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 PHILADELPHIA: 
 PKE8BTTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 
 
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 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 The Lord of glory keep in sight 
 
 In all your thoughts and ways; 
 He only learns to think aright 
 Who reads His word with true delight, 
 And lives to act his praise. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 
 

 fe\ 
 
 
&!BA,33&KrSEKr<® X«D XaE&snSc 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 \HARLES ! stop a moment, will 
 you? I want to speak with 
 you." 
 
 "You must be quick, then, 
 that I may have a run with 
 my hoop. What is it you want with me ?" 
 " Come here, and I will tell you. How 
 do you like the neighbourhood now ? You 
 seemed to feel it very strange when you first 
 came." 
 * Yes ; but we have been here a fortnight 
 
6 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 now, and I have picked up some playfel- 
 Iqws." 
 
 "So I see. Your iron hoop runs along 
 this hard ground capitally. Can you tell 
 me what it is that makes it go along so fa- 
 mously ?" 
 
 " What it is ! To be sure I can. It is my 
 stick ; you know that very well ! The harder 
 I hit it, the faster it goes." 
 
 " But hit this post as hard as you like with 
 your stick, and it will not stir from the place 
 where it stands." 
 
 " No ! That is because it is fast in the 
 ground." 
 
 " Yonder is a post that is not fast in the 
 ground, but lying down in the road ; hit that, 
 then, with your stick, and see if it will run 
 along like your hoop." 
 
 " I know it will not, because it is so heavy ; 
 it is of no use to hit that." 
 
 " Well, then, here is my pocket handker- 
 chief; let us see how you can knock that 
 along. Surely that will not be too heavy for 
 you." 
 
 " No ; but it will be too light. The hand- 
 kerchief would not run along at all." 
 
 " The post is too heavy, and the pocket- 
 handkerchief is too light; you are hard to 
 please : but suppose I put a stone in the hand- 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 7 
 
 kerchief, and make it just what weight you 
 please, will you bowl it along then with your 
 stick ?" 
 
 " No, that I could not." 
 
 " And why not ?" 
 
 " Why, because — because it would not run 
 along at all." 
 
 " But can you tell me the reason why it 
 would not run along at all ?" 
 
 " No, I cannot ; I never thought about it." 
 
 " I dare say not ; for we boys very seldom 
 do think about any thing but our play, unless 
 we are obliged to it. But now let me tell 
 you what I wanted to say to you." 
 
 " Do, and then I will be off again ; for 
 yonder is Edwin Palmer with his hoop, and 
 I want to join him. His hoop is bigger than 
 mine, but still I can outrun him. What is it 
 you are going to tell me ?" 
 
 " Why, I wanted to talk with you about 
 Learning to Think." 
 
 " Learning to think ! I never heard of 
 such a thing!" 
 
 * I dare say not ; but for all that, I only 
 wish that I had begun to learn sooner." 
 
 "But where is the good of learning to 
 think?" 
 
 " Where is the good ! What a question ! 
 But I dare say that I should have asked it 
 
8 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 myself a few years ago, and, therefore, I 
 ought not to be surprised at you. If people 
 had not thought about things, we should 
 never have had the comforts and pleasures 
 we now enjoy. The food we eat, the clothes 
 we wear, the houses we live in, have all 
 been the subject of much thought ; and our 
 very pastimes, too. Why does the peg-top 
 spin, the ball bounce, the humming-top make 
 a noise, and the kite fly in the air ? I hardly 
 think you can answer me one of these ques- 
 tions. Now, if you had learned to think, you 
 would be able to answer them all." 
 
 " Should I ?" 
 
 " Yes, that you would ; but, instead of be- 
 ing able to answer them now, you cannot tell 
 me, I dare say, why a battledoor will not fly 
 in the air as well as a kite. It is something 
 of the same form ; why will it not rise in the 
 air?" 
 
 " It is too heavy." 
 
 " Too heavy ! Why, a large kite is as heavy 
 as two battledoors; so that cannot be the 
 reason." 
 
 " I cannot think, then." 
 
 " And for that very reason you should learn 
 to think. Now, try to find out why the boy's 
 Kite, yonder, does not go up higher in the air 
 when he has let out all the string ?" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Because the string holds it fast, and keeps 
 it from going up higher." 
 
 " Then how is it that, if the string breaks, 
 instead of the kite going up higher, it comes 
 tumbling down directly ?" 
 
 " I cannot tell that, I am sure. Can you ?" 
 
 * Yes, I can, and many other things of 
 which I once knew nothing. I am several 
 years older than you, and ought to know 
 
 more ; but if you would learn to think, what 
 is now hard to you to understand would soon 
 become easy. Thinking people have a great 
 advantage over others, for they are much 
 wiser : they can give better advice, and assist 
 others, for they know the best way. of doing 
 things, and the proper time when to do them. 
 If you wanted to know how many grains of 
 
10 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 corn there are in a bag of wheat, how would 
 you find it out ?" 
 
 u Count them, to be sure." 
 
 " That would be one way, but not the way 
 a thinking person would set about it. Why, 
 if you counted two hundred every minute, 
 and kept it up day and night for a whole 
 week, you would hardly be able to get through 
 your task." 
 
 "How would you set about it, then? It 
 is a puzzle to me how it could be done with- 
 out counting." 
 
 " I would first weigh an ounce of wheat 
 out of the bag, and count the number of 
 grains in that one ounce. Then I would 
 weigh the whole bag together, to see how 
 many ounces there were in all. If, after that, 
 I multiplied the number of grains in one 
 ounce by the number of ounces in the whole 
 bag, it would give me the amount of grains 
 altogether ; and this might be done, if a pair 
 of scales were near, in ten minutes or a 
 quarter of an hour." 
 
 u I should never have thought of that plan, 
 however : but what is the use of learning to 
 count the grains in a bag of wheat ?" 
 
 "Just the same use as there is in learning 
 to do a sum : it teaches us to reckon in the 
 quickest and the best way. There would be 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 11 
 
 no good in a boy learning the alphabet, only 
 that it enables him to read ; and there would 
 be but little advantage in learning to write 
 copies in a copy book, if it did not fit us to 
 write letters, bills of parcels, and other things, 
 all through our lives." 
 
 " Well, that plan of counting the grains is 
 a capital one." 
 
 " It was not hit upon without thought, de- 
 pend upon it. Some time ago, I heard of a 
 thoughtless cottager, who, seeing that a crop 
 of grass had grown on the old thatch of his 
 cottage, tried all manner of contrivances to 
 get a cow that belonged to him up to the roof 
 of his cottage, to eat the grass." 
 
 " And how did he manage it at last ?" 
 
 " Why, a neighbour of his, who had learned 
 to think, told him, that though he could not 
 get the cow up to the grass, yet he might, 
 perhaps, manage to cut the grass, and bring 
 it down to the cow 5 and this plan was 
 adopted without difficulty." • 
 
 " Ah ! ah ! ah ! What a foolish cottager 
 he must have been !" 
 
 " He had never learned to think. I read a 
 story yesterday about a mischievous monkey, 
 that, after doing much damage, ran up a thin 
 tall tree, and took shelter in the top branches.. 
 Two men undertook to catch him. One of 
 
12 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 them had learned to think, and the other had 
 not. The thoughtless man climbed up the 
 tree as far as he could ; but he was obliged to 
 come down again, for the thin branches would 
 not bear his weight. The thinker then step- 
 ped forwards, but, instead of climbing the tree, 
 he set to work with his axe, and soon brought 
 down the tree and the mischievous monkey 
 to the ground. " 
 
 " Capital ! So poor pug was taken at last. 
 I begin to have a notion that ' learning to 
 think' is a capital thing, and I should like to 
 talk with you a litttle more about it another 
 time." 
 
 " Well, then, be off with your hoop now, 
 for I see that Palmer is waiting for you. No 
 doubt I shall see you to-morrow, and then 
 1 learning to think' shall be the subject of our 
 conversation." 
 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THOUGHT I should find you 
 out to-day, Charles ! you are 
 sailing your ship, I see. How 
 famously it goes along now the 
 wind blows ! Can you tell me 
 why it floats on the water, and does not sink 
 to the bottom ?" 
 
 " Because it is made of wood, Henry, and 
 wood is very light ; that is the reason." 
 
 " But see, here is a shot. It is not a tenth 
 part so heavy as your ship. A tenth part ! 
 No, nor a hundredth part ; and yet, when I 
 put it into the water it sinks directly. What 
 is the reason of it ?" 
 
 2 
 
H LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 "I cannot tell, I never thought about it. 
 If you know, you should tell me. What is 
 the use of asking me puzzling questions, and 
 telling me nothing about them ? You never 
 told me why a peg-top spins, a humming-top 
 makes a noise, a ball bounces, and a kite flies 
 in the air ?" 
 
 " No, I did not, and for this very good 
 reason : I wanted you to think a little, that 
 you might be able to find out the reason 
 yourself. So long as you are told every thing, 
 you will never be a thinker." 
 
 " If I could get any body to teach me to 
 think, I should like to learn." 
 
 " Well, then, if you will learn to think, I 
 will teach you as well as I can, and you shall 
 know all that my kind tutor, Mr. White, 
 teaches me. He has paid great attention to 
 me, and I have done my best to make pro- 
 gress. He tells me that, to a thinking per- 
 son, every thing on which the eye can look 
 becomes an object of interest. In the grains 
 of corn, he sees the food on which millions of 
 people live ; in the flax growing in the field, 
 and the wool on the sheep's back, he regards 
 the clothing that covers mankind ; and in the 
 drops of dew that spangle the grass, and the 
 stars that glitter in the skies, he beholds 
 God's workmanship : nor is there a single 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 15 
 
 ig which does not supply him. with usefiu 
 reflections. 7 ' 
 
 u If I learn to think, shall I know why a 
 peg-top spins, a ball bounces, a humming-top 
 makes a noise, and a kite flies in the air ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, and a hundred things more use- 
 ful to know : but see, your ship is unsteady ; 
 you should cast anchor. I was by the river 
 side yesterday with Mr. White, and we walk- 
 ed to a spot where an anchor lay on the 
 ground. He talked about it, till I knew a 
 great deal more about an anchor than I ever 
 before. At first, he put questions to me, 
 to set me thinking; then he helped me to 
 : : and, after that, he made every ft 
 r to me that I did not seem to under- 
 let" 
 •• I wish I had been there with you.*' 
 i; I wish you had ; you would have heard 
 something better worth hearing than any 
 thing I can tell you. There was one very 
 story that he mentioned : it proved 
 ly was more important than 
 iking much." 
 
 - What was it ? Do tell me.- ' 
 
 tt He said that a man accustomed to think 
 
 :at deal about what was useless, and very 
 
 about what was useful, was on board a 
 
 when the vessel was wrecked. No 
 
16 LEARNING TO THINS. 
 
 sooner did he see all around him running to 
 lay hold of something to keep them afloat, 
 than he ran and foolishly took fast hold of the 
 anchor/ 
 
 " The anchor ! Why that would sink di- 
 rectly !" 
 
 •• No doubt it would. He told me another 
 story, also. He said that a party of young 
 thoughtless sailors, who were shipwrecked on 
 an island where no water was to be found, 
 were in great danger of dying of thirst ; when 
 it struck one of them, who was accustomed 
 to think a little more than the rest, that 
 though there was no water on the surface of 
 the ground, there might be some ten or twelve 
 feet under it. So, after procuring a few pick- 
 axes and spades from the wreck, he joined 
 companions in sinking a well, when they 
 i had water enough and to spare*" 
 
 •• That is a very good tale. Did he tell you 
 any more "r 
 
 " Oh. yes. a great deal ; but I cannot think 
 of all now. He told me about sheet anchors, 
 bower anchors, stream anchors, kedge an- 
 chors, and pilot anchors : all of which, he 
 said, had been brought to their present per- 
 fection by thinking people. After explaining 
 to me why an anchor must be large, that the 
 thick cable might be fastened to it : and 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 17 
 
 heavy and strong, to bear the great stress or 
 strain on the cable ; why it had a stock, to 
 turn it on one side, that one of the flookes 
 might always drag along the ground ; and 
 why it had flookes at all, to hook to, or catch 
 hold of, the rocks and uneven places at the 
 bottom of the sea, that the ship might be 
 kept steady at her anchorage : after explain- 
 ing all these, he told me that earthly things 
 should remind us of heavenly things, and 
 thereby be made the more useful to us. God, 
 he said, to a thinking mind, was present in 
 every thing." 
 
 "How could he make out that? How 
 could he make out that God was present in 
 every thing." 
 
