 are wonderfully patient." 
 
 Children are sometimes in the condition in which the 
 Chinese found themselves at this learned missionary's 
 sermon, and their patience deserves to be equally com- 
 mended. The difficulty of understanding the Chinese 
 Chou, strikes us immediately, and we sympathize with 
 Pere Bourgeois's perplexity ; yet, many words which 
 are in common use among us, may perhaps be as puz- 
 zling to children. Block (see Johnson's Dictionary) 
 
ATTENTION. 65 
 
 signifies a heavypiece of timber, a mass of matter . Block 
 means the wood on which hats are formed. Block means 
 the wood on tvhich ci'iminals are beheaded. Block is a. sea- 
 term for pulley. Block is an obstruction, a stop; and 
 finally, Block means a blockhead. 
 
 There are, in our language, ten meanings for sweet, 
 ten for open, twenty-two for upon, and sixty-three for to 
 fall. Such are the defects of language ! But, whatever 
 they may be, we cannot hope immediately to see them 
 reformed, because common consent, and universal cus- 
 tom, must combine to establish a new vocabulary. 
 None but philosophers could invent, and none* but phi- 
 losophers would adopt a philosophical language. 
 
 The new philosophical language of chymistry was re- 
 ceived at first with some reluctance, even by chymists, 
 notwithstanding its obvious utility and elegance. Butter 
 of antimony, and liver of sulphur, flowers of zinc, oil of 
 vitriol, and spirit of sulphur by the bell, powder of alga- 
 roth, and salt of alem-broth, may yet long retain their 
 ancient titles among apothecaries. There does not 
 exist in the mineral kingdom either butter or oil, or yet 
 flowers ; these treacherous names* are given to the 
 most violent poisons, so that there is no analogy to guide 
 the understanding or the memory : but Custom has a 
 prescriptive right to talk nonsense. The barbarous 
 enigmatical jargon of the ancient adepts continued for 
 above a century to be the only chymical language of 
 men of science, notwithstanding the prodigious labour 
 to the memory, and confusion to the understandings 
 which it occasioned: they have but just now left off 
 calling one of their vessels for distilling a death's head, 
 and another a helmet. Capricious analogy with diffi- 
 culty yields to rational arrangement. If such has been 
 the slow progress of a philosophical language among 
 the learned, how can we expect to make a general, or 
 even a partial reformation among the ignorant ? And 
 it may be asked, how can we in education attempt to 
 teach in any but customary terms ? There is no occa- 
 sion to make any sudden or violent alteration in lan- 
 guage ; but a man who attempts to teach will find it 
 necessary to select his terms with care, to define thep.i 
 with accuracy, and to abide by them with steadiness ; 
 thus he will make a philosophical vocabulary for him- 
 
 * See Preface to Berthollet's Chymical Nomenclature. 
 
66 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 self. Persons who want to puzzle and to deceive al- 
 ways pursue a contrary practice ; they use as great a 
 variety of unmeaning, or of ambiguous words, as they 
 possibly can.* That state juggler, Oliver Cromwell, 
 -excelled in this species of eloquence ; his speeches are 
 "Inodels in their kind. Count Cagliostro, and the 
 Countess de la Motte, were not his superiors in the 
 power of baffling the understanding. The ancient ora- 
 cles, and the old books of judicial astrologers, and of 
 alchymists, were contrived upon the same principles ; 
 in all these we are confounded by a multiplicity of words 
 which convey a doubtful sense. 
 
 Children, who have not the habit of listening to words 
 without understanding them, yawn and writhe with 
 manifest symptoms of disgust, whenever they are com- 
 pelled to hear sounds which convey no ideas to their 
 minds. All supernumerary words should be avoided in 
 cultivating the power of attention. 
 
 The common observation, that we can attend to but 
 one thing at a time, should never be forgotten by those 
 who expect to succeed in the art of teaching. In teach- 
 ing new terms, or new ideas, we must not produce a 
 number at once. It is prudent to consider, that the 
 actual progress made in our business at one sitting is 
 not of so much consequence, as the desire left in the 
 pupil's mind to sit again. Now a child will be better 
 pleased with himself, and with his tutor, if he acquire 
 one distinct idea from a lesson, than if he retained a 
 confused notion of twenty different things. Some peo- 
 ple imagine, that as children appear averse to repetition, 
 variety will amuse them. Variety, to a certain degree, 
 certainly relieves the mind ; but then the objects which 
 are varied must not all be entirely new. Novelty and 
 variety, joined, fatigue the mind. Either we remain 
 passive at the show, or else we fatigue ourselves with 
 ineffectual activity. 
 
 A few years ago, a gentlemanf brought two Esqui- 
 maux to London — he wished to amuse, and at the same 
 time to astonish them, with the great magnificence of 
 the metropolis. For this purpose, after having equipped 
 them like English gentlemen, he took them out one 
 morning to walk through the streets of London. They 
 
 * V. Condillac's " Art de Penser." 
 
 t Major Cartwright. See his Journal, &c. 
 
ATTENTION. 67 
 
 walked for several hours in silence; they expressed 
 neither pleasure nor admiration at any thing which they 
 saw. When their walk was ended, they appeared un- 
 commonly melancholy and stupified. As soon as they 
 got home, they sat down with their elbows upon their 
 knees, and hid their faces between their hands. The 
 only words they could be brought to utter, were, " Too 
 much smoke — too much noise — too much houses — too 
 much men — too much every thing !" 
 
 Some people who attend pubUc lectures upon natural 
 philosophy, with the expectation of being much amused 
 and instructed, go home with sensations similar to those 
 of the poor Esquimaux ; they feel that they have had 
 too much of every thing. The lecturer has not time to 
 explain his terms, or to repeat them till they are distinct 
 in the memory of his audience.* To children, every 
 mode of instruction must be hurtful which fatigues at- 
 tention ; therefore, a skilful preceptor will, as much as 
 possible, avoid the manner of teaching, to which the 
 public lecturer is in some degree compelled by his situ- 
 ation. A private preceptor, who undertakes the instruc- 
 tion of several pupils in the same family, will examine 
 with care the different habits and tempers of his pupils ; 
 and he will have full leisure to adapt his instructions 
 peculiarly to each. 
 
 There are some general observations which apply to 
 all understandings ; these we shall first enumerate, and 
 we may afterward examine what distinctions should 
 be made for pupils of different tempers or different dis- 
 positions. 
 
 Besides distinctness and accuracy in the language 
 which we use, besides care to produce but few ideas or 
 terms that are new in our first lessons, we must exer- 
 cise attention only during very short periods. In the 
 beginning of every science pupils have much laborious 
 work ; we should therefore allow them time ; we should 
 repress our own impatience when they appear to be slow 
 in comprehending reasons, or in seizing analogies. We 
 often expect, that those whom we are teaching should 
 know some things intuitively, because these may have 
 been so long known to us that we forget how we learned 
 them. We may, from habit, learn to pass with extra- 
 ordinary velocity from one idea to another. " Some 
 
 * V. Chapter on Mechanics. 
 
68 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 often repeated processes of reasoning or invention," 
 says Mr. Stewart, " may be carried on so quickly in the 
 mind, that we may not be conscious of them ourselves." 
 Yet we easily convince ourselves that this rapid facility 
 ef thought is purely the result of practice, by observing 
 the comparatively slow progress of our understandings 
 in subjects to which we have not been accustomed : the 
 progress of the mind is there so slow, that we can count 
 every step. 
 
 We are disposed to think that those must be naturally 
 slow and stupid, who do not perceive the resemblances 
 between objects which strike us, we say, at the first 
 glance. But what we call the first glance is frequently 
 the fiftieth : we have got the things completely by heart ; 
 all the parts are known to us, and we are at leisure to 
 compare and judge. A reasonable preceptor will not 
 expect from his pupils two efforts of attention at the 
 same instant ; he will not require them at once to learn 
 terms by heart, and to compare the objects which those 
 terms represent ; he will repeat his terms till they are 
 thoroughly fixed in the memory ; he will repeat his 
 reasoning till the chain of ideas is completely formed. 
 
 Repetition makes all operations easy; even the fa- 
 tigue of thinking diminishes by habit. That we may 
 not increase the labour of the mind unseasonably, we 
 should watch for the moment when habit has made one 
 lesson easy, and when we may go forward a new step. 
 In teaching the children at the House of Industry at 
 Munich to spin, Count Rumford wisely ordered that 
 they should be made perfect in one motion before any 
 other was shown to them : at first they were allowed 
 only to move the wheel by the treadle with their feet ; 
 when, after sufficient practice, the foot became perfect 
 in its lesson, the hands were set to work, and the chil- 
 dren were allowed to begin to spin with coarse materi- 
 als. It is said that these children made remarkably good 
 spinners. Madame de Genlis applied the same princi- 
 ple in teaching Adela to play upon the harp.* 
 
 In the first attempts to learn any new bodily exercise, 
 as fencing or dancing, persons are not certain what mus- 
 cles they must use, and what may be left at rest ; they 
 generally employ those of which they have the most 
 ready command, but these may not always be the mus- 
 
 * V. Adela and Theodore 
 
ATTENTION. 69 
 
 cles which are really wanted in the new operation. 
 The simplest thing appears difficult, till, by practice, we 
 have associated the various slight motions which ought 
 to be combined. We feel, that from want of use, our 
 motions are not obedient to our will ; and to supply this 
 defect, we exert more strength and activity than are re- 
 quisite. " It does not require strength ; you need not 
 use so much force ; you need not take so much pains ;" 
 we frequently say to those who are making the first 
 painful, awkward attempts, at some simple operation. 
 Can any thing appear more easy than knitting, when 
 we look at the dexterous, rapid motions of an experi- 
 enced practitioner 1 But let a gentleman take up a 
 lady's knittingneedles, and knitting appears to him, and 
 to all the spectators, one of the most difficult and labo- 
 rious operations imaginable. A lady who is learning to 
 work with a tambour needle, puts her head down close 
 to the tambour frame, the colour comes into her face, 
 she strains her eyes, all her faculties are exerted, and 
 perhaps she works at the rate of three links a minute. 
 A week afterward, probably, practice has made the 
 work perfectly easy ; the same lady goes rapidly on 
 with her work ; she can talk and laugh, and perhaps 
 even think, while she works. She has now discovered 
 that a number of the motions, and a great portion of that 
 attention which she thought necessary to this mighty 
 operation, may be advantageously spared. 
 
 In a similar manner, in the exercise of our minds upon 
 subjects that are new to us, we generally exert more 
 attention than is necessary or serviceable, and we con- 
 sequently soon fatigue ourselves without any advantage. 
 Children, to whom many subjects are new, are often 
 fatigued by these overstrained and misplaced efforts. 
 In these circumstances, a tutor should relieve the atten- 
 tion by introducing indifferent subjects of conversation : 
 he can, by showing no anxiety himself, either in his 
 manner or countenance, relieve his pupil from any ap- 
 prehension of his displeasure or of his contempt ; he 
 can represent that the object before them is not a mat- 
 ter of life and death ; that if the child does not succeed 
 in the first trials, he will not be disgraced in the opinion 
 of any of his friends ; that by perseverance he will cer- 
 tainly conquer the difficulty ; that it is of little conse- 
 quence whether he understands the thing in question to- 
 day or to-morrow ; these considerations will calm the 
 
70 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 over-anxious pupil's agitation ; and whether he succeed 
 or not, he will not suffer such a degree of pain as to 
 disgust him in his first attempts. 
 
 Besides the command which we, by this prudent man- 
 agement, obtain over the pupil's mind, we shall also pre- 
 vent him from acquiring any of those awkward gestures 
 and involuntary motions, Avhich are sometimes practised 
 to relieve the pain of attention. 
 
 Dr. Darwin observes, that when we experience any 
 disagreeable sensations, we endeavour to procure our- 
 selves temporary relief by motions of those hiuscles 
 and limbs which are most habitually obedient to our 
 will. This observation extends to mental as well as to 
 bodily pain ; thus persons in violent grief wring their 
 hands and convulse their countenances ; those who are 
 subject to the petty, but acute miseries of false shame, 
 endeavour to relieve themselves by awkward gestures 
 and continual motions. A ploughboy, when he is 
 brought into the presence of those whom he thinks his 
 superiors, endeavours to relieve himself from the uneasy 
 sensations of false shame, by twirling his hat upon his 
 fingers, and by various uncouth gestures. Men who 
 think a great deal, sometimes acquire habitual awkward 
 gestures, to relieve the pain of intense thought. 
 
 When attention first becomes irksome to children, 
 they mitigate the mental pain by wrinkling their brows, 
 or they fidget and put themselves into strange attitudes. 
 These odd motions, Avhich at first are voluntary, after 
 they have been frequently associated with certain states 
 of mind, constantly recur involuntarily with those feel- 
 ings or ideas with which they have been connected. 
 For instance, a boy who has been used to buckle and 
 unbuckle his shoe, when he repeats his lesson by rote, 
 cannot repeat his lesson without performing this oper- 
 ation ; it becomes a sort of artificial memory, which is 
 necessary to prompt his recollective faculty. When 
 children have a variety of tricks of this sort, they are of 
 little consequence ; but when they have acquired a few 
 constant and habitual motions, while they think, or re- 
 peat, or listen, these should be attended to, and the hab- 
 its should be broken, otherwise these young people will 
 appear, wdien they grow up, awkward and ridiculous in 
 their manners ; and, what is worse, perhaps their thoughts 
 and abilities will be too much in the power of external 
 circumstances. Addison represents, with nnich humour, 
 
ATTENTION. 71 
 
 the case of a poor man who had the habit of twirling^ a 
 bit of thread round his finger ; the thread was accident- 
 ally broken, and the orator stood mute. 
 
 We once saw a gentleman get up to speak in a public 
 assembly, provided with a paper of notes written in pen- 
 cil: during the exordium of his speech, he thumbed his 
 notes with incessant agitation ; when he looked at the 
 paper, he found that the words were totally obliterated ; 
 he was obliged to apologize to his audience ; and, after 
 much hesitation, sat down abashed. A father would be 
 sorry to see his son in such a predicament. 
 
 To prevent children from acquiring such awkward 
 tricks while they are thinking, we should in the first 
 place take care not to make them attend for too long a 
 time together; then the pain of attention will not be so 
 violent as to compel them to use these strange modes 
 of rehef. Bodily exercise should immediately follow 
 that entire state of rest, in which our pupils ought to 
 keep themselves while they attend. The first symp- 
 toms of any awkward trick should be watched ; they 
 are easily prevented by early care from becoming ha- 
 bitual. If any such tricks have been acquired, and if the 
 pupil cannot exert his attention in common, unless cer- 
 tain contortions are permitted, we should attempt the 
 cure either by sudden slight bodily pain, or by a total 
 suspension of all the emplo)^ments with which these bad 
 habits are associated. If a boy could not read without 
 swinging his head like a pendulum, we should rather 
 prohibit him from reading for some time, than suffer him 
 to grow up with this ridiculous habit. But in conversa- 
 tion, whenever opportunities occur of telling him any 
 thing in which he is particularly interested, we should 
 refuse to gratify his curiosity, unless he keep himself 
 perfectly still. The excitement here would be sufficient 
 to conquer the habit. 
 
 Whatever is connected with pain or pleasure, com- 
 mands our attention ; but to make this general observa- 
 tion useful in education, we must examine what degrees 
 of stimulus are necessary for different pupils, and in dif- 
 ferent circumstances. We have formerly observed,* 
 that it is not prudent early to use violent or continual 
 stimulus, either of a painful or a pleasurable nature, to 
 excite children to application ; because we should, by an 
 
 * Chapter on Tasks. 
 
72 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 intemperate use of these, weaken the mind, and because 
 we may with a little patience obtain all we wish without 
 these expedients. Besides these reasons, there is an- 
 other potent argument against using violent motives to 
 excite attention ; such motives frequently disturb and 
 dissipate the very attention which they attempt to fix. 
 If a child be threatened with severe punishment, or flat- 
 tered with the promise of some delicious reward, in 
 order to induce his performance of any particular task, 
 he desires instantly to perform the task; but this desire 
 will not ensure his success : unless he have previously 
 acquired the habit of vokmtary exertion, he will not be 
 able to turn his mind from his ardent wishes, even to 
 the means of accomplishing them. He will be in the 
 situation of Alnaschar in the Arabian tales, who, while 
 he dreamed of his future grandeur, forgot his immediate 
 business. The greater his hope or fear, the greater the 
 difficulty of his employing himself. 
 
 To teach any new habit or art, we must not employ 
 any alarming excitements : small, certain, regularly re- 
 curring motives, which interest, but which do not dis- 
 tract the mind, are evidently the best. The ancient in- 
 habitants of Minorca were said to be the best slingers in 
 the world ; when they were children, every morning 
 what they were to eat was slightly suspended from high 
 poles, and they were obliged to throw down their break- 
 fasts with their slings from the places where they were 
 suspended, before they could satisfy their hunger. The 
 motive seems to have been here well proportioned to 
 the effect which was required ; it could not be any great 
 misfortune to a boy to go without his breakfast ; but as 
 this motive returned every morning, it became suffi- 
 ciently serious to the hungry slingers. 
 
 It is impossible to explain this subject so as to be of 
 use, without descending to minute particulars. When 
 a mother says to her little daughter, as she places on 
 the table before her a bunch of ripe cherries, " Tell me, 
 my dear, how many cherries are there, and I will give 
 them to you," — the child's attention is fixed instantly ; 
 there is a sufficient motive ; not a motive which excites 
 any violent passions, but which raises just such a de- 
 gree of hope as is necessary to produce attention. The 
 little girl, if she knows from experience that her mother's 
 promise will be kept, and that her owm patience is likely 
 to succeed, counts the cherries carefully, has her re- 
 
ATTENTION. 73 
 
 ward, and upon the next similar trial she will, from this 
 success, be still more disposed to exert her attention. 
 The pleasure of eating cherries, associated with the 
 pleasure of success, will balance the pain of a few mo- 
 ments' prolonged application, and by degrees the cher- 
 ries may be withdrawn, the association of pleasure will 
 remain. Objects or thoughts that have been associated 
 with pleasure, retain the power of pleasing ; as the 
 needle touched by the loadstone acquires polarity, and 
 retains it long after the loadstone is withdrawn. 
 
 Whenever attention is habitually raised by the power 
 of association, we should be careful to withdraw all the 
 excitements that were originally used, because these 
 are now unnecessary ; and, as we have formerly ob- 
 served, the steady rule, with respect to stimulus, should 
 be to give the least possible quantity that will produce 
 the effect we want. Success is a great pleasure ; as 
 soon as children become sensible to this pleasure, that 
 is to say, when they have tasted it two or three times, 
 they will exert their attention merely with the hope of 
 succeeding. We have seen a little boy of three years 
 old, frowning with attention for several minutes to- 
 gether, while he was trying to clasp and unclasp a lady's 
 bracelet; his whole soul was intent upon the business ; 
 he neither saw nor heard any thing else that passed in the 
 room, though several people were talking, and S9me hap- 
 pened to be looking at him. The pleasure of success, 
 when he clasped the bracelet, was quite sufficient ; he 
 looked for no praise, though he was perhaps pleased 
 with the sympathy that was shown in his success. 
 Sympathy is a better reward for young children in such 
 circumstances thcin praise, because it does not excite 
 vanity, and it is connected with benevolent feehngs ; 
 besides, it is not so violent a stimulus as applause. 
 
 Instead of increasing excitements to produce atten- 
 tion, we may vary them, which will have just the same 
 effect. When sympathy fails, try curiosity ; when cu- 
 riosity fails, try praise ; when praise begins to lose its 
 effect, try blame ; and when you go back again to sym- 
 pathy, you will find that, after this interval, it will have 
 recovered all its original power. Doctor Darwin, who 
 has the happy art of illustrating, from the most familiar 
 circumstances in real life, the abstract theories of philos- 
 ophy, gives us the following picturesque instance of the 
 wse of varying motives to prolong exertion. 
 D 
 
74 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 " A little boy, who was tired of walking, begged of his 
 papa to carry him. ' Here,' says the reverend doctor, 
 ' ride upon my gold-headed cane ;' and the pleased 
 child, putting it between his legs, galloped away with 
 deligiit. Here the aid of another sensorial power, that 
 of pleasurable sensation, superadded power to exhausted 
 volition, which could otherwise only have been excited 
 by additional pain, as by the lash of slavery."* 
 
 Alexander the Great one day saw a poor man carry- 
 ing upon his shoulders a heavy load of silver for the 
 royal camp : the man tottered under his burden, and was 
 ready to give up the point from fatigue. "Hold on, 
 friend, the rest of the way, and carry it to your own 
 tent, for it is yours," said Alexander. 
 
 There are some people who have the power of ex- 
 citing others to great mental exertions ; not by the 
 promise of specific rewards, or by the threats of any 
 punishment, but by the ardent ambition which they in- 
 spire ; by the high value which is set upon their love and 
 esteem. When we have formed a high opinion of a 
 friend, his approbation becomes necessary to our own 
 self-complacency, and we think no labour too great to 
 satisfy our attachment. Our exertions are not fatiguing, 
 because they are associated with all the pleasurable sen- 
 sations of affection, self-complacency, benevolence, and 
 liberty. These feelings, in youth, produce all the vir- 
 tuous enthusiasm characteristic of great minds ; even 
 childhood is capable of it in some degree, as those pa- 
 rents well know who have ever enjoyed the attachment 
 of a grateful, affectionate child. Those who neglect to 
 cultivate the affections of their pupils, will never be able 
 to excite them to " noble ends" by " noble means." 
 Theirs will be the dominion of fear, from which reason 
 will emancipate herself, and from which pride will yet 
 more certainly revolt. 
 
 If Henry the Fourth of France had been reduced, like 
 Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse, to earn his bread as a 
 schoolmaster, what a different preceptor he would prob- 
 ably have made ! Dionysius must have been hated by 
 his scholars as much as by his subjects ; for it is said that 
 "hef practised upon children that tyranny which he 
 could no longer exercise over men." 
 
 The embassador who found Henry the Fourth playing 
 
 * Zoonomia, vol. i. page 435. f Cicero. 
 
ATTENTION. 75 
 
 upon the carpet with his children, would probably have 
 trusted his own children, if he had any, to the care of 
 such an affectionate tutor. 
 
 Henry the Fourth would have attached his pupils 
 while he instructed them ; they would hav-e exerted 
 themselves, because they could not have been happy 
 without his esteem. Henry's courtiers, or rather his 
 friends, for though he was a king he had friends, some- 
 times expressed surprise at their own disinterestedness : 
 *' This king pays us with v/ords," said they, " and yet 
 we are satisfied!" Sully, when he was only Baron de 
 Rosny, and before he had any hopes of being a duke, 
 was once in a passion with the king his master, and 
 half resolved to leave him : " But I don't know how it 
 was," says the honest minister ; " with all his faults, 
 there is something about Henry which I found I could 
 not leave ; and when I met him again, a few words made 
 me forget all my causes of discontent." 
 
 Children are more easily attached than courtiers, and 
 full as easily rewarded. When once this generous de- 
 sire of affection and esteem is raised in the mind, their 
 exertions seem to be universal and spontaneous : chil- 
 dren are then no longer like machines, which require to 
 be wound up regularly to perform certain revolutions ; 
 they are animated with a living principle, which directs 
 all that it inspires. 
 
 We have endeavoured to point out the general excite- 
 ments and the general precautions to be used in cul- 
 tivating the power of attention ; it maybe expected that 
 we should more particularly apply these to the charac- 
 ters of different pupils. We shall not here examine 
 whether there be any original diff'erence of character or 
 intellect, because this would lead into a wide theoretical 
 discussion ; a difference in the temper and talents of 
 children early appears, and some practical remarks may 
 be of service to correct defects, or to improve abilities, 
 whether we suppose them to be natural or acquired. 
 The first differences which a preceptor observes between 
 his pupils, when he begins to teach them, are perhaps 
 scarcely marked so strongly as to strike the careless 
 spectator ; but in a few years these varieties are appa- 
 rent to every eye. This seems to prove, that during the 
 interval the power of education has operated strongly to 
 increase the original propensities. The quick and slow, 
 the timid and presumptuous, should be early instructed 
 
76 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 SO as to correct as much as possible their several 
 defects. 
 
 The manner in which children are first instructed must 
 tend either to increase or diminish their timidity or their 
 confidence in themselves ; to encourage them to under- 
 take great things, or to rest content with limited ac- 
 quirements. Young people, who have found from ex- 
 perience that they cannot remember or understand one 
 half of what is forced upon their attention, become ex- 
 tremely diffident of their own capacity, and they will 
 not undertake as much even as they are able to perform. 
 With timid tempers, we should therefore begin, by ex- 
 pecting but little from each effort ; but whatever is at- 
 tempted, should be certainly within their attainment ; 
 success will encourage the most stupid humility. It 
 should be carefully pointed out to diffident children, that 
 attentive patience can do as much as quickness of intel- 
 lect. If they perceive that time makes all the differ- 
 ence between the quick and the slow, they will be in- 
 duced to persevere. The transition of attention from 
 one subject to another is difficult to some children, to 
 others it is easy. If all be expected to do the same 
 things in an equal period of time, the slow will abso- 
 lutely give up the competition ; but, on the contrary, if 
 they are allowed time, they will accomplish their pur- 
 poses. We have been confirmed in our belief of this doc- 
 trine by experiments. The same problems have been 
 frequently given to children of different degrees of quick- 
 ness ; and though some succeeded much more quickly 
 than others, all the individuals in the family have perse- 
 vered till they have solved the questions ; and the timid 
 seem to have been more encouraged by tliis practical 
 demonstration of the infallibility of persevering atten- 
 tion,^ than by any other methods which have been tried. 
 When, after a number of small successful trials, they 
 have acquired some share of confidence in themselves, 
 when they are certain of the possibility of their per- 
 forming any given operations, we may then press them 
 a little as to velocity. When they are well acquainted 
 with any set of ideas, we may urge them to quick transi- 
 tion of attention from one to another ; but if we insist 
 upon this rapidity of transition before they are thor- 
 oughly acquainted with each idea in the assemblage, we 
 shall only increase their timidity and hesitation ; we 
 shall confound their understandings, and depress their 
 ambition. 
 
ATTENTION. 77 
 
 It is of consequence to distinguish between slow and 
 sluggish attention. Sometimes children appear stupid 
 and heavy, when they are absolutely exhausted by too 
 great efforts of attention ; at other times, they have 
 something like the same dulness of aspect, before they 
 have had any thing to fatigue them, merely from their 
 not having yet awakened themselves to business. We 
 must be certain of our pupil's state of mind before we 
 proceed. If he be incapacitated from fatigue, let him 
 rest ; if he be torpid, rouse him with a rattling peal of 
 thunder : but be sure that you have not, as it has been 
 said of Jupiter,* recourse to your thunder only when 
 you are in the wrong. Some preceptors scold when 
 they cannot explain, and grow angry in proportion to 
 the fatigue they see expressed in the countenance of 
 their unhappy pupils. If a timid child foresees that an 
 explanation will probably end in a philipic, he cannot fix 
 his attention; he is anticipating the evil of your anger, 
 instead of listening to your demonstrations ; and he 
 says, " Yes, yes, I see, I know, I understand," with 
 trembling eagerness, while, through the mist and con- 
 fusion of his fears, he can scarcely see or hear, much 
 less understand any thing. If you mistake the confusion 
 and fatigue of terror for inattention or indolence, and 
 press your pupil to further exerti(ms, you will confirm, 
 instead of curing, his stupidity. You must diminish his 
 fear before you can increase his attention. With chil- 
 dren who are thus, from timid anxiety to please, dis- 
 posed to exert their faculties too much, it is obvious 
 that no excitation should be used ; but every playful, 
 every affectionate means should be employed to dissi- 
 pate their apprehensions. 
 
 It is more difficult to manage with those who have 
 sluggish, than with those who have timid attention. 
 Indolent children have not usually so lively a taste for 
 pleasure as others have ; they do not seem to hear or 
 see so quickly ; they are content with a little enjoy- 
 ment ; they have scarcely any ambition ; they seem to 
 prefer ease to all sorts of glory ; they have little volun- 
 tary exertion; and the pain of attention is to them so 
 great, that they would preferably endure the pain of 
 shame, and of all the accumulated punishments which 
 are commonly devised for them by the vengeance of 
 
 * Lucian. 
 
78 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 their exasperated tutors. Locke notices this listless, 
 lazy humour in children ; he classes it under the head 
 " Sauntering ;" and he divides saunterers into two spe- 
 cies : those who saunter only at their books and tasks, 
 and those who saunter at play and every thing-. The 
 book-saiinterers have only an acute, the others have a 
 chronic disease ; the one is easily cured, the other dis- 
 ease will cost more time and pains. - 
 
 If, by some unlucky management, a vivacious child 
 acquire a dislike to literary application, he may appear 
 at his books with all the stupid apathy of a dunce. In 
 this state of literary dereliction, we should not force 
 books and tasks of any sort upon him ; we should rather 
 watch him when he is eager at amusements of his own 
 selection, observe to what his attention turns, and culti- 
 vate his attention upon that subject, v.hatever it may 
 be. He may be led to think, and to acquire knov/ledge 
 upon a variety of subjects, without sitting down to read ; 
 and thus he may form habits of attention and applica- 
 tion, which will be associated with pleasure. When he 
 returns to books, he will find that he understands a 
 variety of things in them which before appeared incom- 
 prehensible ; they will "give him back the image of his 
 mind," and he will like them as he likes pictures. 
 
 As long as a child shows energy upon any occasion, 
 there is hope. If he " lend his little soul"* to whipping 
 a top, there is no danger of his being a dunce. When 
 Alcibiades was a child, he was one day playing at dice 
 with other boys in the street ; a loaded wagon came up 
 just as it was his time to throw. At first he called to 
 the driver to stop, but the wagoner would not stop his 
 horses ; all the boys, except Alcibiades, ran away ; but 
 Alcibiades threw himself upon his face, directly before 
 the h'Arses, and stretching himself out,, bid the wagoner 
 drive on if he pleased. Perhaps, at the time when he 
 showed this energy about a game at dice, Alcibiades 
 might have been a saunterer at his book, and a foolish 
 schoolmaster might have made him a dunce. 
 
 Locke advises, that children who are too much ad- 
 dicted to what is called play, should be surfeited with it, 
 that they may return to business with a better appetite. 
 But this advice supposes that play has been previously 
 interdicted, or that it is something pernicious : we have 
 
 * "And lends his little soul at every stroke." — Virgil. 
 
ATTENTION. 79 
 
 endeavoured to show that play is nothing but a change 
 of employment, and that the attention maybe exercised 
 advantageously upon a variety of subjects which are not 
 called Tasks.* 
 
 With those who show chronic listlessness, Locke ad- 
 vises that we should use every sort of stimulus ; praise, 
 amusement, fine clothes, eating; any thing that will 
 make them bestir themselves. He argues, that as there 
 appears a deficiency of vigour, we have no reason to 
 fear excess of appetite for any of these things ; nay, 
 further still, where none of these will act, he advises 
 compulsory bodily exercise. If we cannot, he says, 
 make sure of the invisible attention of tlie mind, we may 
 at least get something done, prevent the habit of total 
 idleness, and perhaps make the children desire to ex- 
 change labour of body for labour of mind. These expe- 
 dients will, we fear, be found rather palliative than ef- 
 fectual ; if, by fore nig children to bodily exercise, that 
 become disagreeable, they may prefer labour of the 
 mind ; but in making this exchange or bargain, they are 
 sensible that they choose the least of two evils. The 
 evil of application is diminished only by comparison in 
 their estimation ; they will avoid it whenever they are 
 at hberty. The love of eating, of fine clothes, &c., if 
 they stimulate a slothful child, must be the ultimate ob- 
 ject of his exertions ; he will consider the performance 
 of his task merely as a painful condition on his part. 
 Still the association of pain with literature continues ; 
 it is then impossible that he should love it. There is no 
 active principle within him, no desire for knowledge 
 excited ; his attention is forced ; it ceases the moment 
 the external force is withdrawn. He drudges to earn 
 his cream-bowl duly set, but he will stretch his lubber 
 length the moment his task is done. 
 
 There is another class of children opposed to saun- 
 terers, whom we may denominate volatile geniuses. 
 They show a vast deal of quickness and vivacity ; they 
 understand almost before a tutor can put his ideas into 
 words ; they observe a variety of objects, but they do 
 not connect their observations ; and the very rapidity 
 with which they seize an explanation, prevents them 
 from thoroughly comprehending it ; they are easily dis- 
 turbed by external objects when they are thinking. As 
 
 * See Chapter II. on Tasks, 
 
so I'RACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 they have great sensibihty, their associations are strong 
 and various ; their thoughts branch off into a thousand 
 beautiful, but useless ramifications. While you are at- 
 tempting to instruct them upon one subject, they are 
 inventing, perhaps, upon another; or they are following 
 a train of ideas suggested by something you have said, 
 but foreign to your business. They are more pleased 
 with the discovery of resemblances, than with discrim- 
 ination of difference ; the one costs them more time and 
 attention than the other : they are apt to say witty 
 things, and to strike out sparks of invention ; but they 
 have not commonly the patience to form exact judg- 
 ments, or to bring their first inventions to perfection. 
 When they begin the race, everybody expects that they 
 should outstrip all competitors ; but it is often seen that 
 slower rivals reach the goal before them. The predic- 
 tions formed of pupils of this temperament vary much, 
 according to the characters of their tutors. A slow 
 man is provoked by their dissipated vivacity, and, unable 
 to catch or fix their attention, prognosticates that they 
 will never have sufficient application to learn any thing. 
 This prophecy, under certain tuition, would probably 
 be accomplished. The want of sympathy between a 
 slow tutor and a quick child, is a great disadvantage to 
 both ; each insists upon going his own pace and his own 
 way, and these ways are perhaps diametrically oppo- 
 site. Even in forming a judgment of the child's atten- 
 tion, the tutor, who is not acquainted with the manner 
 in which his pupil goes to work, is liable to frequent 
 mistakes. Children are sometimes suspected of not 
 having listened to what has been said to them, when 
 they cannot exactly repeat the words that they have 
 heard ; they often ask questions and make observations 
 which seem quite foreign to the present business ; but 
 this is not always a proof that their minds are absent, or 
 that their attention is dissipated. Their answers often 
 appear to be far from the point, because they suppress 
 their intermediate ideas, and give only the result of their 
 thoughts. This may be inconvenient to those who 
 teach them ; but this habit sufficiently proves that these 
 children are not deficient in attention. To cure them 
 of the fault which they have, we should not accuse 
 them falsely of another. But it may be questioned 
 whether this be a fault ; it is absolutely necessary, in 
 many processes of the mind, to suppress a number of 
 
ATTENTION. 81 
 
 intermediate ideas. Life, if this were not practised, 
 would be too short for those who think, and much too 
 short for those who speak. When somebody asked 
 Pyrrhus which of two nmsicians he liked the best, he 
 answered, " Polysperchon is the best general." This 
 would appear to be the absurd answer of an absent 
 person, or of a fool, if we did not consider the ideas that 
 are implied, as well as those which are expressed. 
 
 March 5th, 1796. To-day, at dinner, a lady observed 
 that Nicholson, Williamson, Jackson, &c., were names 
 which originally meant the sons of Nicholas, William, 
 
 Jack, &c. A boy who was present, H , added, with 
 
 a very grave face, as soon as she had finished speaking, 
 " Yes, ma'am, Tydides." Kis mother asked him what 
 
 he could mean by this absent speech 1 H calmly 
 
 repeated, " Ma'am, yes ; because I think it is like Ty- 
 dides." His brother S eagerly interposed, to sup- 
 ply the intermediate ideas; ''Yes, indeed, mother," 
 
 cried he, '• H is not absent, because des, in Greek, 
 
 means the son of (the race of). Tydides is the son of 
 Tydeus, as Jackson is the son of Jack." In this in- 
 stance, H was not absent, though he did not make 
 
 use of a sufficient number of words to explain his ideas. 
 
 August, 1796, L , when he returned home, after 
 
 some months' absence, entertained his brothers and sis- 
 ters with a new play, which he had learned at p]din- 
 burgh. He told them, that when he struck the table 
 with his hand, every person present was instantane- 
 ously to remain fixed in the attitudes in which they 
 should be when the blow was given. The attitudes m 
 which some of the little company were fixed, occasioned 
 much diversion ; but in speaking of this new play after- 
 ward, they had no name for it. While they were think- 
 ing of a name for it, H exclaimed, " The Gorgon !" 
 
 It was immediately agreed that this was a good name 
 for the play ; and H , upon this occasion, was per- 
 fectly intelligible, without expressing all the interme- 
 diate ideas. 
 
 Good judges form an accurate estimate of the abilities 
 of those who converse with them, by what they omit, 
 as well as by what they say. If any one can show that 
 he also has been in Arcadia, he is sure of being well 
 received, without producing minutes of his journey. In 
 the same manner we should judge of children ; if they 
 arrive at certain conclusions in reasoning, we may be 
 D3 
 
82 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 satisfied that they have taken all the nec-essary previous 
 steps. We need not question their attention upon sub- 
 jects where they give proofs of invention; they must 
 have remembered well, or they could not invent ; they 
 must have attended well, or they could not have remem- 
 bered. Nothing wearies a quick child more than to be 
 forced slowly to retrace his own thoughts, and to repeat 
 the words of a discourse to prove that he has listened 
 W it. A tutor who is slow in understanding the ideas 
 of his vivacious pupil, gives him so much trouble and 
 pain, that he grows silent, from finding it not worth 
 while to speak, it is for this reason that children ap- 
 pear stupid and silent with some people, and sprightly 
 and talkative with others. Those who hope to talk to 
 children with any effect, must, as Rousseau observes, be 
 able to hear as well as to speak. M. de Segrais, who 
 was deaf, was much in the right to decline being pre- 
 ceptor to the Duke de Maine. A deaf preceptor would 
 certainly make a child dumb. 
 
 To win the attention of vivacious children, we must 
 sometimes follow them in their zigzag course, and even 
 press them to the end of their own train of thought. 
 They will be content when they have obtained a full 
 hearing ; then they will have leisure to discover that 
 what they were in such haste to utter, was not so well 
 worth saying as they imagined ; that their bright ideas 
 often, when steadily examined by themselves, fade into 
 absurdities. 
 
 '•Where does this path lead to 1 Can't we get over 
 this stile ■? May 1 onli/ go into this wood "?" exclaims an 
 active child, when he is taken out to walk. Every path 
 appears more delightful than the straight road; but let 
 him try the paths, they will perhaps end in disappoint- 
 ment, and then his imagination will be corrected. Let 
 him try his own experiments, then he will be ready to 
 try yours ; and if yours succeed better than his own, 
 you will secure his confidence. After a child has talked 
 on for some time, till he comes to the end of his ideas, 
 then he will perhaps listen to what you have to say ; 
 and if he finds it better than what he has been saying 
 himself, he will voluntarily give you his attention the 
 next time you begin to speak. 
 
 Vivacious children are peculiarly susceptible of blame 
 and praise ; we have, therefore, great power over their 
 atlachmeint, if we manage these excitements properly. 
 
ATTENTION. 83 
 
 These children should not be praised for their happy hits ; 
 their first* glances should not be extolled ; but, on the 
 contrary, they should be rewarded with universal ap- 
 probation when they give proofs of patient industry, 
 when they bring any thing to perfection. No one can 
 bring any thing to perfection v/ithout long-continued 
 attention ; and industry and perseverance presuppose 
 attention. Proofs of any of these qualities may there- 
 fore satisfy us as to the pupil's capacity and habits of 
 attention ; we need not stand by to see the attention 
 exercised ; the things produced are sufficient evidence. 
 Buffon tells us that he wrote his Epoques de la Nature 
 over eighteen times before he could perfect it to his 
 taste. The high finish of his composition is sufficient 
 evidence to intelligent readers, that he exerted long- 
 continued attention upon the work ; they do not require 
 to have the eighteen copies produced. 
 
 Bacon supposes, that for every disease of the mind, 
 specific remedies might be found in appropriate studies 
 and exercises. Thus, for " birdwitted" children he pre- 
 scribes the study of mathematics, because, in mathemat- 
 ical studies, the attention must be fixed ; the least inter- 
 mission of thought breaks the whole chain of reasoning, 
 their labour is lost, and they must begin their demon- 
 stration again. This principle is excellent ; but to ap- 
 ply it advantageously, we should choose moments when 
 a mathematical demonstration is interesting to children, 
 else we have not sufficient motive to excite them to 
 commence the demonstration; they will perceive that 
 they lose all their labour if their attention is interrupted ; 
 but how shall we make them begin to attend ? There 
 are a variety of subjects which are interesting to chil- 
 dren, to which we may apply Bacon's principle ; for in- 
 stance, a child is eager to hear a story which you are 
 going to tell him ; you may exercise his attention by 
 your manner of telling this story ; you may employ with 
 advantage the beautiful speech called suspension : but 
 you must take care, that the hope which is long de- 
 ferred be at last gratified. The young critics will look 
 back, when your story is finished, and will examine 
 whether their attention has been wasted, or whether all 
 the particulars to which it was directed were essential. 
 Though in amusing stories we recommend the figure 
 
 * Apercues, 
 
84 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 called suspension,* we do not recommend its use in ex- 
 planations. Our explanations sliould be put into as few- 
 words as possible : the closer the connexion of ideas, 
 the better. When we say, allow time to understand 
 your explanations, we mean, allow time between each 
 idea ; do not fill up the interval with words. Never, by 
 way of gaining time, pay in sixpences ; this is the last 
 resource of a bankrupt. 
 
 We formerly observed that a preceptor, in his first 
 lessons on any new subject, must submit to the drudg- 
 ery of repeating his terms and his reasoning, until these 
 are sufticiently familiar to his pupils. He must, how- 
 ever, proportion the number of his repetitions to the 
 temper and habits of his pupils, else he will weary, in- 
 stead of strengthening the attention. When a thing is 
 clear, let him never try to make it clearer; when a 
 thing is understood, not a word more of exemplification 
 should be added. To mark precisely the moment when 
 the pupil understands what is said, the moment when 
 he is master of the necessary ideas, and, consequently, 
 the moment when repetition should cease, is, perhaps, 
 the most difiicult thing in the art of teaching. The 
 countenance, the eye, the voice, and manner of the pu- 
 pil, mark this instant to an observing preceptor ; but a 
 preceptor who is absorbed in his own ideas, will never 
 think of looking in his pupil's face ; he will go on with 
 his routine of explanation, while his once lively, atten- 
 tive pupil, exhibits opposite to him the picture of stupi- 
 fied fatigue. Quick, intelligent cliildren, who have fre- 
 quently found that lessons are reiterated by a patient 
 but injudicious tutor, will learn a careless mode of lis- 
 tening at intervals; they will say to themselves, " Oh, I 
 shall hear this again !" And if any stray thought comes 
 across their minds, they will not scruple to amuse them- 
 selves, and will afterward ask for a repetition of the 
 words or ideas which they missed during this excursion 
 of fancy. When they hear the warning advertisement 
 of " certainly for the last time this season," they will 
 deem it time enough to attend to the performance. To 
 cure them of this presumption in favour of our patience, 
 and of their own superlative quickness, we should press 
 that quickness to its utmost speed. Whenever we call 
 for their attention, let it be on subjects highly interests 
 
 ♦ Deinology. 
 
ATTENTION. 85 
 
 ing or amusing'; and let us give them but just sufficient 
 time with their fullest exertion to catch our words and 
 ideas. As these quick gentlemen are proud of their 
 rapidity of apprehension, this method will probably se- 
 cure their attention ; they will dread the disgrace of not 
 understanding what is said, and they will feel that they 
 cannot understand unless they exert prompt, vigorous, 
 unremitted attention. 
 
 The Dutchess of Kingston used to complain that she 
 could never acquire any knowledge, because she never 
 could meet with anybody who could teach her any 
 thing " in two words." Her grace felt the same sort 
 of impatience which was expressed by the tyrant who 
 expected to find a royal road to geometry. 
 
 Those who believe themselves endowed with genius, 
 expect to find a royal road in every science, shorter 
 and less laborious than the beaten paths of industry. 
 Their expectations are usually in proportion to their 
 ignorance ; they see to the summit only of one hill, and 
 they do not suspect the Alps that will arise as they ad- 
 vance : but as children become less presumptuous, as 
 they acquire more knowledge, we may bear with their 
 juvenile impatience, while we take measures to enlarge 
 continually their sphere of information. We should not, 
 however, humour the attention of young people, by 
 teaching them always in the mode which we know suits 
 their temper best. Vivacious pupils should, from time to 
 time, be accustomed to an exact enumeration of par- 
 ticulars ; and we should take opportunities to convince 
 them, that an orderly connexion of proofs, and a minute 
 observation of apparent trifles, are requisite to produce 
 the lively descriptions, great discoveries, and liappy in- 
 ventions, which pupils of this disposition are ever prone 
 to admire with enthusiasm. They will learn not to pass 
 over old things, when they perceive that these may lead 
 to something new ; and they will even submit to sober 
 attention, when they feel that this is necessary even to 
 the rapidity of genius. In the " Curiosities of Litera- 
 ture," there has been judiciously preserved a curious 
 instance of literary patience; the rough draught of that 
 beautiful passage in Pope's translation of the Iliad 
 which describes the parting of Hector and Andromache, 
 The lines are in Pope's handwriting, and his numerous 
 corrections appear ; the lines which seem to the reader 
 to have been struck off at a single happy stroke, are 
 
86 PRACTICAL EDUCATIOff. 
 
 proved to have been touched and retouched with the 
 indefatigable attention of a great writer. The fragment, 
 with all its climax of corrections, was shown to a young 
 vivacious poet of nine years old, as a practical lesson, to 
 prove the necessity of patience to arrive at perfection. 
 Similar examples, from real life, should be produced to 
 young people at proper times ; the testimony of men of 
 acknowledged abilities, of men whom they have admired 
 for genius, will come with peculiar force in favour of 
 application. Parents well acquainted with literature, 
 cannot be at a loss to find apposite illustrations. The 
 Life of Franklin is an excellent example of persevering 
 industry ; the variations in difterent editions of Vol- 
 taire's dramatic poetry, and in Pope's works, are worth 
 examining. All Sir Joshua Reynolds's eloquent aca- 
 demical discourses enforce the doctrine of patience ; 
 when he wants to prove to painters the value of con- 
 tinual energetic attention, he quotes from Livy the char- 
 acter of Philopoemen, one of the ablest generals of 
 antiquity. So certain it is, that the same principle per- 
 vades all superior minds : whatever may be their pur- 
 suits, attention is the avowed primary cause of their 
 success. These examples from the dead should be 
 well supported by examples from among the living. 
 In common life, occurrences can frequently be pointed 
 out, in which attention and application are amply re- 
 warded with success. 
 
 It will encourage those who are interested in educa- 
 tion, to observe, that two of the most difficult exercises 
 of the iriind can, by practice, be rendered familiar, even 
 by persons whom we do not consider as possessed of 
 superior talents. Abstraction and transition — abstrac- 
 tion, the power of withdrawing the attention from all 
 external objects, and concentrating it upon some par- 
 ticular set of ideas, we admire as one of the most diffi- 
 cult exercises of the philosopher. Abstraction was for- 
 merly considered as such a difficult and painful opera- 
 tion, that it required perfect silence and solitude ; many 
 ancient philosophers quarrelled with their senses, and 
 shut themselves up in caves, to secure their attention 
 from the distraction caused by external objects. But 
 modern* philosophers have discovered, that neither 
 caves nor lamps are essential to tlie full and successful 
 
 * See Condillac, Art dePenser. 
 
ATTENTION. 87 
 
 exercise of their mental powers. Persons of ordinary 
 abilities, tradesmen and shopkeepers, in the midst of 
 the tumult of a public city, in the noise of rumbUng 
 carts and rattling carriages, amid the voices of a mul- 
 titude of people talking upon various subjects, amid the 
 provoking interruptions of continual questions and an- 
 swers, and in the broad glare of a hot sun, can command 
 and abstract their attention so far as to calculate yards, 
 ells, and nails, to cast up long sums in addition right to 
 a farthing, and to make out multifarious bills with quick 
 and unerring precision. In almost all the dining-houses 
 at Vienna, as a late traveller* informs us, " a bill of fare 
 containing a vast collection of dishes is written out, and 
 the prices are affixed to each article. As the people of 
 Vienna are fond of variety, the calculation at the con- 
 clusion of a repast would appear somewhat embarras- 
 sing; this, however, is done by mechanical habit with 
 great speed ; the custom is, for the party who has dined 
 to name tiie dishes, and the quantity of bread and wine. 
 The keller, who attends on this occasion, follows every 
 article you name with the sum, which this adds to the 
 calculation, and the whole is performed, to whatever 
 amount, without ink or paper. It is curious to hear this 
 ceremony, which is muttered with great gravity, yet 
 performed with accuracy and despatch." 
 
 We coolly observe, when we read these things, " Yes, 
 this is all habit ; anybody who had used himself to it 
 might do the same things." Yet the very same power 
 of abstracting the attention, when employed upon scien- 
 tific and literary subjects, would excite our astonish- 
 ment ; and we should, perhaps, immediately attribute it 
 to superior original genius. We may surely educate 
 children to this habit of abstracting the attention, which 
 we allow depends entirely upon practice. When we 
 are very much interested upon any subject, we attend to 
 it exclusively, and, without any effort, we surmount all 
 petty interposing interruptions. When we are reading 
 an interesting book, twenty people may converse round 
 about us without our hearing one word that they say ; 
 when we are in a crowded playhouse, the moment we 
 become interested in the play the audience vanish from 
 our sight, and in the midst of various noises, we hear 
 only the voices of the actors. 
 
 *Mr. Owen. 
 
88 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Ill the same manner, children, by their eager looks 
 and their unaffected absence to all external circum- 
 stances, show when they are thoroughly interested by 
 any story that is told with eloquence suited to their 
 age. When we would teach them to attend in the midst 
 of noise and interruptions, we should begin by talking 
 to them about things which we are sure will please them ; 
 by degrees we may speak on less captivating subjects, 
 when we perceive that their habit of beginning to listen 
 with an expectation of pleasure is formed. Whenever 
 a child happens to be intent upon any favourite amuse- 
 ment, or when he is reading any very entertaining book, 
 we may increase the busy hum around him, we may 
 make what bustle we please, he will probably continue 
 attentive ; it is useful therefore to give him such amuse- 
 ments and such books when there is a noise or bustle in 
 the room, because then he will learn to disregard all 
 interruptions ; and when this habit is formed, he may 
 even read less amusing books in the same company, 
 without being interrupted by the usual noises. 
 
 The power of abstracting our attention is universally 
 allowed to be necessary to the successful labour of the 
 understanding ; but we may further observe, that this 
 abstraction is characteristic in some cases of heroism 
 as well as of genius. Charles the Twelfth and Ar- 
 chimedes were very different men; yet both, in similar 
 circumstances, gave similar proofs of their uncommon 
 power of abstracting their attention. " What has the 
 bomb to do with what you are writing to Sweden," said 
 the hero to his pale secretary when a bomb burst 
 through the roof of his apartment, and he continued to 
 dictate his letter. Archimedes went on with his de- 
 monstration in the midst of a siege, and when a brutal 
 soldier entered with a drawn sword, the philosopher 
 only begged he might solve his problem before he were 
 put to death. 
 
 Presence of mind in danger, which is usually supposed 
 to depend upon our quick perception of all the present 
 circumstances, frequently demands a total abstraction 
 of our thoughts. In danger, fear is the motive which 
 excites our exertions ; but from all the ideas that fear 
 naturally suggests, we must abstract our attention, or 
 we shall not act with courage or prudence. In propor- 
 tion to the violence of our terror, our voluntary exer- 
 tion must be great to withdraw our thoughts from the 
 
ATTENTION. 89 
 
 present danger, and to recollect the means of escape. 
 In some cases, where the danger has been associated 
 with the use of certain methods of escape, we use these 
 without deliberation, and consequently without any 
 effort of attention ; as when we see any thing catch 
 fire, we instantly throw water upon the flames to ex- 
 tinguish them. But in new situations, where we have 
 no mechanical courage, we must exert much voluntary, 
 quick, abstract attention, to escape from danger. 
 
 When Lee, the poet, was confined in Bedlam, a friend 
 went to visit him ; and finding that he could converse 
 reasonably, or at least reasonably for a poet, imagined 
 that Lee was cured of his madness. The poet offered 
 to show him Bedlam. They went over this melancholy, 
 medical prison, Lee moralizing philosophically enough 
 all the time to keep his companion perfectly at ease. At 
 length they ascended together to the top of the building ; 
 and, as they were both looking down from the perilous 
 height, Lee seized his friend by the arm ; " Let us im- 
 mortalize ourselves !" he exclaimed ; " Let us take this 
 leap. We'll jump down together this instant." — " Any 
 man could jump down," said his friend, coolly ; " we 
 should not immortalize ourselves by that leap ; but let 
 us go down, and try if we can jump up again." The 
 madman, struck with the idea of a more astonishing leap 
 than that which he had himself proposed, yielded to this 
 new impulse, and his friend rejoiced to see him run down 
 stairs full of a new project for securing immortality. 
 
 Lee's friend, upon this occasion, showed rather ab- 
 sence than presence of mind : before he could have in- 
 vented the happy answer that saved his life, he must 
 have abstracted his mind from the passion of fear ; he 
 must have rapidly turned his attention upon a variety 
 of ideas unconnected by any former associations with 
 the exciting motive — falling from a height — fractured 
 sculls — certain death — impossibility of reasoning or 
 wrestling with a madman. This was the train of 
 thoughts which we might naturally expect to arise in 
 such a situation, but from all these the man of presence 
 of mind turned away his attention ; he must have di- 
 rected his thoughts in a contrary line: first, he must have 
 thought of the means of saving himself, of some argu- 
 ment likely to persuade a madman, of some argument 
 peculiarly suited to Lee's imagination, and applicable to 
 his situation ; he must at this moment have considered 
 
90 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. ' 
 
 that alarming situation without thinking of his fears ; 
 for the interval in which all these ideas passed in his 
 mind must have been so short, that he could not have 
 had leisure to combat fear ; if any of the ideas associ- 
 ated with that passion had interrupted his reasonings, he 
 would not have invented his answer in time to have 
 saved his life. 
 
 We cannot foresee on what occasions presence of 
 mind may be wanted, but we may, by education, give 
 that general command of abstract attention, which is 
 essential to its exercise in all circumstances. 
 
 Transition of thought, the power of turning attention 
 quickly to different subjects or employments, is another 
 of those mental habits, which in some cases we call 
 genius, and which in others we perceive depends entirely 
 upon practice. A number of trials in one newspaper, 
 upon a variety of unconnected subjects, once struck our 
 eye, and we saw the name of a celebrated lawyer* as 
 counsel in each cause. We could not help feehng in- 
 voluntary admiration at that versatility of genius, which 
 could pass from a fractional calculation about a London 
 chaldron of coals, to the Jamaica laws of insurance ; 
 from the bargains of a citizen, to the divorce of a fine 
 lady ; from pathos to argument ; from arithmetic to wit ; 
 from cross-examination to eloquence. For a moment 
 we forgot our sober principles, and ascribed all this ver- 
 satility of mind to natural genius ; but upon reflection 
 we recurred to the belief, that this dexterity of intellect 
 was not bestowed by nature. We observe in men who 
 have no pretensions to genius, similar versatility of 
 mind as to their usual employments. The daily occu- 
 pations of Mr. Elwes's huntsman were as various and 
 incongruous, and required as quick transitions of atten- 
 tion, as any that can well be imagined. 
 
 " Atf four o'clock he milked the cows ; then got 
 breakfast for Mr. Ehves and friends ; then slipping on a 
 green coat, he hurried into the stable, saddled the horses, 
 got the hounds out of the kennel, and away they went 
 into the field. After the fatigues of hunting, he refreshed 
 himself, by rubbing down two or three horses as quickly 
 as he could ; then running into the house to lay the 
 cloth, and wait at dinner ; then hurrying again into the 
 
 * Mr. Erskine— The Star. 
 
 t See Life of John Elwes, Esq. by T. Topham. 
 
ATTENTION. 91 
 
 stable to feed the horses, diversified with an interlude of 
 the cows again to milk, the dogs to feed, and eight 
 hunters to litter down for the night." Mr. Elwes used 
 to call this huntsman an idle dog, who wanted to be 
 paid for doing nothing ! 
 
 We do not mean to require any such rapid daily- 
 transitions in the exercise of attention from our pupils ; 
 but we think that much may be done to improve ver- 
 satility of mind, by a judicious arrangement of their 
 occupations. When we are tired of smelling a rose, 
 we can smell a carnation with pleasure ; and when the 
 sense of smell is fatigued, j^et we can look at the beau- 
 tiful colours with delight. When we are tired of think- 
 ing upon one subject, we can attend to another ; when 
 our memory is fatigued, the exercise of the imagination 
 entertains us ; and when we are weary of reasoning, 
 we can amuse ourselves with wit and humour. Men 
 who have attended much to the cultivation of their 
 mind, seem to have felt all this, and they have kept 
 some subordinate taste as a refreshment after their 
 labours. Descartes went from the system of the world 
 to his flower-garden ; Galileo used to read Ariosto ; 
 and the metaphysical Dr. Clarke recovered himself from 
 abstraction by jumping over chairs and tables. The 
 learned and indefatigable Chancellor d'Aguesseau de- 
 clared, that change of employment was the only recre- 
 ation he ever knew. Even Montaigne, who found his 
 recreation in playing with his cat, educated himself 
 better than those are educated who go from intense 
 study to complete idleness. It has been very wisely 
 recommended by Mr. Locke, that young people should 
 early be taught some mechanical employment, or some 
 agreeable art, to which they may recur for relief when 
 they are tired by mental application.* 
 
 Doctor Darwin supposes that " animal motions, or 
 configurations of the organs of sense, constitute our 
 ideas. 1 The fatigue, he observes, that follows a con- 
 tinued attention of the mind to one object, is relieved by 
 changing the subject of our thoughts, as the continued 
 movement of one limb is relieved by moving another in 
 its stead." Dr. Darwin has further suggested a tempt- 
 ing subject of experiment in his theory of ocular spec- 
 
 * See Chapter on Toys, 
 t Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 21, 24, 
 
92 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 tra, to wliich we refer ingenious preceptors. Many 
 useful experiments in education might be tried upon the 
 principles which are there suggested. We dare not here 
 trust ourselves to speculate upon this subject, because we 
 are not at present provided with a sufficient number of 
 facts to apply our theory to practice. If we could ex- 
 actly discover how to arrange mental employments so 
 as to induce actions in the antagonist faculties of the 
 mind, we might relieve it from fatigue in the same man- 
 ner as the eye is relieved by change of colour. By pur- 
 suing this idea, might we not hope to cultivate the 
 general power of attention to a degree of perfection 
 hitherto unknown 1 
 
 We have endeavoured to show how, by different ar- 
 rangements and proper excitations, a preceptor may 
 acquire that command over the attention of his pupils, 
 which is absolutely essential to successful instruction; 
 but we must recollect, that when the years commonly 
 devoted to education are over, when young people are 
 no longer under the care of a preceptor, they will con- 
 tinue to feel the advantages of a commaodof attention, 
 whenever they mix in the active business of life, or 
 whenever they apply to any profession, to literature, or 
 science. Their attention must now be entirely volun- 
 tary ; they will have no tutor to excite them to exertion, 
 no nice habitual arrangements to assist them in their 
 daily occupations. It is of consequence, therefore, that 
 we should substitute the power of voluntary, for the 
 habit of associated attention. With young children 
 we depend upon particular associations of place, time, 
 and manner; upon different sorts of excitement, to pro- 
 duce habits of employment : but as our pupils advance 
 in their education, all these temporary excitements 
 should be withdrawn. Some large, but distant object, 
 some pursuit which is not to be rewarded with imme- 
 diate praise, but rather with permanent advantage and 
 esteem, should be held out to the ambition of youth. 
 All the arrangements should be left to the pupil him- 
 self ; all the difficulties should be surmounted by his own 
 industry, and tlie interest he takes in his own success 
 and improvement, will now probably be a sufficient 
 stimulus ; his preceptor will now rather be his partner 
 than his master, he should rather share the labour than 
 attempt to direct it ; this species of sympathy in study 
 diminishes the pain of attention, and gives an agreeable 
 
ATTENTION. 93 
 
 interest even in the most tiresome researches. When a 
 yomig man perceives that his preceptor becomes in this 
 manner the companion of his exertions, he loses all sus- 
 picion that he is compelled to mental labour ; it is im- 
 proper to saj^ loses, for in a good education this sus- 
 picion need not ever be created : he discovers, we 
 should rather say, that all the habits of attention which 
 he has acquired, are those which are useful to men as 
 well as to children ; and he feels the advantage of his 
 cultivated powers on every fresh occasion. He will 
 perceive, that young men who have been ill educated, 
 cannot, by any motive, command their vigorous atten- 
 tion, and he will feel the cause of his own superiority, 
 when he comes to any trial of skill with inattentive 
 men of genius. 
 
 One of the arguments which Bayle uses, to prove that 
 fortune has a greater influence than prudence in the 
 affairs of men, is founded upon the common observa- 
 tion, that men of the best abilities cannot frequently re- 
 collect, in urgent circumstances, what they have said 
 or done; the things occur to them perhaps a moment 
 after they are past. The fact seems to be, that they 
 could not, in the proper moment, command their atten- 
 tion ; but this we should attribute to the want of pru- 
 dence in their early education. Thus, Bayle's argu- 
 ment does not, in this point of view, prove any thing in 
 favour of fortune. Those who can best command their 
 attention, in the greatest variety of circumstances, have 
 the most useful abilities ; without this command of 
 mind, men of genius, as they are called, are hopeless 
 beings ; with it, persons of inferior capacity become 
 valuable. Addison trembled and doubted, and doubted 
 and trembled, when he was to write a common ofllcial 
 paper ; and it is said, that he was absolutely obliged to 
 resign his place, because he could not decide in time 
 whether he should write a that or a which. No business 
 could have been transacted by such an imbecile minister. 
 
 To substitute voluntary for associated attention, we 
 may withdraw some of the usually associated circum- 
 stances, and increase the excitement ; and we may after- 
 ward accustom the pupil to act from the hope of distant 
 pleasures. Unless children can be actuated by the view 
 of future distant advantage, they cannot be capable of 
 long-continued application. We shall endeavour to ex- 
 plain how the value of distant pleasures can be increased, 
 
94 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 and made to act with sufficient force upon tiie mind, 
 when we hereafter speak of judgment and of imag* 
 ination. 
 
 It has been observed, that persons of wit and judg- 
 ment have perhaps originally the same powers, and 
 that the difference in their characters arises from their 
 habits of attention, and the different class of objects to 
 which they have turned their thoughts. The manner in 
 which we are first taught to observe, and to reason, must 
 in the first years of life decide these habits. There are 
 two methods of teaching -. one which ascends from par- 
 ticular facts to general principles ; the other which de- 
 scends from the general principles to particular facts ; 
 one which builds up, another which takes to pieces ; the 
 synthetic and the analytic method. The words analysis 
 and synthesis are frequently misapplied, and it is diffi- 
 cult to write or to speak long about these methods with- 
 out confounding them : in learning or in teaching we 
 often use them alternately. We first observe particu- 
 lars ; then form some general idea of classification; 
 then descend again to new particulars, to observe 
 whether they correspond with our principle. 
 
 Children acquire knowledge, and their attention al- 
 ternates from particular to general ideas, exactly in the 
 same manner. It has been remarked, that men who 
 have begun by forming suppositions, are inclined to 
 adapt and to compress their consequent observations 
 to the measure of their theories ; they have been negli- 
 gent in collecting facts, and have not condescended to 
 try experiments. This disposition of mind, during a 
 long period of time, retarded improvement, and knowl- 
 edge was confined to a few peremptory maxims and 
 exclusive principles. Tlie necessity of collecting facts, 
 and of trying experiments, was at length perceived ; and 
 in all the sciences this mode has lately prevailed ; con- 
 sequently, we have now on many subjects a treasure of 
 accumulated facts. We are, in educating children, to 
 put them in possession of all this knowledge ; and a 
 judicious preceptor will wish to know, not only how 
 these facts can be cfammed speedily into his pupil's 
 memory, but what order of presenting them will be most 
 advantageous to the understanding ; he will desire to 
 cultivate his pupiFs faculties, that he may acquire new 
 facts, and make new observations after all the old facts 
 have been arranged in his mind. 
 
ATTENTION. 95 
 
 fey a judicious arrangement of past experiments, and 
 by the rejection of what are useless, an able instructer 
 can show, in a small compass, what it has cost the 
 labour of ages to accumulate ; he may teach in a few 
 hours M'hat the most ingenious pupil, left to his own 
 random efforts, could not have learned in many years. 
 It would take up as much time to go over all the steps 
 which have been made in ally science, as it originally 
 cost the first discoverers. Simply to repeat all the 
 fruitless experiments which have been made in chym- 
 istry, for instance, would probably employ the longest 
 life that ever was devoted to science ; nor would the 
 individual have got one step forwarder ; he would die, 
 and with him his recapitulated knowledge ; neither he 
 nor the world would be the better for it. It is our 
 business to save children all this useless labour, and all 
 this waste of the power of attention. A pupil who is 
 properly instructed, with the same quantity of attention, 
 learns, perhaps, a hundred times as much in the same 
 time, as he could acquire under the tuition of a learned 
 preceptor ignorant in the art of teaching. 
 
 The analytic and synthetic methods of instruction 
 will both be found useful when judiciously employed. 
 Where the enumeration of particulars fatigues the at- 
 tention, we should, in teaching any science, begin by 
 stating the general principles, and afterward produce 
 only the facts essential to their illustration and proof. 
 But wherever we have not accumulated a sufficient 
 number of facts to be accurately certain of any general 
 principle, we must, however tedious the task, enumerate 
 all the facts that are knowqi, and warn the pupil of the 
 imperfect state of the science. All the facts must, in 
 this case, be stored up with scrupulous accuracy ; we 
 cannot determine which are unimportant, and which 
 may prove essentially useful : this can be decided only 
 by future experiments. By thus stating honestly to our 
 pupils the extent of our ignorance, as well as the extent 
 of our knowledge ; by thus directing attention to the im- 
 perfections of science, rather than to the study of theo- 
 ries, we shall avoid the just reproaches which have been 
 thrown upon the dogmatic vanity of learned preceptors. 
 
 " For as knowledges are now," says Bacon, " there 
 is a kind of contract of error between the deliverer and 
 receiver; for he that delivereth knowledge, dcsireth to 
 deliver it in such a form as may be best believed, and 
 
96 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 not as may be best examined ; and he that receiveth 
 knowledge, desireth rather present satisfaction than ex- 
 pectant inquiry ; and so rather not to doubt than not to 
 err ; glory making the author not to lay open his weak- 
 ness, and sloth making the disciple not to know his 
 strength."* 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SERVANTS. 
 
 " Now, master,"! said a fond nurse to her favourite 
 boy, after having given him sugared bread and butter 
 for supper, " now, master, kiss -me ; wipe your mouth, 
 dear, and go up to the drawing-room to mamma ; and 
 when mistress asks you what you have had for supper, 
 you'll say, bread and butter, for you have had bread 
 and butter, you know, master." — " And sugar," said the 
 boy ; " I must say bread and butter, and sugar, you know." 
 
 How few children would have had the courage to 
 have added, " and sugar !" How dangerous it is to ex- 
 pose them to such temptations ! The boy must have 
 immediately perceived the object of the nurse's casu- 
 istry. He must guess that she would be blamed for the 
 addition of the sugar, else why should she wish to sup- 
 press the word ! His gratitude is engaged to his nurse 
 for running this risk to indulge him ; his mother, by 
 the force of contrast, appears a severe person, who, 
 for no reason that he can comprehend, would deprive 
 him of the innocent pleasure of eating sugar. As to 
 its making him sick, he has eaten it, and he is not sick ; 
 as to its spoiling his teeth, he does not care about his 
 teeth, and he sees no immediate change in them : there- 
 fore he concludes that his mother's orders are capricious, 
 and that his nurse loves him better because she gives 
 him the most pleasure. His honour and affection to- 
 wards his nurse are immediately set in opposition to 
 his duty to his mother. What a hopeful beginning in 
 education ! What a number of dangerous ideas may be 
 given by a single word ! 
 
 * Bacon, vol. i. p. 84. 
 
 + Verbatim from what has been really said to a boy 
 
SERVANTS. 97 
 
 The taste for sugared bread and butter is soon over ; 
 but servants have it in their pov^^er to excite other tastes 
 with premature and factitious enthusiasm. The waiting- 
 maid, a taste for dress ; the footman, a taste for gaming ; 
 the coachman and groom, for horses and equipage ; and 
 the butler, for wine. The simplicity of children is not 
 a defence to them ; and though they are totally ignorant 
 of vice, they are exposed to adopt the principles of 
 those with whom they hve, even before they can apply 
 them to their own conduct. 
 
 The young son of a lady of quality, a boy of six or 
 seven years old, addressed, with great simplicity, the 
 following speech to a lady who visited his mother. 
 
 Boy. Miss N , I wish you could find somebody, 
 
 when you go to London, who would keep you. It's 
 a very good thing to be kept. 
 
 Lady. What do you mean, my dear? 
 
 Boy. Why it's when — you know, when a person's 
 kept, they have every thing found for them ; their friend 
 saves them all trouble, you know. They have a car- 
 nage and diamonds, and every thing they want. I wish 
 somebody would keep you. 
 
 Lady, (laughing.) But I'm afraid nobody would. Do 
 you think anybody would "? 
 
 Boy. (after a pause.) Why yes, I think Sir « 
 
 naming a gentleman whose name had, at this time, been 
 much talked of in a public trial, would be as likely as 
 anybody. 
 
 The same boy talked familiarly of phaetons and gigs, 
 and wished that he was grown up, that he might drive 
 four horses in hand. It is obvious that these ideas were 
 put into the boy's head by the servants with whom he 
 associated. 
 
 Without supposing them to be profligate, servants, 
 from their situation, from all that they see of the society 
 of their superiors, and from the early prejudices of their 
 own education, learn to admire that wealth and rank to 
 which they are bound to pay homage. The luxuries 
 and follies of fashionable life they mistake for happiness ; 
 they measure the respect they pay to strangers by their 
 external appearance ; they value their own masters and 
 mistresses by the same standard ; and in their attach- 
 ment there is a necessary mixture of that sympathy 
 which is sacred to prosperity. Setting aside all in- 
 terested motives, servants love show and prodigality in 
 E 
 
98 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 their masters ; they feel that they partake the triumph, 
 and they wish it to be as magnificent as possible. These 
 dispositions break out naturally in the conversation of 
 servants with one another ; if children are suffered to 
 hear them, they will quickly catch the same tastes. But 
 if these ideas break out in their unpremeditated gossiping 
 with one another, how much more strongly will they 
 be expressed when servants wish to ingratiate them- 
 selves into a child's affections by flattery ! Their 
 method of showing their attachment to a family, is 
 usually to exaggerate in their expressions of admiration 
 of its consequence and grandeur ; they deprecate all 
 whom they imagine to be competitors in any respect 
 with their masters, and feed and foster the little jeal- 
 ousies which exist between neighbouring families. The 
 children of these families are thus early set at variance ; 
 the children in the same family are often taught, by the 
 imprudence or malice of servtints, to dislike and envy 
 each other. In houses where each child has an attend- 
 ant, the attendants regularly quarrel, and out of a show 
 of zeal, make their young masters and mistresses parties 
 in their animosity. Three or four maids sometimes 
 produce their little dressed pupils for a few minutes to 
 the company in the drawing-room, for the express pur- 
 pose of seeing which shall obtain the greatest share of 
 admiration. This competition, which begins in their 
 nurses' arms, is continued by daily artifices through the 
 whole course of their nursery education. Thus the 
 emulation of children is rendered a torment to them, 
 their ambition is directed to absurd and vile purposes, 
 the understanding is perverted, their temper is spoiled, 
 their simplicity of mind, and their capability of enjoying 
 happiness, nmterially injured. 
 
 The language and manners, the awkward and vulgar 
 tricks which children learn in the society of servants, 
 are immediately perceived, and disgust and shock well- 
 bred parents. This is an evil which is striking and 
 disgraceful ; it is more likely to be remedied than those 
 which are more secret and slow in their operation : 
 the habits of cunning, falsehood, envy, which lurk in 
 the temper, are not instantly visible to strangers ; they 
 do not appear the moment children are reviewed by their 
 parents ; they may remain for years without notice or 
 without cure. 
 
 All these things have been said a hundred times; and 
 
SERVANTS, 99 
 
 what is more, they are universally acknowledged to be 
 true. It has passed into a common maxim with all who 
 reflect, and even with all who speak upon the subject 
 of education, that " it is the worst thing in the world to 
 leave children with servants." But, notwithstanding this, 
 eachperson imagines that he has found some lucky excep- 
 tion to the general rule. There is some favourite maid 
 or phenix of a footman in each family, who is supposed 
 to be unlike all other servants, and, therefore, qualified 
 for the education of children. But, if their qualihca- 
 tions were scrupulously examined, it is to be feared they 
 would not be found competent to the trust that is re- 
 posed in them. They may, nevertheless, be excellent 
 servants, much attached to their masters and mistresses, 
 and sincerely desirous to obey their orders in the man- 
 agement of their pupils ; but this is not sufficient. In 
 education it is not enough to obey the laws ; it is ne- 
 cessary to understand them ; to understand the spirit, as 
 well as the letter of the law. The blind application of 
 general maxims will never succeed; and can that nice 
 discrimination which is necessary to the just use of good 
 principles, be expected from those who have never 
 studied the human mind, who have little motive for the 
 study, whose knowledge is technical, and who have 
 never had any liberal education? Give, or attempt to 
 give, the best waiting-maid in London the general 
 maxim, " That pain should be associated with whatever 
 we wish to make children avoid doing ; and pleasure 
 should be associated with whatever we wish that children 
 should love to do ;" will the waiting-maid understand 
 this, even if you exchange the word associated {om joined? 
 How will she apply her new principle in practice ? She 
 will probably translate it into, " Whip the child when it 
 is troublesome, and give it sweetmeats when it does as 
 it is bid." With this compendious system of tuition 
 she is well satisfied, especially as it contains nothing 
 which is new to her understanding, or foreign to her 
 habits. But if we should expect her to enter into the 
 views of a Locke or a Barbauld, would it not be at once 
 unreasonable and ridiculous ! 
 
 What has been said of the understanding and disposi- 
 tions of servants, relates only to servants as they are 
 now educated. Their vices and their ignorance arise 
 from the same causes, the want of education. They are 
 not a separate caste in society, doomed to ignorance, or 
 E2 
 
100 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 degraded by inherent vice ; they are capable, they are 
 desirous of instruction. Let them be well educated,* 
 and the difference in their conduct and understanding 
 will repay society for the trouble of the undertaking. 
 This education must begin as early as possible ; let us 
 not imagine that it is practicable to change the habits 
 of servants who are already educated, and to make them 
 suddenly fit companions in a family. They should not, 
 in any degree, be permitted to interfere with the man- 
 agement of children, until their own education has been 
 radically reformed. Let servants be treated with the 
 utmost kindness ; let their situations be made as happy 
 as possible ; let the reward of their services and attach- 
 ment be as liberal as possible ; but reward with justice ; 
 do not sacrifice your children to pay your own debts. 
 Familiarity between servants and cliildren cannot per- 
 manently increase the happiness of either party. Chil- 
 dren who have early lived with servants, as they grow 
 up are notoriously apt to become capricious and tyran- 
 nical masters. A boy who has been used to treat a 
 footman as his playfellow, cannot suddenly command 
 from him that species of deference which is compounded 
 of habitual respect for the person, and conventional sub- 
 ini;ssion to his station; the young master must, there- 
 fore, effect a change in his footman's manner of think- 
 hig and speaking by violent means ; he must extort that 
 tribute of respect which he has neglected so long, and 
 to which, consequently, his right is disputed.! He is 
 sensible that his superiority is merely that of situation, 
 and he therefore exerts his dormant prerogatives with 
 jealous insolence. No master is so likely to become 
 the tyrant of his valet-de-chambre as he who is con- 
 scious that he never can appear to him a hero. No ser- 
 vant feels the yoke of servitude more galling, than he 
 who has been partially emancipated ; who has lost his 
 liabits of " proud subordination, and his taste for digni- 
 fied submission."! 
 
 No mistaken motive of tenderness to domestics should 
 operate upon the minds of parents ; nor should they 
 
 * Perhaps an institution for the education of attendants upon chil- 
 dren would be of the highest utiUty. 
 
 Mr. had once an intention of educating forty children for this 
 
 purpose ; from among whom he proposed to select eight or ten as 
 mooters for future schools upon the same plan. 
 
 ] See the comedy of Wild Oats. % Burke. 
 
SERVANTS. 101 
 
 hesitate, for the general happiness of their families, to 
 insist upon a total separation between those parts of it 
 which will injure each other essentially by their union. 
 
 Everybody readily disclaims the idea of letting- chil- 
 dren live with servants ; but, besides the exceptions in 
 favour of particular individuals, there is yet another 
 cause of the difference between theory and practice upon 
 this subject. Time is left out of the consideration ; 
 people forget that hfe is made up of days and hours ; 
 and they by no means think that letting children pass 
 several hours every day with servants has any thing to 
 do with the idea of living with them. We must contract 
 this latitude of expression. If children pass one hour 
 in a day with servants, it will be in vain to attempt their 
 education. 
 
 Madame Roland, in one of her letters to De Bosc, says 
 that her little daughter Eudora had learned to swear ; 
 " And yet," continues she, " I leave her but one half 
 hour a day with servants. Admirez la disposition !" 
 Madame Roland could not have been much accustomed 
 to attend to education. 
 
 While children are very young, there appears a ne- 
 cessity for their spending at least half an hour a day with 
 servants ; until they are four or five years old, they can- 
 not dress or undress themselves, or, if they attempt it, 
 they may learn careless habits, which in girls are par- 
 ticularly to be avoided. If a mother, or a governess, 
 would make it a rule to be present when they are dres- 
 sing, a maidservant would not talk to them, and could 
 do them but little injury. It is of consequence that the 
 maidservant should herself be perfectly neat, both from 
 habit and taste. Children observe exactly the manner 
 in which every thing is done for them, and have the 
 wish, even before they have the power, to imitate what 
 they see ; they love order, if they are accustomed to it, 
 and if their first attempts at arrangement are not made 
 irksome by injudicious management. What they see 
 done every day in a particular manner, they learn to 
 think part of the business of the day, and they are un- 
 easy if any of the rites of cleanliness are forgotten ; the 
 transition from this uneasiness to the desire of exerting 
 themselves, is soon made, particularly if they are some- 
 times left to feel the inconveniences of being helpless. 
 This should, and can be done, without affectation. A 
 maid cannot be always ready, the instant she is wanted, 
 
102 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 to attend upon them ; they sliould not be waited upon 
 as being masters and misses, they should be assisted as 
 being helpless.* They will not feel their vanity flat- 
 tered by this attendance; the maid will not be suffered 
 to amuse them, they will be ambitious of independence, 
 and they will soon be proud of doing every thing for 
 themselves. 
 
 Another circumstance which keeps cliildren long in 
 subjection to servants is, their not being able to wield a 
 knife, fork, or spoon, with decent dexterity. Such hab- 
 its are taught to them by the careless maids who feed 
 them, that they cannot for many years be produced even 
 at the side-table without much inconvenience and con- 
 stant anxiety. If this anxiety in a mother were to begin 
 a little sooner, it need never be intense ; patient care in 
 feeding children neatly at first, will save many a bitter 
 reprimand afterward ; their little mouths and hands need 
 not be disgusting at their meals, and their nurses had 
 better take care not to let them touch what is disagree- 
 able, instead of rubbing their lips rudely with a rough 
 napkin, by way of making them love to have their mouths 
 clean. These minutiae must, in spite of didactic dignity, 
 be noticed, because they lead to things of greater con- 
 sequence ; they are well worth the attention of a pru- 
 dent mother or governess. If children are early taught 
 to eat with care, they will not, from false shame, desire 
 to dinef with the vulgar indulgent nursery-maid, rather 
 than with the fastidious company at their mother's 
 table. Children should first be taught to eat with a 
 spoon M^hat has been neatly cut for them ; afterward 
 they should cut a little meat for themselves towards the 
 end of dinner, when the rage of hunger is appeased ; 
 they will then have " leisure to be good." The several 
 operations of learning to eat with a spoon, to cut and to 
 eat with a knife and fork, will become easy and habit- 
 ual, if sufficient time be allowed. 
 
 Several children in a family, who were early attended 
 to in all these little particulars, were produced at table 
 when they were four or five years old ; they suflered no 
 constraint, nor were they ever banished to the nursery 
 lest company should detect their evil habits. Their eyes 
 and ears were at liberty during the time of dinner ; and 
 instead of being absorbed in the contemplation of their 
 
 * Rousseau. t See Sancho Panza. 
 
SERVANTS. 103 
 
 plates, and at war with themselves and their neighbours, 
 they could listen to conversation, and were amused even 
 •while they were eating. Without meaning to assert, 
 with Rousseau, that all children are naturally gluttons 
 or epicures, we must observe that eating is their first 
 great and natural pleasure ; this pleasure should, there- 
 fore, be entirely at the disposal of those who have the 
 care of their education ; it should be associated with 
 the idea of their tutors or governesses. A governess 
 may, perhaps, disdain to use' the same means to make 
 herself beloved by a child, as those which are employed 
 by a nursery-maid ; nor is it meant that children should 
 be governed by their love of eating. Eating need not 
 be made a reward, nor should we restrain their appetite 
 as a punishment; praise and blame, and a variety of 
 other excitements, must be preferred when we want to 
 act upon their understanding. Upon this subject we 
 shall speak more fully hereafter. All that is here meant 
 to be pointed out is, that the mere physical pleasure of 
 eating should not be associated in the minds of children 
 with servants ; it should not be at the disposal of ser- 
 vants ; because they may, in some degree, balance by 
 this pleasure the other motives which a tutor may wish 
 to put in action. " Solid pudding," as well as " empty 
 praise," should be in the gift of the preceptor. 
 
 Besides the pleasures of the table, there are many 
 others which usually are associated early with ser- 
 vants. After children have been pent in a close formal 
 drawing-room, motionless and mute, they are frequently 
 dismissed to an apartment where there is no furniture 
 too fine to be touched with impunity, where there is 
 ample space, where they may jump and sing, and make 
 as much noise as can be borne by the much-enduring 
 ear-drum of the nursery-maid. Children think this in- 
 sensibility of ear a most valuable qualification in any 
 person ; they have no sympathy with more refined audi- 
 tory nerves, and they prefer the company of those who 
 are to them the best hearers. A medium between their 
 taste and that of their parents should, in this instance, 
 be struck ; parents should not insist upon eternal silence, 
 and children should not be suffered to make mere noise 
 essential to their entertainment. Children should be 
 encouraged to talk at proper times, and should have oc- 
 cupations provided for them when they are required to 
 be still ; by these means it will not be a restraint to 
 
104 rr.ACTicAL education'. 
 
 them to stay in the same room with tlie rest of the fam- 
 ily for some hours in the day. At other times they 
 should have free leave to run about, either in rooms 
 where they cannot disturb others, or out of doors ; in 
 neither case should they be with servants. Children 
 should never be sent out to walk with servants. 
 
 After they have been poring over their lessons, or 
 stiflfening under the eye of their preceptors, they are 
 frequently consigned immediately to the ready footman ; 
 they cluster around him for their hats, their gloves, their 
 little boots and whips, and all the well known signals 
 of pleasure. The hall door bursts open, and they sally 
 forth under the interregnum of this beloved protector, 
 to enjoy life and liberty ; all the natural, and all the fac- 
 titious ideas of the love of liberty, are connected with 
 this distinct part of the day ; the fresh air — the green 
 fields— the busy streets — the gay shops — the variety of 
 objects which the children see and hear — the freedom 
 of their tongues — the joys of bodily exercise, and of 
 mental relaxation, all conspire to make them prefer this 
 period of the day, which they spend with the footman, 
 to any other in the four-and-twenty hours. The foot- 
 man sees, and is flattered by this ; he is therefore assid- 
 uous to please, and piques himself upon being more in- 
 dulgent than the hated preceptor. Servants usually 
 wish to make themselves beloved by children : can it 
 be wondered at if they succeed, when we consider the 
 power that is thrown into their hands 1 
 
 In towns, children have no gardens, no place where 
 they can take that degree of exercise which is neces- 
 sary for their health ; this tempts their parents to trust 
 them to servants, when they cannot walk with them 
 themselves : but is there no individual in the family, 
 neither tutor, nor governess, nor friend, nor brother, 
 nor sister, who can undertake this daily charge 1 Can- 
 not parents sacrifice some of their amusements in town, 
 or cannot they live in the country? If none of these 
 things can be done, without hesitation they should pre- 
 fer a public to a private education. In these circum- 
 stances, they cannot educate their children at home ; 
 they had much better not attempt it, but send them at 
 once to school. 
 
 In the country, arrangements may easily be made, 
 which will preclude all those little dangers which fill a 
 prudent parent's mind with anxiety. Here children 
 
SERVANTS. 105 
 
 want the care of no servant to walk out with them ; 
 they can have gardens, and safe places for exercise 
 allotted to them. In rainy weather, they can have 
 rooms apart from the rest of the family ; they need not 
 be cooped up in an ill-contrived house, where servants 
 are perpetually in their way. 
 
 Attention to the arrangement of a house is of mate- 
 rial consequence. Children's rooms should not be pas- 
 sage rooms for servants ; they should, on the contrary, 
 be so situated, that servants cannot easily have access 
 to them, and cannot, on any pretence of business, get 
 the habit of frequenting them. Some fixed employment 
 should be provided for children, which will keep them 
 in a different part of the house, at those hours when 
 servants must necessarily be in their bedchambers. 
 There will be a great advantage in teaching children to 
 arrange their own rooms, because this will prevent the 
 necessity of servants being for any length of time in 
 their apartments; their things will not be mislaid ; their 
 playthings will not be swept away or broken ; no little 
 temptations \vill arise to ask questions from servants ; 
 all necessity, and all opportunity of intercourse, will 
 thus be cut off. Children should never be sent with 
 messages to servants, either on their own business or 
 on other people's ; if they are permitted at any times to 
 speak to them, they will not distinguish v/hat times are 
 proper and what are improper. 
 
 Servants have so much the habit of talking to chil- 
 dren, and think it such a proof of good-nature to be in- 
 terested about them, that it will be difficult to make 
 them submit to this total silence and separation. The 
 certainty that they shall lose their places, if they break 
 through the regulations of the family, will, however, be 
 a strong motive, provided that their places are agreea- 
 ble and advantageous ; and parents should be absolutely 
 strict in this particular. What is the loss of the service 
 of a good groom, or a good butler, compared with the 
 danger of spoiling a child ? It may be feared that some 
 secret intercourse should be carried on between children 
 and servants ; but this will be lessened by the arrange- 
 ments in the house, which we have mentioned ; by care 
 in a mother or governess, to know exactly where chil- 
 dren are and what they are doing, every hour of the 
 day ; this need not to be a daily anxiety, for when cer- 
 tain hours have once been fixed for certain occupations, 
 E3 
 
106 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 habit is our friend, and we cannot have a safer. There 
 is this ^reat advantage in measures of precaution and 
 prevention, that they diminish all temptation, at the 
 same time that they strena^then the habits of obedience. 
 
 Other circumstances will deter servants from running- 
 any hazard themselves ; they will not be so fond of chil- 
 dren who do not live with them ; they will consider them 
 as beings moving in a different sphere. Children who 
 are at ease with their parents, and happy in their com- 
 pany, will not seek inferior society ; this will be attrib- 
 uted to pride by servants, who will not like them for 
 this reserve. So much the better. Children who are 
 encouraged to converse about every thing that interests 
 them, will naturally tell their mothers if any one talks 
 to them ; a servant's speaking to them would be an ex- 
 traordinary event to be recorded in the history of the 
 day. The idea that it is dishonourable to tell tales, 
 should never be put into their minds ; they will never 
 be the spies of servants, nor should they keep their se- 
 crets. Thus, as there is no faith expected from the 
 children, the servants will not trust them ; they will be 
 certain of detection, and will not transgress the laws. 
 
 It may not be impertinent to conclude these minute 
 precepts with assuring parents, that in a numerous fam- 
 ily, where they have above twenty years been steadily 
 abserved, success has been the uniform result. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 " The charming little dears !" exclaims a civil ac- 
 quaintance, the moment the children are introduced. 
 *' Won't you come to me, love V At this question, per- 
 haps, the bashful child backs towards its nurse or its 
 mother ; but in vain. Rejected at this trying crisis by 
 its natural protectors, it is pushed forward into the mid- 
 dle of the circle, and all prospect of retreat being cut 
 off, the victorious stranger seizes upon her little victim, 
 whom she seats, without a struggle, upon her lap. To 
 win the affections of her captive, the lady begins by a 
 
ACQUAINTANCE. 107 
 
 direct appeal to personal vanity : " Who curls this 
 pretty hair of yours, my dear ] Won't you let me look 
 at your nice new red shoes ? What shall I give you for 
 that fine colour in your cheeks 1 Let us see what we 
 can find in my pocket !" 
 
 Among the pocket-bribes, the lady never fails to se- 
 lect the most useless trinkets ; the child would make 
 a better choice ; for, if there should appear a pocket- 
 book, which may be drawn up by a riband from its slip 
 case, a screen that would unfold gradually into a green 
 star, a pocket-fan, or a toothpick case with a spring 
 lock, the child would seize upon these wilh delight ; but 
 the moment its attention is fixed, it is interrupted by the 
 officious exclamation of, " Oh, let me do that for you, 
 love ! Let me open that for you, you'll break your 
 sweet little nails. Ha ! there is a looking-glass ; whose 
 pretty face is that 1 but we don't love people for being 
 pretty, you know (mamma says I must not tell you 
 you are pretty) ; but we love little girls for being good, 
 and I am sure you look as if you were never naughty. 
 I am sure you don't know what it is to be naughty ; will 
 you give me one kiss ] and vvill you hold out your pretty 
 little hand for some sugarplums'? Mamma shakes her 
 head, but mamma will not be angry, though mamma can 
 refuse you nothing, I'll answer for it. Who spoils you 1 
 Whose favourite are you? Who do you love best in 
 the world 1 And will you love me "? And will you come 
 and live with me 1 Shall I carry you away with me in 
 the coach to-night T Oh ! but I'm afraid I should eat 
 you up, and then what would mamma say to us both V 
 
 To stop this torrent of nonsense, the child's mother, 
 perhaps, ventures to interfere with, " My dear, I'm 
 afraid you'll be troublesome." But this produces only 
 vehement assertions to the contrary. " The dear little 
 creature can never be troublesome to anybody." Wo 
 be to the child who implicitU' believes this assertion ! 
 frequent rebuffs from his friends must be endured before 
 this error will be thoroughly rectified : this will not tend 
 to make those friends more agreeable or more beloved. 
 That childish love, which varies from hour to hour, is 
 scarcely worth consideration ; it cannot be an object of 
 competition to any reasonable person ; but in early edu- 
 cation nothing must be thought beneath our attention. 
 A child does not retain much affection, it is true, for 
 every casual visitei: by whom he is flattered and ca-. 
 
108 PRACTICAL EDUCATION* 
 
 ressed. The individuals are here to-day and gone to- 
 morrow ; variety prevents the impression from sinking 
 into the mind, it may be said ; but the general impression 
 remains, though each particular stroke is not seen. 
 Young children who are much caressed in company, 
 are less intent than others upon pleasing those they live 
 with, and they are also less independent in their occu- 
 pations and pleasures. Those who govern such pupils 
 have not sufficient power over them, because they have 
 not the means of giving pleasure ; because their praise 
 or blame is frequently counteracted by applause of vis- 
 iters. That unbroken course of experience, which is 
 necessary for the success of a regular plan of education, 
 cannot be preserved. Everybody may have observed 
 the effect which the extraordinary notice of strangers 
 produces upon children. After the day is over, and the 
 company has left the house, there is a cold blank ; a 
 melancholy silence. The children then sink into them- 
 selves, and feel the mortifying change in their situation. 
 They look with dislike upon every thing around them ; 
 yawn with ennui, or fidget with fretfulness, till, on the 
 first check which they meet with, their secret discon- 
 tent bursts forth into a storm. Resistance, caprice, and 
 peevishness, are not borne with patience by a gov- 
 erness, though they are submitted to with smiles by the 
 complaisant visiter. In the same day, the same conduct 
 produces totally different consequences. Experience, 
 it is said, makes fools wise ; but such experience as this 
 makes wise children fools. 
 
 Why is this farce of civility, which disgusts all parties, 
 continually repeated between visiters and children? 
 Visiters would willingly be excused from the trouble of 
 flattering and spoiling them ; but such is the spell of 
 custom, that no one dares to break it, even when every 
 one feels that it is absurd. 
 
 Children who are thought to be clever, are often pro- 
 duced to entertain company ; they fill up the time, and 
 relieve the circle from that embarrassing silence which 
 proceeds from the having nothing to say. Boys who 
 are thus brought forward at six or seven years old, and 
 encouraged to say what are called smart things, seldom, 
 as they grow up, have really good understandings. 
 Children, who, like the fools in former times, are per- 
 mitted to say every thing, now and then blurt out those 
 simple truths which politeness conceals : this enter- 
 
ACQUAINTANCE. 109 
 
 tains people, but, in fact, it is a sort of naivete, which 
 may exist without any great talent for observation, and 
 without any powers of reasoning-. Every thing in our 
 manners, in the customs of the world, is new to chil- 
 dren, and the relations of apparently dissimilar things, 
 strike them immediately from their novelty. Children 
 are often witty, without knowing it, or rather without 
 intending it ; but as they grow older, the same kind of 
 wit does not please ; the same objects do not appear in 
 the same point of view ; and boys who have been the 
 delight of a whole house at seven or eight years old, for 
 the smart things they could say, sink into stupidity and 
 despondency at thirteen or fourteen. " Un nom trop 
 fameux, est m\ fardeau tres pesant," said a cele- 
 brated wit. 
 
 Plain, sober sense, does not entertain common visiters, 
 and children whose minds are occupied, and who are 
 not ambitious of exhibiting themselves for the enter- 
 tainment of the company, will not in general please. 
 So much the better ; they will escape many dangers ; 
 not only the dangers of flattery, but also the dangers 
 of nonsense. Few people know how to converse with 
 children ; they talk to them of things that are above or 
 below their understandings ; if they argue with them, 
 they do not reason fairly ; they silence them with sen- 
 timent or with authority ; or else they baffle them by 
 wit or by unintelligible terms. They often attempt to 
 try their capacities with quibbles and silly puzzles. 
 Children who are expert at answering these, have rarely 
 been well educated : the extreme simplicity of sensible 
 children will surprise those who have not been accus- 
 tomed to it, and many will be provoked by their in- 
 aptitude to understand the commonplace wit of con- 
 versation. 
 
 " How many sticks go to a rook's nest V said a gentle- 
 man to a boy of seven years old ; he looked very grave, 
 jand having pondered upon the question for some min- 
 utes, answered " I do not know what you mean by the 
 word go." Fortunately for the boy, the gentleman who 
 asked the question was not a captious querist ; he per- 
 ceived the good sense of this answer ; he perceived that 
 the boy had exactly hit upon the ambiguous word which 
 was puzzling to the understanding, and he saw that this 
 showed more capacity than could have been shown by 
 the parrying of a thousand witticisms. We have seen 
 
110 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 S , a remarkably intelligent boy of nine years old, 
 
 stand with the most puzzled face imaginable, consider- 
 ing for a long half hour the common quibble of " There 
 was a carpenter who made a door; he made it too 
 large ; he cut it and cut it, and he cut it too little ; he cut 
 it again, and it fitted." S showed very little satis- 
 faction when he at length discovered the double mean- 
 ing of the words "■ too little ;" but simply said, " I did 
 not know that you meant that the carpenter cut too little 
 off the door." 
 
 " Which has most legs, a horse or no horse 1" — " A 
 horse has more legs than no horse," replied the unwary 
 child. " But," continues the witty sophist, " a horse, 
 surely, has but four legs ; did you ever see a horse with 
 five legs 1" — " Never," says the child ; " no horse has 
 five legs." — " Oh, ho !" exclaims the entrapper, " I have 
 you now ! No horse has five legs, you say ; then you must 
 acknowledge that no horse has more legs than a horse. 
 Therefore, when 1 asked you which has most legs, a 
 horse or no horse, your answer, you see, should have 
 been, no horsed 
 
 The famous dilemma of "you have what you have 
 not lost ; you have not lost horns ; then you have 
 horns ;" is much in the same style of reasoning. Chil- 
 dren may readily be taught to chop logic, and to parry 
 their adversaries technically in this contest of false wit ; 
 but this will not improve their understandings, though it 
 may, to superficial judges, give them the appearance of 
 great quickness of intellect. We should not, even in 
 jest, talk of nonsense to children, or suff'er them even to 
 hear inaccurate language. If confused answers be 
 given to their questions, they will soon be content with 
 a confused notion of things ; they will be satisfied with 
 bad reasoning, if they are not taught to distinguish it 
 scrupulously from what is good, and to reject it steadily. 
 Half the expressions current in conversation have 
 merely a nominal value; they represent no ideas, and 
 they pass merely by common courtesy : but the lan- 
 guage of every person of sense has sterling value; it 
 cheats and puzzles nobody ; and even when it is ad- 
 dressed to children, it is made intelligible. No common 
 acquaintance, who talks to a child merely for its own 
 amusement, selects his expressions with any care ; what 
 becomes of the child afterward is no part of his con- 
 cern ; he does not consider the advantage of clear ex- 
 
ACQUAINTANCE. Ill 
 
 planations to the understanding, nor would he be at the 
 pains of explaining any thing thoroughly, even if he 
 were able to do so. And how few people are able to 
 explain distinctly, even when they most wish to make 
 themselves understood I 
 
 The following conversation passed between a learned 
 doctor (formerly) of the Sorbonne, and a boy of seven 
 years old. 
 
 Doctor, So, sir, I see you are very advanced already 
 in your studies. You are quite expert at Latin. Pray, 
 sir, allow me to ask you ; 1 suppose you have heard of 
 Tally's Offices ? 
 
 Boy. Tuily's Offices ! No, sir. 
 
 Doctor. No matter. You can, I will venture to say, 
 solve me the following question. It is not very difficult, 
 but it has puzzled some abler casuists, 1 can tell you, 
 though, than you or I ; but if you will lend me your at- 
 tention for a few moments, I flatter myself I shall make 
 myself intelligible to you. 
 
 The boy began to stiffen at this exordium, but he 
 fixed himself in an attitude of anxious attention, and the 
 doctor, after having taken two pinches of snuff, pro- 
 ceeded : 
 
 " In the Island of Rhodes, there was once, formerly, 
 a great scarcity of provisions, a famine quite ; and some 
 merchants fitted out ten ships to relieve the Rhodians ; 
 and one of the merchants got into port sooner than the 
 others ; and he took advantage of this circumstance to 
 sell his goods at an exorbitant rate, finding himself in 
 possession of the market. The Rhodians did not know 
 that the other ships laden with provisions were to be in 
 the next day ; and they, of course, paid this merchant 
 whatsoever price he thought proper to demand. Now 
 the question is, in morality, whether did he act the part 
 of an honest man in this business by the Rhodians 1 Or 
 should he not rather have informed them of the nine 
 ships which were expected to come with provisions to 
 the market the ensuing day V 
 
 The boy was silent, and did not appear to compre- 
 hend the story or the question in the least. In telling 
 his story, the doctor of the Sorbonne unluckily pro- 
 nounced the word ship and ships in such a manner, that 
 the child all along mistook them for sheep and sheeps ; 
 and this mistake threw every thing into confusion. Be- 
 sides this, a number of terms were made use of which 
 
112 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 were quite new to the boy. Getting into port — being 
 in possession of the market — selling goods at an ex- 
 orbitant rate ; together with the whole mystery of buy- 
 ing and selling, were as new to him, and appeared to 
 him as difficult to be understood, as the most abstract 
 metaphysics. He did not even know what was meant 
 by the ships being expected in the next day ; and " act- 
 ing the part of an honest man,*" was to him an unusual 
 mode of expression. The young casuist made no hand 
 of this case of conscience ; when at last he attempted 
 an answer, he only exposed himself to the contempt of 
 the learned doctor. When he was desired to repeat the 
 story, he made a strange jumble about some people who 
 wanted to get some sheep, and about one man who got 
 in his sheep before the other nine sheep ; but he did not 
 know how or why it was wrong in him not to tell of the 
 other sheep. Nor could he imagine why the Rhodians 
 could not get sheep without this man. He had never 
 had any idea of a famine. This boy's father, unwilhng 
 that he should retire to rest with his intellects in this 
 state of confusion, as soon as the doctor had taken leave, 
 told the story to the child in diiferent words, to try 
 whether it was the words or the ideas that puzzled 
 hira. 
 
 " In the ^gean sea, which you saw the other day in 
 the map, there is an island, which is called the Island 
 of Rhodes. In telUng my story, I take the opportunity 
 to fix a point in geography in your memory. In the 
 ^gean sea there is an island which is called the Island 
 of Rhodes. There was once a famine in this island, that 
 is to say, the people had not food enough to live upon, 
 and they were afraid that they should be starved to 
 death. Now, some merchants, who lived on the con- 
 tinent of Greece, filled ten ships with provisions, and 
 they sailed in these vessels for the Island of Rhodes. 
 It happened that one of these ships got to the island 
 sooner than any of the others. It was evening, and the 
 captain of this ship knew that the others could not 
 arrive until the morning. Now the people of Rhodes, 
 being extremely hungry, were very eager to buy the pro- 
 visions which this merchant had brought to sell ; and they 
 M^ere ready to give a great deal more money for pro- 
 visions than they would have done, if they had not been 
 almost starved. There was not half a sufficient quantity 
 of food in this one ship to supply all the people who 
 
ACQUAINTANCE. 113 
 
 wanted food ; and therefore those who had money, and 
 who knew that the merchant wanted as nmch money 
 as he could get in exchange for his provisions, offered 
 to give him a large price, the price which he asked for 
 them. Had these people known that nine other ships 
 full of provisions would arrive in the morning, they 
 would not have been ready to give so much money 
 for food, because they would not have been so much 
 afraid of being starved ; and they would not have 
 known, that, in exchange for their money, they could 
 have a greater quantity of food the next day. The 
 merchant, however, did not tell them that any ships 
 were expected to arrive, and he consequently got a 
 great deal more of their money for his provisions than 
 he would have done, if he had told them the fact which 
 he knew, and which they did not know. Do you think 
 that he did right or wrong"?" 
 
 The child, who now had rather more the expression 
 of intelligence in his countenance than he had when 
 the same question had been put to him after the former 
 statement of the case, immediately answered, that he 
 *' thought the merchant had done wrong ; that he should 
 have told the people that more ships were to come in 
 the morning." Several different opinions were given 
 afterward by other children, and grown people who 
 were asked the same question ; and what had been an 
 unintelligible story, was rendered, by a little more skill 
 and patience in the art of explanation, an excellent les- 
 son, or rather exercise in reasoning. 
 
 It is scarcely possible that a stranger, who sees a 
 child only for a few hours, can guess what he knows 
 and what he does not know ; or that he can perceive 
 •the course of his thoughts, which depends upon asso- 
 ciations over which he has no command ; therefore, 
 when a stranger, let his learning and abilities be what 
 they will, attempts to teach children, he usually puzzles 
 them, and the consequences of the confusion of mind 
 he creates, last sometimes for years : sometimes it in- 
 fluences their moral, sometimes their scientific reason- 
 ing. " Everybody but my friends," said a little girl of 
 six years old, "tells me 1 am very pretty." From this 
 contradictory evidence, what must the child have hi- 
 ferred 1 The perplexity which some young people, al- 
 most arrived at the years of discretion, have shown in 
 their first notions of mathematics, has been a matter of 
 
114 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 astonishment to those who have attempted to teach 
 them : this perplexity has at length been discovered to 
 arise from their having early confounded in their minds 
 the ideas of a triangle and an angle. In the most com- 
 mon modes of expression there are often strange inac- 
 curacies, which do not strike us, because they are fa- 
 miliar to us ; but children, who hear them for the first 
 time, detect their absurdity, and are frequently anxious 
 to have such phrases explained. If they converse 
 much with idle visiters, they will seldom be properly 
 apphiuded for their precision, and their philosophic 
 curiosity will often be repressed by unmeanmg replies. 
 Children who have the habit of applying to their 
 parents, or to sensible preceptors, in similar difficulties, 
 will be somewhat better received, and will gain rather 
 
 more accurate information. S (nine )'^ears old) was 
 
 in a house where a chimney was on fire ; he saw a great 
 bustle, and he heard the servants and people, as they 
 ran backwards and forwards, all exclaim, that " the 
 chimney was on fire." After the fire was put out, and 
 
 when the bustle was over, S said to his father, 
 
 " What do people mean when they say the chimney is 
 on fire? What is it that burns?" At this question, a 
 silly acquaintance would probably have laughed in the 
 boy's face ; would have expressed astonishment as soon 
 as his visit was over, at such an instance of strange 
 ignorance in a boy of nine years old ; or, if civility had 
 prompted any answer, it would perhaps have been, 
 *' The chimney's being on fire, my love, means that the 
 chimney's on fire! Everybody knows what's meant 
 by ' the chimney's on fire !' There's a great deal of 
 smoke, and sparks, and flame, coming out at the top, you 
 know, when the chimney's on fire. And it's extremely 
 dangerous, and would set a house on fire, or perhaps 
 the whole neighbourhood, if it were not put out imme- 
 diately. Many dreadful fires, you know, happen in 
 towns, as we hear for ever in the newspaper, by the 
 chimney's taking fire. Did you never hear of a chim- 
 ney's being on fire before 1 You are a very happy young 
 gentleman to have lived to your time of life, and to be 
 still at a loss about such a thing. What burns ? Why, 
 my dear sir, the chimney burns ; fire burns in the chim- 
 ney. To be sure, fires are sad accidents ; many lives 
 are lost by them every day. I had a chimney on fire in 
 my drawing-room last year." 
 
ACQUAINTANCE. 115 
 
 Thus would the child's curiosity liave been baffled by 
 a number of words without meaning or connexion ; on 
 the contrary, when he applied to a father, who was in- 
 terested in his improvement, his sensible question was 
 listened to with approbation. He was told, that the 
 chimney's being on lire was an inaccurate common ex- 
 pression ; that it was the soot in the chimney, not the 
 chimney, that burned ; that the soot was sometimes set 
 on fire by sparks of fire, sometimes by flame, which 
 might have been accidentally draivn up the chimney. 
 Some of the soot whicli had been set on fire was shown 
 to him ; the nature of burning in general, the manner 
 in which the chinmey draws, the meaning of that ex- 
 pression, and many other things connected with the 
 subject, were explained upon this occasion to the in- 
 quisitive boy, who was thus encouraged to think and 
 speak accurately, and to apply, in similar dii!iculties, to 
 the friend who had thus taken the trouble to understand 
 his simple question. A random answer to a child's 
 question does him a real injury; but can we expect, 
 that those who have no interest in education should 
 have the patience to correct their whole conversation, 
 and to adapt it precisely to the capacity of children 1 
 This would indeed be unreasonable ; all we can do is 
 to keep our pupiis out of the way of those who can do 
 them no good, and who may do them a great deal of 
 harm. We must prefer the permanent advantage of 
 our pupils, to the transient vanity of exhibiting, for the 
 amusement of company, their early wit or " lively 
 nonsense." Children should never be introduced for 
 the amusement of the circle ; nor yet should they be 
 condemned to sit stock still, holding up their heads and 
 letting their feet dangle from chairs that are too high 
 for them, merely that they may appear what is called 
 well before visiters. Whenever any conversation is 
 going forward which they can understand, they should 
 be kindly summoned to partake of the pleasures of so. 
 ciety ; its pains and its follies we may spare them. The 
 manners of young people will not be injured by this 
 arrangement ; they will be at ease in company, because 
 whenever they are introduced into it, they will make a 
 part of it ; they will be interested and happy ; they will 
 feel a proper confidence in themselves, and they will 
 not be intent upon their courtesies, their frocks, their 
 manner of holding their hands, or turning out their 
 
116 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 toes, the proper placing of sir, madam, or your lady- 
 ship, with all the other imiumerable trifles which em- 
 barrass the imagination, and consequently the manners, 
 of those who are taught to think that they are to sit 
 still, and behave in company some way differently from 
 what they behave every day in their own family. 
 
 We have hitherto only spoken of acquaintance who 
 do not attempt or desire to interfere in education, but 
 who only caress and talk nonsense to children with the 
 best intentions possible : with these, parents will find it 
 comparatively easy to manage ; they can contrive to 
 employ children, or send them out to walk ; by cool re- 
 serve, they can readily discourage such visiters from 
 flattering their children ; and by insisting upon becom- 
 ing a party in all conversations which are addressed to 
 their pupils, they can, in a great measure, prevent the 
 bad effects of inaccurate or imprudent conversation; 
 they can explain to their pupils what was left unintel- 
 ligible, and they can counteract false associations, either 
 at the moment they perceive them, or at some well- 
 chosen opportunity. But there is a class of acquaint- 
 ance with whom it will be more difficult to manage ; 
 persons who are, perhaps, on an intimate footing with 
 the family, who are valued for their agreeable talents 
 and estimable quahties ; who are, perhaps, persons of 
 general information and good sense, and who may yet 
 never have considered the subject of education ; or 
 Vvho, having partially considered it, have formed some 
 peculiar and erroneous opinions. They will feel them- 
 selves entitled to talk upon education as well as upon 
 any other topic ; they will hazard, and they will sup- 
 port opinions ; they will be eager to prove the truth 
 of their assertions, or the superiority of their favourite 
 theories. Out of pure regard for their friends, they will 
 endeavour to bring them over to their own way of 
 thinking in education ; and they will by looks, by hints, 
 by innuendoes, unrestrained by the presence of the chil- 
 dren, insinuate their advice and their judgment upon 
 every domestic occurrence. In the heat of debate, 
 people frequently forget that children have eyes and 
 ears, or any portion of understanding ; they are not 
 aware of the quickness of that comprehension which is 
 excited by the motives of curiosity and self-love. It is 
 dangerous to let children be present at any arguments, 
 in which the management of their minds is concerned, 
 
ACQUAINTANCE. 117 
 
 until they can perfectly understand the wliole of the 
 subject ; they will, if they catch but a few words, or a 
 few ideas, imagine, perhaps, that there is something 
 wTong, some hardships, some injustice, practised against 
 them by their friends ; yet they will not distinctly know, 
 nor will they, perhaps, explicitly inquire what it is. 
 They should be sent out of the room before any such 
 arguments are begun; or, if the conversation be ab- 
 ruptly begun before parents can be upon their guard, 
 they may yet, without offending against the common 
 forms of politeness, decline entering into any discussion 
 until their children have withdrawn. As to any direct 
 attempt practically to interfere with the children's edu- 
 cation, by blame or praise, by presents, by books, or by 
 conversation ; these should, and really must, be reso- 
 lutely and steadily resisted by parents : this will require 
 some strength of mind. What can be done without it ? 
 Many people, who are convinced of the danger of the 
 interference of friends and acquaintance in the educa- 
 tion of their children, will yet, from the fear of offending, 
 from the dread of being thought singular, submit to the 
 evil. These persons may be very well received and 
 very well liked in the world : they must content them- 
 selves with this reward ; they must not expect to suc- 
 ceed in education, for strength of mind is absolutely ne- 
 cessary to those who would carry a plan of education 
 into effect. Without being tied down to any one exclu- 
 sive plan, and with universal toleration for different 
 modes of moral and intellectual instruction, it may be 
 safely asserted, that the plan which is most steadily 
 pursued will probably succeed the best. People who 
 are moved by the advice of all their friends, and who 
 endeavour to adapt their system to every fashionable 
 change in opinion, will inevitably repent of their weak 
 complaisance ; they will lose all power over their pupils, 
 and will be forced to abandon the education of their 
 families to chance. 
 
 It will be found impossible to educate a child at home, 
 unless all interference from visiters and acquaintance is 
 precluded. But it is of yet more consequence, that the 
 members of the family should entirely agree in their sen- 
 timents, or at least in the conduct of the children under 
 their care. Without this there is no hope. Young 
 people perceive very quickly whether there is unanimity 
 in their government; they make out an alphabet of looks 
 
118 PRACTICAL KDUCATION. 
 
 with unerring precision, and decipher with amazing in- 
 genuity, all that is for their interest to understand. When 
 children are blamedor punished, they always know pretty 
 well who pities them, who thinks that they are in the 
 wrong, and who thinks that they are in the right ; and thus 
 the influence of public opinion is what ultimately governs. 
 If children find that, when mamma is displeased, grand- 
 mamma comforts them, they will console themselves 
 readily under this partial disgrace, and they will suspect 
 others of caprice, instead of ever blaming tliemselves. 
 They will feel little confidence in their own experience, 
 or in the assertions of others ; they will think that there 
 is always some chance of escape among the multitude 
 of laws and lawgivers. No tutor or preceptor can be 
 answerable, or ought to underlake to answer for measures 
 ivhich he does not guide. Le Sage, with an inimitable 
 mixture of humour and good sense, in the short history 
 of the education of the robbers who supped in that cave 
 in which dame Leonardo officiated, has given many ex- 
 cellent lessons in education. Captain Rolando's tutors 
 could never make any thing of him, because, whenever 
 they reprimanded him, he ran to his mother, father, and 
 grandfather, for consolation ; and from them constantly 
 received protection in rebellion, and commiseration for 
 the vv^ounds which he had inflicted upon his own hands 
 and face, purposely to excite compassion and to obtain 
 revenge. 
 
 It is obviously impossible, that all the world, the ig- 
 norant and the well-informed, the man of genius, the 
 man of fashion, and the man of business, the pedant and 
 the philosopher, should agree in their opinion upon any 
 speculative subject ; upon the wide subject of education 
 they will probably differ eternally. It will, therefore, 
 be thought absurd to require this union of opinion among 
 the individuals of a family ; but, let there be ever so 
 much difference in their private opinions, they can 
 surely discuss any disputed point at leisure, when chil- 
 dren are absent ; or they can, in these arguments, con- 
 verse in French, or in some language which their pupils 
 do not understand. The same caution should be ob- 
 served, as we just now recommended, with respect to 
 acquaintance. It is much better, when any difficulties 
 occur, to send the children at once into any other room, 
 and to tell them that we do so because we have some- 
 thing to say that we do not wish them to hear, than to 
 
ACQUAINTANCE. 119 
 
 make false excuses to get rid of their company, or to 
 begin whispering and disputing in their presence. 
 
 These precautions are advisable while our pupils are 
 young, before they are capable of comprehending argu- 
 ments of this nature, and while their passions are vehe- 
 mently interested on one side or the other. As young 
 people grow up, the greater variety of opinions they 
 hear upon all subjects, ihe better ; they will then form 
 the habit of judging for themselves : while they are 
 very young, they have not the means of forming correct 
 judgments upon abstract subjects, nor are these the sub- 
 jects upon which their judgment can be properly exer- 
 cised : upon the subject of education they cannot be 
 competent judges, because they cannot, till they are 
 nearly educated, have a complete view of the means 
 or of the end ; besides this, no man is allowed to be 
 judge in his own case. 
 
 Some parents allow their children a vast deal of 
 liberty while they are young, and restrain them by ab- 
 solute authority when their reason is, or ought to be, a 
 sufficient guide for their conduct. The contrary prac- 
 tice will make parents much more beloved, and will 
 make children both wiser and happier. Let no idle 
 visiter, no intrusive, injudicious friend, for one moment 
 interfere to lessen the authority necessary for the pur- 
 poses of education. Let no weak jealousy, no unsea- 
 sonable love of command, restrain young people after 
 they are sufficiently reasonable to judge for themselves. 
 In the choice of their friends, their acquaintance, in all 
 the great and small affairs of life, let them have liberty 
 in proportion as they acquire reason. Fathers do not 
 commonly interfere with their sons' amusements, nor 
 with the choice of their acquaintance, so much as in the 
 regulation of their pecuniary affairs : but mothers, who 
 have had any considerable share in the education of 
 boys, are apt to make mistakes as to the proper seasons 
 for indulgence and control. They do not watch the 
 moments when dangerous prejudices and tastes begin 
 to be formed ; they do not perceive how the slight con- 
 versations of acquaintance operate upon the ever-open 
 ear of childhood ; but when the age of passion ap- 
 proaches, and approaches, as it usually does, in storms 
 and tempest, then all their maternal fears are suddenly 
 roused, and their anxiety prompts them to use a thou- 
 sand injudicious and ineffectual expedients. 
 
120 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 A modern princess, who had taken considerable pains 
 in the education of her son, made both herself and him 
 ridiculous by her anxiety upon his introduction into the 
 world. She travelled about with him from place to 
 place, to make him see every thing worth seeing ; but he 
 was not to stir from her presence ; she could not bear 
 to have him out of sight or hearing. In all companies 
 he was chaperoned by his mother. Was he invited to a 
 ball, she must be invited also, or he could not accept of 
 the invitation : he must go in the same coach, and re- 
 turn in the same coach with her. " I should like ex- 
 tremely to dance another dance," said he one evening 
 to his partner, " but you see I must go ; my mother is 
 putting on her cloak." The tall young man called for 
 some negus, and had the glass at his lips, when his 
 mannna called out in a shrill voice, through a vista of 
 heads, " Eh ! My son no drink wine ! My son like 
 milk and water !" The son was at this time at years 
 o( discretion. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON TEMPER. 
 
 We have already, in speaking of the early care of 
 infants, suggested that the temper should be attended 
 to from the moment of their birth. A negligent, a care- 
 less, a passionate servant, must necessarily injure the 
 temper of a child. The first language of an infant is 
 intelligible only to its nurse ; she can distinguish be- 
 tween the cry of pain and the note of ill-humour, or the 
 roar of passion. The cry of pain should be listened 
 to with the utmost care, and every possible means 
 should be used to relieve the child's sufferings ; but 
 when it is obvious that he cries from ill-humour, a nurse 
 should not sooth him with looks of affection ; these she 
 should reserve for the moment when the storm is over. 
 We do not mean that infants should be suffered to cry 
 for a length of time without being regarded ; this would 
 give them habits of ill-humour : we only wish that the 
 nurse would, as soon as possible, teach the child that 
 
TEMPER. 121 
 
 what he wants can be obtained without his putting him- 
 self in a passion. Great care should be taken to pre- 
 vent occasions for ill-humour ; if a nurse neglect her 
 charge, or if she be herself passionate, the child will suf- 
 fer so much pain, and so many disappointments, that it 
 must be in a continual state of fretfulness. An active, 
 cheerful, good-humoured, intelligent nurse, will make 
 a child good-humoured by a regular, affectionate at- 
 tendance ; by endeavouring to prevent all unnecessary 
 sufferings, and by quickly comprehending its language 
 of signs. The best humoured woman in the world, if 
 she is stupid, is not fit to have the care of a child ; the 
 child will not be able to make her understand any thing 
 less than vociferation. By way of amusing the infant, 
 she will fatigue it with her caresses ; without ever dis- 
 covering the real cause of his wo, she will sing one 
 universal lullaby upon all occasions to pacify her charge. 
 
 It requires some ingenuity to discover the cause and 
 cure of those long and loud fits of crying, which fre- 
 quently arise from imaginary apprehensions. A little 
 boy of two years old used to cry violently when he 
 awoke in the middle of the night and saw a candle in 
 the room. It was observed that the shadow of the per- 
 son who was moving about in the room frightened him, 
 and as soon as the cause of his crying was found out, 
 it was easy to pacify him ; his fear of shadows was ef- 
 fectually cured, by playfully showing him, at different 
 times, that shadows had no power to hurt him. 
 
 H , about nine months old, when she first began to 
 
 observe the hardness of bodies, let her hand fall upon a 
 cat vvhich had crept unperceived upon the table ; she 
 was surprised and terrified by the unexpected sensation 
 of softness ; she could not touch the cat, or any thing 
 that felt like soft fur, without showing agitation, till sh>e 
 was near four years old, though every gentle means 
 was used to conquer her antipathy ; the antipathy was, 
 however, cured at last, by her having a wooden cat cov- 
 ered with fur for a plaything. 
 
 A boy between four and five years old, H , used 
 
 to cry bitterly when he was left alone in a room, in 
 which there were some old family pictures. It was 
 found that he was much afraid of these pictures ; a 
 maid, who took care of him, had terrified him with the 
 notion that they would come to him, or that they were 
 looking at him, and would be angry with him if he were 
 F 
 
122 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 not good. To cure the child of this fear of pictures, a 
 small-sized portrait, which was not among the number 
 of those that had frightened him, was produced in broad 
 daylight. A piece of cake was put upon this picture, 
 which the boy was desired to take ; he took it, touched 
 the picture, and was shown the canvass at the back of 
 it ; which, as it happened to be torn, he could easily iden- 
 tify with the painting : the picture was then given to him 
 for a plaything ; he made use of it as a table, and became 
 very fond of it as soon as he was convinced that it was 
 not alive, and that it could do him no sort of injury. 
 
 By patiently endeavouring to discover the causes of 
 terror in children, we may probably prevent their tem- 
 pers from acquiring many bad habits. It is scarcely 
 possible for any one who has not constantly lived with 
 a child, and who has not known the whole rise and prog- 
 ress of his little character, to trace the causes of these 
 strange apprehensions ; for this reason, a parent has 
 advantages in the education of his child, which no tutor 
 or schoolmaster can have. 
 
 A little boy was observed to show signs of fear and 
 dislike at hearing the sound of a drum : to a stranger, 
 such fear must have seemed unaccountable ; but those 
 v/ho lived with the child knew from what it arose. 
 He had been terrified by the sight of a merry-andrew in 
 a mask, who had played upon a drum ; this was the 
 first time that he had ever heard the sound of a drum ; 
 the souiid was associated with fear, and continued to 
 raise apprehensions in the child's mind after he had for- 
 gotten the original cause of that apprehension. 
 
 We are well aware that we have laid ourselves open 
 to ridicule, by the apparently trifling anecdotes wliich 
 have just been mentioned ; but if we can save one child 
 from an hour's unnecessary misery, or one parent from 
 an hour's anxiety, we shall bear the laugh, we hope, 
 with good-humour. 
 
 Young children, who have not a great number of 
 ideas, perhaps for that reason associate those which 
 they acquire with tenacity ; they cannot reason con- 
 cerning general causes ; they expect that any event, 
 which has once or twice followed another, will always 
 follow in the same order ; they do not distinguish be- 
 tween proximate and remote causes ; between coinci- 
 dences and the regular comiexion of cause and effect : 
 hence children are subject to feel hopes and fears from 
 
TEMPER. 123 
 
 things which to us appear matters of indifference. Sup- 
 pose, for instance, that a child is very eager to go out 
 to walk, that his mother puts on her gloves and her 
 cloak, these being the usual signals that she is going 
 out, he instantly expects, if he has been accustomed to 
 accompany her, that he shall have the pleasure of walk- 
 ing out ; but if she goes out and forgets him, he is not 
 only disappointed at that moment, but the disappoint- 
 ment, or, at least, some indistinct apprehension, recurs 
 to him when he is in a similar situation : the putting on 
 of his mothers cloak and gloves are then circumstances 
 of vast importance to him, and create anxiety, perhaps 
 tears, while to every other spectator they are matters 
 of total indifference. Every one, who has had any ex- 
 perience in the education of such children as are apt to 
 form strong associations, must be aware, that many of 
 those fits of crying, v.'hich appear to arise solely from ill- 
 humour, are occasioned by association. When these 
 are suffered to become hnbitnal, they are extremely dif- 
 ficult to conquer: it is, therefore, best to conquer them 
 as soon as possible. If a child has, by any accident, 
 been disposed to cry at particular times in the day, with- 
 out any obvious cause, we should at those hours engage 
 his attention, occupy him, change the room he is in, or 
 by any new circumstance break his habits. It will re- 
 quire some penetration to distinguish between involun- 
 tary tears and tears of caprice ; but even when children 
 are really cross, it is not, while they are very young, 
 prudent to let them wear out their ill-humour, as some 
 people do, in total neglect. Children, when they are 
 left to weep in solitude, often continue in wo for a con- 
 siderable length of time, until they quite forget the 
 original cause of complaint ; and they continue their 
 convulsive sobs and whining note of distress, purely 
 from inability to stop themselves. 
 
 Thus habits of ill-humour are contracted : it is better, 
 by a little well-timed excitation, to turn the course of a 
 child's thoughts, and to make him forget his trivial mis- 
 eries. " The tear forgot as soon as shed," is far better 
 than the peevish whine, or sullen lowering brow, which 
 proclaim the unconquered spirit of discontent. 
 
 Perhaps from the anxiety which we have expressed 
 
 to prevent the petty misfortunes and unnecessary tears 
 
 of children, it may be supposed that we are disposed to 
 
 humour them ; far from it. — We know too well that a 
 
 F2 
 
124 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 humoured child is one of the most unhappy beings in the 
 world ; a burden to himself and to his friends ; capri- 
 cious, tyrannical, passionate, peevish, sullen, and selfish. 
 
 An only child runs a dreadful chance of being spoiled. 
 He is born a person of consequence ; he soon discovers 
 his innate merit; every eye is turned upon him the mo- 
 ment he enters the room ; his looks, his dress, his appe- 
 tite, are all matters of daily concern to a whole family ; 
 his wishes are divined ; his wants are prevented ; his 
 witty sayings are repeated in his presence ; his smiles 
 are courted; his caresses excite jealousy, and he soon 
 learns how to avail himself of his central situation. His 
 father and mother make him alternately their idol and 
 their plaything ; they do not think of educating, they 
 only think of admiring him ; they imagine that he is un- 
 like all other children in the universe, and that his 
 genius and his temper are independent of all cultivation. 
 But when this little paragon of perfection has two or 
 three brothers and sisters, the scene changes ; the man 
 of consequence dwindles into an insignificant little boy. 
 We shall hereafter explain more fully the danger of ac- 
 customing children to a large share of our sympathy; 
 we hope that the economy of kindness and caresses 
 which we have recommended,* will be found to in- 
 crease domestic affection, and to be essentially servicea- 
 ble to the temper. In a future chapter, " On Vanity, 
 Pride, and Ambition," some remarks will be found on 
 the use and abuse of the stimuli of praise, emulation, 
 and ambition. The precautions which we have already 
 mentioned with respect to servants, and the methods 
 that have been suggested for inducing habitual and ra- 
 tional obedience, will also, we hope, be considered as 
 serviceable to the temper, as well as to the understand- 
 ing. Perpetual and contradictory conmiands and pro- 
 hibitions not only make children disobedient, but fretful, 
 peevish, and passionate. 
 
 Idleness among children, as among men, is the root 
 of all evil, and leads to no evil more certainly than to 
 ill-temper. It is said,! that the late king of Spain was 
 always so cross during Passion-week, when he was 
 obliged to abstain from his favourite amusement of 
 hunting, that none of his courtiers liked to approach his 
 
 * See Chapter on Sympathy and Sensihihty. 
 t By Mr. Townsend, in his Travels into Spain. 
 
TEMPER. 125 
 
 majesty. There is a great similarity between the con- 
 dition of a prince flattered by his courtiers, and a child 
 humoured by his family; and we may observe, that both 
 the child and prince are most intolerable to their de- 
 pendants and friends, when any of their daily amuse- 
 ments are interrupted. It is not that the amusements 
 are in themselves delightful, but the pains and penalties 
 of idleness are insupportable. We have endeavoured 
 to provide a variety of occupations, as well as of amuse- 
 ments, for our youug pupils,* that they may never know 
 the misery of the Spanish monarch. When children 
 are occupied, they are independent of other people ; they 
 are not obliged to watch for casual entertainment from 
 those who happen to be unemployed, or who chance to 
 be in a humour to play with them ; they have some 
 agreeable object continually in view, and they feel satis- 
 fied with themselves. They will not torment every- 
 body in the house with incessant requests. " May I 
 have this I Will you give me that 1 May I go out to see 
 such a thing 1 When will it be dinner-time 1 When will 
 it be tea-time ? When will it be time for me to go to 
 supper?" are the impatient questions of a child who is 
 fretful from having nothing to do. Idle children are 
 eternal petitioners, and the refusals they meet with per- 
 petually irritate their temper. With respect to requests 
 in general, we should either grant inmiediately what a 
 child desires, or we should give a decided refusal. The 
 state of suspense is not easily borne ; the propriety or 
 impropriety of the request should decide us either to 
 grant or to refuse it ; and we should not set the exam- 
 ple of caprice, or teach our pupils the arts of courtiers, 
 who watch the humour of tyrants. If we happen to be 
 busy, and a child comes with an eager request about 
 some trifle, it is easy so far to command our temper as 
 to answer, " I am busy, don't talk to me now," instead 
 of driving the petitioner away with harsh looks, and a 
 peremptory refusal, which make as great an impression 
 as harsh words. If we are reasonable, the child will 
 soon learn to apply to us at proper times. By the same 
 steady, gentle conduct, we may teach him to manage 
 his love of talking with discretion, and may prevent 
 those ineffectual exhortations to silence, which irritate 
 the temper of the vivacious pupil. Expostulations, and 
 
 * See Chapter on Toys, 
 
126 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 angry exclamations, will not so effectually command 
 from our pupils temperance of tong-ue, as their own con- 
 viction that they are more likely to gain attention from 
 their friends, if they choose properly their seasons for 
 conversation. 
 
 To prevent, we cannot too often repeat it, is better 
 than to punish, without humouring children ; that is to 
 say, without yielding to their caprices, or to their ivill, 
 when they express their wishes with impatience, we 
 may prevent many of those little inconveniences which 
 tease and provoke the temper ; any continual irritation 
 exhausts our patience ; acute pain can be endured with 
 more fortitude. 
 
 We have sometimes seen children become fi*etful 
 from the constant teasing effect of some slight incon- 
 veniences in their dress ; we have pitied poor little boys 
 who were continually exhorted to produce their hand- 
 kerchiefs, and Vv^ho could scarcely ever get these hand- 
 kerchiefs out of their tight pockets into which they had 
 been stuffed ; into such pockets the hand can never 
 enter or withdraw itself, without as much difficulty as 
 Trenck had in getting rid of his handcuffs. The torture 
 of tight slioes, of back-boards, collars, and stocks, we 
 hope, is nearly abandoned ; surely all these are unneces- 
 sary trials of fortitude ; they exhaust that patience 
 which might be exercised upon things of consequence. 
 Count Rumford tells us that he observed a striking me- 
 lioration in the temper of all the mendicants in the es- 
 tablishment at Munich, when they were relieved from 
 the constant torments of rags and vermin. 
 
 Some people imagine that early sufferings, that a 
 number of small inconveniences, habitual severity of 
 reproof, and frequent contradiction and disappointment, 
 inure children to pain, and consequently improve their 
 temper. Early sufferings which are necessary and in- 
 evitable, may improve children in fortitude ; but the con- 
 tradictions and disappointments which arise immediately 
 from the will of others, have not the sa.ne effect. Chil- 
 dren, where their own interests are concerned, soon dis- 
 tinguish between these two classes of evils ; they sub- 
 mit patiently when they know that it would be in vain 
 to struggle ; they murmur and rebel, if they dare, when- 
 ever they feel the hand of power press upon them ca- 
 priciously. We should not invent trials of temper for 
 
TEMPER. 127 
 
 our pupils ; if they can bear with good humour the com- 
 mon course of events, we should be satisfied. 
 
 " I tumbled down, and I bored it very well," said a 
 little boy of three years old, with a look of great satis- 
 faction. If this little boy had been thrown down on pur- 
 pose by his parents as a trial of temper, it probably 
 would not have been borne so well. As to inconveni- 
 ences, in general it is rather a sign of indolence tlian a 
 proof of good temper in children to submit to them 
 quietly ; if they can be remedied by exertion, why 
 should they be passively endured ? If they cannot be 
 remedied, undoubtedly it is then better to abstract the 
 attention from them as much as possible, because this 
 is the only method of lessening the pain. Children 
 should be assisted in making this distinction, by our ap- 
 plauding their exertions when they struggle against un- 
 necessary evil, by our commending their patience 
 whenever they endure inevitable pain without com- 
 plaints. 
 
 Illness, for instance, is an inevitable evil. To prevent 
 children from becoming peevish when they are ill, we 
 should give our pity and sympathy with an increased 
 appearance of affection whenever they bear their illness 
 with patience. No artifice is necessary ; we need not 
 alfect any increase of pity ; patience and good-humour 
 in the sufferer naturally excite the affection and esteem 
 of the spectators. The self-complacency which the 
 young patient must feel from a sense of his own forti- 
 tude, and the perception that he commands the willing 
 hearts of all who attend him, are really alleviations of 
 his bodily sufferings ; the only alleviations which, in 
 some cases, can possibly be afforded. 
 
 The attention which is thought necessary in learning 
 languages, often becomes extremely painful to the pu- 
 pils, and the temper is often hurt by ineffectual attempts 
 to improve the understanding. We have endeavoured 
 to explain the methods of managing* the attention of 
 children with the least possible degree of pain. Yester- 
 day a little boy of three years old, VV , was learning 
 
 his alphabet from his father ; after he had looked at one 
 letter for some time with great attention, he raised his 
 eyes, and with a look of much good-humour, said to his fa- 
 ther, " It makes me tired to stand." His father seated him 
 
 * See Chapter on Attention, 
 
128 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 upon his knee, and told him that he did wisely in telling 
 what tired him : the child, the moment he was seated, 
 fixed his attentive eyes again upon his letters with fresh 
 eagerness, and succeeded. Surely it was not humour- 
 ing this boy to let him sit down when he was tired. If 
 we teach a child that our assistance is to be purchased 
 by fretful entreaties; if we show him that we are afraid 
 of a storm, he will make use of our apprehensions to ac- 
 complish his purposes. On the contrary, if he perceive 
 that we can steadily resist his tears and ill-humour, and 
 especially if we show inditference upon the occasion, 
 he will perceive that he had better dry his tears, sus- 
 pend his rage, and try how far good-humour will pre- 
 vail. Children who in every little difficulty are assisted 
 by others, really believe that others are in fault when- 
 ever this assistance is not inmiediately offered. Look 
 at a humoured child, for instance, trying to push a chair 
 along the carpet; if a wrinkle in the carpet stops his 
 progress, he either beats the chair, or instantly turns 
 with an angry appealing look to his mother for assist- 
 ance ; and if she do not get up to help him, he will 
 cry. Another boy, who has not been humoured, will 
 neither beat the chair nor angrily look round for help ; 
 but he will look immediately to see what it is that stops 
 the chair, and when he sees the wrinkle in the carpet, 
 he will either level or surmount the obstacle : during 
 this whole operation, he will not feel in the least inclined 
 to cry. Both these children might have had precisely 
 the same original stock of patience ; but by different 
 management, the one would become passionate and 
 peevish, the other both good-humoured and persevering. 
 The pleasure of success pays children, as well as men, 
 for long toil and labour. Success is the proper reward 
 of perseverance ; but if we sometimes capriciously 
 grant, and sometinies refuse our help, our pupils can- 
 not learn this important truth ; and they imagine that 
 success depends upon the will of others, and not upon 
 their own efforts. A child educated by a fairy, who 
 sometimes came with magic aid to perform, and who 
 was sometimes deaf to her call, would necessarily be- 
 come ill-humoured. 
 
 Several children, who were reading " Evenings at 
 Home," observed that in the story of Juliet and the fairy 
 Order, " it was wrong to make the fairy come whenever 
 Juliet cried, and could not do her task, because that was 
 
TEMPER. 129 
 
 the way," said the children, " to make the little girl ill- 
 humoured." 
 
 We have formerly observed that children who live 
 much with companions of their own age, are under but 
 little habitual restraint as to their tempers ; they quar- 
 rel, fight, and shake hands ; they have long and loud 
 altercations, in which the strongest voice often gets the 
 better. It does not improve the temper to be overborne 
 by petulance and clamour : even mild, sensible children, 
 will learn to be positive, if they converse with violent 
 dunces. In private families, where children mix in the 
 society of persons of different ages, who encourage 
 them to converse without reserve, they may meet with 
 exact justice ; they may see that their respective talents 
 and good qualities are appreciated ; they may acquire 
 the habit of arguing without disputing; and they may 
 learn that species of mutual forbearance in trifles, as 
 well as in matters of consequence, which tends so ruvich 
 to domestic happiness. Dr Franklin, in one of hfs let- 
 ters to a young female friend, after answering some 
 questions which she had asked him, apparently referrmg 
 to an argument which had passed some time before, 
 concludes with this comprehensive compliment : " So, 
 you see, 1 think you had the best of the arp;umenL ; and, 
 as you gave it up in complaisance to the company, I 
 think you had also the best of the dispute.'"' When 
 young people perceive that they gain credit by keep- 
 ing their temper in conversation, they will not be 
 furious for victory, because moderation during the time 
 of battle can alone entitle them to the honours of a 
 triumph. 
 
 It is particularly necessary for girls to acquire com- 
 mand of temper in arguing, because much of the effect 
 of their powers of reasoning, and of their wit, when they 
 grow up, will depend upon the gentleness and good-hu- 
 mour with which they conduct themselves. A woman 
 who should attempt to thunder like Demosthenes, would 
 not find her eloquence increase her domestic happiness. 
 We by no means wish that women should yield their 
 better judgment to their fathers or husbands ; but, with- 
 out using any of that debasing cunning which Rousseau 
 recommends, they may support the cause of reason 
 with all the graces of female gentleness. 
 
 A man in a furious passion is terrible to his enemies; 
 but a woman in a passion is disgusting to her friends ; 
 F3 
 
130 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 she loses the respect due to her sex, and she has not 
 masculine strength and courage to enforce any other 
 species of respect. These circumstances should be 
 considered by writers who advise that no difference 
 should be made in the education of the two sexes. We 
 cannot help thinking that their happiness is of more 
 consequence tlian their speculative rights, and we wish 
 to educate women so that they maybe happy in the situ- 
 ations in which they are most likely to be placed. So 
 much depends upon the temper of women, that it ought 
 to be most carefully cultivated in early life ; girls should 
 be more inured to restraint than boys, because they are 
 likely to meet with more restraint in society. Girls 
 should learn the habit of bearing slight reproofs without 
 thinking them matters of great consequence ; but then 
 they should always be permitted to state their argu- 
 ments, and they should perceive that justice is shown to 
 them, and that they increase the affection and esteem 
 of their friends by command of temper. Many passion- 
 ate men are extremely good-natured, and make amends 
 for their extravagances b}'' their candour, and their 
 eagerness to please those whom they have injured 
 during their fits of anger. It is said that the servants 
 of Dean Swift used to throw themselves in his way 
 whenever he was in a passion, because they knew that 
 his generosity would recompense them for standing the 
 full fire of his anger. A woman wlio permitted her- 
 self to treat her servants with ill-humour, and who be- 
 lieved that she could pay them for ill usage, would 
 make a very bad mistress of a family ; her husband and 
 her children would suffer from her ill temper, without 
 being recompensed for their misery. We should not 
 let girls imagine that they can balance ill-humour by 
 some good quality or accomplishment; because, in fact, 
 there are none which can supply the want of temper in 
 the female sex. 
 
 A just idea of the nature of dignity, opposed to what 
 is commonly called spirit, should be given early to our 
 female pupils. Many women who are not disposed to 
 violence of temper, affect a certain degree of petulance, 
 and a certain stubbornness of opinion, merely because 
 they imagine that to be gentle is to be mean ; and that 
 to listen to reason is to be deficient in spirit. 
 
 Enlarging the understanding of young women will 
 prevent them from the trifling vexations which irritate 
 
TEMPER. 131 
 
 those who have none but trifling objects. We have ob- 
 served that concerted trials of temper are not advan- 
 tageous for very young children. Those trials which 
 are sometimes prepared for pupils at a more advanced 
 period of education, are not always more happy in their 
 consequences. We make trifles appear important ; and 
 then we are surprised that they are thought so. 
 
 Lord Karnes tells us that he was acquainted with a 
 gentleman, who, though otherwise a man of good un- 
 derstanding, did not show his good sense in the educa- 
 tion of his daughters' temper. " He had," says Lord 
 Kames, " three comely daughters, between twelve and 
 sixteen, and to inure them to bear disappointments, he 
 would propose to make a visit which he knew would 
 delight them. The coach was bespoke, and the young 
 ladies, completely armed for conquest, were ready to 
 take their seats. But, behold ! their father had changed 
 his mind. This, indeed, was a disappointment ; but as 
 it appeared to proceed from whim, or caprice, it might 
 sour their temper instead of improving it."* 
 
 But why should a visit be made of such mighty con- 
 sequence to girls 1 Why should it be a disappointment 
 to stay at home 1 And why should Lord Kames advise 
 that disappointments should be made to appear the effects 
 of chance? This method of making things appear to 
 be what they are not, we cannot too often reprobate ; 
 it will not have better success in the education of the 
 temper, than in the management of the understanding ; 
 it would ruin the one or the other, or both : even when 
 promises are made with perfect good faith to young 
 people, the state of suspense which they create is not 
 serviceable to the temper, and it is extremely difficult to 
 promise proper rewards. f The celebrated Serena surely 
 established her reputation for good teniper without any 
 very severe trials. Our standard of female excellence 
 is evidently changed since the days of Griselda ; but we 
 are inclined to think, that even in these degenerate days, 
 public amusements would not fill the female imagination, 
 if they were not early represented as such charming 
 things, such great rewards to girls, by their imprudent 
 friends. 
 
 The temper depends much upon the understanding ; 
 
 * Lord Kames, p. 109. 
 
 t See Chapter on Rewards and Punishments. 
 
132 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 and whenever we give our pupils, whether male or 
 female, false ideas of pleasure, we prepare for them in- 
 numerable causes of discontent. '" You ought to be 
 above such things ! You ought not to let yourself be 
 vexed by such trifles !" are (;ominon expressions, which 
 do not immediatf ly change the irritated person's feelings. 
 You must alter the habits of thinking ; you must change 
 the view of the object, before you can alter the feelings. 
 Suppose a girl has, from the conversation of all her ac- 
 quaintance, learned to imagine that there is some vast 
 pleasure in going to a masquerade ; it is in vain to tell 
 her, in the moment that she is disappointed about her 
 masquerade dress, that " it is a trifle, and she ought to 
 be above trifles." She cannot be above them at a mo- 
 ment's warning ; but if she had never been inspired 
 with a violent desire to go to a masquerade, the disap- 
 pointment would really appear trifling. We may calcu- 
 late the probability of any person's mortification, by ob- 
 serving the vehemence of their hopes ; thus we are led 
 to observe, that the imagination influences the temper. 
 Upon tliis subject we shall speak more fully when we 
 treat of Imagination and Judgment. 
 
 To measure the degree of indulgence which ma}' be 
 safe for any given pupils, we must attend to the eff"ect 
 produced by pleasure upon their imagination and temper. 
 If a small diminution of their usual enjoyments disturbs 
 them, they have been rendered not too happy, but too 
 susceptible. Happy people, who have resources in 
 their own power, do not feel every slight variation in 
 external circumstances. We may safely allow children 
 to be as happy as they possibly can be without sacri- 
 ficing the future to the present. Such prosperity will 
 not enervate their minds. 
 
 We make this assertion with some confidence, be- 
 cause experience has in many instances confirmed our 
 opinion. Among a large family of children, who have 
 never been tormented with artificial trials of temper, 
 and who have been made as happy as it was in the 
 power of their parents to make them, there is not one 
 ill-tempered child. We have exatnples every day before 
 usof diflferent ages, from three years old to fifteen. 
 
 Before parents adopt either Epicurean or Stoical doc- 
 trines in the education of the temper, it may be prudent 
 to calculate the probabilities of the good and evil which 
 their pupils are likely to meet with in life. The Syb- 
 
OBEDIENCE. 133 
 
 arite, whose night's rest was disturbed by a doubled rose 
 leaf, deserves to be pitied almost as much as the young 
 man who, when he was benighted in the snow, was re- 
 proached by his severe father for having collected a 
 heap of snow to make himself a pillow. Unless we 
 could for ever ensure the bed of roses to our pupils, we 
 should do very imprudently to make it early necessary 
 to their repose : unless the pillow of snow is likely 
 to be their lot, we need not inure them to it from their 
 infancy. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ON OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Obedience has been often called the virtue of child- 
 hood. How far it is entitled to the name of virtue, we 
 need not at present stop to examine. Obedience is ex- 
 pected from children long before they can reason upon 
 the justice of our commands ; consequently it must be 
 taught as a habit. By associating pleasure with those 
 things which we first desire children to do, we should 
 make them necessarily like to obey ; on the contrary, 
 if we begin by ordering them to do what is difficult 
 and disagreeable to them, they must dislike obedience. 
 The poet seems to understand this subject when he 
 says, 
 
 "Or bid her wear your necklace rowed with pearl, 
 You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl."* 
 
 The taste for a necklace rowed with pearl, is not the 
 first taste, even in girls, that we should wish to culti- 
 vate ; but the poet's principle is good, notwithstanding. 
 Bid your child do things that are agreeable to him, and 
 you may be sure of his obedience. Bid a hungry boy 
 eat apple-pie; order a shivering urchin to warm him- 
 self at a good fire ; desire him to go to bed when you 
 see him yawn with fatigue, and by such seasonable com- 
 
 * Elegy on an old Beauty. — Parnel. 
 
134 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 mands you will soon form associations of pleasure in 
 his mind, with the voice and tone of authority. This 
 tone should never be threatening or alarming; it should 
 be gentle, but decided. Whenever it becomes necessary 
 that a child should do what he feels disagreeable, it is 
 better to make him submit at once to necessity, than to 
 create any doubt and struggle in his mind, by leaving 
 him a possibility of resistance. Suppose a little boy 
 wishes to sit up later than the hour at which you think 
 proper that he should go to bed ; it is most prudent to 
 take him to bed at the appointed time, witliout saying 
 one word to him, either in the way of entreaty or com- 
 mand. If you entreat, you give the child an idea that 
 he has it in his power to refuse you: if you command, 
 and he does not instantly obey, you hazard your au- 
 thority, and you teach him that he can successfully set 
 his will in opposition to yours. The boy wishes to sit 
 up ; he sees no reason, in the moral fitness of things, 
 why he should go to bed at one hour more than at 
 another ; all he perceives is, that such is your will. 
 What does he gain by obeying you 1 Nothing : he loses 
 the pleasure of sitting up half an hour longer. How 
 can you then expect that he should, in consequence of 
 these reasonings, give up his obvious immediate inter- 
 est, and march off to bed heroically at the word of com- 
 mand? Let him not be put to the trial ; when he has 
 for some time been regularly taken to bed at a fixed hour, 
 he will acquire the habit of thinking that he must go at 
 that hour : association will make him expect it ; and if 
 his experience has been uniform, he will, without know- 
 ing why, think it necessary that he should do as he has 
 been used to do. When the habit of obedience to cus- 
 tomary necessity is thus formed, we may, without much 
 risk, ingraft upon it obedience to the voice of authority. 
 For instance, when the boy hears the clock strike, the 
 usual signal for his departure, you may, if you see that 
 he is habitually ready to obey this siirnal, associate 
 your commands with that to which he has already 
 learned to pay attention. "Go; it is time that you 
 should go to bed now," will only seem to tlie child a 
 confirmation of the sentence already pronounced by the 
 clock: by degrees, your commands, after they have 
 been regularly repeated, when the child feels no hope 
 of evading them, will, even in new circ^umstances, have 
 from association the power of compelling obedience. 
 
OBEDIENCE. 135 
 
 Whenever we desire a child to do any tiling, we should 
 be perfectly certain, not only that it is a thing which he 
 is capable of doing, but also that it is something we can, 
 in case it comes to that ultimate argument, force him to 
 do. You cannot oblige a child to stand up, if he has a 
 mind to sit down; or to walk, if he does not choose to 
 exert his muscles for that purpose : but you can abso- 
 lutely prevent him from touching whatever you desire 
 him not to meddle with, by your superior strength. It 
 is best, then, to begin with prohibitions ; with such pro- 
 hibitions as you can, and will, steadily persevere to en- 
 force : if you are not exact in requiring obedience, you 
 will never obtain it, either by persuasion or authority. 
 As it will require a considerable portion of time and un- 
 remitting attention, to enforce the punctual observance 
 of a variety of prohibitions, it will, for your own sake, 
 be most prudent to issue as few edicts as possible, and 
 to be sparing in the use of the imperative mood. It 
 will, if you calculate the trouble you must take day after 
 day to watch your pupil, cost you less to begin by ar- 
 ranging every circumstance in your power, so as to pre- 
 vent the necessity of trusting to laws what ought to be 
 guarded against by precaution. Do you, for instance, 
 wish to prevent your son from breaking a beautiful china- 
 jar in your drawing-room 1 instead of forbidding him to 
 touch it, put it out of his reach. — Would you prevent 
 your son from talking to servants "? let your house, in 
 the first place, be so arranged, that he shall never be 
 obliged to pass through any rooms where he is likely to 
 meet with servants ; let all his wants be gratified with- 
 out their interference ; let him be able to get at his hat 
 without asking the footman to reach it for him, from its 
 inaccessible height.* The simple expedient of hanging 
 the hat in a place where the boy can reach it, will save 
 you the trouble of continually repeating, " Don't ask 
 William, child, to reach your hat ; can't you come and 
 ask me V Yes, the boy can come and ask you ; but if 
 you are busy, you will not like to go in quest of tlie hat ; 
 your reluctance will possibly appear in your counte- 
 nance, and the child, who understands the language of 
 looks better than that of words, will clearly compre- 
 hend, that you are displeased with him at the very 
 instant that he is fulfilling the letter of the law. 
 
 * Rousseau. 
 
136 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 A lady who was fond of having her house well ar- 
 ranged, discovered, to the amazement of her acquaint- 
 ance, the art of making all her servants keep every thing 
 in its place. Even in the kitchen, fronj the most mi- 
 nute article to the most unwieldy, every tlnng was inva- 
 riably to be found in its allotted station ; the servants 
 were thought miracles of obedience ; but, in fact, they 
 obeyed because it was the easiest thing they could pos- 
 sibly do. Order was made more convenient to them 
 than disorder; and, with their utmost ingenuity to save 
 themselves trouble, they could not invent places for 
 every thing more appropriate than those which had been 
 assigned by their mistress's legislative economy. In 
 the Same manner we may securt; the orderly obedience 
 of children, without exhausting their patience or our 
 own. Rousseau advises, that children should be gov- 
 erned solely by the necessity of circumstances ; but 
 there are one-ami-twenty excellent objections to this sys- 
 tem ; the first being, that it is impossible : of this Rousseau 
 must have been sensible, in the trials which he made as 
 a preceptor. When he had the management of a re- 
 fractory child, he found himself obliged to invent and 
 arrange a whole drama, by artificial experience, to con- 
 vince his little pupil that he had better not walk out in 
 the streets of Paris alone ; and that, therefore, he should 
 wait until his tutor could conveniently accompany him, 
 Rousseau had prepared the neighbours on each side of 
 the street to nuike proper speeches as his pupil passed 
 by their doors, which alarmed and piqued the boy effect- 
 ually. At length the child was met, at a proper time, 
 by a friend who had been appointed to watch him ; and 
 thus he was brought home submissive. This scene, as 
 Rousseau observes, was admirably well performed ;* 
 but what occasion could there be for so much contri- 
 vance and deceit 1 If his pupil had not been uncom- 
 monly deficiejit \\\ penetration, he would soon have dis- 
 covered his preceptor in some of his artifices ; then 
 adieu both to obedience and confidence. A false idea 
 of the pleasures of liberty misled Rousseau. Children 
 have not our abstract ideas of the pleasures of liberty; 
 they do not, until they have suffered from ill-judged re- 
 straints, feel any strong desire to exercise what we call 
 freewill ; liberty is, with them, the liberty of doing cer- 
 
 * Emihus, vol. i. page 23, 
 
OBEDIENCE. 137 
 
 tain specific things which they have found to be agree- 
 able ; liberty is not the general idea of pleasure, in doing 
 whatever they will to do. Rousseau desires, that toe 
 should not let our pupil knoiv, that in doing our will he is 
 obedient to us. But why 1 Why should we not let a 
 child know tiie truth 1 If we attempt to conceal it, we 
 shall only get into endless absurdities and difficulties. 
 Lord Karnes tells us, that he was acquainted with a cou- 
 ple, who, in the education of their family, pursued as 
 much as possible Rousseau's plan. One evening, as the 
 father was playing at chess with a friend, one of his 
 children, a boy of about four years old, took a piece 
 from the board, and ran away to play with it. The fa- 
 ther, whose principles would not permit him to assert 
 his right to his own chess-man, began to bargain for his 
 property with his son. " Harry," said he, " let us have 
 back the man, and there's an apple for you." The apple 
 was soon devoured, and the child returned to the chess- 
 board and kidnapped another chess-man. What tiiis 
 man's ransom might be, we are not yet informed ; but 
 Lord Karnes tells us, that the father was obliged to sus- 
 pend his game at chess until his son was led avay to 
 his supper. Does it seem just, that parents should be- 
 come slaves to the liberties of their children'? If one 
 set of beings or another should sacrifice a portion of 
 happiness, surely those who are the most useful, and 
 the most capable of increasing the knowledge and the 
 pleasures of life, have some claim to a preference ; and 
 when the power is entirely in their own hands, it is 
 most probable that they will defend their own interests. 
 We shall not, like many who have spoken of Rousseau, 
 steal from him after having abused him. His remarks 
 upon the absurd and tyrannical restraints which are 
 continually imposed upon children by the folly of nurses 
 and servants, or by the imprudent anxiety of parents 
 and preceptors, are excellent. Whenever Rousseau is 
 in the right, his eloquence is irresistible. 
 
 To determine what degree of obedience it is just to 
 require from children, we must always consider what 
 degree of reason they possess : whenever we can use 
 reason, we should never use force ; it is only while chil- 
 dren are too young to comprehend reason, that we 
 should expect from them implicit submission. The 
 means which have been pointed out for teaching the 
 
138 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 habit of obedience, must not be depended upon for teach- 
 ing any thing more than the mere habit. When chil- 
 dren begin to reason, they do not act merely from habit ; 
 they will not be obedient at this age, unless their under- 
 standing is convinced that it is for their advantage to be 
 so. Wherever we can explain the reasons for any of 
 our requests, we should attempt it ; but whenever these 
 cannot be fully explained, it is better not to give a par- 
 tial explanation ; it will be best to say steadily, " You 
 cannot understand this now, you will, perhaps, under- 
 stand it some time hence." Whenever we tell children, 
 that we forbid them to do such and such things for any 
 particular reason, we must take care that the reason 
 assigned is adequate, and that it will in all cases hold 
 good. For instance, if we forbid a boy to eat unripe 
 fruit, because it loill make himill, and if afterward the boy 
 eat some unripe gooseberries without feeling ill in con- 
 sequence of his disobedience, he will doubt the truth of 
 the person who prohibited unripe fruit ; he will rather 
 trust his own partial experience than any assertions. 
 The idea of hurting his health is a general idea, which 
 he does not yet comprehend. It is more prudent to 
 keep him out of the way of unripe gooseberries, than to 
 hazard at once his obedience and his integrity. We 
 need not expatiate further ; the instance we have given, 
 may be readily applied to all cases in which children 
 have it in their power to disobey with immediate impu- 
 nity, and, what is still more dangerous, with the cer- 
 tainty of obtaining immediate pleasure. The gratifica- 
 tion of their senses, and the desire of bodily exercise, 
 ought never to be unnecessarily restrained. Our pupils 
 should distinctly perceive, that we wish to make them 
 happy; and every instance in which they discover that 
 obedience has really made them happier, will be more in 
 our favour than all the lectures we could preach. From 
 thepast, they will judge of the future. Children who have 
 for many years experienced that their parents have 
 exacted obedience only to such commands as proved to 
 be ultimately wise and beneficial, v/jll surely be disposed, 
 from habit, from gratitude, and yet more from prudence, 
 to consult their parents in all the material actions of their 
 lives. 
 
 We may observe, that the spirit of contradiction, 
 which sometimes breaks out in young people the mo- 
 
OBEDIENCE. 139 
 
 ment they are able to act for themselves, arises fre- 
 quently from slight causes in their early education. 
 Children who have experienced that submission to the 
 will of others has constantly made them unhappy, will 
 necessarily, by reasoning inversely, imagine, that feli- 
 city consists in following their own free will. 
 
 The French poet Boileau was made very unhappy by 
 neglect and restraint during his education : when he 
 grew up, he would never agree with those who talked 
 to him of the pleasures of childhood.* " Pent on," 
 disoit ce poete amoureux de Tindependence, " ne pas 
 regarder comme im grand malheur, le chagrin continuel 
 et particulier a cet age, de ne jamais faire sa volonte f 
 It was in vain, continues his biographer, to boast to him 
 of the advantages of this happy constraint, which saves 
 youth from so many follies. " What signifies our know- 
 ing the value of our chains when we have shaken them 
 off, if we feel nothing but their weight while we wear 
 them V the galled poet used to reply. Nor did Boileau 
 enjoy his freedom, though he thought with such horror 
 of his slavery. He declared, that if he had it in his 
 choice, either to be born again upon the hard conditions 
 of again going through his childhood, or not to exist, 
 he would rather not exist : but he was not happy during 
 any period of his existence ; he quarrelled with all the 
 seasons of life ; " all seemed to him equally disagreea- 
 ble ; youth, manhood, and old age, are each subject, he 
 observed, to impetuous passions, to care, and to infirmi- 
 ties." Hence we may conclude, that the severity of his 
 education had not succeeded in teaching him to sub- 
 mit philosophically to necessity, or yet in giving him 
 much enjoyment from that liberty which he so much 
 coveted. Thus it too often happens, that an imaginary 
 value is set upon the exercise of the freewill by those 
 who, during their childhood, have suffered under inju- 
 dicious restrictions. Sometimes the love of freewill is 
 so uncontrollably excited, even during childhood, that it 
 breaks out, unfortunately both for the pupils and the pre- 
 ceptors, in the formidable shape of obstinacy. 
 
 Of all the faults to which children are subject, there 
 is none which is more difficult to cure, or more easy to 
 prevent, than obstinacy. As it is early observed by 
 those who are engaged in education, it is sometimes 
 
 * Histoire des Membres de l'Acad6mie, par M. d'Alembert. Tome 
 troisieme, p. 24. 
 
140 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 supposed to be inherent in the temper ; but, so far from 
 being naturally obstinate, infants show those strong pro- 
 pensities to sympathy and imitation which prepare them 
 for an opposite character. The folly of the nurse, how- 
 ever, makes an intemperate use of these happy propen- 
 sities. She perpetually torments the child to exert him- 
 self for her amusement; all his senses and all his mus- 
 cles she commands. He must see, hear, talk or be 
 silent, move or be still, when she thinks proper; and 
 often with the desire of amusing her charge, or of show- 
 ing him off to the company, she disgusts him with vol- 
 untary exertion. Before young children have com- 
 pletely acquired the use of their limbs, they cannot per- 
 form feats of activity or of dexterity at a moment's 
 warning. Their muscles do not instantaneously obey 
 their will ; the efforts they make are painful to them- 
 selves ; the awkwardness of their attempts is painful to 
 others ; the delay of the body is often mistaken for the 
 reluctance of the mind; and the impatient tutor pro- 
 nounces the child to be obstinate, while all the time he 
 may be doing his utmost to obey. Instead of growing 
 angry with the helpless child, it would be surely more 
 wise to assist his feeble and inexperienced efforts. If 
 we press him to make unsuccessful attempts, we shall 
 associate pain both with voluntary exertion and with 
 obedience. 
 
 Little W (a boy of three years old) was one day 
 
 asked by his father to jump. The boy stood stock 
 still. Perhaps he did not know the meaning of the word 
 jump. The father, instead of pressing him further, 
 asked several other children who happened to be in the 
 room to jump, and he jumped along with them : all this 
 was done playfully. The little boy looked on silently 
 for a short time, and seemed much pleased, " Papa 
 
 jumps !" he exclaimed. His brother L lifted him 
 
 up two or three times ; and he then tried to jump, 
 and succeeded : from sympathy he learned the com- 
 mand of the muscles which were necessary to his jump- 
 ing, and to his obedience. If this boy had been im- 
 portuned, or forced to exert himself, he might have 
 been thus taught obstinacy, merely from the imprudent 
 impatience of the spectators. The reluctance to stop 
 when a child is once in tuotion, is often mistaken for 
 obstinacy : when he is running, singing, laughing, or 
 talking, if you suddenly command him to stop, he can- 
 
OBEDIENCE. 141 
 
 not instantly obey you. If we reflect upon our own 
 minds, we may perceive that we cannot, without con- 
 siderable effort, turn our thoughts suddenly from any 
 subject on which we have been long intent. If we have 
 been long in a carriage, the noise of the wheels sounds 
 in our ear, and we seem to be yet going on after the 
 carriage has stopped. We do not pretend to found any 
 accurate reasoning upon analogy ; but we may observe, 
 the difficulty with which our minds are stopped or put 
 in motion, resembles the vis^inertiae of the body. 
 
 W (three years old) had for some minutes vocif- 
 erated two or three words of a song, until the noise 
 could be no longer patiently endured ; his father called 
 to him, and desired that he would not make so much 
 
 noise. W paused for a moment, but then went 
 
 on singing the same words. His brother said. Hush ! 
 
 W paused for another second or two ; but then 
 
 went on with his roundelay. In his countenance there 
 was not the slightest appearance of ill-humour. One 
 of his sisters put him upon a board which was lying on 
 the floor, and which was a little unsteady; as he walked 
 cautiously along this board, his attention was occupied, 
 and he forgot his song. 
 
 This inability suddenly to desist from any occupation, 
 may easily grow into obstinac}^ because the pain of 
 checking themselves will be great in cliildren, and this 
 pain will be associated with the commands of those 
 who govern them ; it is better to stop them by present- 
 ing new objects to their attention, than by the stimulus 
 of a peremptory voice. Children should never be ac- 
 cused of obstinacy ; the accusation cannot cure, but may 
 superinduce the disease. If, unfortunately, they have 
 been suff"ered to contract a disposition to this fault, it 
 may be cured by a little patience and good temper. We 
 have mentioned how example and sympathy may be 
 advantageously used ; praise and looks of aff'ection, 
 which naturally express our feeling when children do 
 right, encourage the slightest efforts to obey ; but we 
 must carefully avoid showing any triumph in our victory 
 over yielding stubbornness. 
 
 " Ay, I knew you would do what we desired at last, 
 you might as well have done it at first," is a common 
 nursery-maid's speech, which is well caculated to pique 
 the pride of a half-subdued penitent. When children 
 
142 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 are made ashamed of submission, they will become in-* 
 trepid, probably unconquerable rebels. 
 
 Neither rewards nor punishments will then avail ; the 
 pupil perceives, that both the wit and the strength of 
 his master are set in competition with his : at the ex- 
 pense of a certain degree of pain, he has the power to 
 resist as long as he thinks proper ; and there is scarcely 
 any degree of pain that a tutor dares to inflict, which 
 an obstinate hero is not able to endure. With the spirit 
 of a martyr, he sustains reproaches and torture. If, at 
 length, the master changes liis tone, and tries to soften' 
 and win the child to his purpose, his rewards are con- 
 sidered as bribes : if the boy really thinks that he is in 
 the right to rebel, he must yield his sense of honour to 
 the force of temptation when he obeys. If he has 
 formed no such idea of honour, he perhaps considers 
 the reward as the price of his submission; and, upon a 
 future occasion, he will know how to raise that price 
 by prolonging his show of resistance. Where the child 
 has formed a false idea of honour, his obstinacy is only 
 mistaken resolution ; we should address ourselves to 
 his understanding, and endeavour to convince him of his 
 error. Where the understanding is convinced, and the 
 habit of opposition still continues, we should carefully 
 avoid calling his false associations into action ; we 
 should not ask him to do any thing for which he has 
 acquired an habitual aversion ; we should alter our man- 
 ner of speaking to him, that neither the tones of our 
 voice, the words, or the looks, which have been his 
 customary signals for resistance, may recall the same 
 feelings to his mind : placed in new circumstances, he 
 may acquire new habits, and his old associates will in 
 time be forgotten. Sufficient time must, however, be 
 allowed; we may judge when it is prudent to try him 
 on any old dangerous subjects, by many symptoms : by 
 observing the degree of alacrity with which he obeys 
 on indifferent occasions ; by observing what degree of 
 command he has acquired over himself in general; by. 
 observing in what manner he judges of the conduct and 
 temper of other children in similar circumstances ; by 
 observing whether the consciousness of his former self 
 continues in full force. Children often completely for- 
 get what they have been. 
 
 Where obstinacy arises from principle, if we may use 
 
OBEDIENCE. 143 
 
 the expression, it cannot be cured by the same means 
 which are taken to cure that species of the disease 
 which depends merely upon habit. The same courage 
 and fortitude which in one case we reprobate, and try 
 to conquer with all our might, in the other we admire 
 and extol. This should be pointed out to children ; and 
 if they act from a love of glory, as soon as they perceive 
 it, they will follow that course which will secure to them 
 the prize. 
 
 Charles XII., whom the Turks, when incensed by his 
 disobedience to the grand seignior, called Demir-bash, 
 or head of iron, showed early symptoms of this head- 
 strong nature ; yet in his childhood, if his preceptor* 
 named but glory, any thing could be obtained from 
 Charles. Charles had a great aversion to learning 
 Latin ; but when he v/as told that the kings of Poland 
 and Denmark understood it, he began to study it in 
 good earnest. We do not mean to infer, that emulation 
 with the kings of Poland and Denmark was the best 
 possible motive which Charles XII. 's preceptor could 
 have used, to make the young prince conquer his 
 aversion to Latin ; but we would point out, that where 
 the love of gloiy is connected with obstinate temper, 
 the passion is more thnn a match for the temper. Let 
 us but enlighten this love of glory, and we produce 
 magnanimity in the place of obstinacy. Examples, in 
 conversation and in books, of great characters, who 
 have not been ashamed to change their opinions, and to 
 acknowledge that they have been mistaken, will proba- 
 bly make a great impression upon young people ; they 
 will from these learn to admire candour, and will be 
 taught that it is mean to persist in the wrong. Ex- 
 amples from books must, however, be also uniformly 
 supported by examples in real life ; preceptors and 
 parents must practise the virtues which they preach. 
 It is said that the amiable Fenelon acquired the most 
 permanent influence over his pupil, by the candour with 
 which he always treated him. Fenelon did not think 
 that he could lessen his dignity by confessing himself 
 to be in the wrong. 
 
 Young people who have quick abilities, and who hap- 
 pen to live with those who are inferior to them either 
 in knowledge or in capacity, are apt to become positive 
 
 " Voltaire's Hist. Charles XII. 
 
144 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 and self-willed ; they measure all the world by the in- 
 dividuals with whom they have measured themselves; 
 and, HS they have been convinced that they have been 
 in the right in many cases, they take it for granted that 
 their judgment must be always infallible. This disease 
 may be easily cured ; it is only necessary to place the 
 patient among his superiors in intellect, his own ex- 
 perience will work his cure : he liked to follow his will, 
 because his judgment had taught him that he might trust 
 more securely to the tact of his own understanding, than 
 to the decision of others. As soon as he discovers more 
 sense in the arguments of his companions, he will listen 
 to them ; and if he finds their reason superior to his own, 
 he will submit. A preceptor who vNishes to gain as- 
 cendency over a clever positive boy, must reason vvith 
 all possible precision, and must always show that he is 
 willing to be decided by the strongest arguments which 
 can be produced. If he ever prophesies, he sets his 
 judgment at stake ; therefore he should not prophesy 
 about matters of chance, but rather in alfxirs where he 
 can calculate with certainty. If his prophecies are 
 frequently accomplished, his pupil's confidence in him 
 will rapidly increase ; and if he desires that confidence 
 to be permanent, he will not aflect mystery, but he will 
 honestly explain the circumstances by which he formed 
 his opinions. Young people who are accustomed to 
 hear and to give reasons for their opinions, will not be 
 violent and positive in assertions ; they will not think 
 that the truth of any assertion can be manifested by re- 
 peating over the same words a thousand times ; they 
 will not ask how many people are of this or that opinion, 
 but rather what arguments are produced on each side. 
 There is very little danger that any people, whether 
 young or old, should continue to be positive, who are in 
 the habit of exercising their reasoning faculty. 
 
 It has been often observed that extremely good- 
 humoured, complaisant children, when they grow up, 
 become ill-tempered ; and young men who are gener- 
 ally liked in society as pleasant companions, become 
 surly, tyrannical masters in their own families, positive 
 about mere trifles, and anxious to subjugate the loills of 
 all who are any wise dependant upon them. This char- 
 acter has been nicely touched by De Boissy, in his 
 comedy called " Dehors trompeurs." 
 
 We must observe, that while young people are in 
 
OBEDIENCE. 145 
 
 company, and under the immediate influence of the ex- 
 citements of novelty, numbers, and dissipation, it is 
 scarcely possible to form a just estimate of the goodness 
 of their temper. Young men who are the most ready 
 to yield their inclinations to the humour of their com- 
 panions, are not therefore to be considered as of really 
 comphant dispositions ; the idle or indolent, who have 
 no resources in their own minds, and no independent 
 occupations, are victims to the yawning demon of ennui 
 the moment they are left in solitude. They conse- 
 quently dread so heartily to be left alone, that they 
 readily give up a portion of their liberty to purchase the 
 pleasures and mental support which society affords. 
 When they give up their wishes, and follow the lead of 
 the company, they in fact give up but very little ; their 
 object is amusement ; and this obtained, their time is 
 sacrificed without regret. On the contrary, those who 
 are engaged in literary or professional pursuits, set a 
 great value upon their time, and feel considerable reluc- 
 tance to part with it without some adequate compensa- 
 tion ; they must consequently be less complaisant com- 
 panions, and by the generality of superficial observers, 
 would be thought, perhaps, less complying in their tem- 
 pers, than the idle and dissipated. But when the idle 
 man has passed the common season for dissipation, and is 
 settled in domestic life, his spirits flag from the want of 
 his usual excitements ; and, as he has no amusements 
 in his own family to purchase by the polite sacrifice of 
 his opinion or his will, he is not inclined to complai- 
 sance. The pleasure of exercising his freewill be- 
 comes important in his eyes ; he has few pleasures, and 
 of those few he is tenacious. He has been accustomed 
 to submit to others in society ; he is proud to be master 
 at home ; he has few emotions, and the emotion caused 
 by the exertion of command becomes agreeable and 
 necessary to him. Thus many of the same causes 
 which make a young man a pleasant companion abroad, 
 tend naturally to make him a tyrant at home. This 
 perversity and positiveness of temper ultimately arises 
 from the want of occupation, and from deficient energy 
 of mind. We may guard agaitlst these evils by educa- 
 tion : when we see a playful, active child, we have little 
 fear of his temper. " Oh, he will certainly be good- 
 tempered, he is the most obedient, complying creature 
 in the world, he'll do any thing you ask him." But let 
 
146 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 US cultivate his understanding:, and give him tastes 
 which shall occupy and interest him agreeably through 
 life, or else this sweet, complying temper will not last 
 till he is thirty. 
 
 An ill-cured obstinacy of temper, when it breaks out 
 after young people have arrived at years of discretion, 
 is terrible. Those who attempt to conquer obstinacy 
 in children by bodily pain, or by severe punishments of 
 any kind, often appear to succeed, and to have entirely 
 eradicated, when they have merely suppressed the dis- 
 ease for a time. As soon as the child that is intimi- 
 dated by force or fear is relieved from restraint, he will 
 resume his former habits ; he may change the mode of 
 showing it, but the disposition will continue the same. 
 It will appear in various parts of the conduct, as the 
 limbs of the giant appeared unexpectedly at difterent 
 periods and in different parts of the Castle of Otranto. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON TRUTH. 
 
 It is not necessary liere to pronounce a panegyric 
 upon truth ; its use and value are thoroughly understood 
 by all the world ; but we shall endeavour to give some 
 practical advice, which may be of service in educating 
 children, not only to the love, but to the habits, of in- 
 tegrity. These are not always found, as they ought to 
 be, inseparable. 
 
 Rousseau's eloquence, and Locke's reasoning, have 
 sufficiently reprobated, and it is to be hoped have ex- 
 ploded, the system of lecturing children upon morality; 
 of giving them precepts and general maxims which 
 they do not understand, and which they cannot apply. 
 We shall not produce long quotations from books which 
 are in everybody's hands.* There is one particular in 
 which Rousseau especially, and most other authors who 
 
 * We refer to Locke s thoughts concerning Education, and Rou»* 
 •eau's Emilias, vol. i. 
 
TRUTH. 147 
 
 have written upon education, have given very dangerous 
 counsel ; they have counselled parents to leach truth by 
 falsehood. The privilege of using contrivance and in- 
 genious deceptions, has been uniformly reserved for 
 preceptors ; and the pupils, by moral delusions, and the 
 theatric effect of circumstances treacherously arranged, 
 are to be duped, surprised, and cheated into virtue. 
 The dialogue between the gardener and Emilius about 
 the Maltese melon-seed, is an instance of this method 
 of instruction. Honest Robert, the gardener, in concert 
 with the tutor, tells poor Emilius a series of lies, pre- 
 pares a garden, " choice Maltese melon-seed,'' and 
 " worthless beans," all to cheat the boy into just notions 
 of the rights of property, and the nature of exchangee 
 and barter. 
 
 Part of the artificial course of ^oc^perience in that excel- 
 lent work on education, Adela and Theodore, is defect- 
 ive upon the same principle. There should be no 
 moral delusions ; no arfificial course of experience; no 
 plots laid by parents to make out the truth ; no listening 
 fathers, mothers, or governesses ; no pretended con- 
 fidence, or perfidious friends ; in one word, no falsehood 
 should be practised : that magic which cheats the 
 senses, at the same time confounds the understanding. 
 The spells of Prospero, the strangeness of the isle, per- 
 plex and confound the senses and understanding of all 
 who are subjected to his magic, till at length, worked 
 by force of wonders into credulity, his captives declare 
 that they will believe any thing; " that there are men 
 dewlapt like bulls ; and what else does want credit," 
 says the Duke Anthonio, " come to me, and FU be sworn 
 'tis true." 
 
 Children whose simplicity has been practised upon 
 by the fabling morality of their preceptors, begin by 
 feeling something like the implicit credulity of Antho- 
 nio ; but the arts of the preceptors are quickly suspected 
 by their subjects, and the charm is for ever reversed. 
 When once a child detects you in falsehood, you lose 
 his confidence ; his incredulity will then be as extrava- 
 gant as his former belief was gratuitous. It is in vain 
 to expect, by the most eloquent manifestoes, or by the 
 most secret leagues offensive and defensive, to conceal 
 your real views, sentiments, and actions, from children. 
 Their interest keeps their attention continually awake ; 
 not a word, not a look, in which they are concerned^ 
 G2 
 
148 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 escapes them ; they see, hear, and combine, with sag^a- 
 cious rapidity ; if falsehood be in the wind, detection 
 hunts her to discovery. 
 
 Honesty is the best policy, must be the maxim in edu- 
 cation, as well as in all the other affairs of life. We 
 must not only be exact in speaking truth to our pupils, 
 but to everybody else ; to acquaintance, to servants, to 
 friends, to enemies. It is not here meant to enter any 
 overstrained protest against the common phrases and 
 forms of politeness ; the current coin may not be pure ; 
 but when once its alloy has been ascertained, and its 
 value appreciated, there is no fraud, tliough there may 
 be some folly, in continuing to trade upon equal terms 
 with our neighbours, with money of high nominal, and 
 scarcely any real value. No fraud is committed by a 
 gentleman's saying he is not at home, because no decep- 
 tion is intended; the words are silly, but they mean, 
 and are understood to mean, nothing more than that the 
 person in question does not choose to see the visiters 
 who knock at his door. " I am, sir, your obedient and 
 humble servant," at the end of a letter, does not mean 
 that the person who signs the letter is a servant, or hum- 
 ble, or obedient, but it simply expresses that he knows 
 how to conclude his letter according to the usual form 
 of civility. Change this absurd phrase and welcome ; 
 but do not let us, in the spirit of Draco, make no dis- 
 tinction between errors and crimes. The foibles of 
 fashion or folly are not to be treated with the detesta- 
 tion due to hypocrisy and falsehood ; if small faults are 
 to incur such grievous punishments, there can, indeed, be 
 none found sufficiently severe for great crimes ; great 
 crimes, consequently, for want of adequate punishment, 
 will increase, and the little faults, that have met with 
 disproportionate persecution, will become amiable and 
 innocent in the eyes of commiserating human nature. 
 It is not difficult to explain to young people the real 
 meaning, or rather the nonsense, of a few complimentary- 
 phrases ; their integrity will not be increased or di- 
 minished by either saying, or omitting to say, " I am 
 much obliged to you," or, " 1 shall be very happy to see 
 you at dinner," &c. We do not mean to include in the 
 harmless list of compliments, any expressions which are 
 meant to deceive ; the conmion custom of the country, 
 and of the society in which we live, sufficiently regu- 
 lates the style of complimentary language ; and there 
 
TRUTH. 149 
 
 are few so ignorant of the world as seriously to misun- 
 derstand this, or to mistake civility for friendship. 
 
 There is a story told of a Chinese mandarin, who 
 paid a visit to a friend at Paris, at the time when Paris 
 was the seat of politeness. His wellbred host, on the 
 first evening of his arrival, gave him a handsome sup- 
 per, lodged him in the best bedchamber, and when he 
 wished him a good night, among other civil things, said 
 he hoped the mandarin would, during his stay at Paris, 
 consider that house as his own. Early next morning, 
 the polite Parisian was awakened by the sound of loud 
 hammering in the mandarin's bedchamber ; on enter- 
 ing the room, he found the mandarin and some masons 
 hard at work, throwing down the walls of the house. 
 " You rascals, are you mad V exclaimed the French- 
 man to the masons. " Not at all, my dear friend," said 
 the Chinese man, soberly ; " I set the poor fellows to 
 work ; this room is too small for my taste ; you see I 
 have lost no time in availing myself of your goodness. 
 Did not you desire me to use this house as if it were 
 my own, during my stay at Paris V — " Assuredly, my 
 dear friend, and so I hope you will," replied the French 
 gentleman ; " the only misfortune here is, that I did not 
 understand Chinese, and that I had no interpreter." 
 They found an interpreter, or a Chinese dictionary, and 
 when the Parisian phrase was properly translated, the 
 mandarin, who was an honest man, begged his polite 
 host's pardon for having pulled down the partition. It 
 was rebuilt ; the mandarin learned French, and the two 
 friends continued upon the best terms with each other 
 during the remainder of the visit. 
 
 The Chesterfieldian system of endeavouring to please 
 by dissimulation is obviously distinguishable by any 
 common capacity from the usual forms of civility. 
 There is no liope of educating young people to a love 
 of integrity in any family where this practice is adopted. 
 If children observe that their parents deceive common 
 acquaintance by pretending to like the company and to 
 esteem the characters of those whom they really think 
 disagreeable and contemptible, how can they learn to 
 respect truth 1 How can children believe in the praise 
 of their parents, if they detect them in continual flat- 
 tery towards indifferent people 1 It may be thought by 
 latitudinarians in politeness that we are too rigid in ex- 
 pecting this strict adherence to truth from people who 
 
150 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 live in society ; it may be said that in practical educa'- 
 tion, no such Utopian ideas of perfection should be sug^- 
 gested. If we thought them Utopian, we certainly 
 should not waste our time upon them ; but we do not 
 here speak theoretically of what may be done, we speak 
 of what has been done. Without the affectation of 
 using a more sanctified language than other people — 
 without departing from the common forms of society — 
 without any painful, awkward efforts, we believe that 
 parents may, in all their conversation in private and in 
 public, set their children the uniform example of truth 
 and integrity. 
 
 We do not mean that the example of parents can 
 alone produce this effect ; a number of other circum- 
 stances must be combined. Servants must have no 
 communication with children, if you wish to teach them 
 the habit of speaking truth. The education, and cus- 
 tom, and situation of servants, are at present such, that 
 it is morally impossible to depend upon their veracity in 
 their intercourse with children. Servants think it good- 
 natured to try to excuse and conceal all the little faults 
 of children ; to give them secret indulgences, and even 
 positively to deny facts, in order to save them from 
 blame or punishment. Even when they are not fond 
 of the children, their example must be dangerous, be- 
 cause servants do not scruple to falsify for their own 
 advantage ; if thej'- break any thing, what a multitude 
 of equivocations ! If they neglect any thing, what a 
 variety of excuses ! What evasions, in actions or in 
 words, do they continually invent ! 
 
 It may be said, that as the Spartans taught their chil- 
 dren to detest drunkenness, by showing them intoxi- 
 cated Helots, we can make falsehood odious and con- 
 temptible to our pupils, by the daily example of its mean 
 deformity. But if children, before they can perceive 
 the general advantage of integrity, and before they can 
 understand the utility of truth, see the partial, imme- 
 diate success of falsehood, how can they avoid believing 
 in their own experience I If they see that servants es- 
 cape blame and screen themselves from punishment by 
 telHng falsehoods, they not only learn that falsehood 
 preserves from pain, but they feel obliged to those who 
 practise it for their sakes ; thus it is connected with the 
 feelings of affection and of gratitude in their hearts, as 
 well as with a sense of pleasure and safety. When 
 
TRUTH. 151 
 
 Servants have exacted promises from their protigisi 
 those promises cannot be broken without treachery ; 
 thus deceit brings on deceit, and the ideas of truth and 
 falsehood become confused and contradictory. In the 
 chapter upon servants we have expatiated upon this 
 subject, and have endeavoured to point out how all com- 
 munication between children and servants maybe most 
 effectually prevented. To that chapter, without further 
 repetition, we refer. And now that we have adjusted 
 the preliminaries concerning parents and servants, we 
 may proceed with confidence. 
 
 When young children first begin to speak, from not 
 having a sufficient number of words to express their 
 ideas, or from not having annexed precise ideas to the 
 words which they are taught to use, they frequently 
 make mistakes, which are attributed to the desire of de- 
 ceiving. We should not precipitately suspect them of 
 falsehood ; it is some time before they perfectly under- 
 stand what we mean by truth. Small deviations should 
 not be marked with too much rigour ; but whenever a 
 child relates exactly any thing which he has seen, heard, 
 or felt, we should listen with attention and pleasure, 
 and we should not show the least doubt of his veracity. 
 Rousseau is perfectly right in advising that children 
 should never be questioned in any circumstances upon 
 which it can be their interest to deceive. We should, 
 at least, treat children with the same degree of wise 
 lenity which the English law extends to all who have 
 arrived at years of discretion. No criminal is bound to 
 accuse himself. If any mischief has been committed, 
 we should never, when we are uncertain by whom it 
 has been done, either directly accuse, or betray injuri- 
 ous suspicions. We should neither say to the child, 
 "I believe you have done this," nor, "I believe you 
 have not done this ;" we should say nothing ; the mis- 
 chief is done, we cannot repair it ; because a glass is 
 broken, we need not spoil a child ; we may put glasses 
 out of his reach in future. If it should, however, hap- 
 pen that a child voluntarily comes to us with the history 
 of an accident, may no love of goods or chattels, of win- 
 dows, of china, or even of looking-glasses, come in 
 competition with our love of truth ! An angry word, 
 an angry look, may intimidate the child, who has sum- 
 moned all his little courage to make this confession. It 
 is not requisite that parents should pretend to be pleased 
 
152 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 and gratified with the destruction of their furniture, — 
 but they may, it is to be hoped, witliout dissimulation, 
 show that they set more value upon the integrity of their 
 children than upon a looking-glass, and they will " keep 
 their temper still, though china fall." 
 
 H , one day when his father and mother were ab- 
 sent from home, broke a looking-glass. As soon as he 
 heard the sound of the returning carriage, he ran and 
 posted himself at the hall door. His father, the moment 
 he got out of the carriage, beheld his erect figure, and 
 pale but intrepid countenance. •' Father," said the boy, 
 " I have broke the best looking-glass in your house !" 
 His father assured him that he would rather all the look- 
 ing-glasses in his house should be broken, than that one 
 of his children should attempt to make an excuse. 
 
 H was most agreeably relieved from his anxiety by 
 
 the kindness of his father's voice and manner, and still 
 more so, perhaps, by perceiving that he rose in his es- 
 teem. When the glass was examined, it appeared that 
 the boy had neglected to produce all the circumstances 
 in his own favour. Before he had begun to play at ball, 
 he had had the precaution to turn the back of the look- 
 ing-glass towards him ; his ball, however, accidentally 
 struck against the wooden back, and broke the glass. 
 
 H did not make out this favourable state of the case 
 
 for himself at first ; he told it simply after the business 
 was settled, seeming much more interested about the 
 fate of the glass, than eager to exculpate himself. 
 
 There is no great danger of teaching children to do 
 mischief by this indulgence to tlieir accidental misfor- 
 tunes. When they break or waste any thing from pure 
 carelessness, let them, even when they speak the truth 
 about it, suffer the natural consequences of their care- 
 lessness ; but at the same time praise their integrity, 
 and let them distinctly feel the difference between the 
 slight inconvenience to which they expose themselves 
 by speaking the truth, and the great disgrace to which 
 falsehood would subject them. The pleasure of being 
 esteemed and trusted is early felt, and the conscious- 
 ness of deserving confidence is delightful to children ; 
 but their young fortitude and courage should never be 
 exposed to severe temptations. It is not sufficient to 
 excite an admiration of truth by example, by eloquent 
 praise, or by the just rewards of esteem and affection; 
 we must take care to form the habits at the same time 
 
TRUTH. 153 
 
 that we inspire the love of this virtue. Many children 
 admire truth, and feel all the shame of telling falsehoods, 
 who yet, either from habit or from fear, continue to tell 
 lies. We must observe, that though the taste of praise 
 is strong in childhood, yet it is not a match for any of 
 the bodily appetites, when they are strongly excited. 
 Those children who are restrained as to the choice or 
 the quantity of their food, usually think that eating is a 
 matter of vast consequence, and they are strongly 
 tempted to be dishonest to gratify their appetites. Chil- 
 dren do not understand the prudential maxims concern- 
 ing health, upon which these restraints are founded ; and 
 if they can, "by any indirection," obtain things which 
 gratify their palate, they will. On the contrary, young 
 people who are regularly let to eat and drink as much 
 as they please, can have no temptation from hunger and 
 thirst to deceive ; if they partake of the usual family 
 meals, and if there are no whimsical distinctions be- 
 tween wholesome and unwholesome dishes, or epicurean 
 distinctions between rarities and plain food, the imagi- 
 nation and the pride of children will not be roused about 
 eating. Their pride is piqued, if they perceive that they 
 are prohibited from touching what groivn-up people are 
 privileged to eat; their imagination is set to work by 
 seeing any extraordinary difference made by judges of 
 eating between one species of food and another. In 
 families where a regularly good table is kept, children 
 accustomed to the sight and taste of all kinds of food 
 are seldom delicate, capricious, or disposed to exceed ; 
 but in houses where entertainments are made from time 
 to time with great bustle and anxiety, fine clothes, and 
 company-manners, and company-faces, and all that po- 
 liteness can do to give the appearance of festivity, de- 
 ceive children at least, and make them imagine that 
 there is some extraordinary joy in seeing a greater num- 
 ber of dishes than usual upon the table. Upon these 
 occasions, incijpd, the pleasure is to them substantial ; 
 they eat more, they eat a greater variety, and of things 
 that please them better than usual ; the pleasure of eat- 
 ing is associated with unusual cheerfulness, and thus 
 the imagination and the reality conspire to make them 
 epicures. To these children, the temptations to deceive 
 about sweetmeats and dainties are beyond measure 
 great, especially as illbred strangers commonly show 
 their affection for them by pressing them to eat what 
 G3 
 
154 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 they are not allowed to say " If you please'" to. Rousseau 
 thinks all children are gluttons. All children may be 
 rendered gluttons ; but few who are properly treated 
 with respect to food, and who have any literary tastes, 
 can be in danger of continuing to be fond of eating. We 
 therefore, without hesitation, recommend it to parents 
 never to hazard the truth and honour of their pupils by 
 prohibitions, which seldom produce any of the effects 
 that are expected. 
 
 Children are sometimes injudiciously restrained with 
 regard to exercise ; they are required to promise to 
 keep within certain boundaries when they are sent out 
 to play ; these promises are often broken with impunity, 
 and thus the children learn habits of successful deceit. 
 Instead of circumscribing their play-grounds, as they 
 are sometimes called, by narrow inconvenient linjits, we 
 should allow them as much space as we can with con- 
 venience, and at all events exact no promises. We 
 should absolutely make it impossible for them to go 
 without detection into any place which we forbid. It 
 requires some patience and activity in preceptors ta 
 take all the necessary precautions in issuing orders, but 
 these precautions will be more useful in preserving the 
 integrity of their pupils, than the most severe punish- 
 ments that can be devised. We are not so unreason- 
 able as to expect, wiih some theoretic writers on edu- 
 cation, that tutors and parents should sacrifice the whole 
 of their timt^, to the convenience, amusement, and edu- 
 cation of their pupils. This would be putting one set 
 of beings " sadlij over the head of anolher .•" but if pa- 
 rents would, as much as possible, mix their occupations 
 and recreations with those of their children, besides 
 many other advantages which have been elsewhere 
 pointed out with respect to the improvement of the un- 
 derstanding, they would secure them from many tempt- 
 ations to falsehood. They should be encouraged to 
 talk freely of all their amusements to thej^ parents, and 
 to ask them for whatever they want to complete their 
 little inventions. Instead of banishing all the freedom 
 of wit and humour by the austerity of his presence, a 
 preceptor, with superior talents, and all the resources 
 of property in his favour, might easily become the 
 arbiter deliciarum of his pupils. 
 
 When young people begin to taste the pleasures of 
 praise, and to feel the strong excitations of emulatioa 
 
TRUTH. 155 
 
 and ambition, their integrity is exposed to a new species 
 of temptation. They are tempted, not only by the hope 
 of obtaining " well-earned praise," but by the desire to 
 obtain praise without the labour of earning it. In large 
 schools, where boys assist each other in their literary 
 exercises, and in all private families where masters are 
 allowed to show off the accotnplishments of young 
 gentlemen and ladies, there are so many temptations to 
 fraudulent exhibitions, that we despair of guarding 
 against their consequences. The best possible method 
 is to inspire children with a generous contempt for flat- 
 tery, and to teach them to judge impartially of their own 
 merits. If we are exact in the measure of approbation 
 M'hich we bestow^ they will hence form a scale by which 
 they can estimate the sincerity of other people. It is 
 said* that the preceptor of the Duke of Burgundy suc- 
 ceeded so well in inspiring hmi with disdain for un- 
 merited praise, that when the duke was oidy nine years 
 old he one day called his tutor to account for having 
 concealed some of his childish faults ; and when this 
 promising boy and singular prince was asked, '' Why he 
 disliked one of his courtiers," he answered, " Because 
 he flatters me." Anecdotes like these will make a use- 
 ful impression upon children. The life of Cyrus, in the 
 Cyropasdia ; several passages in Plutarch's Lives; and 
 the lively, interesting picture which Sully draws of his 
 noble-hearted master's love of truth, will strongly com- 
 mand the admiration of young people, if they read them 
 at a proper time of life. We must, however, wait for 
 this proper time ; fur if these things are read too early, 
 they lose all their eftect. Without any lectures upon 
 the beauty of truth, we may, now and then in conversa- 
 tion, when occurrences in real life naturally lead to the 
 subject, express with energy our esteem for integrity. 
 The approbation which we bestow upon those who give 
 proofs of integrity, should be quite in a different tone, 
 in a much higher style of praise, than any commenda- 
 tions for trifling accomplishments ; hence children will 
 become more ambitious to obtain a reputation for truth> 
 than for any other less honourable and less honoured 
 qualification. 
 
 * S 36 The Life of the Duke of Burgundy in Madame de la File's 
 agreeable and instructive work for Children, " Contes, Draiiies»et 
 iCntretiens," «Scc. 
 
156 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 We will venture to give two or three slight instances 
 of the unaffected truth and simplicity of mind which 
 we have seen in children educated upon these principles. 
 No good-natured reader will suspect, that they are pro- 
 duced from ostentation : whenever the children, who 
 are mentioned, see this in print, it is ten to one that 
 they will not be surprised at their own good deeds. 
 They will be a little surprised, probably, that it should 
 have been thought worth while to record things wliich 
 are only what they see and feel every day. It is this 
 character of everyday goodness which we wish to rep- 
 resent ; not any fine thoughts, fine sentiments, or fine 
 actions, which come out for holyday admiration. We 
 wish that parents, in reading any of these little anec- 
 dotes, may never exclaim, " Oh that's charming, that's 
 surprising for a child /" but we wish that they may 
 ■sometimes smile, and say, " That's very natural ; I am 
 sure that is perfectly true ; my little boy, or my little 
 girl, say and do just such things continually." 
 
 March, 1792. We were at Clifton ; the river Avon 
 ran close under the windows of our house in Prince's 
 Place, and the children used to be much amused with 
 looking at the vessels which came up the river. One 
 night a ship, that was sailing by the windows, fired some 
 of her guns ; the children, who were looking out of the 
 windows, were asked " why the liglit was seen when the 
 
 guns were fired before the noise was heard 1" C , who 
 
 at this time was nine years old, answered, " Because light 
 comes quicker to the eye than sound to the ear." Her 
 father was extremely pleased with this answer ; but 
 just as he was going to kiss her, the little girl said, 
 
 *' Father, the reason of my knowing it was, that L 
 
 (her elder brother) just before had told it to me." 
 
 There is, it is usually found, most temptation for chil- 
 dren to deceive when they are put in competition with 
 each other, when their ambition is excited by the same 
 object ; but if the transient glory of excelling in quick- 
 ness, or abilities of any sort, be much inferior to the per- 
 manent honour which is secured by integrity, there is, 
 even in competition, no danger of unfair play. 
 
 March, 1792. One evening called the children 
 
 round the tea-table, and told them the following story, 
 which he had just met with in " The Curiosities of Lit- 
 erature." 
 
 When the queen of Sheba went to visit king Solomon, 
 
TRUTH. 157 
 
 she one day presented herself before his throne with a 
 wreath of real flowers in one hand, and a wreath of arti- 
 ficial flowers in the other hand ; the artificial flowers 
 were made so exactly to resemble nature, that at the 
 distance at which they were held from Solomon, it was 
 scarcely possible that his eye could distinguish any dif- 
 ference between them and the natural flowers ; nor could 
 he, at the distance at which they were held from him, 
 know them asunder by their smell. " Which of these 
 two wreaths," demanded the queen of Sheba, " is the 
 work of nature r' Solomon reflected for some minutes ; 
 
 and how did he discover which was real? S (five 
 
 years old) replied, " Perhaps he went out of the room 
 very softly^ and if the woman stood near the door, as he 
 went near her, he might see better.'''' 
 
 Father. But Solomon was not to move from his place. 
 
 S . Then he might wait till the woman was tired 
 
 of holding them, and then perhaps she might lay them 
 down on the table, and then perhaps he might see better. 
 
 Father. Well, C , what do you say 1 
 
 C . I think he might have looked at the stalks, 
 
 and have seen which looked stiff like wire, and which 
 were bent down by the weight of the natural flowers. 
 
 Father. Well, H ? 
 
 H . (ten years old.) I think he might send for 
 
 a great pair of bellows, and blow, blow, till the real 
 leaves dropped off". 
 
 Father. But would it not have been somewhat un- 
 civil of Solomon to blow, bloiv, with his great pair of bel- 
 lows, full in the queen of Sheba's face 1 
 
 H . (doubting.) Yes, yes. Well, then he might 
 
 have sent for a telescope, or a magnifying glass, and 
 looked through it ; and then he could have seen which 
 were the real flowers, and which were artificial. 
 
 Father. Well, B , and what do you say 1 
 
 B . (eleven years old.) He might have waited 
 
 till the queen moved the flowers, and then, if he listened, 
 he might hear the rustling of the artificial ones. 
 
 Father. S , have you any thing more to say T 
 
 S repeated the same thing that B had said ; 
 
 his attention was dissipated by hearing the other chil- 
 dren speak. During this pause, while S was trying 
 
 to collect his thoughts, IMrs. E whispered to some- 
 body near her, and accidentally said the word animals 
 loud enough to be overheard. 
 
158 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Father. Well, H , you look as if you had some- 
 thing to say"? 
 // . Father, I heard my mother say something, 
 
 and thai made me think of the rest. 
 
 Mrs. E shook hands with H , and praised him 
 
 for this instrince of integrity. H then said that " he 
 
 supposed Solomon thought of some animal which would 
 feed upon flowers, and sent it to the two nosegays ; and 
 then the animal would stay upon the real flowers." 
 
 Father. What animal ? 
 
 7/ . A fly. 
 
 Father. Think again. 
 
 // . A bee. 
 
 Father. Yes. 
 
 The story says, that Solomon, seeing some bees hover 
 about the window, ordered the window to be thrown 
 open, and watched upon which wreath of flowers the 
 bees settled. 
 
 August 1st, 179G. S (nine years old), when he 
 
 was reading in Ovid the fable of Perseus and Androm- 
 eda, said that he wondered that Perseus fought with the 
 monster ; he wondered that Perseus did not turn him 
 into stone at once with his Gorgon shield. We believe 
 that S saw that his father was pleased with this ob- 
 servation. A few days afterward somebody in the 
 
 family recollected Mr. E 's having said, that when 
 
 he was a boy he thought Perseus a simpleton for not 
 making use of the Gorgon's head to turn the monster 
 
 into stone. We were not sure whetiier S had 
 
 heard Mr. E say this or not; ]\Ir. E asked him 
 
 whether he recollected to have heard any such thing. 
 S answered, without hesitation, that he did re- 
 member it. 
 
 When children have formed habits of speaking truth, 
 and when we see that these habits are grown quite easy 
 to them, we may venture to question them about their, 
 thoughts and feelings; this must, however, be done 
 with great caution, but without the appearance of anx- 
 iety or suspicion. Children are alarmed if they see that 
 you are very anxious and injpatient for their answer ; 
 they think that they hazard much by their reply ; they 
 hesitate, and look eagerly in your face, to discover by 
 your countenance what they ought to think and feel, 
 and what sort of answer you expect. All who are gov- 
 erned by any species of fear are disposed to equivoca- 
 
TRUTH. 169 
 
 tion. Among thelowerclass of Irish labourers and under- 
 tenants, a class of people who are much oppressed, you 
 can scarcely meet with any man who will give you a 
 direct answer to the most indifferent question ; their 
 whole ingenuity, and they have a great deal of inge- 
 nuity, is upon the qui vive with you the instant you 
 begin to speak ; they either pretend not to hear, that 
 they may gain time to think, while you repeat your 
 question, or they reply to you with a fresh question, to 
 draw out your remote meaning; for tliey, judging by 
 their own habits, always think you have a remote 
 meaning; and they never can believe that your words 
 have no intention to insnare. Simplicity puzzles them 
 much more than wit : for instance, if you were to ask 
 the most direct and harmless question, as, " Did it rain 
 yesterday I" the first answer would probably be, "Is it 
 yesterday you mean V — " Yes." — " Yesterday ! No, 
 please yow'c honour I was not at the bog at all yester- 
 day. Wasn't I after setting my potatoes ? Sure I did 
 not know your honour wanted me at all yesterday. 
 Upon my conscience, there's not a man in the country, 
 let alone all Ireland, I'd sooner serve than your honour, 
 any day in the year; and they have belied me that went 
 behind my back to tell your honour the contrary. If 
 your honour sent after me, sure 1 never gnt theuwrd^ I'll 
 take my affidavit, or Td been at the bog." — " My good 
 friend, 1 don't know what you mean about the bog ; I 
 only ask you whether it rained yesterday." — " Please 
 your honour, I couldn't get a car and horse any way, to 
 draw home my little straw, or I'd have had the house 
 thatched long' ago." — " Cannot you give me a plain 
 answer to this plain question '? Did it rain yesterday!" 
 " Oh sure, 1 wouldn't go to tell your honour a lie about 
 the matter. Sarrah much it rained yesterday after 
 twelve o'clock, barring a iew showers ; but in the night 
 there was a great fall of rain any how ; and that was the 
 reason prevented my going to Dublin yesterday, for 
 fear the mistress's bandbox should get wet upon my 
 cars. But, please your honour, if your honour's dis- 
 pleased about it, I'll not be waiting for a loading; I'll 
 take my car and go to Dubhn to-morrow for the slates, 
 if that be what your honour means. Oh sure, I would 
 not tell a lie -for the entire price of the slates ; I know- 
 very well it didn't rain to call rain yesterday. But after 
 twelve o'clock, I don't say i noticed one v/ay or other.'* 
 
160 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 In this perverse and ludicrous method of beating about 
 
 the bush, the man would persist till he had fairly ex- 
 hausted your patience ; and all this he would do, partly 
 from cunning, and partly from that apprehension of in- 
 justice which he has been taught to feel by hard expe- 
 rience. The effects of the example of their parents are 
 early and most strikingly visible in the children of this 
 class of people in Ireland. The children, who are re- 
 markably quick and intelligent, are universally addicted 
 to lying. We do not here scruple or hesitate in the 
 choice of our terms, because we are convinced that this 
 unquahfied assertion would not shock the feelings of 
 the parties concerned. These poor children are not 
 brought up to think falsehood a disgrace ; they are 
 praised for the ingenuity with which they escape from 
 the cross-examination of their superiors; and their 
 capacities are admired in proportion to the aciUeness, or, 
 as their parents pronounce it, xuteness, of their equivo- 
 cating replies. Sometimes (the garqon*) the little boy 
 of the family is despatched by his mother to the land- 
 lord's neighbouring bog or turf-rick, to bring home^ in 
 their phraseology, in ours to steal, a few turfs ; if, upon 
 this expedition, the little Spartan be detected, he is tol- 
 erably certain of being whipped by his mother, or some 
 of his friends, upon his return home. " Ah, ye little 
 brat ! and what made ye tell the gentleman when he met 
 ye, ye rogue, that ye were going to the rick ] And what 
 business had ye to go and belie me to his honour, ye 
 unnatural piece of goods ! Til teach ye to make mis- 
 chief through the country ! So I will. Have ye got no 
 better sense and manners at this time o' day, than to be- 
 have, when one trusts yo abroad, so like an innocent T' 
 An innocent in Ireland, as formerly in England (wit- 
 ness the Rape of the Lock), is synonymous with a fool. 
 "And fools and innocents shall still believe." 
 
 The associations of pleasure, of pride, and gayety, are 
 so strong in the minds of these well-educated children, 
 that they sometimes expect the very people who suffer 
 by their dishonesty should sympathize in the self-com- 
 placency they feel from roguery. A gentleman riding 
 near his own house in Ireland, saw a cow's head and 
 forefeet appear at the top of a ditch, through a gap in 
 the hedge by the road's side ; at the same time he heard 
 
 * Pronounced gossoon. 
 
TRUTH. 161 
 
 a voice alternately threatening and encouraging the 
 cow; the gentleman rode up closer to the scene of 
 action, and he saw a boy's head appear behind the cow. 
 " My good boy," said he, " that's a fine cow." — " Oh 
 faith, that she is," replied the boy, " and I'm teaching 
 her to get her own living, please your honour." The 
 gentleman did not precisely understand the meaning of 
 the expression, and had he directly asked for an expla- 
 nation, would probably have died in ignorance ; but the 
 boy, proud of his cow, encouraged an exhibition of her 
 talents ; she was made to jump across the ditch several 
 times ; and this adroitness in breaking through fences 
 was termed " getting her own living." As soon as the 
 cow's education is finished, she may be sent loose into 
 the world to provide for herself; turned to graze in the 
 poorest pasture, she will be able and willing to live upon 
 the fat of the land. 
 
 It is curious to observe how regularly the same moral 
 causes produce the same temper and character. We 
 talk of climate, and frequently attribute to climate the 
 diff'erent dispositions of diff'erent nations : the climate 
 of Ireland and that of the West Indies are not pre- 
 cisely similar, yet the following description, which Mr. 
 Edwards, in his History of the West Indies, gives of the 
 propensity to falsehood among the negro slaves, might 
 stand, word for word, for a character of that class of the 
 Irish people who, until very lately, actually, not meta- 
 phorically, called themselves slaves. 
 
 " If a negro is asked even an indifferent question by 
 his master, he seldom gives an immediate reply ; but 
 affecting not to understand what is said, compels a rep- 
 etition of the question, that he may have time to con- 
 sider, not what is the true answer, but what is the most 
 politic one for him to give." 
 
 Mr. Edwards assures us, that many of these un- 
 fortunate negroes learn cowardice and falsehood after 
 they become slaves. When they first come from Africa, 
 many of them show " a frank and fearless temper ;"* 
 but all distinction of character among the native Afri- 
 cans is soon lost, under the levelling influence of slavery. 
 Oppression and terror necessarily produce meanness 
 and deceit, in all climates and in all ages ; and wher- 
 ever fear is the governing motive in education, we must 
 
 * Edwards's History of the West Indies, vol. ii. 
 
163 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 expect to find in children a propensity to dissimulation, 
 if not confirmed habits of falsehood. Look at the true- 
 born Briton under the government of a tyrannical peda- 
 gogue, and listen to the language of inborn truth ; in 
 the whining tone, in the pitiful evasion, in the stubborn 
 falsehoods which you hear from the schoolboy, can 
 you discover any of that innate dignity of soul which is 
 the boasted national characteristic ] Look again ; look 
 at the same boy in the company of those who inspire 
 no terror ; in the company of his schoolfellows, of his 
 friends, of his parents ; would you know him to be the 
 same being? his countenance is open; his attitude 
 erect ; his voice firm ; his language free and fluent ; his 
 thoughts are upon his lips ; he speaks truth without 
 effort, without fear. Where individuals are oppressed, 
 or where they believe that they are oppressed, they 
 combine against their oppressors, and oppose cunning 
 and falsehood to power and force ; they think themselves 
 released from the compact of truth with their masters, 
 and bind themselves in a strict league with each other; 
 thus schoolboys hold no faith with their schoolmaster, 
 though they would think it shameful to be dishonourable 
 among each other. We do not think that these max- 
 ims are the peculiar growth of schools ; in private fami- 
 lies the same feelings are to be found under the same 
 species of culture : if preceptors or parents are unjust 
 or tyrannical, their pupils will contrive to conceal from 
 them their actions and their thoughts. On the con- 
 trary, in families where sincerity has been encouraged 
 by the voice of praise and affection, a generous freedom 
 of conversation and countenance appears, and the young 
 people talk to each other, and to their parents, with- 
 out distinction or reserve ; without any distinction but 
 such as superior esteem and respect dictate. These are 
 feelings totally distinct from servile fear: these feelings 
 inspire the love of truth, the ambition to acquire and 
 to preserve character. 
 
 The value of a character for truth should be dis- 
 tinctly felt by children in their own family: while they 
 were very young, we advised that their integrity should 
 not be tempted ; as they grow up, trust should by de- 
 grees be put in them, and we should distinctly explain 
 to them, that our confidence is to be deserved before it 
 can be given. Oia* belief in any person's truth is not a 
 matter of affection, but of experience and necessity ; 
 
TRUTH. 163 
 
 we cannot doubt the assertions of any person whom we 
 have found to speak uniformly the truth ; we cannot be- 
 lieve any person, let us wish to do it ever so much, if 
 we have detected him in falsehoods. Before we have 
 had experience of a person's integrity, we may hope, or 
 take it for granted, that he is perfectly sincere and 
 honest ; but we cannot feel more than belief upon trusty 
 until we have actually seen his integrity tried. We 
 should not pretend that we have faith in our pupils be- 
 fore we have tried them ; we may hope from their 
 habits, from the examples they have seen, and from the 
 advantageous manner in which truth has always been 
 represented to them, that they will act honourably ; this 
 hope is natural and just, but confidence is another feeling 
 of the mind. The first time we trust a child, we should 
 not say, " I am sure j'ou will not deceive me; 1 can 
 trust you with any thing in the world." This is flattery 
 or folly ; it is paying beforehand, which is not the way 
 to get business done ; why cannot we, especially as we 
 are teaching truth, say the thing that is — " I hope you 
 will not deceive me. If I find that you may be trusted, 
 you know I shall be able to trust you another time : this 
 must depend upon you, not entirely upon me." We 
 must make ourselves certain, upon these occasions, how 
 the child conducts himself; nor is it necessary to use 
 any artifice, or to aff"ect, from false delicacy, any secu- 
 rity that we do not feel ; it is better openly to say, " You 
 see I do you the justice to examine carefully how you 
 have conducted yourself; I wish to be able to trust you 
 another time." 
 
 It may be said, that this method of strict inquiry re- 
 duces a trust to no trust at all, and that it betrays sus- 
 picion. If you examine evidently with the belief that a 
 child has deceived you, certainly you betray injurious 
 suspicion, and you educate the child very ill ; but if you 
 feel and express a strong desire to find that your pupil 
 has conducted himself honourably, he will be glad and 
 proud of the strictest scrutiny ; he will feel that he has 
 earned your future confidence; and this confidence, which 
 he clearly knows how he has obtained, will be more 
 vali7%Lble to him than all the belief upon trust which you 
 could affect to feel. By degrees, after your pupil has 
 taught you to depend upon him, your confidence will 
 prevent the necessity of any examination into his con- 
 duct. This is the just and delightful reward of integ- 
 
164 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 rity ; children know how to feel and understand it 
 thoroughly : besides the many restraints from which 
 our confidence will naturally relieve them, they feel the 
 pride of being trusted; the honour of having a charac- 
 ter for integrity : nor can it be too strongly impressed 
 upon their minds, that this character must be preserved, 
 as it was obtained, by their own conduct. If one link 
 in the chain of confidence be broken, the whole is 
 destroyed. Indeed, where habits of truth are early 
 formed, we may safely depend upon them. A young 
 person who has never deceived, would see that the 
 first step in falsehood costs too much to be hazarded. 
 Let this appear in the form of calculation rather than 
 of sentiment. To habit, to enthusiasm, we owe nmch 
 of all our virtues — to reason more ; and the more of 
 them we owe to reason, the better. Habit and enthu- 
 siasm are subject to sudden or gradual changes — but 
 reason continues for ever the same. As the under- 
 standing unfolds, we should fortify all our pupil's habits 
 and virtuous enthusiasm by the conviction of their 
 utility, of their being essential to the happiness of so- 
 ciety in general, and conducive immediately to the 
 happiness of every individual. Possessed of this con- 
 viction, and provided with substantial arguments in its 
 support, young people will not be exposed to danger, 
 either from sophistry or ridicule. 
 
 Ridicule certainly is not the test of truth ; but it is a 
 test which truth sometimes finds it difficult to stand. 
 Vice never "bolts her arguments" with more success 
 than when she assumes the air of raillery and the tone 
 of gayety. All vivacious young people are fond of wit ; 
 we do not mean children, for they do not understand it. 
 Those who have the best capacities, and the strict- 
 est habits of veracity, often appear to common ob- 
 servers absolutely stupid, from their aversion to any 
 play upon words, and from the literal simplicity with 
 which they believe every thing that is asserted. A re- 
 markably intelligent little girl of four years old, who 
 had never in her own family been used to the common 
 phrases which sometimes pass for humour, happened to 
 hear a gentleman say, as he looked out of the window 
 one rainy morning, " It rains cats and dogs to-day." 
 The child, with a surprised but believing look, inmiedi- 
 ately went to look out of the window to see the phenom- 
 enon. This extreme simplicity in childhood is some- 
 
TRUTH. 165^ 
 
 times succeeded in youth by a strong taste for wit and 
 humour. Young people are, in the first place, proud to 
 show that they understand them ; and they are gratified 
 by the perception of a new intellectual pleasure. At 
 this period of their education, great attention must be 
 paid to them, lest their admiration for wit and frolic 
 should diminish their reverence and their love for sober 
 truth. In many engaging characters in society, and in 
 many entertaining books, deceit and dishonesty are asso- 
 ciated with superior abilities, with ease and gayety of 
 manners, and with a certain air of frank carelessness, 
 which can scarcely fail to please. Gil Bias,* Tom 
 Jones, Lovelace, Count Fathom, are all of this class of 
 characters. They should not be introduced to our 
 pupils till their habits of integrity are thoroughly formed ; 
 and till they are sufficiently skilful in analyzing their own 
 feelings, to distinguish whence their approbation and 
 pleasure in reading of these characters arise. In books, 
 we do not actually suffer by the tricks of rogues, or by 
 the lies they tell. Hence their truth is to us a quality 
 of no value ; but their wit, humour, and the ingenuity 
 of their contrivances, are of great value to us, because 
 they afford us entertainment. The most honest man in 
 the universe may not have had half so many adventures 
 as the greatest rogue in a romance ; the history upon 
 oath of all the honest man's bargains and sales, law- 
 suits and losses ; nay, even a complete view of his 
 leger and daybook, together with the regular balan- 
 cings of his accounts, would probably not afford quite 
 so much entertainment, even to a reader of the most un- 
 blemished integrity and phlegmatic temper, as the ad- 
 ventures of Gil Bias, and Jonathan Wild, adorned with 
 all the wit of Le Sage, and humour of Fielding. When 
 Gil Bias lays open his whole heart to us, and tells us all 
 his sins, unwhipped of justice, we give him credit for 
 making us his confidant, and we forget that this sin- 
 cerity, and these liberal confessions, are not character- 
 istic of the hero's disposition, but essential only to the 
 novel. The novel-writer could not tell us all he had 
 to say without this dying confession, and inconsist- 
 ent openness, from his accomphshed villain. The 
 reader is ready enough to forgive, having never been 
 duped. When young people can make all these reflections 
 
 * See Mrs. Macauley's Letters on Educatioa 
 
166 PRACTICAL EDUCATIOxV. 
 
 for themselves, they may read Gil Bias with as much 
 safety as the Life of Franklin, or any other the most 
 moral performance, " Tout est sain aiix sains,"* as 
 Madame de Sevigne very judiciously observes, in one 
 of her letters upon the choice of books for her grand- 
 daugliter. We refer for more detailed observations 
 upon this subject to the chapter upon Books. 13ut we 
 cannot help here reiterating our advice to preceptors, 
 not to force the detestable characters, which are some- 
 times held up to admiration in ancient and modern 
 history, upon the common sense, or, if they please, 
 the moral feelings of their pupils. The bad ac- 
 tions of great characters should not be palliated by 
 eloquence, and fraud and villany should never be ex- 
 plained away by the hero's or warrior's code ; a code 
 which confounds all just ideas of right and wrong. 
 Boys, in reading the classics, must read of a variety of 
 crimes ; but that is no reason that they should approve 
 of them, or that their tutors should undertake to vindi- 
 cate the cause of falsehood and treachery. A gentle- 
 man who has taught liis sons Latin, has uniformly pur- 
 sued the practice of abandoning to the just and prompt 
 indignation of his young pupils all the ancient heroes 
 who are deficient in moral honesty : his sons, in read- 
 ing Cornelius Nepos, could not absolutely comprehend, 
 that the treachery of Themistocles or of Alcibiades 
 could be applauded by a wise and polished nation. 
 Xenophon has made an eloquent attempt to explain the 
 nature of military good faith. Cambyses tells his son, 
 that, in taking advantage of an enemy, he must be 
 " crafty, deceitful, a dissembler, a thief, and a robber-2' 
 Oh .lupiter! exclaims the young Cyrus, what a man, 
 my father, you say I must be ! And he very sensibly 
 asks his father, why, if it be necessary in some cases to 
 insnare and deceive men, he had not in his childhood 
 been taught by his preceptors the art of doing harm to 
 his fellow-creatures, as well as of doing them good. 
 "And why," says Cyrus, " have I always been punished 
 whenever 1 have been discovered in practising deceit 1" 
 The answers of Cambyses are by no means satisfactory 
 upon this subject ; nor do we think that the conversa- 
 tion between the old general and Mr. Williams,t could 
 
 * Every thing is hcaltliAil to the healthy. 
 
 t See Mr. Williams's Lectures on Education, where Xenophon is 
 quoted, page 16, &.c. vol. ii.— also, page 31. 
 
TRUTH. 167 
 
 have made the matter perfectly intelligible to the young 
 gentleman, whose scrupulous integrity made him object 
 to the military profession. 
 
 It is certain, that many persons of strict honour and 
 honesty in some points, on others are utterly inconsist- 
 ent in their principles. Thus it is said, tiiat private in- 
 tegrity and public corruption frequently meet in the 
 same character : thus some gentlemen are jockeys, and 
 they have a convenient latitude of conscience as jockeys, 
 while they would not for the universe cheat a man of a 
 guinea in any way but in the sale of a horse : others in 
 gambling, others in love, others in war, think all strata- 
 gems fair. We endeavour to think that these are all 
 honourable men ; but we hope that we are not obliged 
 to lay down rules for the formation of such moral prod- 
 igies, in a system of practical education. 
 
 We are aware, that with children* who are educated 
 at public schools, truth and integrity cannot be taught 
 precisely in the same manner as in private families ; 
 .because ushers and schoolmasters cannot pay the same 
 hourly attention to each of their pupils, nor have they 
 the commandof all the necessary circumstances. There 
 are, however, some advantages attending the early com- 
 merce which numbers of children at public seminaries 
 have with each other ; they find that no society can sub- 
 sist without truth ; they feel the utihty of this virtue, and 
 however they may deal with their masters, they learn 
 to speak truth towards each other. This partial spe- 
 cies of honesty, or rather of honour, is not the very best 
 of its kind, but it may easily be improved into a more 
 rational principle of action. It is illiberal to assert, that 
 any virtue is to be taught only by one process of edu- 
 cation: many different methods of education may pro- 
 duce the same effects. Men of integrity and honour 
 have been formed both by private and public education ; 
 neither system should be exclusively supported by those 
 who really wish well to the improvement of mankind. 
 All the errors of each system should be impartially pointed 
 out, and such remedies as may most easily be adopted 
 with any hope of success, should be proposed. We 
 think, that if parents paid sufficient attention to the 
 habits of their children, from the age of three to seven 
 years old, they would be properly prepared for public 
 
 * Vide Williams. 
 
16S PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 education ; tliey would not then bring with them to pub- 
 lic schools all that they iiave learned of vice and false- 
 hood in the company of servants.* We have purposely 
 repeated all this, in hopes of impressing it strongly. 
 May we suggest to the masters of these important sem- 
 inaries, that Greek and Latin, and all the elegance of 
 classical literature, are matters but of secondary conse- 
 quence, compared with those habits of truth, which are 
 essential to the character and happiness of their pupils'? 
 By rewarding the moral virtues more highly than the 
 mere display of talents, a generous emulation to excel 
 in these virtues may with certainty be excited. 
 
 Many preceptors and parents will readily agree^ that 
 Bacon, in his " general distribution of human knowl- 
 edge," was perfectly right not to omit that branch of 
 philosophy which his lordship terms " The doctrine of 
 rising in the ivorld.'" To this art, integrity at length be- 
 comes necessary ; for talents, whether for business or 
 for oratory, are now become so cheap, that they cannot 
 alone ensure pre-eminence to their possessors. The pub- 
 lic opinion, which in England bestows celebrity, and ne- 
 cessarily leads to honour, is intimately connected with 
 the public confidence. Public confidence is not the same 
 thing as popularity ; the one may be won, the other must 
 be earned. There is among all parties, who at present 
 aim at political power, an unsatisfied demand for honest 
 men. Those who speculate in this line for their chil- 
 dren, will do wisely to keep this fact in their remem- 
 brance during their whole education. 
 
 We have delayed, from a full consciousness of the 
 difficulty of the undertaking, to speak of the method of 
 curing either the habits or the propensity to falsehood. 
 Physicians, for mental as well as bodily diseases, can 
 give long histories of maladies ; but are surprisingly 
 concise when they come to treat of the method of cure. 
 With patients of different ages and different tempera- 
 ments, to speak with due medical solemnity, we should 
 advise different remedies. With young children, we 
 should be most anxious to break the habits ; with chil- 
 dren at a more advanced period of their education, we 
 should be most careful to rectify the principles. Chil- 
 dren, before they reason, act merely from habit ; and 
 
 * See Servants, and " P4Ablic and Private Education." 
 
TRtJTH. 169 
 
 without having acquired command over themselves, they 
 have no power to break their own habits ; but when 
 young people reflect and deliberate, their principles are 
 of much more importance than their habits, because 
 their principles, in fact, in most cases, govern their 
 habits. It is in consequence of their deliberations and 
 reflections that they act ; and, before we can change 
 their way of acting, we must change their way of think- 
 ing. 
 
 To break habits of falsehood in young children, let us 
 begin by removing the temptation, whatever it may be. 
 For instance, if the child have the habit of denying that 
 he has seen, heard, or done things which he has seen, 
 heard, and done, we must not, upon any account, ever 
 question him about any of these particulars ; but we 
 should forbear to give him any pleasure which he might 
 hope to obtain by our faith in his assertions. Without 
 entering into any explanations, we should absolutely* 
 disregard what he says, and with looks of cool contempt, 
 turn away without listening to his falsities. A total 
 change of occupations, new objects, especially such as 
 excite and employ the senses, will be found highly ad- 
 vantageous. Sudden pleasure, from strong expressions 
 of aff"ection, or eloquent praise, whenever the child 
 speaks truth, will operate powerfully in breaking his 
 habits of equivocation. We do not advise parents to 
 try sudden pain with children at this early age, neither 
 do we advise bodily correction, or lasting penitences^ 
 meant to excite shame, because these depress and en- 
 feeble the mind, and a propensity to falsehood ultimately 
 arises from weakness and timidity. Strengthen the 
 body and mind by all means ; try to give the pupils com- 
 mand over themselves, upon occasions where tiiey have 
 no opportunities of deceiving: the same command of 
 mind and courage, proceeding from the consciousness 
 of strength and fortitude, may, when once acquired, be 
 exerted in any manner we direct. A boy who tells a 
 falsehood to avoid some trifling pain or to procure some 
 trifling gratification, would perhaps dare to speak the 
 truth, if he were certain that he could bear the pain or 
 do without the gratification. Without talking to him 
 about truth or falsehood, we should begin by exercising 
 him in the art of bearing and forbearing. The slightest 
 
 * Rousseau and Williams. 
 H 
 
170 PRACTICAL EIXUCATION. 
 
 trials are best for beginners, such as their fortitude can 
 bear ; for success is necessary to increase their courage. 
 
 Madame de Genlis, in her Adela and Theodore, gives 
 Theodore, when he is about seven years old, a box of 
 lUgarphims to take care of, to teach him to command 
 lis passions. Theodore produces the untouched treas- 
 ire to his mother, from time to time, with great self- 
 ;omplacency. We think this a good practical lesson. 
 )Ome years ago the experiment was tried, with com^ 
 plete success, upon a little boy between five and six 
 years old. This boy kept raisins and almonds in a little 
 box in his pocket, day after day, without ever thinking 
 of touching them. His only difficulty was, to remember 
 at the appointed time, at the week's end, to produce 
 them. The raisins were regularly counted from time 
 to time, and were, when found to be right, sometimes 
 given to the child, but not always. When, for several 
 weeks, the boy had faithfully executed his trust, the 
 time was extended for which he was to keep the raisins, 
 and everybody in the family expressed that they were 
 now certain, before they counted the raisins, that they 
 should find the number exact. This confidence, which 
 was not pretended confidence, pleased the child, but the 
 rest he considered as a matter of course. We think 
 such little trials as these might be made with children 
 of five or six years old, to give them habits of exact- 
 ness. The boy we have just mentioned has grown up 
 with a more unblemished reputation for truth than any 
 child with whom we were ever acquainted. This is the 
 same boy who broke the looking-glass. 
 
 When a patient, far advanced in his childhood, is yet 
 to be cured of a propensity to deceive, the business 
 becomes formidable. It is dangerous to set our vigi- 
 lance in direct opposition to his cunning, and it is yet 
 more dangerous to trust and give him opportunities of 
 fresh deceit. If the pupil's temper is timid, fear has 
 probably been his chief inducement to dissimulation. 
 If his temper is sanguine, hope and success, and per- 
 haps the pleasure of inventing schemes, or of outwit- 
 ting his superiors, have been his motives. In one case 
 we should prove to the patient that he has nothing to 
 fear from speaking the truth to us ; in the other case 
 we should demonstrate to him that he has nothing to 
 hope from telling us falsehoods. Those who are 
 pleased with the ingenuity of cunning, should have op- 
 
TRUTH. 171 
 
 portunities of showing tlieir ingenuity in honourable 
 employments ; and the highest praise should be given to 
 their successful abilities, whenever they are thus ex- 
 erted. They will compare their feelings when they are 
 the objects of esteem and of contempt, and they will 
 be led permanently to pursue v/hat most tends to their 
 happiness. We should never deprive them of the hope 
 of establishing a character for integrity ; on the con- 
 trary, we should explain distinctly to them, that this is 
 absolutely in their own power. Examples from real 
 life will strike the mind of a young person just entering 
 into the world, much more than any fictitious characters 
 or moral stories ; and strong indignation, expressed in- 
 cidentally, will have more effect than any lectures pre- 
 pared for the purpose. We do not mean that any arti- 
 fice should be used to make our lessons impressive ; 
 but there is no artifice in seizing opportunities, which 
 must occur in real hfe, to exemplify the advantage of a 
 good character. The opinions which young people 
 hear expressed of actions in which they have no share, 
 and of characters with whom they are not connected, 
 make a great impression upon them. The horror which 
 is shown to falsehood, the shame which overwhelms 
 the culprit, they have then leisure to contemplate ; they 
 see the effects of the storm at a distance ; they dread 
 to be exposed to its violence, and they will prepare for 
 their own security. When any such strong impression 
 has been made upon the mind, we should seize that 
 moment to connect new principles with new habits of 
 action : we should try the pupil in some situation in 
 which he has never been tried before, and where he 
 consequently may feel hope of obtaining reputation, if 
 he deserve it, by integrity. All reproaches upon his 
 former conduct should now be forborne, and he should 
 be allowed to feel, in full security, the pleasures and 
 the honours of his new character. 
 
 We cannot better conclude a chapter upon Truth, 
 than by honestly referring the reader to a charming 
 piece of eloquence, with which Mr. Godwin concludes 
 his essay upon Deception and Frankness.* We are 
 sensible how much we shall lose by the comparison: 
 we had written this chapter before we saw his essay. 
 
 * See The Enquirer, p. 101. 
 H 2 
 
172 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 To avoid, in education, all unnecessary severity and 
 all dangerous indulgence, we must form just ideas of 
 the nature and use of rewards and punishments. Let 
 us begin with considering the nature of punishment, 
 since it is best to get the most disagreeable part of our 
 business done the first. 
 
 Several benevolent and enlightened authors* have 
 endeavoured to explain the use of penal laws, and to 
 correct the ideas which formerly prevailed concerning 
 public justice. Punishment is no longer considered, 
 except by the ignorant and sanguinary, as vengeance 
 from the injured, or expiation from the guilty. We 
 now distinctly understand, that the greatest possible 
 happiness of the whole society must be the ultimate 
 object of all just legislation; that the partial evil of pun- 
 ishment is consequently to be tolerated by the wise and 
 humane legislator, only so far as it is proved to be ne- 
 cessary for the general good. When a crime has been 
 committed, it cannot be undone by all the art, or all the 
 power of man ; by vengeance the most sanguinary, or 
 remorse the most painful. 
 
 The past is irrevocable ; all that remains is to pro- 
 vide for the future. It would be absurd, after an offence 
 has already been committed, to increase the sum of 
 misery in the world by inflicting pain upon the offender, 
 unless that pain were afterward to be productive of 
 happiness to society, either by preventing the criminal 
 from repeating his offence, or by deterring others from 
 similar enormities. With this double view of restrain- 
 ing individuals, by the recollection of past sufferings, 
 from future crimes, and of teaching others, by public 
 examples, to expect and to fear certain evils, as the 
 necessary consequences of certain actions hurtful to 
 society, all wise laws are framed, and all just punish- 
 ments are inflicted. It is only by the conviction that 
 
 * Beccaria, Voltaire, Blackstone, &c. *■ 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 173 
 
 certain punishments are essential to the general security 
 and happiness, that a person of humanity can, or ought 
 to fortify his mind against the natural feelings of com- 
 passion. These feelings are the most painful, and the 
 most difficult to resist, when, as it sometimes unavoid- 
 ably happens, pubhc justice requires the total sacrifice 
 of the happiness, liberty, or perhaps the life, of a fellow- 
 creature, whose ignorance precluded him from virtue, 
 and whose neglected or depraved education prepared 
 him, by inevitable degrees, for vice and all its miseries. 
 How exquisitely painful must be the feelings of a 
 humane judge, in pronouncing sentence upon such a 
 devoted being! But the law permits of no refined meta- 
 physical disquisitions. It would be vain to plead the 
 necessitarian's doctrine of an unavoidable connexion 
 between the past and the future, in all human actions ; 
 the same necessity compels the punishment that com- 
 pels the crime ; nor could, nor ought, the most eloquent 
 advocate, in a court of justice, to obtain a criminal's 
 acquittal by entering into a minute history of the errors 
 of his education. 
 
 It is the business of education to prevent crimes, and to 
 prevent all those habitual propensities which necessarily 
 lead to their commission. The legislator can consider 
 only the large interests of society ; the preceptor's view 
 is fixed upon the individual interests of his pupil. Fortu- 
 nately, both must ultimately agree. To secure for his 
 pupil the greatest possible quantity of happiness, taking 
 in the whole of life, must be the wish of the preceptor ; 
 this includes every thing. We immediately perceive 
 the connexion between that happiness, and obedience 
 to all the laws on which the prosperity of society de- 
 pends. We yet further perceive, that the probability 
 of our pupil's yielding not only an implicit, but an ha- 
 bitual, rational, voluntary, happy obedience, to such 
 laws, must arise from the connexion which he believes 
 and feels to exist between his social duties and his 
 social happiness. How to induce this important belief 
 is the question. 
 
 It is obvious, that we cannot explain to the compre- 
 hension of a child of three or four years old, all the 
 truths of morality ; nor can we demonstrate to him the 
 justice of punishments, by showing him that we give 
 present pain to ensure future advantage. But, though 
 we cannot demonstrate to the child that we are just, we 
 
174 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 may satisfy ourselves upon this subject, and we may 
 conduct ourselves, during his nonage of understanding, 
 with the scrupulous integrity of a guardian. Before we 
 can govern by reason, we can, by associating pain or 
 pleasure with certain actions, give habits ; and these 
 habits will be either beneficial or hurtful to the pupil: 
 we must, if they be hurtful habits, conquer them by 
 fresh punishments ; and thus we make the helpless child 
 suffer for our negligence and mistakes. Formerly in 
 Scotland there existed a law, which obliged every far- 
 rier who, through ignorance or drunkenness, pricked a 
 horse's foot in shoeing him, to deposite the price of the 
 horse until he was sound, to furnish the owner with an- 
 other, and, in case the horse could not be cured, the far- 
 rier was doomed to indemnify the injured owner. At the 
 same rate of punishment, what indemnification should 
 be demanded from a careless or ignorant preceptor 1 
 
 When a young child puts his Unger too near the fire, 
 he burns himself; the pain immediately follows the 
 action ; they are associated together in the child's 
 memory ; if he repeat the experiment often, and con- 
 stantly with the same result, the association will be so 
 strongly formed, that the child will ever afterward ex- 
 pect these two things to happen together: whenever 
 he puts his finger into fire, he will expect to feel 
 pain ; he will learn yet further, as these things regularly 
 follow one another, to think one the cause, and the 
 other the effect. He may not have words to express 
 these ideas ; nor can we explain how the belief that 
 events which have happened together will again happen 
 together, is by experience induced in the mind. This is 
 a fact, which no metaphysicians pretend to dispute ; 
 but it has not yet, that we know of, been accounted for 
 by any. It would be rash to assert, that it will not in 
 future be explained ; but at present we are totally in the 
 dark upon the subject. It is sufficient for our purpose to 
 observe, that this association of facts, or of ideas, affects 
 the actions of all rational beings, and of many animals 
 which are called irrational. Would you teach a dog or a 
 horse to obey you ; do you not associate pleasure or 
 pain with the things you wish that it should practise 
 or avoid 1 The impatient and ignorant give infinitely 
 more pain than is necessary to the animals they educate. 
 If the pain which we would associate with any action, 
 do not immediately follow it, the child does not under- 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 175 
 
 stand us ; if several events happen nearly at the same 
 time, it is impossible that a child can at first distinguish 
 which are causes and which are effects. Suppose that 
 a mother would teach her little son, that he must not put 
 his dirty shoes upon her clean sofa : if she frowns upon 
 him, or speaks to him in an angry tone, at the instant that 
 he sets his foot and shoe upon the sofa, he desists ; but 
 he has only learned, that putting a foot upon the sofa, 
 and his mother's frown, follow each other ; his mother's 
 frown, from former associations, gives him perhaps 
 some pain, or the expectation of some pain, and con- 
 sequently he avoids repeating the action which imme- 
 diately preceded the frown. If, a short time after- 
 ward, the little boy, forgetting the frown, accidentally 
 gets upon the sofa tcit/wut his shoes, no evil follows; 
 but it is not probable that he can, by this single experi- 
 ment, discover that his shoes have made all the differ- 
 ence in the two cases. Children are frequently so much 
 puzzled by their confused experience of impunity and 
 punishment, that they are quite at a loss how to conduct 
 themselves. Whenever our punishments are not made 
 intelligible, they are cruel ; they give pain, without pro- 
 ducing any future advantage. To make punishment in- 
 telligible to children, it must be not only immediately^ 
 but repeatedly and uniformly, associated with the actions 
 which we wish them to avoid. 
 
 When children begin to reason, punishment affects 
 them in a different manner from what it did while they 
 were governed, like irrational animals, merely by the 
 direct associations of pleasure and pain. They distin- 
 guish, in many instances, between coincidence and 
 causation ; ihey discover, that the will of others is the 
 immediate cause, frequently, of the pain they suffer; 
 they learn by experience that the loiJl is not an un- 
 changeable cause, that it is influenced by circumstances, 
 by passions, by persuasion, by caprice. It must be, 
 however, by slow degrees, that they acquire any ideas 
 of justice. They cannot know our views relative to 
 their future happiness ; their first ideas of the justice 
 of the punishments we inflict, cannot, therefore, be ac- 
 curate. They regulate these first judgments by the 
 simple idea, that our punishments ought to be exactly 
 the same always in the same circumstances ; when they 
 understand words, they learn to expect that our words 
 and actions should precisely agree ; that we should keep 
 
176 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 our promises, and fuljil our threats. They next learn, 
 that as they are punished for voluntary faults, they can- 
 not justly be punished until it has been distinctly ex- 
 plained to them what is wrong or ford id den^ and what is 
 right or permitted. The words right or wrong, and per- 
 mitted or forbidden, are synonymous at first in the ap- 
 prehensions of children ; and obedience and disobedience 
 are their only ideas of virtue and vice. Whatever we 
 command to be done, or, rather, whatever we associate 
 with pleasure, they imagine to be right ; whatever we 
 prohibit, provided we have uniformly associated it with 
 pain, they believe to be wrong. This implicit submis- 
 sion to our authority, and these confined ideas of right 
 and wrong, are convenient, or apparently convenient, 
 to indolent or tyrannical governors ; and they some- 
 times endeavour to prolong the reign of ignorance, with 
 the hope of establishing in the mind an opinion of their 
 own infallibility. But this is a dangerous, as well as an 
 unjust system. By comparison with the conduct and 
 opinions of others, children learn to judge of their 
 parents and preceptors ; by reading and by conversa- 
 tion, they acquire more enlarged notions of right and 
 wrong; and their obedience, unless it then arise from 
 the conviction of their understandings, depends but on 
 a very precarious foundation. The mere association 
 of pleasure and pain, in the form of reward and punish- 
 ment, with any given action, v/ill not govern them ; 
 they will now examine whether there is any moral of 
 physical necessary connexion between the action and 
 punishment ; nor will they beheve the punishment they 
 suffer to be a consequence of the action they have com- 
 mitted, but rather a consequence of their being obliged 
 to submit to the will of those who are stronger or more 
 powerful than they are themselves. Unjust punish- 
 ments do not effect their intended purpose, because the 
 pain is not associated with the action which we would 
 prohibit ; but, on the contrary, it is associated with the 
 idea of our tyranny ; it consequently excites the senti- 
 ment of hatred towards us, instead of aversion to the 
 forbidden action. When once, by reasoning, children 
 acquire even a vague idea that those who educate them 
 are unjust, it is in vain either to punish or reward them ; 
 if they submit, or if they rebel, their education is equally 
 spoiled ; in the one case they become cowardly, in the 
 other headstrong. To avoid these evils, there i§ but 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 177 
 
 one method ; we must early secure reason for our friend, 
 else she will become our unconquerable enemy. As 
 soon as children are able, in any instance, to understand 
 the meaning and nature of punishment, it should, in that 
 instance, be explained to them. Just punishment is 
 pain, inflicted with the reasonable hope of preventing 
 greater pain in future. In a family where there are 
 several children educated together, or in public schools, 
 punishments may be inflicted with justice for the sake 
 of example, but slill the reformation and future good of 
 the sufferer is always a principal object ; and of this he 
 should be made sensible. If our practice upon all oc- 
 casions correspond with our theory, and if children 
 really perceive that we do not punish them to gratify 
 our own spleen or passion, we shall not become, even 
 when we give them pain, objects of their hatred. The 
 pain will not be associated with us, but, as it ought to 
 be, with the fault which was the real cause of it. As 
 much as possible, we should let children feel the natural 
 consequences of their own conduct. The natural con- 
 sequence of speaking truth is the being believed ; the 
 natural consequence of falsehood is the loss of trust 
 and confidence ; the natural consequence of all the use- 
 ful virtues is esteem; of all the amiable virtues, love; 
 of each of the prudential virtues, some peculiar advantage 
 to their possessor. But plumpudding is not the appro- 
 priate reward of truth, nor is the loss of it the natural 
 or necessary consequence of falsehood. Prudence is 
 not to be rewarded with the aff'ection due to humanity, 
 nor is humanity to be recompensed with the esteem 
 claimed by prudence. Let each good and bad quality 
 have its proper share of praise and blame, and let the 
 consequences of each follow as constantly as possible. 
 That young people may form a steady judgment of the 
 danger of any vice, they must uniformly perceive that 
 certain painful consequences result from its practice. 
 It is in vain that we inflict punishments, unless all the 
 precepts and all the examples which they see confirm 
 them in the same belief. 
 
 In the unfortunate son of Peter the Great, we have a 
 striking instance of the eflfects of a disagreement be- 
 tween precept and example,* which, in a less elevated 
 situation, might have escaped our notice. It seems as 
 
 * See Oox's Travels, vol. ii. p. 139. 
 H3 
 
178 PRACTICAL EDUCATION". 
 
 if the different parts and stages of his education had 
 been purposely contrived to counteract each other. 
 Till he was eleven years old, he was committed to the 
 care of women and of ignorant bigoted priests, who 
 were continually inveighing against his father for the 
 abolition of certain barbarous customs. Then came 
 Baron Huysen for his governor, a sensible man, who 
 had just begun to make something of his pupil, when 
 Prince Menzikof insisted upon having the sole manage- 
 ment of the unfortunate Alexey. Prince Menzikof 
 abandoned him to the company of the lowest wretches, 
 who encouraged him in continual ebriety, and in a taste 
 for every thing mean and profligate. At length came 
 Euphrosyne, his Finlandish mistress, who, upon his trial 
 for rebellion, deposed to every angry expression which, 
 in his most unguarded moments, the wretched son had 
 uttered against the tyrannical father. Amid such scenes 
 of contradictory experience, can we be surprised that 
 Alexey Petrovitch became feeble, ignorant, and profli- 
 gate ; that he rebelled against the father whom he had 
 early been taught to fear and hate ; that he listened to 
 the pernicious counsels of the companions who had, by 
 pretended sympathy and flattery, obtained that place 
 in his confidence which no parental kindness had ever 
 secured 1 Those historians who are zealous for the 
 glory of Peter the Great, have eagerly refuted, as a most 
 atrocious calumny, the report of his having had any 
 part in the mysterious death of his son. But how will 
 they apologize for the czar's neglect of that son's edu- 
 cation, from which all the misfortimes of his life arose? 
 But all this is past for ever ; the only advantage we 
 can gain from recalhng these circumstances, is a con- 
 firmation of this important principle in education ; that, 
 when precept and example counteract each other, there 
 is no hope of success. Nor can the utmost severity 
 effect any useful purpose, while the daily experience of 
 the pupil contradicts his preceptors lessons. In fact, 
 severity is seldom necessary in a well-conducted edu- 
 cation. The smallest possible degree of pain, which 
 can, in any case, produce the required eflfect, is indis- 
 putably the just measure of the punishment which ought 
 to be inflicted in any given case. This simple axiom 
 will lead us to a number of truths, which immediately 
 depend upon or result from it. We must attend to 
 every circumstance which can diminish the quantity 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 179 
 
 of pain without lessening the efficacy of punishment. 
 Now it has been found from experience, that there are 
 several circumstances which operate uniformly to this 
 purpose. We formerly observed, that the effect of pun- 
 ishment upon the minds of children, before they reason, 
 depends much upon its immediately succeeding the fault, 
 and also upon its being certainly repeated whenever the 
 same fault is committed. After children acquire the 
 power of reasoning, from a variety of new motives, 
 these laws with respect to punishment derive additional 
 force. A trifling degree of pain will answer the pur- 
 pose, if it be made inevitable ; while the fear of an 
 enormous proportion of uncertain punishment will not 
 be found sufficient to govern the imagination. The con- 
 templation of a distant punishment, however severe, 
 does not affect the imagination with much texfor, be- 
 cause there is still a secret hope of escape in the mind. 
 Hence it is found from experience, that the most san- 
 guinary penal laws have always been ineffectual to re- 
 strain from crimes.* Even if detection be inevitable, 
 and consequent punishment equally inevitable, if punish- 
 ment be not inflicted as soon as the criminal is con- 
 victed, it has been found that it has not, either as a pre- 
 ventive or a public example, the same power upon 
 the human mind. Not only should the punishment be 
 immediate after conviction, but detection should follow 
 the offence as speedily as possible. Without entering 
 at large into the intricate arguments concerning identity 
 and consciousness, we may observe, that the conscious- 
 ness of having committed the offence for which he suf- 
 fers, ought, at the time of suffering, to be strong in the 
 offender's mind. Though proofs of his identity may 
 have been legally established in a court of justice ; and 
 though, as far as it relates to public justice, it matters 
 not whether the offence for which he is punished was 
 committed yesterday or a year ago ; yet, as to the 
 effect which the punishment produces on the culprit's 
 own mind, there must be a material difference. 
 
 " I desire you to judge of me, not by what I was, but 
 by what I am," said a philosopher, when he was re- 
 proached for some of his past transgressions. If the 
 interval between an offence and its punishment be long, 
 it^is possible that, during this interval, a complete change 
 
 * See Feccaria, Blackstone, Colquhoun, 
 
180 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 may be made in the views and habits of the offender;: 
 such a change as shall absolutely preclude all probabil- 
 ity of his repeating his offence. His punishment must 
 then be purely for the sake of example to others. He 
 suffers pain at the time, perhaps, when he is in the best 
 social dispositions possible ; and thus we punish the 
 present good man for the faults of the former of- 
 fender. We readily excuse the violence which a man 
 in a passion may have committed, when, upon his 
 return to his sober senses, he expresses contrition and 
 surprise at his own excesses ; he assures us, and we 
 believe him, that he is now a perfectly different person. 
 If we do not feel any material ill consequences from his 
 late anger, we are willing, and even desirous, that the 
 passionate man should not, in his sober state, be pun- 
 ished for his madness; all that we can desire is, to have 
 some sfcurity against his falling into any fresh fit of 
 anger. Could his habits of temper be instantly changed, 
 and could we have a moral certainty that his phrensy 
 would never more do us any injury, would it not bft 
 malevolent and unjust to punish him for his old insanity 1 
 If we think and act upon these principles with respect 
 to men, how much more indulgent should we be to chil- 
 dren I Indulgence is perhaps an improper word — but 
 in other words, how careful should we be never to chain 
 children to their dead faults !* Children, during their 
 education, must be in a continual state of progression ; 
 they are not the same to-day that they were yesterday; 
 they have little reflection ; their consciousness of the 
 present occupies them ; and it would be extremely dif- 
 ficult, from day to day, or from hour to hour, to identify 
 their minds. Far from wishing that they should dis- 
 tinctly remember all their past thoughts, and that they 
 should value themselves upon their continuing the same, 
 we must frequently desire that they should forget their 
 former errors, and absolutely change their manner of 
 thinking. They should feel no interest in adhering to 
 former bad habits or false opinions ; therefore, their 
 pride should not be roused to defend these by our ma- 
 king them a part of their standing character. The char- 
 acter of children is io he formed — we should never speak 
 of it as positively fixed. Man has been defined to be a 
 bundle of habits ; till the bundle is made up, we vn^y 
 
 *^ Mezentius. — Virgil, 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 181 
 
 continually increase or diminish it. Children who are 
 zealous in defence of their own perfections, are of all 
 others most likely to become stationary in their intel- 
 lectual progress, and disingenuous in their temper. It 
 would be in vain to repeat to them this sensible and 
 elegant observation, — " To confess that you have been 
 in the wrong, is only saying, in other words, that you 
 are wiser to-day than you were yesterday." This re- 
 mark will rather pique than comfort the pride of those 
 who are anxious to prove that they have been equally 
 wise and immaculate in every day of their existence. 
 
 It may be said that children cajinot too early be made 
 sensible of the value of reputation ; and they must be 
 taught to connect the ideas of their past and present 
 selves, otherwise they cannot perceive, for instance, why 
 confidence should be placed in them in proportion to 
 their past integrity ; or why falsehood should lead to dis- 
 trust. The force of this argument must be admitted ; 
 yet still we must consider the age and strength of mind 
 in children in applying it to practice. Truth is not in- 
 stinctive in the mind, and the ideas of integrity and of 
 the advantages of reputation must be very cautiously 
 introduced, lest, by giving children too perfect a theory 
 of morality, before tliey have sufficient strength of mind 
 to adhere to it in practice, we may make them hypo- 
 crites, or else give them a fatal distrust of themselves, 
 founded upon too early an experience of their owa 
 weakness, and too great sensibility to shame. 
 
 Shame, when it once becomes familiar to the mind, 
 loses its effect ; it should not, therefore, be used as a 
 common punishment for slight faults. Nor should we 
 trust very early in education to the delicate, secret in- 
 fluence of conscience ; but we should take every pre- 
 caution to prevent the necessity of having recourse to 
 the punishment of disgrace ; and we must, if we mean 
 to preserve the power of conscience, take care that it 
 be never disregarded with impunity. We must avoid 
 opposing it to strong temptation ; nor should we ever 
 try the integrity of children, except in situations where 
 we can be perfectly certain of the result of the experi- 
 ment. We must neither run the risk of injuring them 
 by unjust suspicions nor unmerited confidence. By 
 prudent arrangements, and by unremitted daily attention, 
 we should absolutely prevent the possibility of deceit. 
 By giving a few commands or prohibitions, we may 
 
182 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 avoid the danger of either secret or open disobedience/ 
 By diminishing temptations to do wrong, we act more 
 humanely than by multiplying restraints and punish- 
 ments. 
 
 It has been found that no restraints or punishments 
 have proved adequate to ensure obedience to laws, 
 whenever strong temptations, and many probabilities 
 of evasion, combine in opposition to conscience or fear. 
 The terrors of the law have been for years ineffectually 
 directed against a race of beings called smugglers ; yet 
 smuggling is still an extensive, lucrative, and not univer- 
 sally discreditable profession. Let any person look into 
 the history of the excise laws in England,* and he will be 
 astonished at the accumulation of penal statutes, which 
 the active, but ineffectual ingenuity of prohibitory legis- 
 lators has devised in the course of about thirty years. 
 Open wi'-; w^as declared against all illegal distillers ; yet 
 the temptation to illegal distilling continually increased, 
 in proportion to the heavy duties laid upon the fair 
 trader. It came at length to a trial of skill between 
 revenue officers and distillers, which could cheat, or 
 which could detect, the fastest. The distiller had the 
 strongest interest in the business, and he usually came 
 off victorious. Coursing officers and loatching officers 
 (once ten loalching officers were set upon one distiller), 
 and surveyors and supervisors, multiplied without end : 
 the land in their fiscal maps was portioned out into divis- 
 ions and districts, and each ganger had the charge of all 
 the distillers in his division : the watching officer went 
 first, and the coursing officer went after him, and after 
 him the supervisor ; and they had table-books, and gau^ 
 ging-rods, and dockets, and permits ; permits for sellers, 
 and permits for buyers, and permits for foreign spirits, 
 printed in red ink, and permits for British spirits, in black 
 ink; and they went about night and day with their hy- 
 drometers, to ascertain the strength of spirits ; and with 
 their gauging-rods, to measure ivnsh. But the perti- 
 nacious distiller was still flourishing; permits were 
 forged ; concealed pipes were fabricated ; and the pro- 
 portion between the wash and spirits was seldom legal. 
 The commissioners complained, and the legislators 
 went to work again. Under a penalty of 100/., distillers 
 
 * See An Inquiry into the Principles of Taxation, p. 37, published 
 in 1790. 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 183 
 
 were ordered to paint the words distiller., dealer in spir- 
 its, over their doors ; and it was further enacted that all 
 the distillers should furnish, at their own expense, any- 
 kind of locks and fastenings which the revenue officers 
 should require for locking up the doors of their own 
 furnaces, the heads of their own stills, pumps, pipes, &c. 
 First, suspicions fell upon the public distiller for ex- 
 portation ; then his utensils were locked up ; afterward 
 the private distiller was suspected, and he was locked 
 up ; then they set him and his furnaces at liberty, and 
 went back in a passion to the public distiller. The 
 legislature condescended to interfere, and with a new 
 lock and key, precisely described in an act of Parliament, 
 it was hoped all would be made secure. Any person, 
 being a distiller, who should lock up his furnace or pipes 
 with a key constructed differently from that which the 
 act described, or any person making such illegal key for 
 said distiller, was subject to the forfeiture of 100/. The 
 padlock was never fixed upon the mind, and even the 
 lock and key, prescribed by act of Parliament, were 
 found inefficacious. Any common blacksmith, with a 
 picklock in his possession, laughed at the combined skill 
 of the two houses of Parliament. 
 
 This digression from the rewards and punishments 
 of children to the distillery laws, may, it is hoped, be 
 pardoned, if the useful moral can be drawn from it, that, 
 where there are great temptations to fraud, and con- 
 tinual opportunities of evasion, no laws, however in- 
 genious, no punishments, however exorbitant, can avail. 
 The history of coiners, venders, and utterers of his 
 majesty's coin, as lately detailed to us by respectable 
 authority,* may afford further illustration of this prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 There is no imminent danger of children becoming 
 either coiners or fraudulent distillers ; but an ingenious 
 preceptor will not be much puzzled in applying the re- 
 marks that have been made to the subject of education. 
 For the anticlimax, in descending from the legislation 
 of men to the government of children, no apology is at- 
 tempted. 
 
 The fewer the laws we make for children, the better. 
 Whatever they may be, they should be distinctly ex- 
 pressed ; the letter and spirit should both agree, and the 
 
 * Colquhoun. On the Police of the Metropolis, 
 
184 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 words should bear but one signification, clear to all the 
 parties concerned. They should never be subject to 
 the ex post facto interpretation of an angry preceptor 
 or a cunning pupil ; no loose general terms should per- 
 mit tyranny or encourage quibbling. There is said* to 
 be a Chinese law, which decrees that whoever does not 
 show proper respect to the sovereign, is to be punished 
 with death. What is meant by the words proper respect^ 
 is not defined. Two persons made a mistake in some 
 account of a significant affair, in one of their court ga- 
 zettes. It was declared, that to lie in a court gazette is 
 to be wanting in proper respect to the court. Both the 
 careless scribes wexe put to death. One of the princes 
 of the blood inadvertently put some mark upon a memo- 
 rial which had been signed by the Emperor Bogdo 
 Chan. This was construed to be a want of proper re- 
 spect to Bogdo Chan the emperor, and a horrible perse- 
 cution hence arose against the scrawling prince and his 
 whole family. May no schoolmasters, ushers, or others, 
 ever (even as far as they are able) imitate Bogdo Chan, 
 and may they always define to their subjects what they 
 mean by proper respect ! 
 
 There is a sort of mistaken mercy sometimes shown 
 to children, which is, in reality, the greatest cruelty. 
 People who are too angry to refrain from threats, are 
 often too indolent, or too compassionate, to put their 
 threats in execution. Between their words and actions 
 there is hence a manifest contradiction ; their pupils 
 learn, from experience, either totally to disregard these 
 threats, or else to calculate, from the various degrees 
 of anger which appear in the threatener's countenance, 
 what real probability there is of his being as good or as 
 bad as his word. Far from perceiving that punishment, 
 in this case, is pain given ivith the reasonable hope of 
 making him wiser or happier, the pupil is convinced, that 
 his master punishes him only to gratify the passion of 
 anger, to which he is unfortunately subject. Even sup- 
 posing that threateners are exact in fulfilling their 
 threats, and that they are not passionate, but simply 
 wish to avoid giving pain, they endeavour to excite the 
 fears of their pupils as the means of governing them. 
 