 " To a thinking mind, remember ! But 
 answer my questions, for they will be the 
 same that Mr. White put to me. What is 
 the use of an anchor?" 
 
 " To keep the ship from being blown 
 about, I suppose, when they want her to be 
 still." 
 
 " And what is a ship made of?" 
 
 " Of wood, to be sure." 
 
 " And who made the wood grow ?" 
 
 u God made it grow." 
 
 "What is the anchor made of?" 
 
 "Of iron." 
 
 2* 
 
18 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Where does iron come from V 9 
 
 " Out of the ground." 
 
 " And who put the iron into the ground V 9 
 
 "Why, God put the iron there." 
 
 "Not only did God make the trees grow^ 
 of which the ship is made, but he formed the 
 sea also. c The sea is his, and he made it, 
 and his hands formed the dry ground/ So 
 that you see, God is present in the sea, the 
 ship, and the anchor. Mr. White said, that 
 we should 'see God in all things, and all 
 things in God/ But when will you begin to 
 learn to think ? I shall be at home to-mor- 
 row night, if you can come then : come at six 
 o'clock, and I will be prepared for you." 
 
 " Well, then, at six o'clock let it be : but it 
 will not suit me if it is very hard." 
 
 " I will make it as easy as I can, and you 
 will be surprised to find how fast you get on. 
 I know that I was." 
 
 " Can I begin with the peg-top, the ball, 
 the humming-top, and the kite? I should 
 like that." 
 
 " We shall come to them in time, never 
 fear ; but a few things must be attended to 
 first. Mr. White says that educating a boy 
 vvithout teaching him to think, is like drag- 
 ging him through thorns and brambles : by 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 19 
 
 teaching him to think you clear the brambles 
 and thorns out of his way." 
 
 " All this seems very odd to me ; perhaps 
 I shall know more about it, by and by." 
 
 " The power of thinking helps us in every 
 thing; it is just like a schoolfellow looking 
 over our shoulder, and telling us how to do a 
 sum that we do not know how to set about." 
 
 " If it is like that, it will be the very thing 
 for me." 
 
 " Thinking aright lessens labour, quickens 
 our faculties, increases our understanding, and 
 strengthens our judgment. If you should 
 ever think that I talk more wisely than 
 usual, you must call to mind that I have 
 learned what I teach you from Mr. White, or 
 my parents." 
 
 * It will be a long while before I shall be 
 able to talk so. It seems odd to me that you 
 should know so many things as you do." 
 
 " You must remember, that Mr. White has 
 had me under his care for three or four years $ 
 and then, consider, Charles, you lost your 
 parents when you were very young, but 
 mine are alive now : my father takes great 
 pains with me, when he is at home ; and my 
 dear mother, who is one of the wisest and 
 best women in the world, never loses an op- 
 portunity of instructing me. It would be to 
 
20 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 my shame, indeed, if, after all the care that 
 has been taken with me, I had not learned 
 something ; though I fear not so much as I 
 ought, with my advantages." 
 
 " If I had been brought up as you have, I 
 should know more than I do. But what a 
 while it is, to be two or three years learning 
 to think !" 
 
 " Yes ; but you begin to get good from it 
 directly. Every day of your life it will be 
 giving you pleasure, and making you more 
 useful. Look ! Look ! While we have been 
 (3>i talking, your ship has upset; she lies all 
 ; along on her side, or, as a sailor would say, 
 oil her ' beam ends/ To-morrow evening, at 
 six o'clock. I will be ready for you." 
 
 " At six o'clock I will come. Good bye !" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ELL, Henry ! I am come just 
 at the time you fixed. The 
 clock struck six as I came up 
 the village street and passed the 
 church." 
 
 " Yes, Charles, you have kept to the time 
 very well. Come in, we have the room all 
 to ourselves ; so if there be any quarrelling, it 
 will be between us two. There ! sit you 
 down at the table." 
 
 " For what use are these things that you 
 have put on the table. Are they to teach 
 me to think?" 
 
 " We shall see. You know, that when a 
 child first begins to learn any thing, he is 
 taught the names of the persons and things 
 around him ; papa, mamma, dog, cat : and he 
 is next taught the qualities of these persons 
 and things. He soon knows that papa and 
 mamma are kind and good, that the dog 
 barks, and the cat mews. This is the begin- 
 
22 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 ning of education ; but as you have learned 
 all this, and a great deal more, you must not 
 be treated like a very young child. You 
 know the name of almost every thing you 
 see the moment you look at it." 
 
 " Yes ; but knowing the name of a thing 
 does not teach me to think." 
 
 " Perhaps not ; but it is a very necessary 
 part of knowledge, and I hardly know how 
 J we should manage without it. One thing is 
 often necessary to help us in obtaining an- 
 other. A jointstool is not a book ; but for all 
 ^ that, you may find it very useful in putting 
 - your foot on it to reach the book from the 
 v high shelf in the study : and, in like manner, 
 yj knowing the names of things will help us in 
 
 ^ 
 
 .thinking about them." 
 
 u The first thing for you to do is to obtain 
 more knowledge than you have of the powers, 
 the qualities, or properties of things. The 
 kindness and goodness of our parents, the 
 barking of a dog, and the mewing of a cat, 
 are qualities or powers : you understand 
 this." 
 
 " Yes, I understand that very well." 
 " If I have a knife that is strong and sharp, 
 strength and sharpness are qualities of the 
 knife. Now, 1 want you to find out the qua- 
 lities of things yourself, and this you cannot 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 23 
 
 do without thinking. Come, now, tell me 
 what this is ; for while I do my part of the 
 business, you must do yours." 
 
 " It is a lump of flint, that is all." 
 
 u And what do you think of it ? Take it 
 in your hand, and tell me." 
 
 " I do not know what to think about it. It 
 is a piece of flint. I cannot think any thing 
 else of it." 
 
 " Feel it with your finger. How does it 
 feel?" 
 
 " Why it feels hard." 
 
 " What do you mean by feeling hard ?" 
 
 " I mean — that — that — it will not dent in, 
 or give way when I press it hard." 
 
 " Very good. Now do you know any 
 thing else that is hard ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! The poker is hard, the wall is 
 hard, and the floor is hard." 
 
 " What do you think of this ? It is a piece 
 of dough. How does it feel ?" 
 
 " Oh, quite soft ! When I pinch it, I leave 
 on it the mark of my finger and thumb." 
 
 " It is very necessary to be quick in dis- 
 tinguishing hard things from soft things. I 
 once took a leap from a bank to some ground 
 near a brook that I took to be hard, and in I 
 went up to my knees ; for it was nothing but 
 soft mud." 
 
 * 
 
24 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Ah ! ah ! ah ! That was a mistake, in- 
 deed. Have we done with the flint stone ?" 
 
 " Not quite. Can you think of nothing else 
 about it ? Feel it again." 
 
 " It feels rather cold." 
 
 " What do you mean by feeling cold ?" 
 
 I mean that it feels — I do not know how 
 it feels." 
 
 " Think about it, and try to explain what 
 cold is as well as you can. Now try. How 
 does it feel ?" 
 
 "It feels — a little, but only a little, like 
 ice — and makes me rather, but not much, 
 inclined to shiver." 
 
 " Capital ! Why you have explained it fa- 
 \j mously. By and by we shall have you quite 
 \\A\a thinker. If you were to touch a hot cinder 
 ^^r from the fire, I suppose you would say it felt 
 \so as to make you snatch away your finger. 
 Now, do you not see how a knowledge of the 
 qualities of things helps us in thinking and 
 speaking? When we want to let another 
 know that any thing is very cold or very hot, 
 we say it is almost as cold as ice, or almost as 
 hot as a fire coal, and we are understood di- 
 rectly." 
 
 " Yes, I see that." 
 
 "Well, then, now let us mention a few 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 25 
 
 other things. Here is a bullet : feel it, and 
 tell me what you think of it." 
 
 " It pushes down against my hand — it feels 
 heavy." 
 
 " Now feel this bit of cork ; it is very dif- 
 ferent from the bullet." 
 
 " Yes ! It does not push against my hand." 
 
 " Well, then, it must be light ; nothing can 
 be clearer than this, that substances are very 
 different from each other. One is hard, an- 
 other soft ; one hot, another cold ; one heavy, 
 another light ; and so on. So that, as I told 
 you, every substance has its particular pro- 
 perties or qualities. It is the knowledge of 
 these qualities which enables mankind to find 
 out how these substances may be made use- 
 ful. Perhaps you think I am talking very 
 learnedly, but all I tell you has been told me 
 by Mr. White." 
 
 " How does a knowledge of a thing being 
 hard or soft, heavy or light, help people in 
 making it useful ?" 
 
 "A knowledge of the qualities and pro- 
 perties of substances is the foundation of 
 almost all the conveniences, comforts, and 
 luxuries of life, and I will tell you in what 
 way. The most useful things in life are food, 
 clothing, fire, and shelter. If we had no 
 knowledge of the quality of food, we should 
 3 
 
26 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 be continually injuring ourselves by eating 
 that which would make us ill ; for a man can- 
 not live on grass, nor a horse on flesh, nor a 
 cow on fish." 
 
 " I see that." 
 
 " If we had no knowledge of the quality 
 of wool and flax, we might be almost melted 
 in summer by wearing nothing but flannel, 
 and nearly perished in winter by wearing 
 nothing but linen." 
 
 "I understand now — I see what you 
 mean." 
 
 " We should be sadly off for fire if we 
 made it of straw, and put stones on it for 
 fuel ; but a knowledge of the qualities of 
 wood and coal enables us to make up a good 
 fire at any time." 
 
 u Very good, indeed. I wonder I did not 
 see this before." 
 
 " It was because you had not learned to 
 think of such things. If we built our houses 
 of unburnt clay, the walls would be damp 
 in wet weather, and in dry weather they 
 would crack ; and if our roofs were covered 
 with brown paper, instead of slates and tiles, 
 the first heavy shower would find its way 
 through them." 
 
 "I see now that it is very necessary to 
 know the qualities of things. But how am 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 27 
 
 I to find them out, if I never saw the things 
 before ?" 
 
 " By the use of your senses — by observa- 
 tion, thought, and experiment: but it will 
 be time enough to attend to this when you 
 know the qualities of the things that are 
 common around you. As you found out 
 that the flint was hard, the bullet heavy, and 
 the cork light, by feeling them, so you would 
 find out these qualities in other substances in 
 the same way. One thing will surprise you 
 in learning to think, and that is, to find that 
 things have so many more qualities than you 
 suppose they have. Here is a halfpenny: 
 you could not, perhaps, tell me more than 
 five or six of its qualities; but I, having 
 learned to think more than you have, could 
 tell you twenty of them." 
 
 " Twenty qualities in a halfpenny !" 
 
 " Yes ; and more than twenty, to say no- 
 thing of its uses. Do you know the use of a 
 halfpenny ?" 
 
 " To buy a halfpennyworth of ginger-bread 
 with, or a piece of packthread." 
 
 " Ay $ and it may be put also to other uses. 
 A halfpenny roll, or a halfpennyworth of milk, 
 given to a starving person, might save a life ; 
 and a halfpenny book, setting forth the ad- 
 vantages of piety, might be the means, with 
 
28 
 
 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 God's blessing, of changing the mind of a 
 thoughtless reader. But our time is gone, 
 so we must now separate. Come again to- 
 morrow; I shall expect you at the same 
 hour." 
 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 29 
 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 [OW do you do, Henry ? I see 
 you have a great many things 
 on the table ready. It is very 
 kind of you to teach me to 
 think ; but you have a very dull 
 scholar." 
 
 " Oh no, Charles ; I do not think so. When 
 you are a little more accustomed to the thing, 
 you will get on faster. Rome was not built 
 in a day ; and I do not know that, at first, I 
 learned more rapidly than you do. I remem- 
 ber once reading two lines on the subject of 
 writing ; they were these : — 
 
 * He that in writing would improve, 
 Must first with writing fall in love/ 
 
 Now, if you should fall in love with thinking, 
 you will find it not only easy, but also one 
 of the most pleasant things in the world." 
 
 " I will tell you how I think I should get 
 on faster than by answering puzzling ques- 
 tions. If pou would let me know the way 
 3 * 
 
30 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 in which you begin to think of any thing, it 
 would help me on nicely." 
 
 " Tell me what you mean, as plainly as 
 you can, and I will do all in my power to help 
 you." 
 
 " Why, here are several things on the table. 
 Now, instead of asking me questions, take 
 one of them, and think about it yourself. 
 Here is a pin, and here is a pipe ; now put 
 the pipe before you, and let me know how 
 you began to think about it, and that will 
 teach me, perhaps, how to think of other 
 things." 
 
 " A very good thought. Well ! here is the 
 pipe ; and now I will think about it aloud that 
 you may hear me, instead of thinking to my- 
 self. Let me first think of the qualities and 
 parts of the pipe, and in doing this, my five 
 senses, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and 
 feeling will help me : you know we have five 
 senses." 
 
 " Yes, I'know that ; besides, you have just 
 told me what they are." 
 
 * You must not forget them in learning to 
 think. My ear tells me that the pipe makes 
 no noise, it is quiet. My eye tells me that it 
 is clean, white, glazed, hollow, and dry ; and 
 that it has a long neck, and a cup or bowl. 
 If I smell it, it has little or no scent. If I put 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 31 
 
 it to my tongue, it has hardly any taste. 
 With my fingers, I feel that it is smooth, light, 
 and hard. And when I feel it with my moist 
 lips, I know directly that it is slightly glutin- 
 ous, or sticky. Besides all this, if 1 put it in 
 the fire, it will not melt ; and if I break it, I 
 discover that it is brittle." 
 
 "How many things you have thought 
 about already." 
 
 " After the qualities Qf the pipe come its 
 uses. It is used for the v $firpose of smoking 
 tobacco, and it is suited for this purpose. If 
 it were made of wood, it would be burned ; 
 if of lead, it would be too heavy : and beside 
 that, it would melt. If it were formed of 
 gold or silver, it would be too expensive ; and 
 if made of brass, copper, or iron, it would by 
 little and little, getjeo hot to hold in the hand. 
 If the bowl were larger, it would hold too 
 much tobacco ; if smaller, it would contain 
 too little. If the neck or tuBe were thinner, 
 it would not allow room for sufficient smoke 
 to pass up ; and if it were thicker, the smoke 
 would come up faster than it is wanted. So 
 that you see a pipe is just what it should 
 be." 
 
 " Yes ! and I see, simple as a pipe is, that 
 there is a good deal of thought required in 
 the making of it." 
 
32 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Very true. It is made of a white clay, 
 and formed in a mould, with a wire inside 
 the neck ; and it is burned in a kiln or fur- 
 nace, and then glazed over. But having 
 thought of the parts, the qualities, and use 
 of the pipe, I will now think of those things 
 which it calls to my mind and memory. 
 These, Mr. White tells me, are called associ- 
 ations." 
 
 " What can a pipe call to your mind ?" 
 
 "Much that is very interesting. First, I 
 
 think of the number of people employed in 
 
 pipe-making. What a sight it must be to see 
 
 a kiln quite full of red-hot pipes ! Then I 
 
 fancy that I see children assorting them, and 
 
 the men packing them, and then they are 
 
 P\ >^ dispersed all over the kingdom by wagons, 
 
 ^■-^ coaches, and railways ; and some are sent 
 
 ^abroad by ships. How many persons are 
 
 there employed in connexion with pipes ! 
 
 From this view of the subject, we may learn 
 
 that God's lesser gifts may become comforts 
 
 or curses, just as they are used or abused.'' 
 
 " How much you are making out of a to 
 bacco pipe ! I could not have thought all 
 this could have been said of it." 
 
 " And now comes the thought more inter- 
 esting than all. Some of the tobacco smoked 
 in the pipe grows in the West Indies, where 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 33 
 
 for many years it was cultivated by slaves ; 
 but England, as you know, has set the slaves 
 at liberty. A great quantity is grown in some 
 of the States of America. Well, these liber- 
 ated slaves, who were once treated brutally, 
 and kept in ignorance, are now in a fair way 
 to be treated kindly, and to be taught to read 
 God's word, to believe in Jesus Christ, and 
 to look forward to heaven when they die. I 
 never see a pipe without thinking of the ne- 
 groes who cultivate the tobacco that is 
 smoked in it, and without feeling thankful that 
 there are now infant schools for the negro 
 children. Thus you see, that the simplest 
 thing, when you have learned to think, may 
 become interesting, by reflecting on its qual- 
 ities, uses, and associations" 
 
 " I thought the pipe was a very bad sub T 
 ject to think on, but it has turned out other- 
 wise. Would any thing else set you thinking 
 as much as the pipe has ?" 
 
 " You may try, if you like. You see there 
 are plenty of things on the table. Choose 
 Which you will, and I will think aloud about 
 it, in the same manner that I have of the 
 pipe." 
 
 "Take this brass pin, then; but I do no- 
 expect you can make much of such a com- 
 mon little thing." 
 
34 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Common things are often the most use- 
 ful; but we shall see. Give me the pin! 
 There, now it lies before me. Take notice 
 that I shall begin to think of it in the same 
 way that I did of the pipe. First come its 
 parts and qualities, next its uses, and, lastly, 
 its associations." 
 
 " Ay, I well remember these." 
 
 " Well, now, I will think aloud. This pin 
 has a straight, taper body, a sharp point, and 
 a little round head. I see, too, that it shines ; 
 and when I feel it with my finger, I find it 
 hard and quite smooth. But why has it got 
 a point ? That must be that it may be pushed 
 through any thing. Why has it a head ? Oh, 
 that it may not hurt the finger in pushing it ; 
 and that it may not fall through the cloth, or 
 other substance, into which it may be stuck. 
 Why is it smooth ? That it may pass easily 
 where it is pushed. What is the use of a 
 pin ? To fasten clothes ; to keep drawers tidy, 
 by pinning up neatly articles of different 
 kinds ; to fasten up small paper parcels ; and 
 to help mantua-makers in their work." 
 
 "Come, you have said every thing now 
 about a pin that can be said ; for you have 
 gone from one end of it to the other." 
 
 "You shall hear me go on thinking. 
 What is the pin made of? It is made of 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 35 
 
 brass, though pins are usually made of a 
 mixture of different metals. Brass is copper 
 mixed with another metal : this is dug out of 
 the earth, so that pickaxes, spades, borers, 
 baskets, ropes, pulleys, wheels, and machin- 
 ery, are all necessary, as well as men and 
 horses, to get it out of the ground. After 
 that, it is melted in a large blast-furnace, and 
 purified in different ways/' 
 
 " What ! is there all this trouble about a 
 pin ?" 
 
 " Yes, and a great deal more ; but I will 
 go on thinking. At last, the brass is ready 
 to be made into a pin. One person draws 
 it into wire ; another makes it straight ; an- 
 other cuts it into pieces of a proper length ; 
 another sharpens the point ; another grinds it 
 ready for the head ; another makes the head ; 
 another puts the head on ; another sticks the 
 pins in rows on paper ; and another wraps 
 them up in parcels." 
 
 " Why, this is more wonderful than the 
 pipe." 
 
 "Were I to add all that a pin brings to 
 my mind, all its associations, you would be 
 still more surprised. The men employed in 
 sinking the pit, working the mine, and puri- 
 fying the metal at the blast-furnace, with all 
 those occupied in drawing, straightening, 
 
36 LEARNING TO THINK* 
 
 cutting, pointing, grinding, heading, sticking 
 in rows, and wrapping up the pins,have bodies 
 to provide for, and souls that will live for ever. 
 I can fancy that I see some of them idle, un- 
 godly, and wretched ; and others industrious, 
 pious, and happy. God made the metal of 
 which the pin is formed, and gave man the 
 power to make it into a pin ; so that in this 
 little useful instrument, we may see God's 
 goodness, as plainly as we can see man's in- 
 genuity." 
 
 " It does not signify, Henry, but I will do 
 my best to learn to think, that I may see all 
 these things just as you do, and be as wise." 
 
 " Ay, and I hope a great deal wiser. But 
 you must have a care of not becoming proud 
 and conceited. Mr. White tells me, that a 
 little conceit will lessen the value of a great 
 deal of knowledge ; let us both then be on 
 our guard." 
 
 " I shall think about the pipe and the pin 
 till I come again." 
 
 " Remember, six o'clock is the time for you 
 to be here. Farewell !" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 37 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 AM a little after my time to-night, 
 Henry ; I had to call on George 
 Johnson, who is employed by 
 farmer Smith. I found him 
 with his children around him, 
 sitting at his cottage door, and his wife sitting 
 at work by his side. Though he is a poor 
 man, I think he is very happy, and his house 
 is always so clean that it is a pleasure to look 
 at it. I stopped a short time talking to him, 
 so that has made me over my time." 
 
 " Never mind, Charles ; let us try to make 
 up for it, by going to business at once. You 
 see that there are many things on the table. 
 You must now tell me the qualities of them. 
 Take up this piece of loaf sugar. What do 
 you think of it? What qualities can you 
 find in it ?" 
 
 " It is white ; and, beside that, it is rough." 
 " What do you mean by rough ?" 
 <• I mean that it feels rough. It rubs 
 against my finger when I rub against it." 
 4 
 
38 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 "Very good. What other property has 
 it ? Put it to your tongue." 
 
 " Oh, it is sweet." 
 
 "Yes, but when you find out a quality, 
 you should describe what that quality is, and 
 it will prevent my asking questions, and save 
 time. What do you mean by sweet ?" 
 
 " I mean that it makes me smack my lips 
 pleasantly. " 
 
 " Taste this lump of alum; try if that will 
 not make you smack your lips too." 
 
 " Yes it does, but it is quite sour. It makes 
 me null a face." 
 
 " I see that you understand well the dif- 
 ference between sweet and sour. What is 
 sour makes you pull a face ; that is very well 
 explained. Now listen to me. There are 
 many qualities which you may find out at 
 once, by a glance of the eye, a touch of the 
 finger, or a taste of the tongue ; but there are 
 other qualities which are not so soon found 
 out, yet as you make progress in thinking, 
 your knowledge will constantly increase. 
 The lump of white sugar you have tasted is 
 soluble. Do you know what that means ?" 
 
 " No, I do not." 
 
 "Well, it means that it will dissolve or 
 melt in water and other liquids. My brother 
 put a small lump of marble this morning in 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 39 
 
 my tea-cup, at breakfast, by way of joke, and 
 I, mistaking it for a lump of sugar, kept turn- 
 ing it about with my teaspoon : finding that 
 it did not melt, and knowing, of course, that 
 sugar was soluble, I took it out of my cup to 
 examine it more attentively; my brother 
 burst into a loud laugh, and then I found out 
 what it was. Marble is not soluble." 
 
 " That was a good joke, however." 
 
 " My father said it was rather a dangerous 
 one ; for I might have put it into my mouth 
 and swallowed it. We should be very care- 
 ful in our jokes, for many a sad accident has 
 occurred in that way. Well, I dare say that 
 you would be able to find out, at once, 
 whether a thing were hard or soft, heavy or 
 light, rough or smooth, wet or dry, full or 
 empty, straight or crooked, short or long, 
 sweet or sour, tender or tough, thin or thick ; 
 and all these qualities you may understand, 
 though it might puzzle you to explain some 
 of them : but there are many others of which 
 I dare say you know but little." 
 
 " What are they ? Please to mention some 
 of them." 
 
 " We will speak of them some other time ; 
 but, just to give you an instance : a piece of 
 loaf sugar is solid, hard, white, sweet, spark- 
 ling, and brittle. It is soluble, too, and I 
 
40 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 have told you what is the meaning of 
 this word 5 but when I tell you it is opaque 
 and fusible, I question if you know what I 
 mean." 
 
 " I am sure I do not." 
 
 u Opaque means that you cannot see the 
 light through it, as you can through glass, 
 which is transparent, or clear enough to let 
 the light through it. See ; here is a candle, 
 which I will light with a lucifer match. 
 There ; when I put the end of the lump of 
 sugar in the candle, it melts. Now, that 
 which melts in water, or in any liquid, is so- 
 luble ; and that which melts in the candle or 
 fire, is fusible." 
 
 "Oh, I shall not forget that. But now it 
 has come into my head, will you please to let 
 me hear you think about a mahogany table. 
 I tried to think about it to-day, and I" made 
 out that it was hard, and had four legs ; that 
 its use was to stand in a room ; and it put 
 me in mind of my maps and books, for I 
 often have them on the table." 
 
 "Pretty well for a beginning. We are 
 much assisted when we think on any subject 
 by the knowledge we have obtained, by the 
 judgment we possess, and also by our mem- 
 ory &nd fancy When you have more know- 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 41 
 
 ledge, you will think more freely, and take in 
 a wider compass." 
 