 * See the grand instructions to the commissioners appointed to. 
 frame a new code of laws for the Russian empire, p. 183, said to have- 
 beeu drawn up by the late Lord Mansfield. 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. IBS' 
 
 with the least possible pain. But with fear they excite 
 all the passions and habits which are connected with 
 that mean principle of action, and they extinguish that 
 vigorous spirit, that independent energy of soul, which 
 is essential to all the active and manly virtues. Young 
 people who find that their daily pleasures depend not 
 so much upon their own exertions as upon the humour 
 and caprice of others, become absolute courtiers ; they 
 practise all the arts of persuasion, and all the crouching 
 hypocrisy which can deprecate wrath, or propitiate fa- 
 vour. Their notions of right and wrong cannot be en- 
 larged ; their recollection of tlie rewards and punish- 
 ments of their childhood is always connected with the 
 ideas of tyranny and slavery ; and when they break 
 their own chains, they are impatient to impose similar 
 bonds upon their inferiors. 
 
 An argument has been used to prove, that in some 
 cases anger is part of the justice of punishment, because 
 " mere reproof, without sufficient marks of displeasure 
 and emotion, affects a child very little, and is soon for- 
 gotten."* It cannot be doubted, that the expression of 
 indignation is a just consequence of certain faults ; and 
 the general indignation with which these are spoken of 
 before young people, must make a strong and useful 
 impression upon their minds. They reflect upon the 
 actions of others ; they see the effects which these 
 produce upon the human mind ; they put themselves in 
 the situation alternately of the person who expresses 
 indignation, and of him who suffers shame ; they meas- 
 ure the fault and its consequences ; and they resolve to 
 conduct themselves so as to avoid that just indignation 
 of which they dread to be the object. These are the 
 general conclusions which children draw when they are 
 impartial spectators ; but where they are themselves con- 
 cerned, their feelings and their reasonings are very dif- 
 ferent. If they have done any thing which they know 
 to be wrong, they expect, and are sensible that they de- 
 serve, displeasure and indignation ; but if any precise 
 penalty is annexed to the fault, the person who is to 
 inflict it appears to them in the character of a judge, who 
 is bound to repress his own feelings, and coolly to execute 
 justice. If the judge both reproaches and punishes, he 
 
 * See Dr. Priestley's Miscellaneous Observations relating to Edu- 
 cation, sect, vii, of correction, p. 67. 
 
186 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 doubles the punishment. Whenever indignation is ex- 
 pressed, no vuli^ar trivial penalties should accompany it ; 
 the pupil should feel that it is indignation against his fault, 
 and not against himself; and that it is not excited in his 
 preceptor's mind by any petty personal considerations. 
 A child distinguishes between anger and indignation 
 very exactly; the one commands his respect, the other 
 raises his contempt as soon as his fears subside. Dr. 
 Priestley seems to think that " it is not possible to ex- 
 press displeasure with -sufficient force, especially to a 
 child, when a man is perfectly' cool." May we not 
 reply to this, that it is scarcely possible to express dis- 
 pleasure with sufficient propriety, especially to a child, 
 when a man is in a passion '\ The propriety is, in this 
 case, of at least as much consequence as the force of 
 the reprimand. The effect which the preceptor's dis- 
 pleasure will produce, must be in some proportion to 
 the esteem which the pupil feels for him. If he cannot 
 command his irascible passions, his pupil cannot con- 
 tinue to esteem him ; and there is an end of all that 
 fear of his disapprobation, which was founded upon 
 esteem, and which can never be founded upon a stronger 
 or a better basis. We should further consider, that 
 the opinions of all the by-standers, especially if they be 
 any of them of the pupil's own age, have great influ- 
 ence upon his mind. It is not to be expected that they 
 should all sympathize equally with the angry preceptor ; 
 and we know that whenever the indignation expressed 
 against any fault appears, in the least, to pass the 
 bound of exact justice, the sympathy of the spectators 
 immediately revolts in favour of the culprit ; the fault 
 is forgotten or excused, and all join in spontaneous 
 compassion. In public schools, this happens so fre- 
 quently, that the master's displeasure seldom affects the 
 little community with any sorrow; combined together, 
 they make each other amends for public punishments, 
 by private pity or encouragement. In families which 
 are not well regulated, that is to say, in which the in- 
 terests of all the individuals do not coalesce, the same 
 evils are to be dreaded. Neither indignation nor shame 
 can affect children in such schools or such families ; 
 the laws and manners, pubhc precept and private opin- 
 ion, contradict each other. 
 
 In a variety of instances in society, we may observe, 
 that the best laws and the best principles are not suffi- 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 187 
 
 cient to resist the combination of numbers. Never 
 attempt to affix infamy to a number of people at once, 
 says a philosophic legislator.* This advice showed that 
 he perfectly understood the nature of the passion of 
 shame. Numbers keep one another in countenance ; 
 they form a society for themselves ; and sometimes by 
 peculiar phrases, and an appropriate language, confound 
 the established opinion of virtue and vice, and enjoy a 
 species of self-complacency independent of public opin- 
 ion, and often in direct opposition to their former con- 
 science. Whenever any set of men want to get rid of 
 the shame annexed to particular actions, they begin by 
 changing the names and epithets which have been gen- 
 erally used to express them, and which they know are 
 associated with the feelings of shame : these feelings 
 are not awakened by the new language, and by degrees 
 they are forgotten, or they are supposed to have been 
 merely prejudices and habits, which former methods of 
 speaking taught people to reverence. Thus the most 
 disgraceful combinations of men, who live by violating 
 and evading the laws of society, have all a peculiar 
 phraseology among themselves, by Which jocular ideas 
 are associated with the most disreputable actions. 
 
 Those who live by depredation on the river Thames, 
 do not call themselves thieves, but lumpers and mudlarks. 
 Coiners give regular mercantile names to the different 
 branches of their trade, and to the various kinds of false 
 money which they circulate : such as fiats, or figs, or 
 fig-things. Unlicensed lottery-wheels are called little 
 goes ; and the men who are sent about to public houses 
 to entice poor people into illegal lottery-ensurances, are 
 called Morocco-men: a set of villains, hired by these 
 fraudulent lottery-keepers, to resist the civil power 
 during the drawing of the lottery, call themselves 
 bludgeon-men ; and in the language of robbers, a receiver 
 of stolen goods is said to be stanch, when it is believed 
 that he will go all lengths rather than betray the secrets 
 of a gang of highwaymen. f 
 
 Since words have such power in their turn over ideas, 
 we must, in education, attend to the language of chil- 
 dren as a means of judging of the state of their minds ; 
 and whenever we find that in their conversation with 
 
 * See Code of Russian Laws, 
 t Colquhoun. 
 
188 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 one another they have any slang which turns moral 
 ideas into ridicule, we may be certain that this must 
 have arisen from some defect in their education. The 
 power of shame must then be tried in some new shape, 
 to break this false association of ideas. Shame in a 
 new shape aflfects the mind with surprising force, in the 
 same manner as danger in a new form alarms the courage 
 of veterans. An extraordinary instance of this may be 
 observed in the management of Gloucester jail : a blue 
 and yellow jacket has been found to have a most power- 
 ful effect upon men supposed to be dead to shame. The 
 keeper of the prison told us, that the most unruly 
 offenders could be kept in awe by the dread of a dress 
 which exposed them to the ridicule of their companions, 
 no new term having been yet invented to counteract the 
 terrors of the yellow jacket. To prevent the mind 
 from becoming insensible to shame, it must be very 
 sparingly used ; and the hope and possibility of recover- 
 ing esteem must always be kept alive. Those who are 
 excluded from hope are necessarily excluded from vir- 
 tue ; the loss of reputation, we see, is almost always 
 followed by total depravity. The cruel prejudices 
 which are harboured against particular classes of people, 
 usually tend to make the individuals who are the best 
 disposed among these sects, despair of obtaining esteem ; 
 and, consequently, careless about deserving it. There 
 can be nothing inherent in the knavish propensity of 
 Jews ; but the prevailing opinion, that avarice, dishon- 
 esty, and extortion, are the characteristics of a Jew, 
 has probably induced many of the tribe to justify the 
 antipathy which they could not conquer. Children are 
 frequently confirmed in faults, by the imprudent and 
 cruel custom which some parents have of settling early 
 in life, that such a thing is natural ; that such and such 
 dispositions are not to be cured ; that cunning, per- 
 haps, is the characteristic of one child, and caprice of 
 another. This general odium oppresses and dispirits : 
 such children think it is in vain to struggle against na- 
 ture, especially as they do not clearly understand what 
 is meant by nature. They submit to our imputations, 
 without knowing how to refute them. On the contrary, 
 if we treat them with more good sense and benevolencie, 
 if we explain to them the nature of the human mind, 
 and if we lay open to them the history of their own, 
 they will assist us in endeavouring to cure their faults, 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 189 
 
 and they will not be debilitated by indistinct, supersti- 
 tious fears. At ten or eleven years old, children are 
 capable of understanding some of the general principles 
 of rational morality ; and these they can apply to their 
 own conduct in many instances, which, however trivial 
 they may appear, are not beneath our notice. 
 
 June 16, 1796. S (nine years old) had lost his 
 
 pencil ; his father said to him, " I wish to give you an- 
 other pencil, but I am afraid I should do you harm if I 
 did ; you would not take care of your things if you did 
 not feel some inconvenience when you lose them." 
 The boy's lips moved as if he were saying to himself, 
 *' I understand this ; it is just." His father guessed that 
 these were the thoughts that were passing in his mind, 
 and asked whether he interpreted rightly the motion of 
 
 the lips. " Yes," said S , " that was exactly what I 
 
 was thinking." " Then," said his father, " I will give 
 you a bit of my own pencil this instant : all I want is to 
 make the necessary impression upon your mind ; that 
 is all the use of punishment ; you know we do not want 
 to torment you." 
 
 As young people grow up, and perceive the conse- 
 quences of their own actions, and the advantages of 
 credit and character, they become extremely solicitous 
 to preserve the good opinion of those whom they love 
 and esteem. They are now capable of taking the future 
 into their view, as well as the present ; and at this pe- 
 riod of their education, the hand of authority should 
 never be hastily used ; the voice of reason will never 
 fail to make itself heard, especially if reason speak 
 with the tone of affection. During the first years of 
 childhood, it did not seem prudent to make any punish- 
 ment lasting, because young children quickly forget 
 their faults ; and having little experience, cannot feel 
 how their past conduct is likely to affect their future 
 happiness : but as soon as they have more enlarged 
 experience, the nature of their punishments should alter; 
 if we have any reason to esteem or love them less, our 
 contempt and displeasure should not lightly be dissi- 
 pated. Those who reflect, are more influenced by the 
 idea of the duration than of the intensity of any mental 
 pain. In those calculations which are constantly made 
 before we determine upon action or forbearance, some 
 tempers estimate any evil which is likely to be but of 
 short duration, infinitely below its real importance. 
 
190 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Young men of sanguine and courageous dispositions, 
 hence frequently act imprudently ; the consequences 
 of their temerity will, they think, soon be over, and 
 they feel that they are able to support evil for a short 
 time, however great it may be. Anger, they know, is 
 a short-lived passion, and they do not scruple running 
 the hazard of exciting anger in the hearts of those they 
 love the best in the world. The experience of lasting, 
 sober disapprobation, is intolerably irksome to them ; 
 any inconvenience which continues for a length of time, 
 wearies them excessively. After they have endured, 
 as the consequence of any actions, this species of pun- 
 ishment, they will long remember their sufferings, and 
 will carefully avoid incurring in future similar penalties. 
 Sudden and transient pain appears to be most effectual 
 with persons of an opposite temperament. 
 
 Young people of a torpid, indolent temperament, are 
 much under the dominion of habit ; if they happen to 
 have contracted any disagreeable or bad habits, they 
 have seldom sufficient energy to break them. The 
 stimulus of sudden pain is necessary in this case. The 
 pupil maybe perfectly convinced that such a habit ought 
 to be broken, and may wish to break it most sincerely ; 
 but may yet be incapable of the voluntary exertion re- 
 quisite to obtain success. It would be dangerous to let 
 the habit, however insignificant, continue victorious ; 
 because the child would hence be discouraged from all 
 future attempts to battle with himself. Either we should 
 not attempt the conquest of the habit, or we should per- 
 sist till we have vanquished. The confidence which 
 this sense of success will give the pupil, will probably, 
 in his own opinion, be thought well worth the price. 
 Neither his reason nor his will was in fault ; all he 
 wanted was strength to break the diminutive chains of 
 habit ; chains which, it seems, have power to enfeeble 
 their captives, exactly in proportion to the length of 
 time they are worn. 
 
 Everybody has probably found, from his own expe- 
 rience, how difficult it is to alter little habits in man- 
 ners, pronunciation, &c. Children are often teased 
 with frequent admonitions about their habits of sitting, 
 standing, walking, talking, eating, speaking, &c. Pa- 
 rents are early aware of the importance of agreeable, 
 graceful manners ; everybody who sees children can 
 judge, or thinks that he can judge, of their manners j 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 191 
 
 and from anxiety that children should appear to advan- 
 tage in company, parents solicitously watch all their 
 gestures, and correct all their attitudes according to that 
 image of the " beau ideaV which happens to be most 
 fashionable. The most convenient and natural attitudes 
 are not always the most approved. The constraint 
 which children suffer from their obedience, obliges them 
 at length to rest their tortured muscles, and to throw 
 themselves, for relief, into attitudes the very reverse of 
 those which they have practised with so much pain. 
 Hence they acquire opposite habits in their manners, 
 and there is a continual struggle between these. They 
 find it impossible to correct, instantaneously, the awk- 
 ward tricks which they have acquired, and they learn 
 ineffectually to attempt a conquest over themselves ; or 
 else, which is most commonly the catastrophe, they 
 learn to hear the exhortations and rebukes of all around 
 them, without being stimulated to any degree of exer- 
 tion.* The same voices which lose their power on 
 these trifling occasions, lose, at the same time, much 
 of their general influence. More poiver is wasted upon 
 trifling defects in the manners of children, than can be 
 imagined by any who have not particularly attended to 
 this subject. If it be thought indispensably necessary 
 to speak to children eternally about their manners, this 
 irritating and disagreeable office should devolve upon 
 somebody whose influence over the children we are 
 not anxious to preserve undiminished. A little inge- 
 nuity in contriving the dress, writing-desks, reading- 
 desks, &c. of children, who are any way defective in 
 their shape, might spare much of the anxiety which is 
 felt by their parents, and much of the bodily and mental 
 pain which they alternately endure themselves. For 
 these patients, would it not be rather more safe to con- 
 sult the philosophic physicianf than the dancing-mas- 
 ter, who is not bound to understand either anatomy or 
 metaphysics ? 
 
 Every preventive which is discovered for any de- 
 fect, either in manners, temper, or understanding, dimin- 
 ishes the necessity for punishment. Punishments are 
 the abrupt, brutal resource of ignorance, frequently^X to 
 
 * See the judicious Locke's observations upon the subject of man- 
 ners, section 67 of his valuable Treatise on Education. 
 t See vol. ii. of Zoonomia. 
 X We believe this is Williams's idea. 
 
192 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 cure the effects of former neglig^ence. With children 
 who have been reasonably and affectionately educated, 
 scarcely any punishments are requisite. This is not an 
 assertion hazarded without experience; the happy ex- 
 perience of several years, and of several children of 
 different ages and tempers, justifies this assertion. As 
 for corporeal punishments, they may be necessary where 
 boys are to be drilled in a given time into scholars ; but 
 the language of blows need seldom be used to reasona- 
 ble creatures. The idea that it is disgraceful to be gov- 
 erned by force, should be kept alive in the minds of 
 children ; the dread of shame is a more powerful mo- 
 tive than the fear of bodily pain. To prove the truth 
 of this, we may recollect that few people have ever 
 been known to destroy themselves, in order to escape 
 from bodily pain ; but numbers, to avoid shame, have 
 put an end to their existence. It has been a question, 
 whether mankind are most governed by hope or by fear ; 
 by rewards or by punishments'? This question, like 
 many others which have occasioned tedious debates, 
 turns chiefly upon words. Hope and fear are some- 
 times used to denote mixed, and sometimes unmixed 
 passions. Those who speak of them as unmixed pas- 
 sions, cannot have accurately examined their own feel- 
 ings.* The probability of good produces hope; the 
 probability of evil excites fear ; and as this probability 
 appears less or greater, more remote or nearer to us, 
 the mind fluctuates between the opposite passions. 
 When the probability increases on either side, so does 
 the corresponding passion. Since these passions sel- 
 dom exist in absolute separation from one another, it 
 appears that we cannot philosophically speak of either 
 as an independent motive : to the question, therefore, 
 " Which governs mankind the most, hope or fear ?" we 
 cannot give an implicit answer. 
 
 When we would determine upon the probability of any 
 good or evil, we are insensibly influenced, not only by 
 the view of the circumstances before us, but also by our 
 previous habits ; we judge not only by the general laws 
 of human events, but also by our own individual expe- 
 rience. If we have been usually successful, we are in- 
 clined to hope ; have we been accustomed to misfor- 
 tunes, we are hence disposed to fear. " Caesar and his 
 
 * Hume's Dissertation on the Passions. 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 193 
 
 fortune are on board," exclaimed the confident liero to 
 the mariners. Hope excites the mind to exertion ; fear 
 represses all activity. As a preventive from vice, 
 you may employ fear ; to restrain the excesses of all 
 the furious passions, it is useful and necessary : but 
 would you rouse the energies of virtue, you must inspire 
 and invigorate the soul with hope. Courage, generosity, 
 industry, perseverance, all the magic of talents, all the 
 powers of genius, all the virtues that appear spontane- 
 ous in great minds, spring from hope. JBut how differ- 
 ent is the hope of a great and of a little mind ; not only 
 are the objects of this hope different, but the passion 
 itself is raised and supported in a different manner. A. 
 feeble person, if he presume to hope, hopes as super- 
 stitiously as he fears ; he keeps his attention sedulously 
 fixed upon all the probabilities in his favour ; he will not 
 listen to any argument in opposition to his wishes ; he 
 knows he is unreasonable, he persists in continuing so ; 
 he does not connect any idea of exertion with hope ; 
 his hope usuallj'^ rests upon the exertions of others, or 
 upon some fortuitous circumstances. A man of a strong 
 mind reasons before he hopes ; he takes in, at one quick, 
 comprehensive glance, all that is to be seen, both for and 
 against him ; he is, from experience, disposed to depend 
 much upon his own exertions, if they can turn the bal- 
 ance in his favour; he hopes, he acts, he succeeds. 
 Poets, in all ages, have celebrated the charms of hope ; 
 without her propitious influence, life, they tell us, would 
 be worse than death ; without her smiles, nature would 
 smile in vain ; without her promises, treacherous though 
 they often prove, reality would have nothing to give 
 worthy of our acceptance. We are not bound, how- 
 ever, to understand literally, the rhetoric of poets. Hope 
 is to them a beautiful and useful allegorical personage ; 
 sometimes leaning upon an anchor ; sometimes " waving 
 her golden hair ;" always young, smihng, enchanting, 
 furnished with a rich assortment of epithets suited to 
 the ode, the sonnet, the madrigal, with a traditionary 
 number of images and allusions ; what more can a poet 
 desire ] Men, except when they are poets, do not value 
 hope as the first of terrestrial beings. The action and 
 energies which hope produces, are to many more agree- 
 able than the passion itself; that feverish state of sus- 
 pense, which prevents settled thought or vigorous exer- 
 tion, far from being agreeable, is highly painful to a well- 
 
194 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 regulated mind; the continual repetition of the same 
 ideas and the same calculations, fatigues the mind, 
 which, in reasoning, has been accustomed to arrive at 
 some certain conclusion, or to advance, at least, a step 
 at every effort. The exercise of the mind in changing 
 the views of its object, which is supposed to be a great 
 part of the pleasure of hope, is soon over to an active 
 imagination, which quickly runs through all the possible 
 changes ; or is this exercise, even while it lasts, so de- 
 lightful to a man who has a variety of intellectual occu- 
 pations, as it frequently appears to him who knows 
 scarcely any other species of mental activity 1 The 
 vacillating state of mind peculiar to hope and fear, is 
 by no means favourable to industry; half our time is 
 generally consumed in speculating upon the reward, 
 instead of earning it, whenever the value of that reward 
 is noi precisely ascerlainaUe. In all occupations where 
 judgment or accurate observation is essential, if the re- 
 ward of our labour is brought suddenly to excite our 
 hope, there is an immediate interruption of all effectual 
 labour; the thoughts take a new direction; the mind 
 becomes tremulous, and nothing decisive can be done, 
 till the emotions of hope and fear either subside or are 
 vanquished. 
 
 M. I'Abbe Chappe, who was sent by the king of 
 France, at the desire of the French Academy, to Siberia, 
 to observe the transit of Venus, gives us a striking pic- 
 ture of the state of his own mind when the moment of 
 this famous observation approached. In the descrip- 
 tion of his own feelings, this traveller may be admitted 
 as good authority. A few hours before the observation, 
 a black cloud appeared in the sky ; the idea of returning 
 to Paris, after such a long and perilous journey, without 
 having seen the transit of Venus ; the idea of the dis- 
 appointment to his king, to his country, to all the phi- 
 losophers in Europe, threw him into a state of agita- 
 tion " which must have been felt to be conceived." 
 At length the black cloud vanished ; his hopes affected 
 him almost as nmch as his fears had done ; he fixed his 
 telescope, saw the planet ; his eye wandered over the 
 immense space a thousand times in a minute ; his sec- 
 retary stood on one side with his pen in his hand ; his 
 assistant, with his eye fixed upon the watch, was sta- 
 tioned on the other side. The moment of the total im- 
 mersion arrived ; the agitated philosopher was seized 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 195 
 
 with a universal shivering, and could scarcely command 
 his thoughts sufficiently to secure the observation. 
 
 The uncertainty of reward, and the consequent agita- 
 tions of hope and fear, operate as unfavourably upon 
 the moral as upon the intellectual character. The 
 favour of princes is an uncertain reward. Courtiers are 
 usually despicable and wretched beings : they live upon 
 hope ; but their hope is not connected with exertion. 
 Those who court popularity are not loss despicable or 
 less wretched ; their reward is uncertani : what is more 
 uncertain than the affection of the multitude ? The Pro- 
 teus character of Wharton, so admirably drawn by 
 Pope, is a striking picture of a man who has laboured 
 through life with the vague hope of obtaining universal 
 applause. 
 
 Let us suppose a child to be educated by a variety of 
 persons, all differing in their tastes and tempers, and in 
 their notions of right and wa*ong ; all having the power 
 to reward and punish their connnon pupil. What must 
 this pupil become ] A mixture of incongruous charac- 
 ters ; superstitious, enthusiastic, indolent, and perhaps 
 profligate : superstitious, because his own contradictory 
 experience would expose him to fear without reason ; 
 enthusiastic, because he would, from the same cause, 
 form absurd expectations ; indolent, because the willoi 
 others has been the measure of his happiness, and his 
 own exertions have never procured him any certain re- 
 ward ; profligate, because, probably, from the confused 
 variety of his moral lessons, he has at last concluded 
 that right and wrong are but unmeaning words. Let us 
 change the destiny of this child, by changing his educa- 
 tion. Place him under the sole care of a person of an 
 enlarged capacity and a steady mind ; who has formed 
 just notions of right and wrong, and who, in the distri- 
 bution of reward and punishment, of praise and blame, 
 will be prompt, exact, invariable. His pupil will neither 
 be credulous, rash, nor profligate ; and he certainly will 
 not be indolent ; his habitual and his rational belief will 
 in all circumstances agree with each other ; his hope 
 will be the prelude to exertion, and his fear will restrain 
 him only in situations where action is dangerous. 
 
 Even among children, we must frequently have ob- 
 served a prodigious difference in the quantity of hope 
 and fear which is felt by those who have been well or 
 ill-educated. An ill-educated child is in daily, hourly, 
 1 2 
 
196 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 alternate agonies of hope and fear ; the present never 
 occupies or interests him, but his soul is intent upon 
 some future gratification, which never pays him by its 
 full possession. As soon as he awakes in the morn- 
 ing, he recollects some promised blessing; and, till the 
 happy moment arrives, he is wretched in impatience : 
 at breakfast he is to be blessed with some toy, that he is 
 to have the moment breakfast is finished ; and when he 
 finds the toy does not delight him, he is to be blessed 
 with a sweet pudding at dinner, or with sitting up half 
 an hour later at night than his usual bedtinje. Endeav- 
 our to find some occupation that shall amuse hmi ; you 
 will not easily succeed, for he will still anticipate what 
 you are going to say or do. " What will come next?" 
 " What shall we do after this V are, as Mr. Williams, . 
 in his able lectures upon education, observes, the ques* 
 tions incessantly asked by spoiled children. This spe- 
 cies of idle, restless curiosity, does not lead to the 
 acquisition of knowledge ; it prevents the possibility of 
 instruction ; it is not the animation of a healthy mind; 
 it is the debility of an over-stimulated temper. There 
 is a very sensible letter in Mrs. Macauley's book upon 
 education, on the impropriety of filling the imaginations 
 of young people with prospects of future enjoyment : 
 the foolish system of promising great rewards and fine 
 presents, she clearly shows, creates habitual disorders 
 in the minds of children. 
 
 The happiness of life depends more upon a succes- 
 sion of small enjoyments than upon great pleasures ; 
 and those who become incapable of tasting the moder- 
 ately agreeable sensations, cannot fill up the intervals 
 of their existence between their great delights. The 
 happiness of children peculiarly depends upon their 
 enjoyment of lillle pleasures : of these they have a con- 
 tinual variety ; they have perpetual occupation for their 
 senses, in observing all the objects around them, and all 
 their faculties may be exercised upon suitable subjects. 
 The pleasure of this exercise is in itself sufficient : we 
 need not say to a child, " Look at the wings of this 
 beautiful butterfly, and I will give you a piece of plum- 
 cake ; observe how the butterfly curls his proboscis, 
 how he dives into the honeyed flowers, and I will take 
 you in a coach to pay a visit with me, my dear. Re- 
 member the pretty story you read this morning, and you 
 shall have a new coat." Without the new coat, or the 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 197 
 
 visit, or the plumcake, the child would have had suffi- 
 cient amusement in the story, and the sight of the but- 
 terfly's proboscis : the rewards, besides, have no natu- 
 ral connexion with the things themselves ; and they 
 create, where they are most liked, a taste for factitious 
 pleasures. Would you encourage benevolence, gener- 
 osity, or prudence, let each have its appropriate reward 
 of affection, esteem, and confidence ;* but do not, by ill- 
 judged bounties, attempt to force these virtues into pre- 
 mature display. The rewards which are given to be- 
 nevolence and generosity in children, frequently encour- 
 age selfishness, and sometimes teach them cunning. 
 Lord Kames tells us a story, which is precisely a case 
 in point. Two boys, the sons of the Earl of Elgin, were 
 permitted by their father to associate with the poor boys 
 in the neighbourhood of their father's house. One day, 
 the earl's sons being called to dinner, a lad who was 
 playing with them said that he would wait until they 
 returned — " There is no dinner for me at home," 
 said the poor boy. " Come with us, then," said the 
 earl's sons. The boy refused, and when they asked 
 him if he had any money to buy a dinner, he answered, 
 *' No." — " Papa," said the eldest of the young gentlemen 
 when he got home, " what was the price of the silver 
 buckles you gave me V — " Five shillings." — " Let me 
 have the money, and I'll give you the buckles," It was 
 done accordingly, says Lord Kames. The earl, inqui- 
 ring privately, found that the money was given to the 
 lad ivho had no dinner: The buckles were returned, and 
 the boy was highly commended for being kind to his 
 companion. The commendations were just, but the 
 buckles should not have been returned : the boy should 
 have been suflTered steadily to abide by his own bargain ; 
 he should have been allowed to feel the pleasure, and 
 pay the exact price of his own generosity. 
 
 If we attempt to teach children that they can be gen- 
 erous without giving up some of their own pleasures 
 for the sake of other people, we attempt to teach them 
 what is false. If we once make them amends for any 
 sacrifice they have made, we lead them to expect the 
 same remuneration upon a future occasion ; and then, 
 in fact, they act with a direct view to their own interest, 
 
 * See Locke, and aa excellent little essay of Madame de Lam- 
 bert's. 
 
198 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 and govern themselves by the calculations of prudence, 
 instead of following the dictates of benevolence. It is 
 true, that if we speak with accuracy, we must admit 
 that the most benevolent and generous persons act from 
 the hope of receiving pleasure, and their enjoyment is 
 more exquisite than that of the most refined selfishness; 
 in the language of M. de Rochefoucault, we should 
 therefore be forced to acknowledge, that the most be- 
 nevolent is always the most selfish person. This seem- 
 ing paradox is answered by observing, that the epithet 
 seljish is given to those who prefer pleasures in which 
 other people have no share ; we change the meaning of 
 words when we talk of its being selfish to like the pleas- 
 ures of sympathy or benevolence, because these pleas- 
 ures cannot be confined solely to the idea of self. When 
 we say that a person pursues his own interest more by 
 being generous than by being covetous, we take into 
 the account the general sum of his agreeable feelings ; 
 we do not balance prudentially his loss or gain upon 
 particular occasions. The generous man may himself 
 be convinced, that the sum of his happiness is more in- 
 creased by the feelings of benevolence, than it could be 
 by the gratification of avarice ; but, though his under- 
 standing may perceive the demonstration of this moral 
 theorem, though it is the remote principle of his whole 
 conduct, it does not occur to his memory in the form of 
 a prudential aphorism, whenever he is going to do a 
 generous action. It is essential to our ideas of gener- 
 osity, that no such reasoning should, at that moment, 
 pass in his mind ; we know that the feelings of gener- 
 osity are associated with a number of enthusiastic 
 ideas ; we can sympathize with the virtuous insanity of 
 the man who forgets himself while he thinks of others ; 
 we do not so readily sympathize with the cold strength 
 of mind of the person who, deliberately preferring the 
 greatest possible share of happiness, is benevolent by rule 
 and measure. 
 
 Whether we are just or not in refusing our sympathy 
 to the man of reason, and in giving our spontaneous ap- 
 probation to the man of enthusiasm, we shall not here 
 examine. But the reasonable man, who has been con- 
 vinced of this propensity in human nature, will take it 
 into his calculations ; he will perceive that he loses, in 
 losing the pleasure of sympathy, part of the sum total 
 of his possible happiness ; he will consequently wish 
 
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 199 
 
 that he could add this item of pleasure to the credit side 
 of his account. This, however, he cannot accomplish; 
 because, though he can by reason correct his calcula- 
 tions, it is not in the power, even of the most potent 
 reason, suddenly to break habitual associations ; much 
 less is it in the power of cool reason to conjure up warm 
 enthusiasm. Yet, in this case, enthusiasm is the thing 
 required. 
 
 What the man of reason cannot do for himself after 
 his associations are strongly formed, might have been 
 rasily accomplished in his early education. He might 
 have been taught the same general principles, but with 
 different habits. By early associating the pleasures of 
 sympathy, and praise, and affection, with all generous 
 and benevolent actions, his parents might have joined 
 these ideas so forcibly in his mind, that the one set of 
 ideas should never recur without the other. Whenever 
 the words benevolence or generosity were pronounced, 
 the feelings of habitual pleasure w^ould recur ; and he 
 would, independently of reason, desire from association 
 to be generous. When enthusiasm is fairly justified by 
 reason, we have nothing to fear from her vehemence. 
 
 In rewarding children for the prudential virtues, such 
 as order, cleanliness, economy, temperance, &c., we 
 should endeavour to make the rewards the immediate 
 consequence of the virtues themselves ; and at the same 
 time, approbation should be shown in speaking of these 
 useful qualities. A gradation must, however, always 
 be observed in our praises of different virtues ; those 
 that are the most useful to society, as truth, justice, and 
 humanity, must stand the highest in the scale ; those 
 that are most agreeable, claim the next place. Those 
 good qualities which must wait a considerable time for 
 their reward, such as perseverance, prudence, &c., we 
 must not expect early from young people. Till they 
 have had experience, how can they form any idea about 
 the future 1 Till they have been punctually re\varded 
 for their industry, or for their prudence, they do not feel 
 the value of prudence and perseverance. Time is ne- 
 cessary to all these lessons, and those who leave time 
 out in their calculations, \vill always be disappointed in 
 whatever plan of education they may pursue. 
 
 Many to whom the subject is famihar, will be fatigued, 
 probably, by the detailed manner in which it has been 
 thought necessary to explain the principles by which 
 
200 PRACTICAL EDUCAT^N. 
 
 we should guide ourselves in the distribution of rewards 
 and punishments to children. Those who quickly seize 
 and apply general ideas, cannot endure, with patience, the 
 tedious minuteness of didactic illustration. Those who. 
 are actually engaged m practical education, will not, on the 
 contrary, be satisfied with general precepts ; and, how- 
 ever plausible any theory may appear, they are well 
 aware that its utility must depend upon a variety of small 
 circumstances, to which writers of theories often neg- 
 lect to advert. At the 'hazard of being thought te- 
 dious, those must be minute in explanation who de- 
 sire to be generally useful. An old French writer,* 
 more remarkable for originality of thought than for the 
 graces of style, w^as once reproached hy a friend with 
 the frequent repetitions which were to be found in his 
 works. " Name them to me," said the author. The 
 critic, with obliging precision, mentioned all the ideas 
 which had most frequently recurred in the book. " I 
 am satisfied," replied the honest author ; " you remem- 
 ber my ideas ; I repeated them so often to prevent you 
 from forgetting them. Without my repetitions, we 
 should never have succeeded." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ON SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 
 
 The artless expressions of sympathy and sensibility 
 in children, are peculiarly pleasing ; people who, in their 
 commerce with the world, have been disgusted and de- 
 ceived by falsehood and affectation, listen with delight 
 to the genuine language of nature. Those who have 
 any interest in the education of children, have yet a 
 higher sense of pleasure in observing symptoms of their 
 sensibility ; they anticipate the future virtues which early 
 sensibility seems certainly to promise ; the future hap- 
 piness which these virtues will diffuse. Nor are they 
 unsupported by philosophy in these sanguine hopes. 
 No theory was ever developed with more ingenious ele- 
 gance, than that which deduces all our moral sentiments 
 
 ^ The Abbe St. Pierre. See his Eloge, by D'Aleiubert. 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 201 
 
 from sympathy. The direct influence of sympathy upon 
 all social beings is sufficiently obvious, and we imme- 
 diately perceive its necessary connexion with compas- 
 sion, friendship, and benevolence ; but the subject be- 
 comes more intricate when we are to analyze our sense 
 of propriety and justice ; of merit and demerit ; of grati- 
 tude and resentment ; self-complacency or remorse ; 
 ambition and shame.* 
 
 We allow, without hesitation, that a being destitute 
 of sympathy could never have any of these feehngs, and 
 must, consequently, be incapable of all intercourse with 
 society; yet we must at the same time perceive, that a 
 being endowed with the most exquisite sympathy, must, 
 without the assistance and education of reason, be, if 
 not equally incapable of social intercourse, far more 
 dangerous to the happiness of society. A person, gov- 
 erned by sympathy alone, must be influenced by the bad 
 as well as by the good passions of others ; he must feel 
 resentment with the angry man ; hatred with the ma- 
 levolent ; jealousy with the jealous ; and avarice with 
 the miser : the more lively his sympathy with these 
 painful feelings, the greater must be his misery; the 
 more forcibly he is impelled to action by this sympa- 
 thetic influence, the greater, probably, must be his im- 
 prudence and his guilt. Let us even suppose a being 
 capable of sympathy only with the best feelings of his 
 fellow-creatures, — still, without the direction of reason, 
 he would be a nuisance in the world ; his pity would 
 stop the hand, and overturn the balance of justice ; his 
 love would be as dangerous as his pity ; his gratitude 
 would exalt his benefactor at the expense of the whole 
 human race ; his sympathy with the rich, the prosper- 
 ous, the great, and the fortunate, would be so sudden 
 and so violent as to leave him no time for reflection 
 upon the consequences of tyranny, or the miseries oc- 
 casioned by monopoly. No time for reflection, did we 
 say 1 We forgot that we were speaking of a being des- 
 titute of the reasoning faculty ! Such a being, no mat- 
 ter what his virtuous sympathies might be, must act 
 either like a madman or a fool. On sympathy we can- 
 not depend, either for the correctness of a man's moral 
 sentiments, or for the steadiness of his moral conduct. 
 It is very common to talk of the excellence of a person's 
 
 * Adam Smith. 
 13 
 
202 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 heart, of the natural goodness of his disposition ; when 
 these expressions distinctly mean any thing, they must 
 refer to natural sympathy, or a superior degree of sen- 
 sibility. Experience, however, does not teach us that 
 sensibility and virtue have any certain connexion with 
 each other. No one can read the works of Sterne, or 
 of Rousseau, without believing these men to have been 
 endowed with extraordinary sensibility ; yet, who would 
 propose their conduct in life as a model for imitation 1 
 That quickness of sympathy with present objects of dis- 
 tress which constitutes compassion, is usually thought 
 a virtue, — but it is a virtue frequently found in persons 
 of an abandoned character. Mandeville, in his essay 
 upon charity-schools, puts this in a strong light. 
 
 " Should any one of us," says he, " be locked up in a 
 ground room, where, in a yard adjoining to it, there was 
 a thriving, good-humoured child at play, of two or three 
 years old, so near us that through the grates of the 
 window we could almost touch it with our hands ; and 
 if, v/hile we took deUght in the harmless diversion and 
 imperfect prattle of the innocent babe, a nasty, over- 
 grown sow should come in upon the child, set it a 
 screaming, and frighten it out of its wits, — it is natural 
 to think that this would make us uneasy, and that wiih 
 crying out, and making all the menacing noise we could, 
 we should endeavour to drive the sow away. But if 
 this should happen to be a half-starved creature, that, 
 mad with hunger, went roaming about in quest of food, 
 and we should behold the ravenous brute, in spite of our 
 cries, and all the threatening gestures we could think 
 of, actually lay hold of the helpless infant, destroy, and 
 devour it ; — to see her widely open her destructive jaws, 
 and the poor lamb beat down with greedy haste ; to look 
 on the defenceless posture of tender limbs first trampled 
 upon, then torn asunder ; to see the filthy snout, digging 
 ill the yet Uving entrails, suck up the smoking blood, 
 and now and then to hear the crackling of the bones, 
 and the cruel animal grunt with savage pleasure over 
 the horrid banquet ; to hear and see all this, what tor- 
 ture would it give the soul, beyond expression t * * * 
 Not only a man of humanity, of good morals, and com- 
 miseration, but likewise a highwayman, a house- 
 breaker, or a murderer, could feel anxieties on such an 
 occasion.'' 
 
 Among tliose monsters who aro pointed out by the 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 203 
 
 historian to the just detestation of all mankind, we meet 
 with instances of casual sympathy and sensibility ; even 
 their vices frequently prove to us, that they never be- 
 came utterly indifferent to the opinion and feelings of 
 their fellow-creatures. The dissimulation, jealousy, 
 suspicion, and cruelty of Tiberius, originated, perhaps, 
 more in his anxiety about the opinions which were 
 formed of his character, than in his fears of any con- 
 spiracies against his life. The ^' judge within,^'' the 
 habit of viewing his own conduct in the light in which it 
 was beheld by the impartial spectator^ prompted him to new 
 crimes; and thus his unextinguished sympathy, and his 
 exasperated sensibility, drove him to excesses from 
 which a more torpid temperament might have preserved 
 him.* When, upon his presenting the sons of German- 
 icus to the senate, Tiberius beheld the tenderness with 
 w^hich these young men were received, he was moved 
 to such an agony of jealousy as instantly to beseech the 
 senate that he might resign the empire. We cannot 
 attribute, either to policy or fear, this strong emotion, 
 because we know that the senate was at this time abso- 
 lutely at the disposal of Tiberius, and the lives of the 
 sons of Germanicus depended upon his pleasure. 
 
 The desire to excel, according to " Smith's Theory 
 of Moral Sentiments," is to be resolved principally into 
 our love of the sympathy of our fellow-creatures. We 
 wish for their sympathy, either in our success or- in the 
 pleasure we feel in superiority. The desire for this 
 refined modification of sympathy may be the motive of 
 good and great actions ; but it cannot be trusted as a 
 moral principle. Nero's love of sympathy made him 
 anxious to be applauded on the stage as a fiddler and a 
 buffoon. Tiberius banished one of his philosophic court- 
 iers, and persecuted him till the unfortunate man laid 
 violent hands upon himself, merely because he had dis- 
 covered that the emperor read books in the morning to 
 prepare himself with questions for his literary society 
 at night. Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, sued in 
 the most abject manner for an Olympic crown, and sent 
 a critic to the galleys for finding fault with his verses. 
 Had not these men a sufficient degree of sensibility to 
 praise, and more than a suflicient desire for the sympa- 
 thy of their fellow-creatures I 
 
 * See Smith, 
 
204 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 It is not from any perverse love of sophistry, that the 
 word sensibility has been used in these instances instead 
 of irritahility, which seems better to characterize the 
 temper of a Dionysius or a Tiberius ; but, in fact, irri- 
 tability, in common language, merely denotes an exces- 
 sive or ill-governed degree of sensibility. The point 
 of excess must be marked : sympathy must be regulated 
 by education ; and consequently the methods of directing 
 sensibility to useful and amiable purposes, must be 
 anxiously studied by all who wish for the happiness or 
 virtue of their pupils. 
 
 Long before children can understand reasoning, they 
 can feel sympathy ; during this early period of their 
 education, example and habit, slight external circum- 
 stances, and the propensity to imitation, govern their 
 thoughts and actions. Imitation is the involuntary effect 
 of sympathy in children ; hence, those who have the most 
 sympathy are most liable to be improved or injured by 
 early examples. Examples of the malevolent passions 
 should therefore be most carefully excluded from the 
 sight of those who have yet no choice in their sym^thy ; 
 expressions of kindness and affection in the countenance, 
 the voice, the actions, of all who approach, and of all 
 who have the care of infants, are not only immediately 
 and evidently agreeable to the children, but ought also 
 to be used as the best possible means of exciting benevo- 
 lent sympathies in their minds. Children who habitually 
 meet with kindness, habitually feel complacency ; that 
 species of instinctive, or rather of associated affection, 
 which always rises in the mind from the recollection of 
 past pleasures, is immediately excited in such children 
 by the sight of their parents. By an easy transition of 
 ideas, they expect the same benevolence, even from 
 strangers, which they have experienced from their 
 friends, and their sympathy naturally prepares them to 
 wish for society ; this wish is often improperly indulged. 
 
 At the age when children begin to unfold their ideas, 
 and to express their thoughts in words, they are such 
 interesting and entertaining companions, that they at^ 
 tract a large portion of our daily attention : we listen 
 eagerly to their simple observations ; we enter into their 
 young astonishment at every new object ; we are de- 
 lighted to watch all their emotions ; we help them with 
 words to express their ideas ; we anxiously endeavour 
 to understand their imperfect reasonings, and are pleased 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 205 
 
 to find, or put them in the right. This season of uni- 
 versal smiles and courtesy is delightful to children 
 while it lasts, but it soon passes away ; they soon speak 
 without exciting any astonishment ; and, instead of meet- 
 ing with admiration for every attempt to express an idea, 
 they are soon repulsed for troublesome volubility ; even 
 when they talk sense, they are suffered to talk unheard, 
 or else they are checked for unbecoming presumption. 
 Children feel this change in public opinion and manners 
 most severely ; they are not sensible of any change in 
 themselves, except, perhaps, they are conscious of hav- 
 ing improved both in sense and language. Tliis un- 
 merited loss of their late gratuitous allowance of sym- 
 pathy usually operates unfavourably upon the temper 
 of the sufferers ; they become shy, and silent, and re- 
 served, if not sullen ; they withdraw from our capricious 
 society, and they endeavour to console themselves with 
 other pleasures. It is difficult to them to feel contented 
 with their own little occupations and amusements, for 
 want of the spectators and the audience which used to 
 be at their command. Children of a timid temper, or 
 of an indolent disposition, are quite dispirited and bereft 
 of all energy in these circumstances; others, with 
 greater vivacity, and more voluntary exertion, en- 
 deavour to supply the loss of universal sympathy by 
 the invention of independent occupations ; but they feel 
 anger and indignation when they are not rewarded with 
 any smiles or any praise for their " virtuous toil." They 
 naturally seek for new companions, either among chil- 
 dren of their own age, or among complaisant servants. 
 Immediately all the business of education is at a stand ; 
 for neither these servants nor these playfellows are 
 capable of becoming their instructers; nor can tutors 
 hope to succeed, who have transferred their power over 
 the pleasures, and consequently over the affections of 
 their pupils. Sympathy now becomes the declared 
 enemy of all the constituted authorities. What chance 
 is there of obedience or of happiness under such a gov- 
 ernment ? 
 
 Would it not be more prudent to prevent than to 
 complain of these evils'? Sympathy is our first, best 
 friend in education, and, by judicious management, 
 might long continue our faithful ally. 
 
 Instead of lavishing our smiles and our attention upon 
 young children for a short period, just at that age when 
 
206 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 they are amusing pla5'things, should we not do more 
 wisely if we reserved some portion of our kindness a 
 few years longer ? By a proper economy, our sympathy 
 may last for many years, and may continually contribute 
 to the most useful purposes. Instead of accustoming 
 our pupils early to such a degree of our attention as can- 
 not be supported long on our parts, we should rather 
 suffer them to feel a little ennui, at that age when they 
 can have but few independent or useful occupations. 
 We should employ ourselves in our usual manner, and 
 converse, without allowing children to interrupt us with 
 frivolous prattle; but whenever they ask sensible ques- 
 tions, make just observations, or show a disposition to 
 acquire knowledge, we should assist and encourage 
 them with praise and affection; gradually, as they 
 become capable of taking any part in conversation, they 
 should be admitted into society ; and they will learn of 
 themselves, or we may teach them, that useful and 
 agreeable qualities are those by which they must secure 
 the pleasures of sympathy. Esteem being associated 
 with sympathy, will increase its value ; and this con- 
 nexion should be made as soon, and kept as sacred in 
 the mind as possible. 
 
 With respect to the sympathy which children feel for 
 each other, it must be carefully managed, or it will coun- 
 teract, instead of assisting us, in education. It is natural 
 that those who are placed nearly in the same circum- 
 stances should feel alike, and sympathize with one 
 another ; but children feel only for the present ; they 
 have few ideas of the future ; and consequently all that 
 they can desire, either for themselves or for their com- 
 panions, is what will immediately please. Education 
 looks to the future ; and frequently we must ensure fu- 
 ture advantage, even at the expense of present pain or 
 restraint. The companion and the tutor then, supposing 
 each to be equally good and equally kind, must com- 
 mand, in a very different degree, the sj^mpathy of the 
 child. It may, notwithstanding, be questioned, whether 
 those who are constant companions in their idle hours, 
 when they are vei-y young, are likely to be either as fond 
 of one another when they grow up, or even as happy 
 while they are children, as those are who spend less 
 time together. Whenever the humours, interests, and 
 passions of others cross our own, there is an end of 
 sympathy ; and this happens almost every hour in the 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 207 
 
 day witli children : it is generally supposed, that they 
 learn to live in friendship with each other, and to bear 
 with one another's httle faults habitually; that they 
 even reciprocally cure these faults, and learn, by ex- 
 perience, those principles of honour and justice on 
 which society depends. We may be deceived in this 
 reasoning by a false analogy. 
 
 We call the society of children, society in miniature ; 
 the proportions of the miniature are so much altered, 
 that it is by no means an accurate resemblance of that 
 which exists in the civilized world. Among children of 
 different ages, strength, and talents, there must always 
 be tyranny, injustice, and that worst species of ine- 
 quality, which arises from superior force on the one 
 side, and abject timidity on the other. Of this, the 
 spectators of juvenile disputes and quarrels are some- 
 times sensible ; and they hastily interfere and endeavour 
 to part the combatants, by pronouncing certain moral 
 sentences, such as, " Good boys never quarrel ; brothers 
 must love and help one another." But these sentences 
 seldom operate as a charm upon the angry passions ; 
 the parties concerned hearing it asserted that they 
 must love one another, at the very instant when they 
 happen to feel that they cannot, are still farther exas- 
 perated, and they stand at bay, sullen in hatred, or ap- 
 proach, hypocritical in reconciliation. It is more easy 
 to prevent occasions of dispute than to remedy the bad 
 consequences which petty altercations produce. Young 
 children should be kept asunder at all times, and in all 
 situations, in which it is necessary, or probable, that 
 their appetites and passions should be in direct compe- 
 tition. Two hungry children with their eager eyes fixed 
 upon one and the same basin of bread and milk, do not 
 sympathize with each other, though they have the same 
 sensations ; each perceives, that if the other eats the 
 bread and milk, he cannot eat it. Hunger is more 
 powerful than sympathy ; but satisfy the hunger of one 
 of the parties, and he will begin to feel for his com- 
 panion, and will, wish that his hunger should also be 
 satisfied. Even Mr. Barnet, the epicure, who is so well 
 described in Moore's excellent novel,* after he has 
 crammed himself to the throat, asks his wife to " try to 
 cat a bit." Intelligent preceptors will apply the instance 
 
 * Edward. 
 
208 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 of the basin of bread and milk, in a variety of apparently 
 dissimilar circumstances. 
 
 We may observe, that the more quickly children 
 reason, the sooner they discover how far their interests 
 are any way incompatible with the interests of their 
 companions. The more readily a boy calculates, the 
 sooner he will perceive, that if he were to share his 
 basin of bread and milk equally with a dozen of his 
 companions, his own portion must be small. The ac- 
 curacy of his mental division would prevent him from 
 offering to part with that share which, perhaps, a more 
 ignorant accountant would be ready to surrender at 
 once, without being on that account more generous. 
 Children who are accurate observers of the counte- 
 nance, and who have a superior degree of penetration, 
 discover very early the symptoms of displeasure or of 
 affection in their friends ; they also perceive quickjy 
 the dangers of rivalship from their companions. If ex- 
 perience convinces them that they must lose in propor- 
 tion as their companions gain, either in fame or in 
 favour, they will necessarily dislike them as rivals ; 
 their hatred will be as vehement as their love of praise 
 and affection is ardent. Thus, children who have the 
 most lively sympathy, are, unless they be judiciously 
 educated, the most in danger of feeling early the ma- 
 levolent passions of jealousy and envy. It is inhuman, 
 and in every point of view unjustifiable in us, to ex- 
 cite these painful feelings in children, as we too often 
 do, by the careless or partial distribution of affection 
 and applause. Exact justice will best prevent jealousy ; 
 each individual submits to justice, because each, in turn, 
 feels the benefit of its protection. Some preceptors, 
 with benevolent intentions, labour to preserve a perfect 
 equality among their pupils, and, from the fear of ex- 
 citing envy \n those who are inferior, avoid uttering any 
 encomiums upon superior talents and merit. This man- 
 agement seldom succeeds ; the truth cannot be con- 
 cealed ; those who feel their own superiority, make 
 painful reflections upon the injustice done to them by 
 the policy of their tutors ; those who are sensible of 
 their own inferiority, are not comforted by the courtesy 
 and humiliating forbearance with which they are treated. 
 It is, therefore, best to speak the plain truth ; to give to 
 all their due share of affection and applause ; at the 
 same time, we should avoid blaming one child at tho 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 209 
 
 moment when we praise another : we should never put 
 our pupils in contrast with one another ; nor yet should 
 we deceive them as to their respective excellences and 
 defects. Our comparison should rather be made between 
 what the pupil has been and what he is, than between 
 what he is and what anybody else is not.* By this 
 style of praise we may induce children to become emu- 
 lous of their former selves, instead of being envious of 
 their competitors. Without deceit or affectation, we may 
 also take care to associate general pleasure in a family 
 with particular conmiendations ; thus, if one boy is re- 
 markable for prudence, and another for generosity, we 
 should not praise the generosity of the one at the ex- 
 pense of the prudence of the other, but we should give 
 to each virtue its just measure of applause. If one girl 
 sings, and another draws, remarkably well, we may 
 show that we are pleased with both agreeable accom- 
 plishments, without bringing them into comparison. 
 Nor is it necessary that we should be in a desperate 
 hurry to balance the separate degrees of praise which we 
 distribute exactly at the same moment, because if chil- 
 dren are sure that the reward of their industry and in- 
 genuity is secured by our justice, they will trust to us, 
 though that reward may be for a few hours delayed. It 
 is only where workmen have no confidence in the in- 
 tegrity or punctuality of their masters, that they are im- 
 patient of any accidental delay in the payment of their 
 wages. 
 
 With the precautions which have been mentioned, 
 we may hope to see children grow up in real friendship 
 together. The whole sum of their pleasure is much in- 
 creased by mutual sympathy. This happy moral truth, 
 upon which so many of our virtues depend, should be 
 impressed upon the mind ; it should be clearly demon- 
 strated to the reason ; it should not be repeated as an a 
 priori, sentimental assertion. 
 
 Those who have observed the sudden, violent, and 
 surprising effects of emulation in public schools, will re- 
 gret the want of this power in the intellectual education 
 of their pupils at home: Even the acquisition of talents 
 and knowledge ought, however, to be but a secondary 
 consideration, subordinate to the general happiness of 
 our pupils. If we could have superior knowledge, upon 
 
 * See Rousseau and Williams, 
 
210 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 condition that we should have a malevolent dispo- 
 sition and an irritable temper, should we, setting every 
 other moral consideration aside, be willing to make the 
 purchase at such a price "? Let any person, desirous to 
 see a striking picture of the effects of scholastic com- 
 petition upon the moral character, look at the life of that 
 wonder of his age, the celebrated Abeillard. As the 
 taste and manners of the present times are so different 
 from those of the age in which he lived, we see, with- 
 out any species of deception, the real value of the learn- 
 ing in which he excelled, and we can judge, both of his 
 acquirements and of his character, without prejudice. 
 We see him goaded on, by rivalship and literary am- 
 bition, to astonishing exertions at one time ; at another, 
 torpid in monkish indolence : at one time, we see him 
 intoxicated with adulation ; at another, listless, de- 
 sponding, abject, incapable of maintaining his own self- 
 approbation without the suffrages of those whom he 
 despised. If his biographer* does him justice, a more 
 selfish, irritable, contemptible, miserable being than the 
 learned Abeillard, could scarcely exist. 
 
 A philosopher,! who, if we might judge of him by 
 the benignity of his writings, was surely of a most 
 amiable and happy temper, has yet left us a melancholy 
 and discouraging history of the unsociable condition of 
 men of superior knowledge and abilities. He supposes 
 that those who have devoted much time to the cultiva- 
 tion of their understandings, have habitually less sym- 
 pathy, or less exercise for their sympathy, than those 
 who live less abstracted from the world ; that, conse- 
 quently, " all their social, and all their public affections, 
 lose their natural warmth and vigour," while their selfish 
 j)assions are cherished and strengthened, being kept in 
 constant play by literary rivalship. It is to be hoped, 
 that there are men of the most extensive learning and 
 genius, now living, who could, from their own experi- 
 ence, assure us that these are obsolete observations, no 
 longer applicable to modern human nature. At all 
 events, we, who refer so nmch to education, are hope- 
 fully of opinion, that education can prevent these evils, 
 
 * Berington. See his Life of Abeillard. 
 
 t Dr. John Gregory. Comparative View of the State and Fac- 
 ulties of Man with those of the Animal World. See vol. ii. ot 
 WorkS; froiu page 100 to 114. 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 211 
 
 ill common with almost all the other evils of life. It 
 would be an error, fatal to all improvement, to believe 
 that the cultivation of the undcrstandins,^ impedes the 
 exercise of the social affections. Obviously, a man 
 who secludes himself from the world, and whose whole 
 life is occupied with abstract studies, cannot enjoy any 
 pleasure from his social affections ; his admiration of 
 the dead is so constant, that he has no time to feel any 
 sympathy with the living. An individual of this rumi- 
 nating species is humorously delineated in Mrs. D'Ar- 
 blay's Camilla. Men who are compelled to unrelenting 
 labour, v/hether by avarice or by literary ambition, are 
 equally to be pitied. They are not models for imita- 
 tion ; they sacrifice their happiness to some strong pas- 
 sion or interest. Without this ascetic abstinence from 
 the domestic and social pleasures of hfe, surely persons 
 may cultivate their understandings, and acquire, even 
 by mixing with their fellow-creatures, a variety of use- 
 ful knowledge. 
 
 An nigenious theory* supposes that the exercise of any 
 of our faculties is always attended with pleasure, which 
 lasts as long as that exercise can be continued M'ithout 
 fatigue. This pleasure, arising from the due exercise 
 of our mental powers, the author of this theory main- 
 tains to be the foundation of our most agreeable senti- 
 ments. If there be any truth in these ideas, of how 
 many agreeable sentiments must a man of sense bo 
 capable! The pleasures of society must to him in- 
 crease in an almost incalculable proportion ; because, 
 in conversation, his faculties can never want subjects 
 on which they may be amply exercised. The dearth 
 of conversation, which everybody may have felt in cer- 
 tain company, is always attended with mournful coun- 
 tenances, and every symptom of ennui. Indeed, with- 
 out the pleasures of conversation, society is reduced to 
 meetings of people, who assemble to eat and drink, to 
 show their fine clothes, to weary and to hate each 
 other. The sympathy of bon vivants is, it must be ac- 
 knowledged, very lively and sincere towards each other ; 
 but this can last only during the hour of dinner, unless they 
 revive, and prolong, by the powers of imagination, the 
 memory of the feast. Some foreign traveller! tells us, 
 
 * Vernet's Theorie des Sentimens Agreables, 
 t See Varieties of Literature, vol. i. 
 
212 TRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 that " every year at Naples, an officer of the poUce 
 goes through the city, attended by a trumpeter, who 
 proclaims in all the squares and crossways how many 
 thousand oxen, calves, lambs, hogs, &c. the Neapolitans 
 have had the honour of eating in the course of the year. 
 The people all listen with extreme attention to this 
 proclamation, and are immoderately delighted at the huge 
 amount." 
 
 A degree, and scarcely one degree, above the brute 
 sympathy of good eaters, is that gregarious propensity 
 which is sometimes honoured with the name of socia- 
 bility. The current sympathy, or appearance of sym- 
 pathy, which is to be found among the idle and frivolous 
 in fashionable life, is wholly unconnected with even 
 the idea of esteem. It is therefore pernicious to all 
 who partake of it ; it excites to no great exertions ; it 
 rewards neither useful nor amiable qualities : on the 
 contrary, it is to be obtained by vice rather than by 
 virtue ; by folly much more readily than by wisdom. 
 It is the mere follower of fashion and of dissipation, 
 and it keeps those in humour and countenance who 
 ought to hear the voice of public reproach, and who 
 might be roused by the fear of disgrace or the feelings 
 of shame, to exertions which should justly entitle them 
 to the approbation and affection of honourable friends. 
 
 Young people who are early in life content with this 
 convivial sympathy, may, in the common phrase, become 
 very good pleasant companions ; but there is little chance 
 that they should ever become any thing more, and there 
 is great danger that they may be led into any degree 
 of folly, extravagance, or vice, to which fashion and 
 the voice of numbers invite. It sometimes happens, 
 that men of superior abilities have such an indiscrim- 
 inate love of applause and sympathy, that they reduce 
 themselves to the standard of all their casual compan- 
 ions, and vary their objects of ambition with the opinion 
 of the silly people with whom they chance to associate. 
 In public life, party spirit becomes the ruling principle 
 of men of this character; in private life, they are ad- 
 dicted to clubs and associations of all sorts, in which 
 the contagion of sympathy has a power which the sober 
 influence of reason seldom ventures to correct. The 
 waste of talents and the total loss of principle to which 
 this indiscriminate love of sympathy leads, should warn 
 us to guard against its influence by early education. 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 213 
 
 The gregarious propensity in childhood should not be 
 indulged without precautions : unless their companions 
 are well educated, we can never be reasonably secure 
 of the conduct or happiness of our pupils : from sym- 
 pathy, they catch all the wishes, tastes, and ideas of 
 those with whom they associate ; and what is still 
 worse, they acquire the dangerous habits of resting 
 upon the support, and of wanting the stimulus of num- 
 bers. It is, surely, far more prudent to let children feel 
 a little ennui, from the want of occupation and of com- 
 pany, than to purchase for them the juvenile pleasures 
 of society at the expense of their future happiness. 
 Childhood, as a part of our existence, ought to have as 
 great a share of happiness as it can enjoy compatibly 
 with the advantage of the other seasons of life. By 
 this principle we should be guided, in all which we 
 allow and in all which we refuse to children ; by this 
 rule, we may avoid unnecessary severity and pernicious 
 indulgence. 
 
 As young people gradually acquire knowledge, they 
 will learn to converse ; and when they have the habits of 
 conversing rationally, they will not desire companions 
 who can only chatter. They will prefer the company 
 of friends, who can sympathize in their occupations, 
 to the presence of ignorant idlers, who can fill up the 
 void of ideas with nonsense and noise. Some people 
 have a notion that the understanding and the heart. 
 are not to be educated at the same time ; but the 
 very reverse of this is, perhaps, true ; neither can be 
 brought to any perfection, unless both are cultivated 
 together. 
 
 We should not, therefore, expect premature virtues. 
 During childhood, but few opportunities occur of exert- 
 ing the virtues which are recommended in books, such 
 as humanity and generosity. 
 
 The humanity of children cannot, perhaps, properly 
 be said to be exercised upon animals ; they are fre- 
 quently extremely fond of animals, but they are not 
 always equable in their fondness ; they sometimes treat 
 their favourites with that caprice which favourites are 
 doomed to experience ; this caprice degenerates into 
 cruelty, if it is resented by the sufferer. We must not 
 depend merely upon the natural feelings of compassion 
 as preservatives against cruelty ; the instinctive feelings 
 of compassion are strong, among uneducated people; 
 
214 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 yet these do not restrain them from acts of cruelty. 
 They take delight, it has often been observed, in all 
 tragical, sanguinary spectacles, because these excite 
 emotion, and relieve them from the listless state in 
 which their days usually pass. It is the same with all 
 persons, in all ranks of life, whose minds are unculti- 
 vated.* Until young people have fixed habits of be- 
 nevolence, and a taste for occupation, perhaps it is not 
 prudent to trust them with the care or protection of 
 animals. Even when they are enthusiastically fond of 
 them, they cannot, by their utmost ingenuity, make 
 the animals so happy in a state of captivity as they 
 would be in a state of liberty. They are apt to insist 
 upon doing animals good against their will, and they are 
 often unjust in the defence of their favourites. A boy 
 of seven years old once knocked down his sister, to 
 prevent her crushing his caterpillar.! 
 
 Children should not be taught to confine their be- 
 nevolence to those animals which are thought beauti- 
 ful ; the fear and disgust which we express at the sight 
 of certain unfortunate animals, which we are pleased 
 to call ugly and shocking, are observed by children, and 
 these associations lead to cruelty. If we do not pre- 
 judice our pupils by foolish exclamations; if they do 
 not, from sympathy, catch our absurd antipathies, their 
 benevolence towards the animal world will not be illib- 
 erally confined to favourite lapdogs and singing-birds. 
 From association, most people think that frogs are ugly 
 
 animals. L , a boy between five and six years 
 
 old, once begged his mother to come out to look at a 
 beautiful animal which he had just found ; she was 
 rather surprised to find that this beautiful creature was 
 a frog. 
 
 If children never see others torment animals, they 
 will not think that cruelty can be an amusement ; but 
 they may be provoked to revenge the pain which is in- 
 flicted upon them ; and therefore we should take care 
 not to put children in situations where they are liable 
 to be hurt or terrified by animals. Could we possibly 
 expect that Gulliver should love the Brobdignagian wasp 
 
 * Can it be true, that an English nobleman, in the 18th century, 
 won a bet by procuring a man to eat a cat ahve ? 
 
 t See Moore's Edward, for tlie Boy and Larks, an excellent story 
 
 for cluklren. 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 215 
 
 that buzzed round his cake, and prevented him from 
 eating his breakfast ? Could we expect that Gulliver 
 should be ever reconciled to the rat against which he 
 was obhged to draw his sword 1 Many animals are, to 
 children, what the wasp and the rat were to Gulliver. 
 Put bodily fear out of the case — it required all uncle 
 Toby's benevolence to bear the buzzing of a gnat while 
 he was eating his dinner. Children, even when they have 
 no cause to be afraid of animals, are sometimes in situa- 
 tions to be provoked by them ; and the nice casuist will 
 find it difficult to do strict justice upon the offended and 
 the offenders. 
 
 October 2, 1796. S , nine years old, took care 
 
 of his brother H 's hotbed for some time, when 
 
 H' was absent from home. He was extremely 
 
 anxious about his charge ; he took one of his sisters to 
 look at the hotbed, showed her a hole where the mice 
 came in, and expressed great hatred against the whole 
 race. He the same day asked his mother for a bait for 
 the mousetrap ; his mother refused to give him one, 
 telling him that she did not wish he should learn to kill 
 animals. How good-nature sometimes leads to the 
 opposite feeling! S 's love for his brothers cu- 
 cumbers made him imagine and compass the death of 
 the mice. Children should be protected against ani- 
 mals which we do not wish that they should hate : if 
 cats scratch them, and dogs bite them, and mice devour 
 the fruits of their industry, children must consider these 
 animals as enemies ; they cannot love them, and they 
 may learn the habit of revenge, from being exposed to 
 their insults and depredations. Pythagoras himself 
 would have insisted upon his exclusive right to the 
 vegetables on which he was to subsist, especially if he 
 had raised them by his own care and industry. Buf- 
 fon,* notwithstanding all his benevolent philosophy, can 
 scarcely speak with patience of his enemies, the field- 
 mice ; which, when he was trying experiments upon the 
 culture of forest trees, tormented him perpetually by 
 their insatiable love of acorns. " I was terrified,'''' says 
 he, " at the discovery of half a bushel, and often a whole 
 bushel, of acorns in each of the holes inhabited by these 
 little animals ; they had collected these acorns for their 
 winter provision." The philosopher gave orders im- 
 
 * Mem. de I'Acad. R. for the vear 1742, p. 332. 
 
216 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 mediately for the erection of a great number of traps 
 and snares, baited with broiled nuts ; in less than three 
 weeks, nearly three hundred fieldmice were killed or 
 taken prisoners. Mankind are obliged to carry on a 
 defensive war with the animal world. " Eat or be eaten," 
 says Doctor Darwin, " is the great law of nature." It is 
 fortunate for us that there are butchers by profession 
 in the world, and rat-catchers and cats, otherwise our 
 habits of benevolence and sympathy would be utterly 
 destroyed. Children, though they must perceive the 
 necessity for destroying certain animals, need not be 
 themselves executioners ; they should not conquer the 
 natural repugnance to the sight of the struggles of pain 
 and the convulsions of death; their aversion to being 
 the cause of pain should be preserved, both by principle 
 and habit. 'I'hose who have not been habituated to the 
 bloody form of cruelty, can never fix their eye upon her 
 without shuddering ; even those to whom she may- 
 have, in some instances, been early familiarized, recoil 
 from her appearance in any shape to which they have 
 not been accustomed. At one of the magnificent shows 
 with which Pompey* entertained the Roman people/or 
 five days successively, the populace enjoyed the death 
 of wild beasts : five hundred lions were killed ; but, on 
 the last day, when twenty elephants were put to death, 
 the people, unused to the sight, and moved by the la- 
 mentable bowlings of these animals, were seized with 
 sudden compassion ; they execrated Pompey himself 
 for being the author of so much cruelty. 
 
 Charity for the poor is often inculcated in books for 
 children ; but how is this virtue to be actually brougiit 
 into practice in childhood ? Unless proper objects of 
 charity are selected by the parents, children have no 
 opportunities of discovering them ; they have not suffi- 
 cient knowledge of the world to distinguish truth from 
 falsehood in the comphunts of the distressed ; nor have 
 they sufficiently enlarged views to discern the best 
 means of doing good to their fellow-creatures. They 
 may give away money to the poor, but they do not al- 
 ways feel the value of what they give ; they give coun- 
 ters : supplied with all the necessaries and luxuries of 
 life, they have no use for money ; they feel no priva- 
 tion ; they make no sacrifice in giving money away, or, 
 
 * See Middleton's Life of Cicero, vol. i. p. 474, 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 217 
 
 at least, none worthy to be extolled as heroic. When 
 children grow up, they learn the value of money ; their 
 generosity will then cost them rather more effort, and 
 yet can be rewarded only with the same expressions 
 of gratitude, with the same blessings from the beggar, 
 or the same applause from the spectator. 
 
 Let us put charity out of the question, and suppose 
 that the generosity of children is displayed in making 
 presents to their companions, still there are difficulties. 
 These presents are usually baubles, which at the best 
 can encourage only a frivolous taste. But we must 
 further consider, that even generous children are apt to 
 expect generosity equal to their own from their com- 
 panions; then come tacit or explicit comparisons of the 
 value or elegance of their respective gifts ; the difficult 
 rules of exchange and barter are to be learned ; and 
 nice calculations of Tare and Tret are entered into by 
 the repentant borrowers and lenders. A sentimental, 
 too often ends in a commercial intercourse ; and those 
 who begin with the most munificent dispositions, some- 
 times end with selfish discontent, low cunning, or dis- 
 gusting ostentation. Whoever has carefully attended 
 to young makers of presents and makers of bargains, 
 will not think this account of them much exaggerated. 
 
 " Then what is to be done ] How are the social affec- 
 tions to be developed ^ How is the sensibility of chil- 
 dren to be tried T How is the young heart to display 
 its most amiable feelings ]" a sentimental preceptress 
 will impatiently inquire. 
 
 The amiable feelings of the heart need not be dis- 
 played ; they may be sufficiently exercised without the 
 stimulus either of our eloquence or our applause. In 
 Madame de Silleri's account of the education of the 
 children of the Duke of Orleans, there appears rather 
 too much sentimental artifice and management. When 
 the Dutchess of Orleans was ill, the children were in- 
 structed to write " charming notes" from day to day, 
 and from hour to hour, to inquire how she did. Once 
 when a servant was going from St. Leu to Paris, 
 Madame de Silleri asked her pupils if they had any 
 commissions ; the little Duke de Chartres said, yes, 
 and gave a message about a birdcage, but he did not 
 recollect to write to his mother, till somebody whis- 
 pered to him that he had forgotten it. Madame de Sil- 
 leri calls this childish forgetfulness a "heinous offence ;'' 
 K 
 
218 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 but was it not very natural, that the boy should think 
 of his birdcage ] and what mother would wish that her 
 children should have it put in their head to inquire after 
 her health in the complimentary style 1 Another time 
 Madame de Silleri is displeased with her pupils, because 
 they did not show sufficient sympathy and concern for 
 her when she had a headache or sore throat. The exact 
 number of messages which, consistently with the strict 
 duties of friendship, they ought to have sent, are upon 
 another occasion prescribed. 
 
 " I had yesterday afternoon a violent attack of the 
 cholic, and you discovered the greatest sensibility. By 
 the journal of M. le Brun, I find it was the Duke de 
 Montpensier who thought this morning of writing to 
 inquire how I did. You left me yesterday in a very 
 calm state, and there was no reason for anxiety ; but, 
 consistently with the strict duties of friendship, you 
 ought to have given orders before you went to bed, for 
 inquiries to be made at eight o'clock in the morning, to 
 know whether I had had any return of my complaint 
 during the night ; and you should again have sent at 
 ten, to learn from myself, the instant I awoke, the exact 
 state of my health. Such are the benevolent and ten- 
 der cares which a lively and sincere friendship dictates. 
 You must accustom yourselves to the observance of 
 them, if you wish to be beloved." 
 
 Another day, Madame de Silleri told the Duke de 
 Chartres that he had a very idiotic appearance, because, 
 when he went to see his mother, his attention was 
 taken up by two paroquets which happened to be in 
 the room. All these reproaches and documents could 
 not, we should apprehend, tend to increase the real sen- 
 sibility and affection of children. Gratitude is one of 
 the most certain, but one of the latest, rewards, which 
 preceptors and parents should expect from their pupils. 
 Those who are too impatient to wait for the gradual 
 development of the affections, will obtain from their 
 children, instead of warm, genuine, enlightened grati- 
 tude, nothing but the expression of cold, constrained, 
 stupid hypocrisy. During the process of education, a 
 child cannot perceive its ultimate end; how can he 
 judge whether the means employed by his parents are 
 well adapted to effect their purposes 1 Moments of re- 
 straint and of privation, or perhaps of positive pain, must 
 be endured by children under the mildest system of edu- 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILIIY. 219 
 
 cation ; they must, therefore, perceive, tliat their pa- 
 rents are the immediate cause of some evil to them ; 
 the remote good is beyond their view. And can we 
 expect from an infant the systematic resignation Oi 
 an optimist ? Belief upon trust is very different from 
 that which arises from experience ; and no one, who 
 understands the human heart, will expect incompatible 
 feelings . in the mind of a child, the feeling of present 
 pain is incompatible with gratitude. Mrs. Macauley 
 mentions a striking instance of extorted gratitude. A 
 poor child who had been taught to return thanks for 
 every thing, had a bitter medicine given to her ; when 
 she had drank it, she courtesied and said, "Thank you 
 for my good stuff*." There was a mistake in the medi- 
 cine, and the child died the next morning. 
 
 Children who are not sentimentally educated, often 
 offend by their simplicity, and frequently disgust people 
 of impatient feelings by their apparent indifference to 
 things which are expected to touch their sensibility. 
 Let us be content with nature, or rather let us never 
 exchange simplicity for affectation. Nothing hurts 
 young people more than to be watched continually about 
 their feehngs, to have their countenances scrutiniz/Cd, 
 and the degrees of their sensibility measured by the 
 surveying eye of the unmerciful spectator. Under the 
 constraint of such examinations, they can think of 
 nothing, but that they are looked at, and feel nothing but 
 shame or apprehension : they are afraid to lay their 
 mindt! open, lest they should be convicted of some de- 
 ficiency of feeling. On the contrary, children who are 
 not in dread of this sentimental inquisition, speak their 
 minds, the truth, and the whole truth, without effort or 
 disguise: they lay open their hearts, and tell their 
 thoughts as they arise, with simplicity that wouM not 
 fear to enter even " The palace of Truth."* 
 
 A little girl, Ho , who was not quite four years 
 
 old, asked her mother to give her a plaything ; one 
 of her sisters had just before asked for the same thing. 
 " I cannot give it to you both," said the mother. 
 
 Ho . No, but I wish you to give it to me, and not 
 
 to E . 
 
 Mother. Don't you wish your sister to have what she 
 wants \ 
 
 * See Le Palais de la Verite. — Madame de Geniis Veill^e? (b.i 
 Chateau. 
 
 K 2 
 
220 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Ho . Mother, if I say that I don't wish so, will 
 
 you give it to me ] 
 
 Perhaps this naivete might have displeased some scru- 
 pulous admirers of politeness, who could not discover 
 in it symptoms of that independent simplicity of charac- 
 ter, for which the child who made this speech was dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 " Do you always love me V said a mother to her son, 
 who was about four years old. 
 
 " Always," said the child, " except when I am asleep." 
 
 Mother. " And why do you not love me when you are 
 asleep V 
 
 Son. " Because I do not think of you then." 
 
 This sensible answer showed that the boy reflected 
 accurately upon his own feelings, and a judicious pa- 
 rent ihust consequently have a sober certainty of his 
 affection. The thoughtless caresses of children who 
 are never accustomed to reason, are lavished alike upon 
 strangers and friends, and their fondness of to-day 
 may, without any reasonable cause, become aversion by 
 to-morrow. 
 
 Children are often asked to tell which of their friends 
 they love the best, but they are seldom required to as- 
 sign any reason for their choice. It is not prudent to 
 question them frequently about their own feelings ; but 
 whenever they express any decided preference, we 
 should endeavour to lead, not to drive them to reflect 
 upon the reasons for their aff"ection. They will proba- 
 bly at first mention some particular instance of kind- 
 ness which thej' have lately received from the person 
 whom they prefer. " I like such a person because he 
 mended my top." — " I like such another because he took 
 me out to walk with him and let me gather flowers." 
 By degrees we may teach children to generalize their 
 ideas, and to perceive that they like people for being 
 either useful or agreeable. 
 
 The desire to return kindness by kindness arises very 
 early in the mind ; and the hope of conciliating the 
 good-will of the powerful beings by whom they are sur- 
 rounded, is one of the first wishes that appears in the 
 minds of intelligent and aff'ectionate children. From 
 this sense of mutual dependance the first principles of 
 social intercourse are deduced ; and we may render our 
 pupils either mean sycophants, or useful and honourable 
 members of society, by the methods which we use to 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 221 
 
 direct their first efforts to please. It should be our ob- 
 ject to convince them, that the exchange of mutual 
 good offices contributes to happiness ; and while we 
 connect the desire to assist others with the perception 
 of the beneficial consequences that eventually arise to 
 themselves, we may be certain that children will never 
 become blindly selfish or idly sentimental. We cannot 
 help admiring the simplicity, strength of mind, and good 
 sense, of a little girl of four years old, who, when she 
 was put into a stagecoach with a number of strangers, 
 looked round upon them all, and, after a few minutes' 
 silence, addressed them, with the imperfect articulation 
 of infancy, in the following words : 
 
 " If you'll be good to me, I'll be good to you." 
 
 While we were writing upon sympathy and sensi- 
 bility, we met with the following apposite passage : 
 
 " In 1765, 1 was," says M. de St. Pierre, " at Dresden, 
 at a play acted at court; it was the Pere de Famille. 
 The electoress came in with one of her daughters, who 
 might be about five or six years old. An officer of the 
 Saxon guards, who came with me to the play, whis- 
 pered, ' That child will interest you as much as the 
 play.' As soon as she was seated, she placed both her 
 hands on the front of the box, fixed her eyes upon the 
 stage, and continued with her mouth open, all attention 
 to the motions of the actors. It was truly touching to 
 see their diff"erent passions painted on her face as in a 
 glass. There appeared in her countenance successively, 
 anxiety, surprise, melancholy, and grief; at length, the 
 interest increasing in every scene, tears began to flow, 
 which soon ran in abundance down her little cheeks ; 
 then came agitation, sighs, and loud sobs ; at last they 
 were obliged to carry her out of the box, lest she should 
 choke herself with crying. My next neighbour told 
 me, that every time that this young princess came to a 
 pathetic play, she was obliged to leave the house before 
 the catastrophe." 
 
 '* I have seen," continues M. de St. Pierre, " instances 
 of sensibility still more touching among the children of 
 the common people, because the emotion was not here 
 produced by any theatrical effect. As I was walking 
 some years ago in the Pre St. Gervais, at the beginning 
 of winter, I saw a poor woman lying on the ground, 
 busied in weeding a bed of sorrel ; near her was a little 
 girl of six years old at the utmost, standing motionless, 
 
222 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 and all purple with cold. I addressed myself to this 
 woman, who appeared to be ill, and I asked her what 
 was the matter with her. Sir, said she, for these three 
 months I have suffered terribly from the rheumatism, 
 but my illness troubles me less than this child ; she 
 never will leave me ; if I say to her, Thou art quite 
 frozen, go and warm thyself in the house, she answers 
 me, Alas ! mamma, if 1 leave you, you'll certainly fall ill 
 again !" 
 
 " Another time, being at Marly, I went to see, in the 
 groves of that magnificent park, that charming group of 
 children who are feeding with vine leaves and grapes a 
 goat which seems to be playing with them. Near this 
 spot is an open summer-house, where Louis XV., on 
 iine days, used sometimes to take refreshment. As it 
 was showery weather, I went to take shelter for a few- 
 minutes. I found there three children, who were much 
 more interesting than children of marble. They were 
 two little girls, very pretty, and very busily employed 
 in picking up, all round the summer-house, dry sticks, 
 which they put into a sort of wallet which was lying 
 upon the king's table, while a little ill-clothed, thin boy, 
 was devouring a bit of bread in one corner of the room. 
 I asked the tallest of the children, who appeared to be 
 between eight and nine years old, what she meant to do 
 with the wood which she was gathering together witji 
 so much eagerness. She answered, ' Sir, you see that 
 little boy, he is very unhappy. He has a mother-in-law' 
 (Why always a mother-in-laiv ?) ' He has a mother-in- 
 law, who sends him all day long to look for wood ; 
 when he does not bring any home, he is beaten ; when 
 he has got any,-the Swiss who stands at the entrance 
 of the park takes it all away from him, and keeps it for 
 himself. The boy is almost starved with hunger, and 
 we have given him our breakfast.' After having said 
 tliese words, she and her companion finished filling the 
 little wallet, packed it upon the boy's shoulders, and 
 r.in before their unfortunate friend, to see that he might 
 pass in safety." 
 
 We have read these three anecdotes to several chil- 
 dren, and have found that the active friends of the little 
 v/ood-cutter were the most admired. It is probable, 
 that among children who have been much praised for 
 expressions of sensibility, tiie young lady who wept s(» 
 bitterly at the playhouse would be preferred ; affection- 
 
SYMPATHY AND SENSIBILITY. 223 
 
 ate children will like the little girl who stood, purple 
 with cold, beside her sick mother ; but if they have been 
 well educated, they will probably express some surprise 
 at her motionless attitude; they will ask why she did 
 not try to help her mother to weed the bed of sorrel. 
 
 It requires much skill and delicacy in our conduct 
 towards children, to preserve a proper medium between 
 the indulging and the repressing of their sensibility. 
 We are cruel towards them when we suspect their gen- 
 uine expressions of affection ; nothing hurts the temper 
 of a generous child more than this species of injustice. 
 Receive his expressions of kindness and gratitude with 
 cold reserve, or a look that implies a doubt of his truth, 
 and you give him so much pain, that you not only re- 
 press, but destroy his affectionate feelings. On the con- 
 trary, if you appear touched and delighted by his ca- 
 resses, from the hope of pleasing, he will be naturally 
 inclined to repeat such demonstrations of sensibility : 
 this repetition should be gently discouraged, lest it 
 should lead to affectation. At the same time, though 
 we take this precaution, we should consider, that chil- 
 dren are not early sensible that affectation is either 
 ridiculous or disgusting ; they are not conscious of 
 doing any thing wrong by repeating what they have 
 once perceived to be agreeable in their own, or in the 
 manners of others. They frequently imitate, without 
 any idea that imitation is displeasing; their object, as 
 Locke observes, is to please by affectation; they only 
 mistake the means: we should rectify this mistake 
 without treating it as a crime. 
 
 A little girl of five years stood beside her mother, ob- 
 serving the distribution of a dish of strawberries, the 
 first strawberries of the year; and seeing a number of 
 people busily helping and being helped to cream and 
 sugar, said, in a low voice, not meant to attract atten- 
 tion, " I like to see people helping one another." Had 
 the child, at this instant, been praised for this natural 
 expression of sympathy, the pleasure of praise would 
 have been immediately substituted in her mind, instead 
 of the feeling of benevolence, which was in itself suffi- 
 ciently agreeable ; and, perhaps, from a desire to please, 
 she would, upon the next favourable occasion, have re- 
 peated the same sentiment; this we should immediately 
 call affectation ; but how could the child foresee, that 
 the repetition of .what we formerly liked would be of- 
 
224 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 fensive? We should not first extol sympathy, and then 
 disdain affectation ; our encomiums frequently produce 
 the faults by which we are disgusted. Sensibihty and 
 sympathy, when they have proper objects and full em- 
 ployment, do not look for applause ; they are sufficiently 
 happy in their own enjoyments. Those who have at- 
 tempted to teach children must have observed, that 
 sympathy is immediately connected with all the imita- 
 tive arts ; the nature of this connexion, more especially 
 in poetry and painting, has been pointed out with inge- 
 nuity and eloquence by those* whose excellence in 
 these arts entitles their theories to our prudent attention. 
 We shall not attempt to repeat ; we refer to their obser- 
 vations. Sufficient occupation for sympathy may be 
 found by cultivating the talents of young people. 
 
 Without repeating here what has been said in many 
 other places, it may be necessary to remind all who are 
 concerned in female education, that peculiar caution is 
 necessary to manage female sensibility : to make, what 
 is called the heart, a source of permanent pleasure, we 
 must cultivate the reasoning powers at the same time 
 that we repress the enthusiasm o{ fine feeling. Women, 
 from their situation and duties in society, are called 
 upon rather for the daily exercise of quiet domestic vir- 
 tues, than for those splendid acts of generosity, or those 
 exaggerated expressions of tenderness, which are the 
 characteristics of heroines in romance. Sentimental 
 authors, who paint with enchanting colours all the 
 graces and all the virtues in happy union, teach us to 
 expect that this union should be indissoluble. After- 
 ward, from the natural influence of association, we ex- 
 pect in real life to meet with virtue when we see grace ; 
 and we are disappointed, almost disgusted, when we 
 find virtue unadorned. This false association has a 
 double effect upon the conduct of women ; it prepares 
 them to be pleased, and it excites them to endeavour to 
 please by adventitious charms, rather than by those 
 qualities which merit esteem. Women who have been 
 much addicted to common novel-reading, are always 
 acting in imitation of some Jemima, or Almeria, who 
 never existed . and tliey perpetually mistake plain Will- 
 iam and Thomas for " My Beverly /" They have an- 
 
 '- Sir .Toshua Rejniolds's Discourses. Dr. Darwin's Critical Inter- 
 ludes in the Botanic Garden, and his chapter on Sympathy and Imi- 
 tation in Zoonomia. 
 
VANITY, PRIDE, AND AMBITION. 225 
 
 Other peculiar misfortune ; they require continual great 
 emotions to keep them in tolerable humour with them- 
 selves ; they must have tears in their eyes, or they are 
 apprehensive that their hearts are growing- hard. They 
 have accustomed themselves to such violent stimulus, 
 that they cannot endure the languor to which they are 
 subject in the intervals of delirium. Pink appears pale 
 to the eye that is used to scarlet; and common food is 
 insipid to the taste which has been vitiated by the high 
 seasonings of art. 
 
 A celebrated French actress, in the wane of her 
 charms, and who, for that reason, began to feel weary 
 of the world, exclaimed, while she was recounting what 
 she had suffered from a faithless lover, " Ah ! c'etoit le 
 bon temps, j'etois bien malheureuse !"* 
 
 The happy age in which women can, with any grace 
 or effect, be romantically wretched, is, even with the 
 beautiful, but a short season of felicity. The sentimen- 
 tal sorrows of any female mourner, of more than thirty 
 years standing, command but little sympathy and less 
 admiration ; and what other consolations are suited to 
 sentimental sorrows ! 
 
 Women who cultivate their reasoning powers, and 
 who acquire tastes for science and literature, find suffi- 
 cient variety in life, and do not require the stimulus of 
 dissipation or of romance. Their sympathy and sensi- 
 bihty are engrossed by proper objects, and connected 
 with habits of useful exertion ; they usually feel the 
 affection which others profess, and actually enjoy the 
 happiness which others describe. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ON VANITY, PRIDE, AND AMBITION. 
 
 We shall not weary the reader by any commonplace 
 declamations upon these moral topics. No great subt- 
 lety of distinction is requisite to mark the differences 
 between vanity and pride, since those differences have 
 
 ^ D'Alembert. 
 K3 
 
226 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 been pointed out by every moralist who has hoped to 
 please mankind by an accurate delineation of the fail- 
 ings of human nature. ^\ hatever distinctions exist, or 
 may be supposed to exist, between the characters in 
 which pride or vanity predominates, it will readily be 
 allowed that there is one thing in which they both agree 
 — they both receive pleasure from the approbation of 
 others, and from their own. We are disgusted with the 
 vain man, when he intemperately indulges in praise of 
 himself, Iiowever justly he may be entitled to that praise, 
 because he offends against those manners which we 
 JTiave been accustomed to think polite, and he claims 
 from us a greater portion of sympathy than we can pos- 
 sibly afford to give him. We are not, however, pleased 
 by the negligence with which the proud man treats us ; 
 we do not like to see that he can exist in independent 
 happiness, satisfied with a cool internal sense of his own 
 merits ; he loses our sympathy, because he does not 
 j.ppear to value it. 
 
 ' if we could give our pupils exactly the character we 
 wish, what degrees of vanity and pride should we desire 
 ■;i>em to have, and how sliould we regulate these passions 1 
 fthould we not desire that their ambition to excel might 
 i'€ sufficient to produce the greatest possible exertions, 
 directed to the best possible objects ; that their opinion 
 of themselves should be strictly just, and should never 
 t*e expressed in such a manner as to offend against pro- 
 priety, or so as to forfeit the sympathy of mankind 1 
 As to the degree of pleasure which they should feel 
 from their secret reflections upon their own meritorious 
 conduct, we should certainly desire this to be as lasting 
 and as exquisite as possible. A considerable portion 
 of the happiness of life arises from the sense of self- 
 approbation ; we should, therefore, secure this gratifica- 
 tion in its utmost perfection. We must observe, that 
 TiOwever independent the proud man imagines himself 
 to be of the opinions of all around him, he must form his 
 judgment of his own merits from some standard of com- 
 uarison, by some laws drawn from observation of what 
 mankind in general, or those whom he particularly es- 
 teems, think wise or amiable. He nmst begin then in 
 the same manner with the vain man, whom he despises, 
 by collecting the suffrages of others ; if he selects, with 
 perfect wisdom, the opinions which are most just, he 
 forms his character upon excellent principles ; and the 
 
VANITY, PRIDE, AND AMBITION. 227 
 
 more steadily he abides by his first views, the more he 
 commands and obtains respect. But if, unfortunatel}-, 
 he makes a mistake at first, his obstinacy in error is not 
 to be easily corrected, for he is not aff'ected by the gen- 
 eral voice of disapprobation, nor by the partial loss of the 
 common pleasures of sympathy. The vain man, on the 
 contrary, is in danger, let him form his first notions of 
 right and wrong ever so justl3^ of changing them when 
 he happens to be in society with any persons who do 
 not agree with him in their moral opinions, or who re- 
 fuse him that applause which supports his own feeble 
 self-approbation. We nmst, in education, endeavour to 
 guard against these opposite dangers ; we must enlighten 
 the understanding, to give our pupils the power of form- 
 ing their rules of conduct rightly, and we must give them 
 sufficient strength of mind to abide by the principles 
 which they have formed. When we first praise chil- 
 dren, we must be careful to associate pleasure with 
 those things which are really deserving of approbation. 
 If we praise them for beauty, or for any happy expres- 
 sions which entertain us, but which entertain us merely 
 as the sprightly nonsense of childhood, we create vanity 
 in the minds of our pupils ; we give tliem false ideas 
 of merit; and, if we excite them to exertions, they are 
 not exertions directed to any valuable objects. Praise 
 is a strong stimulus to industry if it be properly man- 
 aged ; but if we give it in too large and lavish quantities 
 early in life, we shall soon find that it loses its effect, 
 and yet that the patient languishes for want of the ex- 
 citation which custom has rendered almost essential to 
 his existence. We say the patieyit, for this mental lan- 
 guor may be considered entirely as a disease. For its 
 cure see the second volume of Zoonomia, under the ar- 
 ticle Vanity. 
 
 Children who are habituated to the daily and hourly 
 food of praise, continually require this sustenance un- 
 less they are attended to ; but we may gradually break 
 bad habits. It is said that some animals can supply 
 themselves at a single draught with what will quench 
 their thirst for many days. The human animal may, 
 perhaps, by education, be taught similar foresight 
 and abstinence in the management of his thirst for 
 flattery. Young people who live with j)ersons that 
 seldom bestow praise, do not expect that stimulus ; and 
 they are content if they discover by certain signs, either 
 
228 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 in the countenance, manner, or tone of voice, of those 
 whom they wish to please, that they are tolerably well 
 satisfied. It is of little consequence by what language 
 approbation is conveyed, whether by w^ords, or looks, or 
 by that silence which speaks with so much eloquence ; 
 but it is of great importance that our pupils should set a 
 high value upon the expressions of our approbation. 
 They will value it in proportion to their esteem and 
 their affection for us ; we include in the word esteem^ a 
 belief in our justice and in our discernment. Expres- 
 sions of affection, associated with praise, not only in- 
 crease the pleasure, but they alter the nature of that 
 pleasure ; and if they gratify vanity, they at the same 
 time excite some of the best feelings of the heart. The 
 selfishness of vanity is corrected by this association ; 
 and the two pleasures of sympathy and self-compla- 
 cency should never, when we can avoid it, be sepa- 
 rated. 
 
 Children who are well educated, and who have ac- 
 quired an habitual desire for the approbation of their 
 friends, may continue absolutely indifferent to the praise 
 of strangers, or of common acquaintance ; nor is it prob- 
 able that this indifference should suddenly be conquered, 
 because the greatest part of the pleasure of praise in 
 their mind depends upon the esteem and affection which 
 they feel for the persons by whom it is bestowed. In- 
 stead of desiring that our pupils should entirely repress, 
 in the company of their own fatnily, the pleasure which 
 they feel from the praise that is given to them by their 
 friends, we should rather indulge them in this natural 
 expansion of mind ; we should rather permit their youth- 
 ful vanity to display itself openly to those whom they 
 most love and esteem, than drive them, by unreasonable 
 severity, and a cold refusal of sympathy, into the so- 
 ciety of less rigid observers. Those who have an aver- 
 sion to vanity will not easily bear with its uncultivated 
 intemperance of tongue ; but they should consider that 
 much of what disgusts them is owing to the simplicity 
 of childhood, which must be allowed time to learn that 
 respect for the feelings of others which teaches us to 
 restrain our own : but we must not be in haste to re- 
 strain, lest we teach hypocrisy instead of strength of 
 mind or real humility. If we expect that children 
 .should excel, and should not know that they excel, we 
 expect impossibilities ; we expect, at the same time, in- 
 
VANITY, PRIDE, AND AMBITION. 229 
 
 telligence and stupidity. If we desire that they should 
 be excited by praise, and that, at the same time, they 
 should feel no pleasure in the applause which they have 
 earned, we desire things that are incompatible. If we 
 encourage children to be frank and sincere, and yet, at 
 the same time, reprove them whenever they naturally 
 express their opinions of themselves, or the pleasurable 
 feelings of self-approbation, we shall counteract our 
 own wishes. Instead of hastily blaming children for 
 the sincere and simple expression of their self-compla- 
 cency, or of their desire for the approbation of others, 
 we should gradually point out to them the truth — that 
 those who refrain from that display of their own per- 
 fections which we call vanity, in fact are well repaid for 
 the constraint which they put upon themselves by the 
 superior degree of respect and sympathy which they 
 obtain ; that vain people effectually counteract their own 
 wishes, and meet with contempt instead of admiration. 
 By appealing constantly, when we praise, to the judg- 
 ment of the pupils themselves, we shall at once teach 
 them the habit of rejudging flattery, and substitute, by 
 insensible degrees, patient, steady confidence in them- 
 selves, for the wavering, weak impatience of vanity. 
 In proportion as any one's confidence in himself in- 
 creases, his anxiety for the applause of others dimin- 
 ishes : people are very seldom vain of any accomplish- 
 ments in which they obviously excel, but they frequently 
 continue to be vain of those which are doubtful. Where 
 mankind have not confirmed their own judgment, they 
 are restless, and continually aim either at convincing 
 others or themselves that they are in the right. Ho- 
 garth, who invented a new and original manner of satir- 
 ising the follies of mankind, was not vain of his talent, 
 but was extremely vain of his historical paintings, which 
 were indifferent performances. Men of acknowledged 
 literary talents are seldom fond of amateurs ; but if they 
 are but half satisfied of their own superiority, they col- 
 lect the tribute of applause with avidity, and without 
 discrimination or delicacy. V^oltaire has been reproached 
 with treating strangers rudely who went to Ferney to 
 see and admire a philosopher as a prodigy. Voltaire 
 valued his time more than he did this vulgar admiration; 
 his visiters, whose understanding had not gone through 
 exactly the same process, — who had not, probably, been 
 satisfied with public applause, and who set, perhaps, a 
 
230 PRACTICAL KDUCATION. 
 
 considerable value upon their own praise, could not 
 comprehend this appearance of indifference to admira- 
 tion in Voltaire, especially when it was well known that 
 he was not insensible of fame. He was, at an advanced 
 age, exquisitely anxious about the fate of one of his 
 tragedies ; and a public coronation at the theatre at 
 Paris had power to inebriate him at eighty-four. Those 
 who have exhausted the stimulus of wine may yet be 
 intoxicated by opium. The voice of numbers appears to 
 be sometimes necessary to give delight to those who 
 have been fatigued with the praise of individuals : but 
 this taste for acclamation is extremely dangerous. A 
 multitude of good judges seldom meet together. 
 
 By a slight difference in their manner of reasoning, 
 two men of abilities, who set out with the same desire 
 for fame, may acquire different habits of pride or of van- 
 it)'' ; the one may value the number, the other may ap- 
 preciate the judgment of his admirers. There is some- 
 thing not only more wise, but more elevated, in this 
 latter species of select triumph ; the noise is jiot so 
 great; the music is better. " If 1 listened to the music 
 of praise," says an historian, who obviously was not in- 
 sensible to its charms, " I was more seriously satisfied 
 with the approbation of my judges. The candour of 
 Dr. Robertson embraced his disciple. A letter from Mr. 
 Hume overpaid the labour of ten years."* Surely no 
 one can be displeased with this last generous exjjres- 
 sion of enthusiasm ; we are not so well satisfied with 
 Buffon, when he ostentatiously displays the epistles of a 
 prince and an empress. | 
 
 Perhaps, by pointing out at proper opportunities the 
 difference in our feelings with respect to vulgar and re- 
 fined vanity, we might make a useful impression upon 
 those who have yet their habits to form. The conver- 
 sion of vanity into pride is not so difficult a process as 
 those, who have not analyzed both, might, from the 
 striking difference of their appearance, imagine. By 
 the opposite tendencies of education, opposite charac- 
 ters from the same original dispositions are produced. 
 Cicero, had he been early taught to despise the applause 
 
 * Gibbon. Meinoiis of his T.iff and Writinc^s. — Perhaps Gibbon 
 had this excello*)t lino of Mrs. Barbaulds in his nieaiorj' ; ^ 
 " And i)ay a Hfe of hardships with a line." 
 t See Peltier's state of Pans in the years 1795 and 1796. 
 
VANITY, PRIDE, AND AMBITION. 231 
 
 of the multitude, would have turned away like the proud 
 philosopher, who asked his friends what absurdity he 
 had uttered, when he heard the populace loud in accla- 
 mations of his speech ; and the cynic whose vanity was 
 seen through the holes of his cloak, might, perhaps, 
 by a slight difference in his education, have been ren- 
 dered ambitious of the Macedonian purple. 
 
 In attempting to convert vanity into pride, we must 
 begin by exercising the vain patient in forbearance of 
 present pleasure ; it is not enough to ccnvince his un- 
 derstandmg that the advantages of proud humility are 
 great ; he may be perfectly sensible of this, and may 
 yet have so little command over himself, that his loqua- 
 cious vanity may get the better, from hour to hour, of 
 his better judgment. Habits are not to be instantane- 
 ously conquered by reason ; if we do not keep this fact 
 in our remembrance, we shall be frequently disappointed 
 in education; and we shall, perhaps, end by thinking 
 that reason can do nothing, if*we begin by thmking that 
 she can do every thing. We must not expect that a 
 vain child should suddenly break and forget all his past 
 associations; but we may, by a little early attention, 
 prevent much of the trouble of curing, or converting, 
 the disease of vanity. 
 
 When children first begin to learn accomplishments, 
 or to apply themselves to literature, those who instruct 
 are apt to encourage them with too large a portion of 
 praise : the smallest quantity of stimulus that can produce 
 the exertion we desire, shovld be used ; if we use more, we 
 waste our power, and injure our pupil. As soon as 
 habit has made any exertion familiar, and consequently 
 easy, we may withdraw the original excitation, and the 
 exertion will still continue. In learning, for instance, 
 a new language, at first, while tlie pupil is in the midst 
 of the difficulties of regular and irregular verbs, and 
 when, in translation, a dictionary is wanted at everjr 
 moment, the occupation itself cannot be very agreea- 
 ble ; but we are excited by the hope that our labour will 
 every day diminish, and that we shall at last enjoy the 
 entertainment of reading useful and agreeable books. 
 Children, who have not learned by experience the pleas- 
 ures of hterature, cannot feel this hope as strongly as 
 we do ; we, therefore, excite them by praise ; but by 
 degrees they begin to feel the pleasure of success and 
 occupation; when these are felt, we may and ought to 
 
232 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 withdraw the unnecessary excitements of praise. If 
 we continue, we mislead the child's mind ; and, while we 
 deprive him of his natural reward, we give him a facti- 
 tious taste. When any moral habit is to be acquired, 
 or when we wish that our pupil should cure himself of 
 any fault, we must employ at first strong excitement, 
 and reward with warmth and eloquence of approbation ; 
 when the fault is conquered, when the virtue is acquired, 
 the extraordinary excitement should be withdrawn, and 
 all this should not be done with an air of mystery and 
 artifice ; the child should know all that we do, and why 
 we do it ; the sooner he learns how his own nund is 
 managed, the better — the sooner he will assist in his 
 own education. 
 
 Everybody must have observed, that languor of mind 
 succeeds to the intoxication of vanity ; if we can avoid 
 the intoxication, we shall avoid the languor. Common 
 sayings often imply those sensible observations which 
 philosophers, when they theorize only, express in other 
 words. We frequently hear it said to a child, " Praise 
 spoils you ; my praise did you harm ; you can't bear 
 praise well ; you grow conceited ; you become idle ; you 
 are good for nothing, because you have been too much 
 flattered." All these expressions show that the conse- 
 quences of over-stimulating the mind by praise have 
 been vaguely taken notice of in education ; but no gen- 
 eral rules have been deduced from these observations. 
 With children of different habits and temperaments, the 
 same degree of excitement acts differently, so that it is 
 scarcely possible to fix upon any positive quantity fit 
 for all dispositions — the quantity must be relative ; but 
 we may, perhaps, fix upon a criterion by which, in most 
 cases, the proportion may be ascertained. The golden 
 rule,* which an eminent physician has given to the med- 
 ical world, for ascertaining the necessary and useful 
 quantity of stimulus for weak and feverish patients, 
 may, with advantage, be applied in education. When- 
 ever praise produces the intoxication of vanity, it is 
 hurtful ; whenever the appearances of vanity diminish 
 in consequence of praise, we may be satisfied that it 
 does good, that it increases the pupil's confidence in 
 himself, and his strength of mind. We repeat, that per- 
 sons who have confidence in themselves may be proud, 
 
 * Sec Zoonora'a, vol. i. p. 99. 
 
VANITY, PRIDE, AND AMBITION. 233 
 
 but are never vain ; that vanity cannot support herself 
 without the concurring flattery of others ; pride is sat- 
 isfied with his own approbation. In the education of 
 children who are more inclined to pride than to vanity, 
 we must present large objects to the understanding, and 
 large motives must be used to excite voluntary exer- 
 tion. If the understanding of proud people be not early 
 cultivated, they frequently fix upon some false ideas of 
 honour or dignity, to which they are resolute martyrs 
 through life. Thus the high-born Spaniards, if we may 
 be allowed to reason from the imperfect history of na- 
 tional character, — the Spaniards, who associate the ideas 
 of dignity and indolence, would rather submit to the evils 
 of poverty than to the imaginary disgrace of working 
 for their bread. Volney, and the Baron de Tott, give 
 us some curious instances of the pride of the Turks, 
 which prevents them from being taught any useful arts 
 by foreigners. To show how early associations are 
 formed and supported by pride, we need but recollect 
 the anecdote of the child mentioned by De Tott.* The 
 Baron de I'ott bought a pretty toy for a present for a 
 little Turkish friend, but the child was too proud to seem 
 pleased with the toy ; the child's grandfather came into 
 the room, saw, and was delighted with the toy, sat down 
 on the carpet, and played with it until he broke it. We 
 like the second childhood of the grandfather better than 
 the premature old age of the grandson. 
 
 The self-command which the fear of disgrace ensures, 
 can produce either great virtues or great vices. Re- 
 venge and generosity are, it is said, to be found in their 
 highest state among nations and individuals character- 
 ized by pride. The early objects which are associated 
 with the idea of honour in the mind, are of great conse- 
 quence ; but it is yet of more consequence to teach 
 proud minds early to bend to the power of reason, or 
 rather to glory in being governed by reason. They 
 should be instructed, that the only possible means of 
 maintaining their opinions among persons of sense, is 
 to support them by unanswerable arguments. They 
 should be" taught that, to secure respect, they must de- 
 serve it ; and their self-denial or self-command, should 
 never obtain that tacit admiration which they most value, 
 except where it is exerted for useful and rational pur- 
 
 * See De Tott's Memoirs, p. 138, a note. 
 
234 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 poses. The constant custom of appealing, in the last 
 resort, to their own judgment, which distinguishes the 
 proud from the vain, makes it pecuHarly necessary that 
 the judgment, to which so much is trusted, should be 
 highly cultivated. A vain man may be tolerably well 
 conducted in life by a sensible friend ; a proud man 
 ought to be able to conduct himself perfectly well, be- 
 cause he will not accept of any assistance. It seems 
 that some proud people confine their benevolent virtues 
 within a smaller sphere than others ; they value only 
 their own relations, their friends, their country, or what- 
 ever is connected with themselves. This species of 
 pride may be corrected by the same means which are 
 used to increase sympathy.* Those who, eitiier from 
 temperament, example, or accidental circumstances, 
 have acquired the habit of repressing and commanding 
 their emotions, must be carefully distinguished from the 
 selfish and insensible. In the present times, when the 
 affectation of sensibility is to be dreaded, we should 
 rather encourage that species of pride which disdains 
 to display the affections of the heart. " You Romans 
 triumph over your tears, and call it virtue ; I triumph 
 in my tears," says Caractacus : his tears were respect- 
 able, but in general, the Roman triumph would command 
 the most sympathy. 
 
 Some people attribute to pride all expressions of con- 
 fidence in one's self: these maybe offensive to common 
 society, but they are sometimes powerful over the hu- 
 man mind, and where they are genuine, mark somewhat 
 superior in character. Much of^ the effect of Lord Chat- 
 ham's eloquence, much of his transcendent influence in 
 public, must be attributed to the confidence which he 
 showed in his own superiority. " I trample upon im- 
 possibilities !" was an exclamation which no inferior 
 mind would dare to make. Would the House of Com- 
 mons have permitted any one but Lord Chatham to an- 
 swer an oration by, " Tell me, gentle shepherd, where 1" 
 The danger of failing, the hazard that he runs of becom- 
 ing ridiculous who verges upon the moral sublime, is 
 taken into our account when we judge of the action, 
 and we pay involuntary tribute to courage and success : 
 but how miserable is the fate of the man who mistakes 
 his own powers, and upon trial is unable to support his 
 
 *■ Sec Sympathy. 
 
VANITY, PRIDE, AND AMBITION. 235 
 
 assumed superiority ; mankind revenge themselves 
 without mercy upon his ridiculous pride, eager to teach 
 him the difference between insolence and magnanimit}'. 
 Young people inclined to overrate their own talents, or 
 to undervalue the abilities of others, should frequently 
 have instances given to them from real life, of the mor- 
 tifications and disgrace to wliich imprudent boasters 
 expose themselves. Where they are able to demon- 
 strate their own abilities, they run no risk in speaking 
 with decent confidence ; but where their success de- 
 pends, in any degree, either upon fortune or opinion, 
 they should never run the hazard of presumption. Mod- 
 esty prepossesses mankind in favour of its possessor, 
 and has the advantage of being both graceful and safe : 
 this was perfectly understood by the crafty Ulysses, 
 v/ho neither raised his eyes nor stretched his sceptred 
 hand " when he first rose to speak." We do not, how- 
 ever, recommend this artificial modesty ; its trick is soon 
 discovered, and its sameness of dissimulation presently 
 disgusts. Prudence should prevent young people from 
 hazardous boasting ; and good-nature and good sense, 
 which constitute real politeness, will restrain them from 
 obtruding their merits to the mortification of their com- 
 panions : but we do not expect from them total igno- 
 rance of their own comparative merit. The alTectation 
 of humility, when carried to the extreme, to which all 
 affectation is liable to be carried, appears full as ridicu- 
 lous, as troublesome, and as offensive as an}^ of the graces 
 of vanity or the airs of pride. Young people are cured 
 of presumption by mixing with society, but they are not 
 so easily cured of any species of affectation. 
 
 In the chapter on female accomplishments, we have 
 endeavoured to point out, that the enlargement of un- 
 derstanding in the fair sex which must result from their 
 increasing knowledge, will necessarily correct the fenn- 
 nine foibles of vanity and affectation. 
 
 Strong, prophetic, eloquent praise, like that which 
 the great Lord Chatham bestowed on his son, would 
 rather ins[)ire. in a generous soul, noble emulation, than 
 paltry vanity. " On this boy," said he, laying his hand 
 upon his son's head, " descends my mantle, with a 
 double portion of my spirit !" Philip's praise of his son 
 Alexander, when the boy rode the unmanageable horse.* 
 
 * See Plutarch. 
 
236 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 is another instance of the kind of praise capable of 
 exciting ambition. 
 
 As to ambition, we must decide what species of am- 
 bition we mean, before we can determine whether it 
 ought to be encouraged or repressed ; whether it should 
 be classed among virtues or vices ; that is to say, 
 whether it adds to the happiness or misery of human 
 creatures. " The inordinate desire of fame," which 
 often destroys the lives of millions when it is con- 
 nected with ideas of military enthusiasm, is justly 
 classed among the ^^ diseases of volition :'''' for its descrip- 
 tion and cure we refer to Zoonomia, vol. ii. Achilles 
 will there appear to his admirers, perhaps, in a new light. 
 
 The ambition to rise in the world usually implies a 
 mean, sordid desire of riches, or what are called hon- 
 ours, to be obtained by the common arts of political 
 intrigue, by cabal to win popular favour, or by address 
 to conciliate the patronage of the great. The expe- 
 rience of those who have been governed during their 
 lives by this passion, if passion it may be called, does 
 not show that it can confer much happiness, either in 
 the pursuit or attainment of its objects. See Bubb 
 Doddington's Diary, a most useful book; a journal of 
 the petty anxieties, and constant dependance, to which 
 an ambitious courtier is necessarily subjected. See 
 also Mirabeau's " Secret History of the Court of Ber- 
 lin," for a picture of a man of great abilities degraded 
 by the same species of low, unprincipled competition. 
 We may find in these books, it is to be hoped, examples 
 which will strike young and generous minds, and which 
 may inspire them with contempt for the objects and the 
 means of vulgar ambition. There is a more noble am- 
 bition, by which the enthusiastic youth, perfect in the 
 theory of all the virtues, and warm with yet unextin- 
 guished benevolence, is apt to be seized ; his heart 
 beats with the hope of immortalizing himself by noble 
 actions ; he forms extensive plans for the improvement 
 and the happiness of his fellow-creatures ; he feels the 
 want of power to carry these into effect ; power be- 
 comes the object of his wishes. In the pursuit, in the 
 attainment of this object, how are his feelings changed ! 
 M. Necker, in the preface to his work on French 
 finance,* paints, with much eloquence, and with an ap- 
 
 * Necker sur rAdministration des Finances de la France, vol. i. p. 98. 
 
VANITY, PfilDE, AND AMBITION. 237 
 
 pearance of perfect truth, the feelings of a man of virtue 
 and genius, before and after the attainment of political 
 power. The moment when a minister takes possession 
 of his place, surrounded by crowds and congratulations, 
 is well described ; and the succeeding moment, when 
 clerks with immense portfolios enter, is a striking con- 
 trast. Examples from romance can never have such a 
 powerful effect upon the mind, as those which are taken 
 from real life ; but in proportion to the just and lively- 
 representation of situations and passions resembling 
 reahty, fictions may convey useful moral lessons. In 
 the Cyropaedia there is an admirable description of the 
 day spent by the victorious Cyrus, giving audience to 
 the unmanageable multitude, after the taking of Babylon 
 had accomplished the fulness of his ambition.* 
 
 It has been observed, that these examples of the in- 
 sufficiency of the objects of ambition to happiness, sel- 
 dom make any lasting impression upon the minds of the 
 ambitious. This may arise from two causes ; from the 
 reasoning faculty's not having been sufficiently culti- 
 vated, or from the habits of ambition being formed be- 
 fore proper examples are presented to the judgment for 
 comparison. Some ambitious people, when they reason 
 coolly, feel and acknowledge the folly of their pursuits ; 
 but still, from the force of habit, they act immediately 
 in obedience to the motives which they condemn : 
 others, who have never been accustomed to reason 
 firmly, believe themselves to be in the right in the 
 choice of their objects ; and they cannot comprehend 
 the arguments which are used by those who have not 
 the same way of thinking as themselves. If we fairly 
 place facts before young people who have been ha- 
 bituated to reason, and who have not yet been inspired 
 with the passion or enslaved by the habits of vulgar 
 ambition, it is probable that they will not be easily 
 effaced from the memory, and that they will influence 
 the conduct through life. 
 
 It sometimes happens to men of a sound' understand- 
 ing and a philosophic turn of mind, that their ambition 
 decreases with their experience. They begin with 
 some ardour, perhaps, an ambitious pursuit ; but by de- 
 grees they find the pleasure of the occupation sufficient 
 without the fame, which was their original object. This 
 
 * Cyropaedia, vol. ii. page 303. 
 
238 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 is the same process which we have observed in the 
 minds of children with respect to the pleasures of litera- 
 ture, and the taste for sugarplums. 
 
 Happy the child who can be taught to improve him- 
 self without the stimulus of sweetmeats ! Happy the 
 man who can preserve activity without the excitements 
 of ambition ! 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 The first books which are now usually put into the 
 hands of a child, are Mrs. Barbauld's Lessons : they are 
 by far the best books of the kind that have ever ap- 
 peared ; those only who know the difficulty and the im- 
 portance of such compositions in education, can sincerely 
 rejoice, that the admirable talents of such a writer have 
 been employed in such a work. We shall not apologize 
 for offering a few remarks on some passages in these 
 little books, because we are convinced that we shall 
 not offend. 
 
 Lessons for Children from three to four years old, 
 should, we think, have been lessons for children from 
 four to five years old ; few read, or ought to read, before 
 that age. 
 
 " Charles shall have a pretty new lesson." 
 
 In this sentence the words pretty and new are asso- 
 ciated ; but they represent ideas which ought to be kept 
 separate in the mind of a child. The love of novelty is 
 cherished in the minds of children by the common ex- 
 pressions that we use to engage them to do what we 
 desire. " You shall have a new whip, a new hat," are 
 improper modes of expression to a child. We have 
 seen a boy who had literally twenty new whips in one 
 year, and we were present when his father, to comfort 
 him when he was in pain, went out to buy him a neio 
 whip, though he had two or three scattered about the 
 room. 
 
 The description, in the first part of Mrs. Barbauld's 
 Lessons, of the naughty boy who tormented the robin, 
 
BOOKS. 239 
 
 and who was aflerward supposed to be eaten by bears, 
 is more objectionable than any in the book : the idea 
 of kilhng is in itself very complex, and, if explained, 
 serves only to excite terror ; and how can a child be 
 made to comprehend why a cat should catch mice and 
 not kill birds ; or why should this species of honesty be 
 expected from an animal of prey 1 
 
 " I want my dinner." 
 
 Does Charles take it for granted, that what he eats is 
 his own, and that he mast have his dinner? These and 
 similar expressions are words of course ; but young 
 children should not be allowed to use them : if they are 
 permitted to assume the tone of command, the feelings 
 of impatience and ill-temper quickly follow, and children 
 become the little tyrants of a family. Property is a 
 word of which young people have general ideas, and 
 they may, with very little trouble, be prevented from 
 claiming things to which they have no right. Mrs. 
 Barbauld has judiciously chosen to introduce a little 
 boy's daily history in these books ; all children are ex- 
 tremely interested for Charles, and they are very apt to 
 expect^ that every thing which happens to him is to 
 happen to them ; and they believe that every thing he 
 does is right ; therefore, his biographer should, in 
 another edition, revise any of his expressions which 
 may mislead the future tribe of his little imitators. 
 
 " Maid, come and dress Charles." 
 
 After what we have already said with respect to ser- 
 vants, we need only observe, that this sentence for 
 Charles should not be read by a child; and that in 
 which the maid is said to bring home a gun, &c., it is 
 easy to strike a pencil line across. All the passages 
 which might have been advantageously omitted in these 
 excellent little books, have been carefully obliterated 
 before they were put into the hands of children, by a 
 mother who knew the danger of early false associ- 
 ations. 
 
 " Little boys don't eat butter." 
 
 " Nobody wears a hat in the house." 
 
 This is a very common method of speaking, but it 
 certainly is not proper towards children. Affirmative 
 sentences should always express real facts. Charles 
 must know that some little boys do eat butter ; and that 
 some people wear their hats in their houses. This 
 mode of expression, " Nobody does that !" — " Ever}'- 
 
240 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 body does this !" lays the foundation for prejudice in 
 the' mind. This is the language of fashion, which, 
 more than conscience, makes cowards of us all. 
 
 " I want some wine." 
 
 Would it not be better to tell Charles, in reply to this 
 speech, that wine is not good for him, than to say, 
 " Wine for litile boys ! I never heard of such a thing!" 
 If Charles were to be ill, and it should be necessary to 
 give him wine ; or were he to see another child drink it, 
 he would lose confidence in what was said to him. We 
 should be very careful of our words, if we expect our 
 pupils to have confidence in us ; and if they have not, 
 we need not attempt to educate them. 
 
 " The moon shines at night, when the sun has gone 
 to bed." 
 
 When the sun is out of sight would be more correct, 
 though not so pleasing, perhaps, to the young reader. 
 It is very proper to teach a child, that when the sun dis- 
 appears, when the sun is below the horizon, it is the 
 time when most animals go to rest ; but we should not 
 do this by giving so false an idea, as that the sun is gone 
 to bed. Every thing relative to the system of the uni- 
 verse is above the comprehension of a child ; we should, 
 therefore, be careful to prevent his forming erroneous 
 opinions. We should wait for a riper period of his un- 
 derstanding before we attempt positive instruction upon 
 abstract subjects. 
 
 The enumeration of the months in the year, the days 
 in the week, of metals, &c., forms excellent lessons for a 
 child who is just beginning to learn to read. The clas- 
 sification of animals into quadrupeds, bipeds, &c., is 
 another useful specimen of the manner in which children 
 should be taught to generalize their ideas. The pathetic 
 description of the poor timid hare running from the hunt- 
 ers, will leave an impression upon the young and humane 
 heart, which may, perhaps, save the life of many a hare. 
 The poetic beauty and eloquent simplicity of many of 
 Mrs. BarbaukFs Lessons, cultivate the imagination of 
 children and their taste, in the best possible manner. 
 
 The description of the white swan, with her long 
 arched neck, " winning her easy way" through the 
 waters, is beautiful ; so is that of the nightingale singing 
 upon her lone bush bj'^ moonlight. Poetic descriptions 
 of real objects are well suited to children ; apostrophe 
 and personification they understand ; but all allegoric 
 
BOOKS. 241 
 
 poetry is difficult to manage for them, because they mis- 
 take the poetic attributes for reality, and they acquire 
 false and confused ideas. With regret, children close 
 Mrs. Barbauld's little books, and parents become yet 
 more sensible of their value, when they perceive that 
 none can be found immediately to supply their place, or 
 to continue the course of agreeable ideas v^^hich they 
 have raised in the young pupil's imagination. 
 
 "Evenings at Home" do not immediately join to 
 Lessons for Children from three to four years old; and 
 Ave know not where to find any books to fill the interval 
 properly. The popular character of any book is easih- 
 learned, and its general merit easily ascertained ; this 
 may satisfy careless, indolent tutors, but a more minute 
 investigation is necessary to parents who are anxious 
 for the happiness of their family, or desirous to improve 
 the art of education. Such parents will feel it to be 
 their duty to look over every page of a book before it is 
 trusted to their children ; it is an arduous task, but none 
 can be too arduous for the enlightened energy of parental 
 affection. We are acquainted with the mother of a 
 family, who has never trusted any book to her children 
 without having first examined it herself with the most 
 scrupulous attention ; her care has been repaid with that 
 success in education which such care can alone ensure. 
 We have several books before us marked by her pencil, 
 and volumes which, having undergone some necessary 
 operations by her scissors, would, in their mutilated 
 state, shock the sensibility of a nice librarian. But 
 shall the education of a family be sacrificed to the 
 beauty of a page, or even to the binding of a book? 
 Few books can safely be given to children without the 
 previous use of the pen, the pencil, and the scissors. 
 In the books which we have before us, in their corrected 
 state, we see sometimes a few words blotted out ; some- 
 times half a page, sometimes many pages are cut out. 
 In turning over the leaves of "The Children's Friend," 
 we perceive that the different ages at which different 
 stories should be read, have been marked ; and we were 
 surprised to meet with some stories marked for six 
 years old and some for sixteen, in the same volume. 
 We see that different stories have been marked with the 
 initials of different names, by this cautious mother, who 
 considered the temper and habits of her children, as 
 svell as their ages. 
 
 L 
 
242 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 As far as these notes refer peculiarly to her own 
 family, they cannot be of use to the public ; but the 
 principles which governed a judicious parent in her 
 selection, must be capable of universal application. 
 
 It may be laid down as a first principle, that we 
 should preserve children from the knowledge of any 
 vice or any folly, of which the idea has never yet 
 entered their minds, and which they are not necessarily 
 disposed to learn by early example. Children who have 
 never lived with servants, who have never associated 
 with ill-educated companions of their own age, and 
 who, in their own family, have heard nothing but good 
 conversation, and seen none but good examples, will, in 
 their language, their manners, and their whole dispo- 
 sition, be not only free from many of the faults common 
 among children, but they will absolutely have no idea 
 that there are such faults. The language of children 
 who have heard no language but what is good, must be 
 correct. On the contrary, children who hear a mixture 
 of low and high vulgarity before their own habits are 
 fixed, must, whenever they speak, continually blunder ; 
 they have no rule to guide their judgment in their se- 
 lection from the variety of dialects which they hear ; 
 probably they may often be reproved for their mistakes, 
 but these reproofs will be of no avail while the pupils 
 continue to be puzzled between the example of the 
 nursery and of the drawing-room. It will cost much 
 time and pains to correct these defects, which might 
 have been with little difficulty prevented. It is the 
 same with other bad habits. Falsehood, caprice, dis- 
 honesty, obstinacy, revenge, and all the train of vices 
 which are the consequences of mistaken or neglected 
 education, which are learned by bad example, and which 
 are not inspired by nature, need scarcely be known to 
 children whose minds have from their infancy been 
 happily regulated. Such children should sedulously be 
 kept from contagion. No books should be put into the 
 hands of this happy class of children, but such as pre- 
 sent the best models of virtue : there is no occasion to 
 shock them with caricatures of vice. Such caricatures 
 they will not even understand to be well drawn, because 
 they are unacquainted with any thing like the originals. 
 Exaniples to deter them from faults to which they have 
 no propensity must be useless, and may be dangerous. 
 For the same reason that a book written in bad language 
 
Books. 243 
 
 should never be put into the hands of a child who speaks 
 correctly ; a book, exhibiting instances of vice, siiould 
 never be given to a child who thinks and acts correctly. 
 The love of novelty and of imitation is so strong m 
 children, that even for the pleasure of imitating charac- 
 ters described in a book, or actions which strike them 
 as singular, they often commit real faults. 
 
 To this danger of catching faults by sympathy, chil- 
 dren of the greatest simplicity are, perhaps, the most 
 liable, because they least understand the nature and 
 consequences of the actions which they imitate. 
 
 During the age of imitation, children should not be 
 exposed to the influence of any bad examples until their 
 habits are formed, and until they have not only the 
 sense to choose, but the fortitude to abide by, their own 
 choice. It may be said, that " children must know that 
 vice exists ; that, even among their own companions, 
 there are some who have bad dispositions ; they cannot 
 mix even in the society of children, without seeing ex- 
 amples which they ought to be prepared to avoid." 
 
 These remarks are just with regard to pupils who 
 are intended for a public school, and no great nicety in 
 the selection of their books is necessary ; but we are 
 now speaking of children who are to be brought up in a 
 private family. Why should they be prepared to mix 
 in the society of children who have bad habits or bad 
 dispositions 1 Children should not be educated for the 
 society of children ; nor should they live in that society 
 during their education. We must not expect from them 
 premature prudence, and all the social virtues, before 
 vi^e have taken any measures to produce these virtues, 
 or this tardy prudence. In private education, there is 
 little chance that one error should balance another ; the 
 experience of the pupil is much confined ; the examples 
 which he sees are not so numerous and various as to 
 counteract each other. Nothing, therefore, must be 
 expected from the counteracting influence of opposing 
 causes ; nothing should be trusted to chance. Experi- 
 ence must preserve one uniform tenor ; and examples 
 must be selected with circumspection. The less chil- 
 dren associate with companions of their own age, the 
 less they know of the world ; the stronger their taste for 
 literature ; the more forcible will be the impression that 
 will be made upon them by the pictures of life, and the 
 characters and sentiments which they meet with in 
 L2 
 
244 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 books. Books for such children ought to be sifted by 
 an academy* of enlightened parents. 
 
 Without particular examples, the most obvious truths 
 are not brought home to our business. We shall select 
 a few examples from a work of high and deserved rep- 
 utation, from a work which we much admire, " Ber- 
 quin's Children's Friend." We do not mean to criticise 
 this work as a literary production ; but simply to point 
 out to parents, that, even in the best books for children, 
 much must still be left to the judgment of the preceptor ; 
 much in the choice of stories, and particular passage, 
 suited to different pupils. « 
 
 In " The Children's Friend," there are several stories 
 well adapted to one class of children, but entirely unfit 
 for another. In the story called the Hobgoblin, Antonia, 
 a little girl, " who has been told a hundred foohsh stories 
 by her maid, particularly one about a black-faced gob- 
 Ini," is represented as making a lamentable outcry at 
 the sight of a chimney-sweeper ; first she runs for 
 refuge to the kitchen, the last place to which she should 
 run ; then to the pantry ; thence she jumps out of the 
 window, " half dead with terror," and, in the elegant 
 language of the translator, almost splits her throat with 
 crying out Help! Help ! — In a few minutes she discovers 
 her error, is heartily ashamed, and " ever afterward 
 Antonia was the first to laugh at silly stories, told by 
 silly people, of hobgoblins and the like, to frighten 
 her." 
 