 " But do let me hear you think about a 
 mahogany table. There is one before us 
 now, and I should so like to know if you can 
 think of any thing more than I have done." 
 
 u Well, it shall be as you wish. The. ma- 
 hogany table is hard, solid, opaque, smooth, 
 and inflammable, that is, easily set in a flame ; 
 and its principal parts are its surfaces, edges, 
 corners, tops, flaps, drawers, legs, and feet. 
 It is movable, and can be made to spread 
 out wide, as well as to fold up closer togeth- 
 er ; its use is to bear the things which are 
 placed upon it for our convenience, especially 
 our food. And now come the things we as- 
 sociate with it, or its associations : the mahog- 
 any tree does not grow in England ; it grows 
 in the West Indies, a part of the world famous 
 for hurricanes. No such fiery flashes of light- 
 ning, no such fearful claps of thunder, to be 
 seen and heard as those in the West Indies. 
 I can fancy the mahogany tree, at one time 
 waving gracefully, with half a dozen ma- 
 caws and parrots on its branches; and, at 
 another, bent to and fro, and almost torn up 
 from the ground by the roaring storm." 
 
 " I should not like those storms at all." 
 
 " I dare say not. The sight of a mahogany 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 table should make us thankful that there are 
 no such hurricanes in England as there are 
 where the mahogany tree grows." 
 
 " Very true." 
 
 "In the West Indies, or rather on the 
 Spanish main, thirty or forty persons in a 
 
 Hn • mm' \ ■ 
 
 gang, go into the woods with a hunter among 
 them. The hunter climbs a tall tree, and 
 looks around him, and when he spies any 
 branches covered with leaves of a ruddy 
 yellow, he knows that they belong to the 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 43 
 
 mahogany tree. He leads his gang to the 
 place, and they all set to work to cut down 
 the tree, to strip off its bark, to saw it into 
 proper lengths, to lay it on timber carriages, 
 and to drag it, with the assistance of oxen, 
 down to the river. The flaring of the torches, 
 (for they travel by night,) the rattling of the 
 chains, the crashing of the brushwood, and 
 the hallooing of the men, would astonish a 
 stranger." 
 
 " And a mahogany table puts you in mind 
 of all this." 
 
 " Yes, and of a great deal more. The tim- 
 ber is floated in rafts down the river 5 it is 
 then put on ship board ; and after that, on its 
 arrival in England, follows the sawing, turn- 
 ing, planing, carving, and polishing, to form 
 it into a table." 
 
 " You have come to the end at last." 
 
 " Think of the wholesome food and dainty 
 meats that have been placed on the mahogany 
 table ! The toast and coffee at breakfast, the 
 joints and puddings at dinner, the muffins 
 and crumpets at tea, and the cold fowls and 
 tarts at supper ! Think of the family gather- 
 ings, and of the large old Bible laid on the table, 
 morning and evening, when the knees of all 
 around are bent in prayer, and their hearts 
 arise in praise to God for all his mercies, espe- 
 
44 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 cially for the gift of Jesus Christ, his Son, to 
 die for us sinners. Think of all these things, 
 and the mahogany table will not be found a 
 useless subject." 
 
 " I never heard the like ! I would give all 
 my pocket money to be able to think as you 
 do." 
 
 " Oh, cheer up, and you will be surprised 
 at yourself yet. But our time is gone. Well, 
 you will come again next Monday." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 45 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ^ERE I am, Henry, five minutes 
 before my time ; and now, per- 
 haps, you will tell me of some 
 of the qualities that I do not un- 
 derstand." 
 
 " I will, Charles ; for I want you very much 
 to get on in learning to think : but first let 
 me show you a letter that my dear mother 
 left on my table for me to read." 
 
 " Oh, yes, show it me ! what is it about ?" 
 " Why, she is afraid lest I should grow 
 proud because I know a little more than you 
 do." 
 
 " Is she ? I never thought you proud." 
 " My dear mother is a wise and good wo- 
 man, and knows more of the human heart 
 than you or I do; but you shall hear her 
 letter. 
 
 " ' Dear Henry, 
 
 'As you have undertaken to instruct a 
 
46 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 young friend in learning to think, let me 
 affectionately warn you to beware of high- 
 mindedness and self-conceit, for they some- 
 times glide into the heart unawares. Instead 
 of thinking how much more you know than 
 your young friend knows, call to mind how 
 much less your knowledge is than that of 
 those who give you instruction. As pride is 
 folly, so he who is not humble cannot be wise. 
 This advice is given you by your ever-anxious 
 and affectionate 
 
 ' Mother/ 
 
 " So you see, Charles, that while I teach 
 you to learn to think, I have something to 
 think of myself at the same time. But now 
 let us proceed : — Concave, means like the in- 
 side of a basin ; that tea-cup is concave. Con- 
 vex, is like the outside of a globe ; that ball 
 is convex. Mineral, means from the mine ; 
 that bit of iron-stone is a mineral. Artificial, 
 means made by art, not natural ; that peg-top 
 is artificial." 
 
 " Oh ! that reminds me that you have ne- 
 ver told me why a peg-top spins, and a hum- 
 ming-top makes a noise." 
 
 " All in good time ; I will not forget to tell 
 you, never fear ; but let us go on. Odorous, 
 means giving out an odour, or scent; that 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 47 
 
 piece of camphor is odorous. Pungent, is 
 pricking, or sharp to the taste, like mustard 
 or pepper. Elastic, is springy ; that bit of 
 Indian rubber is elastic. Glutinous, is sticky, 
 like glue. Medicinal, means healing, or re- 
 storing ; any thing that makes the sick well. 
 Flexible, is easily bent, like that little switch. 
 Shall you remember any of these ?" 
 
 " Yes, I think I shall remember them all ; 
 so please to go on." 
 
 a You shall have a few more qualities then, 
 but not many. Caustic, means burning ; vi- 
 triol and aquafortis are caustic. Fibrous, is 
 having fibres or threads, like the root of a 
 tree. Astringent, is binding, or drawing to- 
 gether ; the bark of a tree, used to tan leather, 
 is an astringent. Angular, means having an- 
 gles, or corners; that lucifer match-box is 
 angular. Spongy, is being like a sponge, full 
 of small holes, and capable of sucking up wa- 
 ter 5 that bit of flannel is spongy. Ductile, 
 means easily put into other forms ; the piece 
 of lead there is ductile. Tenacious, is holding 
 fast together, like a piece of hard wood that 
 you cannot easily split to pieces. Malleable, 
 means capable of being spread out by ham- 
 mering ; gold and silver are malleable. Di- 
 visible, is capable of being divided into 
 parts 4 an orange is divisible, And now for 
 
48 LEARNING TO THINK, 
 
 the last, for I am afraid of tiring you ; evanes- 
 cent, means vanishing, or remaining only a 
 short time ; a cloud is evanescent. A know- 
 ledge of these and other qualities you will 
 find very useful in learning to think." 
 
 u I hope I shall remember most of them." 
 
 " Is a candle natural or artificial ?" 
 
 " Why, artificial. It is made by art, and 
 therefore it cannot be natural." 
 
 " Very well, Charles, very well. Is a pen 
 natural or artificial ?" 
 
 " Natural, for it grows on a goose." 
 
 " The quill is natural, but the pen is arti 
 ficial." 
 
 " Oh, yes, so it is. I forgot that it was 
 made with a penknife." 
 
 " What form is this piece of egg-shell, look- 
 ing at the inside ?" 
 
 " Convex — oh no ! I forgot, it is concave ; 
 the outside of it is convex : I remember now."" 
 
 " Suppose you were to drop a cup of water 
 on the floor and break the cup, how would 
 you dry up the water ? would you use a piece 
 of wood or coal ?" 
 
 " No, for they would not suck it up at all ; 
 it must be something spongy to suck the water 
 up ; a piece of sponge, or flannel, or cloth, or 
 a mop." 
 
 " Is a piece of Indian rubber malleable ?" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 49 
 
 " No, it will not bear beating out with a 
 hammer, I think, and so it cannot be mal- 
 leable ; you said it was elastic, or springy. " 
 
 " You remember these qualities very well ; 
 by and by your knowledge will be useful to 
 you. This morning, I met with some re- 
 marks which will suit us ; I have the book 
 here, and will read them. 'Look at the 
 chair on which you sit, it is the result of con- 
 siderable reflection and ingenuity. A man 
 may sit upon the ground, but it is more con- 
 venient to have something higher to sit upon. 
 When out of doors, he might sit upon a large 
 stone, or on the trunk of a tree, and when in 
 the house, upon the stairs ; but as he wishes 
 at times to move his seat from one place to 
 another, a block of wood would be an im- 
 provement. The solid block, however, is too 
 heavy to have its position altered without 
 trouble, and reflection suggests the advantage 
 of a joint stool ; but then the back and arms 
 of a man need support, and a joint-stool is 
 transformed into a chair. The chair after- 
 wards is ornamented, that beauty and useful- 
 ness may be united.' Thus reflection will 
 give you a kind of amusing and instructive 
 history of a chair." 
 
 " I like that very much What would I not 
 5 
 
50 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 do, to be able to think of every thing about 
 me in that way !" 
 
 " The same book has also the following 
 observations on a wheelbarrow. < If a boy 
 sees a wheelbarrow, he may pursue the same 
 train of thought. The use of a wheelbarrow 
 is to enable a person to remove burdens from 
 one place to another more easily than he 
 could do it without such an assistance ; and 
 ingenuity and thought are necessary to con- 
 struct it. It must be of a convenient size ; 
 for, if too large, it will be in the way ; and if 
 too small, it will not carry a sufficient burden. 
 It must be made of durable materials ; but if 
 it be too strong, its weight will render it use- 
 less ; and, if too weak, it will break down. 
 When the proper material, and size, and 
 strength are agreed on, it must have handles 
 with which to push it along, and feet to bear 
 it when it is not being moved. After all 
 these things, it will be no better than a mere 
 box, till it has a wheel attached to it, that it 
 may be easily moved. With such reflections 
 as these, a boy will find amusement and in- 
 struction in a wheelbarrow.' " 
 
 " If any thing would make me think, such 
 remarks as these would. I should like to 
 read that book." 
 
 " It is not mine, and therefore I cannot 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 51 
 
 lend it to you. There are two other short 
 pieces in the book, of the same kind ; shall I 
 read them ?" 
 
 '• Yes ! yes ! read them both." 
 
 u They are very short ! this is the first of 
 them, and it is just the very thing to encou- 
 rage thought in a boy. 6 If a boy regards his 
 clothes, the use of them is to keep him warm, 
 and to defend him from the inclemency of the 
 weather, without restraining the use of his 
 limbs. They must, therefore, be strong, du- 
 rable, soft, and flexible, and not deprive the 
 body of heat Now, iron is strong, leather 
 is durable, silk is soft, and muslin is flexible ; 
 but neither iron, leather, silk, nor muslin will 
 make a boy a comfortable jacket. It must 
 be made of some material which has all these 
 necessary qualities united, and that material 
 is woolen cloth/ This is the other little bit 
 that pleased me. l Every boy knows that 
 the use of an umbrella is to keep us from 
 the wet, but not one boy in a hundred gives 
 himself the trouble to reflect on the necessary 
 qualities of this useful appendage to our com- 
 fort. It must be of a proper texture and 
 form to throw off the rain. It must be of a 
 suitable size, or it will either not cover us, or 
 it will inconvenience others : it must be strong 
 and elastic, to resist the blast; it must be 
 
52 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 light, to be carried without labour; and it 
 must be portable, and capable of being com- 
 pressed into a small compass." 
 
 " Capital ! I wish I had begun to learn to 
 think a year ago." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say so ; for Mr. 
 White tells me, that there is not half so much 
 difficulty in teaching any one to think, as 
 there is in making him willing and desirous 
 to be taught. He says, we are placed in a 
 world of wonders, that angels might have 
 pleasure to gaze on : and that when we do 
 not use our understanding, to turn it to good 
 account, and to admire God's beautiful crea- 
 tion, we despise the gifts of our heavenly 
 Father, instead of spreading abroad his glory. 
 I must now leave you till to-morrow." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 53 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AM glad you are come, Charles , 
 for I have not a great deal of 
 time to spare to-night. Come, 
 take your seat." 
 " Let us begin directly, Henry ; 
 I remember the qualities that you described 
 to me." 
 
 " Do you remember that I showed you a 
 letter written to me by my mother ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, very well ! — it was to tell you 
 not to be conceited." 
 
 " You are right ; and now I have a short 
 note from Mr. White, on the same subject." 
 " Have you ? Do let me hear it." 
 " It is this : 
 
 " i Dear Henry, 
 
 6 Some time ago, a young man set up a shop 
 
 in a village, stored with all manner of useful 
 
 commodities, but when the villagers went to 
 
 make their purchases, the young man was so 
 
 5* 
 
54 LEARNING TO THINK, 
 
 pert and saucy, that the people would not 
 put up with it. " Your articles are good," 
 said they, " but your ill-behaviour is unbear- 
 able ; and if we cannot have the former with- 
 out the latter, we will have nothing to do with 
 you." 
 
 " ' Now, thus it is with a quick, but con- 
 ceited person ; his conceit renders his quick- 
 ness almost useless. Have a care then, my 
 dear Henry, that you are never conceited/ 
 
 " You see, Charles, how necessary it is that 
 1 should be on my guard against conceit. 
 But now let me ask you, what are the three 
 things to be attended to in thinking of any 
 thing ?" 
 
 "First, its qualities; next, its uses; and, 
 last of all, its associations." 
 
 "Very good. When I asked you some 
 time ago what you thought of a piece of 
 flint, you replied, i I do not know what to 
 think about it ; it is a piece of flint, and I 
 cannot think anything else of it.' You would 
 not give me such an answer as that now, 
 would you ?" 
 
 " No, indeed, I would not." 
 
 " Take up the piece of flint again, then, for 
 there it lies, and let us hear what you think 
 about it. We shall then see if you are mak- 
 ing progress in learning to think." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 55 
 
 " I will do my best 5 but mind, you must 
 not laugh at me." 
 
 " Oh ! a good-tempered laugh is very well 
 hi its place ; it is the ill-natured laugh that 
 does mischief. If I laugh it will be in a 
 good-humoured way, and that will not hurt 
 you. Mr. White says, we are never safe 
 from being led astray by our companions till 
 we have learned to say No, and till we can 
 bear being laughed at. But come, now for 
 the piece of flint. Let me hear what you 
 think about it." 
 
 " Flint is hard, heavy, cold, opaque, solid, 
 and natural. Its uses are, to strike fire with, 
 by means of a piece of steel ; to be put in the 
 cock of a gun ; and to pave the streets and 
 repair the roads." 
 
 " Very good, indeed. What else have you 
 to say ?" 
 
 " Why, it puts me in mind how useful it 
 is to strike a light with in the dark ; and it 
 makes me think of soldiers, who have flints 
 in their muskets ; and it reminds me of all the 
 coaches, and wagons, and carts, and wheel- 
 barrows, that roll along over the flint stones 
 in the streets." 
 
 " Depend upon it, Charles, you will be a 
 thinker some day ; for you are getting on fa- 
 mously. This is better than saying, that * a 
 
56 
 
 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 piece of flint is a piece of flint ; and I cannot 
 think any thing else of it.' " 
 " Yes; that was a poor answer." 
 " Let me now show you how a more lively 
 fancy, and more general knowledge, would 
 help you in thinking ; let me show you how 
 you might have turned your thoughts to ad- 
 vantage. When it occurred to you how use- 
 ful a flint was to strike a light with in the 
 
 uenL 
 
 dark, you might have called to mind the 
 goodness of God in giving, even to a flint 
 stone, a quality so useful to mankind. You 
 might have thought of the blessing of light as 
 opposed to darkness ; and that would have 
 led you to pity the poor blind, and to feel 
 more thankful for the gift of your eye-sight 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 57 
 
 What a loss it would be to us, if we could no 
 longer see the clear blue sky, the bright sun, 
 the coloured rainbow, the green fields and 
 trees, and the faces of those who love us \" 
 
 " Yes, I ought to have thought of all these 
 things." 
 
 " Then, when the flint reminded you of 
 soldiers, while you thought of the horrors of 
 war, you might have called to mind the 
 blessings of peace, and that promise of Holy 
 Scripture, ' They shall beat their swords into 
 ploughshares, and their spears into pruning- 
 hooks : nation shall not lift up sword against 
 nation, neither shall they learn war any 
 more/ Isa. ii. 4." 
 
 " You seem to think of every thing." 
 
 "And when the carriages, and wagons, 
 and carts came into your head, you should 
 have remembered the good services of that 
 useful animal, the horse ; and considered for 
 a moment the great advantages of machinery, 
 which enables us, instead of carrying about 
 heavy burdens on our backs, to have these 
 burdens conveyed for us, and ourselves car- 
 ried into the bargain. Common things may 
 be made a source of entertainment and know- 
 ledge. A chair may stand as a useful moni- 
 tor ; a jacket may cover a suitable reflection ; 
 an umbrella may unfold an observation of 
 
58 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 value ; and a wheelbarrow may carry a 
 maxim of usefulness. Such reflections will 
 lead a boy to think on the construction of 
 other things, from a mouse-trap to a steam- 
 engine, from the twisting of a rope to the 
 building of a ship, and he will find that all 
 are constructed on the common principle of 
 gaining an advantage in the easiest, the 
 cheapest, and the best manner. 
 
 • When every thing that strikes the view 
 Gives birth to some reflection new ; 
 From sea to sea, from shore to shore, 
 This world has charms unknown before.' " 
 
 " If a boy be not. accustomed to reflect, he 
 cannot understand how much knowledge 
 supplies our necessities, mitigates our troubles, 
 and increases our happiness ; but if he be 
 given to reflection, he will easily be made to 
 comprehend this. A knowledge of agricul- 
 ture provides us with food, and an acquaint- 
 ance with manufactures supplies us with 
 clothing. Greatly are we indebted to a know- 
 ledge of physic and surgery. The gigantic 
 powers of the steam-engine confer great ad- 
 vantages ; and we cannot limit the good ef- 
 fects that the art of printing has spread abroad 
 in the world. The safety-lamp, preserving 
 the life of the miner, and the gas-lights, which 
 beautify our streets and habitations, demand 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 59 
 
 our admiration. When we examine the mi- 
 croscope, which reveals millions of creatures 
 before unknown ; the telescope, bringing re- 
 mote and countless worlds nearer our obser- 
 vation ; and the telegraph, conveying infor- 
 mation almost instantaneously to distant parts; 
 when we see the ship uniting together the in- 
 habitants of the east and the west, the north 
 and the south, and inspect the compass which 
 directs her in her passage over the trackless 
 deep ; when we regard the light-house, bra- 
 
 ving the mountainous billows, and warning 
 the tempest-tost mariner to escape from dan- 
 ger ; when we gaze on the life-boat, breasting 
 the wind and the tide, and ploughing its way 
 
60 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 through the foaming breakers, redeeming hu- 
 
 qian beings from destruction ; when we see 
 
 these tilings, we must be blindly ignorant not 
 
 to acknowledge the advantages of reflection 
 
 Ny^juid science, and guiltily ungrateful if we do 
 
 ~N^ not devote ourselves to His service, who 
 
 formed man out of the dust, breathed the 
 
 breath of life into his nostrils, and gave him 
 
 \ every faculty he possesses." 
 
 " Charles, I told you that I had not much 
 time to-night to spare, but, if you think 
 well, the next time we meet, I will make 
 amends for it by explaining to you why a 
 N hoop bowls along, a peg-top spins, a ball 
 X bounces, a humming-top makes a noise, and 
 a kite flies in the air." 
 
 " Capital ! capital ! These are of all things, 
 what I want to know. Depend upon it, I 
 shall be here in good time. Good bye ; I will 
 not hinder you a minute now, for I see you 
 in a hurry." 
 i^od bye, Charles ; I will be ready for 
 voiv 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 61 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OW for it, Henry ! Here I am, 
 and it wants a quarter to six. 
 Now I shall know why my 
 hoop bowls along, when a hand- 
 kerchief will not stir; why a 
 peg-top spins ; a ball bounces ; a humming- 
 top makes a noise 5 and a kite flies in the air ; 
 and why a battledoor will not fly like a kite : 
 for I dare say you can tell me." 
 
 a First, let me give you another instance 
 of the value of learning to think, Charles. 
 When I first spoke to you, you seemed to care 
 nothing at all about it ; so I thought to my- 
 self, ' If I can say something about his hoop, 
 his peg-top, his ball, his humming-top, his 
 6 
 
62 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 whipping-top, and his kite, it will, perhaps, 
 lead him on to want to know more about the 
 matter/ " 
 
 " And did you speak about them for this 
 purpose ?" 
 
 "I did, just for the purpose of making you 
 long to learn to think ; and you see that, by 
 forethought, I have brought about what I 
 wanted." 
 
 " Capital ! capital ! But now for the hoop • 
 that comes first, you know. Why does it rur 
 along so ?" 
 
 " Now, listen, then, very attentively. Mr. 
 White tells me, that there are certain laws in 
 nature which are universal : that is, they 
 always act in the same manner one time as 
 well as another, unless they are interfered 
 with. For instance, it is a law of nature that 
 water will find its level. If you let water run 
 out of one pit into another which is a little 
 lower, it will run on until it has risen in the 
 lower pit as high as the upper one, and then 
 it will stop." 
 
 " I think I understand that." 
 
 " It is also a law of nature, that a stone cast 
 into the air will fall to the earth. And now I 
 will mention another law, which has some- 
 thing to do with the hoop as it runs along the 
 ground." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 63 
 
 « Now for it !" 
 
 " It is a law of nature, that matter, or every 
 substance around us, will always remain in 
 the same state in which it is, unless forced 
 into another state. A stone lying on the 
 ground would lie there for ever, if nothing 
 moved it ; and a bullet, fired out of a gun, 
 would fly forward for ever, if nothing stopped 
 it." 
 
 " Would it really ?" 
 
 "Yes; and, in like manner, your hoop, 
 when once set in motion, would run on for 
 ever, if nothing prevented it." 
 
 " But what does prevent it ? There is 
 nothing stops it, unless it happens to run 
 against a wall or a post." 
 
 " There you are wrong. Every pebble it 
 meets with, however small, prevents it, in 
 some degree, from running on as it otherwise 
 would do. When you drive it through mud, 
 or water, it will not go far without stopping, 
 because the mud and the water stop its pro- 
 gress. When you drive it over grass, it is 
 the same ; the grass stops it." 
 
 " Yes, I know that ; but when I drive it on 
 Droad flag stones, it runs along smoothly, and 
 nothing stops it then." 
 
 u In this case, as you say, it runs on faster ; 
 but still, to say nothing of the wind which it 
 
64 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 may have to push through, it rubs against 
 the ground, and this rubbing, or friction, as 
 it is called, makes it, if you do not strike it 
 again, gradually go slower and slower till it 
 stops. The reason^ then, why your hoop, 
 when once set in motion, runs on so famously, 
 is because it has so little friction, so small a 
 part of it rubs against the ground. And the 
 reason why a pocket handkerchief will not 
 run along at all, is because it has so much 
 friction, or rubs so much against the ground." 
 
 " Well, I am glad I know at last ; but why 
 does my narrow iron hoop run along better 
 than my broad wooden one ?" 
 
 " For this simple reason : it is heavier, ac- 
 cording to its bulk, and has less friction. Your 
 broad hoop has two or three times as much 
 wind to push through, when it meets the 
 wind ; and, being two or three times broader, 
 it must of necessity rub more against the 
 ground than the other." 
 
 " I understand, then, that when I hare once 
 knocked my hoop along with my stick, it rims 
 on, according to the law you spoke of, until 
 the rubbing or friction stops it by degrees." 
 
 " Exactly so ; and it is just the same with 
 the peg-top. The string, by being wrapped 
 round it, forces it to spin when you dash it 
 on the ground, and there it would spin for 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 65 
 
 ever, or until it wore itself away, if the fric- 
 tion against the air and the ground did not 
 gradually stop it." 
 
 " That is just like the hoop. I understand 
 it now, thoroughly ; so please to explain why 
 a ball bounces." 
 
 " Do yon remember what elasticity is ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! That is one of the qualities that 
 you told me of: it is springiness." 
 
 " What do you mean by springiness ?" 
 
 " I mean the quality of springing back again 
 when a thing is pushed out of its place." 
 
 " Very good ! Now here is a bit of Indian 
 rubber. If I stretch it out, the moment I 
 loose it, it springs into its place again ; and 
 if I push it hard with my finger, and dent it 
 in, the instant I take away my finger, the 
 dented part springs up to its former position. 
 Thus it is with the ball, which is elastic. The 
 blow against the ground dents it in ; and its 
 elasticity, or sudden effort to force itself into 
 its former round form, makes it spring into 
 the air." 
 
 " Capital ! I shall never forget why a 
 ball bounces now. The humming-top comes 
 next." 
 