 For children who have had the misfortune to hear 
 the hundred foolish stories of a foolish maid, this 
 apparition of the chimney-sweeper is well managed ; 
 though, perhaps, ridicule might not effect so sudden a 
 cure hi all cases as it did in that of Antonia. By chil- 
 dren who have not acquired terrors of the black-faced 
 goblin, and who have not the habit of frequenting the 
 kitchen and the pantry, this story should never be read. 
 
 " The Uttle miss deceived by her maid," who takes 
 her mamma's keys out of her drawers, and steals sugar 
 and tea for her maid, that she may have the pleasure 
 of playing with a cousin whom her mother had for- 
 bidden her to see, is not an example that need be intro- 
 duced into any well-regulated family. The picture of 
 Amelia's misery is drawn by the hand of a master. 
 
 * See Academie della Crusca. 
 
BOOKS. 245 
 
 Terror and pity, we are told by the tragic poets, purify 
 the mind ; but there are minds that do not require this 
 species of purification. Powerful antidotes are neces- 
 sary to combat powerful poisons ; but where no poison 
 has been imbibed, are not antidotes more dangerous 
 than useful ] 
 
 The stories called " The Little Gamblers, Blind Man's 
 Buff, and Honesty the best Policy," are stories which 
 may do a great deal of good to bad children, but they 
 should never be given to those of another description. 
 The young gentlemen who cheat at cards, and who 
 pocket silver fish, should have no admittance anywhere. 
 It is not necessary to put children upon their guard 
 against associates whom they are not likely to meet ; 
 nor need we introduce The Vulgar and Mischievous 
 Schoolboy to any but schoolboys. Martin, who throws 
 squibs at people in the street, who fastens rabbits' 
 tails behind their backs, who fishes for their wigs, 
 who sticks up pins in his friends' chairs, who carries a 
 hideous mask in his pocket to frighten little children, 
 and who is himself frightened into repentance by a 
 spectre with a speaking trumpet, is a very objectionable, 
 though an excellent dramatic character. The part of 
 the spectre is played by the groom ; this is ill-con- 
 trived in a drama for children ; grooms should have 
 nothing to do with their entertainments ; and Caesar, 
 who is represented as a pleasing character, should not 
 be supposed to make the postillion a party in his in- 
 ventions. 
 
 " A good heart compensates for many indiscretions,^^ is 
 a dangerous title for a play for young people ; because 
 many is an indefinite term ; and in settling how many, 
 the calculations of parents and children may vary ma- 
 terially. This little play is so charmingly written, 
 the character of the imprudent and generous Frederick 
 is so likely to excite imitation, that we must doubly re- 
 gret his intimacy with the coachman, his running away 
 from school, and drinking beer at an alehouse in a fair. 
 The coachman is an excellent old man ; he is turned 
 away for having let master Frederick mount his box, 
 assume the whip, and overturn a handsome carriage. 
 Frederick, touched with gratitude and compassion, gives 
 the old man all his pocket-money, and sells a watch and 
 some books to buy clothes for him. The motives of 
 Frederick's conduct are excellent ; and, as they are mis- 
 
246 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 represented by a treacherous and hypocritical cousin, 
 we sympathize more strongly with the hero of the piece ; 
 and all his indiscretions appear, at least, amiable de- 
 fects. A nice observer* of the human heart snys, that 
 we are never inclined to cure ourselves of any defect 
 which makes us agreeable. Frederick's real virtues 
 will not, probably, excite imitation so much as his ima- 
 ginary excellences. We should take the utmost care 
 not to associate in the mind the ideas of imprudence 
 and of generosity ; of hypocrisy and of prudence : on 
 the contrary, it should be shown that prudence is 
 necessary to real benevolence ; that no virtue is more 
 useful, and consequently more respectable, than justice. 
 These homely truths will never be attended to as the 
 countercheck moral of an interesting story ; stories 
 which require such morals, should, therefore, be 
 avoided. 
 
 It is to be hoped, that select parts of The Children's 
 Friend,! translated by some able hand, will be published 
 hereafter for the use of private families. Many of the 
 stories to which we have ventured to object, are by no 
 means unfit for schoolboys, to whom the characters 
 which are most exceptionable cannot be new. The 
 vulgarity of language which we have noticed, is not to 
 be attributed to M. Berquin, but to his wretched trans- 
 lator. L'Ami des Enfans is, in French, remarkably 
 elegantly written. The Little Canary Bird, Little 
 George, The Talkative Little Girl, The Four Seasons, 
 and many others, are excellent both in point of style 
 and dramatic effect ; they are exactly suited to the un- 
 derstandings of children ; and they interest without any 
 improbable events or unnatural characters. 
 
 in fiction it is difficult to avoid giving children false 
 ideas of virtue, and still more difficult to keep the dif- 
 ferent virtues in their due proportions. This should be 
 attended to with care in all books for young people ; 
 nor should we sacrifice the understanding to tlie en- 
 thusiasm of eloquence, or the affectation of sensibility. 
 Without the habit of reasoning, the best dispositions 
 can give us no solid security for happiness ; therefore, 
 we should early cultivate the reasoning faculty, instead 
 of always appealing to the imagination. By sentimental 
 
 * Marmontel. " On ne se guerit pas d'un defaut qui plait." 
 t We have heard that such a translation was begun. 
 
COOKS. 247 
 
 persuasives, a child may be successfully governed for 
 a time, but that time will be of short duration, and no 
 power can continue the delusion long. 
 
 In the dialogue upon this maxim, " that a competence 
 is best," the reasoning of the father is not a match for 
 that of the son ; by using less eloquence, the father 
 might have made out his case much better. The boy 
 sees that many people are richer than his father, and 
 perceiving that their riches procure a great number of 
 conveniences and comforts for them, h€ asks why his 
 father, who is as good as these opulent people, should 
 not also be as rich. His father tells him that he is rich, 
 ihat he has a large garden, and a fine estate ; the boy 
 asks to see it, and his father takes him to the top of a 
 high hill, and, showing him an extensive prospect, says 
 to him, " All this is my estate." Th« boy crossques- 
 tions his father, and finds out that it is not his estate, 
 but that he may enjoy the pleasure of looking at it ; that 
 he can buy wood when he wants it for firing ; venison, 
 without hunting the deer himself; fish, without fishing; 
 und butter, without possessing all the cows that graze 
 in the valley ; therefore he calls himself master of the 
 woods, the deer, the herds, the huntsmen, and the la- 
 bourers that he beholds. This is* poetic philosophy, 
 but it is not sufficiently accurate for a child ; it would 
 confound his ideas of property, and it would be imme- 
 diately contradicted by his experience. The father's 
 reasoning is perfectly good, and well adapted to his 
 pupil's capacity, when he asks " whether he should 
 not require a superfluous appetite to enjoy superfluous 
 dishes at his meals." In returning from liis walk, the 
 boy sees a mill that is out of repair, a meadow that is 
 flooded, and a quantity of hay spoiled j he observes that 
 the owners of these things must be sadly vexed by such 
 accidents, and his father congratulates himself upon 
 their not being his property. Here is a direct contra- 
 diction ; for a few minutes before he had asserted that 
 they belonged to him. Property is often the cause of 
 much anxiety to its posses.sor ; but the question is, 
 whether the pains or the pleasures of possessing it pre- 
 dominate ; if this question could not be fully discussed, 
 it should not be partially stated. To silence a child 
 ill argument is easy, to convince him is difficult ; sophis- 
 
 * See Hor. 2 Epist. lib. ii. 
 
248 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 try or wit should never be used to confound the under- 
 standing. Reason has equal force from the lips of the 
 giant and of the dwarf. 
 
 These minute criticisms may appear invidious, but 
 it is hoped that they will be considered only as illustra- 
 tions of general principles ; illustrations necessary to 
 our subject. We have chosen M. Berquin's work be- 
 cause of its universal popularity ; probably all the 
 examples which have been selected are in the recol- 
 lection of most readers, or at least it is easy to refer to 
 them, because The Children's Friend is to be found in 
 every house where there are any children. The prin- 
 ciples by which we have examined Berquin, may be 
 applied to all books of the same class. Sandford and 
 Merton, Madame de Silleri's Theatre of Education, and 
 her Tales of the Castle, Madame de la File's Tales and 
 Conversations, Mrs. Smith's Rural Walks, with a long 
 list of other books for children, which have considerable 
 merit, would deserve a separate analysis if literary crit- 
 icism were our object. A critic once, with indefatigable 
 illnature, picked out all the faults of a beautiful poem, 
 and presented them to Apollo. The god ordered a 
 bushel of his best Parnassian wheat to be carefully win- 
 nowed, and he presented the critic with the chaff. Our 
 wish is to separate the small portion of what is useless, 
 from the excellent nutriment contained in the books we 
 have mentioned. 
 
 With respect to sentimental stories,* and books of 
 mere entertainment, we must remark, that they should 
 be sparingly used, especially in the education of girls. 
 This species of reading cultivates what is called the 
 heart prematurely ; lowers the tone of the mind, and 
 induces indifference for those common pleasures and 
 occupations which, however trivial in themselves, con- 
 stitute by far the greatest portion of our daily happi- 
 ness. Stories are the novels of childhood. We know, 
 from common experience, the effects which are produced 
 upon the female mind by immoderate novel-reading. To 
 those who acquire this taste, every object becomes dis- 
 gusting which is not in an attitude for poetic painting; 
 a species of moral picturesque is sought for in every 
 scene of life, and this is not always compatible with 
 sound sense or with simple reality. Gainsborough's 
 
 * See Sympathy and Sensibility. 
 
BOOKS. 249 
 
 Country Girl, as it has been humorously* remarked, 
 *' is a much more picturesque object than a girl neatly 
 dressed in a clean white frock ; but for this reason, are 
 ail 'children to go in rags ]" A tragedy heroine, weep- 
 ing, swooning, dying, is a moral picturesque object ; but 
 the frantic passions, which have the best effect upon 
 the stage, might, when exhibited in domestic hfe, ap- 
 pear to be drawn upon too large a scale to please. The 
 difference between reality and fiction is so great, that 
 those who copy from any thing but nature are contin- 
 ually disposed to make mistakes in their conduct, which 
 appear ludicrous to the impartial spectator. Pathos de- 
 pends on such nice circumstances, that domestic, senti- 
 mental distresses, are in a perilous situation ; the sym- 
 pathy of their audience is not always in the power of 
 the fair performers. Phrensy itself may be turned to 
 farce. f " Enter the princess mad in white satin, and 
 her attendant mad in white linen." 
 
 Besides the danger of creating a romantic taste, there 
 is reason to believe, that the species of reading to which 
 we object has an effect directly opposite to what it is 
 intended to produce. It diminishes, instead of increas- 
 ing, the sensibility of the heart ; a combination of ro- 
 mantic imagery is requisite to act upon the associations 
 of sentimental people, and they are virtuous only when 
 virtue is in perfectly good taste. An eloquent philoso- 
 pher! observes, that in the description of scenes of dis- 
 tress in romance and poetry, the distress is always made 
 elegant; the imagination which has been accustomed to 
 this delicacy in fictitious narrations, revolts from the 
 disgusting circumstances which attend real poverty, dis- 
 ease, and misery ; the emotions of pity, and the ex- 
 ertions of benevolence, are consequently repressed 
 precisely at the time Avhen they are necessary to hu- 
 manity. 
 
 With, respect to pity, it is a spontaneous, natural 
 emotion, which is strongly felt by children, but they 
 cannot properly be said to feel benevolence till they are 
 capable of reasoning. Charity must, in them, be a very 
 doubtful virtue ; they cannot be competent judges as to 
 the general utility of what they give. Persons of the 
 
 * See a letter of Mr. Wyndham's to Mr. Repton, in Repton, on 
 Landscape Gardening. 
 t The Cntic. X Professor Stewart. 
 
 L3 
 
250 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 most enlarged understanding, find it necessary to be ex- 
 tremely cautious in charitable donations, lest they should 
 do more harm than good. Children cannot see beyond 
 thtf first link in the chain which holds society together ; 
 at the best, then, their charity can be but a partial virtue. 
 But in fact, children have nothing to give ; they think 
 that they give, when they dispose of the property of 
 their parents ; they suffer no privation from this sort of 
 generosity, and they learn ostentation, instead of prac- 
 tising self-denial. Berquin, in his excellent story of 
 " The Little Needle Woman," has made the children 
 give their own work; here the pleasure of employment 
 is immediately connected with the gratification of be- 
 nevolent feelings ; their pity is not merely passive, it is 
 active and useful. 
 
 In fictitious narratives, affection for parents, and for 
 brothers and sisters, is often painted in agreeable colours, 
 to excite the admiration and sympathy of children. 
 Caroline, the charming little girl who gets upon a chair 
 to wipe away the tears that trickle down her eldest 
 sister's cheek when her mother is displeased with her,* 
 forms a natural and beautiful picture ; but the desire to 
 imitate Caroline must produce affectation. All the sim- 
 plicity of youth is gone, the moment children perceive 
 that they are extolled for the expression of fine feelings 
 and fine sentiments. Gratitude, esteem, and affection, 
 do not depend upon the table of consanguinity ; they are 
 involuntary feelings, which cannot be raised at pleasure 
 by the voice of authority ; they will not obey the dic- 
 tates of interest ; they secretly despise the anathemas 
 of sentiment. Esteem and affection are the necessary 
 consequences of a certain course of conduct, combined 
 with certain external circumstances, which are, more or 
 less, in the power of every individual. To arrange these 
 circumstances prudently, and to pursue a proper course 
 of conduct steadily, something more is necessary than 
 the transitory impulse of sensibility or of enthusiasm. 
 
 There is a class of books which amuse the imagina- 
 tion of children without acting upon their feelings. We 
 do not allude to fairy tales, for we apprehend that these 
 are not now much read ; but we mean voyages and 
 travels ; these interest young people universally. Rob- 
 inson Crusoe, Gulliver, and the Three Russian Sailors, 
 
 ■*' Berqiiin, 
 
BOOKS. 251 
 
 ■who were cast away upon the coast of Norway, are 
 general favourites. No child ever read an account of a 
 shipwreck, or even a storm, without pleasure. A desert 
 island is a delightful place, to be equalled only by the 
 skating land of the raindeer, or by the valley of dia- 
 monds in the Arabian Tales. Savages, especially if they 
 be cannibals, are sure to be admired ; and the more hair- 
 breadth escapes the hero of the tale has survived, and 
 the more marvellous his adventures, the more sympathy 
 he excites.* 
 
 Will it be thought to proceed from a spirit of contra- 
 diction if we remark, that this species of reading should 
 not early be chosen for boys of an enterprising temper, 
 unless they are intended for a seafaring life, or for the 
 army 1 The taste for adventure is absolutely incom- 
 patible with the sober perseverance necessary to suc- 
 cess in any other liberal professions. To girls, this 
 species of reading cannot be as dangerous as it is to 
 boys ; girls must very soon perceive the impossibility 
 of their rambling about the world in quest 'of adven- 
 tures ; and where there appears an obvious impossibility 
 of gratifying any wish, it is not likely to become, or at 
 least to continue, a torment to the imagination. Boys, 
 on the contrary, from the habits of their education, are 
 prone to admire and to imitate every thing like enter- 
 prise and heroism. Courage and fortitude are the vir- 
 tues of men, and it is natural that boys should desire, if 
 they believe that they possess these virtues, to be placed 
 in those great and extraordinary situations which can 
 display them to advantage. The taste for adventure is 
 not repressed in boys by the impossibility of its indul- 
 gence ; the world is before them, and they think that 
 fame promises the highest prize to those who will most 
 boldly venture in the lottery of fortune. The rational 
 probability of success, few young people are able, fewer 
 still are willing, to calculate ; and the calculations of 
 prudent friends have little power over their understand- 
 ings, or, at least, over their imagination, the part of the 
 understanding which is most likely to decide their con- 
 duct. — From general maxims, we cannot expect that 
 young people should learn much prudence ; each indi- 
 vidual admits the propriety of the rule, yet believes 
 himself to be a privileged exception. Where any prize 
 
 * See Sympathy and Sensibility. 
 
252 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 is supposed to be in the gift of fortune, every man, or 
 every young man, takes it for granted that he is a fa- 
 vourite, and that it will be bestowed upon him. The 
 profits of commerce and of agriculture, the profits of 
 every art and profession, can be estimated with tolerable 
 accuracy ; the value of activity, application, and abili- 
 ties, can be respectively measured by some certain 
 standard. Modest, or even prudent people, will scruple 
 to rate themselves in all of these qualifications superior 
 to their neighbours ; but every man will allow that, in 
 point of good fortune, at any game of chance, he 
 thinks himself upon a fair level with every other com- 
 petitor. 
 
 When a young man deliberates upon "what course 
 of life he shall fcUow, the patient drudgery of a trade, 
 the laborious mental exertions requisite to prepare him 
 for a profession, must appear to him in a formidable 
 light, compared with the alluring prospects presented 
 by an adventuring imagination. At this time of life, it 
 will be too late suddenly to change the taste ; it will be 
 inconvenient, if not injurious, to restrain a young man's 
 inclinations by force or authority ; it will be imprudent, 
 perhaps fatally imprudent, to leave them uncontrolled. 
 Precautions should therefore be taken long before this pe- 
 riod, and the earlier they are taken the better. It is not 
 idle refinement to assert, that the first impressions which 
 are made upon the imagination, though they may be 
 changed by subsequent circumstances, yet are discernible 
 in every change, and are seldom entirely effaced from the 
 mind, though it may be diflicult to trace them through all 
 their various appearances. A boy who at seven years old 
 longs to be Robinson Crusoe, or Sinbad the sailor, may, 
 at seventeen, retain the same taste for adventure and 
 enterprise, though mixed, so as to be less discernible, 
 with the incipient passions of avarice and ambition ; he 
 has the same dispositions modified by a slight knowl- 
 edge of real life, and guided by the manners and con- 
 versation of his friends and acquaintance. Robinson 
 Crusoe and Sinbad will no longer be his favourite he- 
 roes ; but he will now admire the soldier of fortune, the 
 commercial adventurer, or the nabob, who has dis- 
 covered in the east the secret of Aladdin's wonderful 
 lamp ; and who has realized the treasures of Aboul- 
 casem. 
 
 The history of realities, written in an entertaining 
 
BOOKS. 253 
 
 manner, appears not only better suited to the purposes 
 of education, but also more agreeable to young people, 
 than improbable fictions. We have seen the reasons 
 why it is dangerous to pamper the taste early with mere 
 books of entertainment; to voyages and travels we 
 have made some objections. Natural history is a study 
 particularly suited to children : it cultivates their talents 
 for observation, applies to objects within their reach, 
 and to objects which are every day interesting to them. 
 The histories of the bee, the ant, the caterpillar, the 
 butterfly, the silkworm, are the first things that please 
 the taste of children, and these are the histories of 
 realities. 
 
 Among books of mere entertainment, no one 7!an be 
 so injudicious, or so unjust, as to class the excellent 
 " Evenings at Home." Upon a close examination, it 
 appears to be one of the best books for young people 
 from seven to ten years old, that has yet appeared. We 
 shall not pretend to enter into a minute examination of 
 it ; because, from what we have already said, parents 
 can infer our sentiments, and we wish to avoid tedious, 
 unnecessary detail. We shall, however, just observe, 
 that the lessons on natural history, on njetals, and on 
 chymistry, are particularly useful ; not so much from the 
 quantity of knowledge which they contain, as by the 
 agreeable manner in which it is communicated : the 
 mind is opened to extensive views, at the same time 
 that nothing above the comprehension of children is 
 introduced. The mixture of moral and scientific lessons 
 is happily managed, so as to relieve the attention ; 
 some of the moral lessons contain sound argument, and 
 some display just views of life. " Perseverance against 
 Fortune;" "The Price of Victory;" "Eyes and no 
 Eyes," have been generally admired as much by parents 
 as by children. 
 
 There is a little book called " Leisure Hours," which 
 contains a great deal of knowledge suited to young peo- 
 ple ; but they must observe, that the style is not ele- 
 gant; perhaps, in a future edition, the style may be 
 revised. The " Conversations d'Emile" are elegantly 
 written, and the character of the mother and child ad- 
 mirably well preserved. White of Selborne's Natural- 
 ist's Calendar, we can recommend with entire approba- 
 tion : it is written in a familiar, yet elegant style ; and 
 the journal form gives it that air of reality which is so 
 
254 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 agreeable and interesting to the mind. Mr. White will 
 make those who have observed, observe the more, and 
 will excite the spirit of observation in those who never 
 before observed. 
 
 SnielUe's Natural History is a useful, entertaining 
 book ; but it 7nust be carefully looked over, and many- 
 pages and half pages must be entirely sacrificed. And 
 here one general caution may be necessary. It is 
 hazarding too much to make children promise not to 
 read parts of any book which is put into their hands ; 
 when the book is too valuable, in a parent's estimation, 
 to be cut or blotted, let it not be given to children when 
 they are alone ; in a parent's presence there is no dan- 
 ger, and the children will acquire the habit of reading 
 the passages that are selected without feeling curiosity 
 about the rest. As young people grow up, they will 
 judge of the selections that have been made for them ; 
 they will perceive why such a passage was fit for their 
 understanding at one period, which they could not have 
 understood at another. If they are never forced to 
 read what is tiresome, they will anxiously desire to 
 have passages selected for them ; and they will not 
 imagine that their parents are capricious in these selec- 
 tions ; but they will, we speak from experience, be sin- 
 cerely grateful to them for the time and trouble be- 
 stowed in procuring their literary amusements. 
 
 When young people have established their character 
 for truth and exact integrity, they should be entirely 
 trusted with books as with every thing else. A slight 
 pencil line at the side of a page will then be all that is 
 necessary to guide them to the best parts of any book. 
 Suspicion would be as injurious as too easy a faith is 
 imprudent : confidence confirms integrity ; but the 
 habits of truth must be formed before dangerous tempta- 
 tions are presented. We intended to give a list of 
 books, and to name the pages in several authors, which 
 have been found interesting to children from seven to 
 nine or ten years old. The Reviews; The Annual 
 Registers ; Enfield's Speaker ; Elegant Extracts ; The 
 papers of the Manchester Society ; The French Academy 
 of Sciences ; Priestley's History of Vision ; and parts 
 of the Works of Frankhn, of Chaptal, Lavoisier, and 
 Darwin, have supplied us with our best materials. 
 Some periodical papers from the World, Rambler, 
 Guardian, and Adventurer, have been chosen : these 
 
BOOKS. 255 
 
 are books with which all libraries are furnished. But 
 we forbear to offer any list ; the passages we should 
 have mentioned have been found to please in one 
 family ; but we are sensible, that as circumstances vary, 
 the choice of books for different famihes ought to be 
 different. Every parent must be capable of selecting 
 those passages in books which are most suited to the 
 age, temper, and taste of their children. Much of the 
 success, both of literary and moral education, will de- 
 pend upon our seizing the happy moments for instruc- 
 tion ; moments when knowledge immediately applies 
 to what children are intent upon themselves ; the step 
 which is to be taken by the understanding, should im- 
 mediately foJlow that which has already been secured. 
 By watching the turn of mind, and by attending to the 
 conversation of children, we may perceive exactly 
 what will suit them in books ; and we may preserve the 
 connexion of their ideas without fatiguing their atten- 
 tion. A paragraph read aloud from the newspaper of 
 the day, a passage from any book which parents happen 
 to be reading themselves, will catch the attention of the 
 young people in a family, and will, perhaps, excite more 
 taste and more curiosity, than could be given by whole 
 volumes read at times when the mind is indolent or 
 intent upon other occupations. 
 
 The custom of reading aloud for a great while to- 
 gether is extremely fatiguing to children, and hurtful to 
 their understandings ; they learn to read on without the 
 slightest attention or thought ; the more fluently they 
 read, the worse it is for them ; for their preceptors, 
 while words and sentences are pronounced with tolera- 
 ble emphasis, never seem to suspect that the reader can 
 be tired, or that his mind may be absent from his book. 
 The monotonous tones which are acquired by children 
 who read a great deal aloud, are extremely disagreeable, 
 and the habit cannot easily be broken : we may observe, 
 that children who have not acquired bad customs, al- 
 ways read as they speak, when they understand what 
 they read ; but the moment when they come to any 
 sentence which they do not comprehend, their voice 
 alters, and they read with hesitation, or with false em- 
 phasis : to these signals a preceptor should always 
 attend, and the passage should be explained before the 
 pupil is taught to read it in a musical tone, or with the 
 proper emphasis : thus children should be taught to read 
 
256 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 by the understanding, and not merely by the ear. 
 Dialogues, dramas, and well-written narratives, they 
 always read ivell, and these should be their exercises in 
 the art of reading : they should be allowed to put down 
 the book as soon as they are tired ; but an attentive 
 tutor will perceive when they ought to be stopped, he- 
 fore the utmost point of fatigue. We have heard a boy 
 of nine years old, who had never been taught elocution 
 by any reading-master, read simple pathetic passages, 
 and natural dialogues, in " P^venings at Home," in a 
 manner which would have made even Sterne's critic 
 forget his stop-watch. 
 
 By reading much at a time, it is true that a great 
 number of books are run through in a few years ; but 
 this is not at all our object ; on the contrary, our great- 
 est difficulty has been to find a sufficient number of 
 books fit for children to read. If they early acquire a 
 strong taste for literature, no matter how few authors 
 they may have perused. We have often heard young 
 people exclaim, " I'm glad I have not read such a book 
 — I have a great pleasure to come !" — Is not this better 
 than to see a child yawn over a work, and count the 
 number of tiresome pages, while he says, " I shall have 
 got through this book by-and-by ; and what must I read 
 when I have done this ? I believe I never shall have 
 read all I am to read ! What a number of tiresome 
 books there are in the world ! I wonder what can be 
 the reason that I must read them all ? If I were but 
 allowed to skip the pages that I don't understand, I 
 should be much happier ; for when I come to any thing 
 entertaining in a book, I can keep myself awake, and 
 then I like reading as well as anybody does." 
 
 Far from forbidding to skip the incomprehensible 
 pages, or to close the tiresome volume, we should ex- 
 hort our pupils never to read one single page that tires, 
 or that they do not fully understand. We need not fear, 
 that, because an excellent book is not interesting at one 
 period of education, it should not become interesting at 
 another ; the child is always the best judge of what is 
 suited to his present capacity. If he says, " Such a 
 book tires me," the preceptor should never answer with 
 a forbidding, reproachful look, " I am surprised at that, 
 it is no great proof of your taste ; the book which you 
 say tires you, is written by one of the best authors in 
 the English language." Tihe boy is sorry for it, but he 
 
BOOKS. 257 
 
 cannot help it ; and he concludes, if he be of a timid 
 temper, that he has no taste for literature, since the best 
 authors in the English language tire him. It is in vain 
 to tell him that the book is " universally allowed to be 
 very entertaining" — 
 
 ' If it be not such to me, 
 What care I how fine it be !" 
 
 The more encouraging and more judicious parent 
 would answer upon a similar occasion, " You are very 
 right not to read what tires you, my dear ; and I am 
 glad that you have sense enough to tell me that this 
 book does not entertain you, though it is written by one 
 of the best authors in the English language. We do 
 not think at all the worse of your taste and understand- 
 ing; we know that the day will come when this book 
 will probably entertain you; put it by until then, I 
 advise you." 
 
 It may be thought, that young people who read only 
 those parts of books which are entertaining, or those 
 which are selected for them, are in danger of learning 
 a taste for variety, and desultory habits, which may 
 prevent their acquiring accurate knowledge upon any 
 subject, and which may render them incapable of that 
 literary appHcation, without which nothing can be 
 well learned. We hope the candid preceptor will sus- 
 pend his judgment, until we can explain our sentiments 
 upon this subject more fully, when we examine the 
 nature of invention and memory.* 
 
 The secret fear that stimulates parents to compel their 
 children to constant application to certain books, arises 
 from the opinion, that much chronological and historical 
 knowledge must at all events be acquired during a certain 
 number of years. The knowledge of history is thought 
 a necessary accomplishment in one sex, and an essen- 
 tial part of education in the other. We ought, however, 
 to distinguish between that knowledge of history and 
 of chronology which is really useful, and that wliich is 
 acquired merely for parade. We must call that useful 
 knowledge w^hich enlarges the view of human life and 
 of human nature, which teaches by the experience of 
 the past what we may expect in future. To study 
 
 *■ Chapter on Invention and Memoiy. 
 
258 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 history as it relates to these objects, the pupil must have 
 acquired much previous knowledge; the habit of rea- 
 soning, and the power of combining distant analogies. 
 The works of Hume, of Robertson, Gibbon, or Voltaire, 
 can be properly understood only by well-informed and 
 highly cultivated understandings. Enlarged views of 
 policy, some knowledge of the interests of commerce, 
 of the progress and state of civilization and literature in 
 different countries, are necessary to any one who 
 studies these authors with real advantage. Without 
 these, the finest sense and the finest writing must be 
 utterly thrown away upon the reader. Children, conse- 
 quently, under the name of fashionable histories, often 
 read what to them is absolute nonsense : they have 
 very little motive for the study of history, and all that 
 we can say to keep alive their interest, amounts to the 
 common argument, " that such information will be use- 
 ful to them hereafter, when they hear history mentioned 
 in conversation." 
 
 Some people imagine that the memory resembles a 
 storehouse, in which we should early lay up facts ; and 
 they assert that, however useless these may appear at 
 the time when they are laid up, they will afterward be 
 ready for service at our summons. One comparison 
 may be fairly answered by another, since it is impossible 
 to oppose comparison by reasoning. In accumulating 
 facts, as in amassing riches, people often begin by be- 
 lieving that they value wealth only for the use they 
 ftshall make of it ; but it often happens, that during the 
 course of their labours they learn habitually to set a 
 value upon the coin itself, and they grow avaricious of 
 that which they are sensible has little intrinsic value. 
 Young people who have accumulated a vast number of 
 facts, and names, and dates, perhaps intended originally 
 to make some good use of their treasure ; but they fre- 
 quently forget their laudable intentions, and conclude by 
 contenting themselves with the display of their nominal 
 wealth. Pedants and misers forget the real use of 
 wealth and knowledge, and they accumulate, without 
 rendering what they acquire useful to themselves or to 
 others. 
 
 A number of facts are often stored in the mind which 
 lie there useless, because they cannot be found at the 
 moment when they are wanted. It is not sufficient, 
 therefore, in education, to store up knowledge ; it is 
 
BOOKS. ^ 259 
 
 essential to arrange facts so that they shall be ready for 
 use, as materials for the imagination, or the judgment, 
 to select and combine. The power of retentive mem- 
 ory is exercised too much, the faculty of recolleclive 
 memory is exercised too little, by the common modes 
 of education. While children are reading the history 
 of kings, and battles, and victories — while they are 
 learning tables of chronology and lessons of geography 
 by rote, their inventive and their reasoning faculties are 
 absolutely passive ; nor are any of the facts which they 
 learn in this manner associated with circumstances in 
 real life. These trains of ideas may with much pains 
 and labour be fixed in the memory, but they must be re- 
 called precisely in the order in which they were learned 
 by rote, and this is not the order in which they may 
 be wanted: they will be conjured up in technical suc- 
 cession or in troublesome multitudes. Many people are 
 obliged to repeat the alphabet before they can recollect 
 the relative place of any given letter ; others repeat a 
 column of the multiplication table before they can recol- 
 lect the given sum of the number they want. There is 
 a common rigmarole for telling the number of days in 
 each month in the year ; those who have learned it by 
 heart usually repeat the whole of it before they can 
 recollect the place of the month which they want ; and 
 sometimes in running over the lines, people miss the 
 very month which they are thinking of, or repeat its 
 name without perceiving that they have named it. In 
 the same manner, those who have learned historical or 
 chronological facts in a technical mode, must go through 
 the whole train of their rigmarole associations before 
 they can hit upon the idea which they want. Lord 
 Bolingbroke mentions an acquaintance of his, who had 
 an amazing collection of facts in his memory, but unfor- 
 tunately he could never produce one of them in the 
 proper moment; he was always obliged to go back to 
 some fixed landing-place, from which he was accus- 
 tomed to take his flight. Lord Bolingbroke used to be 
 afraid of asking him a question, because when once he 
 began, he went off like a larum, and could not be stopped • 
 he poured out a profusion of things which had nothing 
 to do with the point in question ; and it was ten to ono 
 but he omitted the only circumstance that would have 
 been really serviceable. Many people who have tena- 
 cious memories, and who have been ill educated, find 
 
260 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 themselves in a similar condition, with much knowledge 
 baled up, an encumbrance to themselves and to their 
 friends. The great difference which appears in men 
 of the same profession, and in the same circumstances, 
 depends upon the application of their knowledge more 
 than upon the quantity of their learning. 
 
 With respect to a knowledge of history and chrono- 
 logic learning, everybody is now nearly upon a level ; 
 this species of information cannot be a great distinction 
 to any one : a display of such common knowledge is 
 considered by literary people, and by men of genius es- 
 pecially, as ridiculous and offensive. One motive, there- 
 fore, for loading the minds of children with historic 
 dates and facts, is likely, even from its having universallj'- 
 operated, to cease to operate in future. Without ma- 
 king it a laborious task to young people, it is easy to 
 give them such a knowledge of history as will preserve 
 them from the shame of ignorance, and put them upon 
 a footing with men of good sense in society, though 
 not, perhaps, with men who have studied history for the 
 purpose of shining in conversation. For our purpose, it 
 is not necessary early to study voluminous philosophic 
 histories ; these should be preserved for a more ad- 
 vanced period of their education. The first thing to be 
 done is to seize the moment when curiosity is excited 
 by the accidental mention of any historic name or 
 event. When a child hears his father talk of the Ro- 
 man emperors, or of the Roman people, he naturally in- 
 quires who these people were ; some short explanation 
 may be given, so as to leave curiosity yet unsatisfied. 
 The prints of the Roman emperors' heads, and Mrs. 
 Trimmer's prints of the remarkable events in the Roman 
 and English history, will entertain children. Madame 
 de Silleri, in her Adela and Theodore, describes histori- 
 cal hangings, which she found advantageous to her pu- 
 pils. In a prince's palace, or a nobleman's palace, such 
 hangings would be suitable decorations, — or in a public 
 seminary of education it would be worth while to pre- 
 pare them : private families would, perhaps, be alarmed 
 at the idea of expense, and at the idea that their houses 
 could not readily be furnished in proper time for the in- 
 struction of children. As we know the effect of such 
 apprehensions of difficulty, we forbear from insisting 
 upon historical hangings, especially as we think that 
 children should not, by any great apparatus for teaching 
 
BOOKS. 261 
 
 them history, be induced to set an exorbitant value upon 
 this sort of knowledge, and should hence be excited to 
 cultivate their memories without reasoning or reflect- 
 ing. If any expedients are thought necessary to fix his- 
 toric facts early in the mind, the entertaining display of 
 Roman emperors and British kings and queens may be 
 made, as Madame de Silleri recommends, in a magic 
 lantern, or by the Omhres Chinoises. When these are 
 exhibited, there should be some care taken not to intro- 
 duce any false ideas. Parents should be present at the 
 spectacle, and should answer each eager question with 
 prudence. " Ha ! here comes Queen Elizabeth !" ex- 
 claims the child ; " was she a good woman V A fool- 
 ish show-man would answer, " Yes, master, she was the 
 greatest queen that ever sat upon the English throne !" 
 A sensible mother would reply, " My dear, I cannot an- 
 swer that question ; you will read her history yourself, 
 — you will judge by her actions whether she was or was 
 not a good woman." Children are often extremely im- 
 patient to settle the precise merit and demerit of every 
 historical personage with whose names they become 
 acquainted ; but this impatience should not be gratified 
 by the short method of referring to the characters given 
 of these persons in any common historical abridgment. 
 We should advise all such characters to be omitted in 
 books for children ; let those who read form a judg- 
 ment for themselves ; this will do more service to the 
 understanding than can be done by learning by rote the 
 opinion of any historian. The good and bad qualities, 
 the decisive, yet contradictory epithets, are so jumbled 
 together in these characters, that no distinct notion can 
 be left in the reader's mind : and the same words recur 
 so frequently in the characters of diff'erent kings, that 
 they are read over in a monotonous voice, as mere con- 
 cluding sentences, which come, of course, at the end of 
 every reign. " King Henry the Fifth was tall and slen- 
 der, with a long neck, engaging aspect, and limbs of the 
 most elegant turn. ****** y{\% valour was 
 such as no danger could startle, and no difficulty could 
 oppose. He managed the dissensions among his ene- 
 mies with such address as spoke him consummate in 
 the arts of the cabinet. He was chaste, temperate, mod- 
 est, and devout ; scrupulously just in his administration, 
 and severely exact in the disciphne of his army, upon 
 which he knew his glory and success in a great measure 
 
262 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 depended. In a word, it must be owned that he was 
 without an equal in the arts of war, policy, and govern- 
 ment. His great qualities were, however, somewhat 
 obscured by his ambition, and his natural propensity to 
 cruelty." 
 
 Is it possible that a child of seven or eight years old 
 can acquire any distinct, or any just ideas, from the pe- 
 rusal of this character of Henry the Fifth 1 Yet it is 
 selected as one of the best drawn characters from a little 
 abridgment of the history of England, which is, in gen- 
 eral, as well done as any we have seen. Even the least 
 exceptionable historic abridgments require the correc- 
 tions of a patient parent. In abridgments for children, 
 the facts are usually interspersed with what the authors 
 intend for moral reflections, and easy explanations of 
 political events, which are meant to be suited to the 
 meanest capacities. These reflections and explanations 
 do much harm ; they instil prejudice, and they accus- 
 tom the young, unsuspicious reader, to swallow absurd 
 reasoning, merely because it is often presented to him. 
 If no history can be found entirely free from these de- 
 fects, and if it be even impossible to correct any com- 
 pletely, without writing the whole over again, yet much 
 may be done by those who hear children read. Expla- 
 nations can be given at the moment when the difllculties 
 occur. When the young reader pauses to think, allow 
 him to think, and sufl'er him to question the assertions 
 which he meets with in books with freedom, and that 
 minute accuracy which is only tiresome to those who 
 cannot reason. The simple morality of childhood is 
 continually puzzled and shocked at the representation 
 of the crimes and the virtues of historic heroes. His- 
 tory, when divested of the graces of eloquence, and of 
 that veil which the imagination is taught to throw over 
 antiquity, presents a disgusting, terrible list of crimes 
 and calamities : murders, assassinations, battles, revolu- 
 tions, are the memorable events of history. The love 
 of glory atones for military barbarity ; treachery and 
 fraud are frequently dignified with the names of pru- 
 dence and policy ; and the historian, desirous to appear 
 moral and sentimental, yet compelled to produce facts, 
 makes out an inconsistent, ambiguous system of moral- 
 ity. A judicious and honest preceptor will not, how- 
 ever, imitate the false tenderness of the historian for 
 the dead : he will rather consider what is most advan- 
 
BOOKS. 263 
 
 tageous to the living ; he will perceive tliat it is of more 
 consequence that his pupils should have distinct notions 
 of right and wrong, than that they should have perfectly 
 by rote all the Grecian, Roman, English, French, all the 
 fifty volumes of the Universal History. A preceptor 
 will not surely attempt, by any sophistry, to justify the 
 crimes which sometimes obtain the name of heroism ; 
 when his ingenuous, indignant pupil verifies the aston- 
 ishing numeration of the hundreds and thousands that 
 were put to death by a conqueror, or that fell in one 
 battle, he will allow this astonishment and indignation 
 to be just, and he will rejoice that it is strongly felt and 
 expressed. 
 
 Besides the false characters which are sometimes 
 drawn of individuals in history, national characters are 
 often decidedly given in a few epithets, which prejudice 
 the mind and convey no real information. Can a child 
 learn any thing but national prepossession from reading, 
 in a character of the English nation, that " boys, before 
 they can speak, discover that they know the proper 
 guards in boxing with their fists, a quality that, perhaps, 
 is peculiar to the English, and is seconded by a strength 
 of arm that few other people can exert 1 This gives 
 their soldiers an infinite superiority in all battles that 
 are to be decided by the bayonet screwed upon the 
 musket."* Why should children be told that the Ital- 
 ians are naturally revengeful ; the French naturalhj vain 
 and perfidious, " excessively credulous and litigious;" 
 that the Spaniards are naturally ]e^\ous and haughty If 
 The patriotism of an enlarged and generous mind can- 
 not, surely, depend upon the early contempt inspired for 
 foreign nations. — We do not speak of the education 
 necessary for naval and military men — with this we 
 have nothing to do ; but surely it cannot be necessary 
 to teach national prejudices to any other class of young 
 men. If these prejudices are ridiculed by sensible pa- 
 rents, children will not be misled by partial authors; 
 general assertions will be of little consequence to those 
 who are taught to reason ; they will not be overawed 
 by nonsense wherever they may meet with it. 
 
 The words whig and tory occur frequently in Eng- 
 lish history, and liberty and tyranny are talked of — the 
 
 * Guthrie's Geographical, Historical, and Comraercial Grammar 
 page 186. + Guthrie, page 3'J8. 
 
264 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 influence of the crown — the rights of the people. What 
 are children of eight or nine years old to understand by 
 these expressions I and how can a tutor explain them 
 without inspiring political prejudices ? We do not mean 
 here to enter into any pohtical discussion ; we think 
 that children should not be taught the principles of their 
 preceptors, whatever they maybe; they should judge 
 for themselves ; and, until they are able to judge, all 
 discussion, all explanations, should be scrupulously 
 avoided. While they are children, the plainest chroni- 
 cles are for them the best histories, because they ex- 
 press no political tenets and dogmas. When our pupils 
 grow up, at whatever age they may be capable of un- 
 derstanding them, the best authors who have written on 
 each side of the question, the best works, without any 
 party considerations, should be put into their hands ; and 
 let them form their own opinions from facts and argu- 
 ments, uninfluenced by passion, and uncontrolled by 
 authority. 
 
 As young people increase their collection of historic 
 facts, some arrangement will be necessary to preserve 
 these in proper order in the memory. Priestley's Bio- 
 graphical Chart is an extremely ingenious contrivance 
 for this purpose ; it should hang up in the room where 
 children read, or rather where they live ; for we hope 
 no room will ever be dismally consecrated to their 
 studies. Whenever they hear any celebrated name 
 mentioned, or when they meet with any in books, they 
 will run to search for these names in the biographical 
 chart ; and those who are used to children will per- 
 ceive, that the pleasure of this search, and the joy of the 
 discovery, will fix biography and chronology easily in 
 their memories. Mortimer's Student's Dictionary, and 
 Brooke's Gazetteer, should, in a library or room which 
 children usually inhabit, be always within the reach of 
 children. If they are always consulted at the very mo- 
 ment they are wanted, much may be learned from 
 them ; but if there be any difficulty in getting at these 
 dictionaries, children forget, and lose all interest in the 
 things which they wanted to know. But if knowledge 
 becomes immediately useful or entertaining to them, 
 there is no danger of their forgetting. Who ever for- 
 gets Shakspeare's historical plays ] The arrangements 
 contrived and executed by others do not always fix 
 things so firmly in our remembrance as those which 
 
BOOKS. 265 
 
 we have had some share in contriving and executing 
 ourselves. 
 
 One of our pupils has drawn out a biographical chart 
 upon the plan of Priestley's, inserting such names only 
 as he was well acquainted with ; he found that in draw- 
 ing out this chart, a great portion of general history and 
 biography was fixed in his memory. Charts, in the 
 form of Priestley's, but without the names of the he- 
 roes, &c. being inserted, would, perhaps, be useful (or 
 schools and private families. 
 
 There are two French historical works which we 
 wish were well translated for the advantage of those 
 who do not understand French. The Chevalier Me- 
 heghan's Tableau de I'Histoire Moderne, which is sensi- 
 bly divided into epochs ; and Condillac's View of Uni- 
 versal History, comprised in five volumes, in his " Cours 
 d'Etude pour I'lnstruction du Prince de Parma." This 
 history carries on, along with the records of wars and 
 revolutions, the history of the progress of the human 
 mind, of arts, and sciences ; the view of the diflferent 
 governments of Europe is full and concise ; no preju- 
 dices are instilled, yet the manly and rational eloquence 
 of virtue gives life and spirit to the work. The con- 
 cluding address, from the preceptor to his royal pupil, 
 is written with all the enlightened energy of a man of 
 truth and genius. We do not recommend Condillac's 
 history as an elementary work ; for this it is by no 
 means fit; but it is one of the best histories that a 
 young man of fifteen or sixteen can read. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to conceive, that several trea- 
 tises on grammar, the art of reasoning, thinking, and 
 writing, which are contained in M. Condillac's course 
 of study, were designed by him for elementary books, 
 for the instruction of a child from seven to ten years 
 old. It appears the more surprising that the abbe should 
 have so far mistaken the capacity of childhood, because, 
 in his judicious preface, he seems fully sensible of the 
 danger of premature cultivation, and of the absurdity of 
 substituting a knowledge of words for a knowledge of 
 things, A.S M. Condillac's is a work of high reputation, 
 we may be allowed to make a few remarks on its prac- 
 tical utility ; and this may, perhaps, afford us an oppor- 
 tunity of explaining our ideas upon the use of meta- 
 physical, poetical, and critical works, in early educa- 
 tion. We do not mean any invidious criticism upon 
 M 
 
2G6 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Condillac,but in " Practical Education" we wislito take 
 our examples and illustrations from real life. The 
 abbe's course of study, for a boy of seven years old, be- 
 gins with metaph)'^sics. In his preface he asserts, that 
 the arts of speaking, reasoning, and writing, differ from 
 one another only in degrees of accuracy, and in the 
 more or less perfect connexion of ideas. He observes, 
 that attention to the manner in which we acquire and 
 in which we arrange our knowledge, is equally neces- 
 sary to those who would learn and to those who would 
 teach, with success. These remarks are just ; but does 
 not he draw an erroneous conclusion from his own 
 principles, when he infers, that the first lessons which 
 we should teach a child ought to be metaphysicaU He 
 has given us an abstract of those which he calls pre- 
 liminary lessons, on the operations. of the soul, on at- 
 tention, judgment, imagination, &c. — he adds, that he 
 thought it useless to give to the public the conversa- 
 tions and explanations which he had with his pupil on 
 these subjects. Both parents and children must regret 
 the suppression of these explanatory notes ; as the les- 
 sons appear at present, no child of seven years old can 
 understand, and few preceptors can or will make them 
 what they ought to be. In the first lesson on the differ- 
 ent species of ideas, the abbe says, 
 
 " The idea, for instance, which I have of Peter, is sin- 
 gular, or individual ; and as the idea of man is general 
 relatively to the ideas of a nobleman and a citizen, it is 
 particular as it relates to the idea of animal."* 
 
 " Relatively to the ideas of a nobleman and a citizen." 
 "What a long explanation upon these words there must 
 have been between the abbe and the prince ! The whole 
 view of society must have been opened at once, or the 
 prince must have swallowed prejudices and metaphysics 
 together. To make these things familiar to a child, 
 Condillac says that we must bring a few or many ex- 
 amples ; but where shall we find examples 1 Where 
 shall we find proper words to express to a child ideas of 
 political relations mingled with metaphysical subtleties ? 
 
 Through this whole chapter on particular and gen- 
 eral ideas, the abbe is secretly intent upon a dispute be- 
 
 *" L'idee, par exemple, que j'ai de Pierre, est singulieie ou indi- 
 viduelle, et coinnie l'idee d'homme est generale par rapport aux 
 idees de noble et de rotorier, elle est particuli^re par rapport a l'idee 
 d'animal."— Letjons Preliminaires, vol. i. p. 43. 
 
BOOKS. 267 
 
 gun or revived in the Ihirteenth century, and not yet 
 finished, between the Nominalists and the Realists ; but 
 a child knows nothing^ of this. 
 
 In the article " On the Power of Thinking:," an article 
 which he acknowledges to be a little difficult, he ob- 
 serves, that the great point is to make the child com- 
 prehend what is meant by attention ; " for as soon as 
 he understands that, all the rest," he assures us, " will 
 be easy." Is it then of less consequence that the child 
 should learn the habit of attention, than that he should 
 learn the meaning of the word ? Granting, however, 
 that the definition of this word is of consequence, that 
 definition should be made proportionably clear. The 
 tutor, at least, must understand it, before he can hope 
 to explain it to his pupil. Here it is : 
 
 " * * * when among many sensations which you 
 experience at the same time, tke direction of the organs 
 makes you take notice of one, so that you do not ob- 
 serve the others any longer, this sensation becomes 
 what we call attention* 
 
 This is not accurate; it is not clear whether the di- 
 rection of the organs be the cause or the effect of at- 
 tention ; or whether it be only a concomitant of the 
 sensation. Attention, we know, can be exercised upon 
 abstract ideas ; for this objection M. Condillac has after- 
 ward a provisional clause, but the original definitioii 
 remains defective, because the direction of the organs 
 is not, though it be stated as such, essential ; besides, 
 we are told only, that the sensation described becomes 
 (devient) what we call attention. What attention actu- 
 ally is, we are still left to discover. The matter is 
 made yet more difficult; for when we are just fixed in 
 the belief that attention depends " upon our remarking 
 one sensation, and not remarking others which we may- 
 have at the same time," we are in the next chapter given 
 to understand, that " in comparison we may have a dou- 
 ble attention, or two attentions, which are only two sen- 
 sations, which make themselves be taken notice of 
 equally ; and consequently comparison consists only of 
 sensations."! 
 
 " * Ainsi lorsque, de plusiers sensations qui .se font en meme temps 
 8iir vous, la direction des organ.s vous en fait remarquer une, de ma- 
 niere que vous ne reniarquez plus les autres, cette sensation devient 
 ce que nous appelions atteationy — Legons Preiiminaires, p. 46. 
 
 t " La Comparaison n'est done qu'une double attention. Nous ve- 
 M2 
 
268 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 The doctrine of simultaneous ideas here glides in, 
 and we concede unawares all that is necessary to the 
 abbe's favourite system, " that sensation becomes suc- 
 cessively attention, memory, comparison, judgment, and 
 reflection ;* and that the art of reasoning is reducible 
 to a series of identic propositions." Without, at pres- 
 ent, attempting to examine this system, we may ob- 
 serve, that in education it is more necessary to preserve 
 the mind from prejudice, than to prepare it for the adop- 
 tion of any system. Those who have attended to met- 
 aphysical proceedings know, that if a few apparently 
 trifling concessions be made in the beginning of the 
 business, a man of ingenuity may force us, in the end, 
 to acknowledge whatever he pleases. It is impossible 
 that a child can foresee these consequences, nor is it 
 probable that he should have paid such accurate atten- 
 tion to the operations of his own mind, as to be able to 
 detect the fallacy, or to feel the truth, of his tutor's as- 
 sertions. A metaphysical catechism may readily be 
 taught to children ; they may learn to answer almost 
 as readily as Trenck answered in his sleep to the guards 
 who regularly called to him every night at midnight. 
 Children may answer expertly to the questions, " What 
 is attention 1 What is memory 1 What is imagination 1 
 What is the difference between wit and judgment 1 How- 
 many sorts of ideas have you, and which are they?" 
 But when they are perfect in their responses to all these 
 questions, how much are they advanced in real knowl- 
 edge ] 
 
 Allegory has mixed with metaphysics almost as much 
 as with poetry ; personifications of memory and imagi- 
 nation are familiar to us ; to each have been addressed 
 odes and sonnets, so that we almost believe in their 
 individual existence, or at least we are become jealous 
 of the separate attributes of these ideal beings. This 
 metaphysical mytholog}'^ may be ingenious and elegant, 
 but it is better adapted to the pleasures of poetry than 
 to the purposes of reasoning. Those who have been 
 accustomed to respect and believe in it, will find it difll- 
 cult soberly to examine any argument upon abstract 
 
 lions de voir que I'attention n'est qu'une sensation qui se fait reinar- 
 quer. Deux attentions ne sent done que deux sensations reinarquer 
 egalement ; et par consequence il n'y a dans la comparaison que des 
 sensations." — Legons Pr^Iiminaires, p. 47. 
 * See Art de Penser, p. 324. 
 
BOOKS. 
 
 269 
 
 subjects ; their favourite prejudices will retard them, 
 when they attempt to advance in the art of reasoning. 
 All accurate metaphysical reasoners have perceived 
 and deplored the difficulties which the prepossessions 
 of education have thrown in their way ; and they have 
 been obliged to waste their time and powers in fruitless 
 attempts to vanquish these in their own minds, or in 
 those of their readers. Can we wish in education to 
 perpetuate similar errors, and to transmit to another 
 generation the same artificial imbecility ? Or can we 
 avoid these evils, if with our present habits of thinking 
 and speaking, we attempt to teach metaphysics to chil- 
 dren of seven years old 1 
 
 A well-educated, intelligent young man, accustomed 
 to accurate reasoning, yet brought up without any met- 
 aphysical prejudices, would be a treasure to a meta- 
 physician to cross-examine : he would be eager to hear 
 the unprejudiced youth's evidence, as the monarch, who 
 had ordered a child to be shut up, without hearing one 
 word of any human language, from infancy to manhood, 
 was impatient to hear what would be the first word that 
 he uttered. But though we wish extremely well to the 
 experiments of metaphysicians, we are more intent upon 
 the advantage which our unprejudiced pupils would 
 themselves derive from their judicious education : prob- 
 ably they would, coming fresh to the subject, make some 
 discoveries in the science of metaphysics : they would 
 have no paces* to show ; perhaps they might advance 
 a step or two on this difficult ground. 
 
 When we object to the early initiation of novices into 
 metaphysical mysteries, we only recommend it to pre- 
 ceptors not to teach; let pupils learn whatever they 
 please, or whatever they can, without reading any met- 
 aphysical books, and without hearing any opinions, or 
 learning any definitions by rote ; children may reflect 
 upon their own feelings, and they should be encouraged 
 to make accurate observations upon their own minds. 
 Sensible children will soon, for instance, observe the 
 effect of habit, which enables them to repeat actions 
 with ease and facility, which they have frequently per- 
 formed. The association of ideas, as it assists them to 
 remember particular things, will soon be noticed, though 
 not, perhaps, in scientific words. The use of the asso- 
 
 * See Dunciad. 
 
270 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 ciation of pain or pleasure, in the form of what we call 
 reward and punishment, may probably be early per- 
 ceived. Children will be delighted with these discov- 
 eries if they are suifered to make them, and they will 
 apply this knowledge in their own education. Trifling 
 daily events will recall their observations, and experi- 
 ence will confirm or correct their juvenile theories. 
 But if metaphysical books or dogmas are forced upon 
 children in the form of lessons, they will, as such, be 
 learned by rote, and forgotten. 
 
 To prevent parents from expecting as much as the 
 Abbe Condillac does from the comprehension of pupils 
 of six or seven years old upon abstract subjects, and to 
 enable preceptors to form some idea of the perfect sim- 
 plicity in which children, unprejudiced upon metaphysi- 
 cal questions, would express themselves, we give the 
 following little dialogues, word for word, as they passed : 
 
 1780. Father. Where do you think '\ 
 
 A . (Six and a half years old.) In my mouth. 
 
 Ho , (Five years and a half old.) In my stomach. 
 
 Father. Where do you feel that you are glad or sorry ^ 
 
 A . In my stomach. 
 
 Ho . In my eyes. 
 
 Father. What are your senses foY ? 
 
 Ho . To know things. 
 
 Without any previous conversation. Ho (five years 
 
 and a half old) said to her mother, " I think you will be 
 glad my right foot is sore, because you told me I did not 
 lean enough upon my left foot." This child seemed, on 
 many occasions, to have formed an accurate idea of the 
 use of punisliment, considering it always as pain given 
 to cure us of some fault, or to prevent us from suffering 
 more pain in future. 
 
 April, 1792. H , a boy nine years and three quar- 
 ters old, as he was hammering at a work-bench, paused 
 for a short time, and then said to his sister, who was in 
 the room with him, " Sister, I observe that when I don't 
 look at my right hand when I hammer, and only think 
 where it ought to hit, I can hammer much better than 
 when I look at it. I don't know what the reason of that 
 is ; unless it is because I think in my head." 
 
 M- . I am not sure, but I believe that we do think 
 
 in our heads. 
 
 H . Then, perhaps, my head is divided into two 
 
 parts, and that one thinks for one arm, and one for the 
 
BOOKS. 271 
 
 other ; so that when I wantio strike with my right arm, 
 I think where I want to hit the wood, and then, without 
 looking at it, I can move my arm in the right direction : 
 as when my father is going to write, he sometimes 
 sketches it. 
 
 M . What do you mean, my dear, by sketching it ? 
 
 H . Why, when he moves his hand (flourishes) 
 
 without touching the paper with the pen. And at first, 
 when I want to do any thing, I cannot move my hand 
 as I mean ; but after being used to it, then I can do much 
 better. I don't know why. 
 
 After going on hammering for some time, he stopped 
 again, and said, " There's another thing I wanted to tell 
 you. Sometimes I think to myself, that it is right to 
 think of things that are sensible ; and then when I want 
 to set about thinking of things that are sensible, I cannot ; 
 I can only think of that over and over again." 
 
 M . You can only think of what 1 
 
 H . Of those words. They seem to be said to me 
 
 over and over again, till I'm quite tired, " That it is right 
 to think of things that have some sense." 
 
 The childish expressions in these remarks have not 
 been altered, because we wished to show exactly how 
 children at this age express their thoughts. If M. Con- 
 dillac had been used to converse with children, he surely 
 would not have expected that any boy of seven )''ears 
 old could understand his definition of attention, and his 
 metaphysical preliminary lessons. 
 
 After these preliminary lessons, we have a sketch of 
 the Prince of Parma's subsequent studies. M. Condil- 
 lac says, that his royal highness (being not yet eight 
 years old) was now " perfectly well acquainted with the 
 system of intellectual operations. He comprehended 
 already the production of his ideas ; he saw the origin 
 and the progress of the habits which he had contracted, 
 and he perceived how he could substitute just ideas for 
 the false ones which had been given to him, and good 
 habits instead of the bad habits which he had been suf- 
 fered to acquire. He had become so quickly familiar 
 with all these things, that he retraced their connexion 
 without effort, quite playfully."* 
 
 * Motif des etudes qui ont ete faites apres Legons Prchrmnaires, 
 p. 67. Le jeune prince connoissoit deja la systeme des operations 
 de son ame, il comprenoit la generation de ses idees, il voyoit I'ori- 
 
272 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 This prince must have been a prodigy ! After having 
 made him reflect upon his own infancy, the abbe judged 
 that the infancy of the world would appear to his pupil 
 " the most curious subject, and the most easy to study." 
 The analogy between these two infancies seems to ex- 
 ist chiefly in words ; it is not easy to gratify a child's 
 curiosity concerning the infancy of the world Ex- 
 tracts from L'Origine des Loix, by M. Goguet, with ex- 
 planatory notes, were put into the prince's hands, to ni- 
 form him of what happened in the commencement of 
 society. These were his evening studies. In the morn- 
 ings he read the French poets, Boileau, Moliere, Cor- 
 neille, and Racine, Racine, as we are particularly in- 
 formed, was, in the space of one year, read over a 
 dozen times. Wretched prince ! Unfortunate Racine I 
 The abbe acknowledges, that at first these authors were 
 not understood with the same ease as the prehminary 
 lessons had been : every word stopped the prince, and 
 it seemed as if every line were written in an unknown 
 language. This is not surprising; for how is it possible 
 that a boy of seven or eight years old, who could know 
 nothing of life and manners, could taste the wit and 
 humour of Moliere ; and, incapable as he must have 
 been of sympathy with the violent passions of tragic 
 heroes and heroines, how could he admire the lofty 
 dramas of Racine T We are willing to suppose that 
 the young Prince of Parma was quick, and well-in- 
 formed for his age ; but to judge of what is practicable, 
 we must produce examples from common life, instead 
 of prodigies. 
 
 S , a boy of nine years old, of whose abilities the 
 
 reader will be able to form some judgment from anec- 
 dotes in the following pages, whose understanding was 
 not wholly uncultivated, when he was between nine 
 and ten years old, expressed a wish to read some of 
 Shakspeare's plays. King John was given to him. 
 After the book had been before him for one winter's 
 evening, he returned it to his father, declaring that he 
 did not understand one word of the play ; he could not 
 
 gine et le progr^s des habitudes qu'il avoit contractees, et 11 conce- 
 vdit comment il pouvoit substitvier des idees justes aux ideas fausses 
 qu'on lui avoit donnees, et de bonnes habitudes aux mauvaises 
 q\i'on lui avoit laissc prendre. II s'etoit familiarise si promptemenl 
 avec toutes ces choses, qu'il s'en retracjoit la suite sans effort, et 
 comme en badinant. 
 
BOOKS. 273 
 
 make out what the people were about, and he did not 
 
 wish to read any more of it. His brother H , at 
 
 twelve years old, had made an equally inefl'ectual at- 
 tempt to read Shakspeare ; he was also equally decided 
 and honest in expressing his dislike to it ; he was much 
 
 surprised at seeing his sister B , who was a year or 
 
 two older than himself, reading Shakspeare with great 
 avidity; and he frequently asked what it was in that 
 book that could entertain her. Two years afterward, 
 
 when H was between fourteen and fifteen, he made 
 
 another trial; and he found that he understood the lan- 
 guage of Shakspeare without any difficulty. He read 
 all the historical plays with the greatest eagerness, and 
 particularly seized the character of Falstaff. He gave 
 a humorous description of the figure and dress which 
 he supposed Sir John should have, of his manner of 
 
 sitting, speaking, and walking. Probably, if H had 
 
 been pressed to read Shakspeare at the time when he 
 did not understand it, he might never have read these 
 plays with real pleasure during his whole life. Two 
 years increase prodigiously the vocabulary and the ideas 
 of young people ; and preceptors should consider, that 
 what we call literary taste cannot be formed without a 
 variety of knowledge. The productions of our ablest 
 writers cannot please until we are familiarized to the 
 ideas which they contain, or to which they allude.* 
 
 Poetry is usually supposed to be well suited to the 
 taste and capacity of children. In the infancy of taste 
 and of eloquence, rhetorical language is constantly ad- 
 mired ; the bold expression of strong feeling, and the 
 simple description of the beauties of nature, are found 
 to interest both cultivated and uncultivated minds. To 
 understand descriptive poetry, no previous knowledge 
 is required, beyond what common observation and sym- 
 pathy supply ;'the analogies and transitions of thought 
 are slight and obvious ; no labour of attention is de- 
 manded, no active effort of the mind is requisite to fol- 
 low them. The pleasures of simple sensation are, by 
 descriptive poetry, recalled to the imagination ; and we 
 live over again our past lives without increasing, and 
 
 * As this page was sent over to us for correction, we seize the 
 opportunity of expressing our wish, that " Botanical Dialogues, by 
 a Lady," had come sooner to our hands ; it contains much that we 
 think pecuharly valuable. 
 
 M 3 
 
274 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 without desiring to increase, our stock of knowledge. 
 If these observations be just, there must appear many 
 reasons why even that species of poetry whichi they can 
 understand, should not be the early study of children; 
 from time to time it may be an agreeable amusement, but 
 it should not become a part of their daily occupations. 
 We do not want to retrace perpetually in their mem- 
 ories a few musical words, or a few simple sensations ; 
 our object is to enlarge the sphere of our pupil's ca- 
 pacity, to strengthen the habits of attention, and to ex- 
 ercise all the powers of the mind. The inventive and 
 the reasoning faculties must be injured by the repetition 
 of vague expressions, and of exaggerated description, 
 with which most poetry abounds. Childhood is the 
 season for observation, and those w-ho observe ac- 
 curately will afterward be able to describe accurately : 
 but those who merely read descriptions, can present us 
 with nothing but the pictures of pictures. We have 
 reason to believe that children who have not been 
 accustomed to read a vast deal of poetry are not, for 
 that reason, less likely to excel in poetic language. 
 The reader will judge from the following explanation of 
 Gray's Hymn to Adversity, that the boy to whom they 
 were addressed was not much accustomed to read even 
 the most popular English poetry; yet this is the same 
 child who, a few months afterward, wrote the transla- 
 tion from Ovid of the Cave of Sleep, and who gave 
 the extempore description of a summer's evening in 
 tolerably good language. 
 
 Jan. 1796. S (nine years old) learned by heart 
 
 the Hymn to Adversity. When he came to repeat this 
 poem, he did not repeat it well, and he had it not per- 
 fectly by heart. His father suspected that he did not 
 understand it, and he examined him with some care. 
 
 Father. " Purple tyrants !" Why purple ? 
 
 8 . Because purple is a colour something like red 
 
 and black ; and tyrants look red and black. 
 
 Father. No. Kings were formerly called tyrants, and 
 they wore purple robes : the purple of the ancients is 
 supposed to be not the colour which we call purple, but 
 that which we call scarlet. 
 
 " When first thy sire to send on earth 
 ' Virtue, his darling child, design'd, 
 
 To thee he gave the heavenly birth, 
 And bade to form her infant mind." 
 
BOOKS. 275 
 
 When S was asked who was meant in these lines 
 
 by " thy sire," he frowned terribly ; but after some de- 
 liberation, he discovered that " thy sire" meant Jove, 
 the father, or sire of Adversity : still he was extremely 
 puzzled with "the heavenly birth." First he thought 
 that the heavenly birth was the birth of Adversity ; but, 
 upon recollection, the heavenly birth was to be trusted 
 to Adversity, therefore she could not be trusted with 
 
 the care of herself. S at length discovered, that 
 
 Jove must have had two daughters; and he said he sup- 
 posed that Virtue must have been one of these daugh- 
 ters, and that she must have been sister to Adversity, 
 who was to be her nurse, and who was to form her infant 
 mind : he nov/ perceived that the expression, " Stern, 
 rugged nurse," referred to Adversity ; before this, he 
 said he did not know whom it meant, whose " rigid 
 lore" was alluded to in these two lines, or who bore it 
 with patience. 
 
 " Stem, rugged nurse, thy rigid lore 
 With patience many a year she bore." 
 
 The following stanza S repeated a second time, 
 
 as if he did not understand it. 
 
 " Scared at thy frown terrific fly 
 Self-pleashig folUes, idle brood, 
 Wild laughter, noise, and thoughtless joy, 
 And leave us leisure to be good. 
 Light they disperse, and with them go 
 The summer friend, the flattering foe ; 
 By vain prosperity receiv'd. 
 To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd." 
 
 Father. Why does the poet say wild laughter \ 
 
 8 . It means, not reasonable. 
 
 Father. Why is it said, 
 
 " By vain prosperity receiv'd. 
 To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd ?" 
 
 S . Because the people, I suppose, when they 
 
 were in prosperity before, believed them before ; but 
 I think that seems confused. 
 
 " Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head, 
 Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand." 
 
 iS — — did not seem to comprehend the first of these 
 
276 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 two lines ; and upon cross-examination, it appeared that 
 he did not know the meaning of the word suppliant ; he 
 thought it meant " a person who suppUes us." 
 
 " Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, 
 Nor circled by the vengeful band, 
 As by the impious thou art seen." 
 
 It may appear improbable, that a child who did not 
 know the meaning of the word suppliant should under- 
 stand the Gorgon terrors, and the vengeful band, yet it 
 
 was so : S understood these lines distinctly ; he 
 
 said, " Gorgon terrors, yes, like the head of Gorgon." 
 He was at this time translating from Ovid's Metamor- 
 phoses ; and it happened that his father had explained 
 to him the ideas of the ancients concerning the furies; 
 besides this, several people in the family had been read- 
 ing Potter's yEschylus, and the furies had been the sub- 
 ject of conversation. From such accidental circum- 
 stances as these, children often appear, in the same 
 instant almost, to be extremely quick and extremely 
 slow of comprehension ; a preceptor who is well ac- 
 quainted with all his pupil's previous knowledge, can 
 rapidly increase his stock of ideas by turning every 
 accidental circumstance to account : but if a tutor per- 
 sists in forcing a child to a regular course of study, all 
 his ideas must be collected, not as they are wanted in 
 conversation or in real life, but as they are wanted to 
 get through a lesson or a book. It is not surprising, 
 that M. Cond iliac found such long explanations neces- 
 sary for his young pupil in reading the tragedies of Ra- 
 cine ; he says that he was frequently obliged to trans- 
 late the poetry into prose, and frequently the prince 
 could gather only some general idea of the whole 
 drama, without understanding the parts. We cannot 
 help regretting, that the explanations have not been 
 published for the advantage of future preceptors ; they 
 must have been almost as difficult as those for the pre- 
 Jiminary lessons. As we are convinced that the art of 
 education can be best improved by the registering of 
 early experiments, we are very willing to expose such 
 as have been made, without fear of fastidious criticism 
 or ridicule. 
 
 May 1, 1796. A little poem, called "The Tears of 
 Old May-day," published in the second volume of The 
 World, was read to S . Last May-day the same 
 
BOOKS. 277 
 
 poem had been read to him ; he then hked it much, and 
 his father wished to see what effect it would have upon 
 this second reading. The pleasure of novelty was worn 
 
 oif, but S felt new pleasure from his having, during 
 
 the last year, acquired a great number of new ideas, and 
 especially some knowledge of ancient mythology, which 
 enabled him to understand several allusions in the poem 
 which had before been unintelligible to him. He had 
 become acquainted with the muses, the graces, Cynthia, 
 Philomel, Astrea, who are all mentioned in thiS poem; 
 he now knew something about the Hesperian fruit, Amal- 
 thea's horn, choral dances, Libyan Amnion, &c., which 
 are alluded to in different lines of the poem : he remem- 
 bered the explanation which his father had given him 
 the preceding year, of a line which alludes to the island 
 of Atalantis : 
 
 " Then vanished many a sea-girt isle and grove, 
 Their forests floating on the wat'ry plain : 
 Then famed for arts, and laws deriv'd from Jove, 
 My Atalantis sunk beneath the main." 
 
 S , whose imagination had been pleased with the 
 
 idea of the fabulous island of Atalantis, recollected what 
 he had heard of it ; but he had forgotten the explanation 
 of another stanza of this poem, which he had heard at 
 the same time : 
 
 " To her no more Augusta's wealthy pride, 
 Pours the full tribute from Potosi's mine ; 
 Nor fresh-blown garlands \allage maids provide, 
 A purer offering at her rustic shrine." 
 
 S forgot that he had been told that London was 
 
 formerly called Augit^ta ; that Poto.si's mines contained 
 silver ; and that pouring the tribute from Potosi's mines, 
 alludes to the custom of hanging silver tankards upon 
 the Maypoles in London on May-day ; consequently 
 the beauty of this stanza was entirely lost upon him. 
 
 A few circumstances were now told to S , which 
 
 imprinted the explanation effectually in his memory: 
 his father told him that the publicans, or those who 
 keep public houses in London, make it a custom to lend 
 their silver tankards to the poor chimney-sweepers and 
 milkmaids, who go in procession through the streets on 
 May-day. The confidence that is put in the honesty of 
 
 these poor people pleased S , and all these circum- 
 
 . stances fixed the principal idea more firmly in his mind. 
 
278 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 The following lines could please him only by their 
 sound, the first time he heard them : 
 
 " Ah ! once to fame and bright dominion born, 
 The earth and smiling ocean saw me rise, 
 With time coeval, and the star of mom. 
 The first, the fairest daughter of the skies. 
 
 " Then, when at heaven's prohfic mandate sprung 
 The radiant beam of new-created day. 
 Celestial harps, to airs of triumph strung, 
 Hail'd the glad dawn, and angels call'd me May. 
 
 " Space in her empty regions heard the sound, 
 
 And hills and dales, and rocks and valleys rung ; 
 The sun exulted in his glorious round, 
 And shouting planets in their courses sung." 
 
 The idea which the ancients had of the music of the 
 
 spheres was here explained to S , and some general 
 
 UOtion was given to liim of the harmonic numbers. 
 
 What a number of new ideas this little poem served to 
 introduce into the mind ! These explanations being 
 given precisely at the time when they were wanted, 
 fixed the ideas in the memory in their proper places, 
 and associated knowledge with the pleasures of poetry. 
 Some of the effect of a poem must, it is true, be lost by 
 interruptions and explanations ; but we must consider 
 the general improvement of the understanding, and not 
 merely the cultivation of poetic taste. In the instance 
 which we have just given, the pleasure which the boy 
 received from the poem seemed to increase in propor- 
 tion to the exactness with which it was explained. The 
 succeeding year, on May-day, 1797, the same poem was 
 read to him for the third time, and he appeared to like 
 it better than he had done upon the first reading. If, 
 instead of perusing Racine twelve times in one year, the 
 young Prince of Parma had read any one play or scene 
 at different periods of his education, and had been led to 
 observe the increase of pleasure which he felt from 
 being able to understand what he read better each suc- 
 ceeding time than before, he would probably have im- 
 proved more rapidly in his taste for poetry, though he 
 might not have known Racine by rote quite so early as 
 at eight years old. 
 
 We considered parents almost as much as children, 
 when we advised that a great deal of poetry should not 
 be read by very young pupils ; the labour and difficulty 
 of explaining it can be known only to those who ' 
 
BOOKS. 279 
 
 tried the experiment. The Elegy in a Country Church- 
 yard is one of the most popular poems which is usually 
 given to children to learn by heart ; it cost at least a 
 quarter of an hour to explain to intelligent children, the 
 youngest of whom was at the time nine years old, the 
 first stanza of that elegy. And we have heard it asserted 
 by a gentleman not unacquainted with literature, that 
 perfectly to understand I'Allegro and 11 Penseroso, re- 
 quires no inconsiderable portion of ancient and modern 
 knowledge. It employed several hours on different 
 days to read and explain Comus, so as to make it intelli- 
 gible to a boy of ten years, who gave his utmost atten- 
 tion to it. The explanations on this poem were found 
 to be so numerous and intricate, that we thought it best 
 not to produce them here. Explanations which are 
 given by a reader, can be given with greater rapidity 
 and effect, than any which a writer can give to children : 
 the expression of the countenance is advantageous, the 
 sprightliness of conversation keeps the pupils awake, 
 and the connexion of the parts of the subject can be 
 carried on better in speaking and reading, than it can 
 be in written explanations. Notes are almost always 
 too formal or too obscure ; they explain what was 
 understood more plainly before any illustration was 
 attempted, or they leave us in the dark the moment we 
 want to be enlightened. Wherever parents or precept- 
 ors can supply the place of notes and commentators, 
 they need not think their time ill bestowed. If they 
 cannot undertake these troublesome explanations, they 
 can surely reserve obscure poems for a later period of 
 their pupils' education. Children who are taught at 
 seven or eight years old to repeat poetry, frequently get 
 beautiful lines by rote, and speak them fluently, without 
 in the least understanding the meaning of the lines. 
 The business of a poet is to please the imagination and 
 to move the passions : in proportion as his language is 
 sublime or pathetic, witty or satirical, it must be unfit 
 for children. Knowledge cannot be detailed, or accu- 
 rately explained, in poetry ; the beauty of an allusion 
 depends frequently upon the .elliptical mode of expres- 
 sion, which, passing imperceptibly over all the interme- 
 diate links in our associations, is apparent only when it 
 touches the ends of the chain. Those who wish to 
 instruct must pursue the opposite system. 
 In Doctor Wilkins's Essay on Universal Language, he 
 
280 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 proposes to introduce a note similar to the common note 
 of admiration, to give the reader notice when any ex- 
 pression is used in an ironical or in a metaphoric sense. 
 Such a note would be of great advantage to children : 
 in reading poetry, they are continually puzzled between 
 the obvious and the metaphoric sense of the words.* 
 The desire to make children learn a vast deal of poetry 
 by heart, fortunately for the understanding of the rising 
 generation, does not rage with such violence as formerly. 
 Dr. Johnson successfully laughed at infants lisping out, 
 "Angels and ministers of grace, defend us." His 
 reproof was rather illnatured, when he begged two chil- 
 dren who were produced to repeat some Hues to him, 
 " Can't the pretty dears repeat them both together V 
 But this reproof has probably prevented many exhibi- 
 tions of the same kind. 
 
 Some people learn poetry by heart for the pleasure 
 of quoting it in conversation ; but the talent for quota- 
 tion, both in conversation and in writing, is now become 
 so common, that it cannot confer immortality. f Every 
 person has by rote certain passages from Shakspeare 
 and Thomson, Goldsmith and Gray : these trite quota- 
 tions fatigue the literary ear, and disgust the taste of 
 the public. To this change in the fashion of the day, 
 those who are influenced by fashion will probably listen 
 with more eagerness than to all the reasons that have 
 been off'ered. But to return to the Prince of Parma. 
 After reading Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, &c., 
 the young prince's taste was formed, as we are assured 
 by his preceptor, and he was now fit for the study of 
 grammar. So much is due to the benevolent intentions 
 of a man of learning and genius, who submits to the 
 drudgery of writing an elementary book on grammar, 
 that even a critic must feel unwilling to examine it with 
 severity. M. Condillac, in his attempt to write a ra- 
 tional grammar, has produced, if not a grammar fit for 
 children, a philosophical treatise, which a well-educated 
 young person will read with great advantage at the age 
 of seventeen or eighteen. All that is said of the natu- 
 
 * hi Dr. Franklin's posthumous Essays, there is an excellent re- 
 mark with respect to typography, as connected with the art of read- 
 mg. The note of interrogation should be placed at the beginning, as 
 well as at the end of a question ; it is sometimes so far distant as to 
 be out of the reach of an unpractised eye. 
 
 t Young. 
 
BOOKS. 281 
 
 ral language of signs, of the language of action, of 
 pantomimes, and of the institution of M. I'Abbe TEpee 
 for teaching languages to the deaf and dumb, is not only- 
 amusing and instructive to general readers, but, with 
 slight alterations in the language, might be perfectly 
 adapted to the capacity of children. But when the 
 Abbe Condillac goes on to " Your highness knows 
 what is meant by a system," he immediately forgets 
 his pupil's age. The reader's attention is presently 
 deeply engaged by an abstract disquisition on the rela- 
 tive proportion, represented by various circles of dif- 
 ferent extent, of the wants, ideas, and language of 
 savages, shepherds, commercial and polished nations, 
 when he is suddenly awakened to the recollection, that 
 all this is addressed to a child of eight years old : an 
 allusion to the prince's little chair completely rouses 
 us from our revery. 
 
 " As your little chair is made in the same form as 
 mine, which is higher, so the system of ideas is funda- 
 mentally the same among savage and civilized nations ; 
 it diifers only in degrees of extension, as, after one and 
 the same model, seats of different heights have been 
 made."* 
 
 Such mistakes as these, in a work intended for a 
 child, are so obvious, that they could not have escaped 
 the penetration of a great man, had he known as much 
 of the practice as he did of the theory of the art of 
 teaching. 
 
 To analyze a thought, and to show the construction 
 of language, M. Condillac, in this volume on grammar, 
 has chosen for an example a passage from an Eloge on 
 Peter Corneille, pronounced before the French academy 
 by Racine, on the reception of Thomas Corneille, who 
 succeeded to Peter. It is in the French style of aca- 
 demical panegyric, a representation of the chaotic state 
 in which Corneille found the French theatre, and of the 
 light and order which he diffused through the dramatic 
 world by his creative genius. A subject less interest- 
 ing, or more unintelligible to a child, could scarcely 
 
 * " Comme votre petite chaise est faite sur le meme modele que la 
 mienne, qui est plus elevee, ainsi le systeme des idees est le m^me 
 pour le fond chez les peuples sauvages et chez les peuplcs civilises ; 
 il ne differe, que parce qu'il est plus ou moiiis etendu ; c'est un 
 meme modele d'apr^.s lequel on a fait des sieges de different hauteur." 
 — Grammaire, p. 23. 
 
282 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 have been selected. The lecture on the anatomy of 
 Racine's thought lasts through fifteen pages; accord- 
 ing to all the rules of art, the dissection is ably per- 
 formed ; but most children will turn from the operation 
 with disgust. 
 
 The Abbe Condillac's treatise on the art of writing 
 immediately succeeds to his grammar. The examples 
 in this volume are much better chosen ; they are in- 
 teresting to all readers ; those especially from Madame 
 de Sevigne's letters, which are drawn from familiar 
 language and domestic life. The enumeration of the 
 figures of speech, and the classification of the flowers 
 of rhetoric, are judiciously suppressed ; the catalogue 
 of the different sorts of tums^ phrases proper for maxims 
 and principles, turns proper for sentiment, ingenious 
 turns and quaint turns, stiff turns and easy turns, might 
 perhaps have been somewhat abridged. The observa- 
 tions on the effect of unity in the whole design, and in 
 all the subordinate parts of a work, though they may 
 not be new, are ably stated ; and the remark, that the 
 utmost propriety of language, and the strongest effect 
 of eloquence and reasoning, result from the greatest 
 possible attention to the connexion of our ideas, is im- 
 pressed forcibly upon the reader throughout this work. 
 
 How far works of criticism in general are suited to 
 children, remains to be considered. Such works can- 
 not probably suit their taste, because the taste for sys- 
 tematic criticism cannot arise in the mind until many 
 books have been read ; until the various species of ex- 
 cellence suited to different sorts of composition have 
 been perceived, and until the mind has made some 
 choice of its own. It is true, that works of criticism 
 may teach children to talk well of what they read ; they 
 will be enabled to repeat what good judges have said of 
 books. But this is not, or ought not to be the object.. 
 After having been thus ofliciously assisted by a con- 
 nois§eur, who points out to them the beauties of authors, 
 wiR they be able afterward to discover beauties with- 
 out his assistance 1 Or have they as much pleasure in 
 being told what to admire, what to praise, and what to 
 blame, as if they had been suffered to feel and to ex- 
 press their own feelings naturally 1 In reading an in- 
 teresting play, or beautiful poem, how often has a man 
 of taste and genius execrated the impertinent commen- 
 tator, who interrupts him by obtruding his ostentatious 
 
BOOKS. 2S3 
 
 notes — " The reader will observe the beauty of this 
 thought." — " This is one of the finest passages in any 
 author, ancient or modern." — "The sense of this line, 
 which all former annotators have mistaken, is obviously 
 restored by the addition of the vowel i," &c. 
 
 Deprived, by these anticipating explanations, of the 
 use of his own common sense, the reader detests the 
 critic, soon learns to disregard his references, and to 
 skip over his learned truisms. Similar sensations, 
 tempered by duty or by fear, may have been some- 
 times experienced by a vivacious child, who, eager to 
 go on with what he is reading, is prevented from feel- 
 ing the effect of the whole, by a premature discussion 
 of its parts. We hope that no keen hunter of paradoxes 
 will here exult in having detected us in a contradiction : 
 we are perfectly aware, that but a few pages ago, we 
 exhibited examples of detailed explanations of poetry 
 for children ; but these explanations were not of the 
 criticising class ; they were not designed to tell young 
 people what to admire, but simply to assist them to un- 
 derstand before they admired. 
 
 Works of criticism are sometimes given to pupils, 
 with the idea that they will instruct and form them in 
 the art of writing : but few things can be more terrific 
 or dangerous to the young writer than the voice of re- 
 lentless criticism. Hope stimulates, but fear depresses 
 the active powers of the mind ; and how much have 
 they to fear who have continually before their eyes 
 the mistakes and disgrace of others ; of others, who 
 with superior talents have attempted and failed ! With 
 a multitude of precepts and rules of rhetoric full in 
 their memory, they cannot express the simplest of their 
 thoughts ; and to write a sentence composed of mem- 
 bers which have each of them names of many syllables, 
 must appear a most formidable and presumptuous un- 
 dertaking. On the contrary, a child who, in books and 
 in conversation, has been used to hear and to speak 
 correct language, and who has never been terrified with 
 the idea, that to write is to express his thoughts in some 
 new and extraordinary manner, will naturally write as 
 he speaks and as he thinks. Making certain characters 
 upon paper, to represent to others what he wishes to say* 
 to them, will not appear to him a matter of dread and 
 
 * Rousseau. 
 
284 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 danger, but of convenience and amusement ; and he will 
 write prose without knowing it. 
 
 Among some " Practical Essays,"* lately published, 
 " to assist the exertions of youth in their literary pur- 
 suits," there is an essay on letter-writing, which might 
 deter a timid child from ever undertaking such an ardu- 
 ous task as that of writing a letter. So much is said 
 from Blair, from Cicero, from Quintilian ; so many 
 things are requisite in a letter ; purity, neatness, sim- 
 plicity ; such caution must be used to avoid " exotics 
 transplanted from foreign languages, or raised in the 
 hotbeds of affectation and conceit ;" such attention to 
 the mother-tongue is prescribed, that the young nerves 
 of the letter-writer must tremble when he takes up his 
 pen. Besides, he is told that " he should be extremely 
 reserved on the head of pleasantry," and that '• as to 
 sallies of wit, it is still more dangerous to let them fly 
 at random ; but he may repeat the smart sayings of 
 others if he will, or relate part of some droll adventure 
 to enliven his letter." 
 
 The anxiety that parents and tutors frequently ex- 
 press to have their children write letters, and good let- 
 ters, often prevents the pupils from writing during the 
 whole course of their lives. Letter-writing becomes a 
 task and an evil to children ; whether they have any 
 thing to say or not, write they must, this post or next, 
 without fail, a pretty letter to some relation or friend, 
 who has exacted from them the awful promise of 
 punctual correspondence. * It is no wonder that school- 
 boys and school-girls, in these circumstances, feel that 
 necessity is not the mother of invention ; they are re- 
 duced to the humiliating misery of begging from some 
 old practitioner a beginning or an ending, and some- 
 thing to say to fill up the middle. 
 
 Locke humorously describes the misery of a school- 
 boy who is to write a theme; and having nothing to 
 say, goes about with the usual petition in these cases 
 to his companions, " Pray give me a little sense." 
 Would it not be better to wait until children have sense, 
 before we exact from them themes and discourses upon 
 literary subjects ] There is no danger that those who 
 acquire a variety of knowledge and nunierous ideas, 
 should not be able to find words to express them ; but 
 
 * Milne's Wellbred Scholar. 
 
BOOKS. 285 
 
 those who are compelled to find words before they have 
 ideas, are in a melancholy situation. To form a style 
 is but a vague idea ; practice in composition will cer- 
 tainly confer ease in writing, upon those who write 
 when their minds are full of ideas ; but the practice of 
 sitting, with a melancholy face, with pen in hand, wait- 
 ing for inspiration, will not much advance the pupil in 
 the art of writing. We should not reconmiend it to a 
 preceptor to require regular themes at stated periods 
 from his pupils ; but whenever he perceives that a 
 young man is struck with any new ideas or new cir- 
 cumstances, when he is certain that his pupil has ac- 
 quired a fund of knowledge, when he finds in conversa- 
 tion that words flow readily upon certain subjects, he 
 may, without danger, upon these subjects, excite his 
 pupil to try his powers of writing. These trials need 
 not be frequently made : when a young man has once 
 acquired confidence in himself as a writer, he will cer- 
 tainly use his talent whenever proper occasions present 
 themselves. The perusal of the best authors in the 
 English language will give him, if he adhere to these 
 alone, sufficient powers of expression. The best authors 
 in the English language are so well known, that it would 
 be useless to enumerate them. Dr. Johnson says, that 
 whoever would acquire a pure English style, must give 
 his days and nights to Addison. We do not, however, 
 feel this exclusive preference for Addison's melodious 
 periods : his page is ever elegant, but sometimes it is 
 too diffuse. Hume, Blackstone, and Smith, have a 
 proper degree of strength and energy combined with 
 their elegance. Gibbon says, that the perfect com- 
 position and well-turned periods of Dr. Robertson, ex- 
 cited his hopes that he might one day become his equal 
 in writing; but "the calm philosophy, the careless, 
 inimitable beauties of his friend and rival Hume, often 
 forced him to close the volume with a mixed sensation 
 of delight and despair." From this testimony we may 
 judge, that a simple style appears to the best judges to 
 be more difficult to attain, and more desirable, than that 
 highly ornamented diction to which writers of inferior 
 taste aspire. Gibbon tells us with great candour, that 
 his friend Hume advised him to beware of the rhetorical 
 style of French eloquence. Hume observed, that the 
 English language and English taste do not admit of 
 this profusion of ornament. 
 
286 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Without meaning to enter at large into the subject, 
 we have oflered these remarks upon style for the ad- 
 vantage of those who are to direct the taste of young 
 readers; what they admire when they read, they will 
 probably imitate when they write. We objected to 
 works of criticism for young children, — but we should 
 observe, that at a later period of education, they will be 
 found highly advantageous. It would be absurd to mark 
 the precise age at which Blair's Lectures or Condillac's 
 Art d'Ecrire ought to be read, because this should be 
 decided by circumstances ; by the progress of the pupils 
 in literature, and by the subjects to which their atten- 
 tion happens to have turned. Of these, preceptors, and 
 the pupils themselves, must be the most competent 
 judges. From the same wish to avoid all pedantic at- 
 tempts to dictate, we have not given any regular course 
 of study in this chapter. Many able writers have laid 
 down extensive plans of study, and have named the 
 books that are essential to the acquisition of different 
 branches of knowledge. Among others we may refer 
 to Dr. Priestley's, which is to be seen at the end of his 
 Essays on Education. We are sensible that order is 
 necessary in reading, — but we cannot think that the 
 same order will suit all minds, nor do we imagine that a 
 young person cannot read to advantage unless he pur- 
 sue a given course of study. Men of sense will not be 
 intolerant in their love of learned order. 
 
 If parents would keep an accurate list of the books 
 which their children read, of the ages at which they are 
 read, it would be of essential service in improving the 
 art of education. We might then mark the progress of 
 the understanding with accuracy, and discover, with 
 some degree of certainty, the circumstances on which 
 the formation of the character and taste depends. Swift 
 has given us a list of the books which he read during 
 two years of his life ; we can trace the ideas that he 
 acquired from them in his Laputa, and other parts of 
 Gulliver's Travels. Gibbtm's journal of his studies, and 
 his account of universities, are very instructive to young 
 students. So is the life of Franklin, written by himself. 
 Madame Roland has left a history of her education ; and 
 in the books she read in her early years, we see the for- 
 mation of her character. Plutarch's Lives, she tells us, 
 first kindled republican entlmsiasm in her mind ; and 
 she regrets that, in fornnng her ideas of universal hb- 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. "287 
 
 erty, she had only a partial view of affairs. She cor- 
 rected these enthusiastic ideas during tlie last moments 
 of her life in prison. Had the impression which her 
 study of the Roman history made upon her mind been 
 known to an able preceptor, it might liave been cor- 
 rected in her early education. When she was led to 
 execution, she exclaimed, as she passed the statue of 
 Liberty, " Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in 
 thy name !"'* 
 
 Formerly it was wisely said, " Tell me what company 
 a man keeps, and I will tell you what he is ;" but since 
 literature has spread a new influence over the world, we 
 must add, " Tell me what company a man has kept, 
 and what books he has read, and I will tell you what 
 he is." 
 
 CHAPTER XHL 
 
 ON GRAMMAR AND CLASSICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 As long as gentlemen feel a deficiency in their own 
 education, when they have not a competent knowledge 
 of the learned languages, so long must a parent be anx- 
 ious that his son should not be exposed to the mortifica- 
 tion of appearing inferior to others of his own rank. It 
 is in vain to urge that language is only the key to sci- 
 ence ; that the names of things are not the things them- 
 selves ; that many of the words in our own language 
 convey scarcely any, or at best but imperfect, ideas ; 
 that the true genius, pronunciation, melody, and idiom 
 of Greek, are unknown to the best scholars, and that it 
 cannot reasonably be doubted that if Homer and Xeno- 
 phon were to hear their works read by a professor of 
 Greek, they would mistake them for the sounds of an 
 unknown language. All this is true ; but it is not the 
 ambition of a gentleman to read Greek like an ancient 
 Grecian, but to understand it as well as the generality 
 of his contemporaries ; to know whence the terms of 
 
 * "Oh Liberie, que de forfaits on commis eii ton nom !" 
 
 See Appel a I'lmpartielle Posterite. 
 
288 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 most sciences are derived, and to be able, in some de- 
 gree, to trace the progress of mankind in knowledge and 
 refinement, by examining the extent and combination 
 of their different vocabularies. 
 
 In some professions Greek is necessary ; in all, a cer- 
 tain proficiency in Latin is indispensable ; how, there- 
 fore, to acquire this proficiency in the one, and a suffi- 
 cient knowledge of the other, with the least labour, the 
 least waste of time, and the least danger to the under- 
 standing, is the material question. Some schoolmasters 
 would add, that we must expedite the business as much 
 as possible : of this we may be permitted to doubt. 
 Fesiina lente is one of the most judicious maxims in edu- 
 cation ; and those who have sufficient strength of mind 
 to adhere to it, will find themselves at the goal, when 
 their competitors, after all their bustle, are panting for 
 breath or lashing their restive steeds. We see some 
 untutored children start forward in learning with rapid- 
 ity : they seem to acquire knowledge at the very time 
 it is wanted, as if by intuition ; while others, with whom 
 infinite pains have been taken, continue in dull igno- 
 rance ; or, having accumulated a mass of learning, are 
 utterly at a loss how to display or how to use their 
 treasures. What is the reason of this phenomenon 1 
 and to which class of children would a parent wish his 
 son to belong ? In a certain number of years, after hav- 
 ing spent eight hours a day in " durance vile," by the in- 
 fluence of bodily fear, or by the infliction of bodily pun- 
 ishment, a regiment of boys may be drilled by an indefat- 
 igable usher into what are called scholars; but perhaps 
 in the whole regiment, not one shall ever distinguish 
 himself, or ever emerge from the ranks. Can it be ne- 
 cessary to spend so many years, so many of the best 
 years of life, in toil and misery ] We shall calculate the 
 waste of time which arises from the study of ill-written, 
 absurd, grammar and exercise-books ; from the habits 
 of idleness contracted by schoolboys, and from the cus- 
 tom of allowing holydays to young students ; and we 
 shall compare the result of this calculation with the 
 time really necessary for the attainment of the same 
 quantity of classical knowledge by rational methods. 
 We do not enter into this comparison with any invidious 
 intention, but simply to quiet the apprehensions of pa- 
 rents ; to show them the possibility of their children's 
 attaining a certain portion of learning within a given 
 
GHAMMAF, ETC. *289 
 
 number of years, without the sacrifice of health, happi- 
 ness, or the general powers of the understanding'. 
 
 At all events, may we not begin by imploring the as- 
 sistance of some able and friendly hand to reform the 
 present generation of grammars and school-books ] For 
 instance, is it indispensably necessary that a boy of 
 seven years old should learn by rote that " relative sen- 
 tences are independent, i. e. no word in a relative sen- 
 tence is governed either of verb or adjective that stands 
 in another sentence, or depends upon any appertenances 
 of the relative ; and that the English word ' That' is 
 always a relative when it may be turned into which in 
 good sense, which must be tried by reading over the 
 English sentence icarily, and judging how the sentence 
 will bear it ; but when it cannot be altered, salvo sensu, 
 it is a conjunction!" Cannot we, for pity's sake, to as- 
 sist the learner's memory, and to improve his intellect, 
 substitute some sentences a little more connected, and 
 perhaps a little more useful, than the following? 
 
 " 1 have been a soldier — You have babbled — Has the 
 crow ever looked white"? — Ye have exercised — Flowers 
 have withered — We were in a passion — Ye lay dov/n — 
 Peas were parched — The lions did roar awhile ago." 
 
 In a book of Latin exercises,* the preface to which 
 informs us that " it is intended to contain such precepts 
 of morality and religion as ought most industriously to 
 be mculcated into the heads of all learners, contrived 
 so as that children may, as it were, insensibly suck in 
 such principles as will be of use to them afterward in 
 the manly conduct and ordering of their lives," we might 
 expect somewhat more of pure morality and sense, with 
 rather more elegance of style, than appear in the follow- 
 ing sentences : — 
 
 " I struck my sister with a stick, and was forced to 
 flee into the woods ; but when I had tarried there 
 awhile, I returned to my parents, and submitted myself 
 to their mercy, and they forgave me my offence." 
 
 " When my dear mother, unknown to my father, shall 
 send me money, I will pay my creditors their debts, and 
 provide a supper for all my friends in my chamber, with- 
 out my brother's consent, and will make presents to all 
 my relations." 
 
 So the measure of maternal tenderness is the sum of 
 
 * Garretson's Exercises, the tenth edition. 
 
 N 
 
290 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 money which the dear mother, unknown to her husband, 
 shall send to her son ; the measure of the son's generos- 
 ity is the supper he is to give to all his friends in his 
 chamber, exclusive of his poor brother, of whose ofl'ence 
 ■we are ignorant. His munificence is to be displayed 
 in making presents to all his relations — but in the mean- 
 time he might possibly forget to pay his debts, for "jus- 
 tice is a slow-paced virtue, and cannot keep pace with 
 generosity." 
 
 A reasonable notion of punishment, and a disinter- 
 ested love of truth, are well introduced by the follow- 
 ing picture ; " My master's countenance was greatly 
 changed when he found his beloved son guilty of a lie. 
 Sometimes he was pale with anger ; sometimes he was 
 red with rage ; and in the meantime, he, poor boy, was 
 trembling (for what 1) for fear of punishment." Could 
 the ideas of punishment and vengeance be more effect- 
 ually joined, than in this portrait of the master red with 
 rage 1 After truth has been thus happily recommended, 
 comes honesty. " Many were fellow-soldiers with val- 
 iant Jason when he stole the golden fleece ; many were 
 companions with him, but he bore away the glory of the 
 enterprise." 
 
 Valour, theft, and glory, are here happily combined. 
 It will avail us nothing to observe that the golden fleece 
 has an allegorical meaning, unless we can explain satis- 
 factorily the nature of an allegorical theft ; though to . 
 our classical taste this valiant Jason may appear a glori- 
 ous hero, yet, to the simple judgment of children, he will 
 appear a robber. It is fastidious, however, to object to 
 Jason in the exercise-book, when we consider what 
 children are to hear, and to hear with admiration, as 
 they advance in their study of poetry and mythology. 
 
 Lessons of worldly wisdom are not forgotten in our 
 manual, wliich professes to teach " the manly conduct and 
 ordering oflife'^ to the rising generation. " Those men," 
 we are told, " who have the most money, obtain the 
 greatest honour among men." But then again, " a poor 
 man is as happy without riches, if he can enjoy con- 
 tentedness of mind, as the richest earl that coveteth 
 greater honour." It may be useful to put young men 
 upon their guard against hypocrites and knaves ; but is 
 it necessary to tell schoolboys that " it concerneth me, 
 and all men, to look to ourselves, for the world is so full 
 of knaves and hypocrites, that he is hard to be found 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. 291 
 
 who may be trusted V That " they who behave them- 
 selves the most warily of all men, unci live more watch- 
 fully than others, may happen to do something which 
 (if it be divulged) may very much damnify their reputa- 
 tion?" A knowledge of the world may be early re- 
 quisite ; but is it not going too far to assure young 
 people, that " the nations of the world are at this time 
 come to that pass of wickedness, that the earth is 
 like hell, and many men have degenerated into devils." 
 
 A greater variety of ridiculous passages from this 
 tenth edition of Garretson's Exercise-book, might be 
 selected for the reader's entertainment ; but the follow- 
 ing specimens will be sufRcient to satisfy him, that by 
 this original writer, natural history is as well taught as 
 morality : 
 
 Man. " Man is a creature of an upright body ; he 
 walketh upright when he is on a journey; and when 
 night approaches, he lieth flat, and sleepeth," 
 
 Horses. " A journey an hundred and fifty miles long, 
 tireth a horse that hath not had a moderate feed of corn." 
 
 Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. " The air is nearer 
 the earth than the fire ; but the water is placed nearest 
 to the earth, because these two elements compose but 
 one body." 
 
 It is an easy task, it will be observed, to ridicule ab- 
 surdity. It is easy to pull down what has been ill built ; 
 but if we leave the ruins for others to stumble over, we 
 do little good to society. Parents may reasonably say, 
 if you take away from our children the books they 
 have, give them better. They are not yet to be had ; 
 but if a demand for them be once excited, they will soon 
 appear. Parents are now convinced, that the first books 
 which children read make a lasting impression upon 
 them ; but they do not seem to consider spelling-books, 
 and grammars, and exercise-books, as books, but only 
 as tools for different purposes : these tools are often 
 very mischievous ; if we could improve them, we should 
 get our work much better done. The barbarous trans- 
 lations which are put as models for imitation into the 
 hands of schoolboys, teach them bad habits of speaking 
 and writing, which are sometimes incurable. For in- 
 stance, in the fourteenth edition of Clarke's Cornelius 
 Nepos, which the preface informs us was written by a 
 man full of indignation for the common practices of 
 grammar-schools, by a man who laments that youth 
 N2 
 
292 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 should spend their time " in tossing over the leaves of 
 a dictionary, and hammering out such a language as the 
 Latin," we might expect some better translation than 
 the following, to form the young student's style : 
 
 " Nobody ever heard any other entertainment for the 
 ears at his (Atticus's) meals than a reader, which we 
 truly think very pleasant. Nor was there ever a supper 
 at his house without some reading, that their guests 
 might be entertained in their minds as well as their 
 stomachs ; for he invited those whose manners were not 
 different from his own." 
 
 " He (Atticus) likewise had a touch at poetry, that he 
 might not be unacquainted with this pleasure, we sup- 
 pose. For he has related in verses the lives of those 
 who excelled the Roman people in honour, and the 
 greatness of their exploits. So that he has described 
 under each of their images, their actions and offices in 
 no more than four or five verses, ivhich is scarcely to be 
 believed that such great things could be so briefly de- 
 livered." 
 
 Those who, in reading these quotations, have perhaps 
 exclaimed, " Why must we go through this farrago of 
 nonsense 1" should reflect, that they have now wasted 
 but a few minutes of their time upon what children are 
 doomed to study for hours and years. If a few pages 
 disgust, what must be the eff'ect of volumes in the same 
 style ! and what sort of writing can we expect from pu- 
 pils who are condemned to such reading 1 The analogy 
 of ancient and modern languages diff'ers so materially, 
 that a literal translation of any ancient author can 
 scarcely be tolerated. Yet, in general, young scholars 
 are under a necessity of rendering their Latin lessons 
 into English word for word, faithful to the taste of their 
 dictionaries, or the notes in their translations. This is 
 not likely to improve the freedom of their English 
 style ; or, what is of much more consequence, is it 
 likely to preserve in the pupil's mind a taste for litera- 
 ture 1 It is not the time that is spent in poring over 
 lexicons, it is not the multiplicity of rules learned by 
 rote, nor yet is it the quantity of Latin words crammed 
 into the memory, which can give the habit of attention 
 or the power of voluntary exertion ; without these, you 
 will never have time enough to teach ; with them, there 
 will always be time enough to learn. — One half hour's 
 vigorous application is worth a whole day's constrained 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. 293 
 
 and yawning study. If we compare what from experi- 
 ence we know can be done by a child of ordinary 
 capacity in a given time, with what he actually does in 
 school-hours, we shall be convinced of the enormous 
 waste of time incident to the connnon methods of in- 
 struction. Tutors are sensible of this ; but they throw 
 the blame upon their pupils — " You might have learned 
 your lesson in half the time, if you had chosen it." 
 The children also are sensible of this ; but they are not 
 able or willing to prevent the repetition of the reproach. 
 But exertion does not always depend upon the will of 
 the boy ; it depends upon his previous habits, and upon 
 the strength of the immediate motive which acts upon 
 him. Some children of quick abilities, who have too 
 much time allotted for their classical studies, are so 
 fully sensible themselves of the pernicious effect this 
 has upon their activity of mind, that they frequently de- 
 fer getting their lessons to the last moment, that they 
 may be forced by a sufficient motive to exert themselves. 
 In classes at public schools, the quick and the slow, the 
 active and indolent, the stumbling and surefooted, are 
 all yoked together, and are forced to keep pace with one 
 another; stupidity may sometimes be dragged along by 
 the vigour of genius ; but genius is more frequently 
 chained down by the weight of stupidity. We are well 
 aware of the difficulties with which the'public preceptor 
 has to contend ; he is often compelled by his situation 
 to follow ancient usage, and to continue many customs 
 which he wishes to see reformed. Any reformation in 
 the manner of instruction in these public seminaries 
 nuist be gradual, and will necessarily follov/ the convic- 
 tion that parents may feel of its utility. Perhaps 
 nothing can be immediately done, more practicably use- 
 ful, than to simplify grammar, and to lighten as much as 
 possible the load that is laid upon the memory. With- 
 out a multiplicity of masters, it would be impossible to 
 suit instruction to the different capacities and previous 
 acquirements of a variety of pupils ; but in a private 
 education, undoubtedly, the task may be rendered much 
 easier to the scholar and to the teacher ; much jargon 
 maybe omitted; and what appears from want of ex- 
 planation to be jargon, may be rendered intelligible by 
 proper skill and attention. During the first lessons in 
 grammar and in Latin, the pupil need not be disgusted 
 with literature, and we may apply all the principles 
 
294 PRACTICAL EDUCA'noN. 
 
 which we find on other occasions successful in the man- 
 agement of the attention.* Instead of keeping the 
 attention feebly obedient for an idle length of time, we 
 should fix it decidedly, by some sufllcient motive, for as 
 short a period as may be requisite to complete the work 
 that we would have done. As we apprehend, that even 
 where children are to be sent to school, it will be a great 
 advantage to them to have some general notions of 
 grammar to lead them through the labyrinth of com- 
 mon school-books, we think that we shall do the public 
 preceptor an acceptable service, if we point out the 
 means by which parents may, without much labour to 
 themselves, render the first principles of grammar hi- 
 telligible and familiar to their children. 
 
 We may observe, that children pay the strictest atten- 
 tion to the analogies of the language that they speak. 
 Where verbs are defective or irregular, they supply the 
 parts that are wanting with wonderful facility, according 
 to the common form of other verbs. They make aU 
 verbs regular. I goed, I readerf, I wnied, &:c. By a 
 proper application of this faculty, much time may be 
 saved in teaching children grammar, much perplexity, 
 and much of that ineffectual labour which stupifies and 
 dispirits the understanding. By gentle degrees, a child 
 may be taught the relations of words to each other in 
 common conversation, before he is presented with the 
 first sample of grammatical eloquence in Lilly's Acci- 
 dence. " There be eight parts of speech." A phrase 
 which in some parts of this kingdom would perhaps be 
 understood, but which, to the generality of boys who go 
 to school, conveys no meaning, and is got by heart with- 
 out reflection, and without advantage. A child can, 
 however, be made to understand these formidable parts 
 of speech, if they are properly introduced to his ac- 
 quaintance : he can comprehend, that some of the words 
 which he hears express that something is done ; he will 
 readily perceive, that if something is done, somebody 
 or something must do it : he will distinguish with much 
 facility the word in any common sentence which ex- 
 presses an action, and that which denotes the agent. 
 Let the reader try the experiment immediately upon 
 any child of six or seven years old who has not 
 learned grammar, and he may easily ascertain the fact. 
 
 * See Chapter on Attention. 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. 295 
 
 A few months ago, Mr. gave his little daughter 
 
 H , a child of five years old, her first lesson in Eng- 
 lish grammar ; but no alarming book of grammar was 
 produced upon the occasion, nor did the father put on an 
 unpropitious gravity of countenance. He explained to 
 the smiling child the nature of a verb, a pronoun, and a 
 substantive. 
 
 Then he spoke a short familiar sentence, and asked 
 
 H to try if she could find out which word in it was 
 
 a verb, which a pronoun, and which a substantive. The 
 little girl found them all out most successfully, and 
 formed no painful associations with her first grammati- 
 cal lesson. But though our pupil may easily under- 
 stand, he will eafily forget our first explanations; but 
 provided he understands them at the moment, we should 
 pardon his forgetfulness, and Vv-e should patiently repeat 
 the same exercise several days successively ; a few 
 minutes at each lesson will be sufficient, and the sim- 
 plest sentences, such as children speak themselves, will 
 
 be the best examples. Mr. , after having talked 
 
 four or five times, for a few minutes at a time, with his 
 
 son S , when S was between five nnd six years 
 
 old, about grammar, asked him if he knew what a pro- 
 noun meant] The boy answered, " A word that is said 
 instead of a substantive." As these words might have 
 been merely remembered by rote, the father questioned 
 his pupil farther, and asked him to name any pronoun 
 that he recollected. S immediately said, " / a pro- 
 noun." — " Name another," said his father. The boy 
 answered after some pause, as if he doubted whether it 
 was or was not a pronoun, A. Now it would have been 
 very imprudent to make a sudden exclamation at the 
 child's mistake. The father, without showing any sur- 
 prise, gently answered, " No, my dear, a does not stand 
 in the place of any substantive. We say a man, but the 
 word a does not mean a man, when it is said by itself — 
 Does it r' 
 
 ^ . No. 
 
 Father. Then try if you can find out a word that does. 
 
 S . He and Sir. 
 
 Sir does stand in conversation in the place of a man 
 or gentleman, therefore the boy, even by this mistake, 
 showed that he had formed, from the definition that had 
 been given to him, a general idea of the nature of a pro- 
 noun ; and at all events he exercised his understanding 
 
296 PRACTICAL EDUCATION'. 
 
 upop. the affair, which is tlie principal point v/e ought to 
 have in view. 
 
 An interjection is a part of speech familiar to chil- 
 dren. xMr. Home Tooke is bitter in his contempt for it, 
 and will scarcely admit it into civilized company. " The 
 brutish, inarticulate interjection, which has nothing to 
 do with speech, and is only the miserable refuge of the 
 speechless, has been permitted to usurp a place among 
 words," &c. — " The neighing of a horse, the lowing of a 
 cow, the barking of a dog, the purring of a cat ; sneez- 
 ing, coughing, groaning, shrieking, and every other in- 
 voluntary convulsion with oral sound, have almost as 
 good a title to be called parts of speech, as interjections 
 have." 
 
 Mr. Home Tooke would have been pleased with the 
 
 sagacity of a child of five years old (S ) who called 
 
 laughing an interjection. Mr. gave S a slight 
 
 pinch, in order to produce " an involuntary convulsion 
 with oral sound."' And when the interjection Oh ! was 
 uttered by the boy, he was told by his father that the 
 word was an interjection ; and, that " any word or noise 
 that expresses a sudden feeling of tlie mind may be 
 
 called an interjection." S immediately said, "is 
 
 laughing an interjection, thenV We hope that the 
 candid reader will not imagine that we produce these 
 sayings of children of four or five years old, without 
 some sense of the danger of ridicule ; but we wish to 
 give some idea of the sort of simple answers which 
 children are likely to make in their first grammatical 
 lessons. If too much is expected from them, the dis- 
 appointment which must be quickly felt, and will be 
 quickly shown by the preceptor, will discourage the 
 pupil. We must repeat, that the first steps should be 
 frequently retraced : a child should be for some weeks 
 accustomed to distinguish an active verb, and its agent, 
 or nominative case, from every other word in a sen- 
 tence, before we attempt to advance. The objects of 
 actions are the next class of words that should be se- 
 lected. 
 
 The fanciful, or at least what appears to the modems 
 fanciful, arrangement of the cases among grammarians, 
 may be dispensed with for the present. The idea that 
 the nominative is a direct, upright case, and that the 
 genitive declines with the smallest obliquity from it ; 
 the dative, accusative, and ablative, falling farther and 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. 297 
 
 farther from the perpendicularity of speech, is a species 
 of metaphysics not very edifying to a child. Into what 
 absurdity men of abilities may be led by the desire of ex- 
 plaining what they do not sufficiently understand, is 
 fully exemplified in other sciences as well as grammar. 
 
 The discoveries made by the author of Epea Ptero- 
 enta, show the difference between a vain attempt to 
 substitute analogy and rhetoric in the place of demon- 
 stration and common sense. When a child has been 
 patiently taught in conversation to analyze what he says, 
 he will take great pleasure in the exercise of his new 
 talent ; he will soon discover, that the cause of the ac- 
 tion does not always come before the verb in a sentence, 
 that sometimes it follows the verb. " John beats 
 Thomas," and "Thomas is beaten by John," he will 
 perceive, mean the same thing; he may, with very 
 little difficulty, be taught the difference between a verb 
 active and a verb passive ; that one brings first before 
 the mind the person or thing which performs the action, 
 and the other represents in the first place the person or 
 thing upon whom the action is performed. A child of 
 moderate capacity, after he has been familiarized to 
 this general idea of a verb active and passive, and after 
 he has been taught the names of the cases, will proba- 
 bly, without much difficulty, discover that the nomina- 
 tive case to a passive verb becomes the accusative case 
 to a verb active. " Schoolmasters are plagued by boys." 
 A child sees plainly, that schooluiasters are the persons 
 upon whom the action of plaguing is performed, and he 
 will convert the sentence readily into "boys plague 
 schoolmasters." 
 
 We need not, however, be in any hurry to teach our 
 pupil the names of the cases ; technical grammar may be 
 easily learned after a general idea of rational grammar 
 has been obtained. For instance, the verb means only 
 the word, or the principal word in a sentence ; a child 
 can easily learn this after he has learned what is meant 
 by a sentence ; but it would be extremely difficult to 
 make him comprehend it before he could distinguish a 
 verb from a noun, and before he had any idea of tlie 
 structure of a common sentence. From easy, we 
 should proceed to more complicated .sentences. The 
 grammatical construction of the following lines, for ex- 
 ample, may not be immediately apparent to a child ; — 
 N3 
 
298 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 " What modes of sight between each vast extreme, 
 The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam ; 
 Of smell, the headlong lioness between. 
 And hound sagacious on the tainted green." 
 
 " Of smell.''^ A girl of ten years old (C ) was 
 
 asked if she could tell what substantive the word " o/" 
 
 relates to ; she readily answered " modes. ''' C had 
 
 learned a general idea of grammar in conversation, in 
 the manner which we have described. It is asserted 
 from experience, that this method of instructing chil- 
 dren in grammar by conversation, is not only practica- 
 ble, but perfectly easy ; and that the minds of children 
 are adapted to this species of knowledge. During life, 
 we learn with eagerness whatever is congenial with our 
 present pursuits, and the acquisition of language is one 
 of the most earnest occupations of childhood. After 
 distinct and ready knowledge of the verb and nomina- 
 tive case has been acquired, the pupil should be taught 
 to distinguish the object of an action, or in other words, 
 the ol)jective or accusative case. He should be exer- 
 cised in this, as in the former lessons, repeatedly, until it 
 becomes perfectly familiar; and he should be encour- 
 aged to converse about these lessons, and to make his 
 own observations concerning grammar, without fear of 
 the preceptor's peremptory frown, or positive reference 
 to " his rules.'''' A child of five years old was asked what 
 the word " Here /" meant 1 — He answered, *' It means to 
 give a thing." 
 
 "When I call a person, as John! John! it seems to 
 
 me," said a boy of nine years old (S ) " it seems to 
 
 me, that the vocative case is both the verb and its ac- 
 cusative case." A boy who had ever been checked by 
 his tutor for making his own observations upon the 
 mysterious subject of grammar, would never have dared 
 to think or to utter a new thouglit so freely. — Forcing 
 children to learn any art or science by rote, without 
 permitting the exercise of the understanding, must ma- 
 terially injure their powers both of reasoning and of in- 
 vention. We acknowledge that Wilkins and Tooke 
 have shown masters how to teach gramn)ar a little 
 better than it was formerly taught. Fortunately for the 
 rising generation, all the words under the denomination 
 of adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, which were 
 absolute nonsense to us, may be easily explained to 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. 299 
 
 them, and the commencement of instruction need no 
 longer lay the foundation of implicit acquiescence in 
 nonsense. We refer to Mr. Home Tooke's " Epea 
 Pteroenta," forbearing to dilate upon the principles of 
 his work, lest we should appear in the invidious light of 
 authors who rob the works of others to adorn their own. 
 We cannot help expressing a wish, that Mr. Home 
 Tooke would have the philanthropic patience to write an 
 elementary work in a simple style, unfolding his gram- 
 matical discoveries to the rising generation. 
 
 When children have thus, by gentle degrees, and by 
 short and clear conversations, been initiated in general 
 grammar, and familiarized to its technical terms, the 
 first page of tremendous Lilly will lose much of its hor- 
 ror. It has been taken for granted, that at the age of 
 which we have been speaking, a child can read English 
 tolerably well, and that he has been used to employ a 
 dictionary. He may now proceed to translate from 
 some easy books a few short sentences : the first word 
 will probably be an adverb or conjunction ; either of 
 them may readily be found in the Latin dictionary, and 
 the young scholar will exult in having translated one 
 word of Latin; but the next word, a substantive or 
 verb perhaps, will elude his search. Now the grammar 
 may be produced, and something of the various termi- 
 nations of a noun may be explained. If musam be 
 searched for in the dictionary, it cannot be found ; but 
 musa catches the eye, and, with the assistance of the 
 grammar, it may be shown, that the meaning of words 
 may be discovered by the united helps of the dictionary 
 and grammar. After some days' patient continuation of 
 this exercise, the use of the grammar, and of its uncouth 
 collection of words and syllables, will be apparent to 
 the pupil : he will perceive that the grammar is a sort 
 of appendix to the dictionary. The grammatical for- 
 mulec may then, by gentle degrees, be committed to 
 memory ; and when once got by heart, should be assid- 
 uously preserved in the recollection. After the prepar- 
 ation which we have recommended, the singular num- 
 ber of a declension will be learned in a few minutes by 
 achild of ordinary capacity, and after two or three days' 
 repetition, the plural number may be added. The whole 
 of the first declension should be well fixed in the mem- 
 ory before a second is attempted. During this process, 
 a few words at every lesson may be translated from 
 
300 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Latin to English, and sucli nouns as are of the first 
 declension may be compared witli musa, and may be 
 declined according- to the same form. Tedious as this 
 method may appear, it will in the end be found expedi- 
 tious Omitting some of the theoretic or didactic part 
 of the grammar, which should only be read, and which 
 may be explained with care and patience, the whole of 
 the declensions, pronouns, conjugations, the list of prep- 
 ositions and conjunctions, interjections, some adverbs, 
 the concords, and common rules of syntax, may be com- 
 prised with sufficient repetitions in about two or three 
 hundred lessons of ten minutes each ; that is to say, ten 
 minutes application of the scholar in the presence of the 
 teacher. A young boy should never be set to learn a 
 lesson by heart when alone. Forty hours ! Is this te- 
 dious? If you are afraid of losing time, begin a few 
 months earlier ; but begin when you will, forty hours is 
 surely no great waste of time : the whole, or even half 
 of this short time, is not spent in the labour of getting 
 jargon by rote ; each day some slight advance is made 
 in the knowledge of words, and in the knowledge of their 
 combinations. What we insist upon is, that nothing 
 should be done to disgust the pupil: steady perseverance 
 with uniform gentleness, will induce habit ; and nothing 
 should ever interrupt the regular return of the daily 
 lesson. If absence, business, illness, or any otlier cause, 
 prevent the attendance of the teacher, a substitute must 
 be appointed ; the idea of relaxation on Sunday, or a 
 holyday, shouM never be permitted. In most public 
 seminaries above one third, in some nearly one half, of 
 the year is permitted to idleness : it is the comparison 
 between severe labour and dissipation, that renders 
 learning hateful. 
 
 Johnson is made to say by one of his female biogra- 
 phers,* that no child loves the person who teaches hint 
 Latin; yet the author of this chapter would not take all 
 the doctor's fame, and all the lady's wit and riches, in 
 exchange for the hourly, unfeigned, unremitting friend- 
 ship, which he enjoys with a son who had no other 
 master than his father. So far from being laborious or 
 troublesome, he has found it an agre-eable employment 
 to instruct his children in grammar and the learned lan- 
 guages. In the midst of a variety of other occupations, 
 
 * Mrs. Piozzi. 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. 301 
 
 half an hour every morning for many years, during the 
 time of dressing, has been allotted to the instruction of 
 boys of diflTerent ages in languages, and no other time 
 has been spent in this employment. Were it asserted 
 that these boys made a reasonable progress^ the expres- 
 sion would convey no distinct meaning to the reader ; 
 we shall therefore mention an experiment tried this 
 morning, November 8th, 1796, to ascertain the progress 
 of one of these pupils. Without previous study, he 
 translated twenty lines of the story of Ceyx and Al- 
 cyone, from Ovid, consulting the dictionary only twice: 
 he was then desired to translate the passage which he 
 had read into English verse ; and in two or three hours 
 he produced the following version. Much of the time 
 was spent in copying the lines fairly, as this opportunity 
 was taken of exciting his attention to writing and spel- 
 ling, to associate the habit of application with the pleas- 
 ure of voluntary exertion. The curious may, if they 
 think it worth their while, see the various readings and 
 corrections of the translation (See Chapter on Conversa- 
 tion, and anecdotes of Children), which were carefully 
 preserved, not as " Curiosities of Literature,'''' but for the 
 sake of truth, and with a desire to show that the pupil 
 had the patience to correct. A genius may hit ofl' a few 
 tolerable lines ; but if a child is willing and able to criti- 
 cise and correct what he writes, he shows that he se- 
 lects his expressions from choice, and not from chance 
 or imitation ; and he gives to a judicious tutor the cer- 
 tain promise of future improvement. 
 
 " Far in a vale there lies a cave forlorn, 
 Which Phoebus never enters eve or morn ; 
 The misty clouds inhale the pitchy ground. 
 And twihght lingers all the vale around. 
 No watchful cocks Aurora's beams invite ; 
 No dogs nor geese, the guardians of the night : 
 No flocks nor herds disturb the silent plains ; 
 Within the sacred v/alls mute quiet reigns, 
 And murmuring Lethe soothing sleep invites ; 
 In dreams again the Hying past delights : 
 From milky flowers that near the cavern grow, 
 Night scatters the collected sleep below." 
 
 S , the boy who made this translation, was just 
 
 ten years old ; he had made but three previous attempts 
 m versification ; his reading in poetry had been some 
 of Gay's fables, parts of the Minstrel, three odes of Gray, 
 
302 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, the Tears of Old 
 May-day, and parts of the second volume of Dr. Dar- 
 win's Botanic Garden ; Dryden's Translations of the 
 fable of Ceyx and Alcyone he had never seen ; the 
 book had always been locked up. Phcedrus and Ovid's 
 Metamorphoses were the whole of his Latin erudition. 
 These circumstances are mentioned thus minutely, to 
 afford the inquisitive teacher materials for an accurate 
 estimate of the progress made by our method of instruc- 
 tion. Perhaps most boys of S 's age, in our great 
 
 public seminaries, would, upon a similar trial, be found 
 superior. Competition in the art of translation is not 
 our object ; our object is to show, that half an hour a 
 day, steadily appropriated to grammar and Latin, would 
 be sufficient to secure a boy of this age from any dan- 
 ger of ignorance in classical learning ; and that the ease 
 and shortness of his labour will prevent that disgust, 
 which is too often induced by forced and incessant ap- 
 plication. We may add, that some attention to the 
 manjier in which the pupils repeat their Latin lessons, 
 has been found advantageous : as they were never put 
 in bodily fear by the impatience of a pedagogue, they 
 had leisure and inclination to read and recite, without 
 awkward gestures and discordant tones. The whining 
 tones and convulsive gestures often contracted by boys 
 during the agony of repeating their long lessons, are 
 not likely to be advantageous to the rising generation 
 of orators. Practice, and the strong motive of emula- 
 tion, may, in a public seminary, conquer these bad habits. 
 After the pupil has learned to speak ill, he may be 
 taught to speak well ; but the chances are against him : 
 and why should we have the trouble of breaking bad 
 habits ? It is much easier to prevent them. In private 
 education, as the preceptor has less chance of curing 
 his pupil of the habit of speaking ill, he should be pecu- 
 liarly attentive to give the child constant habits of 
 speaking and reading well. It is astonishing, that pa- 
 rents who are extremely intent upon the education of 
 their children, should overlook some of the essential 
 means of success. A yoimg man with his head full of 
 Latin and law, will make but a poor figure at the bar 
 or in Parliament, if he cannot enunciate distinctly, and 
 if he cannot speak good English extempore, or produce 
 his learning and arguments with grace and propriety. 
 It is in vain to expect that a boy should speak well in 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. 303 
 
 public, who cannot, ill common conversation, utter three 
 connected sentences without a false concord or a pro- 
 vincial idiom ; he may be taught with much care and 
 cost to speak ti-ipod sentences ;* but bring- the young 
 orator to the test, bring him to actual business, rouse 
 any of his passions, throw him off his guard, and then 
 listen to his language ; he will forget instantly his read- 
 ing-master, and all his rules of pronunciation and 
 rhetoric, and he will speak the language to which he 
 has been most accustomed. No master will then be 
 near him to regulate the pitch and tones of his voice. 
 We cannot believe that even Caius Gracchus could, 
 when he was warmed with passion, listen to Licinius's 
 pitchpipe.f Example, and constant attention to their 
 manner of speaking in common conversation, we appre- 
 hend to be the most certain methods of preparing young 
 men for public speakers. Much of the time that is 
 spent in teaching boys to walk upon stilts, might be 
 more advantageously employed in teaching them to 
 walk well without them. It is all very well while the 
 pupil is under the protection of his preceptor. The 
 actor on the stage is admired while he is elevated by 
 the cothurnus ; but young men are not to exhibit their 
 oratorical talents always with the advantages of stage 
 effect and decorations. We should imagine, that much 
 of the diffidence felt by young men of abilities, when 
 they first rise to speak in public, may be attributed to 
 their immediate perception of the difference between 
 scholastic exhibitions and the real business of life ; 
 they feel that they have learned to speak two languages, 
 which must not, on any account, be mixed together ; 
 the one, the vulgar language of common conversation ; 
 the other, the refined language of oratorical composi- 
 tion : the first they are most inclined to use when they 
 are agitated ; and they are agitated when they rise to 
 speak before numbers : consequently there is an imme- 
 diate struggle between custom and institution. Now, a 
 young man, who in common conversation in his own 
 family has never been accustomed to hear or to speak 
 vulgar or ungrammatical language, cannot possibly ap- 
 prehend that he shall suddenly utter ridiculous expres- 
 sions ; he knows, that, if he speak at all, he shall at 
 [east speak good English ; and he is not afraid, that, if 
 
 * See Blair. f See Plutarclu 
 
304 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 he be pursued, he shall be obliged to throw away his 
 cumbrous stilts. The practice of speaking in public, we 
 are sensible, is a great advantage ; but the habit of 
 speaking accurately in private is of still greater conse- 
 quence : this habit depends upon the early and perse- 
 vering care of the parent and the preceptor. There is 
 no reason why children should not be made at the same 
 time good scholars and good speakers ; nor is there any 
 reason v>'hy boys, while they learn to write Latin, 
 should be suffered to forget how to write English. 
 