 " Yes. Now for the humming-top. You 
 
 must know that all solid bodies vibrate or 
 
 shake when they are struck, and this vibration 
 
 6* 
 
66 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 makes the air around them vibrate too ; as 
 soon as this vibrating air reaches our ears, it 
 produces the sensation of sound. If you 
 strike a drum with a drumstick, the tightened 
 parchment begins to vibrate or shake; and 
 if you put a bit of paper on the drum, you 
 will see it tremble : this is a positive proof of 
 its vibration. If you put water in a glass, and 
 rub round the edge of the glass with your wet 
 finger till the glass sounds, you will see the 
 water tremble ; a proof that the glass vibrates. 
 You shall see me do it ; I have a glass here 
 ready. Now, do you not see the water trem- 
 ble ?» 
 
 " Oh, yes, quite plain." 
 
 " Well, then, you must be satisfied that the 
 glass vibrates, though you cannot see it move. 
 When a violin-player draws his bow against 
 the strings of his violin, the stretched strings 
 begin directly to vibrate ; when a flute-player 
 blows into his flute, the flute and air vibrate 
 immediately; and when your humming-top 
 is set spinning, the air comes in contact with 
 the hole in the side, and the top and air 
 around it vibrate instantly : the vibrating air 
 strikes against your ear, and the humming of 
 the top is distinctly heard." 
 
 " Then it is the trembling or shaking of the 
 top and the air that makes the noise ?" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 67 
 
 * Exactly so ; or, as perhaps Mr. White 
 would say, it is this that produces the sensa- 
 tion of sound. And now comes the last thing 
 that I have to explain ; and that is, Why does 
 a kite fly in the air 1" 
 
 " Ay ! Now for the kite !" 
 
 " The reason why a kite flies in the air, is, 
 because being made of light materials, and 
 always kept with its face, or broad surface, to 
 the wind, the wind is powerful enough to bear 
 it up. If it were turned sideways, the wind 
 would not have surface enough to press 
 against it ; if it had no tail, it would be un- 
 steady, and turn round and round ; and if the 
 string were cut, the kite, not having its face 
 kept to the wind, must come down. The long 
 string on the one side, and the tail on the 
 other, balance, and hold the kite steady be- 
 tween them/' 
 
 " But why will not my battledoor fly ?" 
 
 " Simply because it is too heavy according 
 to its surface. A penny piece will not fly in 
 the air, though not a tenth part so heavy as 
 a large kite; because it can only present 
 about a square inch of surface to the wind : 
 whereas paper of the same weight as a penny 
 piece, would present a surface to the wind of 
 five hundred square inches.' 7 
 
 " I see it very clearly ; and now I am a 
 
68 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 great deal wiser than when I came. You 
 may expect me in good time again to-morrow 
 night ; for I like learning to think better than 
 ever." 
 
 " You will find me ready for you, I dare 
 say. Farewell !" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 69 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 i AM in good time again, Henry ; 
 for the clock has not yet struck. 
 Do you know that George Tan- 
 ner wants to learn to think, as 
 much as I do. When I told him 
 about the hoop, the peg-top, the ball, the 
 humming-top, and the kite, he was quite 
 pleased." 
 
 " Well, Charles, when you have learned to 
 think yourself, you can then teach him ; and 
 that will make you more perfect. The reason 
 why I wished to he jp you in learning to think 
 was, that you had no parents, and appeared 
 to be not very happy when you first came 
 
70 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 into the neighbourhood. Mr. White says, 
 c Befriend the friendless' is an excellent motto. 
 You seem much happier than when you first 
 came. One great advantage of learning to 
 think is, that it produces a love of thinking. 
 When, by reflection, you have found out one 
 thing, you feel a desire to find out another. 
 You told me very correctly what was neces- 
 sary to be done in thinking of a thing ; first, 
 to call to mind its qualities, then its uses, 
 and afterwards its associations ; but you can- 
 not always find out the qualities of things by 
 your five senses." 
 
 " I can tell if a thing is hard or soft, heavy 
 or light, directly." 
 
 u Yes, you may ; but you cannot tell so 
 easily, if it be natural or artificial ; native or 
 foreign; animal, vegetable, or mineral. It 
 often puzzles wiser heads than ours to find 
 out these things; but reading, observing, 
 thinking, and conversation, render hard things 
 easy. In teaching you to think, I do not un- 
 dertake to make you wise, but only to put 
 you in a way of making yourself wise. Mr. 
 White says, when a boy has once obtained 
 the habit of thinking, he is as sure to increase 
 in knowledge, as a grain of wheat set in the 
 ground is sure to produce an ear of corn." 
 
 " And he is right, depend upon it. As I 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 71 
 
 came here, running as fast as I could, the 
 wind was against me, and I could not get on 
 so fast as I wished. This put me in mind of 
 what you said of my hoop, that it often had 
 to force its way against the wind. I do not 
 wonder now that the hoop should not run 
 very far without stopping." 
 
 " There is a way that Mr. White takes with 
 me to make me think, whether I will or not ; 
 and that is, by asking me questions to which 
 I cannot well reply without thinking." 
 " What kind of questions are they ?" 
 " I will ask you some of them. I remem- 
 ber once hearing a capital plan of a trades- 
 man, to prevent his errand-boy from making 
 mistakes, through thoughtlessness : just be- 
 fore the boy set off on his errands, his mas- 
 ter always asked him these two questions: 
 6 Where are you going?' and 'What are 
 you going for?' If the boy was told to take 
 a parcel to the shop at the corner, there 
 might be a shop at more corners than one. 
 If he was told to take it to Mr. Jones, there 
 might be half a dozen Mr. Joneses in the 
 neighbourhood, and great mistakes might 
 take place ; but when he was asked where he 
 was going, and what he was going for, his 
 master knew at once, by his reply, whether 
 he understood his message properly." 
 
72 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " A very good plan, indeed ; but now please 
 to ask me some of the questions you spoke 
 of." 
 
 "Well, then, now answer this question. 
 Which is the heaviest — a pound of lead or a 
 pound of feathers ? Now, think !" 
 
 " Think ! I need not think a moment about 
 that ; for every body knows that lead is ten 
 times as heavy as feathers ; ay ! twenty 
 times." 
 
 " But I do not ask you which is the hea- 
 viest — feathers or lead ; I ask you which is 
 heaviest, a pound of lead or a pound of fea- 
 thers ?» 
 
 " Oh ! I see now : a pound of one must 
 be just as heavy as a pound of the other. I 
 must think a little more before I answer your 
 questions." 
 
 " That is the very thing that I am teaching 
 you to do. There is hardly one in ten, among 
 us boys, who takes the trouble to think be- 
 fore he replies. Can you tell me what o'clock 
 it is ? Now, think before you answer." 
 
 " It is half-past six." 
 
 §i There is a want of thought again ! I did 
 not ask you what o'clock it was ; I asked 
 you, if you could tell me what o'clock it was 
 which is a very different thing." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 73 
 
 ft So it is. I will try to be more careful in 
 my next answer." 
 
 rt If I give you six young rabbits in a bas- 
 ket, and when you open the basket, three of 
 them are dead, how many rabbits shall you 
 have ?" 
 
 " Why, I shall have » 
 
 " Now, pause a little, and think before you 
 speak." 
 
 " Why — I shall have — six. Three alive, 
 and three dead." 
 
 " Very good ; and, now, if one man can see 
 twenty miles, how far can two men see ?" 
 
 " Just as far again." 
 
 " Are you sure ? Pause a little, and think 
 the matter over." 
 
 " Oh, no ! Two men cannot see further 
 than one can; what was I thinking of?" 
 
 " Whatever you were thinking of, you were 
 not thinking properly of the question. If a 
 man can eat a pound of beefsteaks in a quar- 
 ter of an hour, how many pounds can he eat 
 in half-an-hour?" 
 
 " Oh ! two pounds to be sure." 
 
 " There you are wrong. Very few men 
 can eat more than a pound of meat at one 
 time 5 and, if they could, they would be much 
 longer about the last pound than the first. 
 
 "You must learn to pause before you 
 7 
 
74 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 speak, or you will not learn to think before 
 you speak. Now, be sure you wait a little. 
 As I went to Farmer Paton's, I met two 
 horses, two cows, two sheep, and two pigs ; 
 pigs, sheep, cows, and horses, how many 
 were going to Farmer Paton's ?" 
 
 " Oh ! let me see ! two horses, and two 
 cows, four — two sheep, six — and two pigs, 
 eight. There were eight going, beside your- 
 self." 
 
 " Altogether wrong, Charles ! I said as I 
 went to Farmer Paton's, I met these animals : 
 now, if I met them, they must have been 
 coming from Farmer Paton's, and not going 
 to Farmer Paton's." 
 
 " Well, I am very stupid ; but I began to 
 count too soon." 
 
 " Yes, you did. Had you paused a little, 
 and then thought a little, perhaps you would 
 not have made such a mistake. Mr. White 
 says, that boys learning arithmetic are too 
 apt, when they have a sum to do, to begin 
 figuring away before they understand the 
 question ; whereas every boy ought to do the 
 sum, as it were, in his own mind, before he 
 puts down a single figure. The questions 
 that I have put to you to-night, are likely 
 enough to sharpen your wits, as well as to 
 
} L ^yt^fLaafiNGr Td THINK. 75 
 
 teach you to think ; but our time is quite gone, 
 and I must hastily say, good bye." 
 
 " Good bye, Henry, and thank you for be- 
 ing so patient with me ; but I should like to 
 ask you just one question before I go." 
 
 " Now for it, then." 
 
 " A cart, with a heavy load in it, stood at 
 the bottom of Painter's Hill as I came by : 
 the horse pulled at it, but could not get on at 
 all, till the carter put a boy on the horse's 
 back, and then he went up the hill with the 
 cart directly. What made the horse pull bet- 
 ter with the boy on his back than he did be- 
 fore ?" 
 
 " Perhaps the boy kicked him with his heels 
 to force him forward ?" 
 
 " No, indeed he did not ; for he sat quite 
 quiet." 
 
 " Well, then, you have puzzled me, for I 
 do not know. I must think of it, or, perhaps, 
 ask Mr. White, and then I will tell you. 
 Farewell !" 
 
 
76 
 
 LEARNING TO THINK, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HE clock is striking, and here you 
 are, Charles. There is a pleas- 
 ure in teaching you all I can, 
 for you seem so anxious to 
 learn. " 
 
 " And so I ought to be anxious, Henry, 
 when you are so kind and forbearing with 
 me ; but have you found out what made the 
 horse go up the hill with the loaded cart ?" 
 
 " No, I could not make it out at all, and 
 so I asked Mr. White, when he explained the 
 thing to me at once." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 77 
 
 " Did he ! That is right, for I want to 
 know sadly. How was it?" 
 
 " Mr. White said, that he once wanted to 
 drag a piece of timber up a steep bank on 
 the edge of a coppice, but he could not do 
 so until he laid hold of the roots and twigs 
 which grew out of the ground above him, 
 but then he pulled up the log of wood very 
 easily." 
 
 " Yes ! so he would ; but the horse had no 
 roots and twigs to lay hold of, and if he had, 
 they could have been of no use for he had 
 no hands." 
 
 " Very true ; but the weight of the boy 
 pressing on his back, kept his feet firmer to 
 the ground, giving him a better foot-hold, 
 and that was much the same as if he had 
 laid hold of something." 
 
 " I understand now. I should never have 
 found it out." 
 
 " Now, then, to business : let me see how 
 far we have proceeded. You know now that 
 the way to think on any thing, is to call to 
 mind its qualities, its uses, and its associa- 
 tions ; and you have been told, that this me- 
 thod will become more easy and more useful 
 as your general knowledge increases. You 
 have also had proofs that knowledge greatly 
 
 adds to our pleasure, in the explanation given 
 
 7 * 
 
78 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 you about the hoop, peg-top, humming-top, 
 and kite ; and the last time we met, you had 
 questions put to you of a kind likely to quick- 
 en your wits, and to give you a habit of pau- 
 sing before you speak. It will be well now, 
 perhaps, to give you a few instances of the 
 sad effects of thoughtlessness, and the great 
 advantages of thoughtful habits, in the com- 
 mon affairs of life. Mr. White took this 
 course with me, and I cannot take a better 
 one with you." 
 
 " I will be bound for it, that Mr. White's 
 plan is a good one." 
 
 " The mischief that is done by thoughtless- 
 ness would hardly be believed by one who 
 had never learned to think. A boy that I 
 know, left his canary bird out of the cage 
 when the cat was in the room : he was only 
 away ten minutes, but when he returned, no- 
 thing was left of his poor bird but a few fea- 
 thers." 
 
 "He was a thoughtless fellow for his 
 pains." 
 
 " A young man, in an adjoining street, took 
 up a gun, thinking that it was not loaded ; he 
 thoughtlessly pointed it at his sister, saying, 
 with a laugh, that he would shoot her. No 
 sooner did he pull the trigger than his sister 
 fell to the ground to rise no more." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 79 
 
 " How shocking !" 
 
 " A little girl being left alone in the house, 
 thoughtlessly went to take some water from 
 the boiler, when the fire below caught her 
 clothes, and she was burned to death. I my- 
 self heard her screams, and I saw her when 
 she was dead." 
 
 " These accounts are terrible!" 
 
 " A mother thoughtlessly gave her child 
 water to drink from the tea-kettle, putting the 
 spout to the child's mouth. Some time after, 
 the child, being left alone, went again to the 
 kettle to drink ; but the water was then boil- 
 ing hot, and the poor child was scalded to 
 death." 
 
 " Dreadful ! dreadful ! What would that 
 mother think of herself?" 
 
 " Now remember, Charles, that in all these 
 cases no evil was intended. These terrible 
 accidents were brought about by thoughtless- 
 ness alone, and they are not a hundredth part 
 of the number that have taken place." 
 
 " Thoughtlesness is a very bad thing, much 
 worse than I ever took it to be. Why every 
 one in the world ought to learn to think." 
 
 " Let us now look on the other side of the 
 question. Let us see some of the advantages 
 of thoughtfulness." 
 
 " I shall like to hear them." 
 
80 
 
 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " I remember, last winter, being in a cot- 
 tage on a cold snowy evening, when the cot- 
 tager returned home from his work, many- 
 miles distant, after trudging through the wet 
 
 sloppy snow. His wife was a thoughtful 
 woman, so that, when he came in with his 
 wet feet, a bright fire awaited him, and a ba- 
 sin of hot tea ; while a pair of dry shoes and 
 stockings were placed ready for him to put 
 on." 
 
 " That was something like ! This woman 
 was a good wife, depend upon it !" 
 
 " We all like to be thought of in such cases, 
 and one act of this kind speaks louder than 
 many words, in telling us we have not been 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. SI 
 
 forgotten. My uncle was in a house one 
 night when the chimney took fire, and there 
 was some fear of the house being burned to 
 the ground. One wanted to set the doors 
 open, and another to take away the fire in the 
 grate ; but my uncle, being of a thoughtful 
 turn, was too wise to act so foolishly : he 
 knew that the draught of air from the opened 
 doors would fan the fire in the chimney, and 
 that taking away the burning coals would not 
 put out the burning soot : so, keeping the 
 doors closed, he took a blanket, and after dip- 
 ping it in a pail of water, he hung it up all 
 across the fire-place, when the steam arising 
 from it mounting upwards soon put out the 
 fire in the chimney." 
 
 " Capital ! That was well done, howev- 
 er !" 
 
 u He was present on one occasion when a 
 child was dreadfully burned. The mother 
 began to scrape some potatoes to put on the 
 burn : but my uncle, instead of the scraped 
 potatoes, applied spirits of turpentine ; and 
 the doctor said afterwards, that by so doing 
 he had, most likely, saved the child." 
 
 " It is a good thing to know what to do in 
 such a case." 
 
 " Thinking people strive to remember what 
 they hear of a useful kind, and are, on that 
 
82 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 account, able to do good, when the thought- 
 less would do nothing but mischief. A poor 
 man by accident cut his foot deeply near the 
 ancle, with a bill-hook, and would have bled 
 to death, no doctor being near ; but a think- 
 ing fellow-labourer, taking his handkerchief 
 from his neck, doubled it up, and pressed it 
 hard against the wound, tying it over ivith 
 his garter. A doctor was then sent for, and 
 the man's life was saved." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! he had reason to be thank- 
 ful." 
 
 " A fire broke out in the cow-house of a 
 farm-yard, where a wooden shed joined the 
 cow-house to the barn, stabling, and farm- 
 house. Half a dozen thoughtless people 
 wasted their strength in vain, in trying to put 
 out the flames; but a servant man, more 
 thoughtful than the rest, set about pulling 
 down the wooden shed, thereby confining the 
 fire to the cow-house, and saving the barn, 
 stables, and farm-house from being burned to 
 the ground." 
 
 " That man deserved to be rewarded." 
 
 " Many of the greatest discoveries in the 
 world have been brought about by accident, 
 thinking people having turned these accidents 
 to advantage. Glass is made of sand or flint, 
 mixed with a substance called an alkali. 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. S3 
 
 Some merchants, driven ashore in Syria by a 
 storm, made a fire on the sands, with a vege- 
 table called kali, which grew there. The 
 sand, melted by the heat, mixed with the 
 ashes of the kali, and became glass. This 
 gave the merchants, who were thinking men, 
 the hint how to make glass, and thus all our 
 window panes and drinking glasses have 
 been produced." 
 
 " Well done, merchants ! They were cle- 
 ver, as well as thinking people," 
 
 " It is said that a silk trader, who had met 
 with many disappointments in his business, 
 stood a long while thinking in his mind what 
 he should do. All this time he kept chewing 
 a bit of raw silk in his mouth, but when he 
 spat it out, he observed that it had a fine 
 glossy colour. This accident, improved by a 
 thinking mind, brought about the beautiful 
 coloured floss silk, now so much in use." 
 
 u What curious things you do think of ! 
 The silk trader was glad enough at his dis- 
 covery." 
 
 " Gunpowder was discovered by accident, 
 as well as the power of steam, to which the 
 world is now so much indebted ; and it was 
 by the accidental falling of an apple, that the 
 thinking mind of Sir Isaac Newton was led 
 to form his beautiful system of the heaven, y 
 
84 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 bodies : but I must now break off my re- 
 marks." 
 
 " Farewell, Henry ! I want to learn to 
 think now more than ever !" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 85' 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 |0W I am here again, I want to 
 ask you something, Henry." 
 
 " Let me hear your question 
 
 then, Charles; you shall have 
 
 the best answer I can give you." 
 
 "Why is it that the clouds above our 
 
 heads look so high, while those at a distance 
 
 seem to touch the very ground ?" 
 
 "Why is it? Oh, because — no, that can- 
 not be the reason neither — I really do not 
 know the reason ; I must ask Mr. White 
 about it." 
 
 * Well, then, if you cannot tell me that, 
 please to tell me what subject is the fullest to 
 think upon ; for I sadly want to know ?" 
 
 "There are many subjects, which Mr. 
 White tells me are inexhaustible, and indeed 
 never to be understood. When we think of 
 God, or of eternity, we soon get beyond our 
 depth : we should always think of such sub- 
 jects with deep reverence and humility." 
 8 
 
86 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Yes ; but I do not mean such subjects as 
 these, but something which we can under- 
 stand." 
 
 " Well, then, the subject of books is, per- 
 haps, as full and extensive as any ; because 
 books have been written on almost every- 
 thing in the world. If you examine this 
 book, you will see that it has a great many 
 parts to occupy your attention. The outside, 
 the inside, the binding, the back, the corners, 
 the edges, the sides, the top, the bottom, the 
 beginning, the ending, the middle, the paper, 
 the ink, the leaves, the letters, the numbers, 
 the words, the stops, the syllables, the sen- 
 tences, the title-page, the preface, the con- 
 tents, the margin, the lines, the stitching, the 
 lettering, the ornamenting, the gilding, the 
 pictures, and the fly leaves." 
 
 " Why, here is enough to think of for a 
 day, without going further." 
 
 " Books are almost endless in their uses. 
 If good, they entertain, instruct, reprove, and 
 encourage us. They fit us to be Useful while 
 we are here, and they help us to prepare for 
 a hereafter. Whether we are young or old, 
 rich or poor, wise or foolish, in sickness or in 
 health, living or dying, a good book may be 
 made of ^reat use to us." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 87 
 
 " And now, when you come to your asso- 
 ciations, you will have plenty to say." 
 
 " Mr. White was speaking to me of books 
 this very day, so that I may perhaps remem- 
 ber some of his observations. The less we 
 have to do with bad books the better, there- 
 fore we will say nothing about them ; but of 
 good books we might talk by the hour. 
 Think of the books that first taught us our 
 letters, and all the entertaining and useful 
 school books that we have seen and read." 
 
 a Ay, we should have been but sadly off 
 without them." 
 
 "Think of the knowledge that has been 
 gained from books of arithmetic, grammar, 
 geography, history, natural history, astro- 
 nomy, and philosophy, with the arts and 
 sciences $ to say nothing of all the delightful 
 adventures of travellers by sea and land that 
 we have pored over with pleasure." 
 
 " I can fancy that I have Robinson Crusoe 
 before me now." 
 
 " Yes, and Pilgrim's Progress, and twenty 
 other works that have delighted us. Had it 
 not been for books, what should I have 
 known of the lives of those good men, Leigh- 
 ton, Baxter, Bishop Hall, Doddridge, Bunyan, 
 Flavel, Matthew Henry, Howard, Scott, 
 
88 
 
 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 Swartz, Newton, Wesley, Whitefield, Watts, 
 and Romaine ?" 
 
 " What a memory you have !" 
 
 a Think of the flood of knowledge that has 
 been poured out in the shape of books, by 
 the Bible Society and the Religious Tract 
 Society. The one has sent forth fifteen mil- 
 lions of Bibles: and the other, about four 
 
 hundred millions of useful and pious publi- 
 cations." 
 
 " What a number !" 
 
 " Fancy to yourself the half-frozen Esqui- 
 maux amid ice and snow ; the olive-coloured 
 Hindoo, the sooty negro, the savage New 
 Zealander, the wild Caffre, and the ignorant 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 89 
 
 Hottentot — some of these have obtained the 
 best of knowledge from books. I can see 
 them now : here are some in their under- 
 ground houses; and there is a group of 
 Hindoos sitting in a verandah, near the river 
 Ganges ; there is a family in their wigwam 5 
 a fourth in the desert ; a fifth in their canoe ; 
 and a sixth in the bush country, all putting 
 away from them the idols they have wor- 
 shipped, and reading in books, printed in 
 their own language, the way of salvation 
 through the Saviour of sinners." 
 
 " I see now that books take in all the na- 
 tions of the world." 
 
 " If people had not learned to think, we 
 should never have had a printed book to read. 
 They were thinking people that invented and 
 brought to perfection the printing press, mi- 
 croscope, telescope, safety lamp, fire escape, 
 mariner's compass, life boat, and ship build- 
 ing." 
 
 " It is very odd that I should never have 
 thought any thing about thinking till lately • 
 however, I must try to make up for this neg- 
 lect in future." 
 
 " To one who has learned to think, as I 
 
 said before, the world is a different place to 
 
 what it once appeared. He will not only learn 
 
 to look at things singly, but at the world at 
 
 8 * 
 
90 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 large. He will reflect on its continents and 
 islands ; its mountains and valleys ; its rivers, 
 lakes, and oceans ; its trees and flowers ; re- 
 garding it as the dwelling place of man, fitted 
 out for him by his Almighty Maker. He will 
 turn to the animated creation, and gaze with 
 wonder on the different natures of insects, 
 reptiles, birds, fishes, and beasts. After this, 
 man will become more the subject of his 
 thoughts ; and then, perhaps, he will be led 
 to reflect on his Almighty Maker, the Creator 
 and Preserver of all things." 
 
 " You have summed up every thing now." 
 
 " No, not every thing ; for Mr. White says, 
 that many reflect wisely on creation, and think 
 reverently of their Creator, -who are altogether 
 in ignorance of the Redeemer. Now, if we 
 know about all things on the earth, and do 
 not know our way to heaven, of what use to 
 us will be all our knowledge ?" 
 
 " Very true. You have mentioned so many 
 things to-night, that I shall have plenty to 
 think of till I come again." 
 
 " Mr. White pointed out to me the amazing 
 power that man has over all living things, 
 when he uses the faculties of his mind ; that 
 is, when he becomes a thinker. The crocodile 
 and the boa constrictor are, perhaps, the 
 most formidable creatures among reptiles; 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 91 
 
 but thinking man easily puts a hook into the 
 jaws of the one, and with weapons destroys 
 the other. The eagle, the king of birds, is 
 swift in the air; but thinking man is still 
 swifter, for he overtakes him with a shaft 
 from a bow, or a bullet from his gun, and 
 brings him to the ground. 
 
 " The lion and the elephant are the strong- 
 est among beasts ; yet thinking man easily 
 takes them both in his snares, and keeps 
 them as his captives or his slaves ; and the 
 mighty whale, the greatest and the strongest 
 among the inhabitants of the sea, contends 
 in vain with thinking man, who strikes him 
 with harpoons till he turns on his back and 
 dies." 
 