 It would be a great advantage to the young classical 
 scholar, if his Latin and English literature were mixed ; 
 the taste for ancient authors and for modern literature 
 ought to be cultivated at the same time ; and the beau- 
 ties of composition, characteristic of different lan- 
 guages, should be familiarized to the student. Classi- 
 cal knowledge and taste afford sucli continual and inno- 
 cent sources of amusement, that we sliould be extremely 
 sorry that any of our pupils should not enjoy them in 
 their fullest extent ; but we do not include a talent for 
 Latin composition among the necessary accomplishments 
 of a gentleman. There are situations in life, where 
 facility and elegance in writing Latin maybe useful, but 
 such situations are not common; when a young man is 
 intended for them, he may be trained with more par- 
 ticular assiduity to this art ; perhaps for this purpose 
 the true Busbyean method is the best. The great Latin 
 and Greek scholars of the age have no reason to be 
 displeased by the assjrtion, that classical proficiency 
 equal to their own is not a necessary accomplishment 
 in a gentleman ; if their learning become more rare, it 
 may thence become more valuable. We see no reason 
 why there should not be Latinists as well as special 
 pleaders. 
 
 We have not laid down any course of classical study : 
 those who consider the order in which certain authors 
 are read, as of material consequence in the education of 
 scholars, may consult Milton, Mrs. I\Iacauley, " Milne's 
 Wellbred Scholar," &c., where they will find precise 
 directions. 
 
 We have lately seen a collection of exercises for 
 boys,* which in some measure supplies the defect of 
 Mr. Garretson's curious performance. We wish most 
 
 * Valpy's Exercises. 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. 305 
 
 earnestly that dictionaries were improved. The author 
 of " Steniniata Latinitatis" has conferred an essential 
 service on the public ; but still there is wanting: a dic- 
 tionary for schools, in which eleg-ant and proper English 
 might be substituted for the barbarous translations now 
 in use. Such a dictionary could not be compiled, wo 
 should think, without an attention to the course of books 
 that are most commonly used in schools. The first 
 meanings given in the dictionary should suit the first 
 authors that a boy reads ; this may probably be a re- 
 mote or metaphoric meaning : then the radical word 
 should be mentioned ; and it would not cost a master 
 any great trouble to trace the genealogy of words to 
 the parent stock. 
 
 Corderi is a collection of such mean sentences, and 
 uninstructive dialogue, as to be totally unfit for boys. 
 Comenius's " Visible World Displayed" is far superior, 
 and might, with proper alterations and better prints, 
 become a valuable English school-book. Both these 
 books were intended for countries where the Latin lan- 
 guage was commonly spoken, and consequentl)' they 
 are filled with the terms necessary for domestic life and 
 conversation ; for this very reason they are not good 
 introductions to the classics. Selections from Bailey's 
 Phajdrus will be proper for young beginners, upon ac- 
 count of the glossary. We prefer this mode of assist- 
 ing them with glossaries to the use of translations, be- 
 cause they do not induce indolent habits, and yet they 
 prevent the pupil from having unnecessary labour. 
 Translations always give the pupil more trouble in the 
 end than they save in the beginning. The glossary to 
 Bailey's Phsedrus, which we have just mentioned, wants 
 much to be modernized, and the language requires to 
 be improved. Mr. Valpy's " Select Sentences" would 
 be much more useful if they had a glossary annexed. 
 As they are, they will, however, be useful after Phae- 
 drus. Ovid's Metamorphoses, with all its monstrous 
 faults, appears to be the best introduction to the Latin 
 classics, and to heathen mythology. Norris's Ovid may 
 be safely put into the hands of children, as it is a selec- 
 tion of the least exceptionable fables. To accustom 
 boys to read poetry and prose nearly at the same pe- 
 riod, is advantageous. Cornelius Nepos, a crabbed book, 
 but useful from its brevity, and from its being a proper 
 mtroduction to Grecian and Roman history, may be 
 
306 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 read nearly at the same time with Ovid's Metamor- 
 phoses. After Ovid, the pupil may begin Virgil, post- 
 poning some of the Eclogues, and all the Georgics. 
 
 We recommend that some English books should be 
 put into the hands of boys while they are going through 
 Phaedrus, Ovid, and Cornelius Nepos, which may suit 
 with the ideas they acquire from these Latin authors. 
 Plutarch's Lives, for instance, will be useful and inter- 
 esting. When we mention Plutarch's Lives, we can- 
 not help recollecting how many great people have ac- 
 knowledged the effect of this book in their early educa- 
 tion. Charles the Twelfth, Rousseau, Madame Roland, 
 Gibbon, we immediately remember, and we are sure we 
 have noticed many others. An abridgment of Plutarch, 
 by Mrs. Helme, which we have looked into, appears 
 (the preface excepted) to be well written ; and we see 
 another abridgment of Plutarch advertised, which we 
 hope may prove serviceable : good prints to a Plutarch 
 for children, would be very desirable. 
 
 As an English introduction to mythology, we recom- 
 mend the first volume of Lord Chesterfield's Letters as 
 a most elegant view of heathen mythology. But if 
 there be any danger that the first volume should intro- 
 duce the remainder of Lord Chesterfield's work to the 
 inexperienced reader, we should certainly forbear the 
 experiment: it would be far better for a young man 
 never to be acquainted with a single heathen deity, than 
 to purchase Lord Chesterfield's classical knowledge at 
 the hazard of contamination from his detestable system 
 of morals. Without his lordship's assistance, Mrs. Mon- 
 signy's Mythology can properly initiate the young pupil 
 of either sex into the mysteries of ancient fables. The 
 notes to Potter's iEschylus are also well suited to our 
 purpose. l\\ Dr. Darwin's " Botanic Garden," there are 
 some beautiful poetic allusions to ancient gems and an- 
 cient fables, which must fix themselves in the memory 
 or in the imagination of the pupil. The sooner they are 
 read, the better ; we have felt the advantage of putting 
 them into the hands of a boy of nine or ten years old. 
 The ear should be formed to English, as well as to Latin 
 poetry. 
 
 Classical poetry, without the knowledge of mythol- 
 ogy, is unintelligible : if children study the one, they 
 must learn the other. Divested of the charms of poetry, 
 and considered without classical prepossession, mythol- 
 
GRAMMAR, ETC. 307 
 
 ogy presents a system of crimes and absurdities, which 
 no allegorical, metaphysical, or literal interpreters of 
 modern times, can perfectly reconcile to common sense 
 or common morality ; but our poets have naturalized 
 ancient fables, so that mythology has become essential 
 even to modern literature. The associations of taste, 
 though arbitrary, are not easily changed in a nation 
 whose literature has attained to a certain pitch of refine- 
 ment, and whose critical judgments must consequently 
 have been for some generations traditional. There are 
 subjects of popular allusion, which poets and orators 
 regard as common property ; to dispossess them of 
 these seems impracticable, after time has sanctioned 
 the prescriptive right. But new knowledge, and the 
 cultivation of new sciences, present objects of poetic 
 allusion, which, skilfully managed by men of inventive 
 genius, will oppose to the habitual reverence for anti- 
 quity, the charms of novelty united to the voice of phi- 
 losophy.* 
 
 In education we must, however, consider the actual 
 state of manners in that world in which our pupils are 
 to live, as well as our wishes or our hopes of its gradual 
 improvement. -f With a little care, preceptors may man- 
 age so as to teach mythology without in the least injur- 
 ing their pupils. Children may be familiarized to the 
 strange manners and strange personages of ancient fable, 
 and may consider them as a set of beings who are not 
 to be judged by any rules of morality, and who have 
 nothing in common with ourselves. The caricature of 
 some of the passions, perhaps, will not shock children 
 who are not used to their natural appearance ; they will 
 pass over the stories of love and jealousy merely be- 
 cause they do not understand them. We should rather 
 leave them completely unintelligible, than attempt, like 
 Mr. Riley, in his mythological pocket dictionary for 
 youth, to elucidate the whole at once, by assuring chil- 
 dren that Saturn was Adam, that Atlas is Moses, and his 
 brother Hesperus, Aaron ; that Vertumnus and Pomona 
 were Boaz and Ruth ; that Mars corresponds with Joshua ; 
 that Apollo accords with David, since they both played 
 
 •^ See Darwin's Poetry. 
 
 ■f- Since tiie above was written, we have seen a letter from Dr. 
 Aikin to his son on the morality and poetic merit of the fable of Circe, 
 which convinces us that the observations that we have hazarded 8J^ 
 not prematura. 
 
308 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 upon the harp ; that Mercury can be no other than our 
 archangel Michael, since they both have wings on their 
 arms and feet ; that, in short, to complete the concord- 
 ance, Monius is a striking likeness of Satan. The an- 
 cients, Mr. Riley allows, have so much disfigured these 
 personages, that it is hard to know many of the portraits 
 again at first sight ; however, he is persuaded that " the 
 young student will find a peculiar gratification in tracing 
 the likeness," and he has kindly furnished us with a 
 catalogue to explain the exhibition, and to guide us 
 through his new pantheon. 
 
 As books of reference, the convenient size and com- 
 pressed information of ;?oc/ce/; mythological dictionaries, 
 will recommend them to general use ; but we object 
 to the miserable prints with which they are sometimes 
 disgraced. The first impression made upon the imagin- 
 ation* of children, is of the utmost consequence to their 
 future taste. The beautiful engravingsf in Spence's 
 Polymetis, will introduce the heathen deities in their 
 most graceful and ; xturesque forms to the fancy. The 
 language of Spenc^, though classical, is not entirely free 
 from pedantic affectation, and his dialogues are, perhaps, 
 too stiff and longwinded for our young pupils. But a 
 parent or preceptor can easily select the useful expla- 
 nati ns ; and in turning over the prints, they can easily 
 associate some general notion of the history and attri- 
 butes of the gods and goddesses with their forms : the 
 little eager spectators will, as they crowd round the book, 
 acquire imperceptibly all the necessary knowledge of 
 mythology, imbibe the first pleasing ideas of taste, and 
 store their imagination with classic imagery. The same 
 precautions that are necessary to educate the eye, are 
 also necessary to form the ear and understanding of 
 taste. The first mythological descriptions which our 
 pupils read should be the best in their kind. Compare 
 the following account of Europa in a pocket dictionary, 
 with her figure in a poetical gem — " Europa, the daughter 
 of Agenor, king of the Phoenicians, a.id sister of Cad- 
 mus. This princess was so beautiful, that, they say, 
 one of the companions of Juno had robbed her of a pot 
 of paint to bestow on this lady, which rendered her so 
 handsome. She was beloved of Jupiter, who assumed 
 
 * Chapter on Imagination. 
 
 f We speak of these engravings as beautiful, for the times in which 
 they were done ; modern artists have arrived at higher perfection. 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY. 309 
 
 the shape of a bull to run away with her, swam over 
 the sea with her on his back, and carried her into that 
 part of the world now called Europe, from her name." 
 So far the dictionary ; now for the poet. 
 
 " Now lows a milk-white bull on Afric's strand, 
 And crops with dancing head the daisi'd land ; 
 With rosy wreaths Enropa's hand adorns 
 His fringed forehead and his pearly horns ; 
 Light on his back the sportive damsel bounds, 
 And, pieas'd, he moves along the flowery grounds ; 
 Bears with slow step his beauteous prize aloof, 
 Dips in the lucid flood his ivory hoof; 
 Then wets his velvet knees, and wading, laves 
 His silky sides, amid the dimpling waves. 
 While her fond train v/ith beckoning hands deplore, 
 Strain their blue eyes, and shriek along the shore : 
 Beneath her robe she draws her snowy feet. 
 And, half reclinmg on her ermine seat, 
 Round his rais'd neck her radiant arms she throws, 
 And rests her fair cheek on his curled brows ; 
 Her yellow tresses wave on wanton gales, 
 And high in air, her azure mantle sails."* 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ON GEOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 The usual manner of teaching Geography and Chro- 
 nology may, perhaps, be necessary in public seminaries, 
 where a number of boys are to learn the same thing at 
 the same tmie ; but what is learned in this manner is 
 not permanent; something besides merely committing 
 names and dates to the memory, is requisite to make a 
 useful impression upon the memory. For the truth of 
 this observation, an appeal is made to the reader. Let 
 him recollect, whether the Geography and Chronology 
 which he learned while a boy are what he now remem- 
 bers — Whether he has not obtained his present knowl- 
 edge from other sources than the tasks of early years. 
 When business or conversation calls upon us to furnish 
 
 * Darwin. See Botanic Garden. 
 
310 PRACTICAL education: 
 
 facts accurate as to place and time, we retrace our former 
 heterogeneous acquirements, and select those circum- 
 stances which are connected with our present pursuit ; 
 and thus we form, as it were, a imcleus round which 
 other facts insensibly arrange themselves. Perhaps no 
 two men in the world, who are well versed in these 
 studies, connect their knowledge in the same manner. 
 Relation to some particular country, some favourite 
 history, some distinguished person, forms the connexion 
 which guides our recollection, and which arranges our 
 nomenclature. By attending to what passes in our own 
 minds, we may learn an effectual method of teaching 
 without pain, and without any extraordinary burden to 
 the memory, all that is useful of these sciences. The 
 details of history should be marked by a few chrono- 
 logical eras, and by a few general ideas of geography. 
 When these have been once completely associated in 
 the mind, there is little danger of their being ever dis- 
 united : the sight of any country will recall its history, 
 and even from representations in a map, or on the globe, 
 when the mind is awakened by any recent event, a long 
 train of concomitnnt ideas will recur. 
 
 The use of technical helps to the memory has been 
 condemned by many, and certainly when they are em- 
 ployed as artifices to supply the place of real knowledge, 
 they are contemptible ; but when they are used as in- 
 dexes to facts that have been really collected in the 
 mind ; when they serve to arrange the materials of 
 knowledge in appropriate classes, and to give a sure 
 and rapid clew to recollection, they are of real advan- 
 tage to the understanding. Indeed, they are now so 
 common, that pretenders cannot build the shghtest rep- 
 utation upon their foundation. Were an orator to 
 attempt a display of long chronological accuracy, he 
 might be wofully confounded by his opponent's applying 
 at the first pause, 
 
 *E\sluk he would have said ! 
 
 Ample materials are furnished in Gray's Memoria 
 Technica, from which a short and useful selection may 
 be made, according to the purposes which are in view. 
 For children, the little ballad of The Chapter of Kings 
 will not be found beneath the notice of mothers who 
 
 * See Gray's Memoria Technica, and the Critic. 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY. 311 
 
 attend to education. If the technical terminations of 
 Gray are inserted, they will never be forgotten, or may 
 be easily recalled.* We scarcely ever forget a ballad 
 if the tune is popular. 
 
 For pupils at a more advanced age, it will be found 
 advantageous to employ technical helps of a more sci- 
 entific construction. Priestley's Chart of Biography 
 may, from time to time, be hung in their view. Smaller 
 charts, upon the same plan, might be provided with a 
 few names as landmarks ; these may be filled up by the 
 pupil with such names as he selects from history ; they 
 may be bound in octavo, like maps, by the middle, so 
 as to unfold both ways. — Thirty-nine inches by nine will 
 be a convenient size. Prints, maps, and medals, which 
 are part of the constant furniture of a room, are seldom 
 attended to by young people ; but when circumstances 
 excite an interest upon any particular subject, then is 
 the moment to produce the symbols which record and 
 communicate knowledge. 
 
 Mrs. Radcliffe, in her judicious and picturesque tour 
 through Germany, tells us, that in passing through the 
 apartments of a palace which the Archdutchess Maria 
 Christiana, the sister of the late unfortunate Queen of 
 France, had left a few hours before, she saw spread 
 upon a table a map of all the countries then included 
 in the seat of the war. The positions of the several 
 corps of the allied armies were marked upon this 
 chart with small pieces of various coloured wax. Can 
 it be doubted, that the strong interest which this prin- 
 cess nmst have taken in the subject, would for ever 
 impress upon her memory the geography of this part 
 of the world 1 
 
 How many people are there who have become geog- 
 raphers during the progress of a war. The art of 
 creating an interest in the study of geography, depends 
 upon the dexterity with which passing circumstances 
 are seized by a preceptor in conversation. What are 
 
 * Instead of 
 
 William the Conqueror long did reign, 
 
 And William his son by an arrow was slain ; 
 
 Read, 
 
 "William the Consau long did reign, 
 
 And Ruffcoi his son by an arrow was slain. 
 
 And so on from Gray's Memoria Technica to the end of the chapter. 
 
312 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 maps or medals, statues or pictures, but technical helps 
 to memory ! If a mother possess good prints, or casts 
 of ancient gems, let them be shown to any persons of 
 taste and knowledge who visit her ; their attention leads 
 that of our pupils ; imitation and sympathy are the 
 parents of taste, and taste reads in the monuments of 
 art whatever history has recorded. 
 
 In the Adele and Theodore of Madame de Silleri, a 
 number of adventitious helps are described for teaching 
 history and chronology. There can be no doubt that 
 these are useful ; and although such an apparatus can- 
 not be procured by private families, fortunately the 
 print-shops of every provincial town, and of the capital 
 in particular, furnish even to the passenger a continual 
 succession of instruction. Might not prints, assorted 
 for the purposes which we have mentioned, be lent at 
 circulating libraries ? 
 
 To assist our pupils in geography, we prefer a globe 
 to common maps. Might not a cheap, portable, and 
 convenient globe be made of oiled silk, to be inflated 
 by a common pair of bellows ? Mathematical exactness 
 is not requisite for our purpose, and though we could 
 not pretend to the precision of our best globes, yet a 
 balloon of this sort would compensate by its size and 
 convenience for its inaccuracy. It might be hung by 
 a line from its north pole, to a hook screwed into the 
 horizontal architrave of a door or window ; and another 
 string from its south pole might be fastened at a proper 
 angle to the floor, to give the requisite elevation to the 
 axis of the globe. An idea of the diff'erent projections 
 of the sphere may be easily acquired from this globe 
 in its flaccid state, and any part of it might be consulted 
 as a map, if it were laid upon a convex board of a con- 
 venient size. Impressions from the plates which are 
 used for common globes migiit be taken to try this idea 
 without any great trouble or expense ; but we wish to 
 employ a much larger scale, and to have them five or 
 six feet diameter. The inside of a globe of this sort 
 might be easily illuminated, and this would add much to 
 the novelty and beauty of its appearance. 
 
 In the country, with the assistance of a common 
 carpenter and plasterer, a large globe of lath and plaster 
 may be made for the instruction and entertainment of 
 a numerous family of children. Upon this they should 
 leisurely delineate, from time to time, by their given 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY. 313 
 
 latitudes and longitudes, such places as they become 
 acquainted with in reading or conversation. The capital 
 cities, for instance, of the different countries of Europe, 
 the rivers and the neighbouring towns, until at last the 
 outline might be added : for the sake of convenience, 
 the lines, &c. may be first delineated upon a piece of 
 paper, from which they may be accurately transferred 
 to their proper places on the globe, by the intervention 
 of blackleaded paper, or by pricking the lines through 
 the paper, and pouncing powdered blue through the 
 holes upon the surface of the globe. 
 
 We enter into this detail because we are convinced 
 that every addition to the active manual employment 
 of children is of consequence, not only to their im- 
 provement, but to their happiness. 
 
 Another invention has occurred to us for teaching 
 geography and history together. Priestley's Chart of 
 History, though constructed with great ingenuity, does 
 not invite the attention of young people ; there is an 
 intricacy in the detail which is not obvious at first. To 
 remedy what appears to us a difficulty, we propose tliat 
 eight-and-twenty, or perhaps thirty octavo maps of the 
 globe should be engraved ; upon these should be traced, 
 in succession, the different situations of the different 
 countries of the world, as to power and extent, during 
 each respective century : different colours might denote 
 the principal divisions of the world in each of these 
 maps ; the same colour always denoting the same coun- 
 try, with the addition of one strong colour, red, for 
 instance, to distinguish that country which had at each 
 period the principal dominion. On the upper and lower 
 margin in these maps, the names of illustrious persons 
 might be engraved in the manner of the biographical 
 chart ; and the predominant opinions of each century 
 should also be inserted. Thus history, chronology, 
 and geography, would appear at once to the eye in 
 their proper order and regular succession, divided into 
 centuries and periods, which easily occur to recol- 
 lection. 
 
 We forbear to expatiate upon this subject, as it has 
 not been actually submitted to experiment; carefully 
 avoiding, in the whole of this work, to recommend any 
 mode of instruction which we have not actually put in 
 practice. For this reason, we have not spoken of the 
 Abbe Gaultier's method of teaching geography, as we 
 O 
 
314 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 have only been able to obtain accounts of it from the 
 public papers, and from reviews ; we are, however, dis- 
 posed to think favourably beforehand of any mode which 
 unites amusement with instruction. We cannot forbear 
 recommendmg, in the strongest manner, a few pages of 
 Rollin in his " Thoughts upon Education,"* which we 
 think contains an excellent specimen of the manner in 
 which a well-informed preceptor might lead his pupils a 
 geographical, historical, botanical, and physiological tour 
 upon the artificial globe. 
 
 We conclude this chapter of hints by repeating what 
 we have before asserted, that though technical assist- 
 ance may be of ready use to those who are really ac- 
 quainted with that knowledge to which it refers, it 
 never can supply the place of accurate information. 
 
 The causes of the rise and fall of empires, the prog- 
 ress of human knowledge, and the great discoveries of 
 superior minds, are the real links which connect the 
 chain of political knowledge. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ON ARITHMETIC. 
 
 The man who is ignorant that two and two make 
 four, is stigmatized with the character of hopeless stu- 
 pidity ; except, as Swift has remarked, in the arithmetic 
 of the customs, where two and two do not always make 
 the same sum. 
 
 We must not judge of the understanding of a child by 
 this test, for many children of quick abilities do not 
 immediately assent to this proposition when it is first 
 laid before them, " Two and two make four," says the 
 tutor. " Well, child, why do you stare so ?" 
 
 The child stares because the word rtiaJce i in this sen- 
 tence used in a sense which is quite new to him ; he 
 knows what it is to make a bow, and to make a noise ; 
 but how this active verb is applicable in the present 
 case, where there is no agent to perform t^-e action, he 
 
 * Page 21. 
 
 I 
 
ARITHMETIC. 315 
 
 cannot clearly comprehend. •' Two and two arc four" 
 is more intelligible ; but even this assertion, the child, 
 for want of a distinct notion of the sense in which the 
 word are is nsed, does not understand. 
 
 " Two and two are called four," is, perhaps, the most 
 accurate phrase a tutor can use ; but even these words 
 will convey no meaning until they have been associated 
 with th« pupil's perceptions. When he has once per- 
 ceived the combination of the numbers with real objects, 
 it will then be easy to teach him that the words are 
 called, are, and make, in the foregoing proposition, are 
 synonymous terms. We have chosen the first simple 
 instance we could recollect, to show how difficult the 
 words we generally use in teaching arithmetic must be 
 to our young pupils. It would be an unprofitable task 
 to enumerate all the puzzling technical terms which, in 
 their earliest lessons, children are obliged to hear, with- 
 out being able to understand. 
 
 It is not from want of capacity that so many chil- 
 dren are deficient in arithmetical skill ; and it is absurd 
 to say, " such a child has no genius for arithmetic. 
 Such a child cannot be made to comprehend any thing 
 about numbers." These assertions prove nothing, but 
 that the persons who make them are ignorant of the 
 art of teaching. A child's seeming stupidity in learning 
 arithmetic, may, perhaps, be a proof of intelligence and 
 good sense. It is easy to make a boy, who does not 
 reason, repeat by rote any technical rules which a com- 
 mon writingmaster, with magisterial solemnity, may 
 lay down for him ; but a child who reasons will not be 
 thus easily managed : he stops, frowns, hesitates, ques- 
 tions his master, is wretched and refractory, until he 
 can discover why he is to proceed in such and such a 
 manner ; he is not content with seeing his preceptor 
 make figures and lines upon a slate, and perform won- 
 drous operations with the self-complacent dexterity of 
 a conjurer. A sensible boy is not satisfied with merely 
 seeing the total of a given sum, or the answer to a given 
 question, :2ome out right ; he insists upon knowing why 
 it is right. He is not content to be led to the treasures 
 of science blindfold ; he would tear the bandage from 
 his eyes, that he may know the way to them again. 
 
 That many children, who have been thought to be 
 slow in learning arithmetic, have, after their escape 
 from the hands of pedagogues, become remarkable for 
 02 
 
316 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 their quickness, is a fact sufficiently proved by experi- 
 ence. We shall only mention one instance, which we 
 happened to meet with while we were writing this 
 chapter. John Ludwig, a Saxon peasant, was dismissed 
 from school when he was a child, after four years 
 ineffectual struggle to learn the common rules of 
 arithmetic. He had been, during this time, beaten and 
 scolded in vain. He spent several subsequent years in 
 common country labour, but at length some accidental 
 circumstances excited his ambition, and he became ex- 
 pert in all the common rules, and mastered the rule of 
 three and fractions, by the help of an old school-book, 
 in the course of one year. He afterward taught him- 
 self geometry, and raised himself, by the force of his 
 abilities and perseverance, from obscurity to fame. 
 
 We should like to see the book which helped Mr. 
 Ludwig to conquer his difficulties. Introductions to 
 arithmetic are, often, calculated rather for adepts in 
 science than for the ignorant. We do not pretend to 
 have discovered any shorter method than what is com- 
 mon, of teaching these sciences; but, in conformity 
 with the principles which are laid down in the former 
 part of this work, we have endeavoured to teach their 
 rudiments without disgusting our pupils, and without 
 habituating them to be contented with merely technical 
 operations. 
 
 In arithmetic, as in every other branch of education, 
 the principal object should be, to preserve the under- 
 standing from implicit belief; to invigorate its powers; 
 to associate pleasure with literature ; and to induce the 
 laudable ambition of progressive improvement. 
 
 As soon as a child can read he should be accustomed 
 to count, and to have the names of numbers early con- 
 nected in his mind with the combinations which they 
 represent. For this purpose, he should be taught to add 
 first by things, and afterward by signs or figures. He 
 should be taught to form combinations of things by 
 adding them together one after another. At the same 
 time that he acquires the names that have been given to 
 these combinations, he should be taught the figures or 
 symbols that represent them. P'or example, when it is 
 familiar to the child that one almond and one almond 
 are called two almonds ; that one almond and two 
 almonds are called three almonds, and so on, he should 
 be taught to distinguish the figures that represent these 
 
ARITHMETIC. 317 
 
 assemblages ; that three means one and two, &c. Each 
 operation of arithmetic should proceed in this manner, 
 from individuals to the abstract notation of signs. 
 
 One of the earliest operations of the reasoning faculty- 
 is abstraction ; that is to say, the power of classing a 
 number of individuals under one name. Young children 
 call strangers either men or women; even the most 
 ignorant savages* have a propensity to generalize. 
 
 "We may err either by accustoming our pupils too 
 much to the consideration of tangible substances when 
 we teach them arithmetic, or by turning their attention 
 too much to signs. The art of forming a sound and 
 active understanding, consists in the due mixture of 
 facts and reflection. Dr. Reid has, in his " Essay on 
 the Intellectual Powers of Man," page 297, pointed out, 
 with great ingenuity, the admirable economy of nature 
 in limiting the powers of reasoning during the first years 
 of infancy. This is the season for cultivating the 
 senses ; and whoever, at this early age, endeavours to 
 force the tender shoots of reason, will repent his rash- 
 ness. 
 
 In the chapter " on Toys," we have recommended the 
 use of plain, regular solids, cubes, globes, &c., made of 
 wood, as playthings for children, instead of uncouth fig- 
 ures of men, women, and animals. For teaching arith- 
 metic, half inch cubes, which can be easily grasped by in- 
 fant fingers, may be employed with great advantage ; they 
 can be easily arranged in various combinations ; the eye 
 can easily take in a sufficient number of them at once, and 
 the mind is insensibly led to consider the assemblages in 
 which they may be grouped, not only as they relate to 
 number, but as they relate to quantity or shape ; besides, 
 the terms which are borrowed from some of these 
 shapes, as squares, cubes, &c., will become familiar. 
 As these children advance in arithmetic to square or 
 cube, a number will be more intelligible to them than to 
 a person who has been taught these words merely as 
 the formula of certain rules. In arithmetic, the first 
 lessons should be short and simple ; two cubes placed 
 above each other will soon be called two ; if placed in 
 any other situations near each other, they will still be 
 called two ; but it is advantageous to accustom our little 
 
 * See a strange instance quoted by Mr. Stewart, " On the Human 
 Mind." 
 
318 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 pupils to place the cubes with which they are taught in 
 succession, either by placing them upon one another, or 
 laying them in columns upon a table, beginning to count 
 from the cube next to them, as we cast up in addition. 
 For this purpose, aboard about six inches long and five 
 broad, divided into columns perpendicularly by slips of 
 wood three eighths of an inch wide and one eighth of 
 an inch thick, will be found useful ; and if a few cubes 
 of colours different from those already mentioned, with 
 numbers on their six sides, are procured, they may be 
 of great service. Our cubes sliould be placed, from time 
 to time, in a different order, or promiscuously ; but when 
 any arithmetical operations are to be performed with 
 them, it is best to preserve the established arrangement. 
 
 One cube and one other, are called two. 
 
 Two what ? 
 
 Two cubes. 
 
 One glass and one glass, are called two glasses. One 
 raisin and one raisin, are called two raisins, &c. One 
 cube and one glass, are called what ] Two things, or 
 two. 
 
 By a process of this sort, the meaning of the abstract 
 term two may be taught. A child will perceive that the 
 word two means the same as the words one and one ; 
 and when we say one and one are called two, unless he 
 is prejudiced by something else that is said to him, he 
 will understand nothing more than that there are two 
 names for the same tiling. 
 
 " One, and one, and one, are called three," is the same 
 as saying " that three is the name for one, and one, and 
 one." — '" Two and one are three," is also the same as 
 saying " that three is the name of two and one^ Three 
 is also the name of one and two ; the word three has, 
 therefore, three meanings ; it means one, and one, and 
 one ; also, two and one ; also, one and two. He will 
 see that any two of the cubes may be put together, as 
 it were, in one parcel, and that this parcel may be called 
 two; and he will also see that this parcel, when joined 
 to another single cube, will make three, and that the sum 
 will be the same, whether the single cube or the two 
 cubes be named first. 
 
 In a similar manner, the combinations which forno 
 four may be considered. One, and one, and one, and 
 one, are four. 
 
 One and three are four. 
 
ARITHMETIC. 319 
 
 Two aiid two are four. 
 
 Three and one are four. 
 
 All these assertions mean the same thing, and the 
 term/oM7* is equally applicable to each of them : when, 
 therefore, we say that two and two are four, the child 
 may be easily led to perceive, and indeed to 5ee, that it 
 means the same thing as saying one two and one two, 
 which is the same thing as saying two twos, or saying 
 the word tivo two times. Our pupil should be suffered 
 to rest here ; and we should not, at present, attempt to 
 lead him farther towards that compendious method of 
 addition which we call multiplication ; but the founda- 
 tion is laid by giving him this view of the relation be- 
 tween two and two in forming four. 
 
 There is an enumeration in the note* of the different 
 
 NOTE, 
 1 1 
 
 * Two is 1 11 
 
 the — 12 
 
 name for 2 — — 
 
 1 
 
 1 1 
 
 1 i 
 
 1 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 1 
 
 111 1 
 
 11112 
 12 3 4 2 
 
 5 
 
 5 5 
 
 5 
 
 5 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 
 1 2 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 2 3 
 
 4 2 
 
 3 
 
 
 2 3 4 
 
 5 
 
 2 2 2 
 
 2 3 
 
 3 
 
 66666666666 
 
320 
 
 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 combinations which compose the rest of Arabic nota- 
 tion, which consists only of nine characters. 
 
 Before we proceed to the number ten, or to the new 
 series of enumeration which succeeds to it, we should 
 make our pupils perfectly masters of the combinations 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 8 
 2 
 
 8 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 8 8 
 
 8 8 8 
 
 2 3 4 
 
 1 
 1 1 
 
 1 1 
 1 1 
 
 6 7 
 
 1 
 1 1 
 
 999999999999999 
 
ARITHMETIC. 321 
 
 which we have mentioned, both in the direct order in 
 which they are arranged, and in various modes of suo- 
 cession ; by these means, not only the addition, but the 
 subtraction, of numbers as far as nine, will be perfectly 
 familiar to them. 
 
 It has been observed before, that counting by realities 
 and by signs should be taught at the same time, so that 
 the ear, the eye, and the mind should keep pace with 
 one another; and that technical habits should be ac- 
 quired without injury to the understanding. If a child 
 begins between four and five years of age, he may be 
 allowed half a year for this essential preliminary step in 
 arithmetic ; four or five minutes' application every day, 
 will be sufficient to teach him not only the relations of 
 the first decade in numeration, but also how to write 
 figures with accuracy and expedition. 
 
 The next step is by far the most difficult in the science 
 of arithmetic ; in treatises upon the subject, it is con- 
 cisely passed over under the title of Numeration ; but it 
 requires no small degree of care to make it intelligible 
 to children, and we therefore recommend, that besides 
 direct instruction upon the subject, the child should be 
 led, by degrees, to understand the nature of classification 
 in general. Botarly and natural history, though they are 
 not pursued as sciences, are, notwithstanding, the daily 
 occupation and amusement of children, and they supply 
 constant examples of classification. In conversation, 
 these maybe familiarly pointed out; a grove, a flock, 
 &c., are constantly before the eyes of our pupil, and he 
 comprehends as well as we do what is meant by two 
 groves, two flocks, &c. The trees that form the grove 
 are each of them individuals ; but let their numbers be 
 what they may when they are considered as a grove, 
 the grove is but one, and may be thought of and spoken 
 of distinctly, without any relation to the number of 
 single trees which it contains. ^From these and similar 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 1 
 11 11 1 
 2 3 12 1 12 1 12 1 
 33445622452222 
 33333344445567 
 
 99999999999999 
 03 
 
322 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 observations, a child may be led to consider ten as the 
 name for a ivhole, an integer ; a one, which may be rep- 
 resented by the figure (1) : this same figure may also 
 stand for a hundred or a thousand, as he will readily 
 perceive hereafter. Indeed, the term one hundred will 
 become familiar to him in conversation long before he 
 comprehends that the word ten is used as an aggregate 
 term, like a dozen, or a thousand. We do not use the 
 word ten as the French do ime dizaine ; ten does not, 
 therefore, present the idea of an integer till we learn 
 arithmetic. This is a defect in our language, which has 
 arisen from the use of duodecimal numeration ; the 
 analogies existing between the names of other numbers 
 in progression are broken by the terms eleven and twelve. 
 Thirteen, fourteen, &c., are so obviously compounded of 
 three and ten, and four and ten, as to strike the ears 
 of children immediately ; and when they advance as far 
 as twenty, they readily perceive that a new series of 
 units begins, and proceeds to thirty; and that thirty, 
 forty, &c., mean three tens, four tens, &c. In pointing 
 out these analogies to children, they become interested 
 and attentive ; they show that species of pleasure which 
 arises from the perception of aptitude, or of truth. It 
 can scarcely be denied that such a pleasure exists in- 
 dependently of every view of utility and fame ; and 
 when we can once excite this feeling in the minds of 
 our young pupils at any period of tiieir education, we 
 may be certain of success. 
 
 As soon as distinct notions have been acquired of the 
 manner in which a collection of ten units becomes a 
 new unit of a higher order, our pupil may be led to ob- 
 serve the utility of this invention by various examples, 
 before he applies it to the rules of arithmetic. Let him 
 count as far as ten with black pebbles,* for instance ; let 
 him lay aside a white pebble to represent the collection 
 of ten ; he may count another series of ten black peb- 
 bles, and lay aside another white one ; and so on, till he 
 has collected ten white pebbles : as eachoi the ten white 
 pebbles represents ten black pebbles, he will have counted 
 one hundred ; and the ten white pebbles may now be 
 represented by a single red one, which will stand for 
 one hundred. This large number, which it takes up so 
 much time to count, and which could not be compre- 
 
 * The word calculate is derived from the Latin calculus, a pebble. 
 
ARITHMETIC. 323 
 
 hended at one view, is represented by a single sign. 
 Here ttie diiference of colour forms the distinction : dif- 
 ference in shape or size would answer ihe same pur- 
 pose, as in the Roman notation, X for ten, L for fifty, 
 C for one hundred, &c. All this is fully within the 
 comprehension of a child of six years old, and will lead 
 him to the value of written figures by the place which 
 they hold when compared with one another. Indeed, he 
 may be led to invent this arrangement, a circumstance 
 which would encourage him in every part of his educa- 
 tion. When once he clearly comprehends that the third 
 place, counting from the right, contains only figures 
 which represent hundreds, &c., he will have conquered 
 one of the greatest difficulties of arithmetic. If a 
 paper ruled with several perpendicular lines, a quarter 
 of an inch asunder, be shown to him, he will see 
 that the spaces or columns between these lines would 
 distinguish the value of figures written in them, with- 
 out the use of the sign (0), and he will see that (0) or 
 zero, serves only to mark the place or situation of the 
 neighbouring figures. 
 
 An idea of decimal arithmetic, but without detail, 
 may now be given to him, as it will not appear extraor- 
 dinary to him that a unit should represent ten by having 
 its place or column changed ; and nothing more is 
 necessary in decimal arithmetic, than to consider that 
 figure which represented, at one time, an integer, or 
 whole, as representing at another time the number 
 of tenth parts into which that wliole may have been 
 broken. 
 
 Our pupil may next be taught what is called numer- 
 ation, which he cannot fail to understand, and in which 
 he should be frequently exercised. Common addition 
 will be easily understood by a child who distinctly per- 
 ceives that the perpendicular columns, or places in which 
 figures are written, may distinguish their value under 
 various different denominations, as gallons, furlongs, 
 shillings, &c. We should not tease children with long 
 sums in avoirdupois weight, or load their frail memories 
 with tables of long-measure, and dry- measure, and ale- 
 measure in the country and ale-measure in London ; 
 only let them cast up a few sums in different denomina- 
 tions, with the tables before them, and let the practice 
 of addition be preserved in their minds by short sums 
 every day, and when they are between six and seven 
 
324 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 years old, they will be sufficiently masters of the first 
 and most useful rule of arithmetic. 
 
 To children who have been trained in this manner, 
 subtraction will be quite easy ; care, however, should 
 be taken to give them a clear notion of the mystery of 
 borroioing and paying, which is inculcated in teaching 
 subtraction. 
 
 From 94 
 
 ' Subtract 46 
 
 " Six from four I can't, but six from ten and four re- 
 mains ; four and four is eight." 
 
 And then, " One that I borrowed and four are five, 
 five from nine, and four remains." 
 
 This Is the formula ; but is it ever explained — or can 
 it be ] Certainly not without some alteration. A child 
 ,sees that six cannot be subtracted (taken) from four : 
 more especially a child who is famiharly acquainted 
 with the component parts of the names six ?nd four : 
 he sees that the sum 46 is less than the sum 94, and he 
 knows that the lesser sum may be subtracted from the 
 greater ; but he does not perceive the means of sep- 
 arating them figure by figure. Tell him, that though 
 six cannot be deducted from four, yet it can from four- 
 teen, and that if one of the tens which are contained in 
 the (9) ninety in the uppermost row of the second 
 column, be supposed to be taken awa)', or borrowed, 
 from the ninety, and added to the four, the nine will be 
 reduced to 8 (eighty), and the four will become fourteen. 
 Our pupil will comprehend this most readily ; he will 
 see that 6, which could not be subtracted from 4, may 
 be subtracted from fourteen, and he will remember that 
 the 9 in the next column is to be considered as only (8). 
 To avoid confusion, he may draw a stroke across the 
 (9) and write 8 over* it (|), and proceed to the remainder 
 of the operation. This method for beginners is cer- 
 tainly very distinct, and may, for some time, be em- 
 ployed with advantage ; and after its rationale has be- 
 come familiar, we may explain the common method 
 which depends upon this consideration. 
 
 " If one number is to be deducted from another, the 
 remainder will be the same, whether we add any given 
 
 * This method is recommended in the Cours de Math, par 
 Camus, p. 38. 
 
ARITHMETIC. 325 
 
 number to the smaller number, or take away the same 
 given number from the larger." For instance : 
 Let the larger number be ... 9 
 
 And the smaller 4 
 
 If you deduct 3 from the larger it will be 6 
 From this subtract the smaller . . 4 
 
 The remainder will be ... 2 
 
 Or if you add 3 to the smaller number, it will be 7 
 
 Subtract this from the larger number . 9 
 
 7 
 
 The remainder will be ... 2 
 
 Now in the common method of subtraction, the one 
 which is borrowed is taken from the uppermost figure 
 in the adjoining column ; and instead of altering that 
 figure to one less, we add one to the lowest figure, which, 
 as we have just shown, will have the same effect. The 
 terms, however, that are commonly used in performing 
 this operation, are improper. To say " one that I 
 borrowed, and four" (meaning the lowest figure in the 
 adjoining column) implies the idea that what was bor- 
 rowed is now to be repaid to that lowest figure, which 
 is not the fact. As to multiplication, we have little to 
 say. Our pupil should be furnished, in the first instance, 
 with a table containing the addition of the different 
 units which form the different products of the multi- 
 plication table : these he should, from time to time, add 
 up as an exercise in addition ; and it should be frequently 
 pointed out to him, that adding these figures so many 
 times over is the same as multiplying them by the num- 
 ber of times that they are added; as three times 3 
 means 3 added three times. Here one of the figures 
 represents a quantity, the other does not represent a 
 quantity ; it denotes nothing but the times, or frequency 
 of repetition. Young people, as they advance, are apt 
 to confound these signs, and to imagine, for instance, in 
 the rule of three, &c., that the sums which they multi- 
 ply together mean quantities ; that 40 yards of linen 
 may be multiplied by three and sixpence, &c. — an idea 
 from which the misstatements in sums that are intri- 
 cate, frequently arise. 
 We have heard that the multiplication table has been 
 
326^ PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 set, like The Chapter of Kings, to a cheerful tune. This 
 is a species of technical memory which we have long 
 practised, and which can do no harm to the understand- 
 ing ; it prevents the mind from no beneficial exertion, 
 and may save much irksome labour. It is certainly to 
 be wished, that our pupil should be expert in the multi- 
 plication table ; if the cubes which we have formerly 
 mentioned be employed for this purpose, the notion 
 of squaring figures will be introduced at the same time 
 that the multiplication table is committed to memory. 
 
 In division, M'hat is called the Italian method of ar- 
 ranging the divisor and quotient appears to be prefer- 
 able to the common one, as it places them in such a 
 manner as to be easily multiplied by each other, and as 
 it agrees with algebraic notation. 
 
 The usual method is this : 
 Divisor 
 
 71)83467(1175 
 Italian method : 
 Dividend 
 
 83467 71 
 
 1175 
 
 The rule of three is commonly taught in a manner 
 merely technical : that it may be learned in this man- 
 ner, so as to answer the common purposes of life, there 
 can be no doubt ; and nothing is farther from our design 
 than to depreciate any mode of instruction which has 
 been sanctioned by experience : but our purpose is to 
 point out methods of conveying instruction that shall 
 improve the reasoning faculty, and habituate our pupil 
 to think upon every subject. We wish, therefore, to 
 point out the course which the mind would follow to 
 solve problems relative to proportion without the rule, 
 and to turn our pupil's attention to the circumstances m 
 which the rule assists us. 
 
 The calculation of the price of any commodity, or 
 the measure of any quantity, where the first term is one, 
 may be always stated as a sum in the rule of three ; but 
 as this statement retards, instead of expediting the 
 operation, it is never practised. 
 
 If one yard costs a shilling, how much will three yards 
 cost ? 
 
 The mind immediately perceives, that the price added 
 three times together, or multiplied by three, gives the 
 
ARITHMETIC. 327 
 
 answer. If a certain number of apples are to be equally- 
 distributed among a certain number of boys, if the share 
 of one is one apple, the share of ten or twenty is plainly- 
 equal to ten or twenty. But if we state that the share 
 of three boys is twelve apples, and ask what number 
 will be sufficient for nine boys, the answer is not ob- 
 vious ; it requires consideration. Ask our pupil what 
 made it so easy to answer the last question, he will 
 readily say, " Because I knew what was the share of 
 one." 
 
 Then you could answer this new question if you knew 
 the share of one boy ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Cannot you find out what the share of one boy is 
 when the share of three boys is twelve 1 
 
 Four. 
 I What number of apples then will be enough, at the 
 same rate, for nine boys 1 
 
 Nine times four, that is thirty-six. 
 
 In this process he does nothing more than divide the 
 second number by the first, and multiply the quotient by 
 the third ; 12 divided by 3 is 4, which multiplied by 9 is 
 36. And this is, in truth, the foundation of the rule ; 
 for though the golden rule facilitates calculation, and 
 contributes admirably to our convenience, it is not ab- 
 solutely necessary to the solution of questions relating 
 to proportion. 
 
 Again, " If the share of three boys is five apples, how 
 many will be sufficient for nine ]" 
 
 Our pupil will attempt to proceed as in the former 
 question, and will begin by endeavouring to find out the 
 share of one of the three boys ; but this is not quite 
 so easy ; he will see that each is to have one apple, 
 and part of another ; but it will cost him some pains 
 to determine exactly how much. When at length he 
 finds that one and two thirds is the share of one boy, 
 before he can answer the question, he must multiply 
 one and two thirds by nine, which is an operation in 
 fractions, a rule of which he at present knows notliing. 
 But if he begins by multiplying the second, instead of 
 dividing it previously by the first number, he will avoid 
 the embarrassment occasioned by fractional parts, and 
 will easily solve the question. 
 
328 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 3 : 5 : 9 : 15 
 
 Multiply 5 
 
 by 9 
 
 it makes 45 
 which product 45, divided by 3, gives 15. 
 
 Here our pupil perceives, that if a given number, 
 12, for instance, is to be divided by one number and 
 multiplied by another, it loill come to. the same thing, 
 whether he begins by dividing the given number, or by 
 multiplying it. 
 
 12 divided by 4 is 3, which 
 
 multiplied by 6 is 18 : 
 
 And 
 
 12 multiplied by 6 is 72, which 
 
 divided by 4 is 18. 
 
 We recommend it to preceptors not to fatigue the 
 memories of their young pupils with sums which are 
 difficult only from the number of figures which they re- 
 quire, but rather to give examples in practice, where 
 aliquot parts are to be considered, and where their 
 ingenuity may be employed without exhausting their 
 patience. A variety of arithmetical questions occur in 
 common conversation, and from common incidents ; 
 these should be made a subject of inquiry, and our pupils, 
 among others, should try their skill : in short, what- 
 ever can be taught in conversation, is clear gain in 
 instruction. 
 
 We should observe, that every explanation upon these 
 subjects should be recurred lo from timo to time, per- 
 haps every two or three months ; as there are no cir- 
 cumstances in the business of every day, which recall 
 abstract speculations to the minds of children ; and the 
 pupil who understands them to-day, may, without any 
 deficiency of memory, forget them entirely in a few 
 weeks. Indeed, the perception of the chain of reason- 
 ing, which connects demonstration, is what makes it 
 truly advantageous in education. Whoever has occa- 
 sion, in the business of life, to make use of the rule of 
 three, may learn it effectually in a month as well as in 
 ten years ; but the habit of reasoning cannot be ac- 
 quired late in life, without unusual labour and uncom- 
 mon fortitude. 
 
GEOMETRY. 329 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 GEOMETRY. 
 
 There is certainly no royal road to Geometry, but the 
 way may be rendered easy and pleasant by timely prep- 
 arations for the journey. 
 
 Without any previous knowledge of the country, or 
 of its peculiar language, how can we expect that our 
 young traveller should advance with facility or pleasure 1 
 We are anxious that our pupil should acquire a taste for 
 accurate reasoning, and we resort to Geometry, as the 
 most perfect and the purest series of ratiocination 
 which has been invented. Let us, then, sedulously avoid 
 whatever may disgust him ; let his first steps be easy 
 and successful ; let them be frequently repeated, until he 
 can trace them without a guide. 
 
 We have recommended, in the chapter upon Toys, that 
 children should, from their earliest years, be accustomed 
 to the shape of what are commonly called regular solids ; 
 they should also be accustomed to the figures in mathe- 
 matical diagram.s. To these should be added their re- 
 spective names, and the whole language of the science 
 should be rendered as familiar as possible. 
 
 Mr. Donne, an ingenious mathematician of Bristol, 
 has published a prospectus of an Essay on Mechanical 
 Geometry : he has executed, and employed with suc- 
 cess, models in wood and metal, for demonstrating prop- 
 ositions in geometry in a palpable manner. We have 
 endeavoured in vain to procure a set of these models 
 for our own pupils, but we have no doubt of their en- 
 tire utility. 
 
 What has been acquired in childhood should not be 
 suffered to escape the memory. Dionysius* had mathe- 
 matical diagrams described upon the floors of his apart- 
 ments, and thus recalled their demonstrations to his 
 memory. The slightest addition that can be conceived, 
 if it be continued daily, will, imperceptibly, not only 
 
 * Plutarch.— Life of Dion. 
 
330 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 preserve what has been already acquired, but will in a 
 few years amount to as large a stock of mathematical 
 knowledge as we could wish. It is not our object to 
 make mathematicians, but to make it easy to our pupil 
 to become a mathematician, if his interest or his am- 
 bition, make it desirable ; and, above all, to habituate 
 him to clear reasoning and close attention. And we 
 may here remark, that an early acquaintance with the 
 accuracy of mathematical demonstration, does not, 
 within our experience, contract the powers of the im- 
 agination. On the contrary, we think that a young lady 
 of twelve years old who is now no more, and who had 
 an uncommon propensity to mathematical reasoning, 
 had an imagination remarkably vivid and inventive.* 
 
 We have accustomed our pupils to form in their minds 
 the conception of figures generated from points and 
 lines, and surfaces supposed to move in different direc- 
 tions and with different velocities. It may be thought, 
 that this would be a difficult occupation for young 
 minds ; but, upon trial, it will be found not only easy to 
 them, but entertaining. In their subsequent studies, it 
 will be of material advantage; it will facilitate their 
 progress not only in pure mathematics, but in mechan- 
 ics and astronomy, and in every operation of the mind 
 which requires exact reflectio;i. 
 
 To demand steady thought from a person who has not 
 been trained to it, is one of the most unprofitable and 
 dangerous requisitions that can be made in education. 
 
 " Full in the midst of Euclid dip at once, 
 And petrify a genius to a dunce." 
 
 In the usual commencement of mathematical studies, 
 the learner is required to admit that a point, of which 
 he sees the prototype, a dot before him, has neither 
 length, breadth, nor thickness. This, surely, is a de- 
 gree of faith not absolutely necessary for the neophyte 
 in science. It is an absurdity which has, with much 
 success, been attacked in " Observations on the Nature 
 of Demonstrative Evidence," by Doctor Beddoes. 
 
 We agree with the doctor as to the impropriety of 
 calling a visible dot a point without dimensions. But, 
 notwithstanding the high respect which the author com- 
 mands by a steady pursuit of truth on all subjects of 
 
 * See Rivuletta, a little story written entirely by her in 1786. 
 
GEOMETRY. 331 
 
 human knowledge, we cannot avoid protesting- against 
 part of the doctrine which he has endeavoured to in- 
 culcate. That the names, point, radius, &c., are derived 
 from sensible objects, need not be disputed ; but surely 
 the word centre can be understood by the human 
 mind without the presence of any visible or tangible 
 substance. 
 
 Where two lines meet, their junction cannot have 
 dimensions ; where two radii of a circle meet, they con- 
 stitute the centre; and the name centre may be used 
 for ever without any relation to a tangible or visible 
 point. The word boundary, in like manner, means the 
 extreme limit we call a line ; but to assert that it has 
 thickness, would, from the very terms which are used to 
 describe it, be a direct contradiction. Bishop Berkeley, 
 Mr. Walton, Philathetes Cantabrigiensis, and Mr. Ben- 
 jamin Robins, published several pamphlets upon this 
 subject about half a century ago. No man had a more 
 penetrating mind than Berkeley ; but we apprehend that 
 Mr. Robins closed the dispute against him. This is not 
 meant as an appeal to authority, but to apprize such of 
 our readers as wish to consider the argument, where 
 they may meet an accurate investigation of the subject. 
 It is sufficient for our purpose, to warn preceptors not 
 to insist upon their pupils' acquiescence in the dogma, 
 that a point, represented by a dot, is without dimen- 
 sions ; and at the same time to profess, that we under- 
 stand distinctly what is meant by mathematicians when 
 they speak of length without breadth, and of a super- 
 ficies without depth ; expressions which, to our minds, 
 convey a meaning as distinct as the name of any visible 
 or tangible substance in nature, whose varieties from 
 shade, distance, colour, smoothness, heat, &c., are in- 
 finite, and not to be comprehended in any definition. 
 
 In fact, this is a dispute merely about words ; and as 
 the extension of the art of printing puts it in the power 
 of every man to propose and to defend his opinions at 
 length and at leisure, the best friends may support dif- 
 ferent sides of a question with mutual regard, and the 
 most violent enemies with civility and decorum. Can 
 we believe that Tycho Bralie lost half his nose in a 
 dispute with a Danish nobleman about a mathematical 
 demonstration ] 
 
332 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ON MECHANICS. 
 
 Parents are anxious that children should be con- 
 versant with Mechanics, and with what are called the 
 Mechanic Powers. Certainly no species of knowledge 
 is better suited to the taste and capacity of youth, and 
 yet it seldom forms a part of early instruction. Every- 
 body talks of the lever, the wedge, and the pulle)% but 
 most people perceive, that the notions which they have 
 of their respective uses are unsatisfactory and indis- 
 tinct ; and many endeavour, at a late period of life, to 
 acquire a scientific and exact knowledge of the effects 
 that are produced by implements which are in every- 
 body's hands, or that are absolutely necessary in the 
 daily occupations of mankind. 
 
 An itinerant lecturer seldom fails of having a numer- 
 ous and attentive auditory ; and if he does not commu- 
 nicate much of that knowledge which he endeavours to 
 explain, it is not to be attributed either to his want of 
 skill, or to the insufficiency of his apparatus, but to the 
 novelty of the terms which he is obliged to use. Igno- 
 rance of the language in which any science is taught, is 
 an insuperable bar to its being suddenly acquired ; be- 
 sides a precise knowledge of the meaning of terms, we 
 must have an instantaneous idea excited in our minds 
 whenever they are repeated ; and, as this can be ac- 
 quired only by practice, it is impossible that philosophi- 
 cal lectures can be of much service to those who are 
 not familiarly acquainted with the technical language 
 in which they are delivered ; and yet there is scarcely 
 any subject of human inquiry more obvious to the un- 
 derstanding than the laws of mechanics. Only a small 
 portion of geometry is necessary to the learner, if he 
 even wishes to become master of the more difficult 
 problems which are usually contained in a course of 
 lectures ; and most of what is practically useful, may be 
 acquired by any person who is expert in common 
 arithmetic. 
 
MECHANICS. 333 
 
 But we cannot proceed a single step without deviating 
 from common language ; if the theory of the balance 
 or the lever is to be explained, we immediately speak 
 of space and time. To persons not versed in literature, 
 it is probable that these terms appear more simple and 
 intelligible than they do to a man who has read Locke, 
 and other metaphysical writers. The term space, to the 
 bulk of mankind, conveys the idea of an interval; they 
 consider the word time as representing a definite num- 
 ber of years, days, or minutes ; but the metaphysician, 
 when he hears the words space and time, immediately 
 takes the alarm, and recurs to the abstract notions 
 which are associated with these ternis ; he perceives 
 difficulties unknown to the unlearned, and feels a con- 
 fusion of ideas which distracts his attention. The 
 lecturer proceeds with confidence, never supposing that 
 his audience can be puzzled by such common terms. 
 He means by space, the distance from the place whence 
 a body begins to fall, to the place where its motion 
 ceases ; and by time, he means the number of seconds, 
 or of any determinate divisions of civil time, which 
 elapse from the commencement of any motion to its 
 end; or, in other words, the duration of any given mo- 
 tion. After this has been frequently repeated, any in- 
 telligent person perceives the sense in which they are 
 used by the tenour of the discourse ; but in the interim, 
 the greatest part of what he has heard cannot have been 
 understood, and the premises upon which every subse- 
 quent demonstration is founded, are unknown to him. 
 If this be true when it is affirmed of two terms only, 
 what must be the situation of those to whom eight or 
 ten unknown technical terms occur at the commence- 
 ment of a lecture \ A complete knowledge, such a 
 knowledge as is not only full, but familiar, of all the 
 common terms made use of in theoretic and practical 
 mechanics, is, therefore, absolutely necessary, before 
 any person can attend public lectures in natural phi- 
 losophy with advantage. 
 
 What has been said of public lectures, may, with 
 equal propriety, be applied to private instruction ; and 
 it is probable, that inattention to this circumstance is 
 the reason why so few people have distinct notions of 
 natural philosophy. Learning by rote, or even reading 
 repeatedly, definitions of the technical terms of any 
 science, must undoubtedly facilitate its acquirement; 
 
334 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 but conversation, with the habit oi" explaining the mean- 
 ing of words, and the structure of common domestic 
 implements, to children, is the sure and effectual 
 method of preparing the mind for the acquirement of 
 science. 
 
 The ancients, in learning this species of knowledge, 
 had an advantage of which we are deprived : many of 
 their terms of science were the common names of fa- 
 miliar objects. How few do we meet who have a dis- 
 tinct notion of the words radius, angle, or valve. A 
 Roman peasant knew what a radius or a valve meant, 
 in its original signification, as well as a modern profes- 
 sor ; he knew that a valve was a door, and a radius a 
 spoke of a wheel ; but an English child finds it as diffi- 
 cult to remember the meaning of the word angle, as the 
 word parabola. An angle is usually confounded, by 
 those who are ignorant of geometry and mechanics, 
 with the word triangle ; and the long reasouing of many 
 a laborious instructer has been confounded by this popu- 
 lar mistake. When a glass pump is shown to an ad- 
 miring spectator, he is desired to watch the motion of 
 the valves : he looks " above, about, and underneath ;" 
 but, ignorant of the word valve^ he looks in vain. Had 
 he been desired to look at the motion of the little doors 
 that opened and shut, as the handle of the pump was 
 moved up and down, he would have followed the lec- 
 turer with ease, and would have understood all his sub- 
 sequent reasoning. If a child attempts to push any 
 thing heavier than himself, his feet slide away from it, 
 and the object can be moved only at intervals, and by 
 sudden starts ; but if he be desired to prop his feet 
 against the wall, he finds it easy to push what before 
 eluded his little strength. Here the use of a fulcrum, 
 or fixed point, by means of whicli bodies maybe moved, 
 is distinctly understood. If two boys lay a board across 
 a narrow block of wood or stone, and balance each 
 other at the opposite ends of it, they acquire another 
 idea of a centre of motion. If a poker is rested against 
 a bar of a grate, and employed to lift up the coals, the 
 same notion of a centre is recalled to their minds. If 
 a boy, sitting upon a plank, a sofa, or form, be lifted up 
 by another boy's applying his strength at one end of the 
 seat, while the other rests on the ground, it will be 
 readily perceived by them, that the point of rest, or 
 centre of motion, or fulcrum, is the ground, and that 
 
MECHANICS. 335 
 
 the fulcrum is not, as in the first instance, between^ the 
 force that lifts and the thing that is lifted ; the fulcrum 
 is at one end, the force which is exerted acts at the 
 other end, and the weight is in the middle. In trying 
 these simple experiments, the terms fulcrum, centre of 
 motion, <fc., should be constantly employed, and in a 
 very short time they would be as familiar to a boy of 
 eight years old as to any philosopher. If for some 
 years the same words frequently recur to him in the 
 same sense, is it to be supposed that a lecture upon the 
 balance and the lever would be as unintelligible to him 
 as to persons of good abilities, who at a more advanced 
 age hear these terms from the mouth of a lecturer 1 A 
 boy in such circumstances would appear as if he had a 
 genius for mechanics, when, perhaps, he might have 
 less taste for the science, and less capacity, than the 
 generality of the audience. Trifling as it may at first 
 appear, it will not be found a trifling advantage, in the 
 progress of education, to attend to this circumstance. 
 A distinct knowledge of a few terms assists a learner 
 in his first attempts ; finding these successful, he ad- 
 vances with confidence, and acquires new ideas without 
 difficulty or disgust. Rousseau, with his usual eloquence, 
 has inculcated the necessity of annexing ideas to words ; 
 he declaims against the splendid ignorance of men who 
 speak by rote, and who are rich in words amid the 
 most deplorable poverty of ideas. To store the memory 
 of his pupil with images of things, he is willing to neg- 
 lect and leave to hazard his acquirement of language. 
 It requires no elaborate argument to prove that a boy, 
 whose mind was stored with accurate images of exter- 
 nal objects of experimental knowledge, and who had 
 acquired habitual dexterity, but who was unacquainted 
 with the usual signs by which ideas are expressed, 
 would be incapable of accurate reasoning, or would, at 
 best, reason only upon particulars. Without general 
 terms, he could not abstract ; he could not, until his 
 vocabulary was enlarged and familiar to him, reason 
 upon general topics, or draw conclusions from general 
 principles: in short, he would be in the situation of 
 those who, in the solution of difficult and complicated 
 questions relative to quantity, are obliged to employ te- 
 dious and perplexed calculations, instead of the clear 
 and comprehensive methods that unfold themselves by 
 the use of signs in algebra. 
 
336 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 It is not necessary, in teaching children the technical 
 language of any art or science, that we should pursue 
 the same order that is requisite in teaching the science 
 itself. Order is required in reasoning, because all rea- 
 soning is employed in deducing propositions from one 
 another in a regular series; but where terms are em- 
 ployed merely as names, this order may be dispensed 
 with. It is, however, of great consequence to seize 
 the proper time for introducing a new term ; a moment 
 when attention is awake, and when accident has pro- 
 duced some particular interest in the object. In every 
 family, opportunities of this sort occur without any 
 preparation ; and such opportunities are far preferable 
 to a formal lecture and a splendid apparatus, for the first 
 lessons in natural philosophy and chymistry. If tlie 
 pump belonging to the house is out of order, and the 
 pump- maker is set to work, an excellent opportunity 
 presents itself for variety of instruction. The centre 
 pin of the handle is taken out, and a long rod is drawn 
 up by degrees, at the end of which a round piece of 
 wood is seen, partly covered with leather. Your pupil 
 immediately asks the name of it, and the pump-maker 
 prevents your answer, by informing little master that it 
 is called a sucker. You show it to the child, he handles 
 it, feels whether the leather is hard or soft, and at 
 length discovers that there is a hole through it, which 
 is covered with a little flap or door. This, he learns 
 from the workman, is called a clack. The child should 
 now be permitted to plunge the piston (by which name it 
 should noio be called) into a tub of water ; in drawing it 
 backward and forward, he will perceive that the clack, 
 which should now be called the valve, opens and shuts 
 as the piston is drawn backward and forward. It will 
 be better not to inform the child how this mechanism is 
 employed in the pump. If the names sucker and piston, 
 clack and valve, are Axed in his memory, it will be sufli- 
 cient for his first lesson. At another opportunity, he 
 should be present when the fixed or lower valve of the 
 pump is drawn up ; he will examine it, and find that it is 
 similar to the valve of the piston ; if he sees it put 
 down into the pump, and sees the piston put into its 
 place, and set to work, the names that he has learned 
 will be fixed more deeply in his mind, and he will have 
 some general notion of the whole apparatus. From time 
 to time these names should be recalled to his memory 
 
MECHANICS. 337 
 
 on suitable occasions, but he should not be asked to re- 
 peat them by rote. What has been said is not intended 
 as a lesson for a child in mechanics, but as a sketch of 
 a method of teaching which has been employed with 
 success. 
 
 Whatever repairs are carried on in a house, children 
 should be permitted to see : while everybody about 
 them seems interested, they become attentive from 
 sympathy ; and whenever action accompanies instruc- 
 tion, it is sure to make an impression. If a lock is out 
 of order, when it is taken off, show it to your pupil; 
 point out some of its principal parts, and name them ; 
 then put it into the hands of a child, and let him manage 
 it as he pleases. Locks are full of oil, and black with 
 dust and iron ; but if children have been taught habits 
 of neatness, they may be clockmakers and whitesmiths 
 without spoiling their clothes or the furniture of a 
 house. Upon every occasion of this sort, technical 
 terms should be made familiar ; they are of great use 
 in the everyday business of life, and are peculiarly ser- 
 viceable in giving orders to workmen, who, when they 
 are spoken to in a language that they are used to, com- 
 prehend what is said to them, and work with alacrity. 
 
 An early use of a rule and pencil, and easy access to 
 prints of machines, of architecture, and of the imple- 
 ments of trades, are of obvious use in this part of edu- 
 cation. The machines published by the Society of Arts 
 in London ; the prints in Desaguliers, Emerson, Le Spec- 
 tacle de la Nature, Machines approuvees par FAcademie, 
 Chambers's Dictionary, Berthoud sur I'Horlogerie, Dic- 
 tionnaire des Arts et des Metiers, may, in succession, 
 be put into the hands of children. The most simple 
 should be first selected, and the pupils should be accus- 
 tomed to attend minutely to one print before another 
 is given to them. A proper person should carefully 
 point out and explain to them the first prints that they 
 examine ; they may afterward be left to themselves. 
 
 To understand prints of machines, a previous knowl- 
 edge of what is meant by an elevation, a profile, a sec- 
 tion, a perspective view, and a {vue d'oiseau) bird's-eye 
 view, is necessary. To obtain distinct ideas of sections, 
 a few models of common furniture, as chests of drawers, 
 bellows, grates, &c., may be provided, and may be cut 
 asunder in different directions. Children easily com- 
 prehend this part of drawing and its uses, which may 
 P 
 
338 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 be pointed out in books of architecture ; its application 
 to the common business of life is so various and imme- 
 diate, as to fix it for ever in the memory ; besides, the 
 habit of abstraction, which is acquired by drawing the 
 sections of complicated architecture or machinery, is 
 highly advantageous to the mind. The parts which we 
 wish to express are concealed, and are suggested partly 
 by the elevation or profile of the figure, and partly by 
 the connexion between the end proposed in the con- 
 struction of the building, machine, &c., and the means 
 which are adopted to effect it. 
 
 A knowledge of perspective is to be acquired by an 
 operation of the mind directly opposite to what is ne- 
 cessary in delineating the sections of bodies ; the mind 
 must here be intent only upon the objects that are de- 
 lineated upon the retina, exactly what we see ; it must 
 forget or suspend the knowledge which it has acquired 
 from experience, and must see with the eye of child- 
 hood, no farther than the surface. Every person who 
 is accustomed to drawing in perspective, sees external 
 nature, when he pleases, merely as a picture : this habit 
 contributes much to form a taste for the fine arts ; it 
 may, however, be carried to excess. There are im- 
 provers who prefer the most dreary ruin to an elegant 
 and convenient mansion, and who prefer a blasted stump 
 to the glorious foliage of the oak. 
 
 Perspective is not, however, recommended merely as 
 a means of improving the taste, but as it is useful in fa- 
 cihtating the knowledge of mechanics. When once 
 children are familiarly acquainted with perspective, and 
 with the representations of machines by elevations, sec- 
 tions, &c., prints will supply them with an extensive 
 variety of information ; and when they see real ma- 
 chines, their structure and uses will be easily compre- 
 hended. The noise, the seeming confusion, and the 
 size of several machines, make it difficult to compre- 
 hend and combine their various parts, without much 
 time and repeated examination; the reduced size of 
 prints lays the whole at once before the eye, and tends 
 to facilitate not only comprehension, but contrivance. 
 Whoever can delineate progressively as he invents, 
 saves much labour, much time, and the hazard of con- 
 fusion. Various contrivances have been emph)yed to 
 facilitate drawing in perspective, as may be seen in 
 *' Cabinet de Servier, Memoires of the French Academy, 
 
MECHANICS. 339 
 
 Philosophical Transactions, and lately in the Repertory 
 of Arts." The following is simple, cheap, and portable^ 
 
 PLATE 1. FIG. 1. 
 
 ABC, three mahogany boards, two, four, and six 
 inches long, and of the same breadth respectively, so 
 as to double in the manner represented. 
 
 PLATE 1. FIG. 2. 
 
 The part A is screwed or clamped to a table of a con- 
 venient height, and a sheet of paper, one edge of which 
 is put under the piece A, will be held fast to the table. 
 
 The index P is to be set (at pleasure) with its sharp 
 point to any part of an object which the eye sees through 
 E, the eye-piece. 
 
 The machine is now to be doubled as in Fig. 2. taking 
 care that the index be not disturbed ; the point, which 
 was before perpendicular, will then approach the paper 
 horizontally, and the place to which it points on the 
 paper must be marked with a pencil. The machine 
 must be again unfolded, and another point of the object 
 is to be ascertained in the same manner as before ; the 
 space between these points maybe then connected with 
 a line ; fresh points should then be taken, marked with 
 a pencil and connected with a line ; and so on succes- 
 sively, until the whole object is delineated. 
 
 Besides the common terms of art, the technical terms 
 of science should, by degrees, be rendered familiar to 
 our pupils. Among these the words Space and Time 
 occur, as we have observed, the soonest, and are of the 
 greatest importance. Without exact definitions, or ab- 
 stract reasonings, a general notion of the use of these 
 terms may be inculcated by employing them frequently 
 in conversation, and by applying them to things and cir- 
 cumstances which occur without preparation, and about 
 which children are interested or occupied. " There is 
 a great space left between the words in that printing." 
 The child understands, that space in this sentence means 
 white paper between black letters. " You should leave 
 a greater space between the flowers which you are 
 planting" — he knows that you mean more ground. 
 " There is a great space between that boat and the ship" 
 — space of water. " I hope the hawk will not be able 
 to catch that pigeon, there is a great space between 
 them" — space of air. " The men who are pulling that 
 P2 
 
340 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 sack of corn into the granar)% have raised it through 
 half the space between the door and the ground." A 
 child cannot be at any loss for the meaning of the word 
 space in these or any other practical examples which 
 may occur ; but he should also be used to the word 
 space as a technical expression, and then he will not be 
 confused or stopped by a new term when employed in 
 mechanics. 
 
 The word time may be used in the same manner upon 
 numberless occasions, to express the duration of any 
 movement which is performed by the force of men, or 
 horses, wind, water, or any mechanical power. 
 
 " Did the horses in the mill we saw yesterday, go as 
 fast as the horses which are drawing the chaise 1" — " No, 
 not as fast as the horses go at present on level ground ; 
 but they went as fast as the chaise-horses do when they 
 go up hill, or as fast as horses draw a wagon." 
 
 " How many times do the sails of that windmill go 
 round in a minute 1 Let us count ; 1 will look at my 
 watch ; do you count how often the sails go round ; wait 
 until that broken arm is uppermost, and when you say 
 now, I will begin to count the time ; when a minute has 
 passed, I will tell you." 
 
 After a few trials, this experiment will become easy 
 to a child of eight or nine years old ; he may sometimes 
 attend to the watch, and at other times count the turns 
 of the sails ; he may easily be made to apply this to a 
 horsemill, or to a watermill, a corn-fan, or any machine 
 that has a rotary motion ; he will be entertained with 
 his new employment ; he will compare the velocities of 
 diflferent machines ; the meaning of this word will be 
 easily added to his vocabulary. 
 
 " Does that part of the arms of the windmill which is 
 near the axletree, or centre, I mean that part which has 
 no cloth or sail upon it, go as fast as the ends of the 
 arms that are the farthest from the centre T' 
 
 " No, not near so fast." 
 
 " But that part goes as often round in a minute as the 
 rest of the sail." 
 
 " Yes, but it does not go as fast." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "It does not go so far round." 
 
 •' No, it does not. The extremities of the sails go 
 through more space in the same time than the part near 
 the centre." 
 
MECHANICS. 341 
 
 By conversations like these, the technical meaning of 
 the word velocity may be made quite familiar to a child 
 much younger than what has been mentioned ; he may 
 not only comprehend that velocity means time and 
 space considered together, but if he is sufficiently ad- 
 vanced in arithmetic, he may be readily taught how to 
 express and compare in numbers velocities composed of 
 certain portions of time and space. He will not inquire 
 about the abstract meaning of the word space ; he has 
 seen space measured on paper, on timber, on the water, 
 in the air, and he perceives distinctly that it is a term 
 equally applicable to all distances that can exist between 
 objects of any sort, or that he can see, feel, or imagine. 
 
 Momentum, a less common word, the meaning of 
 which is not quite so easy to convey to a child, may, 
 by degrees, be explained to him : at every instant he 
 feels the effect of momentum in his own motions, and 
 in the motions of every thing that strikes against him ; 
 his feelings and experience require only proper terms 
 to become the subject of his conversation. When he 
 begins to inquire, it is the proper time to instruct him. 
 For instance, a boy of ten years old, who had acquired 
 the meaning of some other terms in science, this morn- 
 ing asked the meaning of the word momentum ; he was 
 desired to explain what he thought it meant. 
 
 He answered, " Force." 
 
 " What do you mean by force V 
 
 " Effi)rt." 
 
 " Of what r' 
 
 " Of gravity." 
 
 " Do you mean that force by which a body is drawn 
 down to the earth V' 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Would a feather, if it were moving with the 
 greatest conceivable swiftness or velocity, throw down 
 a castle V 
 
 " No."* 
 
 " Would a mountain torn up by the roots, as fabled in 
 Milton, if it moved with the least conceivable velocity, 
 throw down a castle ^" 
 
 " Yes, I think it would." 
 
 The difference between a uniform and a uniformly 
 
 * When this question was some time afterward repeated to S 
 
 he observed, that the feather would throw down the castle, if its 
 swiftness were so great as to make up for its want of weight. 
 
342 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 accelerated motion, the measure of the velocity of fall- 
 ing bodies, the composition of motions connnuiiicated 
 to the same body in different directions at the same 
 time, and the cause of the curvilineal traciv of projectiles, 
 seem, at first, intricate subjects, and above the capacity 
 of boys of ten or twelve years old; but by short and 
 well-timed lessons, they may be explained without con- 
 founding or fatiguing their attention. We tried another 
 experiment while this chapter w^as writiug, to determine 
 whether we liad asserted too much upon this subject. 
 After a conversation between two boys upon the descent 
 of bodies towards the earth, and upon the measure of the 
 increasing velocity with which they fall, they were 
 desired, with a view to ascertain whether they under- 
 stood what was said, to invent a machine which would 
 show the difterence between a uniform and an accel- 
 erated velocity, and in particular to show, by ocular 
 demonstration, " that if one body moves in a given 
 time through a given space, with a uniform motion, 
 and if another body moves through the same space in 
 the same time with a uniformly accelerated motion, 
 the uniform motion of the one will be equal to half the 
 accelerated motion of the other." The eldest boy, 
 
 H , thirteen years old, invented and executed the 
 
 following machine for this purpose : 
 
 Plate 1. Fig. 3. -6 is a bracket 9 inches by 5, consist- 
 ing of a back and two sides of hard wood : two inches 
 from the back two slits are made in the sides of the 
 bracket, half an inch deep and an eighth of an inch 
 wide, to receive the two wire pivots of a roller; which 
 roller is composed of a cylinder, three inches long and 
 half an inch diameter; and a cone, three inches long 
 and one inch diameter in its largest part or base. The 
 cylinder and cone are not separate, but are turned out 
 of one piece ; a string is fastened to the cone at its base 
 a, with a bullet or any other small weight at the other 
 end of it ; and another string and weight are fastened 
 to the cylinder at c ; the pivot p of wire is bent into the 
 form of a handle ; if the handle is turned either way, 
 the strings will be respectively wound up upon the cone 
 and cylinder ; their lengths should now be adjusted, so 
 that when the string on the cone is wound up as far as 
 the cone will permit, the two weights may be at an 
 equal distance from the bottom of the bracket, which 
 bottom we suppose to be parallel with the pivots ; the 
 
Pl.l 
 
 ;,7^^ 
 
 ^un^ 
 
 a.rl^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FiQ-. 3. 
 
 >r '^ Fiy. L. 
 
 
MECHANICS. . 343 
 
 bracket should now be fastened against a wall, at such 
 a height as to let the weights lightly touch the floor 
 ■when the strings are unwound : silk or bobbin is a 
 proper kind of string for this purpose, as it is woven or 
 plaited, and therefore is not liable to twist. When the 
 strings arc wound up to their greatest heights, if the 
 handle be suddenly let go, both the w^eights will begin 
 to fall at the same moment ; but the weight 1 will de- 
 scend at first but slowly, and will pass through but small 
 space compared with the weight 2. As they descend 
 farther, No. 2 still continues to get before No. 1 ; but 
 after some time, No. 1 begins to overtake No. 2, and at 
 last they come to the ground together. If this machine 
 is required to show exactly the space that a falling body 
 would describe in given times, the cone and cylinder 
 must have grooves cut spirally upon their circumference, 
 to direct the string with precision. To describe these 
 spiral lines, became a new subject of inquiry. The 
 young mechanics were again eager to exert their 
 powers of invention ; the eldest invented a machine 
 upon the same principle as that which is used by the 
 best workmen for cutting clock fusees ; and it is de- 
 scribed in Berthoud. The youngest invented the engine 
 delineated, Plate 1, Fig. 4. 
 
 The roller or cone (or both together) which it is re- 
 quired to cut spirally, must be furnished with a handle, 
 and a toothed wheel ii%, which turns a smaller wheel or 
 pinion to. This pinion carries with it a screw s, which 
 drawls forward the puppet p, in v/hich the graver or 
 chisel g slides luiihout shake. This graver has a point 
 or edge shaped properly to form the spiral groove, with 
 a shoulder to regulate the depth of the groove. The 
 iron rod r, w^hich is firmly fastened in the puppet, slides 
 through mortises at mm, and guides the puppet in a 
 straight line. 
 
 The rest of the machine is intelligible from the 
 drawing. 
 
 A simple method of showing the nature of compound 
 forces was thought of at the same time. An ivory ball 
 was placed at the corner of a board sixteen inches 
 broad and two feet long; two other similar balls were 
 let fall down inclined troughs against the first ball in 
 different directions, but at the same time. One fell in 
 a direction parallel to the length of the board ; the other 
 ball fell back in a direction parallel to its breadth. By 
 
344 , PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 raising the troughs, such a force was communicated 
 to each of the falling balls, as was sufficient to drive 
 the ball that was at rest to that side or end of the board 
 which was opposite, or at right angles, to the line of its 
 motion. 
 
 When both balls were let fall together, they drove 
 the ball that was at rest diagonally, so as to reach the 
 opposite corner. If the same board were placed as an 
 inclined plane, at an angle of five or six degrees, a ball 
 placed at one of its uppermost corners would fall with 
 an accelerated motion in a direct line ; but if another 
 ball were made (by descending through an inclined 
 trough) to strike the first ball at right angles to the line 
 of its former descent, at the moment when it began to 
 descend, it would not, as in the former experiment, move 
 diagonally, but would describe a curve. 
 
 The reason why it describes a curve, and why that 
 curve is not circular, was easily understood. Children 
 who are thus induced to invent machines or apparatus 
 for explaining and demonstrating the laws of mechanism, 
 not only fix indelibly those laws in their own minds, 
 but enlarge their powers of invention, and preserve a 
 certain originality of thought, which leads to new dis- 
 coveries. 
 
 We therefore strongly recommend it to teachers, to 
 use as few precepts as possible in the rudiments of sci- 
 ence, and to encourage their pupils to use their own 
 understandings as they advance. In mechanism, a 
 general view of the powers and uses of engines is all 
 that need be taught; where more is necessary, such a 
 foundation, with the assistance of good books and the 
 examination of good machinery, will perfect the knowl- 
 edge of theory and facilitate practice. 
 
 At first we should not encumber our pupils with ac- 
 curate demonstration. The application of mathematics 
 to mechanics is undoubtedly of the highest use, and has 
 opened a source of ingenious and important inquiry. 
 Archimedes, the greatest name among mechanic phi- 
 losophers, scorned the mere practical application of his 
 sublime discoveries ; and at the moment when the most 
 stupendous effects were producing by his engines, he 
 was so deeply absorbed in abstract speculation as to be 
 insensible to the fear of death. We do not mean, there- 
 fore, to undervalue either the application of strict de- 
 monstration to problems in mechanics, or the exhibition 
 
MECHANICS. 345 
 
 of the most accurate machinery in philosophical lec- 
 tures ; but we wish to point out a method of giving a 
 general notion of the njechanical organs to our pupils, 
 which shall be immediately obvious to their compre- 
 hension, and which may serve as a sure foundation for 
 future improvement. We are told by a vulgar proverb, 
 that though we believe what we see, we have yet a 
 higher belief in what we feel. This adage is particularly 
 applicable to mechanics. When a person perceives 
 the effect of his own bodily exertions with different 
 engines, and when he can compare in a rough manner 
 their relative advantages, he is not disposed to reject 
 their assistance, or expect more than is reasonable from 
 their application. The young theorist in mechanics 
 thinks he can produce a perpetual motion ! When he 
 has been accustomed to refer to the plain dictates of 
 common sense and experience on this, as well as on 
 every other subject, he will not easily be led astray by 
 visionary theories. 
 
 To bring the sense of feeling to our assistance in 
 teaching the uses of the mechanic powers, the following 
 apparatus was constructed, to which we have given the 
 name Panorganon. 
 
 It is composed of two principal parts; a frame to 
 contain the moving machinery, and a capstan or wind- 
 lass, which is erected on a sUl or plank, that is sunk a 
 few inches into the ground : the frame is, by this means» 
 and by six braces or props, rendered steady. The cross 
 rail, or transom, is strengthened by braces and a king- 
 post to make it lighter and cheaper. The capstan con- 
 sists of an upright shaft, upon which are fixed two 
 drums, about which a rope may be wound up, and two 
 levers or arms, by which it may be turned round. 
 There is also a screw of iron coiled round the lower 
 part of the shaft, to show the properties of the screw as 
 a mechanic power. The rope which goes round the 
 drum passes over one of the pulleys near to the top of 
 the frame, and under another pulley near the bottom of 
 the frame. As two drums of different sizes are em- 
 ployed, it is necessary to have an upright roller to con- 
 duct the rope in a proper direction to the pulleys, when 
 either of the drums is used. Near the frame, and in 
 the direction in which the rope runs, is laid a plat- 
 form or road of deal boards, one board in breadth, and 
 twenty or thirty feet long, upon v»^hich a small sledge> 
 P3 
 
346 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 loaded with diflferent weights, may be drawn. Plate 2. 
 Fiff. 1. 
 
 F F. The frame. 
 
 b b. Braees to keep the frame steady. 
 
 a a a. Angular braces to strengthen the transom ; 
 and also a king-post. 
 
 S. A round, taper shaft, strengthened above and be- 
 low the mortises with iron hoops. 
 
 L L. Two arms, or levers, by which the shaft, &c. 
 are to be moved round. 
 
 D D. The dram, which has two rims of different cir- 
 cumferences. 
 
 R. The roller to conduct the rope. 
 
 P. The pulley, round which the rope passes to the 
 larger drum. 
 
 P 2. Another pulley, to answer to the smaller drum. 
 
 P 3. A pulley through which the rope passes when 
 experiments are tried with levers, &c. 
 
 P 4. Another pulley, through which the rope passes 
 when the sledge is used. 
 
 Ro. The road of deal boards for the sledge to move 
 on. 
 
 SI. The sledge, with pieces of hard wood attached 
 to it, to guide it on the road. 
 
 V^es of the Panorganon. 
 As this machine is to be moved by the force of men 
 or children, and as their force varies not only with the 
 strength and weight of each individual, but also accord- 
 ing to the different manner in which that strength or 
 weight is applied ; it is, in the first place, requisite to 
 establish one determinate mode of applying human force 
 to the machine ; and also a method of determining the 
 relative force of each individual whose strength is ap- 
 plied to it. 
 
 To estimate the force loith which a 'person can draio horizon- 
 tally by a rope over his shoulder. 
 
 EXPERIMENT I. 
 
 Hang a common long scale-beam (without scales or 
 chains) from the top or transom of the frame, so that one 
 end of it may come within an inch of one side or post 
 of the machine. Tie a rope to the hook of the scale- 
 beam, where the chains of the scale are usually hung, 
 and pass it through the pulley P 3, which is about four 
 
x'.x^[r\fii'.A:^u^ 
 
MECHANICS. 347 
 
 feet from the ground ; let the person pull this rope from 
 1 towards 2, turning his back to the machine, and pulling 
 the rope over his shoulder — PI. 2. Fig. 6. As the pulley- 
 may be either too high or too low to permit the rope to 
 be horizontal, the person who pulls it should be placed 
 ten or fifteen feet from the machine, which will lessen 
 the angular direction of the cord, and the inaccuracy of 
 the experiment. Hang weights to the other end of the 
 scale-beam, until the person who pulls can but just walk 
 forward, pulling fairly, without propping his feet against 
 any thing. This weight will estimate the force with 
 which he can draw horizontally by a rope over his shoul- 
 der.* Let a child who tries this, walk on the board with 
 dry shoes ; let him afterward chalk his shoes, and after- 
 ward try it with his shoes soaped : he will find that he 
 can pull with different degrees of force in these differ- 
 ent circumstances ; but when he tries the following ex- 
 periments, let his shoes be always dry, that his force 
 may be always the same. 
 
 To show the power of the three different sorts of levers^ 
 
 EXPERIMENT H. 
 
 Instead of putting the cord that comes from the scale- 
 beam, as in the last experiment, over the shoulder of 
 the boy, hook it to the end 1 of the lever L, Fig 2. Plate 
 2. This lever is passed through a socket — Plate 2. Fig. 
 3. — in which it can be shifted from one of its ends to- 
 wards the other, and can be fastened at any place by the 
 screw of the socket. This socket has two gudgeons, 
 upon which it, and the lever which it contains, can turn. 
 This socket and its gudgeons can be hfted out of the 
 holes in which it plays, between the rail R R, Plate 2. 
 Fig. 2. and may be put into other holes at R R, Fig. 5. 
 Loop another rope to the other end of this lever, and let 
 the boy pull as before. Perhaps it should be pointed 
 out, that the boy must walk in a direction contrary to 
 that in which he walked before, viz., from 1 towards 3. 
 The height to which the weight ascends, and the dis- 
 tance to which the boy advances, should be carefully 
 
 * Were it thought necessary to make these experiments perfectly 
 accurate, a segment of a pulley, the radius of which is half the length 
 of the scale-beam, should be attached to the end of the beam, upon, 
 which the cord may apply itself; and the pulley (P 3) should be 
 raised or lowered, to bring the rope horizontally from the man's 
 shoulder when in the attitude of drawing. 
 
348 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 marked and measured ; and it will be found that he can 
 raise the weight to the same height, advancing through 
 the same space, as in the former experiment. In this 
 case, as both ends of the lever moved through equal 
 spaces, the lever only changed the direction of the mo- 
 tion, and added no mechanical power to the direct 
 strength of the boy. 
 
 EXPERIMENT III. 
 
 Shift the lever to its extremity in the socket; the 
 middle of the lever will be now opposite to the pulley, 
 PI. 2. Fig. 4. — hook to it the rope that goes through the 
 pulley P 3, and fasten to the other end of the lever the 
 rope by which the boj'' is to pull. This will be a lever 
 of the second kind, as it is called in books of mechanics ; 
 in using which, the resistance is placed between the centre of 
 motion or fulcrum, and the moving power. He will now 
 raise double the weight that he did in Experiment ii, and 
 he will advance through double the space. 
 
 EXPERIMENT IV. 
 
 Shift the lever, and the socket which forms the axis 
 (without shifting the lever from the place in which it 
 was in the socket in the last experiment), to the holes 
 that are prepared for it at R R, Plate 2. Fig. 5. The 
 free end of the lever E will now be opposite to the rope, 
 and to the pulley (over which the rope comes from the 
 scale-beam). Hook this rope to it, and hook the rope 
 by which the boy pulls, to the middle of the lever. The 
 effect will now be different from what it was in the two 
 last experiments ; the boy will advance only half as far, 
 and will raise only half as much weight as before. This 
 is called a lever of the third sort. The first and second 
 kinds of levers are used in quarrying ; and the opera- 
 tions of many tools may be referred to them. The third 
 kind of lever is employed but seldom, but its properties 
 may be observed with advantage while a long ladder is 
 raised, as the man who raises it is obliged to exert an 
 increasing force until the ladder is nearly perpendicular. 
 When this lever is used, it is obvious, from what has 
 been said, that the power must always pass through less 
 space than the thing which is to be moved ; it can never, 
 therefore, be of service in gaining power. But the ob- 
 ject of some machines is to increase velocity, instead 
 of obtaining power, as in a sledge-hammer moved by 
 
MECHANICS, 349 
 
 mill-work. (See the plates in Emerson's Mechanics, 
 No. 236.) 
 
 The experiments upon levers may be varied at pleas- 
 ure, increasing or diminishing the mechanical advantage, 
 so as to balance the power and the resistance, to accus- 
 tom the learners to calculate the relation between the 
 power and the effect in diiferent circumstances ; always 
 pointing out that whatever excess there is in the power* 
 or in the resistance, is always compensated by the differ- 
 ence of space through which the inferior passes. 
 
 The experiments which we have mentioned are suffi- 
 ciently satisfactory to a pupil, as to the immediate re- 
 lation between the power and the resistance ; but the 
 different spaces through which the power and the resist- 
 ance move when one exceeds the other, cannot be ob- 
 vious, unless they pass through much larger spaces than 
 levers will permit. 
 
 EXPERIMENT V, 
 
 Place the sledge on the farthest end of the wooden 
 road — Plate 2. Fig. 1. — fasten a rope to the sledge, and 
 conduct it through the lowest pulley P 4, and through 
 the pulley P 3, so that the boy may be enabled to draw 
 it by the rope passed over his shoulder. The sledge 
 must now be loaded, until the boy can but just advance 
 with short steps steadily upon the wooden road ; this 
 must be done with care, as there will be but just room 
 for him beside the rope. He will meet the sledge ex- 
 actly on the middle of the road, from which he must 
 step aside to pass the sledge. Let the time of this ex- 
 periment be noted. It is obvious that the boy and the 
 sledge move with equal velocity ; there is, therefore, no 
 mechanical advantage obtained by the pulleys. The 
 weight that he can draw will be about half a hundred, 
 if he weigh about nine stone ; but the exact force with 
 which the boy draws, is to be known by Experiment i. 
 
 T%e wheel and axle. 
 This organ is usually called in mechanics, The axis in 
 peritrochio. A hard name, which might well be spared, 
 as the word windlass or capstan would convey a more 
 distinct idea to our pupils. 
 
 * The word power is here used in a popular sense, to denote the 
 strength or efficacy that is employed to produce an effect by means 
 of any engine.. 
 
350 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 EXPERIMENT VI. / 
 
 To the largest drum, Plate 2. Fig. 1. fasten a cord, and 
 pass it through the pulley P downward, and through the 
 pulley P 4 to the sledge placed at the end of the wooden 
 road, which is farthest from the machine. Let the boy, 
 by a rope fastened to the extremity of one of the arms 
 of the capstan, and passed over his shoulder, draw the 
 capstan round ; he will wind the rope round the drum, 
 and draw the sledge upon its road. To make the sledge 
 advance twenty-four feet upon its road, the boy must 
 have walked circularly 144 feet, which is six times as 
 far, and he will be able to draw about three hundred 
 weight, which is six times as much as in the last experi- 
 ment. 
 
 It may now be pointed out, that the difference of 
 space passed through by the power in this experiment, 
 is exactly equal to the difference of weight which the 
 boy could draw without the capstan. 
 
 EXPERIMENT VII. 
 
 Let the rope be now attached to the smaller drum ; 
 the boy will draw nearly twice as much weight upon 
 the sledge as before, and will go through double the 
 space. 
 
 EXPERIMENT VIII. 
 
 Where there are a number of boys, let five or six of 
 them, whose power of drawing (estimated as in Experi- 
 ment i) amounts to six times as much as the force of the 
 boy at the capstan, pull at the end of the rope which 
 ivas fastened to the sledge ; they will balance the force 
 of the boy at the capstan : either they or he, by a sud- 
 den pull, may advance, — but if they pull fairly, there 
 will be no advantage on either part. In this experiment 
 the rope should pass through the pulley P 3, and should 
 be coiled around the larger drum. And it must be also 
 observed, that in all experiments upon the motion of 
 bodies in which there is much friction, as where a 
 sledge is employed, the results are never so uniform as 
 in other circumstances. 
 
 The Pulley, 
 Upon the pulley we shall say little, as it is in every- 
 body's hands, and experiments may be tried upon it 
 without any particular apparatus. It should, however. 
 
MECHANICS. 351 
 
 be distinctly inculcated, that the power is not increased 
 by a fixed pulley. For this purpose, a wheel without a 
 rim, or, to speak with more propriety, a number of 
 spokes fixed in a nave, should be employed. (Plate 2. 
 Fig. 9.) Pieces like the heads of crutches should be 
 fixed at the ends of these spokes, to receive a piece of 
 girth- web, which is used instead of a cord, because a 
 cord would be unsteady ; and a strap of iron with a hook 
 to it should play upon the centre, by which it may at 
 times be suspended, and from which at other times a 
 weight may be hung. 
 
 EXPERIMENT IX. 
 
 Let the skeleton of a pulley be hung by the iron strap 
 from the transom of the frame ; fasten a piece of web 
 to one of the radii, and another to the end of the opposite 
 radius. If two boys of equal weight pull these pieces 
 of girth-web, they will balance each other ; or two equal 
 weights hung to these webs will be in equilibrio. If a 
 piece of girth-web be put round the uppermost radius, 
 two equal weights hung at the ends of it will remain 
 immoveable ; but if either of them be pulled, or if a 
 small additional weight be added to either of them, it 
 will descend, and the web will apply itself successively 
 to the ascending radii, and will detach itself from those 
 that are descending. If this movement be carefully 
 considered, it will be perceived that the web, in unfold- 
 ing itself, acts in the same manner upon the radii as 
 two ropes would, if they were hung to the extremities 
 of the opposite radii in succession. The two radii 
 which are opposite may be considered as a lever of the 
 first sort, where the centre is in the middle of the lever ; 
 as each end moves through an equal space, there is no 
 mechanical advantage. But if this skeleton-pulley be 
 employed as a common block or tackle its motions and 
 properties will be entirely different. 
 
 EXPERIMENT X. PLATE 2. FIG. 9. 
 
 Nail a piece of girth-web to a post, at the distance of 
 three or four feet from the ground ; fasten the other end 
 of it to one of the radii. Fasten another piece of web 
 to the opposite radius, and let a boy hold the skeleton- 
 pulley suspended by the web ; hook weights to the strap 
 that hangs from the centre. The end of the radius to 
 which the fixed girth-web is fastened will remain im- 
 
352 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 moveable ; but, if the boy pulls the web which he holds 
 in his hand upward, he will be able to lift nearly double 
 the weight which he can raise from the ground by a 
 simple rope, without the machine, and he will perceive 
 that his hand moves through twice as great a space as 
 the weight ascends : he has, therefore, the mechanical 
 advantage which he would have by a lever of the second 
 sort, as in Experiment in. Let a piece of web be put 
 round the under radii ; let one end of it be nailed to the 
 post, and the other be held by the boy, and it will repre- 
 sent the application of a rope to a moveable pulley ; if 
 its motion be carefully considered, it will appear that 
 the radii, as they successively apply themselves to the 
 web, represent a series of levers of the second kind. 
 A pulley is nothing more than an infinite number of 
 such levers ; the cord at one end of the diameter serving 
 as a fulcrum for the organ during its progress. If this 
 skeleton-pulley be used horizontally instead of perpen- 
 dicularly, the circumstances which have been mentioned 
 will appear more obvious. 
 
 Upon the wooden road lay down a piece of girth- web ; 
 nail one end of it to the road ; place the pulley upon the 
 web at the other end of the board, and, bringing the web 
 over the radii, let the boy, taking hold of it, draw the 
 loaded sledge fastened to the hook at the centre of the 
 pulley : he will draw nearly twice as much in this man- 
 ner as he could without the pulley.* 
 
 Here the web, lying on the road, shows more distinctly 
 that it is quiescent where the lowest radius touches it ; 
 and if the radii, as they tread upon it, are observed, their 
 points will appear at rest, while the centre of the pulley 
 will go as fast as the sledge, and the top of each radius 
 successively (and the boy's hand which unfolds the web) 
 will move twice as fast as the centre of the pulley and 
 the sledge. 
 
 If a person holding a stick in his hand observes the 
 relative motions of the top, and the middle, and the bot- 
 tom of the stick, while he inclines it, he will see that the 
 bottom of the stick has no motion on the ground, and 
 that the middle has only half the motion of the top. 
 This property of the pulley has been dwelt upon, because 
 
 * In all these experiments with the skeleton-pulley, somebody 
 must keep it in its proper direction ; as from its structure, which is 
 contrived for illustration, not for practical use, it cannot retain its 
 proper situation without assistance. 
 
MECIIAMCS. 353 
 
 it elucidates the motion of a wheel rolling upon the 
 ground; and it explains a common paradox, which 
 appears at first inexplicable. " The bottom of a rolling- 
 wheel never moves upon the road." This is asserted 
 only of a wheel moving over hard ground, which, in fact, 
 may be considered rather as laying down its circum- 
 ference upon the road, than as moving upon it. 
 
 The inclined Plane and the Wedge. 
 
 The inclined plane is to be next considered. When a 
 heavy body is to be raised, it is often convenient to lay 
 a sloping, artificial road of planks, up which it may be 
 pushed or drawn. This mechanical power, however, is 
 but of little service without the assistance of wheels or 
 rollers ; we shall, therefore, speak of it as it is applied 
 in another manner, under the name of the ivedge, which 
 is, in fact, a moving inclined plane ; but if it is required to 
 explain the properties of the inclined plane by the Panor- 
 ganon, the wooden road may be raised and set to any 
 inclination that is required, and the sledge may be drawn 
 upon it as in the former experiments. 
 
 Let one end of a lever, N, Plate 2. Fig. 7., with a wheel 
 at one end of it, be hinged to the post of the frame, by 
 means of a gudgeon driven or screwed into the post. 
 To prevent this lever from deviating sideways, let a slip 
 of wood be connected with it by a nail, which shall be 
 fast in the lever, but which moves freely in a hole in the 
 rail. The other end of this slip must be fastened to a 
 stake driven into the ground at three or four feet from 
 the lever, atone side of it, and towards the end in which 
 the wheel is fixed (Plate 2. Fig. 10. which is a vue 
 d''oiseau), in the same manner as the treadle of a common 
 lathe is managed, and as the treadle of a loom is some- 
 times guided.* 
 
 EXPERIMENT XI. 
 
 Under the wheel of this lever place an inclined plane 
 or half-wedge (Plate 2. Fig. 7.) on the wooden road, 
 with rollers under it, to prevent friction ;t fasten a rope 
 
 * In a loom, this secondary lever is called a lamb, by mistake, for 
 lam, from lamvia, a slip of wood. 
 
 t There should be three rollers used ; one of them must be placed 
 before the sledge, under winch it will easily find its place, if the 
 bottom of the sledge near the foremost end is a little sloped upward. 
 To retain this foremost roller in its place until the sledge meets it, it 
 should be stuck lightly on the road with two small bits of wax or pitch. 
 
354 PRACTICAL EDUCATION'. 
 
 to the foremost end of the wedge, and pass it through 
 the pulleys (P 4 and P 3) as in the fifth experiment. 
 Let a boy draw the sledge by this rope over his shoulder, 
 and he will find, that as it advances it will raise the 
 weight upward ; the wedge is five feet long, and ele- 
 vated one foot. Now, if the perpendicular ascent of the 
 weight, and the space through which he advances, be 
 compared, he will find that the space through which he 
 has passed will be five times as great as that through 
 which the weight has ascended ; and that this wedge 
 has enabled him to raise five times as much as he could 
 raise without it, if his strength were applied, as in Ex- 
 periment I., without any mechanical advantage. By 
 making this wedge in two parts hinged together, with a 
 graduated piece to keep them asunder, the wedge may 
 be adjusted to any given obliquity ; and it will be always 
 found, that the mechanical advantage of the wedge may 
 be ascertained by comparing its perpendicular elevation 
 with its base. If the base of the wedge is 2, 3, 4, 5, or 
 any other number of times greater than its height, it 
 will enable the boy to raise respectively 2, 3, 4, or 5 
 times more weight than he could do in Experiment i., 
 by which his power is estimated. 
 
 The Screiv. 
 The screw is an inclined plane wound round a cylinder ; 
 the height of all its revolutions round the cylinder taken 
 together, compared with the space through which the 
 power that turns it passes, is the measure of its me- 
 chanical advantage * Let the lever used in the last 
 experiment be turned in such a manner as to reach from 
 its gudgeon to the shaft of the Panorganon, guided by 
 an attendant lever as before. (Plate 2. Fig. 8.) Let 
 the wheel rest upon the lowest helix or thread of the 
 screw : as the arms of the shaft are turned round the 
 wheel will ascend, and carry up the weight which is 
 fastened to the lever. f As the situation of the screw 
 prevents the weight from being suspended exactly from 
 
 * Mechanical advantage is not a proper term, but our language is 
 deficient in proper technical terms. The word power is used so 
 indiscriminately, that it is scarcely possible to convey our meaning 
 without employing it more strictly. 
 
 t In this experiment, the boy should pull as near as possible to 
 the shaft, withm a foot of it, for instance, else he will have such 
 mechanical advantage as cannot be counterbalanced by any weight 
 which the machine would be strong enough to bear. 
 
MECHANICS. 355 
 
 the centre of the screw, proper allowance must be made 
 for this in estimating the force of the screw, or deter- 
 mining the mechanical advantage gained by the lever: 
 this can be done by measuring the perpendicular ascent 
 of the weight, which in all cases is better, and more ex- 
 peditious, than measuring the parts of a machine, and 
 estimating its force by calculation ; because the different 
 diameters of ropes, and other small circumstances, are 
 frequently mistaken in estimates. 
 
 The space passed through by the moving power and 
 by that which it moves, are infallible data for estimating 
 the powers of engines. Two material subjects of ex- 
 periments yet remain for the Panorganon ; friction, and 
 wheels of carriages : but we have already extended this 
 article far beyond its just proportion to similar chapters 
 in this work. We repeat, that it is not intended in this, 
 or in any other part of our design, to write treatises 
 upon science ; but merely to point out methods for 
 initiating young people in the rudiments of knowledge, 
 and of giving them a clear and distinct view of those 
 principles upon which they are founded. No preceptor 
 Avho has had experience, will cavil at the superficial 
 knowledge of a boy of twelve or thirteen upon these 
 subjects ; he will perceive, that the general view which 
 we wish to give our pupils of the useful arts and sci- 
 ences, must certainly tend to form a taste for literature 
 and investigation. The sciolist has learned only to talk — 
 M'C wish to teach our pupils to think, upon the various 
 objects of human speculation. 
 
 The Panorganon may be employed in trying the re- 
 sistance of air and water ; the force of different mus- 
 cles ; and in a great variety of amusing and useful ex- 
 periments. In academies and private families it may 
 be erected in the place allotted for amusement, where 
 it will furnish entertainment for many a vacant hour. 
 When it has lost its novelty, the shaft may from time 
 to time be taken down, and a swing may be suspended 
 in its place. It may be constructed at the expense of 
 five or six pounds : that which stands before our win- 
 dow was made for less than three guineas, as we had 
 many of the materials beside us for other purposes.. 
 
356 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CHYMISTRY. 
 
 In the first attempts to teach chymistry to children, 
 objects should be selected, the principal properties of 
 which may be easily discriminated by the senses of 
 touch, taste, or smell ; and such terms should be em- 
 ployed as do not require accurate definition. 
 
 When a child has been caught in a shower of snow, 
 he goes to the fire to warm and dry himself. After he 
 has been before the fire for some time, instead of be- 
 coming dry, he finds that he is wetter than he was be- 
 fore : water drops from his hat and clothes, and the 
 snow with which he was covered disappears. If you 
 ask him what has become of the snow, and why he has 
 become wetter, he cannot tell you. Give him a teacup 
 of snow, desire him to place it before tiie fire, he per- 
 ceives that the snow melts, that it becomes water. If 
 he puts his finger into the water, he finds that it is 
 warmer than snow; he then perceives that the fire 
 which warmed him warmed likewise the snow, which 
 then became water ; or, in other words, he discovers 
 that the heat which came from the fire goes into the 
 snow and melts it : he thus acquires the idea of the dis- 
 solution of snow by heat. 
 
 If the cup containing the water, or melted snow, be 
 taken from the fire and put out of the window on a 
 frosty day, he perceives that in time the water grows 
 colder ; that a thin, brittle skin spreads over it, which 
 grows thicker by degrees, till at length all the water be- 
 comes ice ; and if the cup be again put before the fire, 
 the ice returns to water. Thus he discovers, that by 
 diminishing the heat of water, it becomes ice ; by add- 
 ing heat to ice, it becomes water. 
 
 A child watches the drops of melted sealing-wax as 
 they fall upon paper. When he sees you stir the wax 
 about, and perceives that what was formerly hard now 
 becomes soft and very hot, he will apply his former 
 knowledge of the eff"ects of heat upon ice and snow, and 
 he will tell you that the heat of the candle melts the wax. 
 
CHYMISTRY. 357 
 
 By these means, the principle of the solution of bodies 
 by heat will be imprinted upon his memory ; and you 
 may now enlarge his ideas of solution. 
 
 When a lump of sugar is put into a dish of hot tea, a 
 child sees that it becomes less and less, till at last it dis- 
 appears. What has become of the sugar 1 Your pupil 
 will say that it is melted by the heat of the tea : but if 
 it be put into cold tea, or cold water, he will find that it 
 dissolves, though more slowly. You should then show 
 him some fine sand, som^ clay, and chalk, thrown into 
 water ; and he will perceive the difference between me- 
 chanical mixture and diffusion, or chymical mixture. 
 Chymical mixture, as that of sugar in water, depends 
 upon the attraction that subsists between the parts of 
 the solid and fluid which are combined. Mechanical 
 mixture is only the suspension of the parts of a solid in 
 a fluid. When fine sand, chalk, or clay is put into water, 
 the water continues for some time turbid or muddy ; but 
 by degrees the sand, &c. falls to the bottom, and the 
 water becomes clear. In the chymical mixture of sugar 
 and water there is no muddiness ; the fluid is clear and 
 transparent, even while it is stirred, and when it is at 
 rest, there is no sediment ; the sugar is joined with the 
 water ; a new fluid substance is formed out of the two 
 simple bodies, sugar and water, and though the parts 
 which compose the mixture are not discernible to the 
 eye, yet they are perceptible by the taste. 
 
 After he has observed the mixture, the child should 
 be asked whether he knows any method by which he 
 can separate the sugar from the water. In the boiling 
 of a kettle of water, he has seen the steam which issues 
 from the mouth of the vessel ; he knows that the steam 
 is formed by the heat from the fire, which, joining with 
 the water, drives its parts farther asunder, and makes it 
 take another form, that of vapour or steam. He may 
 apply this knowledge to the separation of the sugar and 
 water ; he may turn the water into steam, and the sugar 
 will be left in a vessel in a solid form. If, instead of 
 evaporating the water, the boy had added a greater 
 quantity of sugar to the mixture, he would have seen 
 that after a certain time the water would dissolve 
 no more of the sugar ; the superfluous sugar would fall 
 to the bottom of the vessel as the sand had done : the 
 pupil should then be told that the liquid is saturated with 
 the solid. 
 
358 PRACTICAL EDtCATION. 
 
 By these simple experiments, a child may acquire a 
 general knowledge of solution, evaporation, and satura- 
 tion, without the formality of a lecture or the apparatus 
 of a chymist. In all your attempts to instruct him in 
 chymistry, the greatest care should be taken that he 
 should completely understand one experiment before 
 yon proceed to another. The common metaphorical 
 expression, that the mind should have time to digest 
 the food which it receives, is founded upon fact and ob- 
 servation. • 
 
 Our pupil should see the solution of a variety of sub- 
 stances in fluids, as salt in water ; marble, chalk, or 
 alkalis, in acids ; and camphire in spirits of wine : this 
 last experiment he may try by himself, as it is not dan- 
 gerous. Certainly many experiments are dangerous, 
 and therefore unfit for children ; but others may be se- 
 lected, which they may safely try without any assist- 
 ance ; and the dangerous experiments may, when they 
 are necessary, be shown to them by some careful per- 
 son. Their first experiments should be such as they 
 can readily execute, and of which the result may proba- 
 bly be successful : this success will please and interest 
 the pupils, and will encourage them to perseverance. 
 
 A child may have some spirit of wine and some cam- 
 phire given to him : the camphire will dissolve in the 
 spirit of wine, the spirit is saturated ; but then he will be 
 at a loss how to separate them again. To separate 
 them, he must pour into the mixture a considerable 
 quantity of water ; he will immediately see the liquor, 
 which was transparent, become muddy and white: this 
 is owing to the separation of the camphire from the 
 spirit ; the camphire falls to the bottom of the vessel in 
 the form of a curd. If the child had weighed the cam- 
 phire, both before and after its solution, he would have 
 found the result nearly the same. He should be in- 
 formed that this chymical operation (for technical terms 
 should now be used) is called precipitation : the sub- 
 stance that is separated from the mixture by the intro- 
 duction of another body, is cast down, or precipitated 
 from the mixture. In this instance, the spirit of wine at- 
 tracted the camphire, and therefore dissolved it. When 
 the water was poured in, the spirit of wine attracted the 
 water more strongly than it did the camphire ; the cam- 
 phire being let loose, fell to the bottom of the vessel. 
 
 The pupil has now been shown two methods by 
 
 A 
 
CHYMISTRY. 359 
 
 which a solid may be separated from a fluid in which it 
 has been dissolved. 
 
 A still should now be produced, and the pupil should 
 be instructed in the nature of distillation. By experi- 
 ments he will learn the difference between the volatility 
 of different bodies ; or, in other words, he will learn that 
 some are made fluid, or are turned into vapour, by a 
 greater or less degree of heat than others. The de- 
 grees of heat should be shown to him by the thermome- 
 ter; and the use of the thermometer, and its nature, 
 should be explained. As the pupil already knows that 
 most bodies expand by heat, he will readily understand, 
 that an increase of heat expands the mercury in the 
 bulb of the thermometer, which, having no other space 
 for its expansion, rises in the small glass tube ; and that 
 the degree of heat to which it is exposed, is marked by 
 the figures on the scale of the instrument. 
 
 The business of distillation is to separate the more 
 volatile from the less volatile of two bodies. The whole 
 mixture is put into a vessel, under which there is fire : 
 the most volatile liquor begins first to turn into vapour, 
 and rises into a higher vessel, which, being kept cold by 
 water or snow, condenses the evaporated fluid ; after it 
 has been condensed, it drops into another vessel. In 
 the experiment that the child has just tried, after having 
 separated the camphire from the spirit of wine by pre- 
 cipitation, he may separate the spirit from the water by 
 distillation. When the substance that rises, or that is 
 separated from other bodies by heat, is a solid, or when 
 what is collected after the operation is solid, the pro- 
 cess is not called distillation, but sublimation. 
 
 Our pupil may next be made acquainted with the 
 general qualities of acids and alkalis. For instructing 
 him in this part of chymistry, definition should as much 
 as possible be avoided ; example, and ocular demon- 
 stration, should be pursued. Who would begin to ex- 
 plain by words the difference between an acid and an 
 alkali, when these can be shown by experiments upon 
 the substances themselves 1 The first great difference 
 which is perceptible between an acid and an alkali, is 
 their taste. Let a child have a distinct perception of the 
 difference of their tastes ; let him be able to distinguish 
 them when his eyes are shut ; let him taste the strong- 
 est of each, so as not to hurt him ; and when he has 
 once acquired distinct notions of the pungent taste of 
 
360 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 an alkali and of the sour taste of an acid, he will never 
 forget the difference. He must afterward see the effects 
 of an acid and an alkali on the blue colour of vegetables at 
 separate limes, and not on the same day ; by these means 
 he will more easily remember the experiments, and he 
 will not confound their different results. The blue col- 
 our of vegetables is turned red by acids and green by 
 alkalis. Let your pupil take a radish, and scrape off 
 the blue part into water ; it should be left for some 
 time, until the water becomes of a blue colour: let him 
 pour some of this liquor into two glasses ; add vinegar 
 or lemon juice to one of them, and the liquor will be- 
 come red ; dissolve some alkali in water, and pour this 
 into the other glass, and the dissolved radish will be- 
 come green. If into the red mixture alkali be poured, 
 the colour will change into green ; and if into the liquor 
 which was made green, acid be poured, the colour will 
 change to red : thus alternately you may pour acid or 
 alkali, and produce a red or green colour successively. 
 Paper stained with the blue colour of vegetables is called 
 test paper ; this is changed by the least powerful of 
 the acids or alkalis, and will, therefore, be peculiarly 
 useful in the first experiments of our young pupils. A 
 child should for safety use the weakest acids in his first 
 trials, but he should be shown that the effects are simi- 
 lar, whatever acids we employ ; only the colour will be 
 darker when we make use of the strong, than when we 
 use the weak acids. By degrees the pupil should be ac- 
 customed to employ the strong acids ; such as the vitri- 
 olic, the nitric, and the muriatic, which three are called 
 fossil acids, to distinguish them from the vegetable, or 
 weaker acids. We may be permitted to advise the 
 young chymist to acquire the habit of wiping the neck 
 of the vessel out of which he pours any strong acid, as 
 the drops of the liquor will not then burn his hand when 
 he takes hold of the bottle ; nor will they injure the table 
 upon which he is at work. This custom, trivial as it 
 may seem, is of advantage, as it gives an appearance of 
 order, and of ease and steadiness, which are all neces- 
 sary in trying chymical experiments. The little pupil 
 may be told, that the custom which we have just men- 
 tioned is the constant practice of the great chymist, 
 Dr. Black. 
 
 We should take care how we first use the term salt 
 in speaking to a child, lest he should acquire indis- 
 
CHYMISTRY. 361 
 
 tiiict ideas : he should be told that the kind of salt which 
 he eats is not the only salt in the world ; he may be 
 put in mind of the kind of salts which he has, perhaps, 
 smelt in smelling-bottles ; and he should be farther 
 told, that there are a number of earthy, alkaline, and 
 metallic salts, with which he will in time become ac- 
 quainted. 
 
 When an acid is put upon an alkali, or upon limestone, 
 chalk, or marl, a bubbling may be observed, and a noise 
 is heard ; a child should be told that this is called 
 effervescence. After some time the effervescence ceases, 
 and the limestone, &c. is dissolved in the acid. This 
 effervescence, the child should be informed, arises from 
 the escape of a considerable quantity of a particular 
 sort of air, called fixed air, or carbonic acid gas. In the 
 solution of the lime in the acid, the lime and acid have 
 an attraction for one another ; but as the present mix- 
 ture has no attraction for the gas, it escapes, and in 
 rising forms the bubbling or effervescence. This may be 
 proved to a child, by showing him that if an acid is 
 poured upon caustic hme (lime which has had this 
 gas taken from it by fire) there will be no efferves- 
 cence. 
 
 There are various other chymical experiments with 
 which children may amuse themselves; they may be 
 employed in analyzing marl, or clays ; they may be pro- 
 vided with materials for making ink or soap. It should 
 be pointed out to them, that the common domestic and 
 culinary operations of making butter and cheese, baking, 
 brewing, &;c., are all chymical processes. We hope the 
 reader will not imagine, that we have in this slight 
 sketch pretended to point out the best experiments 
 which can be devised for children ; we have only offered 
 a few of the simplest which occurred to us, that parents 
 may not, at the conclusion of this chapter, exclaim, 
 " What is to be done^ How are we to begin? What 
 experiments are suited to children ? If we knew, our 
 children should try them." 
 
 It is of little consequence what particular experiment 
 is selected for the first ; we only wish to show that the 
 minds of children may be turned to this subject ; and 
 that, by accustoming them to observation, we give them 
 not only the power of learning what has been already 
 discovered, but of adding, as they grow older, some- 
 thing to the general stock of human knowledge. 
 Q 
 
3G2 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ON PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION. 
 
 The anxious parent, after what has been said concern- 
 ing tasks and classical hteratnre, will inquire whether 
 the whole plan of education recommended in the follow- 
 ing pages. is intended to relate to public or to private 
 education. It is intended to relate to both. It is not 
 usual to send children to school before they are eight or 
 nine years old; our first object is to show how educa- 
 tion may be conducted to that age in such a manner, 
 that children may be well prepared for the acquisition 
 of all the knowledge usually taught at schools, and may 
 be perfectly free from many of the faults that pupils 
 sometimes have acquired before they are sent to any 
 public seminary. It is obvious, that public preceptors 
 would be saved much useless labour and anxiety, were 
 parents to take some pains in the previous instruction 
 of their children ; and more especially, if they were to 
 prevent them from learning a taste for total idleness, 
 or habits of obstinacy and of falsehood, which can 
 scarcely be conquered by the utmost care and vigilance. 
 We can assure parents, from experience, that if they 
 pursue steadily a proper plan with regard to the under- 
 standing and the moral habits, they will not have much 
 trouble with the education of their children after the 
 age we have mentioned, as long as they continue to in- 
 struct them at home ; and if they send them to public 
 schools, their superiority in intellect and in conduct will 
 quickly appear. Though we have been principally 
 attentive to all the circumstances which can bo essen- 
 tial to the management of young people during the first 
 nine or ten years of their lives, we have by no means 
 confined our observations to this period alone ; but we 
 have endeavoured to lay before parents a general view 
 of the human mind (as far as it relates to our subject), 
 of proper methods of teaching, and o/ the objects of 
 rational instruction — so that they may extend the prin- 
 
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION. 363 
 
 tiplcs which we have laid down, through all the suc- 
 ceeding periods of education, and may apply them as it 
 may best suit their peculiar situations or their peculiar 
 wishes. We are fuU}^ conscious that we have executed 
 but very imperfectly even our own design ; that experi- 
 mental education is yet but in its infancy, and that bound- 
 less space for improvement remains ; but we flatter 
 ourselves, that attentive parents and preceptors will 
 consider with candour the practical assistance which is 
 offered to them, especially as we have endeavoured to 
 express our opinions without dogmatical presumption, 
 and without the illiberal exclusion of any existing insti- 
 tutions or prevailing systems. People who, even with 
 the best intentions, attack with violence any of these, 
 and who do not consider what is practicable, as well as 
 what ought to be done, are not likely to persuade or to 
 convince mankind ; to increase the general sum of hap- 
 piness, or their own portion of felicity. Those who 
 really desire to be of service to societ)^ should point 
 out decidedly, but with temperate indulgence for the 
 feelings and opinions of others, whatever appears to 
 them absurd or reprehensible in any prevailing customs ; 
 having done this, they will rest in the persuasion that 
 what is most reasonable will ultimately prevail. 
 
 Mankind, at least the prudent and rational part of man- 
 kind, have an aversion to pull down, till they have a 
 moral certainty that they can build up a better edifice 
 than that which has been destroyed. •' Would you," says 
 an eminent writer, " convince me that the house I live in 
 is a bad one, and would you persuade me to quit it ; 
 build a better in my neighbourhood ; I shall be very 
 ready to go into it, and shall return you my very sincere 
 thanks." Till another house be ready, a wise man will 
 stay in his old one, however inconvenient its arrange- 
 ment, however seducing the plans of the enthusiastic 
 projector. We do not set up for projectors or reform- 
 ers ; we wish to keep steadily in view the actual state 
 of things, as well as our own hopes of progressive im- 
 provement ; and to seize and combine all that can be 
 immediately serviceable ; all that can assist, without 
 precipitating improvements. Every well-informed pa- 
 rent, and every liberal schoolmaster, must be sensible 
 that there are many circumstances in the management 
 of public education which might be condemned with 
 reason; that too much time is sacrificed to the studv of 
 Q2 
 
364 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 the learned languages ; that too little attention is paid 
 to the general improvement of the understanding and 
 formation of the moral character ; that a sclioohDaster 
 cannot pay attention to the temper or habits of each of 
 his numerous scholars; and that parents, during that 
 portion of the year which their children spend with 
 them, are not sufficiently solicitous to co-operate with 
 the views of the schoolmaster; so that the public is 
 counteracted by the private education. These, and 
 many other things, we have heard objected to schools ; 
 but what are we to put in the place of schools ? How 
 are vast numbers who are themselves occupied in pub- 
 lic or professional pursuits, how are men in business or 
 in trade, artists or manufacturers, to educate their fam- 
 ilies, when they have not time to attend to them ; when 
 they may not think themselves perfectly prepu.red to 
 undertake the classical instruction and entire education 
 of several boys ; and when, perhaps, they may not be 
 in circumstances to engage the assistance of such a pre- 
 ceptor as they could approve ? It is obvious, that if in 
 such situations parents were to attempt to educate their 
 children at home, they would harass themselves and 
 probably spoil their pupils, irrecoverably. It would, 
 therefore, be in every respect impolitic and cruel to 
 disgust those with public schools who have no other 
 resource for the education of their families. There is 
 another reason which has perhaps operated, unperceived 
 upon many in the middle ranks of life, and which de- 
 termines them in favour of public education. Persons 
 of narrow fortune, or persons who have acquired wealth 
 in business, are often desirous of breeding up their sons 
 to the liberal professions : and they are conscious that 
 the company, the language, and the style of life, which 
 their children would be accustomed to at home, are be- 
 neath what would be suited to their future professions. 
 Public schools efface this rusticity, and correct the faults 
 of provincial dialect : in this point of view they are 
 highly advantageous. We strongly recommend it to 
 such parents to send their children to large public schools, 
 to Rugby, Eton, or Westminster ; not to any small 
 school ; much less to one in their own neighbourhood. 
 Small schools are apt to be filled with persons of nearly 
 the same stations and out of the same neighbourhood : 
 from this circumstance, they contribute to perpetuate 
 uncouth, antiquated idioms, and many of those obscure 
 
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION. 365 
 
 prejudices which cloud the intellect in the future business 
 of life. 
 
 While we admit the necessity which compels the 
 largest portion of society to prefer public seminaries 
 of education, it is incumbent upon us to caution parents 
 against expecting that the moral character, the under- 
 standings, or the tempers of their children, should be 
 improved at large schools ; there the learned languages, 
 we acknowledge, are successfully taught. Many satisfy 
 themselves with the assertion, that public education is 
 the least troublesome ; that a boy once sent to school is 
 settled for several years of life, and will require only 
 short returns of parental care twice a year, at the holy- 
 days. It is hardly to be supposed that those who think 
 in this manner should have paid any anxious, or at least 
 any judicious attention, to the education of their chil- 
 dren, previous to sending them to school. It is not 
 likely that they should be very solicitous about the 
 commencement of an education which they never 
 meant to finish : they would think that what could be 
 done during the first few years of life, is of little conse- 
 quence ; that children from four to seven years old are 
 too young to be taught; and that a school would 
 speedily supply all deficiencies, and correct all those 
 faults which begin at that age to be troublesome at 
 home. Thus to a public school, as to a general in- 
 firmary for mental disease, all desperate subjects are 
 sent, as the last resource. They take with them the 
 contagion of their vices, which quickly runs through 
 the whole tribe of their companions, especially among 
 those who happen to be nearly of their own age, whose 
 sympathy peculiarly exposes them to the danger of in- 
 fection. We are often told, that as young people have 
 the strongest sympathy w^ith each other, they will learn 
 most effectually from each other's example. They do 
 learn quickly from example, and this is one of the dan- 
 gers of a public school : a danger which is not neces- 
 sary, but incidental ; a danger against which no school- 
 master can possibly guard, but which parents can, by 
 the previous education of the pupils, prevent. Boys 
 are led, driven, or carried to school ; and in a school- 
 room they first meet with those who are to be their 
 fellow- prisoners. They do not come with fresh, un- 
 prejudiced minds, to commence their course of social 
 education ; they bring with them all the ideas and habits 
 
366 PRACTICAL EDUCATIOX. 
 
 which they have already learned at their respective 
 homes. It is highly unreasoiial.le to expect, that all 
 these habits should be reformed by a public preceptor. 
 If he had patience, how could he have time for such an 
 undertaking ? Those wlio have never attempted to 
 break a pupil of any one bad habit, have no idea of the 
 degree of patience requisite to success. We once 
 heard an officer of dragoons assert, that he would rather 
 break twenty horses of their bad habits, than one man 
 of his. The proportionate difficulty of teaching boys 
 may be easily calculated. 
 
 It is sometimes asserted, that the novelty of a school 
 life and the change of situation alter the habits, and form 
 in boys a new character. Habits of eight or nine years 
 standing cannot be instantaneously, perhaps can never 
 be, radically destroyed : they will mix themselves im- 
 perceptibly with the new ideas which are planted in 
 their minds ; and though these may strike the eye by 
 the rapidity of their growth, the others, which have 
 taken a strong root, will not easily be dispossessed of 
 the soil. In this new character, as it is called, there will, 
 to a discerning eye, appear a strong mixture of the old 
 disposition. The boy who at home lived with his father's 
 servants, and was never taught to love any species of 
 literature, will not acquire a taste for it at school, 
 merely by being compelled to learn his lessons ; the 
 boy who at home was suffered to be the little tyrant of 
 a family, will, it is true, be forced to submit to superior 
 strength or superior numbers at school;* but does it 
 improve the temper to practise alternately the habits of 
 a tyrant and a slave 1 The lesson which experience 
 usually teaches to the temper of a schoolboy, is, that 
 strength, and power, and cunning, will inevitably govern 
 in society: as to reason, it is out of the question; it 
 would be hissed or laughed out of the company. With 
 respect to social virtues, they are commonly among 
 schoolboys so much mixed with party spirit, that they 
 mislead even the best dispositions. A boy at home, 
 whose pleasures are all immediately connected with 
 the idea of self, will not feel a sudden enlargement of 
 mind from entering a public school. He will, probably, 
 preserve his selfish character in his new society ; or, 
 
 ♦ See Bame's Essay on Public and Private Education. Man- 
 chester Society. 
 
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION. 367 
 
 even suppose he catches that of his companions, the 
 progress is not great, in moral education, from selfish- 
 ness to spirit of party : the one is a despicable, the 
 other a dangerous, principle of action. It has been ob- 
 served, that what we are when we are twenty, depends 
 on what we were when we were ten years old. What 
 a young man is at college, depends upon what he was at 
 school ; and what he is at school, depends upon what he 
 was before he went to school. In his father's house, 
 the first important lessons, those which decide his future 
 abilities and character, must be learned. We have re- 
 peated this idea, and placed it in different points of view, 
 in hopes that it will catch and fix the attention. Suppose 
 that parents educated their children well for the first eight 
 or nine years of their lives, and then sent them all to 
 public seminaries ; what a difference this must imme- 
 diately make in public education: the boys would be 
 disposed to improve themselves with all the ardour 
 which the most sanguine preceptor would desire ; their 
 tutors would find that there was nothing to be unlearned ; 
 no habits of idleness to conquer ; no perverse stupidity 
 would provoke them ; no capricious contempt of applica- 
 tion would appear in pupils of the quickest abilities. 
 The moral education could then be made a part of the 
 preceptor's care, with some hopes of success ; the pupils 
 would all have learned the first necessary moral princi- 
 ples and habits ; they would, consequently, be all fit 
 companions for each other ; in each other's society 
 they would continue to be governed by the same ideas 
 of right and wrong by which they had been governed 
 all their lives ; they would not have any new character 
 to learn ; they would improve, by mixing with numbers, 
 the social virtues, without learning party spirit ; and 
 though they would love their companions, they would 
 not, therefore, combine together to treat their instructers 
 as pedagogues and tyrants. This may be thought an 
 Utopian idea of a school ; indeed it is very improbable, 
 that out of the numbers of parents who send their chil- 
 dren to large schools, many should suddenly be much 
 moved by any thing that we can say, to persuade them 
 to take serious trouble in their previous instruction. 
 But much may be effected by gradual attempts. Ten 
 well-educated boys, sent to a public seminary at nine or 
 ten years old, would, probably, far surpass their com- 
 petitors in every respect ; they would inspire others 
 
369 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 with so much emulation, would do their parents and 
 preceptors so much credit, that numbers would eagerly 
 inquire into the causes of their superiority ; and these 
 boys would, perhaps, do more good by their example, 
 than by their actual acquirements. We do not mean 
 to promise, that a boy judiciously educated shall appear 
 at ten years old a prodigy of learning; far from it : we 
 should not even estimate his capacity, or the chain of 
 his future progress, by the quantity of knowledge stored 
 in his memory, by the number of Latin hnes he has got 
 by rote, by his expertness in repeating the rules of his 
 grammar, by his pointing out a number of places readily 
 in a map, or even by his knowing the latitude and longi- 
 tude of all the capital cities in Europe ; these are all 
 useful articles of knowledge ; but they are not the test 
 of a good education. We sliould rather, if we were to 
 examine a boy of ten years okl, for the credit of his 
 parents, produce proofs of his being able to reason accu- 
 rately, of his quickness in invention, of his habits of in- 
 dustry and application, of his having learned to general- 
 ize his ideas, and to apply his observations and his prin- 
 ciples : if we found that he had learned all or any of 
 these things, we should be in little pain about grammar, 
 or geography, or even Latin ; we should be tolerably 
 certain that he would not long remain deficient in any 
 of these; we should know that he would overtake and 
 surpass a competitor who had only been technically 
 taught, as certainly as the giant would overtake the 
 panting dwarf, who might have many miles the start of 
 him in the race. We do not mean to say that a boy 
 should not be taught the principles of grammar, and 
 some knowledge of geography, at the same time that 
 his understanding is cultivated in the most enlarged 
 manner: these objects are not incompatible; and we 
 particularly recommend it to parents ivho intend to send 
 their children to school, early to give them confidence in 
 themselves, by securing the rudiments of literary educa- 
 tion ; otherwise their pupils, with a real superiority of 
 understanding, may feel depressed, and may, perhaps, 
 be despised, when they mix at a public school with 
 numbers who will estimate their abilities merely by 
 their proficiency in particular studies. 
 Mr. Frend,* in recommending the study of arithmetic 
 
 * See Mr. Frcnd's Principles of Algebra- 
 
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION. 369 
 
 for young people, has very sensibly remarked, that boys 
 bred up in public schools are apt to compare themselves 
 with each other merely as classical scholars ; and, when 
 they afterward go into the world excellent Greek and 
 Latin scholars, are much astonished to perceive, that 
 many of the companions whom they had undervalued 
 at school, get before them when they come to actual 
 business and to actual life. Many, in the pursuit of 
 their classical studies, have neglected all other knowl- 
 edge, especially that of arithmetic, that useful, essential 
 branch of knowledge, without which neither the abstract 
 sciences nor practical arts can be taught. The pre- 
 cision which the habit of applying the common rules of 
 arithmetic gives to the understanding, is highly advan- 
 tageous, particularly to young people of vivacity, or, as 
 others would say, of genius. The influence which the 
 habit of estimating has upon that part of the moral char- 
 acter called prudence, is of material consequence. We 
 shall farther explain upon this subject, when we speak 
 of the means of teaching arithmetic and reasoning to 
 children ; we only mention the general ideas here, to 
 induce intelligent parents to attend early to these par- 
 ticulars. If they mean to send their children to public 
 classical schools, it must be peculiarly advantageous to 
 teach them early the rudiments of arithmetic, and to give 
 them the habit of applying their knowledge in the com- 
 mon business of life. We forbear to enumerate other 
 useful things, which might easily be taught to young 
 people before they leave home, because we do not wish 
 to terrify with the apprehension, that a perplexing 
 variety of things are to be taught. One thing well 
 taught, is better than a hundred taught imperfectly. 
 
 The effect of the pains which are taken in the first 
 nine or ten years of a child's life, may not be apparent 
 immediately to the view, but it will gradually become 
 visible. To careless observers, two boys of nine years 
 old, who have been very differently educated, may ap- 
 pear nearly alike in abilities, in temper, and in the prom- 
 ise of future character. Send them both to a large pub- 
 lic school, let them be placed in the same new situation, 
 and exposed to the same trials, the difference will then 
 appear : the difference in a few years will be such as to 
 strike every eye, and people will wonder what can have 
 produced, in so short a time, such an amazing change. 
 la the Hindoo art of dying, the same liquors communi- 
 Q3 
 
370 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Gate different colours to particular spots, according to 
 the several bases previously applied : to the ignorant 
 eye, no difference is discernible in the ground, nor can 
 the design be distinctly traced till the air, and light, and 
 open exposure, bring out the bright and permanent col- 
 ours to the wondering eye of the spectator. 
 
 Besides bestowing some attention upon early educa- 
 tion, parents who send their children to school may 
 much assist the public preceptor, by judicious conduct 
 towards children during the portion of the year which is 
 usually spent at home.* Mistaken parental fondness 
 delights to make the period of time which children 
 spend at home, as striking a contrast as possible with 
 that which they pass at school. The holydays are made 
 a jubilee, or, rather, resemble the Saturnalia. Even if pa- 
 rents do not wish to represent a schoolmaster as a tyrant, 
 they are by no means displeased to observe that he is 
 not the friend or favourite of their children. They put 
 themselves in mean competition with him for their affec- 
 tion, instead of co-operating with him in all his views 
 for their advantage. How is it possible that any master 
 can long retain the wish or the hope of succeeding in 
 any plan of education, if he perceives that his pupils are 
 but partially under his government ; if his influence over 
 their minds be counteracted from time to time by the 
 superior influence of their parents 1 — an influence which 
 he must not wish to destroy. To him is left the power 
 to punish, it is true ; but parents reserve to themselves 
 the privilege to reward. The ancients did not suppose 
 that even Jupiter could govern the world without the 
 command of pain and pleasure. Upon the vases near 
 his throne, depended his influence over mankind. 
 
 And what are these holyday delights 1 — and in what 
 consist paternal rewards 1 In dissipation and idleness. 
 With these are consequently associated the idea of hap- 
 piness and the name of pleasure ; the name is often 
 sufficient, without the reality. During the vacation, 
 children have a glimpse of what is called the ivorld; and 
 then are sent back to their prison with heads full of vis- 
 ions of libert)', and with a second-sight of the blessed 
 lives which they are to lead when they have left school 
 for ever. What man of sense who has studied the hu- 
 man mind, who knows that the success of any plan of 
 
 * See Williams's Lectures on E<lucation. 
 
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION. 371 
 
 education must depend upon the concurrence of every 
 person and every circumstance, for years together, to 
 the same point, would undertake any thing more than 
 the partial instruction of pupils, whose leading associa- 
 tions and habits must be perpetually broken ] When the 
 work of school is undone during the holydays, what hand 
 could have the patience perpetually to repair the web 1 
 
 During the vacations spent at home, children may be 
 made extremely happy in the society and in the affec- 
 tions of their friends, — but they need not be taught that 
 idleness is pleasure : on the contrary, occupation should, 
 by all possible methods, be rendered agreeable to them ; 
 their school acquisitions, their knowledge and taste, 
 should be drawn out in conversation, and they should 
 be made to feel the value of what they have been taught ; 
 by these means there would be some connexion, some 
 unity of design, preserved in their education. Their 
 schoolmasters and tutors should never become the 
 theme of insipid ridicule ; nor should parents ever put 
 their influence in competition with that of a preceptor : 
 on the contrary, his pupils should uniformly perceive, 
 that from his authority there is no appeal, except to the 
 superior power of reason, which should be the avowed 
 arbiter to which all should be submitted. 
 
 Some of the dangerous effects of that mixed society 
 at schools of which we have complained, may be coun- 
 teracted by the judicious conduct of parents during the 
 time which children spend at home. A better view of 
 society, more enlarged ideas of friendship and of justice, 
 may be given to young people, and the vile principle 
 of party spirit maybe treated with just contempt and 
 ridicule. Some standard, some rules may be taught to 
 them, by which they may judge of character independ- 
 ently of prejudice or childish prepossession. 
 
 " I do not like you, Doctor Fell ; 
 The reason why, I cannot tell 
 But this I know full well, 
 T do not like you, Doctor Fell" — 
 
 is an exact specimen of the usual mode of reasoning, 
 of the usual method in which an ill-educated schoolboy 
 expresses his opinion and feelings about all persons and 
 all things. " The reason why" should always be in- 
 quired whenever children express preference or aversion. 
 To connect the idea of childhood with that of inferi- 
 
372 PRACTICAL EDUCATIOIf. 
 
 ty and contempt, is unjust and impolitic ; it should 
 i. >l be made a reproach to young people to be young, 
 nor should it be pointed out to them, that when they are 
 some years older they will be more respected ; the de- 
 gree of respect which they really command, whether in 
 youth or age, will depend upon their own conduct, their 
 knowledge, and their powers of being useful and agree- 
 able to others. If they are convinced of this, children 
 will not at eight years old long to be fifteen, or at fifteen 
 to be one-and-twenty ; proper subordination would be 
 preserved, and the scale of happiness would not have a 
 forced and false connexion with that of age. If parents 
 did not at first excite foolish wishes in the minds of their 
 children, and then imprudently promise that these wishes 
 shall be gratified at certain periods of their existence, 
 children would not be impatient to pass over the years 
 of childhood ; those years which idle boys wish to pass 
 over as quickly as possible, men without occupation re- 
 gret as the happiest of their existence. To a child who 
 has been promised that he shall put on manly apparel 
 on his next birthday, the pace of time is slow and 
 heavy until that happy era arrive. Fix the day when a 
 boy shall leave school, and he wishes instantly to mount 
 the chariot, and lash the horses of the sun. Nor when 
 he enters the world, will his restless spirit be satisfied ; 
 the first step gained, he looks anxiously forward to the 
 height of manly elevation, 
 
 *' And the brisk minor pants for twenty-one." 
 
 These juvenile anticipations diminish the real happi- 
 ness of life ; those who are in continual expectation, 
 never enjoy the present ; the habit of expectation is 
 dangerous to the mind — it suspends all industry, all vol- 
 untary exertion. Young men who early acquire this 
 habit, find existence insipid to them without the imme- 
 diate stimuli of hope and fear : no matter what the object 
 is, they must have something to sigh for ; a curricle, a 
 cockade, or an opera-dancer. 
 
 Much may be done by education to prevent this boy- 
 ish restlessness. Parents should refrain from those im- 
 prudent promises and slight innuendoes which the youth- 
 ful imagination always misunderstands and exaggerates. 
 Never let the moment in which a young man quits a 
 seminary of education, be represented as a moment in 
 which ail instruction, labour, and restraints cease. The 
 
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION. 373 
 
 idea that he must restrain and instruct himself, that he 
 must complete his own education, should be excited in 
 a young man's mind ; nor should he be suffered to ima- 
 gine that his education is finished, because he has at- 
 tained to some given age. 
 
 When a common schoolboy bids adieu to that school 
 which he has been taught to consider as a prison, he ex- 
 ults in his escape from books and masters, and from all 
 the moral and intellectual discipline to which he ima- 
 gines that it is the peculiar disgrace and misery of child- 
 hood to be condemned. He is impatient to be thought 
 a man, but his ideas of the manly character are errone- 
 ous — consequently his ambition will only mislead him, 
 PVom his companions while at school, from his father's 
 acquaintance and his father's servants, with whom he 
 has been suffered to consort during the vacations, he 
 has collected imperfect notions of life, fashion, and so- 
 ciety. These do not mix well in his mind with the ex- 
 amples and precepts of Greek and Roman virtue ; a 
 temporary enthusiasm may have been kindled in his 
 soul by the eloquence of antiquity; but, for want of 
 sympathy, this enthusiasm neces.sarily dies away. His 
 heroes are not the heroes of the present times ; the 
 maxims of his sages are not easily introduced into the 
 conversation of the day. At the tea-table he now sel- 
 dom hears even the name of Plato ; and he often blushes 
 for not knowing a line from a popular English poet, while 
 he could repeat a cento from Horace, Virgil, and Homer ; 
 or an antistrophe from iEschylus or Euripides. He 
 feels ashamed to produce the knowledge he has acquired, 
 because he has not learned sufficient address to produce 
 it without pedantry. On his entrance into the world, 
 there remains in his mind no grateful, no affectionate, 
 no respectful remembrance of those under whose care 
 he has passed so many years of his life. He has es- 
 caped from the restraints imposed by his schoolmaster, 
 and the connexion is dissolved for ever. 
 
 But when a son separates from his father, if he has 
 been well educated, he wishes to continue his own edu- 
 cation : the course of his ideas is not suddenly broken ; 
 what he has been, joins immediately with what he is to 
 be ; his knowledge applies to real life — it is such as he 
 can use in all companies ; there is no sudden metamor- 
 phosis in any of the objects of his ambition ; the boy and 
 man are the same individual. Pleasure will not influ- 
 
^1^* 
 
 374 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 ence him merely by her name, or by the contrast of her 
 appearance with the rigid disciphne of scholastic learn- 
 ing ; he will feel the difference between pleasure and 
 happiness, and his early taste for domestic life will re- 
 main or return upon his mind. His old precepts and 
 new motives are not at war with each other ; his expe- 
 rience will confirm his education, and external circum- 
 stances will call forth his latent virtues. When he looks 
 back, he can trace the gradual growth of his knowledge ; 
 when he looks forward, it is with the delightful hope of 
 progressive improvement. A desire in some degree to 
 repay the care, to deserve the esteem, to fulfil the ani- 
 mating prophecies, or to justify the fond hopes of the 
 parent who has watched over his education, is one of 
 the strongest motives to an ingenuous young man ; it is 
 an incentive to exertion in every honourable pursuit. A 
 son who has been judiciously and kindly educated, will 
 feel the value of his father's friendship. The percep- 
 tion that no man can be more entirely interested in 
 every thing that concerns him, the idea that no one more 
 than his father can share in his glory or in his disgrace, 
 will press upon his heart, will rest upon his understand- 
 ing. Upon these ideas, upon this common family inter- 
 est, the real strength of the connexion between a father 
 and his son depends. No pubhc preceptor can have the 
 same advantages; his connexion with his pupil is not 
 necessarily formed to last. 
 
 After having spoken with freedom, but we hope with 
 moderation, of public schools, we may, perhaps, be asked 
 our opinion of universities. Are universities the most 
 splendid repositories of learning 1 We are not afraid to 
 declare an opinion in the negative. Smith, in his Wealth 
 of Nations, has stated some objections to them, we 
 think, with unanswerable force of reasoning. We do 
 not, however, wish to destroy what v/e do not entirely 
 approve. Far be that insanity from our minds which 
 would, like Orlando, tear up the academic groves ; the 
 madness of innovation is as destructive as the bigotry 
 of ancient establishments. The learning and the views 
 of the rising century must have diflferent objects from 
 those of the wisdom and benevolence of Alfred, Bal- 
 sham, or Wolsey ; and, without depreciating or de- 
 stroying the magnificence or establishments of univer- 
 sities, may not their institutions be improved ? May 
 not their splendid halls echo with other sounds than tlie 
 
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION. 375 
 
 exploded metaphysics of the schools'? And may not 
 other learning be as much rewarded and esteemed as 
 pure latinity ? 
 
 We must here distinctly point out, that young men 
 designed for the army or the navy, should not be edu- 
 cated in private families. The domestic habits, the 
 learned leisure of private education, are unsuited to 
 them ; it would be absurd to waste many years in teach- 
 ing them the elegances of classic literature, which can 
 probably be of no essential use to them ; it would be 
 cruel to give them a nice and refined choice of right and 
 wrong, when it will be their professional duty to act 
 under the command of others; when implicit, prompt, 
 unquestioning obedience, must be their first military vir- 
 tue. Military academies, where the sciences practically 
 essential to the professions are taught, must be the best 
 situations for all young sailors and soldiers ; strict in- 
 stitution is the best education for them. We do not 
 here inquire how far these professions are necessary in 
 society ;^it is obvious, that in the present state of Eu- 
 ropean cultivation, soldiers and sailors are indispensa- 
 ble to every nation. We hope, however, that a taste 
 for peace may, at some future period in the history of 
 the world, succeed to the passion for military glory ; 
 and in the meantime we may safely recommend it to 
 parents, never to trust a young man designed for a sol- 
 dier to the care of a philosopher, even if it were possi- 
 ble to find one who would undertake the charge. 
 
 W^e hope that we have shown ourseJves the friends 
 of the pubUc preceptor, that we have pointed out the 
 practicable means of improving public institutions, by 
 parental care and parental co-operation. But, until such 
 a meliorating plan shall actually have been carried into 
 effect, we cannot hesitate to assert, that even when the 
 abilities of the parent are inferior to those of the public 
 preceptor, the means of ensuring success preponderate 
 in favour of private education. A father who has time, 
 talents, and temper, to educate his family, is certainly 
 the best possible preceptor ; and his reward will be the 
 highest degree of domestic felicity. If, from his situa- 
 tion, he is obliged to forego this reward, he may select 
 some man of literature, sense, and integrity, to whom 
 he can confide his children. Opulent families should 
 not think any reward too munificent for such a private 
 preceptor. Even in an economic point oi^ view, it is 
 
376 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 prudent to calculate how many thousands lavished on 
 the turf, or lost at the gaming-table, might have been 
 saved to the heirs of noble and wealthy families by a 
 judicious education. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ON FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, MASTERS, AND GOVERNESSES. 
 
 Some years ago, an opera-dancer at Lyons, whose 
 charms were upon the wane, applied to an English gen- 
 tleman for a recommendation to some of his friends in 
 England, as a governess for young ladies. " Do you 
 doubt," said the lady (observing that the gentleman was 
 somewhat confounded by the easy assurance of her re- 
 quest), " do you doubt my capability "? Do I not speak 
 good Parisian French 1 Have I any provincial accent 1 
 1 will undertake to teach the language grammatically. 
 And for music and dancing, without vanity, may I not 
 pretend to teach them to any young person V The 
 lady's excellence in all these particulars was unques- 
 tionable. She was beyond dispute a highly accom- 
 plished woman. Pressed by her forcible interrogato- 
 ries, the gentleman was compelled to hint, that an Eng- 
 lish mother of a family might be inconveniently inquisi- 
 tive about the private history of a person who was to 
 educate her daughters. " Oh," said the lady, " I can 
 change my name, and, at my age, nobody will make 
 farther inquiries." 
 
 Before we can determine how far this lady's preten- 
 sions were ill-founded, and before we can exactly de- 
 cide what qualifications are most desirable in a govern- 
 ess, we must form some estimate of the positive and 
 relative value of what are called accomplishments. 
 
 We are not going to attack any of them with cynical 
 asperity, or wiUi the ambition to establish any new dog- 
 matical tenets in the place of old received opinions. It 
 can, however, do no harm to discuss this important sub- 
 ject with proper reverence and humility. Without 
 alarming those mothers who declare themselves above 
 all things anxious for the rapid progress of their daugh- 
 ters in every fashionable accomplishment, it may be 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 377 
 
 innocently asked, what price such mothers are willing 
 to pay for these advantages. Any price within the limits 
 of our fortune ! they will probably exclaim. 
 
 There are other standards by which we can measure 
 the value of objects, as well as by money. " Fond 
 mother, would you, if it were in your power, accept of 
 an opera-dancer for your daughter's governess, upon 
 condition that you should live to see that daughter 
 dance the best minuet at a birthnight ball V 
 
 " Not for the world," replies the mother. " Do you 
 think I would hazard my daughter's innocence and repu- 
 tation, for the sake of seeing her dance a good minuet ? 
 Shocking ! Absurd ! What can you mean by such an 
 outrageous question ?" 
 
 " To fix your attention. Where the mind has not pre- 
 cisely ascertained its wishes, it is sometimes useful to 
 consider extremes ; by determining what price you will 
 not pay, we shall at length ascertain the value which 
 you set upon the object. Reputation and innocence, 
 you say, you will not, upon any account, hazard. But 
 would you consent that your daughter should, by uni- 
 versal acclamation, be proclaimed the most accom- 
 plished woman in Europe, upon the simple condition 
 that she should pass her days in a nunnery ]" 
 
 "I should have no right to make such a condition; 
 domestic happiness I ought certainly to prefer to public 
 admiration for my daughter. Her accomplishments 
 would be of little use to her, if she were to be shut up 
 from the world : who is to be the judge of them in a 
 nunnery V 
 
 " I will say no more about the nunnery. But would 
 not you, as a good mother, consent to have your daugh- 
 ter turned into an automaton for eight hours in every 
 day for fifteen years, for the promise of hearing her, at 
 the end of that time, pronounced the first private per- 
 former at the most fashionable and most crowded con- 
 cert in London V 
 
 " Eight hours a day for fifteen years are too much. 
 No one need practise so much to become the first per- 
 former in England." 
 
 " That is another question. You have not told me 
 whether you would sacrifice so much of your daughter's 
 existence for such an object, supposing that you could 
 obtain it at no other price." 
 
 " For one concert V says the hesitating mother ; " I 
 
378 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 think it would be too high a price. Yet I would give 
 any thing to have my daughter play better than any one 
 in England. What a distinction ! She would be imme- 
 diately taken notice of in all companies ! She might 
 get into the first circles in London ! She would want 
 neither beauty nor fortune to recommend her! She 
 would be a match for any man who has any taste for 
 music ! And music is universally admired, even by 
 those who have the misfortune to have no taste for it. 
 Besides, it is such an elegant accomplishment in itself! 
 Such a constant source of innocent amusement ! Put- 
 ting every thing else out of the question, I should wish 
 my daughter to have every possible accomplishment, 
 because accomplishments are such charming resources 
 for young women ; they keep them out of harm's way ; 
 they make a vast deal of their idle time pass so pleas- 
 antly to themselves and others; this is my cAie/ reason 
 for liking them." 
 
 Here are so many reasons brought together at once, 
 along with the chief reason, that they are altogether 
 unanswerable : we must separate, class, and consider 
 them one at a time. Accomplishments, it seems, are 
 valuable, as being the objects of universal admiration. 
 Some accomplishments have another species of value, 
 as they are tickets of admission to fashionable com- 
 pany. Accomplishments have another, and a higher 
 species of value, as they are supposed to increase a 
 young lady's chance of a prize in the matrimonial lot- 
 tery. Accomplishments have also a value as resources 
 against ennui, as they afford continual amusement and 
 innocent occupation. This is ostensibly their chief 
 praise ; it deserves to be considered with respect. 
 False and odious must be that philosophy which would 
 destroy any one of the innocent pleasures of our exist- 
 ence. No reward was thought too high for the inven- 
 tion of a new pleasure ; no punishment would be thought 
 too severe for those who would destroy an old one. 
 Women are peculiarly restrained in their situation and 
 in their employments, by the customs of society: to 
 diminish the number of these employments, therefore, 
 would be cruel ; they should rather be encouraged, by 
 all means, to cultivate those tastes which can attach 
 them to their home, and which can preserve them from 
 the miseries of dissipation. Every sedentary occupa- 
 tion must be valuable to those who are to lead sedentary 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 379 
 
 lives ; and every art, however trifling in itself, which 
 tends to enh'ven and embelUsh domestic life, must be 
 advantageous, not only to the female sex, but to society 
 in general. As far as accomplishments can contribute 
 to all or any of these excellent purposes, they must be 
 just objects of attention in early education. 
 
 A number of experiments have already been tried ; 
 let us examine the result. Out of the prodigious num- 
 ber of young women who learn music and drawing, for 
 instance, how many are there, who, after they become 
 mistresses of their own time, and after they have the 
 choice of their own amusements, continue to practise 
 these accomphshments for the pure pleasure of occupa- 
 tion 1 As soon as a young lady is married, does she 
 not frequently discover that " she really has not leisure 
 to cultivate talents which take up so much time V Does 
 she not complain of the labour of practising four or five 
 hours a day to keep up her musical character T What 
 motive has she for perseverance ? She is, perhaps, al- 
 ready tired of playing to all her acquaintance. She 
 may really take pleasure in hearing good music ; but 
 her own performance will not then please her ear so 
 much as that of many others. She will prefer the more 
 indolent pleasure of hearing the best music that can be 
 heard for money at public concerts. She will then of 
 course leave off playing, but continue very fond of music. 
 How often is the labour of years thus lost for ever ! 
 
 Those who have excelled in drawing do not appear 
 to abandon the occupation so suddenly ; it does not de- 
 mand such an inordinate quantity of time to keep up 
 the talent ; the exertion of the imitative powers with 
 apparent success, is agreeable ; the employment is pro- 
 gressive, and therefore the mind is carried on to com- 
 plete what has been begun. Independently of all ap- 
 plause which may be expected for the performance, 
 there is a pleasure in going on with the work. But 
 setting aside enthusiasm and habit, the probability that 
 any sensible persons will continue to pursue a given 
 employment, must depend, in a great measure, upon 
 their own conviction of its utility, or of its being agree- 
 able to those whom they wish to please. The pleasure 
 which a lady's friends receive from her drawings, arises 
 chiefly from the perception of their comparative excel- 
 lence. Comparative excellence is all to which gentle- 
 women artists usually pretend all to which they expect 
 
380 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 to attain ; positive excellence is scarcely attained by 
 one in a hundred. Compared with the performances 
 of other young ladies of their acquaintance, the draw- 
 ings of Miss X or Y may be justly considered as charm- 
 ing! admirable! and astonishing! But there are few 
 drawings by young ladies which can be compared with 
 those of a professed artist. The wishes of obliging 
 friends are satisfied with a few drawings in handsome 
 frames, to be bung up for the young lady's credit ; and 
 when it is allowed among their acquaintance that she 
 draws in a superior style, the purpose of this part of her 
 education is satisfactorily answered. We do not here 
 speak of those iew individuals who really excel in draw, 
 ing, who have learned something more than the com- 
 mon routine which is usually learned from a drawing- 
 master, who have acquired an agreeable talent, not for 
 the mere purpose of exhibiting themselves, but for the 
 sake of the occupation it affords, and the pleasure it 
 may give to their friends. We have the pleasure of 
 knowing some who exactly answer to this description, 
 and who must feel themselves distinct and honourable 
 exceptions to these general observations. 
 
 From whatever cause it arises, we may observe, that 
 after young women are settled in life, their taste for 
 drawing and music gradually declines. For this fact, 
 we can appeal only to the recollection of individuals. 
 We may hence form some estimate of the real value 
 which ought to be put upon what are called accomplish- 
 ments, considered as occupations. Hence we may also 
 conclude, that parents do not form their judgments 
 from the facts which they see every day in real life ; 
 or else may we not infer, that they deceive themselves 
 as to their own motives ; and that, among the reasons 
 which make them so anxious about the accomplish- 
 ments of their daughters, there are some secret motives 
 more powerful than those which are usually openly 
 acknowledged ] 
 
 It is admitted in the cabinet council of mothers, that 
 some share of the value of accomplishments depends 
 upon the demand for them in the fashionable world. 
 " A young lady," they say, " is nobody, and nothing, 
 without accomplishments; they are as necessary to her 
 as a fortune : they are indeed considered as part of her 
 fortune, and sometimes are even found to supply the 
 place of it. Next to beauty, they are the best tickets 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 381 
 
 of admission into society which she can produce ; and 
 everybody knows, that on the company she keeps de- 
 pends the chance of a young woman's setlhng advan- 
 tageously in the world." 
 
 To judge of what will please and attach men of 
 superior sense and characters — we are not quite cer- 
 tain that these are the men who are to be considered 
 first, when we speak of a young lady's settling advan- 
 tageously in the world ; but we will take this for granted 
 — to judge of what will please and attach men of supe- 
 rior sense and characters, we must observe their actual 
 conduct in life, and listen to their speculative opinions. 
 Superficial accomplishments do not appear to be the 
 objects of their preference. In enumerating the per- 
 fections of his wife, or in retracing the progress of his 
 love, does a man of sense dwell upon his mistress's 
 skill in drawing, or dancing, or music ? No. These, 
 he tells you, are extremely agreeable talents, but ihey 
 could never have attached him ; they are subordinate 
 parts in her character ; he is angry that you can rank 
 them among her perfections ; he knows that a thousand 
 Avomen possess these accomplishments, who have never 
 touched his heart. He does not, perhaps, deny, that in 
 Chloe, altogether, they have power to please, but he 
 does not think them essential to her power. 
 
 The opinion of women who have seen a good deal 
 of the world, is worth attending to upon this subject ; 
 especially if we can obtain it when their passions are 
 wholly uninterested in their decision. Whatever may 
 be the judgment of individuals concerning the character 
 and politics of the celebrated Madame Roland, her opin- 
 ion as a woman of abilities, and a woman who had seen 
 a variety of life, will be thought deserving of attention. 
 Her book was written at a time when she was in daily 
 expectation of death, when she could have no motive 
 to conceal her real sentiments upon any subject. She 
 gives an account of her employments in prison, and, 
 among others, mentions music and drawing. 
 
 " I then employed myself in drawing till dinner time. 
 I had so long been out of the habit of using a pencil, 
 that I could not expect to be very dexterous ; but we 
 commonly retain the power of repeating with pleasure, 
 or at least of attempting with ease, whatever we have 
 successfully practised in our youth. Therefore the 
 study of the fine arts, considered as a part of female 
 
382 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 education, sliould be attended to, much less witli a view 
 to the acquisition of superior talents, than with a desire 
 to give women a taste for industry, the habit of appKca- 
 tion, and a greater variety of employments ; for these 
 assist us to escape from ennui, the most cruel disease 
 of civilized society ; by these we are preserved from 
 the dangers of vice, and even from those seductions 
 which are far more likely to lead us astray. 
 
 " I would not make my daughter a •performer.* I re- 
 member that my mother was afraid that I should be- 
 come a great musician, or that I should devote myself 
 entirely to painting : she wished that I should, above 
 all other tilings, love the duties of my sex : that I should 
 be a good economist, a good mistress, as well as a good 
 mother of a family. 1 wish my Eudora to be able to 
 accompany her voice agreeably on the harp. I wish 
 that she may play agreeably on the piano-forte ; that 
 she may know enough of drawing, to feel pleasure from 
 the sight and from the examination of the finest pictures 
 of the great painters ; that she may be able to draw a 
 flower that happens to please her ; and that she may 
 unite in her dress elegance and simplicity. I should 
 wish that her talents might be such that they should 
 neither excite the admiration of others, nor inspire her 
 with vanity ; I should wish that she should please by 
 the general effect of her whole character, without ever 
 striking anybody with astonishment at first sight ; and 
 that she should attach by her good qualities, rather than 
 shine by her accomplishments." 
 
 Women cannot foresee what may be the tastes of 
 the individuals with whom they are to pass their lives. 
 Their own tastes should not, therefore, be early de- 
 cided ; they should, if possible, be so educated that they 
 may attain any talent in perfection which they may 
 desire, or which their circumstances may render ne- 
 cessary. If, for instance, a woman were to marry a 
 man who was fond of music, or who admired painting, 
 she should be able to cultivate these talents for his 
 amusement and her own. If he be a man of sense and 
 feeling, he will be more pleased w^th the motive than 
 with the thing that is actually done. But if it be urged 
 that all women cannot expect to marry men of sense 
 and feeling ; and if we are told, that nevertheless they 
 
 * Une Virtuose. 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 383 
 
 must look to " an advantageous establishment," vvc 
 must conclude, that men of rank and fortune are meant 
 by that comprehensive phrase. Another set of argu- 
 ments must be used to those who speculate on their 
 daughters' accomplishments in this line. They have, 
 perhaps, seen some instances of what they call success ; 
 they have seen some young women of their acquaint- 
 ance, whose accomplishments have attracted men of 
 fortune superior to tlieir own ; consequently, maternal 
 tenderness is awakened, and many mothers are sanguine 
 in their expectations of the efiect of their daughters' 
 education. But they forget that everybody now makes 
 the same reflections, that parents are, and have been 
 for some years speculating in the same line ; conse- 
 quently, the market is likely to be overstocked, and, of 
 course, the value of the commodities must fall. Every 
 young lady (and every young woman is now a young 
 lady) has some pretensions to accomplishments. She 
 draws a little, or she plays a little, or she speaks French 
 a little. Even the blue-board boardingschools, ridiculed 
 by Miss Allscript in the Heiress, profess to perfect 
 jT^oung ladies in some or all of these necessary parts of 
 education. Stop at any good inn on the London roads, 
 and you will probably find that the landlady's daughter 
 can show you some of her own framed drawings, can 
 play a tune upon her spinet, or support a dialogue in 
 French of a reasonable length, in the customary ques- 
 tions and answers. Now it is the practice in high life 
 to undervalue, and avoid as much as possible, every 
 thing which descends to the inferior classes of society. 
 The dress of to-day is unfashionable to-morrow, be- 
 cause everybody wears it. The dress is not preferred 
 because it is pretty or useful, but because it is the dis- 
 tinction of wellbred people. In the same manner, ac- 
 complishments have lost much of that value which they 
 acquired from opinion, since they have become com- 
 mon. They are now so common, that they cannot be 
 considered as the distinguishing characteristics of even 
 a gentlewoman's education. The higher classes in life, 
 and those individuals who aim at distinction, now estab- 
 lish another species of monopoly, and secure to them- 
 selves a certain set of expensive masters in music, draw- 
 ing, dancing, &c. ; and they endeavour to believe, and 
 to make others believe, that no one can be well edu- 
 cated without having served an apprenticeship of so 
 
384 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 many lessons under some of these privileg-ed masters. 
 But it is in vain that they intrench themselves, they are 
 pursued by the intrusive vulgar. In a wealthy, mer- 
 cantile nation, there is nothing which can be bought for 
 money, which will long continue to be an envied dis- 
 tinction. The hope of attaining that degree of eminence 
 in the fine arts whicli really deserves celebrity, becomes 
 every day more difficult to private practitioners, be- 
 cause the number of competitors daily increases ; and 
 it is the interest of masters to forward their pupils by 
 every possible means. Both genius and perseverance 
 must now be united to obtain the prize of distinction ; 
 and how seldom are they found, or kept together, in the 
 common course of education ! 
 
 Considering all these circumstances, is there not 
 some reason to apprehend, that in a few years the taste 
 for several fashionable appendages of female education 
 may change, and that those will consequently be treated 
 with neglect who have no other claim to public regard 
 than their proficiency in what may, perhaps, then be 
 thought vulgar or obsolete accomphshments 1 Our 
 great-grandmothers distinguished themselves by truly 
 substantial tent-work chairs and carpets, by needle- 
 work pictures of Solomon and the queen of Sheba. 
 These were admirable in their day, but their day is 
 over; and these useful, ingenious, and laborious speci- 
 mens of female talents, are consigned to the garret, or 
 they are produced but as curiosities, to excite wonder 
 at the strange patience and miserable destiny of former 
 generations ; the taste for tapestry and embroidery is 
 thus past ; the long labours of the loom have ceased. 
 Cloth-work, crape-work, chenille-work, riband-work, 
 wafer- work, with a long train of etceteras, have all passed 
 away in our own memory ; yet these conferred much 
 evanescent fame, and a proportional quantity of vain emu- 
 lation. A taste for drawing or music cannot be classed 
 with any of these trifling performances ; but there are 
 many faded drawings of the present generations, which 
 cannot stand in competition with the glowing and faithful 
 colours of the silk and worsted of former times ; and 
 many of the hours spent at a stammering harpsichord, 
 might surely, with full as much domestic advantage, have 
 been devoted to the embelUshment of chairs and carpets. 
 We hope that no one will so perversely misunderstand 
 us, as to infer from these remarks that we desire to see the 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 385 
 
 revival of old tapestry -work ; or that we condemn the 
 elegant accomplishments of music and drawing. We 
 condemn only the abuse of these accomplishments ; we 
 only wish that they should be considered as domestic oc- 
 cupations, not as matters of competition or of exhibition, 
 nor yet as the means of attracting temporary admira- 
 tion. We are not afraid that any, who are really con- 
 scious of having acquired accomplishments with these 
 prudent and honourable views, should misapprehend 
 what has been said. Mediocrity may, perhaps, attempt 
 to misrepresent our remarks, and may endeavour to 
 make it appear that we have attacked, and that we 
 would discourage, every effort of female taste and in- 
 genuity in the fine arts ; we cannot, therefore, be too 
 explicit in disclaiming such illiberal views. 
 
 We have not yet spoken of dancing, though it is one 
 of the most admired of female accomplishments. This 
 evidently is an amusement, not an occupation; it is an 
 greeable exercise, useful to the health, and advanta- 
 geous, as it confers a certain degree of habitual ease and 
 grace. Mr. Locke seems to think, that it gives young 
 people confidence in themselves when they come into 
 company, and that it is, therefore, expedient to teach 
 children early to dance : but there are so many other 
 methods of inspiring young people with this confidence 
 in themselves, that it appears unnecessary to lay much 
 stress upon this argument. If children live in good com- 
 pany, and see constantly people with agreeable manners, 
 they will acquire manners which the dancing-master does 
 not always teach ; and they will easily vary their forms 
 of politeness with the fashion of the day. Nobody comes 
 into a room regularly as the dancing-master taught him 
 to make his entrance ; we should think a strict adhe- 
 rence to his lessons ridiculous and awkward in well- 
 bred company ; therefore much must be left to the dis- 
 cretion and taste of the pupil, after the dancing-master 
 has made his last bow. Ease of manners is not always 
 attained by those who have been strictly disciplined by 
 a Vestris, because the lessons are not always practised 
 in precisely the same circumstances in which they were 
 learned : this confuses and confounds the pupils, and 
 they rather lose than gain confidence in themselves,' 
 from perceiving that they cannot immediately apply 
 what they have been taught. But we need not expati- 
 ate upon this subject, because there are few parents of 
 R 
 
386 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 good sense, in any rank of life, who will not perceive 
 that their daughters' manners cannot be formed or pol- 
 ished by a dancing-master. We are not to consider 
 dancing in a grave and moral light ; it is an amusement 
 much more agreeable to young people, and much better 
 suited to them in every respect, than cards, or silent 
 assemblies of formal visiters, it promotes cheerfulness, 
 and prevents, in some measure, the habits of gossiping 
 conversation and the love of scandal. So far we most 
 willingly agree with its most vivacious advocates in its 
 common eulogium. But this is not, we fear, saying 
 enough. We see, or fancy that we see, the sober ma- 
 tron lay down her carefully assorted cards upon the 
 card-table, and with dictatorial solemnity she pronoun- 
 cr s, " That dancing is something more than an amuse- 
 ment ; that girls must learn to dance, because they 
 must appear well in public ; because the young ladies 
 who dance the best are usually most takcji notice of in 
 public ; most admired by the other sex ; most likely, in 
 short, not only to have their choice of the best partner 
 in a ball-room, but sometimes of the best partner for 
 life." 
 
 With submission to maternal authority, these argu- 
 ments do not seem to be justified of late years. Girls 
 who dance remarkably well, are, it is true, admired in a 
 ball-room, and followed, perhaps, by those idle, thought- 
 less young men, who frequent public places merely for 
 the want of something else to do. This race of beings 
 are not particularly calculated to make good husbands in 
 any sense of the word ; nor are they usually disposed 
 to think of marriage in any other light than as the last 
 desperate expedient to repair their injured fortunes. 
 They set their wits against the sex in general, and con- 
 sider themselves as in danger of being jockeyed into the 
 matrimonial state. Some few, perhaps, who have not 
 brought their imagination sufficiently under the com- 
 mand of the calculating faculty, are caught by beauty 
 and accomplishments, and many against the common 
 rules of interest. These men are considered with pity 
 or with ridicule by their companions, as dupes, who 
 have suffered themselves to be taken in: others are 
 warned by their fate ; and the future probability of simi- 
 lar errors, of course, must be diminished. The fashion- 
 able apathy, whether real or affected, with which young 
 men lounge in public places, with scarcely the appear- 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 387 
 
 ance of attention to the fair exhibiters before them, 
 sufficiently marks the temper of the times ; and if the 
 female sex have lost any thing of the respect and es- 
 teem which ought to be paid to them in society, they 
 can scarcely expect to regain their proper influence by 
 concessions to the false and vitiated taste of those who 
 combine to treat them with neglect bordering upon in- 
 solence. If the system of female education, if the sys- 
 tem of female manners, conspire to show in the fair sex 
 a degrading anxiety to attract worthless admiration, 
 wealthy or titled homage, is it surprising that every 
 young man who has any pretensions to birth, fortune, 
 or fashion, should consider himself as the arbiter of 
 their fate, and the despotic judge of their merit f Wo- 
 men who understand their real interests, perceive the 
 causes of the contempt with which the sex is treated 
 by fashionable coxcombs, and they feel some indigna- 
 tion at the meanness with which this contempt, tacitly 
 or openly expressed, is endured. Women who feel 
 none of this indignation, and who, either from their 
 education or their circumstances, are only solicitous to 
 obtain present amusement, or what they think the per- 
 manent advantages of a fortunate alliance, will yet find 
 themselves disappointed by persisting in their thought- 
 less career ; they will not gain even the objects to 
 which they aspire. How many accomplished belles run 
 the usual round of dissipation in all public places of 
 exhibition, tire the public eye, and, after a season or 
 two, fade and are forgotten ! How many accomplished 
 belles are there, who, having gained the object of their 
 own or of their mothers' ambition, find themselves 
 doomed to misery for life ! Those unequal marriages 
 which are sometimes called excellent matches, seldom 
 produce much happiness. And where happiness is not, 
 what is all the rest ? 
 
 If all or any of these reflections should strike the 
 heart and convince the understanding of an anxious 
 but reasonable mother, she will, probably, immediately 
 determine upon her own conduct in the education of her 
 daughters : she will resolve to avoid the common errors 
 of the frivolous or the interested ; she will not be in- 
 fluenced by the importunity of every idle acquaintance, 
 who may talk to her of the necessity of her daughter's 
 being taken notice of in public, of the chances of an 
 advantageous establishment, of the good fortune of Miss 
 R2 
 
388 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Y , or Lady Angelina X , in meeting with a cox- 
 comb or a spendthrift for a husband ; nor will she be 
 moved with maternal emulation when she is farther 
 told, that these young ladies owed their success entirely 
 to the superiority of their accomplishments : she will 
 consider, for one moment, what is meant by the word 
 success ; she will, perhaps, not be of opinion that " 'tis 
 best repenting in a coach and six ;" she will, perhaps, 
 reflect, that even the " soft sounds" of titled grandeur 
 lose their power to please, and " salute the ear" almost 
 unobserved. The happiness, the permanent happiness 
 of her child, will be the first, the last object of the good 
 and the enlightened mother : to this all her views and 
 all her efforts will tend ; and to this she will make every 
 fashionable, every elegant accomplishment subservient. 
 As to the means of acquiring these accomplishments, 
 it would be absurd and presumptuous to present here 
 any vague precepts or tedious details, upon the mode 
 of learning drawing, dancing, and music. These can 
 be best learned from the masters who profess to teach 
 them, as far as the technical part is necessary. But 
 success will not ultimately depend upon any technical 
 instructions that a master can give: he may direct the 
 efforts of industry so as to save much useless labour ; 
 he may prevent his pupils from acquiring bad practical 
 habits ; he may assist, but he cannot inspire the spirit 
 of perseverance. A master who is not expected, or 
 indeed allowed, to interfere in the general education of 
 his pupils, can only diligently attend to them while he 
 is giving his lessons ; he has not any power, except that 
 pernicious motive, competition, to excite them to excel ; 
 his instructions cannot be peculiarly adapted to their 
 tempers or their understandings, because with these he 
 is unacquainted. Now a sensible mother has it in her 
 power to supply all these deficiencies ; even if she does 
 not herself excel in any of the accomplishments which 
 her daughters are learning, her knowledge of their 
 minds, her taste, her judgment, her affection, her super- 
 intending intelligence, will be of inestimable value to 
 her children. If she has skill in any accomplishment, 
 she will, for the first years of her daughters' lives, be 
 undoubtedly the best person to instruct them. By skill, 
 we do not mean superior talents, or proficiency in music 
 or drawing; without these, she may be able to teach all 
 that is necessary in the early part of education. One 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 389 
 
 of the best motives which a woman can have to cultivate 
 her talents after she marries, is the hope and behef that 
 she may be essentially serviceable in the instruction of 
 her family. And that she may be essentially service- 
 able, let no false humility lead her to doubt. She need 
 not be anxious for the rapid progress of her little pupils ; 
 she need noi be terrified if she see their equals in age 
 surpass them under what she thinks more able tuition ; 
 she may securely satisfy herself, that if she but inspires 
 her children with a desire to excel, with the habits of 
 attention and industry, they will certainly succeed, 
 sooner or later, in whatever it is desirable that they 
 should learn. The exact age at which the music, 
 dancing, and drawing masters should begin their in- 
 structions, need not be fixed. If a mother should not be 
 so situated as to be able to procure the best masters for 
 her daughters while they are yet children, she need not 
 be in despair; a rapid progress is made in a short time 
 by well-educated young people ; those who have not 
 acquired any bad habits are easily taught : it should, 
 therefore, seem prudent, if the best masters cannot be 
 procured at any given period of education, rather to 
 wait patiently, than to hazard their first impressions, 
 and the first habits which might be given by any inferior 
 technical instruction. It is said that the celebrated 
 musician Timotheus, whose excellence in his art Alex- 
 ander the conqueror of the world was forced to acknowl- 
 edge, when pupils flocked to him from all parts of the 
 world, had the prudence to demand double entrance 
 money from every scholar who had had any other music- 
 master. 
 
 Besides the advantage of being entirely free from 
 other bad habits, children who are not taught by inferior 
 masters will not contract habits of listless application. 
 Under the eye of an indolent person, children seldom 
 give their entire attention to what they are about. 
 They become mere machines ; and without using their 
 own understanding in the least, have recourse to the 
 convenient master upon every occasion. The utmost 
 that children in such circumstances can learn, is, all the 
 technical part of the art which the master can teach. 
 When the master is at last dismissed, and her education 
 completed, the pupil is left both fatigued and helpless. 
 "Few have been taught to any purpose, who have not 
 been their own teachers," says Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
390 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 This reflection upon the art of teaching, may, perhaps, 
 be too general ; but those persons who look back upon 
 their education, will, in many respects, allow it to be 
 just. They will perceive that they have been too much 
 taught, that they have learned every thing which thej" 
 know as an art, and nothing as a science. Few people 
 have sufficient courage to recommence their own edu- 
 cation, and for this reason few people get beyond a 
 certain point of mediocrity. It is easy to them to prac- 
 tise the lessons which they have learned, if they practise 
 them in intellectual darkness ; but if you let in upon 
 them one ray of philosophic light, you dazzle and con- 
 found them, so that they cannot even perform their cus- 
 tomary feats. A young man,* who had been blind from 
 his birth, had learned to draw a cross, a circle, and a 
 square, with great accuracy ; when he was twenty, his 
 eyes were couched, and when he could see perfectly 
 well, he was desired to draw his circle and square. His 
 new sense of seeing, so far from assisting him in this 
 operation, was extremely troublesome to him ; though 
 he took more pains than usual, he performed very ill : 
 confounded by the new difficulty, he concluded that sight 
 was useless in all operations to be performed by the 
 hand, and he thought his eyes would be of no use to him 
 in future. How many people find their reason as useless 
 and troublesome to them as this young man found his 
 eyesight. 
 
 While we are learning any mechanical operation, or 
 while we are acquiring any technical art, the mind is 
 commonly passive. In the first attempts, perhaps, we 
 reason or invent ways of abridging our own labour, and 
 the awkwardness of the unpractised hand is assisted by 
 ingenuity and reflection ; but as we improve in manual 
 dexterity, attention and ingenuity are no longer ex- 
 erted ; we go on habitually without thought. — Thought 
 would probably interrupt the operation, and break the 
 chain of associated actions. f An artificer stops his 
 hand the moment you ask him to explain what he is 
 about : he can work and talk of indiff'erent objects ; but 
 if he reflects upon the manner in which he performs 
 certain sleight of hand parts of his business, it is ten to 
 
 * See Storia di quattro fratelli nati ciechi e guariti coll' estrazione 
 delle cateratte. — Di Francesco Buzzi. 
 ■*■ See Zoonomia. 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 391 
 
 one but he cannot go on with them. A man who writes 
 a free running hand, goes on without thinking of the 
 manner in which he writes; fix his attention upon the 
 manner in which he holds his pen, or forms his letters, 
 and he probably will not write quite so fast, or so well 
 as usual. When a girl first attempts to dress herself at 
 a glass, the glass perplexes, instead of assisting her, be- 
 cause she thinks and reasons about every motion ; but 
 when by habit she has learned to move her hands in 
 obedience to the flugel image,* which performs its ex- 
 ercise in the mirror, no farther thought is employed. 
 Make the child observe that she moves her left hand 
 forward when the image in the glass moves in a con- 
 trary manner, turn the child's attention to any of her 
 own motions, and she will make mistakes as she did be- 
 fore her habits were formed. 
 
 Many occupations which are generally supposed to 
 depend upon the understanding, and which do probably 
 depend in the first instance upon the understanding, be- 
 come by practice purely mechanical. This is the case 
 in many of the imitative arts. A person unused to 
 drawing, exerts a great deal of attention in copying any 
 new object ; but custom soon supplies the place of 
 thought. By custom,! as a great artist assures us, he 
 will become able to draw the human figure tolerably 
 correctly, with as little effort of the mind, as to trace 
 with a pen the letters of the alphabet. 
 
 We must farther observe, that the habit of pursuing 
 any occupation which requires no mental exertion, in- 
 duces an indolence or incapacity of intellect. Mere 
 artists are commonly as stupid as mere artificers, and 
 these are little more than machines. 
 
 The length of time which is required to obtain practi- 
 cal skill and dexterity in certain accomplishments, is 
 one reason why there are so few people who obtain 
 any thing more than mechanical excellence. They be- 
 come the slaves of custom, and they become proud of 
 their slavery. At first they might have considered cus- 
 tom as a tyrant ; but when they have obeyed her for a 
 certain time, they do her voluntary homage ever after, 
 as to a sovereign by divine right. To prevent this spe- 
 
 * This word is sometimes by mistake spelled /w^a/, ox fugle, as in 
 fugle-man. 
 + Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
392 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 cies of intellectual degradation, we must in education be 
 careful to rank mere mechanical talents below the ex- 
 ercise of the mental powers. Thus the ambition of 
 young- people will be directed to high objects, and all 
 inferior qualifications may be attained without contract- 
 ing the understanding. Praise children for patience, 
 for perseverance, for industry ; encourage them to rea- 
 son and to invent upon all subjects, and you may direct 
 their attention afterward as you think proper. But if 
 you applaud children merely for drawing a flower 
 neatly, or copying a landscape, without exciting their 
 ambition to any thing higher, you will never create 
 superior talents, or a superior character. The profi- 
 ciency that is made in any particular accomplishment, 
 at any given age, should not be considered so much, 
 even by those who highly value accomplishments, as 
 the power, the energy, that is excited in the pupil's mind, 
 from which future progress is ensured. The writing 
 and drawing automaton performs its advertised wonders 
 to the satisfaction of the spectators ; but the machine is 
 not " instinct with spirit ;" you cannot expect from its 
 pencil the sketch of a Raphael, or from its pen the 
 thoughts of a Shakspeare. It is easy to guide the hand, 
 but who can transfuse a soul into the image 1 
 
 It is not an uncommon thing to hear young people 
 who have been long under the tuition of masters, com- 
 plain of their own want of genius. They are sensible 
 that they have not made great progress in any of the 
 accomplishments which they have endeavoured to learn ; 
 they see others, who have not, perhaps, had what they 
 call such opportunities and advantages in their education, 
 suddenly surpass them ; this they attribute to natural 
 genius, and they say to themselves in despair, " Cer- 
 tainly I have no taste for drawing ; I have no genius for 
 music ; I have learned so many years, I have had so 
 many lessons from the best masters, and yet here is 
 such and such a one, who has had no master, who has 
 taught herself, and, perhaps, did not begin till late in life, 
 has got before me, because she has a natural genius for 
 these things. She must have a natural taste for them, 
 because she can sit whole hours at these things for her 
 own pleasure. Now I never would take a pencil in my 
 hand from my own choice ; and I am glad, at all events, 
 that the time for lessons and masters is over. My edu- 
 cation is finished, for I am of age." 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 393 
 
 The disgust and despair which are thus induced by an 
 injudicious education, absolutely defeat its own trivial 
 purposes. So that, whatever may be the views of pa- 
 rents, whether they consider ornamental accomplish- 
 ments as essential to their daughter's success in the 
 world, or whether they value them rather as secondary 
 objects, subordinate to her happiness ; whether they 
 wish their daughter actually to excel in any particular 
 accomplishment, or to have the power of excelling in 
 any to which circumstances may direct her, it is in all 
 cases advisable to cultivate the general power of the 
 pupil's understanding, instead of confining her to tech- 
 nical practices and precepts, under the eye of any master 
 who does not possess that which is the soul of every art. 
 
 We do not mean any illiberal attack upon masters ; 
 but in writing upon education, it is necessary to exam- 
 ine the utility of different modes of instruction, without 
 fear of offending any class of men. We acknowledge 
 that it is seldom found, that those who can communicate 
 their knowledge the best possess the most, especially if 
 this knowledge be that of an artist or a linguist. Before 
 any person is properly qualified to teach, he must have 
 the power of recollecting exactly how -^e learned; he 
 must go back, step by step, to the point at which he 
 began, and he must be able to conduct his pupil through 
 the same path, without impatience or precipitation. He 
 must not only have acquired a knowledge of the process 
 by which his own ideas and habits were formed, but he 
 must have extensive experience of the varieties of the 
 human mind. He must not suppose that the operations 
 of intellect are carried on in the same manner in all 
 minds; he must not imagine that there is but one 
 method of teaching, which will suit all persons alike. 
 The analogies which strike his own mind, the arrange- 
 ment of ideas which to him appears the most perspicu- 
 ous, to his pupil may appear remote and confused. He 
 must not attribute this to his pupil's inattention, stupid- 
 ity, or obstinacy ; but he must attribute it to the true 
 causes; the different association of ideas in different 
 minds, the different habits of thinking which arise from 
 their various tempers and previous education. He must 
 be acquainted with the habits of all tempers : the slow, 
 the quick, the inventive, the investigating ; and he must 
 adapt his instructions accordingly. There is something 
 more requisite : a master must not only know what he 
 R3 
 
394 PRACTICAL EDUCATION'. 
 
 professes to teach of his own peculiar art or science, 
 but he ought to know all its bearings and dependances. 
 He must be acquainted not only with the local topog- 
 raphy of his own district, but he must have the whole 
 map of human knowledge before him; and while he 
 dwells most upon his own province, he must yet be free 
 from local prejudices, and must consider himself as a 
 citizen of the world. Children who study geography 
 in small separate maps, understand, perhaps, the view 
 of each country tolerably well ; but we see them quite 
 puzzled when they are to connect these maps in their 
 idea of the world. They do not know the relative size 
 or situation of England or France ; they cannot find 
 London or Paris when they look for the first time upon 
 the globe, and every country seems to be turned upside 
 down in their imagination. Young people who learn 
 particular arts and sciences from masters who have 
 confined their view to the boundaries of each, without 
 liaving given an enlarged idea of the whole, are much in 
 the same situation with these unfortunate geographers. 
 
 The persisting to teach things separately which 
 ought to be taught as a whole, must prevent the progress 
 of mental cultivation.* The division and subdivision 
 of different parts of education, which are monopolized 
 as trades by the masters who profess to teach them, 
 must tend to increase and perpetuate error. These in- 
 tellectual castes are pernicious. 
 
 It is said that the Persians had masters to teach their 
 children each separate virtue: one master to teach jus- 
 tice, another fortitude, another temperance, and so on. 
 How these masters could preserve the boundaries of 
 their several moral territories, it is not easy to imagine, 
 especially if they all insisted upon independent sover- 
 eignty. There must have been some danger, surely, of 
 their disputing with each other concerning the impor- 
 tance of their respective professions, like the poor 
 bourgeois gentilhomme's dancing-master, music-master, 
 master of morality, and master of philosophy, who all 
 fell to blows to settle their pretensions, forgetful of the 
 presence of their pupil. Masters who are only ex- 
 pected to teach one thing, may be sincerely anxious for 
 the improvement of their pupils in that particular, with- 
 out being in the least interested for their general char- 
 
 * Condillac. 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 395 
 
 acter or happiness. Thus the drawing-master has done 
 his part, and is satisfied if he teaches his pupil to draw 
 well: it is no concern of his what her temper may be, 
 any more than wliat sort of hand she writes, or how she 
 dances. The dancing-master, in his turn, is wholly in- 
 different about the young lady's progress in drawing; 
 all he undertakes is to teach her to dance. 
 
 We mention these circumstances to show parents 
 that masters, even when they do the utmost that they 
 engage to do, cannot educate their children ; they can 
 only partially instruct them in particular arts. Parents 
 must themselves preside over the education of their 
 children, or must entirely give them into the care of 
 some person of an enlarged and philosophic mind, who 
 can supply all the deficiencies of common masters, and 
 who can take advantage of all the positive good that can 
 be obtained from existing institutions, ^uch a pre- 
 ceptor or governess must possess extensive knowledge, 
 and chat superiority of mind which sees the just pro- 
 portion and value of every acquisition, which is not to 
 be overawed by authority, or dazzled by fashion. Under 
 the eye of such persons, masters will keep precisely 
 their proper places ; they will teach all they can teach, 
 without instilling absurd prejudices, or inspiring a spirit 
 of vain rivalship ; nor will masters be suffered to continue 
 their lessons when they have nothing more to teach. 
 
 Parents who do not think that they have leisure, or 
 feel that they have capacit)'-, to take the entire direction 
 of their children's education upon themselves, will trust 
 this important oflice to a governess. The inquiry con- 
 cerning the value of female accomplishments, has been 
 purposely entered into before we could speak of the 
 choice of a governess, because the estimation in which 
 these are held will very much determine parents in their 
 choice. 
 
 If what has been said of the probability of a decline 
 in the public taste for what are usually called accom- 
 plishments ; of their little utility to the happiness of 
 families and individuals ; of the waste of time, and 
 waste of the higher powers of the mind in acquiring 
 them ; if what has been observed on any of these points 
 is allowed to be just, we shall have little difficulty in 
 pursuing the same principles farther. In the choice of 
 a governess we should not then consider her fashion- 
 able accomplishments as her best recommendations ; 
 
396 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 these will be only secondary objects. We shall exannine, 
 with more anxiety, whether she possess a sound, dis- 
 criminating, and enlarged understanding: whether her 
 mind be free from prejudice ; whether she has steadi- 
 ness of temper to pursue her own plans ; and, above all, 
 whether she has that species of integrity which will 
 justify a parent in trusting a child to her care. We 
 shall attend to her conversation and observe her man- 
 ners, with scrupulous minuteness. Children are imitative 
 animals, and they are peculiarly disposed to imitate the 
 language, manners, and gestures, of those with whom 
 they live, and to whom they look up with admiration. 
 In female education, too much care cannot be taken to 
 form all those habits in morals and in manners which 
 are distinguishing characteristics of amiable women. 
 These habits must be acquired early, or they will never 
 appear easy or graceful ; they will necessarily be formed 
 by those who see none but good models. 
 
 We have already pointed out the absolute necessity 
 of union among all those who are concerned in a child's 
 education. A governess must either rule or obey, de- 
 cidedly. If she do not agree with the child's parents in 
 opinion, she must either know how to convince them 
 by argument, or she must with strict integrity conform 
 her practice to their theories. There are few parents 
 who will choose to give up the entire care of their 
 children to any governess ; therefore, there will prob- 
 ably be some points in which a difference of opinion 
 will arise. A sensible woman will never submit to be 
 treated, as governesses are in some families, like the ser- 
 vant who was asked by his master what business he had 
 to think: nor will a woman of sense or temper insist 
 upon her opinions without producing her reasons. She 
 will thus ensure the respect and the confidence of en- 
 lightened parents. 
 
 It is surely the interest of parents to treat the person 
 who educates their children with that perfect equality 
 and kindness which will conciliate her affection, and 
 which will at the same time preserve her influence and 
 authority over her pupils. And it is with pleasure we 
 observe, that the style of behaviour to governesses, in 
 wellbred families, is much changed within these few 
 years. A governess is no longer treated as an upper 
 servant, or as an intermediate being between a servant 
 and a gentlewoman : she is now treated as the friend 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 397 
 
 and companion of the family ; and she must, conse- 
 quently, have warm and permanent interest in its pros- 
 perity : she becomes attached to her pupils from grati- 
 tude to their parents, from sympathy, from generosity, 
 as well as from the strict sense of duty. 
 
 In fashionable life there is, however, some danger that 
 parents should go into extremes in their behaviour 
 towards their governesses. Those who disdain the idea 
 of assuming superiority of rank and fortune, and who 
 desire to treat the person who educates their children as 
 their equal, act with perfect propriety ; but if they make 
 her their companion in all their amusements, they go a 
 step too far, and they defeat their own purposes. If a 
 governess attends the card-table and the assembly- 
 room ; if she is to visit and be visited, what is to be- 
 come of her pupils in her absence 1 They must be left 
 to the care of servants. There are some ladies who 
 will not accept of any invitation in which the govern- 
 ess of their children is not included. This may be done 
 from a good motive, but, surely, it is unreasonable ; for 
 the very use of a governess is to supply the mother's 
 place in her absence. Cannot this be managed better ! 
 Cannot the mother and governess both amuse them- 
 selves at different times 1 There would then be perfect 
 equality ; the governess would be in the same society, 
 and would be treated with the same respect, without 
 neglecting her duty. The reward which is given to 
 women of abilities and of unblemished reputation, who 
 devote themselves to the superintendence of the educa- 
 tion of young ladies in the higher ranks of life, ought to 
 be considerably greater than it is at present : it ought to 
 be such as to excite women to cultivate their talents 
 and their understandings, with a view to this profession. 
 A profession we call it, for it should be considered as 
 such ; as an honourable profession, which a gentlewoman 
 might follow without losing any degree of the estima- 
 tion in which she is held by what is called the ivorld. 
 There is no employment, at present, by which a gentle- 
 woman can maintain herself, without losing something of 
 that respect, something of that rank in society, which 
 neither female fortitude nor male philosopliy wil- 
 lingly foregoes. The liberal professions are open to men 
 of small fortunes ; by presenting one similar resource 
 to women, we should give a strong motive for their 
 moral and intellectual improvement. 
 
398 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Nor does it seem probable that they should make a 
 disgraceful or imprudent use of their increasing influ- 
 ence and liberty in this case, because their previous 
 education must previously prepare them properly. The 
 misfortune of women has usually been, to have power 
 trusted to them before they were educated to use it 
 prudently. To say that preceptresses in the higher 
 ranks of life should be liberally rewarded, is but a vague 
 expression ; something specific should be mentioned, 
 wherever general utility is the object. Let us observe, 
 that many of the first dignities of the church are be- 
 stowed, and properly bestowed, upon men who have 
 educated the highest ranks of the English nobility. 
 Those who look with an evil eye upon these promotions, 
 do not fairly estimate the nalional importance of educa- 
 tion for the rich and powerful. No provision can be 
 I made for women who direct the education of the 
 daughters of nobility, any way equivalent to the pro- 
 vision made for preceptors by those who have influence 
 in the state. A pecuniary compensation is in tlie power 
 of opulent families. Three hundred a year, for twelve 
 or fourteen years, the space of time which a preceptress 
 must probiibly employ in the education of a young lady, 
 would be a suitable compensation for her care. With 
 this provision she would be enabled, after her pupil's 
 education was completed, either to settle in her own 
 family, or she would, in the decline of life, be happily 
 independent, — secure fr.om the temptation of marrying 
 for money. If a few munificent and enlightened indi- 
 viduals set the example of liberally rewarding merit in 
 this situation, many young women will probably appear 
 with talents and good qualities suited to the views of 
 the most sanguine parents. With good sense and 
 literary tastes, a young woman might instruct herself 
 during the first years of her pupil's childhood, and might 
 gradually prepare herself with all the necessary knowl- 
 edge : according to the principles that have been sug- 
 gested, there would be no necessity for her being a 
 mistress of arts^ a performer in music, a painter, a lin- 
 guist, or a poetess. A general knowledge of literature 
 is indispensable ; and yet farther, she must have sufficient 
 taste and judgment to direct the literary talents of her 
 pupils. 
 
 With respect to the literary education of the female 
 sex, the arguments on both sides of the question have 
 
FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. 399 
 
 already been stated, with all the impartiality in cur 
 power, in another place.* Without obtruding a detail 
 of the same arguments again upon the public, it will be 
 sufficient to profess tne distinct opinion, which a longer 
 consideration of the subject has yet more fully con- 
 firmed. That it will tend to the happiness of society in 
 general, that women should have tlieir understandings 
 cultivated and enlarged as much as possible ; that the 
 happiness of domestic life, the virtues and the powers 
 of pleasing in the female sex, the yet more desirable 
 power of attaching those worthy of their love and 
 esteem, will be increased by the judicious cultivation of 
 the female understanding, more than by all that modern 
 gallantry or ancient chivalry could devise in favour of 
 the sex. Much prudence and ability are requisite to 
 conduct properly a young woman's literary education. 
 Her imagination must not be raised above the taste for 
 necessary occupations, or the numerous small, but not 
 trifling, pleasures of domestic life : her mind must be 
 enlarged, yet the delicacy of her manners must be pre- 
 served : her knowledge must be various, and her powers 
 of reasoning unawed by authority ; yet she must habitu- 
 ally feel that nice sense of propriety which is at once 
 the guard and the charm of every feannine virtue. By 
 early caution, unremitting, scrupulous caution in the 
 choice of the books which are put into the hands of 
 girls, a mother or a preceptress may fully occupy and 
 entertain her pupils, and excite in their minds a taste for 
 propriety, as well as a taste for hterature. It cannot be 
 necessary to add more than this general idea, that a 
 mother ought to be answerable to her daughter's hus- 
 band for the books her daughter had read, as well as for 
 the company she had kept. 
 
 Those observations which apply equally to the cul- 
 tivation of the understanding both of men and of women, 
 we do not here mean to point out : we would speak onl}'^ 
 of what may be peculiar to female education. From 
 the study of the learned languages, women, by custom, 
 fortunately for them, are exempted : of ancient litera- 
 ture they may, in translations which are acknowledged 
 to be excellent, obtain a sufficient knowledge, without 
 paying too much time and labour for this classic pleas- 
 ure. Confused notions from fashionable publications* 
 
 * See Letters for Literary Ladies. 
 
400 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 from periodical papers, and comedies, have made their 
 way into common conversation, and thence have as- 
 sumed an appearance of authority, and have been ex- 
 tremely disadvantageous to female education. Senti- 
 ment and ridicule have conspired to represent reason, 
 knowledge, and science, as unsuitable or dangerous to 
 women ; yet at the same time wit, and superficial ac- 
 quirements in literature, have been the object of admi- 
 ration in society ; so that this dangerous inference has 
 been drawn, almost without our perceiving its fallacy, 
 that superficial knowledge is more desirable in women 
 than accurate knowledge. This principle must lead to 
 innumerable errors ; it must produce continual contra- 
 dictions in the course of education : instead of making 
 women more reasonable and less presuming, it will 
 render them at once arrogant and ignorant ; full of pre- 
 tensions, incapable of application, and unfit to hear them- 
 selves convinced. Whatever young women learn, let 
 them be taught accurately ; let them know ever so little 
 apparently, they will know much if they have learned 
 that little well. A girl who runs through a course of 
 natural history, hears something about chymistry, has 
 been taught something of botany, and who knows but 
 just enough of these to make her fancy that she is well 
 informed, is in a miserable situation, in danger of be- 
 coming ridiculous, and insupportably tiresome to men of 
 sense and science. But let a woman know any one thing 
 completely, and she will have sufficient understanding 
 to learn more, and to apply what she has been taught so 
 as to interest men of generosity and genius in her fa- 
 vour. The knowledge of the general principles of any 
 science, is very different from superficial knowledge of 
 the science ; perhaps, from not attending to this distinc- 
 tion, or from not understanding it, many have failed in 
 female education. Some attempt will be made to mark 
 this distinction practically, when we come to speak of 
 the cultivation of the memory, invention, and judgment. 
 No intelligent preceptress will, it is hoped, find any diffi- 
 culty in the application of the observations she may 
 meet with in the chapters on imagination, sympathy and 
 sensibility, vanity and temper. The masculine pronoun 
 he, has been used for grammatical convenience, not at 
 all because we agree with the prejudiced and uncour- 
 teous grammarian, who asserts, " that the masculine is 
 the more worthy gender." 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 401 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MEMORY AND INVENTION. 
 
 Before we bestow many years of time and pains upon 
 any object, it may be prudent to afford a few minutes 
 previously to ascertain its precise value. Many per- 
 sons have a vague idea of the great value of memory, 
 and, without analyzing their opinion, they resolve to 
 cultivate the memories of their children as much, and 
 as soon, as possible. So far from having determined the 
 value of this talent, we shall find that it will be difficult 
 to give a popular definition of a good memory. Some 
 people call that a good memory which retains the great- 
 est number of ideas for the longest time. Others prefer 
 a recollective to a retentive memory, and value not so 
 much the number, as the selection, of facts ; not so 
 much the mass or even the antiquity of accumulated 
 treasure, as the power of producing current specie for 
 immediate use. Memory is sometimes spoken of as if 
 it were a faculty admirable in itself, without any union 
 with the other powers of the mind. Among those who 
 allow that memory has no independent claim to regard, 
 there are yet many who believe, that a superior degree 
 of memory is essential to the successful exercise of the 
 higher faculties, such as judgment and invention. The 
 degree in which it is useful to those powers, has not, 
 however, been determined. Those who are governed 
 in their opinions by precedent and authority, can pro- 
 duce many learned names to prove that memory was 
 held in the highest estimation among the great men of 
 antiquity ; it was cultivated with much anxiety in their 
 public institutions, and in their private education. But 
 there were many circumstances which formerly con- 
 tributed to make a great memory essential to a great 
 man. In civil and military employments, among the 
 ancients, it was in a high degree requisite. Generals 
 were expected to know by heart the names of the sol- 
 diers in their armies ; demagogues who hoped to please 
 the people, were expected to know the names of all 
 
402 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 their fellow-citizens.* Orators who did not speak ex- 
 tempore, were obhged to get their long orations by rote. 
 Those who studied science or philosophy, were obliged 
 to cultivate their memory with incessant care, because, 
 if they frequented tiie schools for instruction, they treas- 
 ured up the sayings of the masters of different sects, 
 and learned their doctrines only by oral instruction. 
 Manuscripts were frequently got by heart by those who 
 were eager to secure the knowledge they contained, 
 and who had not opportunities of recurring to the origi- 
 nals. It is not surprising, therefore, that memory, to 
 which so much was trusted, should have been held in 
 such high esteem. 
 
 At the revival of literature in Europe, before the dis- 
 covery of the art of printing, it was scarcely possible to 
 make any progress m the literature of the age, without 
 possessing a retentive memory. A man who had read 
 a few manuscripts and could repeat them, was a wonder 
 and a treasure : he could travel from place to place, and 
 live by his learning; he was a circulating library to a 
 nation, and the more booivs he could carry in his head, 
 the better: he was certain of an admiring audience, if 
 he could repeat what Aristotle or Saint Jerome had 
 written ; and he had far more encouragement to engrave 
 the words of others on his memory, than to nivent or 
 judge for himself. 
 
 In the twelfth century, above six hundred scholars 
 assembled in the forests of Champagne, to hear the lec- 
 tures of the learned Abeillard ; they made themselves 
 huts of the boughs of trees, and in this new academic 
 grove were satisfied to go ahiiost without the necessa- 
 ries of life. In the specimens of Abeillard's -composi- 
 tion which are handed down to us, we may discover 
 proofs of his havmg been vain of a surprising memory; 
 it seems to have been the superior faculty of his mind: 
 his six hundred pupils could carry away with them only 
 so much of liis learning as tiiey could get by heart du- 
 ring his course of lectures ; and he who had the best 
 memory, must have been best paid for his journey.f 
 
 The art of printing, by multiplying copies so as to put 
 them within the easy reference of all classes of people, 
 has reduced the value of this species of retentive mem- 
 
 * See Plutarch. Quintilian. 
 
 t Berrington's History of the Lives of Abeillard and Heloisa, p. 173. 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 403 
 
 cry. It is better to refer to the book itself, than to the 
 man who has read the book. Knowledge is now ready 
 classed for use, and it is safely stored up in the great 
 commonplace books of public libraries. A man of lit- 
 erature need not encumber his memory with whole pas- 
 sages from the authors he wants to quote ; he need only 
 mark down the page, and the words are safe. 
 
 Mer3 erudition does not in these days ensure perma- 
 nent fame. The names of the Abbe de Longuerue and 
 of the Florentine librarian Magliabechi, excite no vivid 
 emotions in the minds of those who have heard of them 
 before ; and there are many, perhaps not illiterate per- 
 sons, who would not be ashamed to own that they had 
 never heard of them at all. Yet these men were both 
 of them, but a few years ago, remarkable for extraordi- 
 nary memory and erudition. When M. de Longuerue 
 was a child, he was such a prodigy of memory and 
 knowledge, that Louis XIV., passing through the abbe's 
 province, stopped to see and hear him. When he grew 
 up, Paris consulted him as the oracle of learning. His 
 erudition, says d'Alembert,* was not only prodigious, 
 but actually terrible. Greek and Hebrew were more 
 familiar to him than his native tongue. His memory 
 was so well furnished with historic facts, with chrono- 
 logical and topographical knowledge, that upon hearing 
 a person assert, in conversation, that it would be a diffi- 
 cult task to write a good historical description of France,! 
 he asserted that he could do it from memory, without 
 consulting any books. All he asked was to have some 
 maps of France laid before him : these recalled to his 
 mind the history of each province, of all the fiefs of the 
 crown of each city, and even of each distinguished no- 
 bleman's seat in the kingdom. He wrote his folio his- 
 tory in a year. It was admired as a great curiosity in 
 manuscript; but when it came to be printed, sundry 
 gross errors appeared : he was obliged to take out sev- 
 eral leaves in correcting the press. The edition was 
 very expensive, and the work at last would have been 
 rather more acceptable to the public if the author had 
 not written it from memory. Love of the wonderful 
 must yield to esteem for the useful. 
 
 The effect which all this erudition had upon the Abb6 
 
 * Eloge de M. L'Abbe d'Alary. 
 
 t Marquis d'Argenson's Essays, p. 385. 
 
404 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 de Longuerue's taste, judgment, and imagination, is 
 worth our attention. Some of his opinions speak suffi- 
 ciently for our purpose. He was of opinion that the 
 English have never done any good,* since they renounced 
 the study of Greek and Arabic for Geometry and Phys- 
 ics. He was of opinion that two antiquarian books upon 
 Homer, viz., Antiquitates Homerica. and Homeri Gnomo- 
 ligia, are preferable to Homer himself. He would rath- 
 er have them, he declared, because with these he had 
 all that was useful in the poet, without being obliged to 
 go through long stories, which put him to sleep. " As 
 for that madman Ariosto," said he, " I sometimes divert 
 myself with him." One odd volume of Racine was the 
 only French book to be found in his library. His eru- 
 dition died with him, and the world has not profited 
 much by his surprising memory. 
 
 The librarian Magliabechi was no less famous than 
 M. de Longuerue for his memory, and he was yet more 
 strongly affected by the mania for books. His appetite 
 for them was so voracious, that he acquired the name 
 of the glutton of literature.! Before he died, he had 
 swallowed six large rooms full of books. Whether he had 
 time to digest any of them we do not know, but we are 
 sure that he wished it ; for the only line of his own com- 
 position which he has left for the instruction of posterity, 
 is round a medal. The medal represents him sitting 
 with a book in his hand, and with a great number of 
 books scattered on the floor round him. Tlie candid in- 
 scription signifies, that to become learned it is not suffi- 
 cient to read much, if we read without reflection. The 
 names of Franklin and of Shakspeare are known wher- 
 ever literature is cultivated, to all who have any preten- 
 sions to science or to genius ; yet they were not men of 
 extraordinary erudition, nor from their works should we 
 judge that memory was their predominant faculty. It 
 may be said that a superior degree of memory was es- 
 sential to the exercise of their judgment and invention ; 
 that without having treasured up in his memory a vari- 
 ety of minute observations upon human nature, Shak- 
 speare could never have painted the passions with so 
 bold and just a hand ; that if Franklin had not accurately 
 remembered his own philosophical observations and 
 
 * D'Alembert's Eloge de M. d'Alary. 
 
 t Curiosities of Literature, vol. ii. page 145. 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 406 
 
 those of others, he never would have made those 
 discoveries which have immortalized his name. Ad- 
 mitting the justice of these assertions, we see that mem- 
 ory to great men is but a subordinate servant, a treas- 
 urer who receives, and is expected to keep faithfully- 
 whatever is committed to his care ; and not only to pre- 
 serve faithfully all deposites, but to produce them at the 
 moment they are wanted. There are substances which 
 are said to imbibe and retain the rays of light, and to 
 emit them only in certain situations. As long as they 
 retain the rays, no eye regards them. 
 
 It has often been observed that a recollective and a 
 retentive memory are seldom found united. If this were 
 true, and we had our choice of either, which should we 
 prefer 1 For the purposes of ostentation, perhaps the 
 one ; for utility, the other. A person who could repeat 
 from beginning to end the whole Economy of Human 
 Life, which he had learned in his childhood, might, if we 
 had time to sit still and listen to him, obtain our admira- 
 tion for his extraordinarily retentive memory ; but the 
 person who, in daily occurrences or interesting affairs, 
 recollects at the proper time what is useful to us, ob- 
 tains from our gratitude something more than vain ad- 
 miration. To speak accurately, we must remark that 
 retentive and recollective memories are but relative 
 terms: the recollective memory must be retentive of all 
 that it recollects ; the retentive memory cannot show 
 itself till the moment it becomes recollective. But we 
 value either precisely in proportion as it is useful and 
 agreeable. 
 
 Just at the time when philosophers were intent upon 
 trying experiments in electricity, Dr. Heberden recol- 
 lected to have seen, many years before, a small elec- 
 trical stone, called tourmalin,* in the possession of Dr. 
 Sharpe at Cambridge. It was the only one known in 
 England at that lime. Dr. Heberden procured it ; and 
 several curious experiments were made and verified with 
 it. In this instance, it is obvious that we admire the 
 retentive, local memory of Dr. Heberden, merely be- 
 cause it became recollective and useful. Had the tour- 
 malin never been wanted, it would have been a matter 
 of indifference whether the direction for it at Dr. vSharpe's 
 at Cambridge had been remembered or forgotten. There 
 
 * Priestley on Electricity, page 317. 
 
406 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 was a man* who undertook, in going from Temple Bar 
 to the farthest part of Cheapside and back again, to enu- 
 merate at his return every sign on each side of the way 
 in its order, and to repeat them, if it should be required, 
 either backward or forward. This he exactly accom- 
 plished. As a playful trial of memory, this aifords us a 
 moment's entertainment ; but if we were to be serious 
 upon the subject, we should say it was a pity that the 
 man did not use his extraordinary memory for some 
 better purpose. The late King of Prussia, when he in- 
 tended to advance Trenck in the army, upon his first 
 introduction, gave him a list of the strangest names 
 which could be picked out, to learn by rote. Trenck 
 learned them quickly, and the king was much pleased 
 with this instance of his memory ; but Frederick would 
 certainly never have made such a trial of the abilities 
 of Voltaire. 
 
 We cannot always foresee what facts may be useful 
 and what may be useless to us, — otherwise the cultiva- 
 tion of the memory might be conducted by unerring 
 rules. In the common business of life, people regulate 
 their memories by the circumstances in which they hap- 
 pen to be placed. A clerk in a counting-house, by prac- 
 tice learns to remember the circumstances, affairs, and 
 names of numerous merchants, — of his master's cus- 
 tomers, the places of their abode, and perhaps something 
 of their peculiar humours and manners. A fine lady re- 
 members her visiting list, and perhaps the dresses and 
 partners of every couple at a crowded ball ; she finds all 
 these particulars a useful supply for daily conversation, 
 she therefore remembers them with care. An amateur 
 who is ambitious to shine in the society of literary men, 
 collects literary anecdotes, and retails them whenever 
 occasion permits. Men of sense, who cultivate their 
 memories for useful purposes, are not obliged to treas- 
 ure up heterogeneous facts : by reducing particulars to 
 general principles, and by connecting them with proper 
 associations, they enjoy all the real advantages, while 
 they are exempt from the labour of accumulation. 
 
 Mr. Stewart has, with so much ability, pointed out 
 the effects of systematic arrangement of writing, read- 
 ing, and the use of technical contrivances in the cultiva- 
 tion of the memory, that it would be a presumptuous 
 
 * Fuller, author of the Worthies of England. See Curio.sities of 
 Literature, vol. I. 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 407 
 
 and unnecessary attempt to expatiate in other words 
 upon the same subject. It may not be useless, however, 
 to repeat a few of his observations, because, in consider- 
 ing what farther improvement may be made, it is always 
 essential to have fully in our view what is already 
 knowm. 
 
 " Philosophic arrangement assists the memory, by 
 classing under a few principles a number of apparently 
 dissimilar and unconnected particulars. The habit, for 
 instance, of attending to the connexion of cause and 
 effect, presents a multitude of interesting analogies to the 
 minds of men of science, which escape other persons ; 
 the vulgar feel no pleasure in contemplating objects that 
 appear remote from common life , and they find it ex- 
 tremely difficult to remember observations and reasonings 
 which are foreign to their customary course of associated 
 ideas. Even literary and ingenious people, when they 
 begin to learn any art or science, usually complain that 
 their memory is not able to retain all the terms and 
 ideas which pour in upon them with perplexing rapidity. 
 In time this difficulty is conquered, not so much by the 
 strength of the memory as by the exercise of judgment : 
 they learn to distinguish and select the material terms, 
 facts, and arguments, from those that are subordinate, 
 and they class them under general heads, to reheve the 
 memory from all superfluous labour. 
 
 " In all studies there is some prevalent associating prin- 
 ciple, which gradually becomes familiar to our minds, 
 but which we do not immediately discover in our first 
 attempts. In poetry, resemblance ; in philosophy, cause 
 and effect ; in mathematics, demonstrations continually 
 recur ; and, therefore, each is expected by persons who 
 have been used to these respective studies. 
 
 " The habit of committing our knowledge to writing 
 assists the memory, because, in writing, we detain cer- 
 tain ideas long enough in our view to perceive all their 
 relations ; we use fixed and abbreviated signs for all our 
 thoughts ; with the assistance of these, we can prevent 
 confusion in our reasonings. We can, without fatigue, 
 by the help of words, letters, figures, or algebraic signs, 
 go through a variety of mental processes, and solve 
 many difficult problems, which, without such assistance, 
 must have been too extensive for our capacities. 
 
 " If our books be well chosen, and if we read with dis- 
 crimination and attention, reading will improve the mem- 
 
408 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 ory, because, as it increases our knowledge, it increases 
 our interest in every new discovery and in every new 
 combination of ideas." 
 
 We agree entirely with Mr. Stewart in his observa- 
 tions upon technical helps to the memory ; they are 
 hurtful to the understanding, because they break the 
 general habits of philosophic order in the mind. There 
 is no connexion of ideas between the memorial lines, for 
 instance, in Gray's Memoria Technica, the history of the 
 kings or emperors, and the dates that we wish to re- 
 member. However, it may be advantageous in educa- 
 tion to use such contrivances, to assist our pupils in re- 
 membering those technical parts of knowledge which 
 are sometimes valued above their worth in society. 
 
 The facts upon which the principles of any science 
 are founded, should never be learned by rote in a tech- 
 nical manner. But the names and the dates of the reigns 
 of a number of kings and emperors, if they must be re- 
 membered by children, should be learned in the manner 
 which may give them the least trouble.* 
 
 It is commonly asserted that our memory is to be 
 improved by exercise ; exercise may be of different 
 kinds, and we must determine what sort is best. Repeti- 
 tion is found to fix words, and sometimes ideas, strongly 
 in the mind ; the words of the burden of a song which we 
 have frequently heard, are easily and long remembered. 
 When we want to get any thing by rote, we repeat it 
 over and over again, till the sounds seem to follow each 
 other habitually, and then we say we have them per- 
 fectly by rote.f The regular recurrence of sounds, at 
 stated intervals, much assists us. In poetry, the rhymes, 
 the cadence, the alliteration, the peculiar structure of 
 the poet's lines, aid us. All these are mechanical helps 
 to the memory. Repetition seems much more agree- 
 able to some people than to others ; but it may be 
 doubted whether a facility and propensity to repetition 
 be favourable to rational memory. While we repeat, 
 we exclude all thought from the mind ; we form a habit 
 of saying certain sounds in a certain order; but if this 
 habit be afterward broken by any trifling external cir- 
 cumstances, we lose all our labour. We have no means 
 of recollecting what we have learned in this manner. 
 
 * See chapter on Books, and on Geography, 
 t Dr. Darwin. Zoonomia. 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 409 
 
 Once gone, it is gone for ever. It depends but upon one 
 principle of association. Those who exert ingenuity as 
 well as memory in learning by heart, may not, perhaps, 
 associate sounds with so much expedition, but they will 
 have the power of recollection in a greater degree. 
 They will have more chances in their favour, besides 
 the great power of voluntary exertion — a power which 
 few passive repeaters ever possess. The following 
 lines are easily learned : — 
 
 "Haste, then, ye spirits; to your charge repair; 
 The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care ; 
 The drops to thee, Rrillante, we consign, 
 And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine ; 
 Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favourite lock, 
 Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock." 
 
 To a person who merely learned the sounds in these 
 lines by rote, without knowing the sense of the words, 
 all the advantage of the appropriated names and offices 
 of the sylphs would be lost. No one, who has any 
 sense of propriety, can call these sylphs by wrong 
 names, or put them out of their places. Momentilla and 
 the watch, Zephyrettu and the fan, Crispissa and the 
 lock of hair, Brillante and the diamond drops, are so in- 
 timately associated, that they necessarily recur together 
 in the memory. The following celebrated lines on Envy, 
 some people will find easy, and others difficult, to learn 
 by heart : — 
 
 " Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue ; 
 But, like a shadow, proves the substance true ; 
 For envi'd wit, like Sol eclips'd, makes known 
 Th' opposing body's grossness, not its own. 
 "V^'hen first that sun too pow'rful beams displays, 
 It draws up vapour, which obscures its rays; 
 But ev'n those clouds at last adorn its way, 
 Reflect new glories, and augnient the day." 
 
 The flow of these lines is not particularly easy ; those 
 who trust merely to the power of reiteration in getting 
 them by rote, will find the task difficult ; those who 
 seize the ideas, will necessarily recollect their order, 
 and the sense will conduct them to their proper places 
 with certainty ; they cannot, for instance, make the 
 clouds adorn the sun's rays before the sun's powerful 
 beams have drawn up the vapours. This fixes the place 
 of the four last lines. The simile of merit and the 
 sun, and envy and the clouds, keeps each idea in its 
 
410 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 order ; if any one escapes, it is easily nmissed, and easily- 
 recalled. 
 
 We seldom meet with those who can give us an ac- 
 curate account of their own thoughts ; it is, therefore, 
 difficult to tell the different ways in which different peo- 
 ple manage their memory. We judge by the effects fre- 
 quently, that causes are the same, which sometimes are 
 entirely different. Thus, we in common conversation 
 should say, that two people had an equally good mem- 
 ory, who could repeat with equal exactness any 
 thing which they had heard or read. But in their meth- 
 ods of remembering, these persons might differ essen- 
 tially ; the one might have exerted much more judg- 
 ment and ingenuity in the conduct of his memory than 
 the other, and might thus have not only fatigued him- 
 self less, but might have improved his understanding, 
 -while the other learned merely by rote. When Dr. 
 Johnson reported the parliamentary debates for the 
 Gentleman's Magazine, his judgment, his habit of attend- 
 ing to the order in which ideas follow each other 
 in reasoning, his previous knowledge of the characters 
 and style of the different speakers, must considerably 
 have assisted his memory. His taste for literary com- 
 position must have shown him instantly where any 
 argument or allusion was misplaced, A connecting 
 phrase, or a link in a chain of reasoning, is missed as 
 readily by a person used to writing and argument, as a 
 word in a line of poetry is missed by a poetic ear. If 
 any thing has escaped the memory of persons who re- 
 member by general classification, they are not only by 
 their art able to discover that something is missing, but 
 they have a general direction where to find it ; they 
 know to what class of ideas it must belong ; they can 
 hunt from generals to particulars, till they are sure at 
 last of tracing and detecting the deserter ; they have 
 certain signs by which they know the object of wiiich 
 they are in search, and they trust with more certainty 
 to these characteristics than to the mere vague recol- 
 lection of liaving seen it before. We feel disposed to 
 trust the memory of those who can give us some reason 
 for what they remember. If they can prove to us that 
 their assertion could not, consistently with other facts, 
 be false, we admit the assertion into the rank of facts, 
 and their judgment thus goes surety for their menjory. 
 
 The following advertisement (taken from the Star of 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 411 
 
 the -list September, 1796) may show that experience 
 justifies these theoretic notions : 
 
 " LITERATURE. 
 
 *• A gentleman capable of reporting the debates in 
 parliament, is wanted for a London newspaper A busi- 
 ness of no such great difficulty as is generally iniagined 
 by those unacquainted with it. A tolerable good style, 
 and facility of composition, as Avell as a facility of 
 writing, together with a good memory {not an extraor- 
 dinary one) are all the necessary requisites. If a gen- 
 tleman writes shorthand, it is an advantage; but mem- 
 ory and composition are more important. 
 
 " The advertiser, conceiving that many gentlemen, 
 either in London or at the universities, or in other parts 
 of the kingdom, may think such a situation desirable, 
 takes this public method of enabling them to obtain it. 
 The salary, which will vary according to the talents of 
 the reporter, will at least afford a genteel subsistence, 
 and the business need not interrupt the pursuit of stud- 
 ies necessary for a more important profession. A gen- 
 tleman who has never tried parliamentary reporting^ tinll be 
 preferred by the advertiser, because he has observed, that 
 those who have last attempted it are now the best reporters^ 
 
 In the common mode of education, great exactness 
 of repetition is required from pupils. This seems to 
 be made a matter of too much importance. There are 
 circumstances in life, in which this talent is useful; but 
 its utility, perhaps, we shall find upon examination, is 
 overrated. 
 
 In giving evidence of words, dates, and facts, in a 
 court of justice, the utmost precision is requisite. The 
 property, lives, and characters of individuals, depend 
 upon this precision. 
 
 But we must observe, that after long detailed evi- 
 dence has been given by a number of witnesses, an ad- 
 vocate separates the material from the immaterial cir- 
 cumstances, and the judge in his charge again compres- 
 ses the arguments of the counsel, so that much of what 
 has been said during the trial might as well have been 
 omitted. All these superfluous ideas were remembered 
 to no purpose. A witness sometimes, if he be per- 
 mitted, would tell not only all that he remembers of the 
 circumstances about which he is examined, but also a 
 number of other circumstances, which are casually 
 S 2 
 
412 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 associated with these in his memory. An able advo- 
 cate rejects, by a quickness of judgment which appears 
 like intuition, all that is irrelevant to his argument and 
 his cause ; and it is by this selection that his memory, 
 in the evidence, perhaps, of twenty dit!erent people, is 
 able to retain all that is useful. When this heterogene- 
 ous mass of evidence is classed by his perspicuous ar- 
 rangement, his audience feel no difficulty either in 
 understanding or recollecting all which had before 
 appeared confused. Thus the exercise of the judgment 
 saves much of the labour of memory; labour which is not 
 merely unnecessary, but hurtful to our understanding. 
 
 In making observations upon subjects which are new 
 tons, we must be content to use our memory unassisted 
 at first by our reason ; we must treasure up the ore and 
 rubbish together, because we cannot immediately dis- 
 tinguish them from each other. But the sooner we can 
 separate them, the better. In the beginning of all ex- 
 perimental sciences, a number of useless particulars are 
 recorded, because they are not known to be useless ; 
 when, by comparing these, a few general principles are 
 discovered, the memory is immediately relieved, the 
 judgment and inventive faculty have power and liberty 
 to work, and tiien a rapid progress and great discoveries 
 are made. It is the misfortune of those who first cul- 
 tivate new sciences, that their memory is overloaded ; 
 but if those who succeed to them submit to the same 
 senseless drudgery, it is not their misfortune, but their 
 fault. Let us look over the history of those who have 
 made discoveries and inventions, we shall perceive, that 
 it has been by rejecting useless ideas that they have 
 first cleared their way to truth. Dr. Priestley's His- 
 tories of Vision and of Electricity, are as useful when 
 we consider them as histories of the human mind, as 
 when we read them as histories of science. Dr. Priest- 
 ley has published a catalogue of books,* from which 
 he gathered his materials. The, pains, he tells us, that 
 it cost him to compress and abridge the accounts which 
 ingenious men have given of their own experiments, 
 teach us how much our progress in real knowledge de- 
 pends upon rejecting all that is superfluous. When Si- 
 monides offered to teach Themistocles the art of mem- 
 ory, Tiiemistocles answered, "Rather teach me the art 
 of forgetting ; for I find that I remember much that I 
 
 * At the end of tlie History of Vision. 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 413 
 
 had better forget, and forget {consequently^ some things 
 which I wish to remember." 
 
 When any discovery or invention is completed, we are 
 frequently astonished at its obvious simplicity. The 
 ideas necessary to the discovery are seldom so numer- 
 ous as to fatigue our memory. Memory seems to have 
 been useful to inventors only as it presented a few ideas 
 in a certain happy connexion, as it presented them 
 faithfully and distinctly to view in the proper moment. 
 If we wish for examples of the conduct of the under- 
 standing, we need only look into Dr. Franklin's works. 
 He is so free from all affectation, he lays his mind so 
 fairly before us, that he is, perhaps, the best example 
 we can select. Those who are used to look at objects 
 in a microscope, say, that full as much depends upon the 
 object's being well prepared for inspection, as upon the 
 attention of the observer, or the excellence of the glass. 
 
 The first thing that strikes us, in looking over Dr. 
 Franknn's works, is the variety of his observations upon 
 different subjects. We might imagine that a very te- 
 nacious and powerful memory was necessary to register 
 all these ; but Dr. Franklin informs us, that it was his 
 constant practice to note down every hint as it occurred 
 to him : he urges his friends to do the same ; he observes, 
 that there is scarcely a day passes without our hearing 
 or seeing something which, if properly attended to, 
 might lead to useful discoveries. By thus committing 
 his ideas to writing, his mind was left at liberty to thmi. 
 No extraordinary ef!brt of memory was, even upon the 
 greatest occasions, requisite. A friend wrote to him to in- 
 quire how he was led to his great discovery of the identity 
 of lightning and electricity ; and how he first cam.e to 
 think of drawing down lightning from the clouds. Dr. 
 Franklin replies, that he could not answer better than by 
 giving an extract from the minutes he used to keep of 
 the experiments he made, with memoranda of such as he 
 purposed to make, the reasons for making them, and 
 the observations that rose upon them. By this extract, 
 says Dr. Franklin, you will see that the thouglit was 
 not so much an out of the way o?ie, but that it might have 
 occurred to any electrician.* 
 
 * " Nov. 7, 1749. Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these 
 particulars. 1. Giving light. 2. Colour of tlie hght. 3. Crooked 
 direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. 
 
414 PRACTICAL EDUCATION', 
 
 When tlie ideas are arranged in clear order, as we 
 see theni in this note, the analogy or induction to which 
 Dr. Frankhn was led appears easy. Why, then, had it 
 never been made by any other person ? Numbers of 
 ingenious men were at this time intent upon electricity. 
 The ideas which were necessary to this discovery 
 were not numerous or complicated. We may remark, 
 that one analogy connecting these observations to'gether, 
 they are more easily recollected ; and their being writ- 
 ten down for a particular purpose, on which Dr. Frank- 
 lin's mind was intent, must have made it still easier to 
 him to retain them. 
 
 The degree of memory he was forced to employ, is 
 thus reduced to a portion in which few people are de- 
 fective. Now, let us suppose that Dr. Franklin, at the 
 time he wrote his memorandum, had fully in his recol- 
 lection every previous experiment that had ever been 
 tried on electricity ; and not only these, but the theo- 
 ries, names, ages, and private history, of all the men 
 who had tried these experiments ; of what advantage 
 would this have been to him 1 He must have excluded 
 all these impertinent ideas successively as they rose be- 
 fore him, and he must have selected the fifteen useful 
 observations which we have mentioned, from this troub- 
 lesome multitude. The chance in such a selection 
 would have been against him ; the time employed in the 
 examination and rejection of all the unnecessary recol- 
 lections, would have been absolutely wasted. 
 
 We must wish that it were in our power, when we 
 make observations upon nature, or when we read the 
 reflections of others, to arrange our thoughts so as to 
 be ready when we v/ant to reason or invent. When 
 cards are dealt to us, we can sort our hand according to 
 the known probabilities of the game, and a new arrange- 
 ment is easily made when we hear what is trumps. 
 
 In collecting and sorting observations, Dr. Franklin 
 particularly excelled ; therefore we may safely con- 
 Crack or noise in exploding?. 7. Sitbsisling in water or ice. 8. 
 Rending bodies it passes tlirough. . 9. Destroying animals. 10. 
 Melting metals. 11. Firing inflanunable substances. 12. Sulphure- 
 ous smell. The electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not 
 know whether this property is in lightning. But since they agree 
 in all the particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it 
 not probable they agree likewise in this ? Let the experiment be 
 made." — Dr. Franklin''s Letters, page 322. 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 415 
 
 tinue to take him for our example. Wherever he hap- 
 pened to be, in a boat, in a mine, in a printer's shop, in 
 a crowded city or in the country, in Europe or America, 
 he displayed the same activity of observation. When 
 any thing, however trifling-, struck him which he could 
 not account for, he never rested till he had traced the 
 effect to its cause. Thus, after having made one remark, 
 he had fresh motive to collect facts, either to confirm 
 or refute an hypothesis ; his observations tending con- 
 sequently to some determinate purpose, they were ar- 
 ranged in the moment they were made, in the most 
 commodious manner, both for his memory and inven- 
 tion ; they were arranged either according to their ob- 
 vious analogies, or their relation to each other as cause 
 and effect. He had two useful methods of judging of 
 the value of his own ideas; he either considered 
 how they could be immediately applied to practical 
 improvements in the arts, or how they could lead 
 to the solution of any of the great problems in science. 
 Here we must again observe, that judgment saved the 
 labour of memory, A person who sets about to collect 
 facts at random, is little better than a magpie, who picks 
 up and lays by any odd bits of money he can light upon, 
 without knowing their use. 
 
 Miscellaneous observations which are made by those 
 who have no philosophy, may accidentally lead to some- 
 thing useful ; but here we admire the good fortune, and 
 not the genius, of the individuals who make such dis- 
 coveries : these are prizes drawn from the lottery of 
 science, which ought not to seduce us from the paths 
 of sober industry. How long may an observation, for- 
 tunately made, continue to be useless to mankind, 
 merely because it has not been reasoned upon ! The 
 trifling observation, that a straight stick appears bent in 
 water, was made many hundred years before the reason 
 of that appearance was discovered ! The invention of 
 the telescope might have been made by any person who 
 could have pursued this slight observation through all 
 its consequences. 
 
 Having now defined, or rather described, what we 
 mean by a good memory, we may consider how the 
 memory should be cultivated. In children, as well as 
 in men, the strength of that habit, or perhaps of that 
 power of the mind, which associates ideas together, 
 varies considerably. It is probable thai this difference 
 
416 I'RACTICAL EDUCATION, 
 
 may depend sometimes upon organization. A child 
 who is born with any defect in his eyes, cannot possi- 
 bly have the same pleasure in objects of sight which 
 those enjoy who have strong eyes : ideas associated 
 with these external objects are, therefore, not asso- 
 ciated witli pleasure, and, consequently, they are not 
 recollected with any sensations of pleasure. An inge- 
 nious writer* supposes that all the difference of capa- 
 city among men ultimately depends on their original 
 power of feeling pleasure or pain, and their consequent 
 different habits of attention. 
 
 When there is cny defect in a child's organization, 
 we must have recourse to physics, and not to meta- 
 physics ; but even among children who are apparently 
 in the full possession of idl their senses, we see very 
 different degrees of vivacity : those who have most vi- 
 vacity seldom take delight in repeating their ideas; 
 they are more pleased with novelty than prone to habit. 
 Those children who are deficient in vivacity are much 
 disposed to the easy, indolent pleasure, of repetition ; it 
 costs them less exertion to say or do the same thing 
 over again, than to attempt any thing new ; they are 
 uniformly good subjects to habit, because novelty has 
 no charms to seduce their attention. 
 
 The education of the memory in these two classes 
 of children ought not to be the same. Those who are 
 disposed to repetition should not be indulged in it, be- 
 cause it will increase their indolence ; they should be 
 excited by praise, by example, by sympathy, and by all 
 the strongest motives tluit we can employ. Their in- 
 terest in every thing around them must by all means be 
 increased : when they show eagerness about any thing, 
 no matter what it is, we may then exercise their 
 memory upon that subject with some hopes of success. 
 It is of importance that they should succeed in their 
 first trials, otherwise they will be discouraged from re- 
 peating their attempts, and they will distrust their own 
 memory in future. The fear of not remembering will 
 occupy, and agitate, and weaken their minds; they 
 should, therefore, be animated by hope. If they fail, at 
 all events let them not be reproached ; the mortification 
 they naturally feel is sufficient ; nor should they be left 
 to dwell upon their disappointment ; they should have 
 
 * Helvetius, " Sur I'Esprit." 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 417 
 
 a fresh and easier trial given to them, that they may re- 
 cover their own self-complacency as expeditiously as 
 possible. It may be said that there are children of 
 such a sluggish temperament, that they feel no pleasure 
 in success, and no mortification in perceiving their own 
 mental deficiencies. There are few children of this 
 description : scarcely any, perhaps, whose defects have 
 not been increased by education. Exertion has been 
 made so painful to them, that at length they have sunk 
 into apathy, or submitted in despair to the eternal 
 punishment of shame. 
 
 The mistaken notion that the memory must be exer- 
 cised only m books, has been often fatal to the pupils of 
 literary people. We remember best those things which 
 interest us most ; which are useful to us in conversa- 
 tion ; in our daily business or amusement. So do chil- 
 dren. On these things we should exercise their memory. 
 Tell a boy who has lost his top, to remember at such a 
 particular time to put you in mind of it, and if he does, 
 that you will give him another, he will probably remem- 
 ber your request after this better than you will your- 
 self. Affectionate children will easily extend their recol- 
 lective memories in the service of their friends and 
 companions. " Put me in mind to give your friend 
 what he asked for, and I will give it to him if )'ou re- 
 member it at the right time." It will be best to manage 
 these affViirs so that convenience, and not caprice, shall 
 appear to be your motive for the requests. The time 
 and place should be precisely fixed, and something 
 should be chosen which is likely to recall your request 
 at the appointed time. If you say, put me in mind of 
 such a thing the moment the cloth is taken away after 
 dinner ; or as soon as candles are brought into the 
 room ; or when I go by such a shop in our walk this 
 evening; here are things mentioned which will much 
 assist the young remembrancer : the moment the cloth 
 is taken away, or the candles come, he will recollect, 
 from association, that something is to be done ; that he 
 has something to do ; and presently he will make out 
 what that something is. 
 
 A good memory for business depends upon local, well- 
 arranged associations. The man of business makes an 
 artificial memory for himself out of the trivial occur- 
 rences of the day, and the hours as they pass recall 
 their respective occupations. Children can acquire 
 S3 
 
418 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 these habits very early in tlieir education ; they are 
 eager to give their companions an account of any thing 
 they have seen or heard ; their tutors should become 
 their companions, and encourage them by sympathy to 
 address these narrations to them. Children who for- 
 get their lessons in chronology and their pence tables, 
 can relate with perfect accuracy any circumstances 
 which have interested themselves. This shows that 
 there is no deficiency in their capacity. Every one 
 who has had any experience of the pleasure of talking, 
 knows how intimately it is connected with the pleas- 
 ure of being listened to. The auditors, consequently, 
 possess supreme power over narrative childhood ; with- 
 out using any artifice, by simply showing attention to 
 well-arranged and well-recollected narratives, and ceas- 
 ing to attend when the young orator's memory and story 
 become confused, he will naturally be excited to arrange 
 his ideas. The order of time is the first and easiest 
 principle of association to help the memory. This, till 
 young people acquire the ideas of cause and effect, will 
 be their favourite mode of arrangement. Things that 
 happen at the same time, things that are said, thoughts 
 that have occurred at the same time, will recur to the 
 mind together. We may observe, that ill-educated 
 people continue through life to remember things by 
 this single association ; and, consequently, there is a 
 heterogeneous collection of ideas in their mind, which 
 have no rational connexion with each other ; crowds 
 which have accidentally met, and are forced to live for 
 ever together. 
 
 A vulgar witness, when he is examined about his 
 memory of a particular fact, gives as a reason for his 
 remembering it, a relation of a number of other cir- 
 cumstances, which he tells you happened at the same 
 time ; or he calls to witness any animate or inanimate 
 objects which he happened to see at the same time. 
 All these things are so joined with the principal fact in 
 his mind, that his remembering them distinctly seems to 
 him, and he expects will seem to others, demonstrative 
 of the truth and accuracy of his principal assertion. 
 When a lawyer tells him he has nothing to do with 
 these ideas, he is immediately at a stand in his nar- 
 rative; he can recollect nothing, he is sure of nothing; 
 he has no reason to give for his belief, unless he may 
 say that it was INlichaeluias-day when such a thing hap- 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 419 
 
 pened, that he had a goose for dinner that day, or that 
 he had a new wig. Those who have more enlarged 
 minds seldom produce these strange reasons for re- 
 membering facts. Indeed, no one can reason clearly, 
 whose memory has these fooHsh habits ; the ill-matched 
 ideas are inseparably joined, and hence they imagine 
 there is some natural connexion between them. Hence 
 arise those obstinate prejudices which no arguments 
 can vanquish. 
 
 To prevent children from arguing ill, we must, there- 
 fore, take care, in exercising their memory, to discour- 
 age them in this method of proving that they remember 
 one thing by telling us a number of others which hap- 
 pened at the same time ; rather let them be excited to 
 bring their reasoning faculty into play in support of 
 their memory. Suppose, for instance, that a child had 
 mislaid his hat, and was trying to recollect where he 
 had put it. He first may recollect, from the association 
 of time, that he had the hat the last time he went out ; 
 but when he wants to recollect when that time was, he 
 had better go back, if he can, to his motive for going 
 out : this one idea will bring a number of others in 
 right order into his mind. He went out, suppose, to 
 fetch his kite, which he was afraid would be wet by a 
 shower of rain ; then the boy recollects that his hat 
 must have been wet by the same rain, and that when 
 he came in, instead of hanging it up in its usual place, 
 it was put before the fire to be dried. What fire, is the 
 next question, &c. 
 
 Such an instance as this may appear very trivial ; but 
 children whose minds are well managed about trifles, 
 will retain good habits when they are to think about 
 matters of consequence. By exercising the memory 
 in this manner about things, instead of about books and 
 lessons, we shall not disgust and tire our pupils, nor 
 shall we give the false notion that all knowledge is 
 acquired by reading. 
 
 Long before children read fluently for their own 
 amusement, they like to hear others read aloud to them, 
 because they have then the entertainment without the 
 labour. We may exercise their memory by asking for 
 an account of what they have heard. But let them 
 never be required to repeat in the words of the book, 
 or even to preserve the same arrangement ; let them 
 speak in words of their own, and arrange their ideas to 
 
420 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 their own plan ; this will exercise at once their judg- 
 ment, invention, and memory. 
 
 *' Try if you can explain to me what I have just been 
 explaining to you," a sensible tutor will frequently say 
 to his pupils ; and he will suffer them to explain in a 
 different manner from himself; he will only require 
 them to remember what is essential to the explanation. 
 In such repetitions as these the mind is active, there- 
 fore it will strengthen and improve. 
 
 Children are all, more or less, pleased with the per- 
 ception of resemblances and of analogy. This pro- 
 pensity assists us nmch in the cultivation of the memory ; 
 but it must be managed with discretion, or it will injure 
 the other powers of the understanding. There is, in 
 some minds, a futile love of tracing analogies, which 
 leads to superstition, to false reasoning, and false taste. 
 The quick perception of resemblances is, in other 
 minds, productive of wit, poetic genius, and scientific 
 invention. The difference between these two classes 
 depends upon this — the one has more judgment, and 
 more the habit of using it, than the other. Children 
 w^ho are pleased by trifling coincidences, by allusions 
 and similitudes, should be taught with great care to 
 reason : when once they perceive the pleasure of de- 
 monstration, they will not be contented with the inac- 
 curacy of common analogies. A tutor is often tempted 
 to teach pupils, who are fond of allusions, by means of 
 them, because he finds that they remember well what- 
 ever suits their taste for resemblances. By following 
 the real analogies between different arts and sciences, 
 and making use of the knowledge children have on one 
 subject to illustrate another, we may at once amuse 
 their fancy, and cultivate their memory with advantage. 
 Ideas laid up in this manner, will recur in the same 
 order, and will be ready for farther use. When two 
 ideas are remembered by their mutual connexion, surely 
 it is best that they should both of them be substantially 
 useful ; and not that one should attend merely to answer 
 for the appearance of the other. 
 
 As men readily remember those things which are 
 every day useful to them in business, what relates to 
 their amusements, or to their favourite tastes in arts, 
 sciences, or literature ; so children fin^^ no difficulty in 
 remembering every thing which mixes daily with their 
 little pleasures. They value knowledge, which is use- 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 421 
 
 fill and agreeable to them, as highly as we do ; but they 
 consider only the present, and we take the future into 
 our estimate. Children feel no interest in half the 
 things that are committed, with the most solemn recom- 
 mendations, to the care of their memory. It is in vain 
 to tell them, " You must remember such a thing, because 
 it will be useful to you when you grow^ up to be a man." 
 The child feels like a child, and has no idea of what he 
 may feel when he grows up to be a man. He tries to 
 remember what' he is desired, perhaps, because he 
 wishes to please his wiser friends ; but if the ideas are 
 remote from his everyday business, if nothing recall 
 them but voluntary exertion, and if he be obliged to 
 abstract his little soul from every thing it holds dear, 
 before he can recollect his lessons, they will have no 
 hold upon his memory ; he will feel that recollection is 
 too operose, and he will enjoy none of the " pleasures 
 of memory." 
 
 To induce children to exercise their memory, we 
 must put them in situations where they may be imme- 
 diately rewarded for their exertion. We must create 
 an interest in their minds — nothing uninteresting is 
 long remembered. In a large and literary family, it 
 will not be difficult to invent occupations for children 
 which may exercise all their faculties. Even the con- 
 versation of such a family will create in their minds a 
 desire for knowledge ; what they hear, M-ill recall to 
 their memory what they read ; and if they are encour- 
 aged to take a reasonable share in conversation, they 
 will acquire the habit of listening to every thing that 
 others say. By permitting children to talk freely of 
 what they read, we are more likely to improve their 
 memory for books, than by exacting from them formal 
 repetitions of lessons. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, who is said to have had an uncommonly 
 good memory, tells us that when he was a boy, he used, 
 after he had acquired any fresh knowledge from his 
 books, to run and tell it to an old woman, of whom he 
 was very fond. This exercise was so agreeable to him, 
 that it imprinted what he read upon his memory. 
 
 La Gaucherie, one of the preceptors of Henry IV., 
 having found that he had to do with a young prince of 
 an injpatient mind and active genius, little suited to 
 sedentary studies, instead of compelling his pupil to 
 read, taught him by means of conversation : anecdotes. 
 
422 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 of heroes, and the wise sayings of ancient philosophers, 
 were thus imprinted upon the mind of this prince. It 
 is said that Henry IV. applied, in his subsequent hfe, 
 all the knowledge he had acquired in this manner, 
 so happily, that learned men were surprised at his 
 memory.* 
 
 By these observations we by no means would insin- 
 uate, that application to books is unnecessary. We are 
 sensible that accurate knowledge upon any subject can- 
 not be acquired b}^ superficial conversation ; that it can 
 be obtained only by patient application. But we mean 
 to point out, that an early taste for literature may be 
 excited in children by conversation ; and that their 
 memory should be first cultivated in the manner which 
 will give them the least pain. When there is motive 
 for application, and when habits of industry have been 
 gradually acquired, we may securely trust that our 
 pupils will complete their own education. Nor should 
 we have reason to fear, that those who have a good 
 memory for all other things, should not be able to re- 
 tain all that is worth remembering in books. Children 
 should never be praised for merely remembering ex- 
 actly what they read ; they should be praised for select- 
 ing with good sense what is best worth their attention, 
 and for applying what they remember to useful pur- 
 poses. 
 
 We have observed how much the habit of inventing 
 increases the wish for knowledge, and promotes the in- 
 terest men take in a number of ideas which are indif- 
 ferent to uncultivated and indolent people. It is the 
 same with children. Children who invent, exercise 
 their memory with pleasure, from the immediate sense 
 oflitility and success. A piece of knowledge which 
 they lay by in their minds, with the hopes of making use 
 of it in some future invention, they have more motives 
 for remembering, than what they merely learn by rote, 
 because they are commanded to do so by the voice of 
 authority. 
 
 (June 19th, 1796.) S , a boy of nine years old, of 
 
 good abilities, was translating Ovid's description of 
 envy. When he came to the Latin word svffusa, he pro- 
 nounced it as if it had been spelled with a single /and a 
 double 5, sufussa ; he made the same mistake several 
 
 * See Preface to L' Esprit des Romains consid6r4. 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 423 
 
 times : at last his father, to try whether it would make 
 him remember the right pronunciation, desired him to 
 repeat suffusa forty times. The boy did so. About 
 three hours afterward, the boy was asked whether he 
 recollected the word which he had repeated forty times. 
 No, he said, he did not ; but he remembered that it 
 meant diffused. His father recalled the word to his 
 mind, by asking- him what letter it was that he had 
 sounded as if it had been a double letter ; he said s. 
 And what double letter did you sound as if it had been 
 single ? /, said the boy. Then, said his father, you have 
 found out that it was a word in which there were a 
 double ff and a single 5, and that it is the Latin for dif- 
 fused. Oh, suffusa, said the boy. 
 
 This boy, who had such difficulty in learning a single 
 Latin word by repeating it forty times, showed in other 
 instances that he was by no means deficient in recol- 
 lective memory. On the contrary, though he read very 
 little, and seldom learned any thing by rote, he applied 
 happily any thing that he read or heard in conversation. 
 
 (March 31st, 1796.) His father told him that he had 
 this morning seen a large horn at a gentleman's in the 
 neighbourhood. It was found thirty spades' depth below 
 the surface of the earth, in a bog. With the horn was 
 found a carpet, and wrapped up in the carpet a lump of 
 tallow. " Now," said his father, " how could that lump 
 of tallow come there "? Or was it tallow, do you think ] 
 Or what could it be V 
 
 H (a boy of fourteen, brother to S ) said, he 
 
 thought it might have been buried by some robbers, 
 after they had committed some robbery ; he thought 
 the lump was tallow. 
 
 S said, " Perhaps some dead body might have 
 
 been wrapped up in the carpet and buried ; and the dead 
 body might have turned into tallow."* 
 
 " How came you," said his father, " to think of a dead 
 body's turning into tallow 1" 
 
 " You told me," said the boy, " you read to me, I 
 mean, an account of some dead bodies that had been 
 buried a great many years, which had turned into 
 tallow." 
 
 " Spermaceti," you mean ? " Yes." 
 
 S had heard the account he alluded to above two 
 
 * See the account in the Monthly Review. 
 
424 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 months before this time. No one in company recol- 
 lected it except himself, though several had heard it. 
 
 Among the few things which S had learned by- 
 heart, was the Hymn to Adversity. A very slight cir- 
 cumstance may show that he did not get this poem 
 merely as a tiresome lesson, as children sonietimes 
 learn by rote what they do not understand, and which 
 they never recollect except in the arduous moments of 
 formal repetition. 
 
 A few days after S had learned the Hymn to Ad- 
 versity, he happened to hear his sister say to a lady, " I 
 observed you pitied me for having had a whitlow on my 
 finger more than anybody else did, because you have 
 
 had one yourself." S 's father asked him why he 
 
 smiled. " Because," said S , " I was thinking of the 
 
 song* the hymn to Adversity : 
 
 " ' And from her own, she learned to melt at others' wo.' " 
 
 A recollective memory of books appears early in chil- 
 dren who are not overwhelmed with them; if the inv 
 pressions made upon their minds be distinct, they will 
 recur with pleasure to the memory when similar ideas 
 are presented. 
 
 .luly, 1796. S heard his father read Sir Brook 
 
 Boothby's excellent epitaph upon Algernon Sidney ; the 
 following lines pleased the boy particularly : 
 
 " Approach, contemplate this immortal name, 
 Swear on this shrme to emulate his lame ; 
 To dare, like him, e'en to thy latest breath, 
 Contenming chams, and poverty, and death." 
 
 S 's father asked him why he liked these lines, 
 
 and whether they put him in mind of any thing that he 
 
 had heard before. S said, " It puts me in mind of 
 
 Hamilcar's making his son Haimibal swear to hate the 
 Romans and love his countrymen eternally. But I 
 like this much better. I think it was exceedingly fool- 
 ish and wrong of Hamilcar to make his son swear 
 always to hate the Romans." 
 
 Latin lessons are usually so very disagreeable to boys, 
 that they seldom are pleased with any allusions to them ; 
 but by good management in a tutor, even these lessons 
 may be associated with agreeable ideas. Boys should 
 
 * He had tried to sing it to the tune of " Plope. thou nurse of 
 young desire." 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTIOK. 425 
 
 be encouraged to talk and think about what ney learn 
 in Latin, as well as what they read in English ; they 
 should be allowed to judge of the characters described 
 in ancient authors, to compare them with our present 
 ideas of excellence, and thus to make some use of their 
 learning. It will then be not merely engraved upon 
 their memory in the form of lessons, it will be mingled 
 with their notions of life and manners ; it will occur to 
 them when they converse and when they act ; they 
 will possess the admired talent for classical allusion, as 
 well as all the solid advantages of an unprejudiced judg- 
 ment. It is not enough that gentlemen should be mas- 
 ters of the learned languages, they must know how to 
 produce their knowledge without pedantry or affecta- 
 tion. The memory may in vain be stored with classi- 
 cal precedents, unless these can be brought into use in 
 speaking or writing, without the parade of dull citation 
 or formal introduction. " Sir," said Dr. Johnson, to 
 some prosing tormentor, " I would rather a man would 
 knock me down than begin to talk to me of the Punic 
 Wars." A public speaker who rises in the House of 
 Commons with pedantry prepense to quote Latin or 
 Greek, is coughed or laughed down; but the beautiful 
 unpremeditated classical allusions of Burke or Sheridan, 
 sometimes conveyed in a single word, seize the imagi- 
 nation irresistibly. 
 
 Since we perceive that memory is chiefly useful as it 
 furnishes materials for invention, and that invention can 
 greatly abridge the mere labour of accunmlation, we 
 must examine how the inventive faculty can be properly 
 exercised. The vague precept, Cultivate the memory 
 and invention of young people at the same time, will not 
 inform parents how this is to be accomplished ; we 
 trust, therefore, that we may be permitted, contrary to 
 the custom of didactic writers, to illustrate a general 
 precept by a few examples ; and we take these exam- 
 ples from real life, because we apprehend that fictions, 
 however ingenious, will never advance the science of 
 education so much as simple experiments. 
 
 No elaborate theory of invention shall here alarm 
 parents. It is a mistake to suppose that the inventive 
 faculty can be employed only on important subjects ; it 
 can be exercised in the most trifling circumstances of 
 domestic life. S.'?arcely any family can be so unfortu- 
 nately situated, that they may not employ the ingenuity 
 
426 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 of their children without violent exertion, or any grand 
 apparatus. Let us only make use of the circumstances 
 which happen every hour. Children are interested in 
 every thing that is going forward. Building, or plant- 
 ing, or conversation, or reading ; they attend to every 
 thing, and from every thing might they with a little as- 
 sistance obtain instruction. Let their useful curiosity 
 be encouraged; let them make a part of the general 
 society of the family, instead of being treated as if they 
 had neither senses nor understanding. When any thing 
 is to be done, let them be asked to invent the best way 
 of doing it. When they see that their invention be- 
 comes immediately useful, they will take pleasure in 
 exerting themselves. 
 
 June 4th, 1796. A lady who had been ruling pencil 
 lines for a considerable time, complained of its being a 
 tiresome operation ; and she wished that a quick and 
 easy way of doing it could be invented. Somebody 
 present said he had seen pens for ruling music books, 
 which ruled four lines at a time ; and it was asked 
 whether a leaden rake could not be made to rule a sheet 
 of paper at once. 
 
 Mr. said he thought such a pencil would not rule 
 
 well ; and he called to S (the same boy we men- 
 tioned before), and asked him if he could invent any 
 
 method of doing the business better. S took about 
 
 a quarter of an hour to consider ; and he then described 
 a little machine for ruling a sheet of paper at a single 
 stroke, which his father caused to be made for him. It 
 succeeded well, and this success was the best reward he 
 could have. 
 
 Another day Mr. observed, that the maid whose 
 
 business it was to empty a bucket of ashes into an ash- 
 hole, never could be persuaded to do it, because the 
 ashes were blown against her face by the wind ; and he 
 determined to invent a method which should make it 
 convenient to her to do as she was desired. The maid 
 usually threw the ashes into a heap on the sheltered 
 side of a wall ; the thing to be done was, to make 
 her put the bucket through a hole in this wall, and empty 
 the ashes on the other side. This problem was given 
 to all the children and grown up persons in the family. 
 One of the children invented the shelf, which, they said, 
 should be like part of the vane of a winnowing machine 
 which they had lately seen; the manner of placing this 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 427 
 
 vane, another of the children suggested: both these 
 ideas, joined together, produced the contrivance that 
 w^as wanted. 
 
 A little model was made in wood of this bucket, which 
 was a pretty toy. The thing itself was executed, and 
 was found useful. 
 
 June 8th, 1796. Mr. was balancing a pair of 
 
 scales very exactly, in which he was going to weigh 
 some opium : this led to a conversation upon scales and 
 weighing. Some one said that the dealers in diamonds 
 must have very exact scales, as the difference of a grain 
 
 makes such a great difference in their value. S 
 
 was very attentive to this conversation. M told 
 
 him, that jewellers always, if they can, buy diamonds 
 when the air is light, and sell them when it is heavy. 
 
 S did not understand the reason of this, till his 
 
 father explained to him the general principles of hydro- 
 statics, and showed him a few experiments with bodies 
 of different specific gravity : these experiments were 
 distinctly understood by everybody present. The boy 
 then observed, that it was not fair of the jewellers to 
 buy and sell in this manner ; they should not, said he, 
 use these weights. Diamonds should be the weights. 
 Diamonds should be weighed against diamonds. 
 
 November, 1795. One day after dinner, the candles 
 had been left for some time without being snuffed ; and 
 
 Mr. said he wished candles could be made which 
 
 would not require snuffing. 
 
 Mrs. ******** thought of cutting the wick into several 
 pieces before it was put into the candle, that so, when it 
 burned down to the divisions, the wick might fall off. 
 
 M thought that the wick might be tied tight round 
 
 at intervals, before it was put into the candle ; that when 
 it burned down to the places where it was tied, it would 
 
 snap off: but Mr. objected, that the candle would 
 
 most likely go out when it had burned down to her knots. 
 It was then proposed to send a stream of oxygen 
 
 through the candle, instead of a wick. M asked if 
 
 some substance might not be used for wicks which 
 
 should burn into powder and fly of!*, or sublime. Mr. 
 
 smiled at this, and said, " Some substance; some kind of 
 air ; some chymical mixture .'" A person ignorant of 
 chymistry always talks of it as an ignorant person in 
 mechanics always says, " Oh, you can do it somehow 
 with a spring.'''^ 
 
428 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 As the company could not immediately discover any 
 way of making candles which should not require to be 
 snuffed, they proceeded to invent ways of putting out a 
 candle at a certain time without hands. The younger 
 part of the company had hopes of solving this problem, 
 and every eye was attentively fixed upon the candle. 
 
 " How would you put it out, S V said Mr. . 
 
 S said, that if a weight a very little lighter than the 
 
 extinguisher were tied to a siring, and if the string were 
 put over a pulley, and if the extinguisher were tied to 
 the other end of the siring, and the candle put exactly 
 under the extinguisher; the extinguisher would move 
 very, very gently down, and at last put out the candle. 
 
 Mr. observed, that while it was putting out the 
 
 candle there would be a disagreeable smell, because the 
 extinguisher would be a considerable time moving very^ 
 very gently down, over the candle, after the candle had 
 begun to go out. 
 
 C (a girl of twelve years old) spoke next. " I 
 
 would tie an extinguisher to one end of a thread. I 
 would put this string through a pulley fastened to the 
 ceiling ; the other end of this string should be fastened 
 to the middle of another thread, which should be strained 
 between two posts set upright on each side of the candle, 
 so that the latter string might lean against the candle at 
 any distance you want below the flame. When the 
 candle burns down to this siring, it will burn it in two, 
 and the extinguisher will drop upon the candle." 
 
 This is the exact description of the weaver's alarm, 
 mentioned in tlie Philosophical Transactions, which 
 C had never seen or heard of. 
 
 Mr. now showed us the patent extinguisher, 
 
 which was much approved by all the rival inventors. 
 
 It is very useful to give children problems that have 
 already been solved, because they can immediately com- 
 pare their own imperfect ideas with successful inven- 
 tions which have actually been brought into real use. 
 We know beforehand what ideas are necessary to com- 
 plete the invention, and whether the pupil has all the 
 necessary knowledge. Though by the courtesy of poe- 
 try, a creative power is ascribed to inventive genius, yet 
 we must be convinced that no genius can invent without 
 materials. Nothing can come of nothing. Invention 
 is nothing more than the new combination of mate- 
 rials. We must judge in general of the ease or diffi- 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 429 
 
 culty of any invention, either by the number of ideas 
 necessary to be combined, or by the dissimilarity or 
 analogy of those ideas. In giving any problem to chil- 
 dren, we should not only consider whether they know 
 all that is necessary upon the subject, but also, whether 
 that knowledge is sufficiently familiar to their minds ; 
 whether circumstances are likely to recall it; and whether 
 they have a perfectly clear idea of the thing to be done. 
 By considering all these particulars, we may pretty 
 nearly proportion our questions to the capacity of the 
 pupil ; and we may lead his mind on, step by step, from 
 obvious to intricate inventions. 
 
 July 30th, 1796. L , who had just returned from 
 
 Edinburgh, and had taken down, in two large volumes, 
 Dr. Black's Lectures, used to read to us part of them, 
 for about a quarter of an hour, every morning after 
 breakfast. He was frequently interrupted (which inter- 
 ruptions he bore with heroic patience) by Mr. 's ex- 
 planations and comments. When he came to the ex- 
 pansive power of steam, and to the description of the 
 different steam-engines which have been invented, 
 Mr. stopped to ask B , C , and S , to de- 
 scribe the steam-engine in their own words. They all 
 described it in such a manner as to show that they 
 clearly understood the principle of the machine. Only 
 the general principle had been explained to them. 
 
 L , after having read the description of Savary's and 
 
 Newcomen's steam-engines, was beginning to read the 
 
 description of that invented by Mr. Watt ; but Mr. 
 
 stopped him, that he might try whether any person 
 
 present could invent it. Mr. E thus stated the 
 
 difficulty : '* In the old steam-engine, cold water, you 
 know, is thrown into the cylinder to condense the steam ; 
 but in condensing the steam, the cold water at the same 
 time cools the cylinder. Now the cylinder must be 
 heated again before it can be filled with steam ; for till 
 it is heated, it will condense the steam. There is, con- 
 sequently, a great waste of heat and fuel in the great 
 cylinder. How can you condense the steam without cool- 
 ing the cylinder V 
 
 S . " Let down a cold tin tube into the cylinder 
 
 when you want to condense the steam, and draw it up 
 again as soon as the steam is condensed ; or, if you 
 could, put a cylinder of ice up the great tube." 
 
 Some of the company next asked if a horizontal 
 
430 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 plate of cold metal, made to slide up the inside of tho 
 cylinder, would condense the steam. The edges of the 
 plate only would touch the cylinder ; the surface of the 
 phite might condense the steam, 
 
 " But," said Mr. , " how can you introduce and 
 
 withdraw if?" 
 
 C (a girl of 12) then said, " I would put a cold 
 
 vessel to condense the steam at the top of the cylinder." 
 
 Mr. . " So as to touch the cylinder, do you mean 1" 
 
 C . " No, not so as to touch the cylinder, but at 
 
 some distance from it." 
 
 Mr. . "Then the cold air would rush into the 
 
 cylinder while the steam was passing from the cylinder 
 to your condenser." 
 
 C . " But I would cover in the cold vessel, and I 
 
 would cover in the passage to it." 
 
 M . " I have the pleasure of informing you, that 
 
 you have invented part of the great Mr. Watt's improve- 
 ment on the steam-engine. You see how it facilitates 
 invention, to begin by stating the difficulty clearly to 
 the mind. This is what every practical inventor does 
 vj^hen he invents in mechanics." 
 
 L (smiling.) " And what I always do in inventing 
 
 a mathematical demonstration." 
 
 To the good-natured reader we need offer no apology; 
 to the illnatured we dare attempt none, for introducing 
 these detailed views of the first attempts of young in- 
 vention. They are not exhibited as models, either to do 
 honour to the tutor or his pupils ; but simply to show 
 how the mind may be led from tlie easiest steps, to 
 what are supposed to be difficult, in education. By im- 
 agining ourselves to be in the same situation with chil- 
 dren, we may guess what things are difficult to them ; 
 and if we can recollect the course of our own minds in 
 acquiring knowledge or in inventing, we may, by re- 
 tracing the same steps, instruct others. The order that 
 is frequently followed by authors, in the division and 
 subdivision of their elementary treatises, is not always 
 the best for those who are to learn. Such authors are 
 usually more intent upon proving to the learned that 
 they understand their subject, than upon communicating 
 their knowledge to the ignorant. Parents and tutors 
 must, therefore, supply familiar oral instruction, and 
 those simple, but essential explanations, which books 
 disdain or neglect to give. And there is this advantage 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 431 
 
 in ail instruction given in conversation, that it can be 
 made interesting by a thousand little circumstances 
 which are below the dignity of didactic writers. Grad- 
 ually we may proceed from simple to more complicated 
 contrivances. The invention of experiments to deter- 
 mine a theory, or to ascertain the truth of an asser- 
 tion, must be particularly useful to the understanding. 
 Any person who has attended to experiments in chym- 
 istry and natural pliilosophy, must know that invention 
 can be as fully and elegantly displayed upon these sub- 
 jects, as upon any in the fine arts or literature. There 
 is one great advantage in scientific invention ; it is not 
 dependant upon capricious taste for its reward. The 
 beauty and elegance of a poem may be disputed by a 
 thousand amateurs ; there can be but one opinion about 
 the truth of a discovery in science. 
 
 Independent of all ambition, there is considerable 
 pleasure in the pursuit of experimental knowledge. 
 Children especially, before they are yet fools to fame, 
 enjoy this substantial pleasure. Nor are we to suppose 
 that children have not capacities for such pursuits ; they 
 are peculiarly suited to their capacity. They love to 
 see experiments tried, and to try them. They show 
 this disposition not only wherever they are encouraged, 
 but wherever they are permitted to show it ; and if we 
 compare their method of reasoning with the reasonings 
 of the learned, we shall sometimes be surprised. They 
 have no prejudices, therefore they have tlie complete 
 use of all their senses ; they have few ideas, but those 
 few are distinct; they can be analyzed and compared 
 with ease : children, therefore, judge and invent better, 
 in proportion to their knowledge, than most grown up 
 people. 
 
 Dr. Hooke observes, that a sensible man, in solving 
 any pjiilosophical problem, should always lean to that 
 side which is opposite to his favourite taste. A chymist 
 is disposed to account for every thing by chymical 
 means ; a geometrician is inclined to solve every prob- 
 lem geometrically ; and a mechanic accounts for all the 
 phenomena of nature by the laws of mechanism. This 
 undue bias upon the minds of ingenious people, has fre- 
 quently rendered their talents less useful to mankind. 
 It is the duty of those who educate ingenious children, 
 to guard against this species of scientific insanity. 
 
 There are prejudices of another description, which are 
 
432 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 fatal to inventive genius; some of these are usually 
 found to attend ignorance, and others sometimes adhere 
 to the learned. Ignorant people, if they possess any 
 degree of invention, are so confident in their own abili- 
 ties, that they v^^ill not take the pains to inquire what 
 others have thought or done ; they disdain all general 
 principles, and will rather scramble through some by- 
 path of their own striking out, than condescend to be 
 shown the best road by the most enlightened guide. 
 For this reason, self-taught geniuses, as they are called, 
 seldom go beyond a certain point in their own educa- 
 tion, and the praise we bestow upon their ingenuity is 
 always accompanied with expressions of regret; "It is 
 a pity that such a genius had not the advantages of a 
 good education." 
 
 The learned, on the contrary, who have been bred up 
 in reverence for established opinions, and who have felt 
 in many instances the advantage of general principles, 
 are apt to adhere too pertinaciously to their theories, 
 and hence they neglect or despise new observations. 
 How long did the maxim that nature abhors a vacuum, 
 content the learned ! And how many discoveries were 
 retarded by this single false principle I For a great 
 number of years it was affirmed and believed, that all 
 objects were seen by the intervention of visual rays, 
 proceeding from the eye, much in the same manner as 
 we feel any object at a distance from us by the help of a 
 stick.* While this absurd analogy satisfied the mind, 
 no discoveries were made in vision — none were at- 
 tempted. A prepossession often misleads the industry 
 of active genius. Dr. Hooke, in spite of the ridicule 
 which he met with, was firm in his belief that mankind 
 would discover some method of sailing in the air. Bal- 
 loons have justified his prediction; but all his own in- 
 dustry in trying experiments upon flying was wasted, 
 because he persisted in following a false analogy to the 
 wings of birds. He made wings of various sorts ; till 
 he took it for granted that he must learn to fly by me- 
 chanical means : had he applied to chymistry, he might 
 have succeeded. It is curious to observe how nearly 
 he once touched upon the discovery, and yet, misled by 
 his prepossessions, quitted his hold. He observed 
 that the air-cellsf of fishes are filled with air, which 
 
 *• Priestley on Vision, vol. i. page 23. 
 \ See Hooke's Posthumous Works. 
 
MEMORY AND INVENTION. 433 
 
 buoys them up in the water ; and he supposes that this 
 air is lighter than co7nmon air. Had he pursued this 
 idea, he might have invented balloons ; but he returned 
 with fatal perseverance to his old theory of wings. From 
 such facts we may learn the power and danger of preju- 
 dice in the most ingenious minds ; and we shall be careful 
 to preserve our pupils early from its blind dominion. 
 
 The best preservation against the presumption to 
 which ignorance is liable, and the best preservative 
 against the self-sufficiency to which the learned are sub- 
 ject, is the habit of varying our studies and occupations. 
 Those who have a general view of the whole map of 
 human knowledge, perceive how many unexplored re- 
 gions are yet to be cultivated by future industry ; nor 
 will they implicitly submit to the reports of ignorant 
 voyagers. No imaginary pillars of Hercules will bound 
 their enterprises. There is no presumption in believing 
 that much more is possible to science than ever hu- 
 man ingenuity has executed ; therefore young people 
 should not be ridiculed for that sanguine temper which 
 excites to great inventions. They should be ridiculed 
 only v/hen they imagine that they possess the means 
 of doing things to which they are unequal. The fear 
 of this deserved ridicule will stimulate ihem to acquire 
 knowledge, and \vill induce them to estimate cautiously 
 their own powers before they hazard their reputation. 
 We need not fear that this caution should repress their 
 activity of mind; ambition will secure their perseve- 
 rance, if they are taught that every acquisition is within 
 the reach of unremitting industry. This is not an opin- 
 ion to be artfully inculcated to serve a particular pur- 
 pose, but it is an opinion drawn from experience ; an 
 opinion which men of the liighest abilities and integrity, 
 of talents and habits the most dissimilar, have confirmed 
 by their united testimony. Helvetius maintained that 
 no great man ever formed a great design which he was 
 not also capable of executing. 
 
 Even where great perseverance is exercised, the 
 choice of the subjects on which the inventive powers 
 are employed determines, in a great measure, their value : 
 therefore, in the education of ingenious children, we 
 should gradually turn their attention from curious trifles 
 to important objects. Boverick,* who made chains " to 
 
 * Hooke's ^rycrographia, p. 62. 
 T 
 
43i PRACTICAL EPUCATIOV. 
 
 yoke a flea," must have possessed exquisite patience: 
 besides his chain of two hundred links, with its padlock 
 a!id key, ;dl weighing-' together less than the third part 
 of a grain, tliis indefatigable minute artificer was the ma- 
 ker of a landau, which opened and shut by springs: this 
 equipage, with six horses harnessed to it, a coachman 
 sitting on the box, w^ith a dog between his legs, four in- 
 side and two outside passengers, besides a postillion 
 riding one of the fore-horses, was drawn with all the 
 ease and safety imaginable by a well-irained Ilea! The 
 inventor and executor of this puerile machine bestowed 
 on it, probably, as much time as would have sufTiced to 
 pnxluce Watt's fire-engine, or Montgolfier's balloon. It 
 did not, perhaps, cost the Marquis of Worcester more 
 exertion to draw out his celebrated century of inven- 
 tions ; it did not, perhaps, cost Newton more to write 
 those queries which Maclaurin said he could never read 
 without feeling his hair stand an end with admiration. 
 
 Brebeuf, a French wit, wrote a hundred and fifty 
 epigrams upon a painted lady ; a brother wit, fired with 
 emulation, wrote upon the same subject three hundred 
 more, making, in all, four hundred and fifly epigrams, 
 each with appropriate turns of its ov»n. Probably Pope 
 and Parnell did not rack their invention so much, or ex- 
 ercise more industry in completing "The Rape of the 
 Lock," and "The Rise of Woman." These will live 
 for ever ; who will read the four hundred and fifly epi- 
 grams 1 
 
 The most cfTectual methods to discourage in young 
 people the taste for frivolous ingenuity will be, never to 
 admire these "laborious notiiings ;" to compare them, 
 with useful and elegant inventions, and to show that 
 vain curiosities can be but the wonder and amusement 
 of a moment. Children who begin with trilling inven- 
 tions, may be led from these to general principles; and 
 with their knowledge their anibition will necessarily in- 
 crease. It cannot lie expected that Ihe most enlarged 
 plan of education could early give an intimate acquaint- 
 ance with all the sciences; but with their leading prin- 
 ciples, their general history, their present stale, and 
 their immediate desiderata,* young people may, and 
 ought to be, made acquainted. Their own industry will 
 afterward collect more precise inforn»afion, and they 
 
 * Pricstlry bus ably givrn tlie de,siderata of clectricit •, vision, &c. 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 436 
 
 will never waste their time in vain studies and fruitless 
 inventions. Even if the cultivation of the memory 
 were our grand object, this plan of education will suc- 
 ceed. When the Abbo de; Longuerue, whose prodigious 
 memory we have formerly mentioned, was asked by the 
 Marquis d'Argenson, how he managed to arrange and 
 retain in his head every thing that entered it, and to 
 recollect every thing when wanted 1 — the abbe an- 
 swered — 
 
 " Sir, the elements of every science must be learned 
 while we are very young ; the ^rt>t principles of every 
 language — the a b c, as I may say, of every kind of 
 knowledge — this is not difficult in youth, especially as 
 it is not necessary to penetrate far ; simple notions are 
 sufficient ; when once these are acquired, every thing 
 we read afterward finds its proper place." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 h 
 
 TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 
 
 Figurative language seems to have confounded the 
 ideas of most writers upon metaphysics. Imagination, 
 Memory, and Reason, have been long introduced to our 
 acquaintance as allegorical personages, and we have in- 
 sensibly learned to consider them as real beings. The 
 "viewless regions" of the soul have been portioned out 
 among these ideal sovereigns ; but disputes have, never- 
 theless, sometimes arisen concerning the boundaries of 
 intellectual provinces. Among the disputed territories, 
 those of Imagination have been most frequently the seat 
 of war; her empire has been subject to continual revo- 
 lution; her dominions have been, by potent invaders, 
 divided and subdivided. Fancy,* Memory,! Ideal pres- 
 ence,! and Conception,'^ have shared her spoils. 
 
 By poets, imagination has been addressed as the great 
 parent of genius — as the arbiter, if not the creator, of 
 our pleasures ; by philosophers her name has been some- 
 
 * Wharton's Ode to Fancy. f Gerard. 
 
 t Lord Karnes. <) Professor Stewaxt, 
 
 T2 
 
436 PRACTICAL EDCCATION. 
 
 times pronounced with horror ; to her fatal delusions 
 they have ascribed all the crimes and miseries of man- 
 kind. Yet, even philosophers have not always agreed 
 in their opinions: while some have treated Imagination 
 with contempt, as the irreconcilable enemy of Reason, 
 by others* she has been considered with more respect, 
 as Reason's inseparable friend ; as the friend who col- 
 lects and prepares all the arguments upon which Reason 
 decides; as the injured, misrepresented power, who is 
 often forced to supply her adversaries with eloquence, 
 who is often called upon to preside at her own trial, and 
 to pronounce her own condemnation. 
 
 Imagination is ''the power,'" we are told, oC forming 
 images:'''' the word image, however, does not, strictly 
 speaking, express any thing more than a representation 
 of an object of sight ; but the power of imagination ex- 
 tends to objects of all the senses. 
 
 " I hear a voice you cannot hear, 
 Wliich says 1 must not stay : 
 I see a hand you cannot see, 
 Which beckons me away." 
 
 Imagination hears the voice, as well as sees the hand ; 
 €)y an easy license of metaphor, what was originally 
 used to express the operation of our senses, is extended 
 to them all. We do not precisely say that imagination 
 forms images of past sounds, or tastes, or smells : but 
 we say that she forms ideas of them : and ideas, we are 
 told, are mental images. It has been suggested by Dr. 
 Darwin, that all these analogies between images and 
 thoughts have, probably, originated in our observing the 
 little pictures painted on the retina of the eye. 
 
 It is difficult, certainly, if not impossible, to speak of 
 the invisible operations of the mind or body, without 
 expressing ourselves in metaphor of some kind or other ; 
 and we are easily misled by allusions to sensible objects, 
 because when we comprehend the allusion, we flatter 
 ourselves that we understand the theory which it is de- 
 signed to illustrate. Whether we call ideas images in 
 popular language, or vibrations, according to Dr. Hart- 
 ley's system, or modes of sensation, with Condillac, or 
 motions of the sensorium, in the language of Dr. Dar- 
 win, may seem a matter of indifference. But even the 
 
 * See an excellent essay of Mr. Barnes's on Imagination Man- 
 djester Society, vol. i. 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 437 
 
 choice of names is not a matter of indifference to those 
 who wish to argue accurately ; when they are obliged 
 to describe their feelings or thoughts by metaphoric ex- 
 pressions, they will prefer the simplest; those with 
 which the fewest extraneous associations are coiniected. 
 Words which call up a variety of heterogeneous ideas 
 to our minds, are unfit for the purposes of sober reason- 
 ing ; our attention is distracted by them, and we cannot 
 restrain it to the accurate comparison of simple propor- 
 tions. We yield to pleasing revery, instead of exerting 
 painful voluntary attention. Hence it is probably useful 
 in our attempts to reason, especially upon metaphysical 
 subjects, to change from time to time our nomenclature, 
 and to substituteterms wiiich have no relation to our 
 old associations, and which do not affect the prejudices 
 of our education. We are obliged to define with some 
 degree of accuracy the sense of new terms, and we are 
 thus led to compare our old notions with more severity. 
 Our superstitious reverence for mere symbols is also 
 dissipated; symbols are apt to impose even upon those 
 who acknowledge their vanity, and who profess to con- 
 sider tbem merely as objects of vulgar worship. 
 
 When we call a class of our ideas images and pictures, 
 a tribe of associations with painting comes into our 
 mind, and we argue about Imagination as if she were 
 actually a painter, who has colours at her command, 
 and who, upon some invisible canvass in the soul, por- 
 trays the likeness of all earthly and celestial objects. 
 When we continue to pursue the same metaphor, in 
 speaking of the moral influence of Imagination, we say- 
 that her colouring deceives us, that her pictures are flat- 
 tering and false, that she draws objects out of propor- 
 tion, &c. To what do all these metaphors lead ? We 
 make no new discoveries by talking in this maniiCr ; we 
 do not learn the cause or the cure of any of the diseases 
 of the mind ; we only persuade ourselves that we know 
 something, when we are really ignorant. 
 
 We have sedulously avoided entering into any meta- 
 physical disquisitions ; but we have examined with care 
 the systems of theoretic writers, that we may be able 
 to avail ourselves of such of their observations as can 
 be reduced to practice in education. With respect tp 
 the arts, imagination may be considered practically in 
 two points of view ; as it relates to our taste, and as it 
 relates to our talents for the arts. Without being a 
 
438 I'RACTICAL EDUCATIOTJ. 
 
 poet or an orator, a man may have a sufficient degree 
 of imagination to receive pleasure from the talents of 
 others; he maybe a critical judge of the respective 
 merits of orators, poets, and artists. This sensibility 
 to the pleasures of the imagination, when judiciously 
 managed, adds much to tlie happiness of life, and it must 
 be peculiarly advantageous to those who are precluded 
 by their station in society from the necessity of manual 
 labour. Mental exercise and mental amusements, are 
 essential to persons in the higher ranks of life, who 
 would escape from the fever of dissipation or from the 
 lethargy of ennui. The mere physical advantages which 
 wealth can procure, are reducible to the short sum of 
 "mea/, fire, and clol/ies.'" A nobleman of the highest 
 birth, and with the longest line of ancestry, inherits no 
 intuitive taste, nor can he purchase it from the artist, 
 the painter, or the poet ; the possession of the whole 
 Pinelli library could not infuse the slightest portion of 
 literature. Education can alone give the full power to 
 enjoy the real advantages of fortune. To educate the 
 taste and the imagination, it is not necessary to surround 
 the heir of an opulent family with masters and connois- 
 seurs. Let him never hear the jargon of amateurs, let 
 him learn the art " not to admire." But in his earliest 
 childhood cultivate his senses with care, that he may 
 be able to see and hear, to feel and understand, for him- 
 self. Visible images he will rapidly collect in his mem- 
 ory ; but thcs2 must be selected, and his first associa- 
 tions must not be trusted to accident. Encourage him 
 to observe with attention all the works of nature, but 
 show him only the best imitations of art; the first ob- 
 jects that he contemplates with delight, will remain 
 long associated with pleasure in his imagination ; you 
 must, therefore, be careful that these early associations 
 accord with the decisions of those who have determined 
 the national standard of taste. In many instances taste 
 is governed by arbitrary and variable laws ; the fashions 
 of dress, of decoration, of manner, change from day to 
 day; therefore no exclusive prejudices should confine 
 your pupil's understanding. Let him know, as far as 
 we know them, the gene'^ral principles which govern 
 mankind in their admiration of the sublime and beauti- 
 ful ; but at the same time give him that enlarged toler- 
 ation of mind, which comprehends the possibility of a 
 taste different from our own. Show him, and you need 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 439 
 
 not go farther than the Indian screen, or the Chinese 
 paper in your drawing-room, for the ilhistration, that 
 the subHme and beautiful vary at Pekin, at London, on 
 Westminster bridge, and on the banks of the Ganges. 
 Let your young pupil look over a collection of gems or 
 of ancient medals ; it is necessary that his eye should 
 be early accustomed to Grecian beauty, and to all the 
 classic forms of grace. But do not suffer him to become 
 a bigot, though he may be an enthusiast in his admira- 
 tion of the antique. Short lessons upon this subject 
 may be conveyed in a few words. If a child sees you 
 look at the bottom of a print for the name of the artist 
 before you will venture to pronounce upon its merits, 
 he will follow your example, and he will judge by the 
 authority of others, and not by his own taste. If he 
 hears you ask, Who wrote this poem ? Who built this 
 palace? Is this a genuine antique? he will ask the 
 same questions before he ventures to be pleased. If he 
 hears you pronounce with emphasis that such a thing 
 comes from Italy, and therefore must be in good taste, 
 he will adopt the same compendious method of decision 
 upon the first convenient occasion. 
 
 He will not trouble himself to examine why utility 
 pleases, nor will he analyze his taste, or discover v.'hy 
 one proportion or one design pleases him better than 
 another; he will, if by example you teach him preju- 
 dice, content hinjself with repeating the words, propor- 
 tion, antique, picturesque, &c., without annexing to 
 them any precise ideas. 
 
 Parents who have not turned their attention to met- 
 aphysics, may, perhaps, apprehend that they have some- 
 thing very abstruse or intricate to learn, before they can 
 instruct their pupils in the principles of taste: but these 
 prip.ciples are simple, and two or three entertaining 
 books, of no very alarming size, comprise all that haat 
 yet been ascertained upon this subject. Vernet's Th6- 
 orie des Sentimens Atfrcables; Hogarth's Analysis of 
 lieauty ; an Essay of Hume on the standard of Taste; 
 Burke's Sublime and Beautiful ; Lord Kames's Ele- 
 ments of Criticism ; Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses; 
 and Alison on Taste, contain so much instruction, 
 mixed with so much amusement, that we cannot think 
 that it will be a terrible task to any parent to peruse them. 
 
 These books are above the comprehension of chil- 
 dren; but. the principles which they contain can be 
 
440 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 very early illustrated in conversation. It will be easy, 
 in familiar instances, to show children that the fitness, 
 propriety, or utility of certain forms, recommends them 
 to our approbation : that uniformity, an appearance of 
 order and regularity, are, in some cases, agreeable to 
 us; contrast, in others : that one class of objects pleases 
 us from habit, another from novelty, &c. The general 
 principle that governs taste, in the greatest variety of 
 instances, is the association of ideas; and this, fortu- 
 nately, can be most easily illustrated. 
 
 " I like such a person, because her voice puts me in 
 mind of my mother's. I like this walk, because I was 
 very happy the last time I was here with my sister. I 
 think green is the prettiest of all colours ; my father's 
 room is painted green, and it is very cheerful, and I 
 have been very happy in that room; and, besides, the 
 grass is green in spring." Such simple observations as 
 these come naturally from children ; they take notice 
 of the influence of association upon their taste, though, 
 perhaps, they may not extend their observations so as 
 to deduce the general principle according to philosophi- 
 cal forms. We should not lay down for them this or 
 any other principle of taste, as a rule which they are to 
 take for granted ; but we should lead them to class their 
 own desultory remarks, and we should excite them to 
 attend to their own feelings, and to ascertain the truth 
 by experiments upon themselves. We have often ob- 
 served, that children have been much entertained with 
 comparing the accidental circumstances they have met 
 with, and tlie unpremeditated expressions used in con- 
 versation, with any general maxim. In this point of 
 view we may render even general maxims serviceable 
 to children, because they will excite to experiment : our 
 pupils will detect their falsehood, or, after sufficient 
 reflection, acknowledge their truth. 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought that this mode of instruc- 
 tion will tend rather to improve the judgment than the 
 taste ; but every person of good taste must also have a 
 good judgment in matters of taste : sometimes the judg- 
 ment may have been partially exercise^.! upon a particu- 
 lar class of objects, and its accuracy of discrimination 
 may be confined to this one object; therefore we hast- 
 ily decide, that, because men of taste may not always 
 be men of universally good judgment, these two powers 
 of the mind are unnecessary to each other. By teach* 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 441 
 
 ing the philosophy, at the same time that we cultivate 
 the pleasures, of taste, we shall open to our pupils a new 
 world ; we shall give them a new sense. The pleasure 
 of every effect will be increased by the perception of its 
 _pause ; the magic of the scenery will not lose its power 
 to charm, though we are aware of the secret of the en- 
 chantment. 
 
 We have hitherto spoken of the taste for what is 
 beautiful ; a taste for the sublime we should be cautious 
 in cultivating. Obscurity and terror are two of the 
 grand sources of the sublime ; analyze the feeling, ex- 
 amine accurately the object which creates the emotion, 
 and you dissipate the illusion, you annihilate the pleas- 
 ure. 
 " What seemed its head, the likeness of a kingly crown had on." 
 
 The indistinctness of the head and of the kingly 
 crown, makes this a sublime image. Upon the same 
 principle, 
 
 " Danger, whose limbs of giant mould, 
 No mortal eye can fix'd behold," 
 
 always must appear sublime as long as the passion of 
 fear operates. Would it not, however, be imprudent in 
 education to permit that early propensity to supersti- 
 tious terrors, and that temporary suspension of the 
 reasoning faculties, which are often essential to our 
 taste for the sublime'? When we hear of " Margaret's 
 grimly ghost," or of the " dead still hour of night," a sort 
 of awful tremor seizes us, partly from the effect of early 
 associations, and partly from the solemn tone of the 
 reader. The early associations which we perhaps have 
 formed of terror, with the ideas of apparitions, and wind- 
 ing-sheets, and sable shrouds, should be unknown to 
 children. The silent, solemn hour of midnight, should 
 not to them be an hour of terror. In the following 
 poetic description of the beldam telling dreadful stories 
 to her infant audience, we hear only of the pleasures 
 of the imagination ; we do not recollect how dearly 
 these pleasures must be purchased by their votaries : 
 
 « ♦ * * » * * finally by night 
 The village matron, round the blazing hearth, 
 Suspends the infant audience with her tales. 
 Breathing astonishment ! of witching rhymes, 
 And evil spirits ; of the death-bed call 
 Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd 
 T 3 
 
442 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 The orphan's portion ; of the \mquiet souls 
 
 Ris'n from the grave to ease the heavy guilt 
 
 Of deeds in hfe concealed ; of shapes that walk 
 
 At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave 
 
 The torch of hell around the murd'rer's bed. 
 
 At every solemn pause the crowd recoil, 
 
 Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd 
 
 With shiv'ring sighs ; till, eager for th' event, 
 
 Around the beldam all erect they hang. 
 
 Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd."* 
 
 No prudent mother will ever imitate this eloquent 
 village matron, nor will she permit any beldam in the 
 nursery to conjure up these sublime shapes, and to quell 
 tiie hearts of her children with these grateful terrors. 
 We were once present when a group of speechless chil- 
 dren sat listening to the story of Blue-beard, "breathing 
 astonishment." A gentleman who saw the charm be- 
 ginning to operate, resolved to counteract its dangerous 
 influence. Just at the critical moment when the fatal 
 key drops from the trembling hands of the imprudent 
 wife, the gentleman interrupted the awful pause" of 
 silence that ensued, and requested permission to relate 
 the remainder of tlie story. Tragicomedy does not 
 offend the taste of young, so much as of old critics ; the 
 transition from grave to gay was happily managed. 
 Blue-beard's wife afforded much diversion, and lost all 
 s^'inpathy the moment she was represented as a curious, 
 tattling, timid, ridiculous woman. The terrors of Blue- 
 beard himself subsided when he was properly introduced 
 to the company; and the denouement of the piece was 
 managed much to the entertainment of the audience ; 
 the catastrophe, instead of freezing their young blood, 
 produced general lautihter. Ludicrous images, thus 
 presented to the mind which has been prepared for hor- 
 ror, have an instantaneous effect upon the risible mus- 
 cles : it seems better to use these means of counteract- 
 ing tb.e terrors of the imagination, than to reason upon 
 the subject while the fit is on ; reason should be used 
 between the fits.f Those who study the minds of chil- 
 dren know the nice touches which affect their imagina- 
 tion, and they can, by a few words, change their feelings 
 by tlie power of association. 
 
 * Akenside. 
 
 t " Know the.re are words and spells which can control; 
 Between the lits, the fever of the soul." — Pope. 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 443 
 
 Ferdinand Duke of Tuscany was once struck with the 
 picture of a child crying: the painter,! who was at 
 work upon the head, wished to give the duke a proof 
 of his skill : by a few judicious strokes, he converted 
 the crying into a laughing face. The duke, when he 
 looked at the child again, was in astonishment: the 
 painter, to show himself master of the human counte- 
 nance, restored his first touches ; and the duke, in afew 
 moments, saw the child weeping again. A preceptor 
 may acquire similar power over the countenance of his 
 pupil, if he has studied the oratorical art. By the art 
 of oratory, we do not mean the art of misrepresenta- 
 tion, the art of deception ; we mean the art of showing 
 the truth in the strongest light; of exciting virtuous 
 enthusiasm and generous indignation. Warm, glowing 
 eloquence is not inconsistent, with accuracy of reason- 
 ing and judgment. When we have expressed our ad- 
 miration or abhorrence of any action or character, we 
 should afterward be ready coolly to explain to our pupils 
 the justice of our sentiments: by this due mixture and 
 alternation of eloquence and reasoning, we may culti- 
 vate a taste for the moral and sublime, and yet preserve 
 the character from any tincture of extravagant enthusi- 
 asm. We cannot expect that the torrent of passion 
 should never sweep away the landmarks of exact nio- 
 rality ; but after its overflowing impetuosity abates, we 
 should take a calm survey of its effects, and we should 
 be able to ascertain the boundaries of right and wrong 
 with geometrical precision. 
 
 There is a style of bombast morality affected by some 
 authors, which must be hurtful to young readers. Gen- 
 erosity and honour, courage and sentiment, are the 
 striking qualities wMiich seize and enchant the imagina- 
 tion in romance; these qualities must be joined with 
 justice, prudence, economy, patience, and many humble 
 virtues, to make a character really estimable ; but these 
 would spoil the effect, perhaps, of dramatic exhibitions. 
 
 Children may with much greater safety see hideous, 
 than gigantic representations of the passions. Richard 
 the Third excites abhorrence ; but young Charles de 
 Moor, in "The Robbers," commands our synjpathy; 
 even the enormity of his guilt exempts him from all 
 ordinary modes of trial ; we forget the murderer, and 
 
 * Peter cf Cortona. 
 
444 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 see something like a hero. It is curious to observe, 
 that the legislature in Germany and in England have 
 found it necessary to interfere as to the representation 
 of Captain Mac Heath and Charles de Moor, two char- 
 acters in which the tragic and the comic muse have had 
 powerful effects in exciting imitation. George Barn- 
 well is a hideous representation of the passions, and 
 therefore beneficial. 
 
 There are many sublime objects which do not depend 
 upon terror, or at least upon false associations of terror, 
 for their effect ; and there are many sublime thoughts, 
 which have no connexion with violent passions or false 
 ideas of morality. These are what we should select, 
 if possible, to raise, without inflating, the imagination. 
 The view of the ocean, of the setting or the rising sun, 
 the great and bold scenes of nature, affect the mind with 
 sublime pleasure. All the objects which suggest ideas 
 of vast space or power, of the infinite duration of time, 
 of the decay of the monuments of ancient grandeur, or 
 of the master-pieces of human art and industry, have 
 power to raise sublime sensations : but we should con- 
 sider, that they raise this pleasure only by suggesting 
 certain ideas ; those who have not the previous ideas 
 will not feel the pleasure. We should not, therefore, 
 expect that children should admire objects which do not 
 excite any ideas in their minds ; we should wait till they 
 have acquired the necessary knowledge, and we should 
 not injudiciously familiarize them with these objects. 
 
 Simplicity is a source of the sublime, peculiarly suited 
 to children ; accuracy of observation and distinctness of 
 perception, are essential to this species of the sublime. 
 In Percy's collection of ancient ballads, and in the mod- 
 ern poems of the Ayreshire ploughman, we may see 
 many instances of the effect of simplicity. To preserve 
 our pupil's taste from a false love of ornament, he must 
 avoid, either in books or conversation, all verbose and 
 turgid descriptions, the use of words and epithets which 
 only fill up the measure of a line. 
 
 I When a child sees any new object, or feels any new 
 sensation, we should assist him with appropriate words 
 to express his thoughts and feelings : when the impres- 
 sion is fresh in his mind, the association, with the pre- 
 cise descriptive epithets, can be made with most cer- 
 tainty. As soon as a child has acquired a suflicient 
 stock of words and ideas, he should be from time to 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 445 
 
 time exercised in description ; we should encourage him 
 to give an exact account of his own feelings in his own 
 words. Those parents who have been used to elegant, 
 will not, perhaps, be satisfied with the plain descriptions 
 of unpractised pupils ; but they should not be fastidious ; 
 they should rather be content with an epithet too little, 
 than with an epithet too much ; and they should com- 
 pare the child's description with the objects actually 
 described, and not the poems of Thomson or Gray, or 
 Milton or Shakspeare. If we excite our pupils to copy 
 from the writings of others, they never can have any 
 originality of thought. To show parents what sort of 
 simple descriptions they may reasonably expect from 
 children, we venture to produce the following extempore 
 description of a summer's evening, given by three chil- 
 dren of different ages. 
 
 July 12th, 1796. Mr. was walking out with his 
 
 family, and he asked his children to describe the even- 
 ing just as it appeared to them. "There were three 
 bards in Ossian'p poems." said he, "who were sent out 
 to see what sort of a night it was ; they all gave different 
 descripiions upon their return ; you have never any of 
 you read Ossian, but you can give us some description 
 of this evening ; try." 
 
 B (a girl of 14.) "The clouds in the west are 
 
 bright with the light of the sun which has just set; a 
 thick mist is seen in the east, and the smoke which had 
 been heaped up in the daytime, is now spread, and mixes 
 with the mist all round us; the noises are heard more 
 plainly (though there are but few) than in the daytime ; 
 and those which are at a distance, somid almost as near 
 as those which are close to us ; there is a red mist round 
 the moon." 
 
 C (a girl of eleven years old.) " The western 
 
 clouds are pink with the light of the sun which has just 
 set. The moon shines red through the mist. The 
 smoke and mist make it look dark at a distance ; but the 
 few objects near us appear plainer. If it were not for 
 the light of the moon, they would not be seen ; but the 
 moon is exceedingly bright; it shines upon the house 
 and the windows. Every thing sounds busy at a dis- 
 tance ; but what is near us is still." 
 
 S (a boy between nine and ten years old.) " The 
 
 sun has set behind the hill, and the western clouds are 
 tinged with light. The mist mixes with the smoke, 
 
446 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 which rises from the heaps of weeds which some poor 
 man is burning to earn bread for his family. Tiie moon 
 through the mist peeps her head, and sometimes she 
 goes back, retires into her bower of clouds. The few 
 noises that are heard are heard very plain— very 
 plainly." 
 
 We should observe, that the children who at- 
 tempted these little descriptions had not been habit- 
 uated to the poetic trade ; these were the only descrip- 
 tions of an evening which they ever made. It would be 
 hurtful to exercise children frequently in descriptive 
 composition ; it would give them the habit of exact ob- 
 servation, it is true, but. something more is necessary 
 to the higher species of poetry. Words must be se- 
 lected which do not represent only, but which suggest, 
 ideas. Minute veracity is essential to some sorts of 
 description; but in a higher style of poetry, only the 
 large features characteristic of the scene must be pro- 
 duced, and all that is subordinate must be suppressed. 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds justly observes, that painters who 
 aim nierely at deception of the eye by exact imitation, 
 are not likely, even in their most successful imitations, 
 to rouse the imagination. The man who mistook the 
 painted fly for a real fly, only brushed, or attempted to 
 brush it, away. Tha»exHct representation of such a 
 common object, could i»ot raise any sublime ideas in his 
 mind; and when he perceived the deception, the won- 
 der which he felt at the painter's art. was a sensation 
 no way connected with poetic enthusiasm. 
 
 As soon as young people have collected a variety of 
 ideas, we can proceed a step in the education of their fancy. 
 We should sometimes in conversation, sometimes in 
 writing or in drawing, show them how a few strokes, or 
 a few words, can suggest or combine various ideas. A 
 single expression from Cccsar charmed a mutinous army 
 to instant submission. Unless the words " Roman CUi- 
 zens r had suggested more than meets the ear, how 
 could they hnve produced this wonderful effect 1 The 
 works of Voltaire and Sterne abound with examples of 
 the skilful use of the lanffuage of suggestion : on this 
 the wit of Voltaire, and tlie humour and pathos of 
 Sterne, securely depend for their success. Thus, cor- 
 poral Trim's eloquence on the death of his young mas- 
 ter, owed its eflect upon the whole kitchen, including 
 " the fat scullion, who was scouring a fishkettle upon 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 447 
 
 her knees," to ihe well-timed use of the mixed language 
 of action and suggestion. 
 
 " ' Are we not here now V continued the corporal 
 (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the 
 floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability), ' and 
 are we not' (dropping his hat upon the ground) ' gone in 
 a moment V " 
 
 " Are we not here now and gone in a moment V con- 
 tinues Sterne, who, in this instance, reveals the secret 
 of his own art. " There was nothing in the sentence; 
 it was one of your self-evident truths we have the ad- 
 vantage of hearing every day : and if Trim had not 
 trusted more to his hat than his head, he had made 
 nothing at all of it." 
 
 When we point out to our pupils such examples in 
 Sterne, we hope it will not be understood that we point 
 them out to induce servile imitation. We apprehend 
 that the imitators of Sterne have failed from not having 
 
 discovered that the interjections and dashes of this 
 
 author are not in themselves beauties, but that they 
 affect us by suggesting ideas. To prevent any young 
 writers from the intemperate or absurd use of interjec- 
 tions, we should show them Mr. Home Tooke's acute 
 remarks upon this mode of embellishment. We do not, 
 however, entirely agree with this author in his abhor- 
 rence of interjections. We do not believe that " where 
 speech can be employed they are totally useless; and 
 are always insufficient for the purpose of comnmnicating 
 our thoughts."* Even if we class them, as Mr. Tooke 
 himself does.f among '• involuntary convulsions with oral 
 sound," such as groaning, shrieking, &c., yet they may 
 suggest ideas, as well as express animal feelings. 
 Sighing, according to Mr. Tooke, is in the class of inter- 
 jections, yet the poet acknowledges the superior elo- 
 quence of sighs : 
 
 " Persuasive words, and more j>ersuasive siglis." 
 
 " ' I wish,' said Uncle Toby, with a deep sigh (after 
 hearing the story of Le Fevre), ' 1 wish. Trim, I was 
 asleep.' " The sigh here adds great force to the wish, 
 and it does not mark that Uncle Toby, from vehemence 
 of passion, had returned to the brutal state of a savage 
 who has not learned the use of speech ; but, on the con- 
 
 * See Epea Pteroeritra, p. 88. f Chapter on Grammar. 
 
448 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 trary, it suggests to the reader that Uncle Toby was a 
 man of civilized humanity; not one whose compassion 
 was to be excited merely as an animal feeling by the 
 actual sight of a fellow-creature in pain, but rather by 
 the description of the sufferer's situation. 
 
 In painting, as well as in writing, the language of sug- 
 gestion affects the mind ; and if any of our pupils should 
 wish to excel in this art, they must early attend to this 
 principle. The picture of Agamemnon hiding his face 
 at the sacrifice of his daughter, expresses little to the 
 eye, but much to the imagination. The usual signs of 
 grief and joy make but slight impression ; to laugh and 
 to weep are such common expressions of delight or 
 anguish, that they cannot be mistaken, even by the 
 illiterate ; but the imagination must be cultivated to en- 
 large the sphere of sympathy, and to render a more re- 
 fined language intelhgible. It is said that a Milanese 
 artist painted two peasants and two country girls, who 
 laughed so heartily, that no one could look at them with- 
 out laughing.* This is an instance of sympathy uncon- 
 nected with imagination. The following is an instance 
 of sympathy excited by imagination. When Portia was 
 to part from Brutus, just before the breaking out of the 
 civil war, "she endeavoured," says Plutarch, " as well 
 as possible, to conceal the sorrow that oppressed her ; 
 but, notwithstanding her magnanimity, a picture be- 
 trayed her distress. The subject was the parting of 
 Hector and Andromache. He was represented deliver- 
 ing his son Astyanax into her arms, and the eyes of 
 Andromache were fixed upon him. The resemblance 
 that this picture bore to her own distress, made Portia 
 burst into tears the moment she beheld it." If Portia 
 had never read Homer, Andromache would not have 
 had this power over her imagination and her sympathy. 
 
 The imagination not only heightens the power of 
 sympathy with the emotions of all the passions which a 
 painter would excite, but it is likewise essential to our 
 taste for another class of pleasures. Artists who, like 
 Hogarth, would please by humour, wit, and ridicule, 
 must depend upon the imagination of the spectators to 
 supply all the intermediate ideas which they would sug- 
 gest. The cobweb over the poor box, one of the hap- 
 piest strokes of satire that Hogarth ever invented, would 
 
 * See Camper's Works, p. 126. 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 449 
 
 probably say nothing to the inattentive eye, or the dull 
 imagination. A young person must acquire the lan- 
 guage, before he can understand the ideas of superior 
 minds. 
 
 The taste for poetry must be prepared by the culture 
 of the imagination. The united powers of music and 
 poetry could not have triumphed over Alexander, unless 
 his imagination had assisted " the mighty master." 
 
 *' With downcast looks the joyless victor sat, 
 Revolving in his altered soul 
 The various turns of chance below ; 
 And now and then a sigh he stole, 
 And tears began to How." 
 
 The sigh and the tears were the consequences of 
 Alexander's own thoughts, which were only recalled by 
 kindred sounds. We are well aware that savage na- 
 tions, or those that are imperfectly civilized, are subject 
 to enthusiasm ; but we are inclined to think that the bar- 
 barous clamour with which they proclaim their delight 
 in music and poetry, may deceive us as to the degree in 
 which it is felt: the sensations of cultivated minds may 
 be more exquisite, tliough they are felt in silence. It 
 has been supposed that ignorance is extremely sus- 
 ceptible of the pleasures of wonder ; but wonder and 
 admiration are different feelings : the admiration which 
 a cultivated mind feels for excellence of which it can 
 fully judge, is surely a higher species of pleasure than 
 the brute wonder expressed by " a foolish face of 
 praise." Madame Roland tells us that once, at a ser- 
 mon preached by a celebrated Frenchman, she was 
 struck with the earnest attention painted in the counte- 
 nance of a young woman who was looking up at the 
 preacher. At length the fair enthusiast exclaimed, " My 
 God, how he perspires !" A different sort of admira- 
 tion was felt by Cajsar, when the scroll dropped from 
 his hand while he listened to an oration of Cicero. 
 
 There are an infinite variety of associations by which 
 the orator has power to rouse the imagination of a per- 
 son of cultivated understanding; there are compara- 
 tively few, by which he can amuse the fancy of illiterate 
 auditors. It is not that they have less imagination than 
 others ; they have equally the power of raising vivid 
 images ; but there are few images which can be recalled 
 to them : the combinations of their ideas are confined to 
 a small number, and words have no poetic or literary 
 
450 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 associations in their minds: even among children, this 
 difference between the power we have over the culti- 
 vated and uncultivated mind, early appears. A laurel is 
 to the eye of an ilUterate boy nothing more than a shrub 
 with a shining, pale-green, pointed leaf: recall the idea of 
 that shrub by the mast exact description, it will affect him 
 with no peculiar pleasure ; but associate early in a boy's 
 mind the ideas of glory, of poetry, of olyujpic crowns, of 
 Daphne and Apollo ; by some of these latent associa- 
 tions the orator may afterward raise his enthusiasm. 
 We shall not here repeat wluu has been said* upon the 
 choice of literature for young people, but shall once 
 more warn parents to let their pupils read only the best 
 authors, if they wish them to have a fine imagination 
 or a delicate taste. When their minds are awake and 
 warm, show them excellence ; let them hear oratory 
 only when they can feel it ; if the impression be vivid, 
 no matter how transient the touch. Ideas which have 
 once struck the imagination, can be recalled by the 
 magic of a word, with all their original, all their asso- 
 ciated force. Do not fatigue the eye and ear of your 
 vivacious pupil with the monotonous sounds and con- 
 fused images of vulgar poetry. Do not make him re- 
 peat tlie finest passages of Shakspeare and Milton : the 
 effect is lost by repetition ; the words, the ideas are 
 profaned. Let your pupils hear eloquence from elo- 
 quent lips, and they will own its power. But let a 
 drawling, unimpassioned reader, read a play of Shak- 
 speare, or an oration of Demosthenes, and if your pupil 
 is not out of patience, he will never taste the charms of 
 eloquence. If he feels a fine sentiment, or a sublime 
 idea, pause, leave his mind full, leave his imagination 
 elevated. Five minutes afterward, perhaps, your pupil's 
 attention is turned to something else, and the sublime 
 idea seems to be forgotten : but do not fear; the idea is 
 not obliterated ; it is latent in his memory ; it will ap- 
 pear at a proper time, perhaps a month, perhaps twenty 
 years afterward. Ideas may remain long useless and 
 almost forgotten in the mind, and may be called forth by 
 some corresponding association from their torpid state. 
 Young people who wish to make themselves orators 
 or eloquent writers, should acquire the habit of attend- 
 ing first to the general impression made upon their own 
 
 ■* See Chapter on Books. 
 
tasTe and imagination. 451 
 
 minds by oratory, and afterward to the cause which 
 produced the effect; hence they will obtain command 
 over the minds of others, by using the knowledge they 
 have acquired of their own. The habit of considering 
 every new idea, or new fact, as a subject for allusion, 
 may also be useful to the young orator. A change, from 
 time to time in the nature of his studies, will enlarge 
 and invigorate his imagination. Gibbon says, that, after 
 the publication of his first volume of the Roman history, 
 he gave himself a short holyday. " I indulged my cu- 
 riosity in some studies of a very different nature : a 
 course of anatomy, which was demonstrated by Dr. 
 Hunter, and some lessons of chymistry, which were de- 
 livered by Dr. Higgins. The principles of these sciences, 
 and a taste for books of natural history, contributed to 
 multiply my ideas and images ; and the anatomist and 
 chymist may sometimes track me in their own snow." 
 
 Different degrees of enthusiasm are requisite in dif- 
 ferent professions ; but we are inclined to think, that the 
 imagination might with advantage be cultivated to a 
 much higher degree than is commonly allowed in young 
 men intended for public advocates. We have seen 
 several examples of the advantage of a general taste 
 for the belles lettres in eminent lawyers ;* and we have 
 lately seen an ingenious treatise called Deinolog3% or in- 
 structions for a Young Barrister, which confirms our 
 opinion upon this subject. An orator, by the judicious 
 preparation of the minds of his audience, may increase 
 the effect of his best arguments. A Grecian painter,t 
 before he would produce a picture which he had fin- 
 ished, representing a martial enterprise, ordered mar- 
 tial music to be played, to raise the enthusiasm of 
 the assembled spectators; when their imagination was 
 sufficiently elevated, he uncovered the picture, and it 
 was beheld with sympathetic transports of applause. 
 
 It is usually thought that persons of extraordinary 
 imagination are deficient in judgment : by proper edu- 
 cation, this evil might be prevented. We may observe 
 that persons who have acquired particular facility in 
 certain exercises of the imagination, can, by voluntary 
 exertion, either excite or suppress certain trains of 
 ideas on which their enthusiasm depends. An actor, 
 who storms and raves while he is upon the stage, ap- 
 
 * Lord Mansfield, Hussey Burgh, &c. t Theon. 
 
452 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 pears with a mild and peaceable demeanour a moment 
 afterward behind the scenes. A poet, in his inspired 
 moments, repeats his own verses in his garret with all 
 the emphasis and fervour of enthusiasm ; but when he 
 comes down to dine with a mixed convivial company, 
 his poetic fury subsides, and a new train of ideas takes 
 place in his imagination. As long as he has sufficient 
 command over himself to lay aside his enthusiasm in 
 company he is considered as a reasonable, sensible 
 man, and the more imagination he displays in iiis poems, 
 the better. The same exercise of fancy, which we 
 admire in one case, we ridicule in another. The enthu- 
 siasm which characterizes the man of genius, borders 
 upon insanity. 
 
 When Voltaire was teaching Mademoiselle Claron, 
 the celebrated actress, to perform an impassioned part 
 in one of his tragedies, she objected to the violence of 
 his enthusiasm. " Mais, monsieur, on me prendroit 
 pour uiie possedee !"* " Eh, mademoiselle," replied the 
 philosophic bard, *' 11 faut 6tre un possede pour reussir 
 en aucun art." 
 
 The degree of enthusiasm which makes the painter 
 and poet set, what to more idle or more busy mortals, 
 appears an imaginary value upon their respective arts, 
 supports the artist under the pressure of disappointment 
 and neglect, stimulates his exertions, and renders him 
 almost insensible to labour and fatigue. Military heroes, 
 or those who are " insane with ambition,''''] endure all the 
 real miseries of life, and brave the terrors of death, un- 
 der the invigorating influence of an extravagant imagi- 
 nation. Cure them of their enthusiasm, and they are no 
 longer heroes. We must, therefore, decide in education, 
 what species of characters we would produce, before we 
 can determine what degree or what habits of imagina- 
 tion are desirable. 
 
 " Je suis le Dieu de la danse !"| exclaimed Vestris ; and 
 probably Alexander the Great did not feel more pride in 
 his apotheosis. Had any cynical philosopher under^ 
 taken to cure Vestris of his vanity, it would not have 
 been a charitable action. Vestris might, perhaps, by 
 force of reasoning, have been brought to acknowledge 
 
 * " But, sir, I shall be taken for one possessed !"— *' Well, ma'am 
 you must be like one possessed, if you would succeed in any art." 
 t Dr. Darwin. t " I am the god of dancing !" 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 453 
 
 that a dancing-master was not a divinity, but this con- 
 viction would not have increased Ins felicity ; on the 
 contrary, he would have become wretched in proportion 
 as he became rational. The felicity of enthusiasts de- 
 pends upon tlieir benig absolutely incapable of reasoning, 
 or of listening to reason, upon certain subjects ; pro- 
 vided they are resolute in repeating their own train of 
 thoughts without comparing them with that of others, 
 they may defy the malice of wisdom, and in happy 
 ignorance may enjoy perpetual delirium. 
 
 Parents who value the happiness of their children, 
 will consider exactly what chance there is of their en- 
 joying unmolested any partial enthusiasm ; they will 
 consider, that by early excitations, it is very easy to 
 raise any species of ambition in the minds of their pu- 
 pils. The various species of enthusiasm necessary to 
 make a poet, a painter, an orator, or a military hero, may 
 be inspired, without doubt, by education. How far these 
 are connected with happiness, is another question. 
 Whatever be the object which he pursues, we must, as 
 much as possible, ensure our pupil's success. Those 
 who have been excited to exertion by enthusiasm, if they 
 do not obtain the reward or admiration which they had 
 been taught to expect, sink into helpless despondency. 
 Whether their object has been great or small, if it has 
 been their favourite object, and they fail of its attain- 
 ment, their mortificatioti and subsequent languor are un- 
 avoidable. The wisest of monarchs exclaimed, that all 
 was vanity and vexation of spirit : he did not, perhaps, 
 feel more weary of the world than the poor juggler felt, 
 who, after educating his hands to the astonishing dex- 
 terity of throwing up into the air, and catching as they 
 fell, six eggs successively, without breaking them, re- 
 ceived from the emperor before whom he performed, 
 six eggs, to reward the labour of his life ! 
 
 This poor man's ambition appears obviously absurd ; 
 and we are under no immediate apprehension, that pa- 
 rents should inspire their children with the enthusiasm 
 necessary to the profession of a juggler: but, unless 
 some precautions are taken, the objects which excite the 
 ambition of numbers, may be placed so as to deceive 
 the eye and imagination of children ; and they may la- 
 bour through life in pursuit of phantoms. If children 
 early hear their parents express violent admiration for 
 riches, rank, power, or fame, they catch a species of en- 
 
454 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 thuslasni f*)r these things, before they can estimate 
 justly their value ; from the couuleuance and manner, 
 they draw very important conclusions. " Felicity is 
 painted on your countenance," iy a polite phrase of salu- 
 tation in China. The taste for looking happy is not 
 confined to the Chinese: the rich and great,* by every 
 artifice of luxury, endeavour to impress the spectator 
 with the idea of their superior felicity. From experi- 
 ence we know, that the external signs of delight are not 
 always sincere, and that the apparatus of luxury is not 
 necessary to happiness. Children who live with persons 
 of good sense, learn to separate the ideas of happiness 
 and a coach and six ; but young people who see their 
 fathers, mothers, and preceptors, all smitten with sudden 
 admiration at the sight of a phaeton or a fine gentleman, 
 are immediately infected wuth the same absurd enthu- 
 siasm. These parents do not suspect that they are per- 
 verting the imagination of their children, when they call 
 them with foolish eagerness to the window to look at a 
 fine equipage, a splendid cavalcade, or a military proces- 
 sion ; they perhaps summon a boy who is intended for 
 a merchant or a lawyer, to hear " the spirit-stirring 
 drum ;"' and they are afterward surprised, if he says, 
 when he is fifteen or sixteen, that, "• if his father pleases^ 
 he had rather go into the army than go to the bar." 
 The mother is alarmed, perhaps, about the same time, 
 by an unaccountable predilection in her daughter's fancy 
 for a red coat, and totally forgets having called the child 
 to the window to look at the smart cockades, and to hear 
 the tune of " See, the conquering hero comes." 
 
 " Hear you me, Jessica," says Shylock to his daugh- 
 ter, " lock up my doors ; and when you hear the drum, 
 and the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife, clamber 
 not you up into the casements then." 
 
 Sliylock's exhortations were vain; Jessica had ar- 
 rived at years of discretion, and it was too late to forbid 
 her clambering into the casements ; the precautions 
 should have been taken sooner ; the epithets vile, 
 squeaking, and wry-necked fife, could not alter the 
 lady's taste ; and Shylock should have known how per- 
 emptory prohibitions and exaggerated expressions of 
 aversion operate upon the female imagination ; he was 
 imprudent in the extreme of his caution. We should let 
 
 * See SmillTs Moral Thecr;. 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 456 
 
 children see things as they really are, and we should not 
 prejudice thetii either by our exclamations of rapture, 
 or by our atfected disgust. If they are familiarized 
 with show, they will not be caught by it; if they seethe 
 whole of whatever is to be seen, their imagination will 
 not paint things more delightful than they really are. 
 For these reasons, we think that young people should 
 not be restrained, though they may be guided in their 
 tastes ; we should supply them witli all the information in 
 which they are deficient, and leave them to form their 
 own judgments. 
 
 Without making it a matter of favour, or of extra- 
 ordinary consequence, parents can take their children 
 to see public exhibitions, or to partake of any amuse- 
 ments which are really agreeable ; they can, at the same 
 time, avoid mixing factitious with real pleasure. If, for 
 instance, we have an opportunity of tnking a boy to a 
 good play, or a girl to a ball, let them enjoy the full 
 pleasure of the amusement, but do not let us excite 
 their imagination by great preparations, or by antici- 
 pating remarks : " Oh, youUl be very happy to-morrow, 
 for you're to go to the play. You must look well to- 
 night, for you are going to the ball. Were you never 
 at a ball ? Did you never see a play before 1 Oh, then^ 
 you'll be delighted, I'm sure !" The children often look 
 much more sensible, and sometimes more composed, in 
 the midst of these foolish exclamations, than their pa- 
 rents. " Est ce que je m'amuse, maman 1" said a little 
 girl of six years old, the first time she was taken to the 
 playhouse. 
 
 Besides the influence of opinion, there are a number 
 of other circumstances to be considered in cultivating 
 the imagination ; there are many other circumstances 
 which must be attended to, and different precautions 
 are necessary, to regulate properly the imagination of 
 children of different dispositions or temperaments. The 
 disposition to associate ideas, varies in strength and 
 quickness in opposite temperaments: the natural vivacity 
 or dulness of the senses, the habit of observing external 
 objects, the power of voluntary exertion, and the pro- 
 pensity to revery, must all be considered before we can 
 adapt a plan of education exactly to the pupil's advan- 
 tage. A wise preceptor will counteract, as much as 
 possible, all those defects to which a child may appear 
 most liable, and will cultivate liis imagination so as to 
 
456 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 prevent the errors to which he is most exposed by nat- 
 ural, or what we call natural, disposition. 
 
 Some children appear to feel sensations of pleasure 
 or pain with more energy than others ; they take more 
 dehglit in feeling than in reflection ; they have neither 
 much leisure nor much inclination for the intellectual 
 exertions of comparison and deliberation. Great care 
 should be taken to encourage children of this temper to 
 describe and to compare their sensations. By their 
 descriptions we shall judge what motives we ought to 
 employ to govern them, and if we can teach them to 
 compare their feelings, we shall induce that voluntary 
 exertion of mind in which they are naturally defective. 
 We cannot compare or Judge of our sensations without 
 voluntary exertion. When we deliberate, we repeat 
 our ideas deliberately ; and this is an exercise peculi- 
 arly useful to those who feel quickly. 
 
 When any pleasure makes too great an impression 
 upon these children of vivid sensations, we should re- 
 peat the pleasure frequently till it begins to fatigue ; or 
 we should contrast it, and bring it into direct com- 
 parison with some other species of pleasure. For in- 
 stance, suppose a boy had appeared highly delighted 
 with seeing a game at cards, and that we were appre- 
 hensive he might, from this early association, acquire a 
 taste for gaming, we might either repeat the amuse- 
 ment till the playing of cards began to weary the boy, 
 or we might take him immediately after playing at cards 
 to an interesting comedy ; probably the amusement he 
 would receive at the playhouse would be greater than 
 that which he had enjoyed at the card-table ; and as 
 these two species of pleasure would immediately suc- 
 ceed to each other, the child could scarcely avoid com- 
 paring them. Is it necessary to repeat, that all this 
 should be done without any artifice 1 The child should 
 know the meaning of our conduct, and then he will never 
 set himself in opposition to our management. 
 
 If it is not convenient or possible to dull the charm 
 of novelty by repetition, or to contrast a new pleasure 
 with some other superior amusement, there is another 
 expedient which may be useful ; we may call the power 
 of association to our assistance ; this power is some- 
 times a full match for the most lively sensations. For 
 instance, suppose a boy of strong feelings had been 
 offended by some trifle, and expressed sensations of 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 457 
 
 hatred against the offender obviously too violent for the 
 occasion ; to bring the angry boy's imagination to a 
 temperate state, we might recall some circumstance of 
 his former affection for the offender; or the general 
 idea, that it is amiable and noble to command our 
 passion, and to forgive those who have injured us. At 
 the sight of his mother, with whom he had many agreea- 
 ble associations, the imagination of Coriolanus raised 
 up instantly a train of ideas connected with the love of 
 his family and of his country, and immediately the 
 violence of his sensations of anger was subdued. 
 
 Brutus, after his friend Cassius has apologized to him 
 for his " rash humour," by saying, " that it was heredi- 
 tary from his mother," promises that the next time 
 Cassius is over-earnest with " his Brutus, he will think 
 his mother chides, and leave him so ;" that is to say, 
 Brutus promises to recollect an association of ideas, 
 which shall enable him to bear with his friend's ill- 
 humour. 
 
 Children who associate ideas very strongly and with 
 rapidity,* must be educated with continual attention. 
 With children of this class, the slightest circumstances 
 are of consequence ; they may at first appear to be 
 easily managed, because they will remember pertina- 
 ciously any reproof, any reward or punishment ; and, 
 from association, they will scrupulously avoid or follow 
 what has, in any one instance, been joined with pain or 
 pleasure in their imagination : but, unfortunately, acci- 
 dental events will influence them, as well as the rewards 
 and punishments of their preceptors ; and a variety of 
 associations will be formed, which may secretly govern 
 them long before their existence is suspected. We 
 shall be surprised to find, that even where there is ap- 
 parently no hope, or fear, or passion, to disturb their 
 judgment, they cannot reason, or understand reasoning. 
 On studying them more closely, we shall discover the 
 cause of this seeming imbecility. A multitude of asso- 
 ciated ideas occur to them upon whatever subject we 
 attempt to reason, which distract their attention, and 
 make them change the terms of every proposition with 
 incessant variety. Their pleasures are chiefly second- 
 ary reflected pleasures, and they do not judge by their 
 actual sensations so much as by their associations. 
 
 *• Temperament of increased association. — Zoonomia. 
 
 U 
 
458 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 They like and dislike without being able to assign any 
 sufficient cause for their preference or aversion. They 
 make a choice frequently without appearing to deliber- 
 ate ; and if you, by persuading them to a more detailed 
 examination of the objects, convince them, that accord- 
 ing to the common standard of good and evil, they have 
 made a foolish choice, they will still seem puzzled and 
 uncertain ; and, if you leave them at liberty, will persist 
 in their original determination. By this criterion we 
 may decide, that they are influenced by some secret 
 false association of ideas ; and, instead of arguing with 
 them upon the obvious folly of their present choice, v^^e 
 should endeavour to make them trace back their ideas, 
 and discover the association by which they are gov- 
 erned. In some cases this may be out of their power, 
 because the original association may have been totally 
 forgotten, and yet those connected with it may continue 
 to act : but even when we cannot succeed in any partic- 
 ular instance in detecting the cause of the error, w^e 
 shall do the pupils material service by exciting them 
 to observe their own minds. A tutor who carefully re- 
 marks the circimistances in which a child expresses 
 uncommon grief or joy, hope or fear, may obtain com- 
 plete knowledge of his'associations, and may accurately 
 distinguish the proximate and remote causes of all his 
 pupil's desires and aversions. He will then have abso- 
 lute command over the child's mind, and he should upon 
 no account trust his pupil to the direction of any other 
 person. Another tutor, though perhaps of equal ability, 
 could not be equally secure of success ; the child would 
 probably be suspected of cunning, caprice, or obstinacy, 
 because the causes of his tastes and judgments could 
 not be discovered by his new preceptor. 
 
 It often happens that those who feel pleasure and 
 plain most strongly, are likewise most disposed to form 
 strong associations of ideas.* Children of this char- 
 acter are never stupid, but often prejudiced and passion- 
 ate : they can readily assign a reason for their pref- 
 erence or aversion ; they recollect distinctly the ori- 
 ginal sensations of pleasure or pain, on which their 
 associations depend ; they do not, like Mr. Transfer in 
 Zeluco, like or dislike persons and things because they 
 
 * See Zoonomia. Temperament of increased sensibility and as- 
 sociation joined. 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 459 
 
 have heen used to them, but because they have received 
 some injury or benefit from them. Such children are 
 apt to make great mistakes in reasoning, from their 
 registering of coincidences hastily ; they do not wait to 
 repeat their experiments ; but if they have in one in- 
 stance observed two things to liappen at the same time, 
 they expect that they will always recur together. If 
 one event precedes or follows another accidentally, they 
 believe it to be the cause or effect of its concomitant, 
 and this belief is not to be shaken in their minds by- 
 ridicule or argument. They are, consequently, inclined 
 both to superstition and enthusiasm, according as their 
 hopes and fears predominate. They are likewise sub- 
 ject to absurd antipathies — antipathies which verge to- 
 wards insanity. 
 
 Dr. Darwin relates a strong instance of antipathy in 
 a child from association. The child, on tasting the 
 gristle of sturgeon, asked what gristle was 1 and was 
 answered; that gristle was like the division of a man's 
 nose. The child, disgusted at this idea, for twenty 
 years afterward could never be persuaded to taste 
 sturgeon.* 
 
 Zimmermann assures us that he was an eyewitness 
 of a singular antipathy, which we may be permitted tO 
 describe in his own words : — 
 
 " Happening to be in company with some English 
 gentlemen, all of them men of distinction, the conversa- 
 tion fell upon antipathies. Many of the company denied 
 Iheir reality, and considered them as idle stories ; but I 
 assured them that they were truly a disease. Mr. Will- 
 iam Matthews, son to the governor of Barbadoes, was 
 of my opinion, because he himself had an antipathy to 
 spiders. The rest of the company laughed at him.*.I 
 undertook to prove to them that this antipathy tvas 
 really an impression on his soul, resulting from the deter- 
 mination of a mechanical effect. (We do not pretend to 
 know what Dr. Zimmermann means by this.) Lord 
 John Murray undertook to shape some black wax into 
 the appearance of a spider, with a view to observe 
 whether the antipathy would take place at the simple 
 figure of the insect. He then withdrew for a moment, 
 and came in again with the wax in his hand, which 
 he kept shut. Mr. Matthews, who in other respects 
 
 * Zoonomia, vol. ii. 
 U2 
 
460 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 was a very amiable and moderate man, immediately 
 conceiving that his friend really had a spider in his 
 hand, clapped his hand to his sword with extreme fury, 
 and running back towards the partition, cried out most 
 horribly. All the muscles of his face were swelled, his 
 eyes were rolling in their sockets, and his body was im- 
 moveable. We were all exceedingly alarmed, and im- 
 mediately ran to his assistance, took his sword from 
 him, and assured him that what he conceived to be a 
 spider was nothing more than a bit of wax, which he 
 might see upon the table. 
 
 " He remained some time in this spasmodic state ; 
 but at length he began to recover, and to deplore the 
 horrible passion from which he still suffered. His pulse 
 M^as very strong and quick, and his whole body was 
 covered with a cold perspiration. After taking an ano- 
 dyne draught, he resumed his usual tranquillity. 
 
 " We are not to wonder at this antipathy," continues 
 Zimmermann ; " the spiders at Barbadoes are very large, 
 and of a hideous figure. Mr. Matthews was born 
 there, and his antipathy was therefore to be accounted 
 for. Some of the company undertook to make a little 
 waxen spider in his presence. He saw this done with 
 great tranquillity, but he could not be persuaded to touch 
 it, though he was by no means a timorous man in other 
 respects. Nor would he follow my advice to endeavour 
 to conquer this antipathy by first drawing parts of spi- 
 ders of different sorts, and after a time whole spiders, 
 till at length he might be able to look at portions of 
 real spiders, and thus gradually accustom himself to 
 whole ones, at first dead, and then living ones."* 
 
 Dr. Zimmermann's method of cure appears rather 
 more ingenious than his way of accounting for the dis- 
 ease. Are all the natives of Barbadoes subject to con- 
 vulsions at the sight of the large spiders in that island] 
 or why does Mr. William Matthews' having been born 
 there account so satisfactorily for his antipathy 1 
 
 The cure of these unreasonable fears of harmless ani- 
 mals, like all other antipathies, would, perhaps, be easily 
 effected, if it were judiciously attempted early in life. 
 The epithets which we use in speaking of animals, and 
 our expressions of countenance, have great influence on 
 
 * Monthly Review of Zimmermann on Experience in Physic, 
 March, 1783, page 211. 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 461 
 
 the minds of children. If we, as Dr. Darwin advises, 
 call the spider the ingenious spider, and the frog the 
 harmless frog, and if we look at them with complacency, 
 instead of aversion, children, from sympathy, will imitate 
 our manner, and from curiosity will attend to the ani- 
 mals, to discover whether the commendatory epithets 
 we bestow upon them are just. 
 
 It is comparatively of little consequence to conquer 
 antipathies which have trifling objects. An individual 
 can go through life very well without eating sturgeon, 
 or touching spiders ; but when we consider the influ- 
 ence of the same disposition to associate false ideas too 
 strongly in more important instances, we shall perceive 
 the necessity of correcting it by education, 
 
 Locke tells us of a young man, who, having been ac- 
 customed to see an old trunk in the room with him 
 when he learned to dance, associated his dancing exer- 
 tions so strongly with the sight of this trunk, that he 
 could not succeed by any voluntary efforts in its ab- 
 sence. We have, in our remarks upon attention,* 
 pointed out the great inconveniences to which those are 
 exposed who acquire associated habits of intellectual 
 exertion ; who cannot speak, or write, or think, without 
 certain habitual aids to their memory or imagination. 
 We must farther observe, that incessant vigilance is 
 necessary in the moral education of children disposed 
 to form strong associations ; they are liable to sudden 
 and absurd dislikes or predilections, with respect toper- 
 sons as well as things ; they are subject to caprice in 
 their aff'ections and temper, and liable to a variety of 
 mental infirmities, which, in different degrees, we call 
 passion or madness. Locke tells us that he knew a 
 man who, after having been restored to health by a 
 painful operation, had so strongly associated tlie idea 
 and figure of the operator with the agony he had en- 
 dured, that though he acknowledged the obligation, and 
 felt gratitude towards this friend who had saved him, 
 he never afterward could bear to see his benefactor. 
 There are some people who associate so readily and in- 
 corrigibly the idea of any pain or insult they have re- 
 ceived from another, with his person and character, 
 that they can never afterward forget or forgive. They 
 are hence disposed to all the intemperance of hatred and 
 
 * See Chapter on Attention. 
 
462 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 revenge ; to the chronic malice of an lago, or the acute 
 pang^ of an Achilles. Homer, in his speech of Achilles 
 to Agamemnon's mediating ambassadors, has drawn a 
 strong and natural picture of the progress of anger. It 
 is worth studying as a lesson in metaphysics. When- 
 ever association suggests to the mind of Achilles the 
 injury he has received, he loses his reason, and the 
 orator works himself up from argument to declamation, 
 and from declamation to desperate resolution, through 
 a close-linked connexion of ideas and sensations. 
 
 The insanities of ambition, avarice, and vanity, ori- 
 ginate in early mistaken associations. A feather, or a 
 crown, or an alderman's chain, or a cardinal's hat, or a 
 purse of yellow counters, is unluckily associated in the 
 minds of some men with the idea of happiness, and, 
 without staying to deliberate, these unfortunate persons 
 hunt through life the phantasms of a disordered imagi- 
 nation. While we pity, we are amused by the blindness 
 and blunders of those whose mistakes can affect no 
 one's felicity but their own ; but any delusions which 
 prompt their victims to actions inimical to their fellow- 
 creatures, are the objects not unusually of pity, but of 
 indignation, of private aversion and public punishment. 
 We smile at the avaricious insanity of the miser, who 
 dresses himself in the cast-off wig of a beggar, and 
 pulls a crushed pancake from his pocket for his own 
 and for his friend's dinner.* We smile at the insane 
 vanity of the pauper, who dressed himself in a many- 
 coloured paper star, assumed the title of Duke of Bau- 
 bleshire, and as such required homage from every pas- 
 senger. f But are we inclined to smile at tlie outra- 
 geous vanity of the man who styled himself the son of 
 Jupiter, and who murdered his best friend for refusing 
 him divine honours ] Are we disposed to pity the slave- 
 merchant, who, urged by tlie maniacal desire for gold, 
 hears unmoved the groans of his fellow-creatures, the 
 execrations of mankind, and that " small still voice," 
 which haunts those vi^ho are stained with blood 1 
 
 The moral insanities which strike us with horror, 
 compassion, or ridicule, however they may differ in their 
 effects, have frequently one common origin; an early 
 false association of ideas. Persons who mistake in 
 
 ■ Elwes. See his Life. 
 
 t There is an account of this poor man's death in the Star, 1796. 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 463 
 
 measuring their own feelings, or who neglect to com- 
 pare their ideas, and to balance contending wishes, 
 scarcely merit the name of rational creatures. The 
 man who does not deliberate, is lost. 
 
 We have endeavoured, though well aware of the dif- 
 ficulty of the subject, to point out some of the precau- 
 tions that should be used in governing the imagination 
 of young people of different dispositions. We should 
 add, that in all cases the pupil's attention to his own 
 mind will be of more consequence than the utmost 
 vigilance of the most able preceptor ; the sooner he is 
 made acquainted with his own character, and the sooner 
 he can be excited to govern himself by reason, or to at- 
 tempt the cure of his own defects, the better. 
 
 There is one habit of the imagination to which we 
 have not yet adverted ; the habit of revery. In re very 
 we are so intent upon a particular train of ideas, that 
 we are unconscious of all external objects, and we 
 exert but little voluntary power. It is true that some 
 persons in castle-building both reason and invent, and 
 therefore must exert some degree of vohtion ; even in 
 the wildest revery, there may be traced some species 
 of consistency, some connexion among the ideas ; but 
 this is simply the result of the association of ideas. 
 Intentive castle-builders are rather nearer the state of 
 insanity than of revery ; they reason well upon false 
 principles ; their airy fabrics are often both in good taste 
 and in good proportion ; nothing is wanting to them but 
 a foundation. On the contrary, nothing can be more 
 silly than the reveries of silly people ; they are not only 
 defective in consistency, but they want all the unities ; 
 they are not extravagant, but they are stupid ; they con- 
 sist usually of a listless reiteration of uninteresting 
 ideas ; the whole pleasure enjoyed by those addicted to 
 them, consists in the facility of repetition. 
 
 It is a mistaken notion, that only people of ardent 
 imaginations are disposed to revery ; the most indolent 
 •and stupid persons waste their existence in this indul- 
 gence ; they do not act always in consequence of their 
 dreams, therefore we do not detect their folly. Young 
 people of active minds, when they have not sufficient 
 occupation, necessarily indulge in revery ; and, by de- 
 grees, this wild exercise of their invention and imagina- 
 tion becomes so delightful to them, that they prefer it 
 to all sober employments. 
 
464 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Mr. Williams, in his Lectures upon Education, gives 
 an account of a boy singularly addicted to revery. The 
 desire of invisibility had seized his mind, and for several 
 years he had indulged his fancy with imagining all the 
 pleasures that he should command, and all the feats that 
 he could perform, if he were in possession of Gyges's 
 ring. The reader should, however, be informed, that 
 this castle-builder was not a youth of strict veracity ; 
 his confession upon this occasion, as upon others, might 
 not have been sincere. We only state the story from 
 Mr. Williams. 
 
 To prevent children from acquiring a taste for rev- 
 ery, let them have various occupations both of mind and 
 body. Let us not direct their imagination to extraor- 
 dinary future pleasures, but let us suffer them to enjoy 
 the present. Anticipation is a species of revery ; and 
 children who have promises of future pleasures fre- 
 quently made to them, live in a continual state of anti- 
 cipation. 
 
 To cure the habit of revery when it has once been 
 formed, we must take different methods with different 
 tempers. With those who indulge in the stupid revery, 
 we should employ strong excitations, and present to the 
 senses a rapid succession of objects, which will com- 
 pletely engage without fatiguing them. This mode 
 must not be followed with children of different dis- 
 positions, else we should increase, instead of curing, 
 the disease. The most likely method to break this 
 habit in children of great quickness or sensibility, is to 
 set them to some employment which is wholly new to 
 them, and which will consequently exercise and ex- 
 haust all their faculties, so that they shall have no life 
 left for castle-building. Monotonous occupations, such 
 as copying, drawing, or writing, playing on the harpsi- 
 chord, &c., are not, if habit has made tJiem easy to the 
 pupil, fit for our purpose. We may all perceive, that in 
 such occupations the powers of the mind are left un- 
 exercised. We can frequently read aloud with tolerable 
 emphasis for a considerable time together, and at the 
 same time think upon some subject foreign to the book 
 we hold in our hands. 
 
 The most difficult exercises of the mind, such as in- 
 vention, or strict reasoning, are those alone which are 
 sufficient to subjugate and chain down the imagination 
 of some active spirits. To such laborious exercises 
 
TASTE AND IMAGINATION. 465 
 
 they should be excited by the encouraging voice of 
 praise and affection. Imaginative children will be more 
 disposed to invent than to reason, but they cannot per- 
 fect any invention without reasoning ; there will, there- 
 fore, be a mixture of what they like and dislike in the 
 exercise of invention, and the habit of reasoning will, 
 perhaps, gradually become agreeable to them, if it be 
 thus dexterously united with the pleasures of the ima- 
 gination. 
 
 So much has already been written by various authors 
 upon the pleasures and the dangers of imagination, that 
 we could scarcely hope to add any thing new to what 
 they have produced : but we have endeavoured to. 
 arrange the observations which appeared most appli- 
 cable to practical education ; we have pointed out how 
 the principles of taste may be early taught without in- 
 jury to the general understanding, and how the imagi- 
 nation should be prepared for the higher pleasures of 
 eloquence and poetry. We have attempted to define 
 the boundaries between the enthusiasm of genius and 
 its extravagance ; and to show some of the precautions, 
 which may be used to prevent the moral defects to 
 which persons of ardent imagination are usually subject. 
 The degree in which the imagination should be cul- 
 tivated must, we have observed, be determined by the 
 views which parents may have for their children, by 
 their situation in society, and by the professions for 
 which they are destined. Under the government of a 
 sober judgment, the powers of the imagination must be 
 advantageous in every situation ; but their value to so- 
 ciety, and to the individuals by whom they are possessed, 
 depends ultimately upon the manner in which they are 
 managed. A magician, under the control of a philos- 
 opher, ^would perform not only great, but useful won- 
 ders. 'The homely proverb which has been applied to. 
 fire, may with equal truth be applied to imagination :. 
 *' It is a good servant, but a bad master." 
 U 3 
 
466 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ON WIT AND JUDGMENT. 
 
 It has been shown that the powers of memory, in- 
 vention, and imagination, ought to be rendered subserv- 
 ient to judgment : it has been shown that reasoning and 
 judgment abridge the labours of memory, and are ne- 
 cessaiy to regulate the highest flights of imagination. 
 We shall consider the power of reasoning in another 
 view, as being essential to our conduct in life. The 
 object of reasoning is to adapt means to an end, to attain 
 the command of effects by the discovery of the causes 
 on which they depend. 
 
 Until children have acquired some knowledge of 
 effects, they cannot inquire into causes. Observation 
 must precede reasoning ; and as judgment is nothing 
 more than the perception of the result of comparison, 
 we should never urge our pupils to judge until they 
 have acquired some portion of experience. 
 
 To teach children to compare objects exactly, we 
 should place the things to be examined distinctly before 
 them. Every thing that is superfluous should be taken 
 away, and a sufficient motive should be given to 'excite 
 the pupil's attention. We need not here repeat the ad- 
 vice that has formerly been given* respecting the choice 
 of proper motives to excite and fix attention ; or the 
 precautions necessary to prevent the pain of fatigue, 
 and of unsuccessful application. If comparison be 
 early rendered a task to children, they will dislike and 
 avoid this exercise of the mind, and they will conse- 
 quently show an inaptitude to reason : if comparing 
 objects be made interesting and amusing to our pupils, 
 they will soon become expert in discovering resem- 
 blances and differences ; and thus they will be prepared 
 for reasoning. 
 
 Rousseau has judiciously advised, that the senses of 
 children should be cultivated with the utmost care. In 
 proportion to the distinctness of their perceptions, will be 
 the accuracy of their memory, and, probably, also the 
 
 * See Chapter on Attention. 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 467 
 
 precision of their judgment. A child who sees imper- 
 fectly, cannot reason justly about the objects of sight, 
 because he has not sufficient data. A child who does 
 not hear distinctly, cannot judge well of sounds ; and if 
 we could suppose the sense of touch to be twice as ac- 
 curate in one child as in another, we might conclude 
 that the judgment of these children must differ in a 
 similar proportion. The defects in organization are not 
 within the power of the preceptor ; but we may observe, 
 that inattention, and want of exercise, are frequently 
 the causes of what appear to be natural defects ; and, 
 on the contrary, increased attention and cultivation 
 sometimes produce that quickness of eye and ear, and 
 that consequent readiness of judgment, which we are 
 apt to attribute to natural superiority of organization or 
 capacity. Even among children, we may early observe 
 a considerable difference between the quickness of their 
 senses and of their reasoning upon subjects where they 
 have had experience, and upon those on which they 
 have not been exercised. 
 
 The first exercises for the judgment of children 
 should, as Rousseau recommends, relate to visible and 
 tangible substances. Let them compare the size and 
 shape of different objects ; let them frequently try what 
 they can lift ; what they can reach ; at what distance 
 they can see objects ; at what distance they can hear 
 sounds: by these exercises they will learn to judge of 
 distances and weight ; and they may learn to judge of 
 the solid contents of bodies of different shapes, by com- 
 paring the observations of their sense of feeling and of 
 sight. The measure of hollow bodies can be easily 
 taken by pouring liquids into them, and then comparing 
 the quantities of the liquids that fill vessels of different 
 shapes. This is a very simple method of exercising the 
 judgment of children ; and, if they are allowed to try 
 these little experiments for themselves, the amusement 
 will fix the facts in their memory, and will associate 
 pleasure with the habits of comparison. Rousseau re- 
 wards Emilius with cakes when he judges rightly ; suc- 
 cess, we think, is a better reward. Rousseau was him- 
 self childishly fond of cakes and cream. 
 
 The step which immediately follows comparison, is 
 deduction. The cat is larger than the kitten ; then a 
 hole through which the cat can go must be larger than 
 a hole through which the kitten can go. Long before a 
 
468 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 child can put this reasoning into words, he is capable 
 of forming the conclusion, and we need not be in haste 
 to make him announce it in mode and figure. We may 
 see by the various methods which young children em- 
 ploy to reach what is above them, to drag, to push, to 
 lift different bodies, that they reason; that is to say, 
 that they adapt means to an end, before they can ex- 
 plain their own designs in words. Look at a child 
 building a house of cards ; he dexterously balances 
 every card as he floors the edifice ; he raises story over 
 story, and shows us that he has some design in view, 
 though he would be utterly incapable of describing his 
 intentions previously in words. We have formerly* 
 endeavoured to show how the vocabulary of our pupils 
 may be gradually enlarged, exactly in proportion to 
 their real knowledge. A great deal depends upon our 
 attention to this proportion ; if children have not a suffi- 
 cient number of words to make their thoughts intelli- 
 gible, we cannot assist them to reason by our conver- 
 sation, we cannot communicate to them the result of our 
 experience ; they will have a great deal of useless la- 
 bour in comparing objects, because they will not be 
 able to understand the evidence of others, as they do 
 not understand their language ; and at last, the reason- 
 ings which they carry on in their own minds will be 
 confused, for want of signs to keep them distinct. On 
 the contrary, if their vocabulary exceed their ideas, if 
 they are taught a variety of words to which they con- 
 nect no accurate meaning, it is impossible that they 
 should express their thoughts with precision. As this 
 is one of the most common errors in education, we 
 shall dwell upon it more particularly. 
 
 We have pointed out the mischief which is done to 
 the understanding of children by the nonsensical con- 
 versation of common acquaintance.! " Should you like 
 to be a king 1 What are you to be ? Are you to be a 
 bishop or a judge 1 Had you rather be a general or an 
 admiral, my little dear?" are some of the questions 
 which every one has probably heard proposed to chil- 
 dren of five or six years old. Children who have not 
 learned by rote the expected answers to such interroga- 
 tories, stand in amazed silence upon these occasions ; 
 or else answer at random, having no possible means of 
 forming any judgment upon such subjects. We have 
 
 * See Tasks. t Chapter on Acquaintance. 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 46^ 
 
 often thought, in listening to the conversations of grown- 
 up people with children, that the children reasoned in- 
 finitely better than their opponents. People who are 
 not interested in the education of children, do not care 
 what arguments they use, what absurdities they utter, 
 in talking to them ; they usually talk to them of things 
 which are totally above their comprehension ; and they 
 instil error and prejudice, without the smallest degree 
 of compunction ; indeed, without in the least knowing 
 what they are about. We earnestly repeat our advice 
 to parents, to keep their children as much as possible 
 from such conversation : children will never reason if 
 they are allowed lo hear or to talk nonsense. 
 
 When we say that children should not be suffered to 
 talk nonsense, Ave should observe, that unless they have 
 been in the habit of hearing foolish conversation, they 
 very seldom talk nonsense. They may express them- 
 selves in a manner which we do not understand, or they 
 may make mistakes from not accurately comprehending 
 the words of others ; but in these cases, we should not 
 reprove or silence them ; we should patiently endeavour 
 to find out their hidden meaning. If we rebuke or ridi- 
 cule them, we shall intimidate them, and either lessen 
 their confidence in themselves or in us. In the one 
 case, we prevent them from thinking ; in the other, we 
 deter them from communicating their thoughts; and 
 thus we preclude ourselves from the possibility of as- 
 sisting them in reasoning. To show parents the nature 
 of the mistakes which children make from their imper- 
 fect knowledge of words, we shall give a few examples 
 from real life. 
 
 S , at five years old, when he heard some one 
 
 speak of hay horses, said he supposed that the bay horses 
 must be the best horses. Upon crossquestioning him, 
 it appeared that he was led to this conclusion by the 
 analogy between the sounds of the words bay and obey, 
 A few days previous to this, his father had told him that 
 spirited horses were always the most ready to obey. 
 
 These erroneous analogies between the sound of 
 words and their sense, frequently mislead children in 
 reasoning; we should, therefore, encourage children to 
 explain themselves fully, that we may rectify their er- 
 rors. 
 
 When S was between four and five years old, a 
 
 lady who had taken him upon her lap, playfuUj'- put her 
 
470 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 hands before his eyes, and (we believe) askedif hehked 
 
 to be blinded. S said no ; and he looked very 
 
 thoughtful. After a pause, he added, " Smellie says 
 that children like better to be blinded than to have their 
 
 legs tied." (S had read this in Smellie two or three 
 
 days before.) 
 
 Father. " Are you of Smellie's opinion V 
 
 S hesitated. 
 
 Father. "Would you rather be blinded, or have your 
 legs tied ?" 
 
 I would rather have my legs tied not quite 
 
 " Do you know what is meant by blinded .?" 
 " Having their eyes put out." 
 " How do you mean V 
 
 " To put something into the eye to make the 
 blood burst out ; and then the blood would come all over 
 it, and cover it, and stick to it, and hinder them from 
 seeing — I don't know how." 
 
 It is obvious that while this boy's imagination pictured 
 to him a bloody orb when he heard the word blinded, he 
 was perfectly right in his reasoning in preferring to have 
 his legs tied ; but he did not judge of the proposition 
 meant to be laid before him ; he judged of another, which 
 he had formed for himself. His father explained to him 
 that Smellie meant blindfolded, instead of blinded; a 
 handkerchief was then tied round the boy's head, so as 
 to hinder him from seeing, and he was made perfectly 
 to understand the meaning of the word blindfolded. 
 
 In such trifles as these, it may appear of little conse- 
 quence to rectify the verbal errors of children ; but ex- 
 actly the same species of mistake will prevent them 
 from reasoning accurately in matters of consequence. 
 It will not cost us much trouble to detect these mis- 
 takes when the causes of them are yet recent ; but it 
 will give us infinite trouble to retrace thoughts which 
 have passed in infancy. When prejudices, or the habits 
 of reasoning inaccurately, have been formed, we cannot 
 easily discover or remedy the remote trifling origin of 
 the evil. 
 
 When children begin to inquire about causes, they are 
 not able to distinguish between coincidence and causa- 
 tion : we formerly observed the eff'ect which this igno- 
 rance produces upon their temper ; we must now ob- 
 serve its eflfect upon their understanding. A little reflec- 
 
M'lT AND JUDGMENT. 471 
 
 tion upon our own minds will prevent us from feeling 
 that stupid amazement, or from expressing that insult- 
 ing contempt, which the natural thoughts of children 
 sometimes excite in persons who have frequently less 
 understanding than their pupils. What account can we 
 give of the connexion between cause and effect 1 How 
 is the idea that one thing is the cause of another, first 
 produced in our minds ] All that we know is, that 
 among human events, those which precede are in some 
 cases supposed to produce what follow. When we have 
 observed, in several instances, that one event constantly 
 precedes another, we believe and expect that these 
 events will in future recur together. Before children 
 have had experience, it is scarcely possible that they 
 should distinguish between fortuitous circumstances and 
 causation ; accidental coincidences of time and juxta- 
 position, continually lead them into error. We should 
 not accuse children of reasoning ill ; we should not ima- 
 gine that they are defective in judgment when they 
 make mistakes from deficient experience ; we should 
 only endeavour to make them delay to decide until they 
 have repeated their experiments ; and, at all events, we 
 should encourage them to lay open their minds to us, 
 that we may assist them by our superior knowledge. 
 
 This spring, little W (three years old) was look- 
 ing at a man who was mowing the grass before the door. 
 It had been raining, and when the sun-shone the vapour 
 began to rise from the grass. " Does the man mowing 
 make the smoke rise from the grass V said the little boy. 
 He was not laughed at for this simple question. The 
 man's mowing immediately preceded the rising of the 
 vapour ; the child had never observed a man mowing 
 before, and it was absolutely impossible that he could 
 tell what eff'ects might be produced by it ; he very natu- 
 rally imagined that the event which immediately pre- 
 ceded the rising of the vapour, was the cause of its rise ; 
 the sun was at a distance — the scythe was near the 
 grass. The little boy showed, by the tone of his in- 
 quiry, that he was in the philosophic state of doubt : 
 had he been ridiculed for his question — had he been 
 told that he talked nonsense, he would not, upon an- 
 other occasion, have told us his thoughts, and he cer- 
 tainly could not have improved in reasoning. 
 
 The way to improve children in their judgment with 
 respect to causation, is, to increase their knowledge and 
 
4*5^3 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 to lead them to try experiments by which they may dis- 
 cover what circumstances are essential to the produc- 
 tion of any given effect, and what are merely acces- 
 sory, unimportant concomitants of the event.* 
 
 A child who, for the first time, sees blue and red paints 
 mixed together to produce purple, could not be certain 
 that the palette on which these colours were mixed, the 
 spatula with which they were tempered, were not neces- 
 sary circumstances. In many cases, the vessels in which 
 things are mixed are essential; therefore, a sensible 
 child would repeat the experiment exactly in the same 
 manner in which he had seen it succeed. This exact- 
 ness should not be suffered to become indolent imitation, 
 or superstitious adherence to particular forms. Chil- 
 dren should be excited to add or deduct particulars in 
 trying experiments, and to observe the effects of these 
 changes. In " Chymistry" and " Mechanics" we have 
 pointed out a variety of occupations, in which the judg- 
 ment of children may be exercised upon the immediate 
 objects of their senses. 
 
 It is natural, perhaps, that we should expect our pu- 
 pils to show surprise at those things which excite sur- 
 prise in our minds ; but we should consider that almost 
 every thing is new to children; and, therefore, there is 
 scarcely any gradation in their astonishment. A child 
 of three or four years old would be as much amused, 
 and probably as much surprised, by seeing a paper kite 
 fiy, as he could be by beholding the ascent of a balloon. 
 We should not attribute this to stupidity or want of 
 judgnj'^-nt, but simply to ignorance. 
 
 A few days ago, W (three years old), who was 
 
 learning his letters, was permitted to sow an o in the 
 
 garden with mustard seed. W was much pleased 
 
 with the operation. When the green plants appeared 
 
 above ground, it was expected that W would be 
 
 much surprised at seeing the exact shape of his o. 
 He was taken to look at it ; but he showed no surprise, 
 no sort of emotion. 
 
 We have advised that the judgment of children should 
 be exercised upon the objects of their senses. It is 
 scarcely possible that they should reason upon the sub- 
 jects which are sometimes proposed to them : with re- 
 spect to manners and society, they have had no experi- 
 
 * See Stewart. 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 473 
 
 ence — consequently they can form no judgments. By 
 imprudently endeavouring to turn the attention of chil- 
 dren to conversation that is unsuited to them, people 
 may give the appearance of early intelligence, and a cer- 
 tain readiness of repartee and fluency of expression ; 
 but these are transient advantages. Smart, witty chil- 
 dren, amuse the circle for a few hours, and are forgot- 
 ten : and we may observe, that almost all children who 
 are praised and admired for sprightlinessand wit, reason 
 absurdly, and continue ignorant. Wit and judgment de- 
 pend upon different opposite habits of the mind. Wit 
 searches for remote resemblances between objects or 
 thoughts apparently dissimilar. Judgment compares 
 the objects placed before it, in order to find out their 
 differences, rather than their resemblances. The com- 
 parisons of judgment may be slow ; those of wit must 
 be rapid. The same power of attention in children may 
 produce either wit or judgment. Parents must decide in 
 which faculty, or, rather,"in which of these habits of the 
 mind, they wish their pupils to excel ; and they must 
 conduct their education accordingly. Those who are 
 desirous to make their pupils witty, must sacrifice some 
 portion of their judgment to the acquisition of the talent 
 for wit ; they must allow their children to talk fre- 
 quently at random. Among a multitude of hazarded 
 observations, a happy hit is now and then made : for 
 these happy hits, children who are to be made wits 
 should be praised ; and they must acquire sufficient 
 courage to speak from a cursory view of things ; there- 
 fore the mistakes they make from superficial examina- 
 tion must not be .pointed out to them ; their attention 
 must be turned to the comic, rather than to the serious 
 side of objects ; they must study the different meanings 
 and powers of words ; they should hear witty conversa- 
 tion, read epigrams and comedies ; and in all company 
 they should be exercised before numbers in smart dia- 
 logue and repartee. 
 ^ .,- When we mention the methods of educating a child to 
 Jl be witty, we at the same time point out the dangers of 
 this education ; and it is but just to warn parents against 
 expecting inconsistent qualities from their pupils. Those 
 who steadily prefer the solid advantages of judgment to 
 the transient brilliancy of wit, should not be mortified 
 when they see their children, perhaps, deficient at nine 
 or ten years old in the showy talents for general conver4 
 
474 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 sation ; they must bear to see their pupils appear slow ; 
 they must bear the contrast of flippant gayely and sober 
 simplicity ; they must pursue exactly an opposite course 
 to that which has been recommended for the education 
 of wits ; they must never praise their pupils for hazard- 
 ing observations ; they must cautiously point out any 
 mistakes that are made from a precipitate survey of ob- 
 jects; they should not harden their pupils against that 
 feeling of shame which arises in the mind from the per- 
 ception of having uttered an absurdity ; they should 
 never encourage their pupils to play upon words ; and 
 their admiration of wit should never be vehemently or 
 enthusiastically expressed. 
 
 We shall give a few examples to convince parents, 
 that children whose reasoning powers have been culti- 
 vated, are rather slow in comprehending and in admiring 
 wit. They require to have it explained, they want to 
 settle the exact justice and morahty of the repartee, be- 
 fore they will admire it. 
 
 (November 20th, 1796.) To-day at dinner the con- 
 versation happened to turn upon wit. Somebody men- 
 tioned the well-known reply of the hackney-coachman 
 to Pope. S , a boy of nine years old, listened at- 
 tentively, but did not seem to understand it ; his father 
 endeavoured to explain it to him. " Pope was a little, 
 ill-made man ; his favourite exclamation was, ' God 
 mend me !' Now, when he was in a passion with the 
 hackney-coachman, he cried, as usual, ' God mend me !' 
 ' Mend you, sir V said the coachman ; ' it would be easier 
 to make a new one.' Do you understand this now, 
 
 s — r' 
 
 S looked dull upon it, and, after some minutes' 
 
 consideration, said, " Yes, Pope was ill-made ; the man 
 meant it would be better to make a new one than to 
 mend him." S— — did not yet seem to taste the wit; 
 he took the answer literally, and understood it soberly. 
 
 Immediately afterward, the officer's famous reply to 
 
 Pope was told to S . About ten days after this 
 
 conversation, S said to his sister, " I wonder, 
 
 M , that people don't oftener laugh at crooked peo- 
 ple ; like the officer who called Pope a note of inter- 
 rogation." 
 
 M . " It would be illnatured to laugh at them." 
 
 S . " But you all praised that man for saying that 
 
 about Pope. You did not think him illnatured." 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 475 
 
 Mr. . " No, because Pope had been impertinent 
 
 to him." 
 
 >S . "Howl" 
 
 M . " Don't you remember, that when the officer 
 
 said that a note of interrogation would make the pas- 
 sage clear, Pope turned round, and looking at him with 
 great contempt, asked if he knew what a note of inter- 
 rogation was V 
 
 S . " Yes, I remember that ; but I do not think 
 
 that was very impertinent, because Pope might not 
 know whether the man knew it or not," 
 
 Mr. . " Very true : but then you see, that Pope 
 
 took it for granted that the officer was extremely igno- 
 rant ; a boy who is just learning to read knows what a 
 note of interrogation is." 
 
 <S (thoughtfully.) " Yes, it was rude of Pope ; but 
 
 then the man was an officer, and, therefore, it was very 
 likely that he might be ignorant ; you know you said 
 that officeis were often very ignorant." 
 
 Mr. . " I said offeyi ; but not always. Young men, 
 
 I told you, who are tired of books, and ambitious of a 
 red coat, often go into the army to save themselves the 
 trouble of acquiring the knowledge necessary for other 
 professions. A man cannot be a good lawyer, or a good 
 physician, without having acquired a great deal of knowl- 
 edge ; but an officer need have little knowledge to know 
 how to stand to be shot at. But though it may be true 
 in genera], that officers are often ignorant, it is not 
 necessary that they should be so ; a man in a red coat 
 may have as much knowledge as a man in a black, or a 
 blue one ; therefore, no sensible person should decide 
 that a man is ignorant merely because he is an officer, 
 as Pope did." 
 
 jS . " No, to be sure. I understand now." 
 
 M . " But, I thought, S- , you understood this 
 
 before." 
 
 Mr. . " He is very right not to let it pass without 
 
 understanding it thoroughly. You are very right, S , 
 
 not to swallow things whole ; chew them well." 
 
 ^ looked as if he was still cheAving. 
 
 M . " What are you thinking of, S 1" 
 
 S . " Of the man's laughing at Pope for bemg 
 
 crooked." 
 
 Mr. . " If Pope had not said any thing rude to 
 
 that man, the man would have done very wrong to laugh 
 
476 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 at him. If the officer had walked into a coffee-house, 
 and, pointing at Pope, had said, ' there's a little crooked 
 thing, like a note of interrogation,' people might have 
 been pleased with his wit in seeing that resemblance, 
 but they would have disliked his illnature ; and those 
 who knew Mr. Pope, would probably have answered, 
 ' Yes, sir, but that crooked little man is one of the most 
 witty men in England ; he is the great poet, Mr. Pope.' 
 But when Mr. Pope had insulted the officer, the case 
 was altered. Now, if the officer had simply answered, 
 when he was asked what a note of interrogation was, 
 ' a little crooked thing ;' and if he had looked at Pope 
 from head to foot as he spoke these words, everybody's 
 attention would have been turned upon Pope's figure ; 
 but then the officer would have reproached him only for 
 his personal defects : by saying, ' a httle crooked thing 
 that asks questions,'' the officer reproved Pope for his im- 
 pertinence. Pope had just asked him a question, and 
 everybody perceived the double application of the an- 
 swer. It was an exact description of a note of interro- 
 gation, and of Mr. Pope. It is this sort of partial resem- 
 blance quickl)'- pointed out between things, which at 
 first appear very unlike, that surprises and pleases peo- 
 ple, and they call it wit." 
 
 How difficult it is to explain wit to a child ! and how 
 much more difficult to fix its value and morality ! About 
 a month after this conversation had passed, S re- 
 turned to the charge : his mind had not been completely 
 settled about ivit. 
 
 (January 9th, 1796.) "So, S , you don't yet un- 
 derstand wit, I see," said M to him, when he looked 
 
 very grave at something that was said to him in jest. 
 S immediately asked, " What is wif?" 
 
 M answered (laughing)," Witis the folly of grown- 
 up people." 
 
 Mr. . " How can you give the boy such an an- 
 swer? Come to me, my dear, and Til try if I can give 
 you a better. There are two kinds of wit, one which 
 depends upon words, and another which depends upon 
 thoughts. I will give you an instance of wit depending 
 upon words : 
 
 " ' Hear yonder beggar, how he cries, 
 I am so lame I cannot rise! 
 If he tells truth, he hes.'" 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT 477 
 
 " Do you understand that V 
 
 S . " No ! If he tells truth, he lies ! No, he cant 
 
 both tell truth and tell a lie at the same time ; that's im- 
 possible." 
 
 Mr. . " Then there is something in the words 
 
 which you don't understand : in the common sense of the 
 words, they contradict each other ; but try if you can 
 find out any uncommon sense — any word which can be 
 understood in two senses." 
 
 5 muttered the words, " If he tells truth, he lies," 
 
 and looked indignant, but presently said, " Oh, now I un- 
 derstand ; the beggar was lying down ; he lies, means 
 he lies down, not, he tells a lie." 
 
 The perception of the double meaning of the words 
 did not seem to please this boy ; on the contrary, it 
 seemed to provoke him ; and he appeared to think that 
 he had wasted his time upon the discovery. 
 
 Mr. . " Now I will give you an instance of wit 
 
 that depends upon the ideas rather than on the words. 
 A man of very bad character had told falsehoods of 
 another, who then made these two lines : 
 
 " ' Lie on, whilst my revenge shall be, 
 To tell the very truth of thee.' " 
 
 S approved of this immediately and heartily, and 
 
 recollected the only epigram he knew by rote, one which 
 he had heard in conversation two or three months be- 
 fore this time. It was made upon a tall, stupid man, 
 who had challenged another to make an epigram extem- 
 pore upon him. 
 
 " Unlike to Robinson shall be my song ; 
 It shall be witty, and it shan't be long." 
 
 At the time S first heard this epigram, he had 
 
 been as slow in comprehending it as possible ; but after 
 it had been thoroughly explained, it pleased him, and 
 remained fixed in his memory. 
 
 Mr. observed, that this epigram contained wit 
 
 both in words and in ideas : and he gave S one 
 
 other example. " There were two contractors ; I mean 
 people who make a bargain with government, or with 
 those who govern the country, to supply them with cer- 
 tain things at a certain price ; there were two con- 
 tractors, one of whom was employed to supply govern- 
 ment with corn ; the other agreed to supply government 
 
478 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 with rum. Now, you know, corn may be called grain, 
 and rum may be called spirit. Both these contractors 
 cheated in their bargain; both their names were the 
 same ; and the following epigram was made on them : 
 
 " ' Both of a name, lo ! two contractors come ; 
 One cheats in corn, and t'other cheats in rum. 
 Which is the greater, if you can, explani, 
 A rogue in spirit, or a rogue in grain V 
 
 " Spirif^ continued Mr. , " has another sense, you 
 
 know — will, intention, soul ; he has the spirit of a 
 rogue; she has the spirit of contradiction. And grain 
 has also another meaning ; the grain of this table, the 
 grain of your coat. Died in grain, means died into the 
 substance of the material, so that the die can't be washed 
 out. A rogue in grain, means a man whose habit of 
 cheating is fixed in his mind : and it is difficult to deter- 
 mine which is the worst, a man who has the wish, or a 
 man who has the habit, of doing wrong. At first it 
 seems as if you were only asked which was the worst, 
 to cheat in selling grain, or in selUng spirit ; but the 
 concealed meaning makes the question both sense 
 and wit." 
 
 These detailed examples, we fear, may appear tire- 
 some ; but we knew not how, without them, to explain 
 ourselves fully. We should add, for the consolation of 
 those who admire wit, and we are among the number 
 ourselves, that it is much more likely that wit should 
 be ingrafted upon judgment, than that judgment should 
 be ingrafted upon wit. The boy whom we have just 
 mentioned, who was so slow in comprehending the na- 
 ture of wit, was asked whether he could think of any 
 answer that Pope might have made to the officer who 
 called him a note of interrogation. 
 
 <S . " Is there any note which means answer .?" 
 
 Mr. " I don't know what you mean." 
 
 <S . " Any note which means answer, as like 
 
 the note of interrogation, which shows that a question 
 is asked ]" 
 
 Mr. . " No ; but if there were, what then 1" 
 
 -S . " Pope might have called the man that note." 
 
 •S could not exactly explain his idea ; somebody 
 
 who was present said, that if he had been in Pope's 
 place, he would have called the officer a note of admi- 
 ration. S w^ould have made this answer, if he had 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 479 
 
 been familiarly acquainted with the name of the note of 
 admiration. His judgment taught him how to set about 
 looking for a proper answer ; but it could not lead him 
 to the exact place, for want of experience. 
 
 We hope that we have, in the chapter on books, fully- 
 explained the danger of accustoming children to read 
 what they do not understand. Poetry, they cannot early 
 comprehend; and even if they do understand it, they 
 cannot improve their reasoning faculty by poetic stud- 
 ies. The analogies of poetry and of reasoning, are very 
 different. " The muse," says an excellent judge upon 
 this subject, " would make but an indifferent school- 
 mistress." We include under the head of poetry, all 
 books in which declamation and eloquence are substi- 
 tuted for reasoning. We should accustom our pupils to 
 judge strictly of the reasoning which they meet with in 
 books ; no names of high authority should ever preclude 
 an author's arguments from examination. 
 
 The following passage from St. Pierre's Etudes de la 
 
 Nature, was read to two boys ; H , fourteen years 
 
 old ; S , ten years old. 
 
 " Hurtful insects present (the same) oppositions and 
 signs of destruction ; the gnat, thirsty of human blood, 
 announces himself to our sight by the white spots with 
 which his brown body is speckled ; and by the shrill 
 sound of his wings, which interrupts the calm of the 
 groves, he announces himself to our ear as well as to 
 our eye. The carnivorous wasp is streaked like the 
 tiger, with bands of black over a yellow ground." 
 
 H and S both at once exclaimed, that these 
 
 spots in the gnat, and streaks in the wasp, had nothing 
 to do with their stinging us. " The buzzing of the gnat," 
 
 said S , " would be a very agreeable sound to us, if 
 
 we did not know that the gnat would sting, and that it 
 was coming near us ; and as to the wasp, I remember 
 stopping one day upon the stairs to look at the beauti- 
 ful black and yellow body of a wasp. I did not think 
 of danger, nor of its stinging me then, and I did not 
 know that it was like the tiger. After I had been stung 
 by a wasp, I did not think a wasp such a beautiful ani- 
 mal. 1 think it is very often from our knowing that 
 animals can hurt us, that we think them ugl}-. We 
 might as well say," continued S , pointing to a cro- 
 cus which was near him, " we might as well say, that a 
 man who has a yellow face has the same disposition as 
 
480 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 that crocus, or that the crocus is in every thing like the 
 man, because it is yellow." 
 
 Cicero's " curious consolation for deafness" is prop- 
 erly noticed by Mr. Hume. It was read to S a few 
 
 days ago, to try whether he could detect the sophistry : 
 he was not previously told what was thought of it by 
 others. 
 
 " How many languages are there," says Cicero, " which 
 you do not understand ^ The Punic, Spanish, Gallic, 
 Egyptian, &c. "With regard to all these, you are as if 
 you were deaf, and yet you are indifferent about the 
 matter. Is it then so great a misfortune to be deaf to 
 one language more 1" 
 
 " I donH think," said S , *' that was at all a good 
 
 way to console the man, because it was putting him in 
 mind that he was more deaf than he thought he was. 
 He did not think of those languages, perhaps, till he was 
 put in mind that he could not hear them." 
 
 In stating any question to a child, we should avoid 
 letting our own opinion be known, lest we lead or intim- 
 idate his mind. We should also avoid all appearance 
 of anxiety, all impatience for the answer ; our pupil's 
 mind should be in a calm state when he is to judge : if 
 we turn his sympathetic attention to our hopes and 
 fears, we agitate him, and he will judge by our counte- 
 nances rather than by comparing the objects or propo- 
 sitions which are laid before him. Some people, in 
 arguing with children, teach them to be disingenuous 
 by the uncandid manner in which they proceed ; they 
 show a desire for victory, rather than for truth ; they 
 state the arguments only on their own side of the ques- 
 tion, and they will not allow the force of those v.hich 
 are brought against them. Children are thus piqued, 
 instead of being convinced, and in their turn they be- 
 come zealots in support of their own opinions ; they 
 hunt only for arguments in their own favour, and they 
 are mortified when a good reason is brought on the op- 
 posite side of the question to that on whicli they happen 
 to have enlisted. To prevent this, we should never ar- 
 gue, or suffer others to argue, for victory with our pupils ; 
 we should not praise them for their cleverness in find- 
 ing out arguments in support of their own opinion ; but 
 we should praise their candour and good sense when 
 they perceive and acknowledge the force of their oppo- 
 nent's arguments. They \should not be exercised as 
 
Wit and judgment. 491 
 
 advocates, but as judges ; they should be encouraged to 
 keep their minds impartial, to sum up the reasons which 
 they have heard, and to form their opinion from these 
 without regard to what they may have originally as- 
 serted. We should never triumph over children for 
 changing their opinion. " I thought you were on my 
 side of the question ;" or, " I thought you were on the 
 other side of the question just now !" is sometimes 
 tauntingly said to an ingenuous child, who changes his 
 opinion when he hears a new argument. You tTiink it 
 a proof of his want of judgment, that he changes his 
 opinion in this manner ; that he vibrates continually 
 from side to side : let him vibrate, presently he will be 
 fixed. Do you think it a proof that your scales are bad, 
 because they vibrate with every additional weight that 
 is added to either side \ 
 
 Idle people sometimes amuse themselves with trying » 
 the judgment of children, by telling them improbable, 
 extravagant stories, and then asking the simple listen- 
 ers whether they believe what has been told them. The 
 readiness of belief in children will be always propor- 
 tioned to their experience of the veracity of those with 
 whom they converse ; consequently, children who live 
 with those who speak truth to them, will scarcely ever 
 be inclined to doubt the veracity of strangers. Such 
 trials of the judgment of our pupils should never be per- 
 mitted. Why should the example of lying be set before 
 the honest minds of children, who are far from silly 
 when they show simplicity T They guide themselves 
 by the best rules, by which even a philosopher in simi- 
 lar circumstances could guide himself. The things as- 
 serted are extraordinary, but the children believe them^ 
 because they have never had any experience of the 
 falsehood of human testimony. 
 
 The Socratic mode of reasoning is frequently prac- 
 tised upon children. People arrange questions artfully* 
 so as to bring them to whatever conclusion they please. 
 In this mode of reasoning, much depends upon getting 
 the first move ; the child has very little chance of hav- 
 ing it ; his preceptor usually begins first with a peremp- 
 tory voice, '* Now answer me this question !" The pu- 
 pil, who knows that the interrogatories are put with a 
 design to entrap him, is immediately alarmed ; and in- 
 stead of giving a direct, candid answer to the question, 
 is always looking forward to the possible consequences 
 X 
 
482 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 of his reply ; or he is considering how he may evade 
 the snare that is laid for him. Under these circum- 
 stances, he is in imminent danger of learning the shuffling 
 habits of cunning; he has little chance of learning tlie 
 nature of open, manly investigation. 
 
 Preceptors who imagine that it is necessary to put 
 on very grave faces, and to use much learned apparatus 
 in teaching the art of reasoning, are not nearly so likely 
 to succeed as those who have the happy art of encour- 
 aging children to lay open their minds freely, and who 
 can make every pleasing trifle an exercise for the un- 
 derstanding. If it be playfully pointed out to a child 
 that he reasons ill, he smiles and corrects himself; but 
 you run the hazard of making him positive in error, if 
 you reprove or ridicule him with severity. It is better 
 to seize the subjects that accidentally arise in conver- 
 sation, than formally to prepare subjects for discussion. 
 
 " The king's stag hounds" (says Mr. White of Sel- 
 bourne, in his entertaining observations on quadrupeds),* 
 " the king's stag hounds came down to Alton, attended 
 by a huntsman and six yeoman prickers with horns, to 
 try for the stag that has haunted Hartley-wood and its 
 environs for so long a time. Many hundreds of people, 
 horse and foot, attended the dogs to see the deer unhar- 
 boured ; but though the huntsman drew Hartley-wood, 
 and long-coppice, and Shrubwood, and Temple-hangers, 
 and in their way back, Hartley, and Wardleham-hangers, 
 yet no stag could be found. 
 
 " The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned 
 out before them, never drew the coverts with any address 
 and spirit,'''' &c. 
 
 Children who are accustomed to have the game 
 started and turned out before them by their preceptors, 
 may, perhaps, like the royal pack, lose their wonted ad- 
 dress and spirit, and may be disgracefully at a fault in 
 the public chase. Preceptors should not help their pu- 
 pils out in argument ; they should excite them to explain 
 and support their own observations. 
 
 Many ladies show, in general, conversation the powers 
 of easy raillery joined to reasoning, unencumbered with 
 pedantry. If they would employ these talents in the 
 education of their children, they would probably be as 
 
 * A Naturalist's Calendar, by the late Rev. Gilbert White, M. A., 
 published bv Dr. Aiken, printed for B. and J. White, Fleet-street. 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 4S3 
 
 Well repaid for their exertions, as they can possibly be 
 by the polite, but transient applause, of the visiters to 
 whom they usually devote their powers of entertaining 
 A little praise or blame, a smile from a mother or a 
 frown, a moment's attention or a look of cold neglect, 
 has the happy or the fatal power, of repressing or of 
 exciting the energy of a child, of directing his under- 
 standing to useful or pernicious purposes. Scarcely a 
 day passes in which children do not make some attempt 
 to reason about the little events which interest them, 
 and, upon these occasions, a mother who joins in con- 
 versation with her children, may instruct them in the art 
 of reasoning without the parade of logical disquisitions. 
 Mr. Locke has done mankind an essential service, by 
 the candid manner in which he has spoken of some of 
 the learned forms of argumentation. A great propor- 
 tion of society, he observes, are unacquainted with these 
 forms, and have not heard the name of Aristotle ; yet, 
 without the aid of syllogisms, they can reason suffi- 
 ciently well for all the useful purposes of life, often 
 much better than those who have been disciphned in 
 the schools. It would indeed "be putting one man 
 sadly over the head of another," to confine the reason- 
 ing faculty to the disciples of Aristotle, to any sect or 
 system, or to any forms of disputation. Mr. Locke has 
 very clearly shown, that syllogisms do not assist the 
 mind in the perception of the agreement or disagree- 
 ment of ideas ; but, on the contrary, that they invert the 
 natural order in which the thoughts should be placed, 
 and in which they must be placed, before we can draw 
 a just conclusion. To children who are not familiar- 
 ized with scholastic terms, the sound of harsh words 
 and quaint language, unlike any thing that they hear in 
 common conversation, is alone sufficient to alarm their 
 imagination with some confused apprehension of diffi- 
 culty. In this state of alarm they are seldom suffi- 
 ciently masters of themselves, either to deny or to 
 acknowledge an adept's major, minor, or conclusion. 
 Even those who are most expert in syllogistical reason- 
 ing, do not often apply it to the common affairs of life, 
 in which reasoning is just as much wanted as it is in the 
 abstract questions of philosophy : and many argue and 
 conduct themselves with great prudence and precision, 
 who might, perhaps, be caught on the horns of a dilem- 
 ma, or who would infallibly fall victims to the crocodile. 
 X2 
 
484 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Young people should not be ignorant, however, of 
 these boasted forms of argumentation; and it may, as 
 they advance in the knowledge of words, be a useful 
 exercise to resist the attacks of sophistry. No inge- 
 nious person would wish to teach a child to employ 
 them. As defensive weapons, it is necessary that young 
 people should have the command of logical terms; as 
 offensive weapons, these should never be used. They 
 should know the evolutions, and be able to perform the 
 exercise of a logician, according to the custom of the 
 times, according to the usage of different nations ; but 
 they should not attach any undue importance to this 
 technical art : they should not trust to it in the day of 
 battle. 
 
 We have seen syllogisms, crocodiles, enthymems, 
 sorites, &c., explained and tried upon a boy of nine or 
 ten years old in playful conversation, so that he became 
 accustomed to the terms without learning to be pedan- 
 tic in the abuse of them ; and his quickness in reasoning 
 was increased by exercise in detecting puerile sophisms ; 
 such as that of the Cretans — Gorgias and his bargain 
 about the winning of his first cause. In the following 
 sorites* of Themistocles — " My son commands his 
 mother ; his mother commands me ; I command the 
 Athenians ; the Athenians command Greece ; Greece 
 commands Europe ; Europe commands the whole 
 earth ; therefore, my son commands the whole earth" — 
 the sophism depends upon the inaccurate use of the 
 commands, which is employed in different senses in the 
 different propositions. This error was without diffi- 
 culty detected by S at ten years old ; and we make 
 
 no doubt that any unprejudiced boy of the same age 
 would immediately point out the fallacy without hesita- 
 tion ; but we do not feel quite sure that a boy exer- 
 cised in logic, who had been taught to admire and rever- 
 ence the ancient figures of rhetoric, would with equal 
 readiness detect the sophism. Perhaps it may seem 
 surprising, that the same boy, who judged so well of 
 this sorites of Themistocles, should a few months before 
 have been easily entrapped by the following simple 
 dilemma : — 
 
 M . " We should avoid what gives us pain." 
 
 S . " Yes, to be sure." 
 
 * See Deinology ; where there are many entertaining examples 
 of the figures of rhetoric. 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 485 
 
 M . " Whatever burns us, gives us pain." 
 
 5 . '■' Yes, that it does !" 
 
 M . " We should then avoid whatever burns us." 
 
 To this conclusion 8 heartily assented, for he had 
 
 but just recovered from the pain of a burn. 
 
 M . " Fire burns us." 
 
 8 . '' Yes, I know that." 
 
 M . " We should then avoid fire." 
 
 5 . "Yes." 
 
 This hasty yes was extorted from the boy by the 
 mode of interrogatory ; but he soon perceived his mis- 
 take. 
 
 M. . " We should avoid fire ? What, when we are 
 
 very cold ?" 
 
 S . " Oh, no : I meant to say, that we should 
 
 avoid a certain degree of fire. We should not go too 
 near the fire. W^e should not go so near as to burn our- 
 selves." 
 
 Children who have but little experience, frequently 
 admit assertions to be true in general, which are only 
 true in particular instances ; and this is often attributed 
 to their want of judgment : it should be attributed to 
 their want of experience. Experience, and nothing 
 else, can rectify these mistakes : if we attempt to cor- 
 rect them by words, we shall merely teach our pupils 
 to argue about terms, not to reason. Some of the ques- 
 tions and themes which are given to boys, may afford 
 us instances of this injudicious education, " Is elo- 
 quence advantageous or hurtful to a state V What a 
 vast range of ideas, what a variety of experience in men 
 and things, should a person possess, who is to discuss 
 this question ! Yet it is often discussed by unfortunate 
 scholars of eleven or twelve years old. " What is the 
 greatest good ?" The answer expected by a preceptor 
 to this' question, obviously, is virtue ; and if a boy can, 
 in decent language, write a page or two about pleasure 
 being a transient, and virtue a permanent good, his 
 master flatters himself that he has early taught him to 
 reason philosophically. But what ideas does the youth 
 annex to the words pleasure and virtue 1 Or does he 
 annex any 1 If he annex no idea to the words, he is 
 merely talking about sounds. 
 
 All reasoning ultimately refers to matters of fact : to. 
 judge whether any piece of reasoning is within the com- 
 prehension of a child, we must consider whether the 
 
486 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 facts to which it refers are within his experience. The 
 more we increase his knowledge of facts, the more we 
 should exercise him in reasoning upon them ; but we 
 should teach him to examine carefully before he admits 
 any thing to be a fact, or any assertion to be true. Ex- 
 periment, as to substances, is the test of truth ; and at- 
 tention to his own feelings, as to n^atters of feeling. 
 Comparison of the evidence of others with the general 
 laws of nature, which he has learned from his own ob- 
 servation, is another mode of obtaining an accurate 
 knowledge of facts. M. Condill.ic, in his Art of Rea- 
 soning, maintains that the evidence of reason depends 
 solely upon our perception of the identity, or, to use a 
 less formidable word, sameness, of one proposition with 
 another. '• A demonstration,'' he says, " is only a chain 
 of propositions, in which the same ideas, passing from 
 one to the other, differ only because they are differently 
 expressed ; the evidence of any reasoning consists 
 solely in its identity." 
 
 M. Condillac* exemplifies this doctrine by translating 
 this proposition, " The measure of every triangle is the 
 product of its height by half its base," into self-evident, 
 or, as he calls them, identical propositions. The whole 
 ultimately referring to the ideas which we have ob- 
 tained by our senses of a triangle ; of its base, of 
 measure, height, and number. If a child had not pre- 
 viously acquired any one of these ideas, it would be in 
 vain to explain one term by another, or to translate one 
 phrase or proposition into another ; they might be 
 identical, but they w^ould not be self-evident, proposi- 
 tions to the pupil ; and no conclusion, except what re- 
 lates merely to words, could be formed from such rea- 
 soning. The moral which we should draw from Con- 
 dillac's observations for Practical Education must be, 
 that clear ideas should first be acquired by the exercise 
 of the senses, and that afterward, when we reason about 
 things in words, we should use few and accurate terms, 
 that we may have as little trouble as possible in 
 changing or translating one phrase or proposition into 
 another. 
 
 Children, if they are not overawed by authority, if 
 
 * Une demonstration est done une suite de propositions, ou les 
 monies idees, passnnt de Tune a I'antre. ne different que parce qu'elles 
 sent enonces differeinnient , et I'evidence d'un r-iisormement consiste 
 urjquoiaeril dans riueutite. — See Art de Raisonner, p, 2. 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 487 
 
 they are encourao^ed in the habii of observing their own 
 sensations, and if they are taught precision in the use 
 of the words by which they describe them, will probably 
 reason accurately where their own feelings are con- 
 cerned. 
 
 In appreciating the testimony of others, and in judging 
 )f chances and probability, we must not expect our 
 lupils to proceed very rapidly. There is more danger 
 hat they should overrate, than that they should under- 
 value, the evidence of others ; because, as we formerly 
 stated, we take it for granted, that they have had 
 little experience of falsehood. We should, to preserve 
 them from credulity, excite them in all cases where it 
 can be obtained, never to rest satisfied witliout the 
 strongest species of evidence, that of their own senses, 
 if a child says, " 1 am sure of such a thing," we should 
 inmiediately examine into his reasons for believing it. 
 " Mr. A. or Mr. B. told me so," is not a sufficient cause 
 of belief, unless the child has had long experience of A. 
 and B.'s truth and accuracy; and, at all events, the in- 
 dolent habit of relying upon the assertions of others, 
 instead of verifying them, should not be indulged. 
 
 "It would be a waste of time to repeat those experi- 
 ments, of the truth of which the uniform experience of 
 our lives has convinced us: we run no hazard, for in- 
 stance, in believing any one who simply asserts that he 
 has seen an apple fall from a tree ; this assertion agrees 
 with the great natural law ofgravily, or, in other words, 
 with the uniform experience of mankind : but if any- 
 body told us that he had seen an apple hanging self- 
 poised in the air, we should reasonably suspect the 
 truth of his observation or of his evidence. This is 
 the first rule which we can most readily teach our pu- 
 pils in judging of evidence. We are not speaking of 
 children from four to six years old, for every thing is 
 almost equally extraordinary to them ; but, when chil- 
 dren are about ten or eleven, they have acquired a suffi- 
 cient variety of facts to form comparisons, and to judge 
 to a certain degree of the probability of any new fact 
 that is related. In reading and in conversation we 
 should now exercise them in forming judgments, where 
 "we know that they have the means of comparison. 
 ** Do you beheve such a thing to be true ? and why do 
 you believe it? Can you account for such a thing V 
 are questions we should often ask at this period of their 
 
488 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 education. On hearing extraordinary facts, some chil- 
 dren will not be satisfied with vague assertions ; others 
 content themselves with saying, " It is so, 1 read it in a 
 book." We should have little hopes of those who swal- 
 low every thing they read in a book ; we are always 
 pleased to see a child hesitate and doubt, and require 
 positive proof before he believes. The taste for the 
 marvellous is strong in ignorant minds; the wish to 
 account for every new appearance, characterizes the 
 cultivated pupil. 
 
 A lady told a boy of nine years old (S ) the fol- 
 lowing story, which she had just met with in " The 
 Curiosities of Literature." An officer, who was con- 
 fined in the Bastile, used to amuse himself by playing^ 
 on the flute : one day he observed, that a number of 
 spiders came down from their webs, and hung round 
 him as if listening to his music ; a number of mice also 
 came from their holes, and retired as soon as he stop- 
 ped. The ofl[icer had a great dislike to mice ; he pro- 
 cured a cat from the keeper of the prison, and when 
 the mice were entranced by his music, he let the cat 
 out among them. 
 
 S was much displeased by this man's treacherous 
 
 conduct towards the poor mice, and his indignation for 
 some moments suspended his reasoning faculty ; but, 
 
 when S had sufficiently expressed his indignation 
 
 against the officer in the affair of the mice, he began to 
 question the truth of the story ; and he said that he did 
 not think it was certain, that the mice and spiders came 
 to listen to the music. " I do not know about the mice," 
 said he, " but I think, perhaps, when the officer played 
 upon the Ante, he set the air in motion, and shook the 
 cobwebs, so as to disturb the spiders." We do not, nor 
 did the child think, that this was a satisfactory account 
 of the matter ; but we mention it as an instance of the 
 love of investigation, which we wish to encourage. 
 
 The difficulty of judging concerning the truth of evi- 
 dence increases, when we take moral causes into the 
 account. If we had any suspicion that a man, who told 
 us that he had seen an apple fall from a tree, had him- 
 self pulled the apple down and stolen it, we should set 
 the probability of his telling a falsehood, and his motive 
 for doing so, against his evidence ; and though, accord- 
 ing to the natural physical course of things, there would 
 be no improbability in his story, yet there might arise 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 489 
 
 improbability from his character for dishonesty ; and 
 thus we should feel ourselves in doubt concerning the 
 fact. But if two people agreed in the same testimony, 
 our doubt would vanish ; the dishonest man's doubtful 
 evidence would be corroborated, and we should believe, 
 notwithstanding his general character, in the truth of 
 his assertion in this instance. We could make the mat- 
 ter infinitely more complicated, but what has been said 
 will be sufficient to suggest to preceptors the difficulty 
 which their young and inexperienced pupils must feel, 
 in forming judgnients of facts where physical and moral 
 probabilities are in direct opposition to each other. 
 
 We wish that a writer equal to such a task would 
 write trials for children as exercises for their judgment ; 
 beginning with the simplest, and proceeding gradually 
 to the more complicated cases in which moral reason- 
 ings can be used. We do not mean that it would be 
 advisable to initiate young readers in the technical 
 forms of law ; but the general principles of justice, upon 
 which all law is founded, might, we think, be advan- 
 tageously exemplified. Such trials would entertain 
 children extremely. There is a slight attempt at this 
 kind of composition, we mean in a little trial in Even- 
 ings at Home ; and we have seen children read it with 
 great avidity. Cyrus's judgment about the two coats, 
 and the ingenious story of the olive-merchant's cause, 
 rejudged by the sensible child in the Arabian Tales, have 
 been found highly interesting to a young audience. 
 
 We should prefer truth to fiction : if we could select 
 any instances from real life, an}' trials suited to the 
 capacity of young people, they would be preferable to 
 any which the most ingenious writer could invent for 
 our purpose. A gentleman who has taken his two sons, 
 one of them ten and the other fifteen years old, to hear 
 trials at his county assizes, found by the account which 
 the boys gave of what they had heard, that they had 
 been interested, and that they were capable of under- 
 standing the business. 
 
 Allowance must be made first for the bustle and noise 
 of a public place, and for the variety of objects which 
 distract the attention. 
 
 Much of the readiness of forming judgments depends 
 upon the power of discarding and obliterating from our 
 mind all the superfluous circumstances ; it may be use- 
 ful to exercise our pupils, by telling them now and then 
 X3. 
 
490 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Stories in the confused manner in which they are some- 
 times related by puzzled witnesses : let them reduce 
 the heterogeneous circumstances to order, make a clear 
 statement of the case for themselves, and try if they 
 can point out the facts on which the decision princi- 
 pally rests. This is not nierely education for a lawyer ; 
 the powers of reasoning and judgment, when we have 
 been exercised in this manner, may be turned to any 
 art or profession. We should, if we were to try the 
 judgment of children, observe, whether in unusual cir- 
 cumstances they can apply their former principles, and 
 compare the new objects that are placed before theni 
 without perplexity. We have sometimes found, that 
 on subjects entirely new to them, children who have 
 been used to reason, can lay aside the circumstances 
 that are not essential, and form a distinct judgment for 
 themselves, independently of the opinion of others. 
 
 Last winter the entertaining life of the celebrated 
 miser Mr. Elwes was read aloud in a family, in which 
 there were a number of children. Mr. Elwes, once, as 
 he was lualking home on a dark night, in London, ran 
 against a chair-pole and bruised both his shins. His 
 friends sent for a surgeon. Elwes was alarmed at the 
 idea of expense, and he laid the surgeon the amount of 
 his bill, that the leg which he took under his own pro- 
 tection would get well sooner than that which was put 
 under the surgeon's care ; at the same time, Mr. Elwes 
 promised to put nothing to the leg of which he took 
 charge. Mr. Elwes's favourite leg got well sooner than 
 tliat which the surgeon had undertaken to cure, and Mr. 
 Elwes won his wager. In a note upon this transaction, 
 his biographer says, "This wager would have been a 
 bubble bet if it had been brought before the Jockey-club, 
 because Mr. Elwes, though he promised to put nothing 
 to tl],e leg under his own protection, took Velno's vege- 
 table sirup during the time of its cure." 
 
 C (a girl of twelve years old) observed when this 
 
 anecdote was read, that " still the wager was a fair 
 wager, because the medicine which Mr. Elwes took, if it 
 was of any use, must have been of use to both legs ; 
 therefore the surgeon and Mr. Elwes had equal advan- 
 tage from it." C had never heard of the Jockey- 
 club, or of bubble bets before, and she used the word 
 medicine, because she forgot the name of Velno's vege-. 
 table sirup. 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 491 
 
 We have observed,* that works of criticisin are unfit for 
 children, and teach them rather to remember what others 
 say of authors, than to judge of the books themselves 
 impartially : but, when we object to works of criticism, 
 we do not mean to object to criticism ; we think it an 
 excellent exercise for the judgment, and we have our- 
 selves been so well corrected, and so kindly assisted, by 
 the observations of young critics, that we cannot doubt 
 their capacity. This book has been read to a jury of 
 young critics, who gave their utmost attention to it for 
 about half an hour at a sitting, and many amendments 
 have been made from their suggestions. In the chapter 
 on Obstinacy, for instance, when we were asserting 
 that children sometimes forget their old bad habits, and 
 do not consider these as a part of themselves, there was 
 this allusion : — 
 
 " As the snake, when he casts his skin, leaves the 
 slough behind him, and winds on his way in new and 
 beautiful colours." 
 
 The moment this sentence was read, it was objected 
 
 to by the audience. Mr. objected to the word 
 
 slough, as an ill-sounding, disagreeable word, which 
 conveyed at first to the eye the idea of a wet, boggy 
 
 place ; such as the Slough of Despond. At last S , 
 
 who had been pondering over the affair in silence, ex- 
 claimed, " But I think there's another fault in the al- 
 lusion ; do not snakes cast their skins every year 1 
 Then these new and beautiful colours, which are the 
 good habits, must be thrown aside and forgotten the 
 next time ; but that should not be." 
 
 This criticism appeared conclusive even to the author, 
 and the sentence was immediately expunged. 
 
 When young people have acquired a command of lan- 
 guage, we must be careful lest their fluency and their 
 ready use of synonymous expressions should lessen the 
 accuracy of their reasoning. Mr. Home Tooke has 
 ably shown the connexion between the study of lan- 
 guage and the art of reasoning. It is not necessary to. 
 make our pupils profound grammarians or etymologists ; 
 but attention to the origin, abbreviations, and various 
 meanings of words, will assist them not only to speaks 
 but to think and argue, with precision. This is not a 
 study of abstract speculation, but of practical, daily 
 
 * See Chapter on Books. 
 
492 PRACTICAL EDUCATiay. 
 
 utility ; half the disputes, and much of the misery of the 
 world, originate and perpetuate themselves by the inac- 
 curate use of words. One party uses a word in this 
 sense, the opposite party uses the same word in another 
 sense ; all their reasonings appear absurd to each other; 
 and, instead of explaining them, they quarrel. This is 
 not the case merely in philosophical disputes between 
 authors, but it happens continually in the busy, active 
 scenes of life. Even while we \\ex& writing this pas- 
 sage, in the newspaper of to-day we met with an in- 
 stance that is, sufficiently striking. 
 
 "The accusation against me," says Sir Sidney Smith, 
 in his excellent letter to Pichegru, expostulating upon 
 his unmerited confinement, " brought forward by your 
 justice of the peace, was, that I was the enemy of the 
 republic. You know, general, that with military men, 
 the word enemy has merely a technical signification, 
 without expressing the least character of hatred. You 
 will readily admit this principle, the result of which is, 
 that I ought not to be persecuted for the injury I 
 have been enabled to do while I carried arms against 
 you." 
 
 Here the argument of two generals, one of whom is 
 pleading for his liberty, if not for his life, turns upon the 
 meaning and construction of a single word. Accuracy 
 of reasoning and some knowledge of language may, it 
 appears, be of essential service in all professions. 
 
 It is not only necessary to attend to the exact mean- 
 ing which is avowedly affixed to any terms used in argu- 
 ment, but it is also useful to attend to the thoughts which 
 are often suggested to the disputants by certain words. 
 Thus, the words happiness and beauty suggest, in con- 
 versation, very different ideas to different men ; and in 
 arguing concerning these, they could never come to a 
 conclusion. Even persons who agree in the same defi- 
 nition of a word, frequently do not sufficiently attend to 
 the ideas which the word suggests ; to the association 
 of thoughts and emotions which it excites ; and con- 
 sequently they cannot strictly abide by their own defi- 
 nition, nor can they discover where the error lies. We 
 have observed* that the imagination is powerfully af- 
 fected by words that suggest long trains of ideas ; our 
 reasonings are influenced in the same manner, and the 
 
 * See Chapter on Imagination. 
 
WIT AND JUDGMENT. 493 
 
 elliptical figures of speech are used in reasoning as well 
 as in poetry. 
 
 " I would do so and so, if I were Alexander." 
 
 " And so would I, if 1 were Parmenio ;" 
 is a short reply, which suggests a number of ideas and 
 a train of reasoning. To those who cannot supply the 
 intermediate ideas, the answer would not appear either 
 sublime or rational. Young people, when they appear to 
 admire any compressed reasoning, should be encouraged 
 to show that they can supply the thoughts and reasons 
 that are not expressed. Vivacious children will be dis- 
 gusted, however, if they are required to detail upon the 
 subject ;* all that is necessary is, to be sure that they 
 actually comprehend what they admire. 
 
 Sometimes a question that appears simple^ involves 
 the consideration of others which are difficult. When- 
 ever a preceptor cannot go to the bottom of the business, 
 he will do wisely to say so at once to his pupil, instead of 
 attempting a superficial or evasive reply. For instance, 
 if a child were to hear that the Dutch burn and destroy 
 quantities of spice, the produce of their Indian islands, 
 he would probably express some surprise, and perhaps 
 some indignation. If a preceptor were to saj'^, " The 
 Dutch have a right to do what they please with what is 
 their own, and the spice is their own," his pupil would 
 not yet be satisfied ; he would probably say, " Yes, they 
 have a right to do what they please with what is their 
 own; but why should they destroy what is useful?" 
 The preceptor might answer, if he chose to make a 
 foolish answer, " The Dutch follow their own interest in 
 burning the spice ; they sell what remains at a higher 
 price ; the market would be overstocked if they did not 
 burn some of their spice." Even supposing the child 
 to understand the terms, this would not be a satisfac- 
 tory answer ; nor could a satisfactory answer be given, 
 without discussing the nature of commerce andthey^.?- 
 iice of monopolies. Where one question in this manner 
 involves another, we should postpone the discussion, if 
 it cannot be completely made ; the road may be just 
 pointed out, and the pupil's curiosity may be excited to 
 future inquiry. It is even better to be ignorant than to 
 have superficial knowledge. 
 
 A philosopher who himself excelled in accuracy of 
 
 * See Attention. 
 
494 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 reasoning, recommends the study of mathematics, to 
 improve the acuteness and precision of the reasoning 
 faculty.* To study any thing accurately, will have an 
 excellent effect upon the mind ; and we may afterward 
 direct the judgment to whatever purposes we please. 
 It has often been remarked, as a reproach upon men 
 of science and literature, that those who Judge ex- 
 tremely well of books and of abstract philosophical 
 questions, do not show the same judgment in the ac- 
 tive business of life : a man undoubtedly may be a good 
 mathematician, a good critic, an excellent writer, and 
 may yet not show, or, rather, not employ, much judg- 
 ment in his conduct ; his powers of reasoning cannot be 
 deficient ; the habit of employing those powers in con- 
 ducting himself, he sliould have been taught by early 
 education. Moral reasoning and the habit of acting in 
 consequence of the conviction of the judgment, we call 
 prudence ; a virtue of so much consequence to all the 
 other virtues ; a virtue of so much consequence to our- 
 selves and to our friends, that it surely merits a whole 
 chapter to itself in Practical Education. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ON PRUDENCE AND ECONOMY. 
 
 VoLTATRE says that the King of Prussia always wrote 
 with one kind of enthusiasm, and acted with another. 
 It often happens that men judge with one degree of un- 
 derstanding, and conduct themselves with another;! 
 hence the commonplace remarks on the difference be- 
 tween theory and practice; hence the observation, that 
 it is easy to be prudent for other people, but extremely 
 difficult to be prudent for ourselves. Prudence is a vir- 
 
 * Locke. Essay on the Conduct of the Human Understanding, 
 t *' Here lies the mutton-eating king, 
 W.hose promise none relied on ; 
 Who never said a foolish thing, 
 And never did a wise one." 
 
 Epitaph on Charles Second. 
 
ON PRUDENCE AND ECONOMY. 495 
 
 tue compounded of jud<rment and resolution: we do not 
 here speak of lliat narrow species of prudence which is 
 more properly called worldly wisdom ; but we mean 
 that enlarged, comprehensive wisdom, which, after 
 taking a calm view of the objects of happiness, steadily 
 prefers the greatest portion of felicity. This is not a 
 selfish virtue ; for, according to our definition, benevo- 
 lence, as one of the greatest sources of our pleasures, 
 must be included in the truly prudent man's estimate. 
 Two things are necessary to make any person prudent, 
 — the povver to judge, and the habit of acting in conse- 
 quence of his conviction. We have, in the preceding 
 chapter, as far as we were able, suggested the best 
 njethods of cultivating the powers of reasoning in our 
 pupils; we must consider now how these can be applied 
 immediately to their conduct, and associated with habits 
 of action. 
 
 Instead of deciding always for our young pupils, we 
 irhould early accustom them to choose for themselves 
 about every trifle v.-hich is interesting to childhood ; if 
 they choose wisely, they should enjoy the natural re- 
 ward of their prudence; and if they decide rashly, they 
 should be suffered to feel the consequence of their ov/n 
 error. Experience, it is said, makes even fools wise ; 
 and the sooner we can give experience, the sooner we 
 shall teach wisdom. But we must not substitute belief 
 upon trust for belief upon conviction. When a little 
 boy says, "1 did not eat anymore custard, because 
 mamma told me that the custard would make me sick," 
 he is only obedient, he is not prudent ; he submits to 
 his mother's judgment, he does not use his own. When 
 obedience is out of the question, children sometimes 
 follow the opinions of others ; of this we formerly gave 
 an instance (see Toys) in the poor boy who chose a 
 gilt coach, because his mamma " and everybody said it 
 icas the frettiest^' while he really preferred the useful 
 cart : v/e should never prejudice them, either by our 
 xoisdom or our folly. 
 
 A sensible little boy of four years old had seen some- 
 body telling fortunes in the grounds of coffee ; but when 
 he had a cup of coffee given to him, he drank it all, say- 
 ing, " Coffee is better than fortune !" 
 
 When their attention is not turned to divine what the 
 spectators think and feel, children will have leisure to 
 consult their own minds, and to compare their own feel- 
 
496 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 ings. As this has been already spoken of,* we shall 
 not dwell upon it ; we only mention it as a necessary 
 precaution in teaching prudence. 
 
 Some parents may perhaps fear, that if they were to 
 allow children to choose upon every trifling occasion 
 for themselves, they would become wilful and trouble- 
 some : this certainly will be the effect, if we make them 
 think that there is a pleasure in the exercise of freewill, 
 independent of any good that may be obtained by judi- 
 cious choice. " Now, my dear, you shall have your 
 choice ! You shall choose for yourself! You shall have 
 your free choice !" are expressions that may be pro- 
 nounced in such a tone, and with such an emphasis, to 
 a child, as immediately to excite a species of triumphant 
 ecstasy from the mere idea of having his own free 
 choice. By a different accent and emphasis we may 
 repress the ideas of triumph, and without intimidating 
 the pupil, may turn his mind to the difficulties rather 
 than the glory of being in a situation to decide for him- 
 self. 
 
 We must not be surprised at the early imprudence of 
 children ; their mistakes, when they first are allowed to 
 make a choice, are inevitable ; all their sensations are 
 new to them — consequently they cannot judge of what 
 they shall like or dislike. If some of Lord Macartney's 
 suite had, on his return from the late embassy to China, 
 brought home some plant whose smell was perfectly un- 
 known to Europeans, would it have been possible for the 
 greatest philosopher in England to decide, if he had been 
 asked, whether he should like the unknown perfume ? 
 Children, for the first five or six years of their lives, are 
 in the situation of this philosopher, relatively to external 
 objects. We should never reproachfully say to a child, 
 *' You asked to smell such a thing; you asked to see 
 such a thing; and now you have had your wish, you 
 don't like them !" How can the child possibly judge 
 of what he shall like or dislike, before he has tried ? 
 Let him try experiments upon his own feelings ; the 
 more accurate knowledge he acquires, the sooner he 
 will be enabled to choose prudently. You may expedite 
 his progress by exciting him to compare each new sen- 
 sation with those to which he is already familiarized; 
 this will counteract that love of novelty which is often 
 
 * See Taste and Imagination. 
 
PRUDENCE AND ECONOMY. 497 
 
 found dangerous to prudence ; if the mind is employed 
 in comparmg, it cannot be dazzled by new objects. 
 
 Children often imagine, that what they like for the 
 present minute they shall continue to like for ever ; they 
 have not learned from experiment, that the most agree- 
 able sensations fatigue, if they are prolonged or fre- 
 quently repeated ; they have not learned, that all vio- 
 lent stmiuli are followed by weariness or ennui. The 
 sensible preceptor will not insist upon his pupil's know- 
 ing these things by inspiration, nor will he expect that 
 his assertions or prophecies should be implicitly be- 
 lieved ; he will wait till the child feels, and at that mo- 
 ment he will excite his pupil to observe his own feel- 
 ings. " You thought that you should never be tired of 
 smelling that rose, or of looking at that picture ; now 
 you perceive that you are tired : remember this ; it may 
 be of use to you another time." If this be said in a 
 friendly manner, it will not pique the child to defend his 
 past choice, but it will direct his future judgment. 
 
 Young people are often reproached for their impru- 
 dence in preferring a small present pleasure to a large 
 distant advantage : this error also arises from inexpe- 
 rience, not from want of judgment, or deficiency in 
 strength of mind. When that which has been the fu- 
 ture has, in its turn, become present, children begin to 
 have some idea of the nature of time, and they can then 
 form some comparisons between the value of present 
 and future pleasure. This is a very slow process ; old 
 people calculate and depend upon the distant future 
 more than the young, not always from their increased 
 wisdom or prudence, but merely from their increased 
 experience, and consequent belief that the future will in 
 time arrive. It is imprudent in old people to depend 
 upon the future ; if they were to reason upon the chance 
 of their lives, they ought not to be secure of its arrival ; 
 yet habit in this instance, as in many others, is more 
 powerful than reason ; in all the plans of elderly people, 
 there is seldom any error from impatience as to the fu- 
 ture ; there often appear gross errors in their security 
 as to its arrival. If these opposite habits could be 
 mixed in the minds of the old and of the young, it would 
 be for their mutual advantage. 
 
 It is not possible to infuse experience into the mind ; 
 our pupils must feel for themselves : but, by teaching 
 them to observe their own feelings, we may abridge 
 
498 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 their labour ; a few lessons will teach a great deal, when 
 they are properly appHed. To teach children to calcu- 
 late and compare their present and future pleasures, we 
 may begin by fixing short intervals of time for our ex- 
 periments ; an hour, a day, a week, perhaps, are periods 
 of time to which their imagiuation will easily extend; 
 they can measure and compare their feelings within 
 these spaces of time, and we may lead them to observe 
 their own errors in not providing for the future. " Now 
 Friday is come ; last Monday you thought Friday would 
 never come. If you had not cut away all your pencil 
 last week, you would have had some left to draw with 
 to-day. Another time you will manage better." 
 
 We should also lead them to compare their ideas of 
 any given pleasure before and after the period of its ar- 
 rival. " You thought last summer that you should like 
 making snowballs in winter, better than making hay in 
 summer. Now you have made snowballs to-day : and 
 you remember what you felt when you were making 
 hay last summer; do you like the snowball pleasure or 
 the hay-making pleasure, the best?" See Berquin's 
 Quatre Saisons. 
 
 If our pupils, when they have any choice to make, 
 prefer a small present gratification to a great future 
 pleasure, we should not, at the moment of their decis- 
 ion, reproach their imprudence, but we should steadily 
 make them abide by their choice; and when the time ar- 
 rives at which the greater pleasure might have been en- 
 joyed, we should remark the circumstance, but not with 
 a tone of reproach, for it is their alfair, not ours. " You 
 preferred having a sheet of paper the moment you 
 wanted it last week, to having a quire of paper this 
 week." — " Oh, but," says the child, " I wanted a sheet 
 of paper very much then, but I did not consider how 
 soon this week would come — I wish I had chosen the 
 quire." — "Then remember what you feel now, and you 
 will be able to choose better upon another occasion." 
 We should always refer to the pupil's own feelings, and 
 look forward to their future advantage. The reason 
 why so few young people attend to advice is, that their 
 preceptors do not bring it actually home to their feel- 
 ings ; it is useless to reproach for past imprudence ; the 
 child sees the error as plainly as we do : all that can be 
 done, is to make it a lesson for the future. 
 
 To a geometrician, the words, by proposition^ 1st, stand 
 
PRUDENCE AND ECONOMY. 499 
 
 for a whole demonstration : if he recollects that he has 
 once gone over the demonstration, he is satisfied of its 
 truth ; and, without verifying- it again, he makes use of 
 it in making out the demonstration of a new proposition. 
 In moral reasoning, we proceed in the same manner; 
 we recollect the result of our past experiments, and we 
 refer to this moral demonstration in solving a new prob- 
 lem. In time, by frequent practice, this operation is 
 performed so rapidly by the mind that we scarcely per- 
 ceive it, and yet it guides our actions. A man, in 
 walking across the room, keeps out of the v/ay of the 
 tables and chairs, without perceiving that he reasons 
 about the matter ; a sober man avoids hard drinking, 
 because he knows it to be hurtful to his health ; but he 
 does not, every time he refuses to drink, go over the 
 whole train of reasoning which first decided his deter- 
 mination. A modern philosopher* calls this rapid spe- 
 cies of reasoning "intuitive analogy;" applied to the 
 business of life, fhe French call it tact. Sensible peo- 
 ple have this tact in higher perfection than others ; and 
 prudent people govern themselves by it more regularly 
 than others. By the methods vshich we have recom- 
 mended, we hope it may be successfully cultivated in 
 early education. 
 
 Rousseau, in expressing his contempt for those who 
 make habii their only guide of action, goes, as he is apt 
 to do in the heat of declamation, into the error opposite 
 to that which he ridicules. "The only habit," says he, 
 " that I wish my Emilius to have, is the habit of having 
 no habits." Emilius would have been a strange being, 
 had he literally accomplished his preceptor's wish. To 
 go up stairs, would have been a most operose, and to go 
 down stiars, a most tremendous affair to Emilius, for he 
 was to have no habits : between every step of the stairs, 
 new deliberations must take place, and fresh decisions 
 of the judgment ensue. In his moral judgments, Emil- 
 ius would have had as much useless labour. Habit 
 surely is necessary, even to those who make reason the 
 ultimate judge of their affairs. Reason is not to be ap- 
 pealed to upon every trivial occasion, to rejudge the 
 same causs a million of times. Must a man, every 
 time he draws a straight line, repeat to himself, "a 
 right line is that which lieth evenly between its points V 
 
 * Darwin's Zoonoraigi. 
 
500 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Must he rehearse the propositions of Euclid, instead of 
 avaihng himself of their practical use] 
 
 " Christian, canst thou raise a perpendicular upon a 
 straight line "?" is the apostrophe with which the cross- 
 legged emperor of Barbary, seated on his throne of 
 rough deal boards, accosts every learned stranger who 
 frequents his court. In the course of his reign, proba- 
 bly, his Barbaric majesty may have reiterated the dem- 
 onstration of this favourite proposition, which he 
 learned from a French surgeon, about five hundred 
 times ; but his majesty's understanding is not materially 
 improved by these recitals ; his geometrical learning is 
 confined, we are told, to this single proposition. 
 
 It would have been scarcely worth while to single out 
 for combat this paradox of Rousseau's concerning habit, 
 if it had not presented itself in the formidable form of 
 an antithesis. A false maxim, conveyed in an antithe- 
 sis, is dangerous, because it is easily remembered and 
 repeated, and it quickly passes current in conversation. 
 
 But to return to our subject, of which we have imp7-u- 
 dently lost sight. Imprudence does not always arise 
 from our neglect of our past experience, or from our 
 forgetting to take the future into our calculations, but 
 from false associations, or from passion. Objects often 
 appear different to one man, from what they do to the 
 rest of the world : this man may reason well upon what 
 the majority of reasonable people agree to call false ap- 
 pearances ; he may follow strictly the conviction of his 
 own understanding, and yet the world will say that he 
 acts very imprudently. To the taste or smell of those 
 who are in a fever, objects not only appear, but really 
 are, different from what they appear to persons in sound 
 health : in the same manner to the imagination, objects 
 have really a different value in moments of enthusiasm, 
 from what they have in our cooler hours, and we 
 scarcely can believe that our view of objects will ever 
 vary. It is in vain to oppose reason to false associa- 
 tions : we must endeavour to combat one set of associa- 
 tions by another, and to alter the situation, and conse- 
 quently the views,* of the mistaken person. Suppose, 
 for instance, that a child had been in a coach and six 
 upon some pleasant excursion (it is an improbable thing, 
 but we may suppose any thing) : suppose a child had 
 
 * Chapter on Imagination. 
 
PRUDENCE AND ECONOMY. 501 
 
 enjoyed, from some accidental circumstances, an extra- 
 ordinary degree of pleasure in a coach and six, he might 
 afterward long to be in a similar vehicle, from a mista- 
 ken notion that it could confer happiness. Here we 
 should not oppose the force of reasoning to a false as- 
 sociation, but we should counteract the former associa- 
 tion. Give the child an equal quantity of amusement 
 when he is not in a coach and six, and then he will form 
 fresh pleasurable associations with other objects, which 
 may balance his first prepossession. If you oppose 
 reason ineffectually to passion or taste, you bring the 
 voice and power of reason into discredit with your pupil. 
 When you have changed his view of things, you may 
 then reason with him, and show him the cause of his 
 former mistake. 
 
 In the excellent fable of the shield that was gold on 
 one side and silver on the other, the two disputants 
 never could have agreed until they changed places. — 
 When you have, in several instances, proved by experi- 
 ment, that you judge more prudently than your pupil, he 
 will be strongly inclined to listen to your counsels, and 
 then your experience will be of real use to him ; he will 
 argue from it with safety and satisfaction. When, after 
 recovering from fits of passion or enthusiasm, you have, 
 upon several occasions, convinced him that your admo- 
 nitions would have prevented him from the pain of re- 
 pentance, he will recollect this when he again feels the 
 first rise of passion in his mind ; and he may, in that 
 lucid moment, avail himself of your calm reason, and 
 thus avoid the excesses of extravagant passions. That 
 unfortunate French monarch,* who was liable to tem- 
 porary fits of phrensy, learned to foresee his approaching 
 malady, and often requested his friends to disarm him, 
 lest he should injure any of his attendants. 
 
 In a malady which precludes the use of reason, it was 
 possible for this humane patient to foresee the probable 
 mischief he might do to his fellow-creatures, and to take 
 prudent measures against his own violence ; and may 
 not we expect, that those who are early accustomed to 
 attend to their own feelings, may prepare against the 
 extravagance of their own passions, and avail them- 
 selves of the regulating advice of their temperate 
 friends ? 
 
 * Charles VI. 
 
302 PRACTICAL EDUCATION". 
 
 Ill the education of girls, we must teach them much 
 more caution than is necessary to boys : their prudence 
 must be more the result of reasoning than of experi- 
 ment ; they must trust to the experience of others ; they 
 cannot always have recourse to what ought to be ; they 
 must adapt themselves to what is. They cannot rectify 
 the material mistakes in their conduct.* Timidity, a 
 certain tardiness of decision, and reluctance to act in 
 public situations, are not considered as defects in a 
 woman's character : her pausing prudence does not, to 
 a man of discernment, denote imbecility ; but appears 
 to him the graceful, auspicious characteristic of female 
 virtue. There is always more probability that women 
 should endanger their own happiness by precipitation 
 than by forbearance. Promptitude of choice is sel- 
 dom expected from the female sex ; they should avail 
 themselves of the leisure that is permitted to them for 
 reflection. " Begin nothing of which you have not 
 well considered the end," was the piece of advice for 
 which the Eastern sultanf paid a purse of gold, the 
 price set upon it by a sage. The monarch did not re- 
 pent of his purchase. This maxim should be engraved 
 upon the memory of our female pupils, by the repeated 
 lessons of education. We should, even in trifles, avoid 
 every circumstance wliich can tend to make girls ven- 
 turesome ; which can encourage them to trust their 
 good fortune, instead of relying on their own prudence. 
 Marmonters tale, entitled ''' Heureusement,'''' is a witty, 
 but surely not a moral tale. Girls should be discouraged 
 from hazarding opinions in general conversation ; but 
 among their friends, they should be excited to reason 
 with accuracy and with temper. | It is really a part of 
 a woman's prudence to have command of temper ; if she 
 has it not, her wit and sense will not have their just 
 value in domestic life. Calphurnia, a Roman lady, used 
 to plead her own causes before the senate, and we are 
 informed, that she became " so troublesome and confi- 
 dent, that the judges decreed that thenceforward no 
 woman should be suffered to plead." Did not this lady 
 make an imprudent use of her talents ? 
 
 In the choice of friends, and on all matters of taste, 
 
 * *' No penance can absolve their guilty fame, 
 
 Nor tears, that wash out sin, can wash out shame." 
 t See Persian Tales. + See Chapter on Temper. 
 
PRt'DENCE AND ECONOMY. 503 
 
 young women should be excited to reason about their 
 own feeling-s. " There is no reasoning- about taste," is 
 a pernicious maxim : if there were more reasoning, 
 there would be less disputation upon this subject. If 
 women questioned their own minds, or allowed their 
 friends to question them, concerning the reasons of their 
 '• preferences and aversions," there would not, probably, 
 be so many love-matches, and so few love-marriages. 
 It is in vain to expect that young women should begin 
 to reason miraculously, at the very moment that reason 
 is wanted in the guidance of their conduct. We should 
 also observe, that women are called upon for the exer- 
 tion of their prudence, at an age when young men are 
 scarcely supposed to possess that virtue ; therefore, 
 women should be more early and more carefully edu- 
 cated for the purpose. The important decisions of 
 woman's life are often made before she is twenty : a 
 man does not come upon the theatre of public life, 
 where most of his prudence is shown, till he is much 
 older. 
 
 Economy is, in women, an essential domestic virtue. 
 Some women have a foolish love of expensive baubles ; 
 a taste which a very little care, probably, in their early 
 education, might have prevented. We are told that 
 when a collection of three hundred and fifty pounds was 
 made for the celebrated Cuzzona, to save her from ab- 
 solute want, she immediately laid out two hundred 
 pounds of the money in the purchase of a shell cap, 
 w'hich was then in fashion.* Prudent mothers will 
 avoid showing any admiration of pretty trinkets before 
 their young daughters ; and they will oppose the ideas of 
 utility and durability to the mere caprice of fashion, which 
 creates a taste for beauty, as it were, by proclamation. 
 " Such a thing is pretty, but it is of no use. Such a 
 thing is pretty, but it will soon wear out" — a mother 
 may say ; and she should prove the truth of her asser- 
 tions to her pupils. 
 
 Economy is usually confined to the management of 
 money, but it may be shown on man}'- other occasions : 
 economy may be exercised in taking care of whatever 
 belongs to us ; children should have the care of their 
 own clothes, and if they are negligent of what is in 
 their charge, this negligence should not be repaired by 
 
 * Mrs. Piozzi'6 English Synonomy, vol. 1. p. 359. 
 
B04 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 servants or friends ; they should feel the real natural 
 consequences of their own neglect, but no other punish- 
 ment should be inflicted ; and they should be left to 
 make their own reflections upon their errors and mis- 
 fortunes, undisturbed by the reproaches of their friends, 
 or by the prosing moral of a governess or preceptor. 
 We recommend, for we must descend to these trifles, 
 that girls should be supplied with an independent stock 
 of all the little things which are in daily use ; house- 
 wives and pocketbooks, well stored with useful imple- 
 ments ; and there should be no lending* and borrow- 
 ing among children. It will be but just to provide 
 our pupils with convenient places for the preserva- 
 tion and arrangement of their little goods. Order is 
 necessary to economy ; and we cannot more certainly 
 create a taste for order, than by showing early its ad- 
 vantages in practice as well as in theory. The aversion 
 to old things should, if possible, be prevented in chil- 
 dren : we should not express contempt for old things, 
 but we should treat them with increased reverence, and 
 exult in their having arrived under our protection to 
 such a creditable age. " I have had such a hat so long, 
 therefore it does not signify what becomes of it !" is the 
 speech of a promising little spendthrift. " I have taken 
 care of my hat, it has lasted so long ; and I hope I shall 
 make it last longer," is the exultation of a young econ- 
 omist, in which his prudent friends should sympathize. 
 
 *' Waste not, want not," is an excellent motto in an 
 English nobleman's kitchen. f The most opulent parents 
 ought not to be ashamed to adopt it in the economic 
 education of their children : early habits of care, and an 
 early aversion and contempt for the selfish spirit of 
 wasteful extravagance, may preserve the fortunes, and, 
 what is of far more importance, the integrity and peace 
 of mind, of noble families. 
 
 We have said that economy cannot be exercised with- 
 out children's having the management of money. While 
 our pupils are young, if they are educated at home, they 
 cannot have much real occasion for money ; all the ne- 
 cessaries of life are provided for them ; and if they have 
 money to spend, it must be probably laid out on super- 
 fluities. This is a bad beginning. Money should be 
 represented to our pupils as what it really is, the con- 
 
 * See Toys. f Lord Scarsdale's. Keddleston. 
 
PRUDENCE AND ECONOMY. 505 
 
 ventional sign of the value of commodities : before chil- 
 dren are acquainted with the real and comparative value 
 of any of these commodities, it is surely imprudent to 
 trust them vi^ith money. As to the idea that children 
 may be charitable and generous in the disposal of money, 
 we have expressed our sentiments fully upon this sub- 
 ject already.* We are, however, sensible, that when 
 children are sent to any school, it is advisable to supply 
 them with pocket-money enough to put them upon an 
 equal footing with their companions; otherwise, we 
 might run the hazard of inducing worse faults than ex- 
 travagance — meanness, or envy. 
 
 Young people who are educated at home should, as 
 much as possible, be educated to take a family interest 
 m all the domestic expenses. Parental reserve in money 
 matters is extremely impolitic ; as Mr. Locke judiciously 
 observes, that a father who wraps his affairs up in mys- 
 tery, and who " views his son with jealous eyes," as a 
 person who is to begin to live when he dies, must make 
 him an enemy by treating him as such. A frank sim- 
 plicity and cordial dependance upon the integrity and 
 upon the sympathy of their children, will ensure to pa- 
 rents their disinterested friendship. Ignorance is al- 
 ways more to be dreaded than knowledge. Young peo- 
 ple who are absolutely ignorant of aifairs, who have no 
 idea of the relative expense of different modes of living, 
 and of the various wants of a family, are apt to be ex- 
 tremely unreasonable in the imaginary disposal of their 
 parent's fortune ; they confine their view merely to their 
 own expenses. " I orily spend such a sum," they say, 
 " and surely that is nothing to my father's income." 
 They consider only the absolute amount of what they 
 spend ; they cannot compare it with the number of other 
 expenses which are necessary for the rest of the family : 
 they do not know these, therefore they cannot perceive 
 the proportion which it is reasonable that their expen- 
 diture should bear to the whole. Mrs. D'Arblay, in one 
 of her excellent novels, has given a striking picture of 
 the ignorance in which young women sometimes leave 
 their father's house, and begin to manage in life for 
 themselves, without knowing any thing of the poivers 
 of money. Camilla's imprudence must chiefly be as- 
 cribed to her ignorance. Young women should be ac- 
 
 » See Chapter on Sympathy and Sensibility. 
 
506 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 customed to keep the family accounts, and their aritb* 
 metic should not be merely a speculative science ; they 
 should learn the price of all necessaries, and of all lux- 
 uries ; they should learn what luxuries are suited to their 
 fortune and rank, what degree of expense in dress is 
 essential to a regularly neat appearance, and what must 
 be the increased expense and temptations of fashion in 
 different situations; they should not be suffered to im- 
 agine that they can resist these temptations more than 
 others, if they get into company above their rank ; nor 
 should they have any indistinct idea, that by some won- 
 derful economical operations they can make a given 
 sum of money go farther than others can do. The steadi- 
 ness of calculation will prevent all these vain notions; 
 and young women, when they see in stubborn figures 
 what must be the consequence of getting into situations 
 where they must be tempted to exceed their means, 
 will probably begin by avoiding, instead of braving, the 
 danger. 
 
 Most parents think that their sons are more disposed 
 to extravagance than their daughters ; the sons are 
 usually exposed to greater temptations. Young men 
 excite each other to expense, and to a certain careless- 
 ness of economy, which assumes the name of spirit, 
 while it often forfeits all pretensions to justice. A 
 prudent father will never, from any false notions of 
 forming his son early to good company, introduce him 
 to associates whose only merit is their rank or their 
 fortune. Such companions will lead a weak young man 
 into every species of extravagance, and then desert and 
 ridicule him in the hour of distress. If a young man 
 has a taste for literature and for rational society, his 
 economy will be secured, simply because his pleasures 
 will not be expensive ; nor will they be dependant upon 
 the caprice of fashionable associates. The intermediate 
 state between that of a schoolboy and a man, is the 
 dangerous period in which taste for expense is often 
 acquired before the means of gratifying it are obtained. 
 Boys listen with anxiety to the conversation of those 
 who are a few years older than themselves. From this 
 conversation they gather information respecting the 
 ways of the world, which, though often erroneous, they 
 tenaciously believe to be accurate ; it is in vain that 
 their older friends may assure them that such and such 
 frivolous expenses are not necessary to the wellbeing 
 
PRUDENCE AND ECONOMY. 507 
 
 of a man in society ; they adhere to the opinion of the 
 younger counsel ; they conclude that every thing has 
 changed since their parents were young, that they must 
 not govern themselves by antiquated notions, but by the 
 scheme of economy which happens to be the fashion of 
 the day. During this boyish state, parents should be 
 particularly attentive to the company which their sons 
 keep; and they should frequently, in conversation with 
 sensible, but not with morose or oldfashioned people, - 
 lead to the subject of economy, and openly discuss and 
 settle the most essential points. At the same time, a 
 father should not intimidate his son with the idea that 
 nothing but rigid economy can win his parental favour ; 
 his parental favour should not be a mercenary object ; 
 he should rather show his son that he is aware of the 
 great temptations to which a young man is exposed in 
 going first into the world : he should show him, both 
 that he is disposed to place confidence in him, and that 
 he yet knows the fallibility of youthful prudence. If he 
 expect from his son unerring prudence, he expects too 
 much ; and he will, perhaps, create an apprehension of 
 his displeasure, which may chill and repress all in- 
 genuous confidence. In all his childish, and in all his 
 youthful distresses, a son should be habitually inclined 
 to turn to his father as to his most indulgent friend. 
 " Apply to me if ever you get into any difficulties, and 
 you will always find me your most indulgent friend," 
 were the words of a father to a child of twelve years 
 old, pronounced with such encouraging benevolence, 
 that they v/ere never forgotten by the person to whom 
 they were addressed. 
 
 Before a young man goes into the world, it will be 
 a great advantage to him to have some share in the 
 management of his father's affairs ; by laying out money 
 for another person, he will acquire habits of care, which 
 will be useful to him afterward in his own affairs. A 
 father who is building, or improving grounds, who is 
 carrying on works of any sort, can easily allot some 
 portion of the business to his son, as an exercise for 
 his judgment and prudence. He should hear and see 
 the estimates of workmen, and he should, as soon as 
 he has collected the necessary facts, form estimates 
 of his own before he hears the calculation of others; 
 this pov^er of estimating will be of great advantage to 
 gentlemen : it will circumscribe their wishes, and it 
 Y2 
 
508 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 will protect them against the low frauds of designing 
 workmen. 
 
 It may seem trivial, but we cannot forbear to advise 
 young people to read the newspapers of the day regu- 
 larly : they will keep up by these means with the cur- 
 rent of affairs, and they will exercise their judgment 
 upon interesting business and large objects. The sooner 
 boys acquire the sort of knowledge necessary for the 
 conversation of sensible men, the better ; they will be 
 the less exposed to feel false shame. False shame, the 
 constant attendant upon ignorance, often leads young 
 men into imprudent expenses ; when, upon any occa- 
 sion, they do not knov/ by any certain calculation to 
 what any expense may amount, they are ashamed to 
 inquire minutely. From another sort of weakness, they 
 are ashamed to resist the example or importunity of 
 numbers ; against this weakness, the strong desire of 
 preserving the good opinion of estimable friends, is the 
 best preservative. The taste for the esteem of supe- 
 rior characters, cures the mind of fondness for vulgar 
 applause. 
 
 We have, in the very first chapter of this book, 
 spoken of the danger of the passion for gaming ; and 
 the precautions that we have recommended in early 
 education will, it is hoped, prevent the disorder from 
 appearing in our pupils as they grow up. Occupations 
 for the understanding, and objects for the affections, 
 will preclude all desire for the violent stimulus of the 
 gaming-table. It may be said, that many men of supe- 
 rior abilities, and of generous, social tempers, become 
 gamesters. They do so because they have exhausted 
 other pleasures, and they have been accustomed to 
 strong excitements. Such excitements do not be- 
 come necessary to happiness till they have been made 
 habitual. 
 
 There was an excellent Essay on Projects published 
 some years ago by an anonymous writer, which we 
 think would make a great impression upon any young 
 persons of good sense. We do not wish to repress the 
 generous, enterprising ardour of youth, or to confine the 
 ideas to the narrow circle of which self must be the 
 centre. Calculation will show what can be done, and 
 how it can be done ; and thus the individual, without 
 injury to himself, may,, if he wish it, speculate exten- 
 sively for the good of his fellow-creatures. 
 
PRUDENCE AND ECONOMY 509 
 
 It is scarcely possible that the mean passion of avarice 
 should exist in the mind of any young person who has 
 been tolerably well educated ; but too much pains can- 
 not be taken to preserve that domestic felicity which 
 arises from entire confidence and satisfaction among 
 the individuals of a family with regard to property. 
 Exactness in accounts and in business relative to prop- 
 erty, far from being unnecessary among friends and 
 relations, is, we think, peculiarly agreeable, and essen- 
 tial to the continuance of frank intimacy. We should, 
 while our pupils are young, teach them a love for ex- 
 actness about property ; a respect for the rights of 
 others, rather than a tenacious anxiety about their own. 
 When young people are of a proper age to manage 
 money and property of their own, let them know pre- 
 cisely what they can annually spend ; in whatever form 
 they receive an income, let that income be certain : if 
 presents of pocket-money or of dress are from time to 
 time made to them, this creates expectation and uncer- 
 tainty in their minds. All persons who have a fluctu- 
 ating revenue are disposed to be imprudent and extrav- 
 agant. It is remarkable that the West-Indian planters, 
 whose property is a kind of lottery, are extravagantly 
 disposed to speculation ; in the hopes of a favourable 
 season, they live from year to year in unbounded pro- 
 fusion. It is curious to observe, that the propensity to 
 extravagance exists in those who enjoy the greatest 
 affluence, and in those who have felt the greatest dis- 
 tress. Those who have little to lose are reckless about 
 that little ; and any uncertainty as to the tenure of 
 property, or as to the rewards of industry, immediately 
 operates, not only to depress activity, but to destroy 
 prudence. " Prudence," says Mr. Edwards, " is a term 
 that has no place in the negro vocabulary ; instead of 
 trusting to what are called the ground provisions, which 
 are safe from the hurricanes, the negroes, in the culti- 
 vation of their oivn lands, trust more to plantain-groves, 
 corn, and other vegetables that are liable to be destroyed 
 by storms. When they earn a little money, they im- 
 mediately gratify their palate with salted meats and 
 other provisions, which are to them delicacies. The 
 idea of accumulating, and of being economic in order to 
 accumulate, is unknown to these poor slaves, who hold 
 their lands by the most uncertain of all tenures."* We 
 
 * See Edwards's History of the West Indies. 
 
510 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 are told that the provision ground, the creation of the 
 negro's industry, and the hope of his life, is sold by 
 public auction to pay his master's debts. Is it wonder- 
 ful that the term prudence should be unknown in the 
 negro vocabulary '? 
 
 The very poorest class of people in London, who feel 
 despair, and who merely live to bear the evil of the 
 day, are, it is said, very little disposed to be prudent. 
 In a late publication, Mr. Colquhoun's " Treatise on the 
 Police of the Metropohs," he tells us, that the " chief 
 consumption of oysters, crabs, lobsters, pickled salmon, 
 &c., when first in season, and when the prices arehigh, 
 is by the loivest classes of the people. The middle 
 ranks, and those immediately under them, abstain gen- 
 erally from such indulgences until the prices are mod- 
 erate."* 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought that the consumption of 
 oysters, crabs, and pickled salmon, in London, or the 
 management of the negro's provision ground in Jamaica, 
 has little to do with a practical essay upon economy 
 and prudence ; but we hope that we may be permitted 
 to use these farfetched illustrations, to show that the 
 same causes act upon the mind independently of cli- 
 mate : they are mentioned here to show that the little 
 revenue of young people ought to be fixed and certain. 
 
 When we recommend economy and prudence to our 
 pupils, we must, at the same time, keep their hearts 
 open to the pleasures of generosity ; economy and 
 prudence will put it in the power of the generous to 
 give. 
 
 " The worth of any thing 
 Is as much money as 'twill bring," 
 
 will never be the venal maxim of those who understand 
 the nature of philosophic prudence. The worth of 
 money is to be estimated by the number of real pleas- 
 ures which it can procure : there are many which are not 
 to be bought by gold ;f these will never lose their pre- 
 eminent value with persons who have been educated 
 both to reason and to feel. 
 
 "^ See a note in page 32 of the Treatise on the Police of the Me- 
 tropolis. 
 
 I " Turn from the glittering bribe your scornful eye, 
 Nor sell for gold what gold can never buy." 
 
 Johnson'' s London. 
 
SUMMARY. 511 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 " The general principle," that we should associate 
 pleasure with whatever we wish that our pupils should 
 pursue, and pain with whatever we wish that they 
 should avoid, forms, our readers will perceive, the basis 
 of our plan of education. This maxim, applied to the 
 cultivation of the understanding or of the affections, 
 will, we apprehend, be equally successful; virtues, as 
 well as abilities, or what is popularly called genius, we 
 believe to be the result of education, not the gift of na- 
 ture. A fond mother will tremble at the idea, that so 
 much depends upon her own care in the early education 
 of her children ; but, even though she may be inexpe- 
 rienced in the art, she may be persuaded that patience 
 and perseverance will ensure her success : even from 
 her timidity we may prophesy favourably ; for, in educa- 
 tion, to know the danger, is often to avoid it. The first 
 steps require rather caution and gentle kindness, than 
 any difficult or laborious exertions : the female sex are, 
 from their situation, their manners, and talents, pecu- 
 liarly suited to the superintendence of the early years 
 of childhood. We have, therefore in the first chapters 
 of the preceding work, endeavoured to adapt our re- 
 marks principally to female readers, and we shall think 
 ourselves happy if any anxious mother feels their prac- 
 tical utility. 
 
 In the chapters on Toys, Tasks, and Attention, we 
 have attempted to show how the instruction and amuse- 
 ments of children may be so managed as to coincide 
 with each other. Play, we have observed, is only a 
 change of occupation : and toys, to be permanently 
 agreeable to children, must afford them continual em- 
 ployment. We have declared war against tasks, or 
 rather against the train of melancholy privations and 
 constraints which, associated with this word, usually 
 render it odious to the ears of the disgusted scholar. 
 By kind patience, and well-timed, distinct, and above 
 
512 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 all, by short lessons, a young child may be initiated in 
 the mysteries of learning, and in the first principles of 
 knowledge, without fatigue, or punishment, or tears. 
 No matter how little be learned in a given time, pro- 
 vided the pupil be not disgusted ; provided the wish to 
 improve be excited, and the habits of attention be ac- 
 quired. Attention we consider as the faculty of the 
 mind which is essential to the cultivation of all its other 
 powers. 
 
 It is essential to success in what are called accom- 
 plishments, or talents, as well as to our progress in the 
 laborious arts or abstract sciences. Believing so much 
 to depend upon this faculty or habit, we have taken par- 
 ticular pains to explain the practical methods by which 
 it may be improved. The general maxims, that the at- 
 tention of young people should at first be exercised but 
 for very short periods ; that they should never be urged 
 to the point of fatigue ; that pleasure, especially the 
 great pleasure of success, should be associated with the 
 exertions of the pupil ; are applicable to children of all 
 tempers. The care which has been recommended, in 
 the use of words, to convey uniformly distinct ideas, 
 will, it is hoped, be found advantageous. We have, 
 without entering into the speculative question concern- 
 ing the original differences of temper and genius, offered 
 such observations as we thought might be useful in cul- 
 tivating the attention of vivacious and indolent children; 
 whether their idleness or indolence proceed from na- 
 ture, or from mistaken modes of instruction, we have 
 been anxious to point out means of curing their defects ; 
 and, from our successful experience with pupils appa- 
 rently of opposite dispositions, we have ventured to 
 assert with some confidence, that no parent should de- 
 spair of correcting a child's defects : that no preceptor 
 should despair of producing in his pupil the species of 
 abilities which his education steadily tends to form. 
 These are encouraging hopes, but notllatteringpromises. 
 Having just opened these bright views to parents, we have 
 paused to warn them that all their expectations, all their 
 cares, will be in vain, unless they have sufficient pru- 
 dence and strength of mind to follow a certain mode of 
 conduct with respect to servants and with respect to com- 
 mon acquaintance. More failures in private education 
 have been occasioned by the interference of servants and 
 acquaintance, than from any other cause. It is impossible, 
 
SUMMARY. 613 
 
 we repeat it in the strongest terms, it is impossible that 
 parents can be successful in the education of their chil- 
 dren at home, unless they have steadiness enough to 
 resist all interference from visiters and acquaintance, 
 who from thoughtless kindness, or a busy desire to ad- 
 minister advice, are apt to counteract the views of a 
 preceptor ; and who often, in a few minutes, undo the 
 work of years. When our pupils have formed their 
 habits, and have reason and experience sufficient to 
 guide them, let them be left as free as air; let them 
 choose their friends and acquaintance ; let them see the 
 greatest variety of characters, and hear the greatest 
 variety of conversation and opinions : but while they 
 are children, while they are destitute of the means to 
 judge, their parents or preceptors must supply their 
 deficient reason ; and authority, without violence, should 
 direct them to their happiness. They must see, that 
 all who are concerned in their education, agree in the 
 means of governing them ; in all their commands and 
 prohibitions, in the distribution of praise and blame, of 
 reward and punishment, there must be unanimity. 
 Where there does not exist this unanimity in famihes ; 
 where parents have not sufficient firmness to prevent 
 the interference of acquaintance, and sufficient prudence 
 to keep children /7'om all private communication loith ser- 
 vants, we earnestly advise that the children be sent to 
 some public seminary of education. We have taken 
 some pains to detail the methods by which all hurtful 
 communications between children and servants, in a 
 well-regulated family, may be avoided, and we have as- 
 serted, from the experience of above twenty years, 
 that these methods have been found not only practicable, 
 but easy. 
 
 In the chapters on Obedience, Temper, and Truth, 
 the general principle, that pleasure should excite to ex- 
 ertion and virtue, and that pain should be connected 
 with whatever we wish our pupils to avoid, is applied 
 to practice with a minuteness of detail which we knew 
 not how to avoid. Obedience we have considered as a 
 relative, rather than as a positive, virtue : before chil- 
 dren are able to conduct themselves, their obedience 
 must be rendered habitual : obedience alters its nature 
 as the pupil becomes more and more rational ; and the 
 only method to secure the obedience, the willing, en- 
 lightened obedience, of rational beings, is to convince 
 Y3 
 
514 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Ihem, by experience, that it tends to their happiness. 
 Truth depends upon example more than precept ; and 
 we have endeavoured to impress it on the minds of all 
 who are concerned in education, that the first thing 
 necessary to teach their pupils to love truth, is in their 
 whole conduct to respect it themselves. We have rep- 
 robated the artifices sometimes used by preceptors 
 towards their pupils ; we have shown that all confidence 
 is destroyed by these deceptions. May they never more 
 be attempted ! May parents unite in honest detestation 
 of these practices ! Children are not fools, and they are 
 not to be governed like fools. Parents who adhere to 
 the firm principle of truth, may be certain of the respect 
 and confidence of their children. Children who never 
 see the example of falsehood, will grow up with a sim- 
 plicity of character, with an habitual love of truth, that 
 must surprise preceptors who have seen the propensity 
 to deceit vi'hich early appears in children who have had 
 the misfortune to live with servants, or with persons 
 who have the habits of meanness and cunning. We 
 have advised that children, before their habits are 
 formed, should never be exposed to temptations to de- 
 ceive ; that no questions should be asked them which 
 hazard their young integrity ; that as they grow older, 
 they should gradually be trusted ; and that they should 
 be placed in situations where they may feel the advan- 
 tages both of speaking truth, and of obtaining a charac- 
 ter for integrity. The perception of the utility of this 
 virtue to the individual and to society, will confirm the 
 habitual reverence in which our pupils have been taught 
 to hold it. As young people become reasonable, the 
 nature of their habits and of their education should be 
 explained to them ; and their virtues, from being virtues 
 of custom, should be rendered virtues of choice and 
 reason. It is easier to confirm good habits by the con- 
 viction of the understanding, than to induce habits in 
 consequence of that conviction. This principle we 
 have pursued in the chapter on Rewards and Punish- 
 ments ; we have not considered punishment as ven- 
 geance or retaliation, but 3.s pain inflicted with the reasoji- 
 ahle hope of p7-ocuring some future advantage to the delin- 
 quent or to society. The smallest possible quantity of 
 pain that can effect this purpose, we suppose, must, with 
 all just and humane persons, be the measure of punish- 
 ment. This notion of punishment, both for the sake 
 
SUMMARY. 515 
 
 of the preceptor and pupil, should be clearly explained 
 as early as it can be made intelligible. As to rewards, 
 we do not wish that they should- be bribes ; they should 
 stimulate, without weakening the mind. The conse- 
 quences which naturally follow every species of good 
 conduct, are the proper and best rewards that we can 
 devise ; children whose understandings are cultivated 
 and whose tempers are not spoiled, will be easily made 
 happy without the petty bribes which are administered 
 daily to ill-educated, ignorant, over-stimulated, and, con- 
 sequently, wretched and ill-humoured children. Far 
 from making childhood a state of continual penance, 
 restraint, and misery, we wish that it should be made a 
 state of uniform happiness ; that parents and preceptors 
 should treat their pupils with as much equality and kind- 
 ness as the improving reason of children justifies. The 
 views of children should be extended to their future ad- 
 vantage,* and they should consider childhood as a part 
 of their existence, not as a certain number of years 
 which must be passed over before they can enjoy any 
 of the pleasures of life, before they can enjoy any of 
 the privileges of groiun-up people. Preceptors should 
 not accustom their pupils to what they call indulgence, 
 but should give them the utmost degree of present pleas- 
 ure which is consistent with their future advantage. 
 Would it not be folly and cruelty to give present pleas- 
 ure at the expense of a much larger portion of future 
 pain 1 When children acquire experience and reason, 
 they rejudge the conduct of those who have educated 
 them ; and their confidence and their gratitude will be 
 in exact proportion to the wisdom and justice with which 
 they have been governed. 
 
 It was necessary to explain at large these ideas of re- 
 wards and punishments, that we might clearly see our 
 way in the progress of education. After having deter- 
 mined that our object is to obtain for our pupils the 
 greatest possible portion of felicity ; after having ob- 
 served that no happiness can be enjoyed in society with- 
 out the social virtues, without the useful and the agree- 
 able qualities ; our view naturally turns to the means of 
 forming these virtues, of ensuring these essential quali- 
 ties. On our sympathy with our fellow-creatures de- 
 pend many of our social virtues ; from our ambition to 
 
 * Emiiius. 
 
516 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 excel our competitors, arise many of our most useful 
 and agreeable actions. We have considered these prin- 
 ciples of action as they depend on each other, and as 
 they are afterward separated. Sympathy and sensibil- 
 ity, uninformed by reason, cannot be proper guides to 
 action. We have endeavoured to show how sympathy 
 may be improved into virtue. Children should not see 
 the deformed expression of the malevolent passions in 
 the countenances of those who live with them : before 
 the habits are formed, before sympathy has any rule to 
 guide itself, it is necessarily determined by example. 
 Benevolence and affectionate kindness from parents to 
 children, first inspire the pleasing emotions of love and 
 gratitude. Sympathy is not able to contend with pas- 
 sion or appetite : we should therefore avoid placing 
 children in painful competition with one another. We 
 love those from whom we receive pleasure. To make 
 children fond of each other, we must make them the 
 cause of pleasure to each other ; we must place them 
 io situations where no passion or appetite crosses their 
 natural sympathy. We have spoken of the difference 
 between transient, convivial sympathy, and that higher 
 species of sympathy which, connected with esteem, 
 constitutes friendship. We have exhorted parents not 
 to exhaust imprudently the sensibility of their children ; 
 not to lavish caresses upon their infancy, and cruelly to 
 withdraw their kindness when their children have 
 learned to expect the daily stimulus of affection. The 
 idea of exercising sensibility we have endeavoured to 
 explain, and to show that if we require premature grati- 
 tude and generosity from young people, we shall only 
 teach them affectation and hypocrisy. We have slightly 
 touched on the dangers of excessive female sensibility, 
 and have suggested that useful, active employments, and 
 the cultivation of the reasoning faculty, render sym- 
 pathy and sensibility more respectable, and not less 
 graceful. 
 
 In treating of vanitj^ pride, and ambition, we have 
 been more indulgent to vanity than our ■proud readers will 
 approve. We hope, how^ever, not to be misunderstood : 
 we hope that we shall not appear to be admirers of that 
 mean and ridiculous foible, which is anxiously concealed 
 by all who have any desire to obtain esteem. W^e can- 
 not, however, avoid thinking it is a contradiction to in- 
 spire young people with a wish to excel, and at the same 
 
SUMMARY. 517 
 
 time to insist upon their repressing all expressions of 
 satisfaction if they succeed. The desire to obtain the 
 good opinion of others, is a strong motive to exertion : 
 this desire cannot be discriminative in children before 
 they have any knowledge of the comparative value of 
 different qualities, and before they can estimate the con- 
 sequent value of the applause of different individuals. 
 We have endeavoured to show how, from appealing at 
 first to the opinions of others, children may be led to 
 form judgments of their own actions, and to appeal to 
 their own minds for approbation. The sense of duty 
 and independent self-complacency, may gradually be 
 substituted in the place of weak, ignorant vanity. There 
 is not much danger that young people whose under- 
 standings are improved, and who mix gradually with 
 society, should not be able to repress those offensive 
 expressions of vanity or pride which are disagreeable 
 to the feelings of the " impartial spectators." We 
 should rather let the vanity of children find its own 
 level, than attempt any artificial adjustments ; they will 
 learn propriety of manners from observation and expe- 
 rience ; we should have patience with their early, un- 
 civilized presumption, lest we, by premature restraints, 
 check the energy of the mind, and induce the cold, fee- 
 ble vice of hypocris3^ In their own family, among the 
 friends whom they ought to love and esteem, let chil- 
 dren, with simple, unreserved vivacity, express the good 
 opinion they have of themselves. It is infinitely better 
 that they should be allowed this necessary expansion 
 of self-complacency in the company of their superiors, 
 than that it should be repressed by the cold hand of au- 
 thority, and afterward be displayed in the company of 
 inferiors and sycophants. We have endeavoured to dis- 
 tinguish between the proper and improper use of praise 
 as a motive in education : we have considered it a stim- 
 ulus which, like all other excitements, is serviceable or 
 pernicious, according to the degree in which it is used, 
 and the circumstances in which it is applied. 
 
 While we have thus been examining the general 
 means of educating the heart and the understanding, we 
 have avoided entering minutely into the technical meth- 
 ods of obtaining certain parts of knowledge. It was 
 essential, in the first place, to show how the desire of 
 knowledge was to be excited ; what acquirements are 
 most desirable, and how they are to be most easily ob- 
 
618 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 tained, are the next considerations. In the chapter on 
 Books — Classical Literature and Grammar — Arithmetic 
 and Geometry — Geography and Astronomy — Mechan- 
 ics and Chymistry — we have attempted to show how a 
 taste for literature may early be infused into the minds 
 of children, and how the rudiments of science, and some 
 general principles of knowledge, may be acquired, with- 
 out disgusting the pupil, or fatiguing him by unceasing 
 application. We have, in speaking of the choice of 
 books for children, suggested the general principles by 
 which a selection may be safely made ; and by minute, 
 but we hope not invidious criticism, we have illustrated 
 our principles so as to make them practically useful. 
 
 The examination of M. Condillac's Cours d'Etude was 
 meant to illustrate our own sentiments, more than to 
 attack a particular system. Far from intending to de- 
 preciate this author, we think most highly of his abili- 
 ties ; but we thought it necessary to point out some 
 practical errors in his mode of instruction. Without ex- 
 amples from real life, we should have wandered, as 
 many others of far superior abilities have already wan- 
 dered, in the shadowy land of theory. 
 
 In our chapters on Grammar, Arithmetic, Mechanics, 
 Chymistry, &c., all that we have attempted has been to 
 recall to preceptors the difficulties which they once ex- 
 perienced, and to trace those early footsteps which time 
 insensibly obliterates. How few possess, hke Faruknaz 
 in the Persian tale, the happy art of transfusing their 
 own souls into the bosoms of others ! 
 
 We shall not pity the reader whom we have dragged 
 through Garretson's Exercises, if we can save one trem- 
 bling little pilgrim from that " slough of despond." We 
 hope that the patient, quiet mode, of teaching classical 
 literature, which we have found to succeed in a few in- 
 stances, may be found equally successful in others ; we 
 are not conscious of having exaggerated, and we sin- 
 cerely wish that some intelligent, benevolent parents, 
 may verify our experiments upon their own children. 
 
 The great difficulty which has been found in attempts 
 to instruct children in science, has, we apprehend, arisen 
 from the theoretic manner in which preceptors have 
 proceeded. The knowledge that cannot be immediately 
 applied to use, has no interest for children, has no hold 
 upon their memories ; they may learn the principles of 
 mechanics, or geometry, or chymistry ; but if they have 
 
SUMMARY. 519 
 
 no means of applying their knowledge, it is quickly for- 
 gotten, and nothing but the disgust connected with the 
 recollection of useless labour remains in the pupil's 
 mind. It has been our object in treating of these sub- 
 jects, to show how they may be made interesting to 
 young people ; and for this purpose we should point out 
 to them, in the daily, active business of life, the practi- 
 cal use of scientific knowledge. Their senses should 
 be exercised in experiments, and these experiments 
 should be simple, distinct, and apphcable to some object 
 in which our pupils are immediately interested. We 
 are not sohcitous about the quantity of knowledge that 
 is obtained at any given age, but we are extremely anx- 
 ious that the desire to learn should continually increase, 
 and that whatever is taught should be taught with that 
 perspicuity which improves the general understanding. 
 If the first principles of science are once clearly under- 
 stood, there is no danger that the pupil should not, at any 
 subsequent period of his life, improve his practical skill, 
 and increase his knowledge to whatever degree he 
 thinks proper. 
 
 We have hitherto proceeded without discussing the 
 comparative advantages of public or private education. 
 Whether children are to be educated at home or to be 
 sent to public seminaries, the same course of education, 
 during the first years of their lives, should be pursued ; 
 and the preparatory care of parents is essential to the 
 success of the public preceptor. We have admitted the 
 necessity of public schools, and, in the present state of 
 society, we acknowledge that many parents have it not 
 in their power properly to superintend the private edu- 
 cation of a family. We have earnestly advised parents 
 not to attempt private education without first calcu- 
 lating the difliculties of the undertaking ; we have 
 pointed out that, by co-operating with the public in- 
 structor, parents may assist in the formation of their 
 children's characters, without undertaking the sole man- 
 agement of their classical instruction. A private edu- 
 cation, upon a calm survey of the advantages of both 
 systems, we prefer, because more is in the power of the 
 private than of the public instructer. One uniform 
 course of experience may be preserved, and no exam- 
 ples but those which we wish to have followed, need be 
 seen by those children who are brought up at home. 
 When we give our opinion in favour of private educa- 
 
620 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 tion, we hope that all we have said on servants and on 
 acquaintance will be full in the reader's recollection. 
 No private education, we repeat it, can succeed without 
 perfect unanimity, consistency, and steadiness, among 
 all the individuals in the family. 
 
 We have recommended to parents the highest liber- 
 ality as the highest prudence, in rewarding the care of 
 enlightened preceptors. Ye great and opulent parents, 
 condescend to make your children happy : provide for 
 yourselves the cordial of domestic affection against 
 " that sickness of long life — old age." 
 
 In what we have said of governesses, masters, and 
 the value of female accomplishments, we have con- 
 sidered not only what is the fashion of to-day, but 
 rather what is likely to be the fashion of ten or twenty 
 3'ears hence. Mothers will look back, and observe how 
 much the system of female education has altered within 
 their own memory ; and they will see, with " the pro- 
 phetic eye of taste," what may probably be the fashion 
 of another spring — another race.* We have endeav- 
 oured to substitute the words domestic happiness instead 
 of the present terms, " success in the world — fortunate 
 establishments," &c. This will lead, perhaps, at first, 
 to some confusion in the minds of those who have been 
 long used to the old terms ; but the new vocabulary has 
 its advantages ; the young and unprejudiced will, per- 
 haps, perceive them, and maternal tenderness will calcu- 
 late with more precision, but not with less eagerness, 
 the chances of happiness according to the new and old 
 tables of interest. 
 
 Sectary-metaphysicians, if any of this description 
 should ever deign to open a book that has a practical 
 title, will, we fear, be disappointed in our chapters on 
 Memory — Imagination and Judgment. They will not 
 find us the partisans of any system, and they will prob- 
 ably close the volume with supeicilious contempt. We 
 endeavour to console ourselves by tlie hope, that men 
 of sense and candour will be more indulgent, and will 
 view with more complacency an attempt to collect from 
 all metaphysical writers, those observations which can 
 be immediately of practical use in education. Without 
 any pompous pretensions, Ave have given a sketch of 
 what we have been able to understand and ascertain of 
 
 ^ "Another spring, anotlier race- supplies." — Pope's Homer. 
 
SUMMARY. 621 
 
 the history of the mind. On some subjects, the wisest of 
 our readers will at least give us credit for knowing that 
 we are ignorant. 
 
 We do not set that high value upon Memory, which 
 some preceptors are inclined to do. From all that we 
 have observed, we believe that few people are naturally 
 deficient in this faculty ; though in many it may have 
 been so injudiciously cultivated as to induce the spec- 
 tators to conclude, that there was some original defect 
 in the retentive power. The recoUective power is less 
 cultivated than it ought to be, by the usual modes of 
 education ; and this is one reason why so few pupils 
 rise above mediocrity. They lay up treasures for 
 moths to corrupt; they acquire a quantity of knowl- 
 edge, they learn a multitude of words by rote, and they 
 cannot produce a single fact, or a single idea, in the 
 moment when it is wanted : they collect, but they can- 
 not combine. We have suggested the means of culti- 
 vating the inventive faculty at the same time that we 
 store the memory ; we have shown, that on the order 
 in which ideas are presented to the mind, depends the 
 order in which they will recur to the memory ; and we 
 have given examples from the histories of great men 
 and little children, of the reciprocal assistance which 
 the memory and the inventive powers afford each other. 
 
 In speaking of Taste, it has been our wish to avoid 
 prejudice and affectation. We have advised that chil- 
 dren should early be informed that the principles of 
 taste depend upon casual, arbitrary, variable associa- 
 tions. This v/ill prevent our pupils from falling into- 
 the vulgar error of being amazed and scandalized at the 
 tastes of other times and other nations. The beauties 
 of nature and the productions of art, which are found to 
 be most generally pleasing, we should associate with 
 pleasure in the mind : but we ought not to expect that 
 children should admire those works of imagination 
 which suggest, instead of expressing, ideas. Until 
 children have acquired the language, until they have 
 all the necessary trains of ideas, many of the finest 
 strokes of genius in oratory, poetry, and painting, must 
 to them be absolutely unintelligible. 
 
 In a moral point of view, we have treated of the false 
 associations which have early influence upon the ima- 
 gination, and produce the furious passions and miserable 
 vices. The false associations which first inspire the 
 
623 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 young and innocent mind with the love of wealth, of 
 power, or what is falsely called pleasure, are pointed 
 out; and some practical hints are offered to parents, 
 which it is hoped may tend to preserve their children 
 from these moral insanities. 
 
 We do not think that persons who are much used to 
 children, will quarrel with us for what we have said of 
 early prodigies of wit. People who merely talk to 
 children for the amusement of the moment, may admire 
 their " lively nonsense," and will probably think the 
 simplicity of the mind that we prefer, downright stu- 
 pidity. The habit of reasoning is seldom learned by 
 children who are much taken notice of for their 
 sprightly repartees ; but we have observed that children, 
 after they have learned to reason, as they grow up and 
 become acquainted with the manners and customs of 
 the world, are by no means deficient in talents for con- 
 versation, and in that species of wit which depends 
 upon the perception of analogy between ideas, rather 
 than a play upon words. At all events, we would rather 
 that our pupils should be without the brilliancy of wit, 
 than the solid and essential power of judgment. 
 
 To cultivate the judgment of children, we must begin 
 by teaching them accurately to examine and compare 
 such external objects as are immediately obvious to 
 their senses ; when they begin to argue, we must be 
 careful to make them explain their terms and abide by 
 them. In books and conversation, they must avoid all 
 bad reasoning, nor should they ever be encouraged in 
 the quibbling habit of arguing for victory. 
 
 Prudence we consider as compounded of judgment 
 and resolution. When we teach children to reflect upon 
 and compare their own feelings, when we frequently 
 give them their choice in things that are interesting to 
 them, we educate them to be prudent. We cannot 
 teach this virtue until children have had some expe- 
 rience ; as far as their experience goes, their prudence 
 may be exercised. Those who reflect upon their own 
 feelings, and find out exactly what it is that makes them 
 happy, are taught wisdom by a very few distinct les- 
 sons. Even fools, it is said, grow wise by experience, 
 but it is not until they grow old under her rigid dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 Economy is usually understood to mean prudence in 
 the management of money : we have used this word in 
 
SUMMARY. ' 623 
 
 a more enlarged sense. Children, we have observed, 
 may be economic of any thing that is trusted to their 
 charge ; until they have some use for money, they need 
 not be troubled or tempted with it : if all the necessa- 
 ries and conveniences of life are provided for them, 
 they must spend whatever is given to them as pocket- 
 money, in superfluities. This habituates them early to 
 extravagance. We do not apprehend that young people 
 should be intrusted with money, till they have been 
 some time used to manage the money business of 
 others. They may be taught to keep the accounts of a 
 family, from which they will learn the price and value 
 of different commodities. All this, our readers will 
 perceive, is nothing more than the application of the 
 different reasoning powers to different objects. 
 
 We have thus slightly given a summary of the chap- 
 ters in the preceding work, to recall the whole in a con- 
 nected view to the mind; a few simple principles run 
 through the different parts ; all the purposes of practical 
 education tend to one distinct object ; to render our 
 pupils good and wise, that they may enjoy the greatest 
 possible share of happiness at present and in future. 
 
 Parental care and anxiety, the hours devoted to the 
 instruction of a family, will not be thrown away ; if 
 parents have the patience to wait for their reward, that 
 reward will far surpass their most sanguine expecta- 
 tions : they will find in their children agreeable com- 
 panions, sincere and affectionate friends. Whether 
 they live in retirement or in the busy world, they will 
 feel their interest in life increase, their pleasures multi- 
 plied by sympathy with their beloved pupils ; they will 
 have a happy home. How much is comprised in that 
 single expression ! The gratitude of their pupils will 
 continually recall to their minds the delightful reflec- 
 tion, that the felicity of their whole family is their 
 work ; that the virtues and talents of their children are 
 the necessary consequences of good education. 
 
524 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 NOTEvS, 
 
 CONTAINING CONVERSATIONS AND ANECDOTES OF CHIL- 
 DREN. 
 
 Several years ago a mother,* who had a large family 
 to educate, and who had turned her attention with much 
 solicitude to the subject of education, resolved to write 
 notes from day to day of all the trifling things which 
 mark the progress of the mind in childhood. She was 
 of opinion, that the art of education should be con- 
 sidered as an experimental science, and that many au- 
 thors of great abilities had mistaken their road by fol- 
 lowing theory instead of practice. The title of " Prac- 
 tical Education,'''' was chosen by this lady, and prefixed to 
 a little book for children, which she began, but did not 
 live to finish. The few notes which remain of her 
 writing are preserved, not merely out of respect to her 
 memory, but because it is thought that they may be use- 
 ful. Her plan of keeping a register of the remarks of 
 children, has at intervals been pursued in her family ; a 
 number of these anecdotes have been interspersed in 
 this work ; a few, which did not seem immediately to 
 suit the didactic nature of any of our chapters, remain, 
 and with much hesitation and diffidence are offered to 
 the public. We have selected such anecdotes as may 
 
 * Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, daughter of Edward Sneyd, Esq. of 
 Litchfield. As this lady's name has been mentioned in a monody on 
 the death of Major Andre, we take this opportunity of correcting a 
 mistake that occurs in a note to that performance. 
 
 " Till busy rumour chas'd each pleasing dream, 
 And quench'd the radiance of the silver beam." 
 
 Monody 07i Major Andre- 
 The note on these lines is as follows : — 
 
 "The tidings of Honora's marriage. Upon that event Mr. Andr6 
 quilted his profession as a merchant, and joined our army in America." 
 Miss Honora Sneyd was married to Mr. Edgeworth in July, 1773. 
 and the date of Major Andre's first commission in the Welch Fusi- 
 liers IS March 4th, 1771. 
 
APPENDIX. 525 
 
 in some measure illustrate the principles that we have 
 endeavoured to establish ; and we hope, that from these 
 trifling but genuine conversations of children and pa- 
 rents, the reader will distinctly perceive the difference 
 between practical and theoretic education. As some 
 farther apology for offering them to the public, we 
 recur to a passage in Dr. Reid's* Essays, which en- 
 courages an attempt to study minutely the minds of 
 children. 
 
 " If we could obtain a distinct and full history of all that 
 hath passed in the mind of a child from the beginning of 
 life and sensation till it grows up to the use of reason, 
 how its infant faculties began to work, and how they 
 brought forth and ripened all the various notions, opin- 
 ions, and sentiments, which we find in ourselves when 
 we come to be capable of reflection, this would be a 
 treasure of natural history which would probably give 
 more light into the human faculties, than all the sys- 
 tems of philosophers about them, from the beginning 
 of the world." 
 
 The reader, we hop8,vi'ill not imagine that we think we 
 can present him with this treasure of natural history ; we 
 have only a few scattered notices, as Bacon would call 
 them, to offer : perhaps, even this slight attempt may 
 awaken the attention of persons equal to the under- 
 taking : if able preceptors and parents would pursue a 
 similar plan, we might, in time, hope to obtain a full his- 
 tory of the infant mind. 
 
 It may occur to parents, that writing notes of the re- 
 marks of children would lessen their freedom and sim- 
 plicity in conversation ; this would certainly be the case 
 if care were not taken to prevent the pupils from think- 
 ing of the notebook.^ The following notes were never 
 seen by the children who are mentioned in them ; and 
 though it was in general known in the family that such 
 notes were taken, the particular remarks that were 
 written down, were never known to the pupils : nor was 
 any curiosity excited upon this subject. The attempt 
 would have been immediately abandoned, if we had per- 
 ceived that it produced any bad consequences. The 
 
 * This has been formerly quoted in the preface to the Parent's 
 Assistant. 
 
 t The anecdotes mentioned in the precerfiug- pages, were read to the 
 children with the rest of the work. 
 
526 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 simple language of childhood has been preserved without 
 alteration in the following notes ; and as we could not 
 devise any better arrangement, we have followed the 
 order of time, and we have constantly inserted the ages 
 of the children, for the satisfaction of preceptors and 
 parents, to whom alone these infantine anecdotes can be 
 interesting : We say nothing farther as to their accuracy : 
 if the reader does not see in the anecdotes themselves 
 internal marks of veracity, all we could say would be 
 of no avail. 
 
 X (a girl of five years old) asked why a piece of 
 
 paper fell quickly to the ground when rumpled up, and 
 why so slowly when opened. 
 
 Y (a girl of three years and a half old), seeing her 
 
 sister taken care of and nursed when she had chilblains, 
 said that she wished to have chilblains. 
 
 Z (a girl between two and three), when her mother 
 
 was putting on her bonnet, and when she was going out 
 to walk, looked at the cat, and said with a plaintive 
 voice, " Poor pussey ; you have no bonnet, pussey !" 
 
 X (five years old) asked why she was as tall as the 
 
 trees when she was far from them. 
 
 Z (four years old) went to church, and when she 
 
 was there, said, " Do those men do every thing better 
 than we, because they talk so loud, and I think they 
 read." 
 
 It was a country church, and people sang ; but the 
 child said, " She thought they didn't sing, but roared be- 
 cause they were shut up in that place, and didn't like it." 
 
 L (a boy between three and four years old) was 
 
 standing before a grate with coals in it, which were not 
 lighted ; his mother said to him, " What is the use of 
 coals V 
 
 " To put in your grate." 
 " Why are they put there V 
 "To make fire." 
 " How do they make fire V 
 " Fire is brought to them." 
 
 Mother. " How is fire brought to them V 
 
 L . " Fire is brought to them upon a candle, and 
 
 put to them." 
 
 L , a little while afterward, asked leave to light a 
 
 candle; and when a bit of paper was given to him for 
 that purpose, said, " But, mother, may 1 take some light 
 out of your fire to put to it V 
 
APPENDIX. 527 
 
 This boy had more exact ideas of property than 
 Prometheus had. 
 
 Z , when she was between five and six, said, 
 
 " Water keeps things ahve, and eating keeps ahve chil- 
 dren." 
 
 Z (same age), meddling with a fly, said, " she did 
 
 not hurt it." — " Were you ever a fly V said her mother. 
 " Not that I know of,'''' answered the child. 
 
 Z '5 father sent her into a room where there were 
 
 some knives and forks. " If you meddle with them," 
 said he, " you may cut yourself." 
 
 Z . " I won't cut myself." 
 
 Father. " Can you be sure of that 1" 
 
 Z . " No, but 1 can take care." 
 
 Father. " But if you should cut yourself, would it do 
 you any good V 
 
 Z . "No— Yes." 
 
 Father. " What good V 
 
 Z . " Not to do so another time." 
 
 (same age.) Z 's mother said to her, " Will 
 
 you give me some of your fat cheeks ?" 
 
 Z . " No, I cannot, it would hurt me." 
 
 Mother. " But if it would not hurt you, would you 
 give me somel" 
 
 Z . " No, it would make two holes in my cheeks 
 
 that would be disagreeable." 
 
 A sentimental mother would, perhaps, have been dis- 
 pleased with the simple answers of this little girl. (See 
 Sympathy and Sensibility.) 
 
 The following memorandums of Mrs. H E 
 
 (dated 1779), have been of great use to us in our chapter 
 upon Toys. 
 
 " The playthings of children should be calculated to 
 fix their attention, that they may not get a habit of doing 
 any thing in a listless manner. 
 
 " There are periods as long as two or three months at 
 a time, in the lives of young children, when their bodies 
 appear remarkably active and vigorous, and their minds 
 dull and inanimate ; they are at these times incapable 
 of comprehending any new ideas, and forgetful of those 
 they have already received. When this disposition to 
 exert the bodily faculties subsides, children show much 
 restlessness and distaste for their usual plays. The in- 
 tervals between meals appear long to them ; they ask a 
 multitude of questions, and are continually looking for- 
 
528 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 ward to some future good; if at this time any mental 
 employment be presented to them, they receive it with 
 the utmost avidity, and pursue it with assiduity ; their 
 minds appear to have acquired additional powers from 
 having remained inactive for a considerable time." 
 
 (January,- 1781.) Z . (seven years old.) "What 
 
 are bones made of? My father says it has not been 
 found out. If I should find it out, 1 shall be wiser in that 
 respect than my father." 
 
 (April 8th.) Z . "What becomes of the blood 
 
 when people die !" 
 
 Father. " It stays in the body." 
 
 Z . " I thought it went out of the body ; because 
 
 you told me, that what we eat was turned into blood, 
 and that blood nourished the body and kept it alive." 
 
 Father. " Yes, my dear ; but blood must be in motion 
 to keep the body alive ; the heart moves the blood 
 through the arteries and veins, and the blood comes 
 back again to the heart. We don't know how this 
 motion is performed. What we eat is not turned at 
 once into blood ; it is dissolved by something in the 
 stomach, and is turned into something white like milk, 
 which is called chyle ; the chyle passes through little 
 pipes in the body, called lacteals, and into the veins and 
 arteries, and becomes blood. But I don't know how. I 
 will show you the inside of the body of a dead pig : a 
 pig's inside is something like that of a man." 
 
 Z (same age), when her father had given her an 
 
 account of a large stone that was thrown to a consid- 
 erable distance from Mount Vesuvius at the time of an 
 eruption, asked, how the air could keep a large stone 
 from falhng, when it would not support her weight. 
 
 Z (same age), when she was reading the Roman 
 
 history, was asked, what she thought of the conduct of 
 
 the wife of Asdrubal. Z said she did not like her. 
 
 She was asked why. The first reason Z gave for 
 
 not liking the lady, was, " that she spoke loud ;" the 
 next, " that she was unkind to her husband, and killed 
 her children." 
 
 We regret (though perhaps our readers may rejoice) 
 that several years elapsed in which these little notes of 
 the remarks of children were discontinued. In 1792 the 
 following notes were begun by one of the same family. 
 
 (March, '92.) Mr. saw an Irish giant at Bristol, 
 
 and when he came home, Mr gave his children a 
 
APPENDIX. 629 
 
 description of the giant. His height, he said, was about 
 
 eight feet. >S (a boy of five years old) asked 
 
 whether this giant had lived much longer than other 
 men. 
 
 Father. " No ; why did you think he had lived longer 
 than other men V 
 
 <S . " Because he was so much taller." 
 
 Father. "Well." 
 
 S . " And he had so much more time to grow." 
 
 Father. " People, after a certain age, do not grow any 
 
 more. Your sister M , and 1, and your mother, 
 
 have not grown any taller since you can remember, 
 have we ?" 
 
 -S . " No ; but I have, and B , and C ." 
 
 Father. " Yes ; you are children. While people are 
 growing, they are children; after they have done grow- 
 ing, they are called men and women." 
 
 (April, '92.) At tea-time, to-day, somebody said that 
 hot chocolate scalds worse than hot tea or hot water. 
 Mr. asked his children if they could give any rea- 
 son for this. They were silent. 
 
 Mr. . " If water be made as hot as it can be made, 
 
 and if chocolate be made as hot as it can be made, the 
 chocolate will scald you the most. Can you tell me 
 why !" 
 
 C . (a girl between eight and nine years old.) " Be- 
 cause there is oil, I believe, in the chocolate ; and be- 
 cause it is thicker, and the parts closer together, than in 
 tea or water." 
 
 Father. " What you say is true ; but you have not ex- 
 plained the reason yet. Well, H ." 
 
 H . (a boy between nine and ten.) " Because there 
 
 is water in the bubbles." 
 
 Father. " Water in the bubbles ? I don't understand. 
 Water in what bubbles V 
 
 H . " I thought I had always seen, when water 
 
 boils, that there are a great many little bubbles upon 
 the top." 
 
 Father. "Well; but what has that to do with the 
 question 1 asked you 1" 
 
 H . " Because the cold air that was in the bub- 
 bles would cool the water next them, and then" — (he 
 was quite confused, and stopped.) 
 
 B (a girl of ten or eleven years old) spoke next. 
 
 '* I thought that chocolate was much thicker than water, 
 Z 
 
630 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 and there were more parts, and those parts were closer 
 together, and each could hold but a certain quantity of 
 heat; and therefore chocolate could be made hotter 
 than water." 
 
 Father. " That is a good chymical idea. You suppose 
 that the chocolate and tea can be saturated with heat. 
 But you have none of you yet told the reason." 
 
 The children were all silent. 
 
 Father. " Can water ever be made hotter than boiling 
 hot r' 
 
 B . "No." 
 
 Father. "Whyl" 
 
 B . " I don't know." 
 
 Father. " What happens to water when it does what 
 we call hoilV 
 
 H . " It bubbles, and makes a sort of noise." 
 
 B . " It turns into steam or vapour, I believe." 
 
 Father. " All at once V 
 
 B . " No : but what is at the top, first." 
 
 Father. " Now you see the reason why water can't 
 be made hotter than boiling hot : for if a certain degree 
 of heat be applied to it, it changes into the form of va- 
 pour, and flies off. When I Avas a little boy, I was once 
 near having a dreadful accident. I had not been taught 
 the nature of water, and steam, and heat, and evapora- 
 tion ; and I wanted to fill a wet hollow stick with melted 
 lead. The moment I poured the lead into the stick, the 
 water in the wood turned into vapour suddenly, and the 
 lead was thrown up with great violence to the ceiling: 
 my face narrowly escaped. So you see people should 
 know what they are about before they meddle with 
 things. — But now as to the chocolate." 
 
 No one seemed to have any thing to say about the 
 chocolate. 
 
 Father. " Water, you know, boils with a certain de- 
 gree of heat. Will oil, do you think, boil with the same 
 heat]" 
 
 C . " I don't understand." 
 
 Father. "In the same degree of heat (you must learn 
 to accustom yourself to those words, though they seem 
 difficult to you) — in the same heat, do you think water 
 or oil would boil the soonest T" 
 
 None of the children knew. 
 
 Father. " Water would boil the soonest. More heat 
 is necessary to make oil boil, or turn into vapour, than 
 
APPENDIX. 531 
 
 to make water evaporate. Do you know of any thing 
 which is used to determine, to show, and mark to us the 
 different degrees of heat V 
 
 B . " Yes ; a thermometer." 
 
 Father. " Yes : thermometer comes from two Greek 
 words, one of which signifies heat, and the other meas- 
 are. Meter, means measure. Thermometer a measurer 
 of heat ; barometer, a measurer of the weight of the air ; 
 hygrometer, a measurer of moisture. Now, if you re- 
 member, on the thermometer you have seen these words 
 at a certain mark, the heat of boiling water. The quick- 
 silver in a thermometer, rises to that mark when it is 
 exposed to that degree of heat which will make the 
 water turn into vapour. Now the degree of heat which 
 is necessary to make oil evaporate, is not marked on the 
 thermometer ; but it requires several degrees more heat 
 to evaporate oil, than is necessary to evaporate water. 
 So now you know that chocolate, containing more oil 
 than is contained in tea, must be made hotter before it 
 turns into vapour." 
 
 Children may be led to acquire a taste for chymistry 
 by slight hints in conversation. 
 
 (July 22d, 1794.) Father, " S , can you tell me 
 
 what is meant by a body's falling V 
 
 8 — - (seven years old.) " A body's falling, means a 
 body's dying, I believe." 
 
 Father. " By lody, I don't mean a person, but any 
 thing. What is meant by any thing's falling?" 
 
 <S . " Coming down from a high place." 
 
 Father. " What do you mean by high place V 
 
 <S . "A place higher than places usually are; 
 
 higher than the ground." 
 
 Father. " What do you mean by the ground ?" 
 
 S . " The earth." 
 
 Father. " What shape do you think the earth is '?" 
 
 S . "Round." 
 
 Father. " Why do you think it is round T" 
 
 S . " Because I have heard a great many people 
 
 say so." 
 
 Father. " The shadow. — It is so difficult to explain to 
 you, my dear, why we think that the earth is round, tha 
 I will not attempt it ye^." 
 
 It is better, as we have often observed, to avoid al 
 imperfect explanations, which give children con fuse w 
 ideas. 
 
 Z2 
 
532 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 (August 18th, 1794.) Master came to see us, and 
 
 taught S to fish for mmnows. It was explained to 
 
 S , that fishing with worms for bait, tortures the 
 
 worms. No other argument was used, no sentimental 
 
 exclamations made upon the occasion ; and S fished 
 
 no more, nor did he ever mention the subject again. 
 
 Children sometimes appear cruel, when in fact they 
 do not know that they give pain to animals. 
 
 (July 27th, 1794.) S saw a baautiful rainbow, and 
 
 he said, " I wish I could walk over that fine arch." 
 
 This is one of the pleasures of Ariel, and of the Sylphs 
 
 in the Rape of the Lock. S was not praised for a 
 
 poetic wish, lest he should learn affectation. 
 
 (September 3d, 1794.) Mr. attempted to explain 
 
 to B , H , S , and C , the nature of ensu- 
 
 rance, and the day afterward he asked them to explain 
 it to him. They none of them understood it, except 
 
 B , who could not, however, explain it, though she 
 
 did understand it. The terms were all new to them, 
 and they had no ships to ensure. 
 
 (September 19th.) At dinner to-day, S (seven 
 
 years old) said to his sister C , "What is the name 
 
 of that man that my father was talking to, that sounded 
 like Idem, Isdal, or Izard, I believe." — " Izard !" said 
 somebody at table, " that name sounds like Lizard ; yes, 
 there is a family of the Lizards in the Guardian." 
 
 S . " A real family ?" 
 
 Mr. . " No, my dear : a name given to supposed 
 
 characters." 
 
 M . "Wasn't it one of the young Lizards who 
 
 would prove to his mother, when she had just scalded 
 her fingers with boiling water out of the tea-kettle, that 
 there's no more heat in fire that heats you, than pain in 
 the stick that beats you 1" 
 
 Mr. . " Yes ; I think that character has done 
 
 harm ; it has thrown a ridicule upon metaphysical dis- 
 quisitions." 
 
 Mrs. . " Are not those lines about the pain in the 
 
 stick in the ' Letter* to my Sisters at Crux Easton,' in 
 Dodsley's poems V 
 
 Mr. . " Yes ; but they come originally from Hu- 
 
 dibras, you know." 
 
 In slight conversations, such as these, which are not 
 
 * Soame Jenyns's. 
 
APPENDIX. 533 
 
 contrived for the purpose, the curiosity of children is 
 awakened to literature ; they see the use which people 
 make of what they read, and they learn to talk freely 
 about what they meet with in books. What a variety 
 of thoughts came in a few instants from S 's ques- 
 tion about Idem 1 
 
 (November 8th, 1795.) Mr. • read the first chapter 
 
 of Hugh Trevor to us ; which contains the history of a 
 passionate farmer, who was in a rage with a goose 
 because it would not eat some oats which he offered it. 
 He tore off the wings of the animal, and twisted off its 
 neck ; he bit off the ear of a pig, because it squealed 
 when he was ringing it ; he ran at his apprentice, Hugh 
 Trevor, with a pitchfork, because he suspected that he 
 had drunk some milk ; the pitchfork stuck in a door. 
 Hugh Trevor then told the passionate farmer, that the 
 dog Jowler had drunk the milk, but that he would not 
 tell this before, because he knew his master would hang 
 the dog. 
 
 ^S admired Hugh Trevor for this extremely. 
 
 The farmer, in his lucid intervals, is extremely peni- 
 tent, but his fit of rage seizes him again one morning, 
 when he sees some milk boiling over. He flies at Hugh 
 Trevor, and stabs him with a claspknife with which he 
 had been cutting bread and cheese ; the knife is stopped 
 by half a crown which Hugh Trevor had sewed in his 
 waistcoat ; this half crown he had found on the highway a 
 few days before. 
 
 It was doubted by Miss M. S , whether this last 
 
 was a proper circumstance to be told to children, be- 
 cause it might lead them to be dishonest. 
 
 The evening after Mr. had read the story, he 
 
 asked S to repeat it to him. S remembered it, 
 
 and told it distinctly till he came to the half crown; at 
 this circumstance he hesitated. He said he did not 
 know how Hugh Trevor " came to keep it,'''' though he 
 had found it. He wondered that Hugh Trevor did not 
 ask about it. 
 
 Mr. explained to him, that when a person finds 
 
 any thing upon the highway, he should put it into the 
 hand of the public crier, who should cry it. Mr. — ■■ — 
 was not quite certain whether the property found on the 
 high road, after it has been cried and no owner appears, 
 belongs to the king, or to the person who finds it. Black- 
 stone's Commentaries were consulted ; the passage 
 
534 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 concerning Treasuretrove was read to S ; it is writ- 
 ten in such distinct language, that he understood it com- 
 pletely. 
 
 Young people may acquire much knowledge by con- 
 sulting books, at the moment that any interest is excited 
 by conversation upon particular subjects. 
 
 Explanations about the laio were detailed to S , 
 
 because he was intended for a lawyer. In conversation 
 we may direct the attention of children to what are to 
 be their professional studies, and we may associate en- 
 tertainment and pleasure with the idea of their future 
 profession. 
 
 The story of the passionate farmer in Hugh Trevor 
 was thought to be a good lesson for children of viva- 
 cious tempers, as it shows to what crimes excess of 
 passion may transport. This man appears an object of 
 compassion ; all the children felt a mixture of pity and 
 abhorrence when they heard the history of his decease. 
 
 (November 23d, 1795.) This morning at breakfast 
 
 Miss observed, that the inside of the cream cover, 
 
 which was made of black Wedgwood's ware, looked 
 brown and speckled, as if the glazing had been worn 
 away ; she asked whether this was caused by the cream. 
 One of the company immediately exclaimed, " Oh, I 
 have heard that Wedgwood's ware won't hold oil." Mn 
 observed, that it would be best to try the experi- 
 ment, instead of resting content with this hearsay evi- 
 dence ; he asked H and S what would be the 
 
 best method of trying the experiment exactly. 
 
 (S proposed to pour oil into a vessel of Wedg- 
 wood's ware, and to measure the depth of the oil when 
 first put in ; to leave the oil in the vessel for some time, 
 and then to measure again the depth of the oil. 
 
 H said, " I would weigh the Wedgwood's ware 
 
 vessel ; then pour oil into it again ; then I would leave 
 the oil in the vessel for some time, and afterward I 
 would pour out the oil, and would weigh the vessel to 
 see if it had gained any weight ; and then weigh the oil 
 to find out whether it had lost any w^eight since it was 
 put into the vessel." H 's scheme was approved. 
 
 A black Wedgwood's ware saltcellar was weighed in 
 accurate scales ; it weighed 1196 grains; 110 grains of 
 oil were poured into it ; total weight of the saltcellar 
 and oil, 1306 grs. Six months afterward, the saltcellar 
 was produced to the children, who w^ere astonished to 
 
APPENDIX. 535 
 
 perceive that the oil had disappeared. The lady who 
 had first asserted that Wedgwood's ware would not hold 
 oil, was inclined to believe that the oil had oozed through 
 the pores of the saltcellar ; but the little spectators 
 thought it was more probable that the oil might have 
 been accidentally spilled ; the saltcellar weighed as be- 
 fore, 1196 grains. 
 
 The experiment was repeated, and this time it was 
 resolved to lock up the saltcellar, that it might not again 
 be thrown down. 
 
 (April 14th, 1796.) Into the same saltcellar 100 grains 
 weight of oil was poured (total weight, 1296 grains). 
 The saltcellar was put on a saucer, and covered with a 
 
 glass tumbler. (June 3d, 1796.) Mr. weighed the 
 
 saltcellar, and found that with the oil it weighed pre- 
 cisely the same as before, 1296 grains ; without the oil, 
 1196 grains, its original weight : therefore it was clear 
 that the Wedgwood's ware had neither imbibed the oil, 
 nor let it pass through its pores. 
 
 This httle experiment has not been thus minutely told 
 for philosophers, but for children ; however trivial the 
 subject, it is useful to teach children early to try exper-' 
 iments. Even the weighing and calculating in this 
 experiment amused them, and gave some ideas of the 
 exactness necessary to prove any fact. 
 
 (Dec. 1st, 1795.) S (8 years old), in reading Gay's 
 
 fable of " the painter who pleased everybody and no- 
 body," was delighted to hear that the painter put his 
 
 palette upon his thumb, because S had seen a little 
 
 palette of his sister A 's, which she used to put on 
 
 her thumb. S had been much amused by this, 
 
 and he was very fond of this sister, who had been ab- 
 sent for some time. Association makes slight circum- 
 stances agreeable to children ; if we do not know these 
 associations, we are surprised at their expressions of 
 delight. It is useful to trace them. (See Chapter on 
 Imagination.) 
 
 S seemed puzzled when he read that the painter 
 
 " dipped his pencil, talked of Greece^ — " Why did he 
 talk of Greece 1" said S with a look of astonish- 
 ment. Upon inquiry, it was found that S mistook 
 
 the word Greece for Grease ! 
 
 It was explained to him, that Grecian statues and 
 Grecian figures are generally thought to be particularly 
 
536 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 graceful and well executed; that, therefore, painters 
 attend to them. 
 
 (Dec. 1st, 1795.) After dinner to-day, S was 
 
 looking at a little black toothpick-case of his father's ; 
 his father asked him if he knew what it was made of. 
 
 The children guessed different things ; wood, horn, 
 bone, paper, pasteboard, glue. 
 
 Mr. . " Instead of examining the toothpick-case, 
 
 S , you hold it in your hand, and turn your eyes 
 
 away from it, that you may think the better. Now, 
 when I want to find out any thing about a particular ob- 
 ject, I keep my eye fixed upon it. Observe the texture 
 of that toothpick-case, if you want to know the mate- 
 rials of which it is made ; look at the edges, feel it." 
 
 ^ . " May I smell it V 
 
 Mr. . " Oh yes. You may use all your senses." 
 
 jS . (feeling the toothpick-case, smelling it, and 
 
 looking closely at it.) " It is black, and smooth, and 
 strong, and light. What is, let me see, both strong and 
 light, and it will bend — parchment." 
 
 Mr. . " That is a good guess ; but you are not 
 
 quite right yet. What is parchment 1 I think by your 
 look that you don't know." 
 
 ^ . *' Is it not paper pasted together 1" 
 
 Mr. , " No ; I thought you mistook pasteboard 
 
 for parchment." 
 
 >S . " Is parchment skin V' 
 
 Mr. . "Of what?" 
 
 Animals." 
 . " What animal V 
 I don't know." 
 , " Parchment is the skin of sheep." 
 
 " But S , don't keep the toothpick-case in your 
 
 hand, push it round the table to your neighbours, that 
 everybody may look again before they guess. I think, 
 
 for certain reasons of my own, that H will guess 
 
 right." 
 
 H . " Oh, I know what it is now !" 
 
 H had lately made a pump, the piston of which 
 
 was made of leather ; the leather had been wet, and 
 
 then forced through a mould of the proper size. H 
 
 recollected this, as Mr. thought he would, and 
 
 guessed that the case might have been made of leather, 
 and by a similar process. 
 
APPENDIX. 537 
 
 ^ . " Is it made of the skin of some animal ]" 
 
 Mr. . " Yes ; but what do you mean by the skin 
 
 of some animal T What do you call it "?" 
 
 >S . (laughing.) " Oh, leather ! leather !" 
 
 H . " Yes, it's made in the same way that the 
 
 piston of my pump is made, I suppose." 
 
 M . " Could not shoes be made in the same man- 
 ner in a mould T' 
 
 Mr. . " Yes ; but there would be one disadvan- 
 tage : the shoes would lose their shape as soon as they 
 were wet ; and the sole and upper leather must be nearly 
 of the same thickness." 
 
 »S . " Is the toothpick-case made out of any par- 
 ticular kind of ieatlier ] I wish 1 could make one !" 
 
 M . " You have a bit of green leather, will you 
 
 give it to me 1 I'll punch it out like H 's piston ; but 
 
 1 don't exactly know how the toothpick-case was made 
 into the right shape." 
 
 Mr. . " It was made in the same manner in which 
 
 silver pencil-cases and thimbles are made. If you take 
 a thin piece of silver, or of any ductile material, and lay 
 it over a concave mould, you can readily imagine that 
 you can make the thin, ductile material, take the shape 
 of any mould into which you put it ; and you may go on 
 forcing it into moulds of different depths, till at last the 
 plate of silver will have been shaped into a cylindrical 
 form ; a thimble, a pencil-case, a toothpick-case, or any 
 similar figure." 
 
 We have observed (See Mechanics) that children 
 should have some general idea of mechanics before 
 they go into the large manufactories ; this can be given 
 to them from time to time in conversation, when little 
 circumstances occur which naturally lead to the subject. 
 
 (November 30th, 1795). S said he hked the be- 
 ginning of Gay's fable of " The man and the flea," very 
 much, but he could not tell what was meant by the crab's 
 crawling beside the coral grove, and hearing the ocean 
 roll above. "The ocean cannot roll above^c^n it, mother V 
 
 Mother. " Yes, when the animal is crawling below, he 
 hears the water rolling above him." 
 
 M . " Coral groves mean the branches of coral 
 
 which look like trees ; you saw some at Bristol in Mr. 
 
 B 's collection." 
 
 The difficulty <S found in understanding " coral 
 
 groves," confirms what has been observed, that children 
 Z3 
 
538 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 should never read poetry without its being tlioroughly 
 explained to them. (See Chapter on Books.) 
 
 (January 10th, 1795.) *S (8 years old) said that 
 
 he had been thinking about the wind ; and he believed 
 that it was the earth's turning round that made the wind. 
 
 M . " Then how comes it that the wind does not 
 
 blow always the same way V 
 
 S '• Ay, that's the thing I can't make out ; be- 
 sides, perhaps the air would stick to the earth as it 
 turns round, as thread sticks to my spinning top, and go 
 round with it." 
 
 (January 4th, 1795.) As we were talking of the king 
 
 of Poland's little dwarf, S recollected by contrast 
 
 the Irish giant whom he had seen at Bristol. "I Uked 
 
 the Irish giant very nuich, because," said S 
 
 " though he was so large, he was not surly ; and 
 when my father asked him to take out his shoebuckle 
 to try whether it would cover my foot, he did not seem 
 m a hurry to do it. I suppose he did not wish to 
 diow how little I was," 
 
 Children are nice observers of that kind of politeness 
 which arises from good-nature ; they may hence learn 
 what really pleases in manners, without being taught 
 grimace. 
 
 Dwarfs and giants led us to Gulliver's Travels, S 
 
 had never read them, but one of the company now gave 
 him some general account of Lilliput and Brobdignag. 
 He thought the account of the httle people more enter- 
 taining than that of the large ones ; the carriage of 
 Gulliver's hat by a team of Lilliputian horses, diverted 
 him ; but, when he was told that the queen of Brobdig- 
 nag's dwarf stuck Gulliver one day at dinner into a mar- 
 rowbone, S — ^^ — looked grave, and seemed rather 
 shocked than amused ; he said, " It must have almost 
 suffocated poor Gulliver, and must have spoiled his 
 
 clothes." S wondered of what cloth they could 
 
 make him new clothes, because the cloth in Brobdignag 
 must have been too thick, and as thick as a board. He- 
 also wished to know what sort of glass was used to 
 glaze the windows in Gulliver's wooden house : " be- 
 cause," said he, " their common glass must have been 
 so thick that it would not have been transparent to Gul- 
 liver." He thought that Gulliver must have been ex- 
 tremely afraid of setting his small wooden house on fire. 
 M . " Why p.iore afraid than we are 1 his hous© 
 
APPENDIX. 539 
 
 S . " Yes, but what makes the fire must have been 
 
 so much larger ! One cinder, one spark of theirs, would 
 have filled his little grate. And how did he do to read 
 their books r' 
 
 <S was told that Gulliver stood at the topmost line 
 
 of the page, and ran along as fast as he read, till he got 
 to the bottom of the page. It was suggested that Gul- 
 liver might have used a diminishing glass. S im- 
 mediately exclaimed, " How entertaining it must have 
 been to him to look through their telescopes." An 
 instance of invention arisnig from contrast. 
 
 If the conversation had not here been interrupted, 
 
 S would probably have invented a greater variety 
 
 of pleasures and difficulties for Gulliver ; his eagerness 
 to read Gulliver's Travels, was increased by this con- 
 versation. We should let children exercise their inven- 
 tion upon all subjects, and not tell them the whole of 
 everything, and all the ingenious parts of a story. Some- 
 times they invent these, and are then interested to see 
 how the real author has managed them. Thus, chil- 
 dren's love for literature may be increased, and the 
 activity of their minds may be exercised. " Le secret 
 d'ennuyer," says an author* who never tires us, " Le 
 secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire." This may be> 
 applied to the art of education. ■ (See Attention, Mem- 
 ory and Invention.) 
 
 (January 17th, 1796.) S . "I don't understand 
 
 about the tides." 
 
 H . (thirteen years old.) "The moon, when it 
 
 comes near the earth, draws up the sea by the middle, at- 
 tracts it, and, as the middle rises, the water runs down 
 from that again into the channels of rivers." 
 
 <S . "But — Hum ! — the moon attracts the sea ; but 
 
 why does not the sun attract it by the middle as well as 
 the moon 1 How can you be sure that it is the moon 
 that does it V 
 
 Mr. . " We are not sure that the moon is the 
 
 cause of tides." 
 
 We should never force any system upon the belief of 
 children ; but wait till they can understand all the argu- 
 ments on each side of the question. 
 
 (January 18th, 1796.) S (nine years old.) " Father, 
 
 I have thought of a reason for the wind's blowing." 
 
 * Voltaire. 
 
540 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 " When there has been a hot, sunshiny day, and when 
 the ground has been wet, the sun attracts a great deal 
 of vapour : then that vapour must have room, so it must 
 push away some air to make room for itself; besides, 
 vapour swells with heat, so it must have di great, great diedl 
 of room as it grows hotter and hotter ; and the moving 
 the air to make way for it must make wind." 
 
 It is probable, that if children are not early taught by 
 rote words which they cannot understand, they will 
 think for themselves ; and, however strange their in- 
 cipient theories may appear, there is hope for the im- 
 provement of children as long as their minds are active. 
 
 (February 13th, 1796.) S . " How do physicians 
 
 try new medicines ] If they are not sure they will 
 succeed, they may be hanged for murder, mayn't they ? 
 It is cruel to try them {them meant medicines) on ani- 
 mals ; besides, all animals are not the same as men. A 
 pig's inside is the most like that of a man. I remember 
 my father showed us the inside of a pig once." 
 
 Some time afterward, S inquired what was meant 
 
 by the circulation of the blood. " How are we sure 
 that it does move ] You told me that it doesn't move 
 after we die, then nobody can have seen it really moving 
 in the veins ; that beating that I feel in my pulse does 
 not feel like any thing running backward and forward ; 
 it beats up and down." 
 
 The lady to whom S addressed these questions 
 
 and observations, unfortunately, could not give him any 
 information upon this subject, but she had at least the 
 prudence, or honesty, to tell the boy that " she did not 
 know any thing about the matter." 
 
 S should have been shown the circulation of the 
 
 blood in fishes ; which he might have seen by a micro- 
 scope. 
 
 Children's minds turn to such inquiries : surely, if 
 they are intended for physicians, these are the moments 
 to give them a taste for their future profession, by as- 
 sociating pleasure with instruction, and connecting with 
 the eagerness of curiosity the hope of making discov- 
 eries ; a hope which all vivacious young people strongly 
 feel. 
 
 (February 16th.) S objected to that fable of 
 
 Phaedrus in which it is said that a boy threw a stone at 
 -^sop, and that ^sop told the boy to throw a stone at 
 another passenger, pointing to a rich man. The boy 
 
APPENDIX. 541 
 
 did as ^sop desired, and the rich man had the boy 
 hanged. 
 
 S said that he thought that ^sop should have 
 
 been hanged, because ^sop was the cause of the boy's 
 fault. 
 
 How little suited political fables are to children. 
 This fable, which was meant to show, we suppose, that 
 the rich could not, like the poor, be insulted with im- 
 punity, was quite unintelligible to a boy (nine years old) 
 of simple understanding. 
 
 (July 19th, 1796.) Among " Vulgar errors,'''' Sir 
 Thomas Browne might have mentioned the common 
 notion, that if you take a hen and hold her head down to 
 the ground, and draw a circle of chalk round her, she 
 will be enchanted by this magical operation so that she 
 cannot stir. We determined to try the experiment, for 
 which Dr. Johnson would have laughed at us, as he 
 laughed at Browne* for trying " the hopeless experiment'''* 
 about the magnetic dials. 
 
 A hen's head was held down upon a stone flag, and a 
 chalk line was drawn before her ; she did not move. 
 The same hen was put into a circle of chalk that had 
 been previously drawn for her reception ; her head was 
 held down according to the letter of the charm, and she 
 did not move ; line or circle apparently operated alike. 
 
 It was suggested (by A ) that perhaps the hen was 
 
 frightened by her head being held down to the ground, 
 and that the chalk line and circle had nothing to do with 
 the business. The hen was carried out of sight of the 
 magic line and circle, her head was held down to the 
 ground as before ; and when the person who had held 
 her gently withdrew his hand, she did not move. She 
 did not, for some instants, recover from her terror ; or, 
 perhaps, the feeling of pressure seemed to her to remain 
 upon her head after the hand was withdrawn. 
 
 Children who are accustomed to doubt, and to try 
 experiments, will not be dupes to " Vulgar errors." 
 
 (July 20th, 1796.) S (between nine and ten), when 
 
 he heard a lady propose to make use of a small glass 
 tumbler to hold pomatum, made a face expressive of 
 great disgust ; he was begged to give a reason for his 
 dislike. S said it appeared to him dirty and disa« 
 
 * See Johnson's Life of BroAvne. 
 
542 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 greeabie to put pomatum into a tumbler out of which 
 we are used to drink wine or water. 
 
 We have observed (See Chapter on Taste and Ima- 
 gination), that children may early be led to reflect upon 
 the cause of their tastes. 
 
 (July 24th, 1796.) S observed that " the lachry- 
 mal sack is like Aboulcasem's cup, (in the Persian 
 tales.) It is emptied and fills again of itself; though it 
 is emptied ever so often, it continues full." 
 
 The power of reasoning had been more cultivated in 
 
 S than the taste for wit or allusion ; yet it seems 
 
 his mind was not defective in that quickness of seizing 
 resemblances which may lead to wit. He was not 
 praised for the lachrymal sack and Aboulcasem's cup. 
 (See Chapter on Wit and Judgment.) 
 
 (August 3d, 1796.) C (eleven years old), after she 
 
 had heard a description of a fire-engine, said, " I want to 
 read the description of the fire-engine over again ; for 
 while my father was describing one particular part, I 
 recollected something that I had heard before, and that 
 took my attention quite away from what he was saying. 
 Very often when I am listening, something that is said 
 puts me in mind of something, and then I go on think- 
 ing of that, and I cannot hear what is said any longer." 
 
 Preceptors should listen to the observations that their 
 
 pupils make upon their minds ; this remark of C 
 
 suggested to us some ideas that have been detailed in 
 the " Chapter on Attention." 
 
 (August 1st, 1796.) S , who had been translating 
 
 some of Ovid's Metamorphoses to his father, exclaimed, 
 "I hate those ancient gods and goddesses, they are 
 so wicked ! I wish 1 was Perseus, and had his shield, 
 I would fly up to heaven and turn Jupiter, and Apollo, 
 and Venus, into stone ; then they would be too heavy to 
 stay in heaven, and they would tumble down to earth ; 
 and then they would be stone statues, and we should 
 have much finer statues of Apollo and Venus than they 
 have now at Rome." 
 
 (September 10th, 1796.) S (within a month often 
 
 years old) read to his sister M part of Dr. Darwin's 
 
 chapter upon instinct ; that part in which there is an ac- 
 count of young birds that learn to sing from the birds 
 
 which take care of them, not from their parents. S 
 
 immediately recollected a story which he had read last 
 winter in the Annual Register. (Extract from Barring- 
 
APPENDIX. 543 
 
 ton's Remarks upon Singing-birds.) — "There was a 
 silly boy once (you know, sister, boys are silly some- 
 times), who used to play in a room where his mother 
 had a nightingale in a cage, and the boy took out of the 
 cage the nightingale's eggs, and put in some other bird's 
 eggs (a swallow's, I think), and the nightingale hatched 
 them ; and when the swallows grew up they sang like 
 
 nightingales." When S had done reading, he looked 
 
 at the title of the book. He had often heard his father 
 speak of Zoonomia, and he knew that Dr. Darwin was 
 the author of it. 
 
 -S . " Oh ho ! Zoonomia ! Dr. Darwin wrote it ; it 
 
 is very entertaining : my father told me that when I read 
 Zoonomia, I should know the reason why 1 stretch my- 
 self when I am tired. But, sister, there is one thing I 
 read about the cuckoo that I did not quite understand. 
 May I look at it again 1" He read the following pas- 
 
 " For a hen teaches this language with ease to the 
 ducklings she has hatched from supposititious eggs, and 
 educates as her own offspring ; and the wagtails or 
 hedge-sparrows learn it from the young cuckoo, their 
 foster-nursling, and supply him with his food long after he 
 can fly about, whenever they hear his cuckooing, which 
 Linnaeus tells us is his call of hunger." 
 
 5^ asked what Dr. Darwin meant by " learns i^." 
 
 M . " Learns a language." 
 
 S . " What does foster-nursling mean V 
 
 M . " It here means a bird that is nursed along 
 
 with another, but that has not the same parents." 
 
 *S . " Then, does it not mean that the sparrows 
 
 learn from their foster-sister, the cuckoo, to say 
 Cuckoo V 
 
 M . " No ; the sparrow don't learn to say cuckoo, 
 
 but they learn to understand what he means by that cry ; 
 that he is hungry." 
 
 S . " Well, but then I think this is a proof against 
 
 what Dr. Darwin means about instinct." 
 
 M . "Whyl How?" 
 
 iS . " Because the young cuckoo does say cuckoo, 
 
 without being taught ; it does not learn from the spar- 
 rows. How comes it to say cuckoo at all, if it is not 
 by instinct 1 It does not see its own father and mother." 
 
 We give this conversation as a proof that our young 
 
544 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 pupils were accustomed to think about every thing that 
 they read. 
 
 (Nov. 8th, 1796.) The following are the " Curiosities 
 of Literature'"' which were promised to the reader in the 
 chapter upon Grammar and Classical Literature. 
 
 Translation from Ovid. The Cave of Sleep, ^r*? 
 edition. 
 
 "No watchful cock Aurora's beams invite; 
 No dog nor goose, the guardians of the night." 
 
 Dog and goose were objected to, and the young author 
 changed them into dogs and geese. 
 
 " No herds, nor flocks, nor human voice is heard ; 
 But nigh the cave a rustling spring appear'd." 
 
 When this line was read to S , he changed the 
 
 epithet rusding into gliding. 
 
 "And with soft murmurs faithless sleep invites, 
 And there the flying past again dehghts ; 
 And near the door the noxious poppy grows, 
 And spreads his sleepy milk at dayhght's close." 
 
 S was now requested to translate the beginning 
 
 of the sentence, and he produced these lines : — 
 
 " Far from the sun there lies a cave forlorn, 
 Which Sol's bright beams can't enter eve nor morn." 
 
 Can't was objected to. Mr. asked S what 
 
 was the literal English. S first said not, and then 
 
 nor; and he corrected his line, and made it 
 
 " Which Sol's bright beams nor visit eve nor morn.' 
 Afterward — 
 
 " Far in a vale there lies a cave forlorn. 
 Which Phoebus never enters eve nor morn." 
 
 After an interval of a few days, the lines were all read 
 to the boy, to try whether he could farther correct them ; 
 he desired to have the two following lines left out : — 
 
 " No herds, nor flocks, nor human voice is heard 
 But nigh the cave a gliding spring appear'd." 
 
 And in the place of them he wrote, 
 
 " No flocks nor herds disturb the silent plains : 
 Within the sacred walls mute quiet reigns." 
 
 Instead of the two following : — 
 
APPENDIX. 545 
 
 " And with soft murmurs faithless sleep invites, 
 And there the flying past again delights." 
 
 S desired his secretary to write, 
 
 " But murmuring Lethe soothing sleep invites, 
 In dreams again the flying past dehghts." 
 
 Instead of, 
 
 "And near the doors the noxious poppy grows, 
 And spreads his sleepy milk at daylight's close," 
 
 the following lines were written. S did not say 
 
 doors, because he thought the cave had no doors ; yet 
 his Latin, he said, spoke of squeaking hinges. 
 
 " From milky flowers that near the cavern grow. 
 Night scatters the collected sleep below." 
 
 We shall not make any farther apology for inserting 
 all these corrections, because we have already suffi- 
 ciently explained our motives. (See Chapter on Gram- 
 mar and Classical Literature.) 
 
 (February, 1797.) A little theatre was put up for the 
 children, and they acted "Justice Poz."* When the 
 scenes were pulled down afterward, S was ex- 
 tremely sorry to see the whole theatre vanish ; he had 
 succeeded as an actor, and he wished to have another 
 play acted. His father did not wish that he should be- 
 come ambitious of excelling in this way at ten years 
 old, because it might turn his attention away from things 
 of more consequence ; and if he had been much ap- 
 plauded for this talent, he would, perhaps, be over-stim- 
 ulated. (See Chapter on Vanity and Ambition.) 
 
 The way to turn this boy's mind away from its pres- 
 ent pursuit, was to give him another object, not to blame 
 or check him for the natural expression of his wishes. 
 It is difficult to find objects for children who have not 
 cultivated a taste for literature ; but infinite variety can 
 be found for those who have acquired this happy taste. 
 
 Soon after S had expressed his ardent wish to 
 
 have another play performed, the trial of some poor 
 man in the neighbourhood happened to be mentioned ; 
 and it was said that the criminal had the choice of either 
 going to Botany Bay, or being hanged. 
 
 S asked how that could be. " I didn't think," said 
 
 he, " that a man could have two punishments. Can the 
 
 * Parent's Assistant. 
 
646 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 judge change the punishment ? I thought it was fixed 
 by the law." 
 
 Mr. told S that these were sensible ques- 
 tions ; and as he saw that the boy's attention was fixed, 
 he seized the opportunity to give some general idea 
 
 upon the subject. He began with teUing S the 
 
 manner in which a suspected person is brought before 
 a justice of the peace. A warrant and committal were 
 described ; then the manner of trying criminals ; what 
 is called the court, the jury, &c. ; the crier of the court, 
 and the forms of a trial ; the reason why the prisoner, 
 when he is asked how he will be tried, answers, " By 
 God and my country :" this led to an account of the old 
 absurd fire and water ordeals, and thence the advantages 
 of a trial by jury became more apparent by comparison. 
 
 Mr. told S why it is called empannelling a 
 
 jury, and why the jury are called a panel ; the manner 
 in which the jury give their verdict ; the duty of the 
 judge, to sum up the evidence, to explain the law to the 
 jury. " The judge is, by the humane laws of England, 
 alwnys supposed to be the protector of the accused ; 
 
 and now, 8 , we are come round to your question ; 
 
 the judge cannot make the punishment more severe ; 
 but when the punishment is fine or imprisonment, the 
 quantity or duration of the punishment is left to his judg- 
 ment. The king may remit the punishment entirely ; 
 he may pardon the criminal ; he may, if a man be sen- 
 tenced to be hanged, give him his choice, whether he 
 will be hanged or transported y — (The word was ex- 
 plained.) 
 
 " But," said S , " since the judge cannot change 
 
 the punishment, why may the king ] I think it is very 
 unjust that the king should have such a power, because 
 if he changes the punishment for one thing, why mayn't 
 he for another, and another, and so on V 
 
 Mr. . " I am inclined to believe, my dear S , 
 
 that it is for the good of a state, that a king should have 
 such a power ; but I am not sure. If any individual 
 should have this power, I think it is most safely trusted 
 to a king ; because, as he has no connexion with the 
 individuals who are tried, as he does not live among 
 them, he is not so liable as judges and jurymen might be 
 to be prejudiced, to be influenced by personal revenge, 
 friendship, or pity. When he pardons, he is supposed 
 to pardon without any personal motives. But of all this. 
 
APPENDIX. 547 
 
 S , you will judge for yourself, when you study the 
 
 law. 1 intend to take you with me to next assizes, 
 
 to hear a trial." 
 
 S looked full as eager to hear a trial, as he had 
 
 done, half an hour before, to act a play. We should 
 mention that in the little play in which he had acted, he 
 had played the part of a justice of the peace, and a sort 
 of trial formed the business of the play ; the ideas of 
 trials and law, therefore, joined readily with his former 
 train of thought. Much of the success of education de- 
 pends upon the preceptor's seizing these slight connex- 
 ions. It is scarcely possible to explain this fully in 
 writing. 
 
 (February 25th, 1797.) S was reading in " Even- 
 ings at Home," the story of " A friend in need, is a 
 friend indeed." 
 
 " Mr. G. Cornish, having raised a moderate fortune, 
 and being now beyond the meridian of life, he felt a 
 strong desire of returning to his native country." ♦ 
 
 S . " How much better that is, than to say he 
 
 felt an irresistible desire, or an insupportable desire, as 
 people sometimes say in books." 
 
 Our pupils were always permitted to stop when they 
 were reading loud, to make, whatever remarks they 
 pleased upon whatever books they read. They did not, 
 by this method, get through so many books as other 
 children of their age usually do ; but their taste for read- 
 ing seemed to increase rapidly. (See Books.) 
 
 (March 8th, 1797.) H (fourteen) told us that he 
 
 remembered seeing, when he was five years old, some 
 puppets packed up by a showman in a triangular box ; 
 
 " and for some time afterward," said H , " when I 
 
 saw my father's triangular hatbox, I expected puppets 
 to come out of it. A few days ago, I met a man with a 
 triangular box upon his head, and I thought that there 
 were puppets in the box." 
 
 We have taken notice of this propensity in children, 
 to believe that particular are general causes ; and we 
 have endeavoured to show how it affects the temper 
 and' the habits of reasoning. (See Temper, and Wit 
 dtj'd Judgment.) 
 
 v'';:(Mareh:^7th, 1797.) Mr. showed little W 
 
 '^^ree years old) a watch, and asked him if he thought 
 tliat it was -alive. 
 'Yes." 
 
648 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Mr. . " Do vou think that the fire is alive ?" 
 
 W . "Yes." 
 
 Mr. (The child was standing at the tea-table.) 
 
 " Do you think the urn is alive 1" 
 
 W . "No." 
 
 Mr. . " Do you think that book is alive V 
 
 No." 
 
 " The horses 1" 
 
 Yes" 
 
 " Do you think that the chaise is alive !" 
 
 Yes." Then, after looking in Mr. 's 
 
 face, he changed his opinion, and said, No. 
 
 W did not seem to know what was meant by the 
 
 word alive. 
 
 Mr. called H. (five years old), and asked her 
 
 whether she thought that the watch was alive. She at 
 first said, Yes ; but, as soon as she had time to recollect 
 herself, she said that the watch was not alive. 
 
 This question was asked, to try whether Reid was 
 right in his conjecture as to the answers a child would 
 give to such a question. (See Reid's Essays on the In- 
 tellectual Powers of Man.) 
 
 We frequently say that flowers, &c. are dead : we 
 should explain to children that there are two kinds of 
 life ; or rather, that the word life is used to express two 
 ideas ; vegetable life and animal life. 
 
 (July, 1797.) Miss Louisa told us, that when a 
 
 rosebud begins to wither, if you burn the end of the 
 stalk, and plunge it redhot into water, the rose will be 
 found revived the next day ; and by a repetition of this 
 burning, the lives of flowers may be fortunately pro- 
 longed many days. Miss Louisa had seen many 
 
 surprising recoveries performed by this operation, and 
 several of her friends had adopted the practice with uni- 
 form success. 
 
 We determined to repeat the experiment. Children 
 should never take any thing upon trust which they can 
 verify. Two roses, gathered at the same time, from 
 the same tree, were put into separate glasses of water. 
 The stalk of one of these roses was burnt, according to 
 prescription ; they were left a night in water, and the 
 next day the rose that had been burnt, appeared in 
 much better health than that which had not been burnt. 
 The experiment was afterward several times repeated, 
 
APPENDIX. 649 
 
 and should be tried by others until the fact be fully- 
 ascertained. 
 
 (July, 1797.) Little W (three years old) was 
 
 shown Miss R 's beautiful copy of the Aurora sur- 
 
 gens of Guido. The car of Apollo is encircled by the 
 dancing hours, so that its shape is not seen ; part of 
 one wheel only is visible between the robes of the 
 
 dancing figures. We asked little W why that man 
 
 (pointing to the figure of Apollo in his invisible car) 
 looked so much higher up in the air than the other 
 people 1 
 
 W . " Because he is in a carriage ; he is sitting 
 
 in a carriage." 
 
 We pointed to the imperfect wheel, and asked if he 
 knew what that was 1 He immediately answered, " Yes, 
 the wheel of the carriage." We wanted to see whether 
 the imagination of a child of three years old, would 
 supply the invisible parts of the car ; and whether the 
 wheel and horses, and man holding the reins, would 
 suggest the idea of a phaeton. (See Chapter on Taste 
 and Imagination.) 
 
 We shall not trespass upon the reader's patience with 
 any more anecdotes from the nursery. We hope that 
 candid and intelligent parents will pardon, if they have 
 discovered any desire in us to exhibit our pupils. We 
 may mistake our own motives, and we do not pretend 
 to be perfectly impartial judges upon this occasion ; but 
 we hope that only such conversations or anecdotes 
 have been produced, as may be of some use in practical 
 education. From conversation, if properly managed, 
 children may learn with ease, expedition, and delight, a 
 variety of knowledge ; and a skilful preceptor can apply 
 in conversation all the principles that we have labori- 
 ously endeavoured to make intelhgible. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
 
 
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