 " Why, it seems to me that a thinking man 
 can do almost any thing." 
 
 "But now comes the strongest proof of 
 all, of the power of thought. Men who have 
 learned to think, easily overcome all other 
 men in the world. Ten civilized men are 
 more than a match for a hundred savages ; 
 for, instead of grappling with their foes, hand 
 to hand, they make themselves fire-arms, and 
 destroy them at a distance." 
 
 " I see clearly that an ignorant man has no 
 chance with one who has learned to think." 
 
 " Thought gives knowledge, and knowledge 
 
92 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 gives power ; but good men will not use, or 
 rather misuse, their power, as bad men do. 
 Bad men will go among savages to wrong 
 them, and to shed their blood ; but good men 
 mingle with them to do them good, to take 
 them seeds and implements of husbandry, to 
 trade with them, to instruct them in useful 
 arts, to spread among them the gospel of 
 peace, and to direct them in the way to 
 heaven." 
 
 " Well ! if I remember one half of what you 
 have said to night, I shall be a great deal 
 wiser than I was before. I would not give 
 up learning to think on any account whatever. 
 Farewell ! and thank you." 
 
 * On Monday come again. Good bye." 
 
 g 
 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 93 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AM glad you are here early to- 
 night, Charles, because I am in a 
 hurry, and cannot stop long." 
 
 " I am sorry for that, Henry ; 
 but we must lose no time, then. 
 Did you ask Mr. White about the clouds i" 
 
 "Yes, I did; and he says the reason why 
 the clouds at a distance seem to touch the 
 ground is this : The world being of the shape 
 of a ball, the clouds are spread around it in 
 every direction at about an equal distance, 
 like a huge umbrella over our heads. Now, 
 though we can see the distance between us 
 and the farthest discernible object on the 
 
94 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 earth, we cannot see the distance between that 
 object and the sky : for this reason it is, then, 
 that distant objects appear to touch the sky, 
 simply because we cannot see the distance 
 between them." 
 
 " I see now very well ; but I shall never be 
 able to learn to think so well as I want to 
 think, that is certain." 
 
 " Oh, never fear ! I have awakened within 
 you a desire to learn to think, and doing that 
 is a little like setting a stone to roll down 
 hill \ when once set off, it will continue its 
 course of itself. Having set you off thinking, 
 I am not at all fearful of your stopping in 
 your course ! Every one is at fault some- 
 times, and, therefore, you must not be out of 
 h,eart when you find yourself at a loss. Re- 
 member how you puzzled me about the horse 
 pulling the cart up the hill, and about the 
 clouds." 
 
 " There are half-a-dozen, or a dozen other 
 things that I want to know. Ever since 
 you told me about the hoop, the peg-top, 
 the ball, the humming-top, and the kite, I 
 have intended to ask you. In the first place, 
 do you know why my squirt draws up the 
 water ? I cannot make it out." 
 
 " Mr. White has explained fifty things of 
 this kind to me ; and I will try, as well as I 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 95 
 
 can, to make you understand what you want 
 to know. I must begin by saying, that the 
 air, which is all around us, presses against 
 every thing ; and the only reason why we do 
 not feel it, is because it presses equally on all 
 sides at the same time. A balloon, that 
 bulges out so much, would, if the inside air 
 were all taken out of it, be pressed together 
 by the outside air, as flat as a pancake." 
 " Would it really ?" 
 
 " Yes ; but I will now speak of the squirt. 
 The handle has something wrapped round it 
 on the inside, which makes it air-tight. When 
 you put the point in the water, and pull up 
 the handle, it leaves what is called a vacuum, 
 that is, a space with no air in it, inside the 
 squirt ; into this space the water is forced up 
 by the outward air,which presses upon it." 
 " I can hardly understand that." 
 a Well, then, I will try to make it plainer. 
 If you put a wheaten straw into a pail of 
 milk, and suck up at the other end of it, you 
 draw away the air out of the straw, and the 
 outward air, pressing on the milk in the pail, 
 forces it up the straw." 
 
 " It is much plainer to me now." 
 Ci When a man smokes a pipe, it is on the 
 same principle. So long as he lets the pipe 
 alone, the smoke of the tobacco comes out at 
 
96 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 the bowl end; but directly the man draws 
 the air out of the tube of the pipe with his 
 mouth, and makes a vacuum there, the out- 
 ward air forces the smoke up the tube into 
 the smoker's mouth." 
 
 " Now I understand you very well. Tell 
 me next, if you please, why my leathern sucker 
 sticks so fast to the stone on which I put it. 
 I can hardly pull it away." 
 
 " I dare say not. After you have pushed 
 the wet leather close down to the stone, you 
 make a vacuum, when you pull the string, 
 between the middle of the leather, which you 
 pull up, and the stone, and then the pressure 
 of the outward air on the leather keeps it fast 
 to the stone. Mr. White took away the air 
 from under my hand with an air-pump, and 
 I felt directly such a weight on my hand that 
 I could hardly stir it at all : the weight was 
 the outward air, which pushed my hand to- 
 wards the vacuum." 
 
 " This is very wonderful." 
 
 " We are in a world of wonders ; but have 
 you any other question to ask me ?" 
 
 " Yes ! two or three more. I was in old. 
 nurse's cottage to-day, and because the fire 
 was almost out, she put the poker across it, 
 to make it burn. How can laying a poker 
 across make the fire burn ?" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 97 
 
 " Mr. White says the reason may be this. 
 Iron is a good conductor of heat; that is, it soon 
 gets hot. As it draws a good deal of heat to 
 one point, it makes the air round it lighter, 
 so that it ascends quicker, and this occasions 
 a draught through the fire." 
 
 " You seem to understand every tiling." 
 
 " Oh, no ! but you happen to ask me ques- 
 tions about which I have been curious my- 
 self, and I have asked about them." 
 
 " I have seen a stick put across to draw up 
 the fire : will a stick do as well as a poker ?" 
 
 "That I really cannot tell, never having 
 asked Mr. White ; but if his explanation of 
 the poker be correct, I should think it would 
 not." 
 
 u Old nurse has got a weather-house, and 
 a man comes out of it in wet weather ; but in 
 dry weather he goes in again, and a woman 
 comes out. Can you account for it ?" 
 
 " Very easily. The man and the woman 
 are made to move by a piece of catgut inside. 
 When the air is moist, the catgut stretches, 
 and out comes the man ; but when the air is 
 dry, the catgut shrinks up, and by drawing in 
 the man at one end of a stick, pushes out the 
 woman at the other." 
 
 " Well how curious ! It is a silly thing 
 not to learn to think. Do you know why the 
 9 
 
98 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 sun puts the fire out ; for old nurse says it 
 does?" 
 
 " Ay ! Mr. White says so too, and for this 
 reason, that the purest part of the air, called 
 oxygen, which principally supports the fire, is 
 drawn away by the sunbeams. But have 
 you asked me all your questions now, for I 
 have no more time to spare ?" 
 
 " I will only ask one question more, and 
 that is, How can we tell that the world is 
 round, and not flat ?" 
 
 " That used to puzzle me, till it was ex- 
 plained to me, but I can now give you sev- 
 eral reasons $ one, perhaps, will be sufficient. 
 If a fly was to crawl along the flat table, in a 
 straight line, he would never come to the spot 
 where he started from ; would he ?" 
 
 " No, never ! he would get further from it 
 every step he took." 
 
 " But if a fly was to crawl round an apple, 
 in a straight line, he would come to the same 
 place from which he started, without turning 
 back again." 
 
 " Yes, he would ; that is certain." 
 
 " Well, then, a ship does the same thing , 
 for it sails straight on round the world with- 
 out turning back again, till it comes to the 
 same place where it set sail from." 
 
 " Then the world must be round, though 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 99 
 
 old nurse will not believe it ; but I shall know 
 now how to teach her. Learning to think is 
 a most capital thing !" 
 
 " And, as you think so, I trust you will go 
 on to learn ; not forgetting, when you think 
 of any thing, its qualities, its uses, and its 
 associations. Suppose I sum up together 
 some of the advantages of thoughtfulness." 
 
 " Ay, do ; and then I shall, perhaps, re- 
 member them better. " 
 
 "Thinking adds to our pleasure, making 
 every thing around us interesting. It pro- 
 duces a love of thought, and a habit of paus- 
 ing and considering before replying to a ques- 
 tion. It extends our knowledge and power, 
 quickens our faculties, corrects our judgment, 
 enlarges our minds, and explains many things 
 around us, which we do not understand. It 
 lessens labour, makes hard things easy, pro- 
 tects us from evils which thoughtlessness 
 brings upon us, gives us power over all living 
 things and unthinking people, and renders us 
 more useful and more happy. In a word, if 
 we learn to think, and put our thoughts to 
 a good use, we shall not fail to fear and obey 
 God, and to love and serve mankind." 
 
 " Come, you have summed up every thing 
 famously ; and I am glad that I know now, 
 why my squirt dr^ws up the water, and my 
 
100 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 sucker sticks to the stone ; why the poker laid 
 across makes the fire burn; why the man 
 comes out of the weather-house when it is 
 wet ; why the sun puts out the fire ; and how 
 to prove to old nurse that the world is as 
 round as a ball." 
 
 " If you like, you may come a little earlier 
 to-morrow night. Farewell !" 
 
 " Then I will. Farewell; and thank you." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 101 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WANT to know a great many 
 things, Henry ; but first, can you 
 tell me how to talk ? I am in 
 pretty good time to-night, so 
 please to tell me the way to learn 
 to talk." 
 
 " The way to learn to talk, Charles, that is 
 if you wish to talk to any good purpose, is 
 to learn to think, so that you are in the high 
 road of learning to talk. Mr. White says, that 
 to talk well, wisely, and humbly, is a great 
 attainment ; but why do you wish to learn ?" 
 "I will tell you. This morning a lady 
 called at our house with two little boys, 
 younger than I am, and we took a walk to- 
 gether round the garden. One of them spoke 
 very prettily about the flowers, and I felt 
 ashamed that he should be able to talk about 
 them better than I could do." 
 
 " Depend upon it, Charles, that little boy 
 was a thinker. Get on in your thinking, and 
 9* 
 
102 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 then you will find but little difficulty in talk- 
 ing." 
 
 " You can talk of every thing, and I can 
 talk of nothing." 
 
 " No, no, Charles ! you are mistaken ; you 
 think me wiser than I am, because I tell you 
 so much of what Mr. White has told me. He 
 says, that thoughts grow very fast, and that 
 the more we think, the more we shall find to 
 think about." 
 
 " That seems very strange, but tell me how 
 a thought grows." 
 
 "You shall see. Suppose you were to 
 speak of field flowers, a little thought would 
 bring to your mind the heath-flower and daisy, 
 the primrose, cowslip, and daffodil, the brier- 
 rose, the violet, and convolvulus." 
 
 " Yes, I should think of them so far as to 
 mention their names, and then I should come 
 to a stand still ; but how should I be able to 
 make my thoughts grow ?" 
 
 " By thinking of the field flowers a little 
 more, for then you might be reminded of the 
 situations in which they grow. The heath- 
 flower abounds on the mountain and the moor ; 
 the daisy adorns the mead ; the primrose, and 
 cowslip, and daffodil are found in the dell, the 
 coppice, the dingle, and the knolly-field ; the 
 brier-rose beautifies the hedges 5 the shady 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 103 
 
 bank is made fragrant by the violet ; and the 
 brink of the watery ditch is garlanded with 
 the wild convolvulus. n 
 
 " Well, that is good ! Thoughts do grow 
 very fast, and if you went on thinking still 
 more of field flowers, would your thoughts 
 keep on growing ?" 
 
 " To be sure they would, but you shall 
 judge for yourself. Have you forgotten what 
 I told you about associations ?" 
 
 " No ; but it was in learning to think that 
 I was to remember associations ?" 
 
 " Very true ; but as you cannot learn to 
 talk wisely, without learning to think wisely, 
 60 in talking as well as in thinking, you must 
 make the best of your associations." 
 
 "And how will your associations make 
 your thoughts about the flowers grow ?" 
 
 " In this way. The moor and the moun- 
 tain, remind me of a story I once heard of a 
 hermit, who lived on the side of a mountain, 
 that rose up from an extended moor. For 
 three years he dwelt in a cleft of the moun- 
 tain, eating of the roots and rude berries, 
 which were found at its base, and drinking 
 of a fountain that issued from a rock. For 
 three years he inhabited this inhospitable 
 place, doing no good to human kind. It hap- 
 pened, that one day on visiting a village, not 
 
104 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 very remote from the place, in a time of sick- 
 ness, he was able, by his knowledge of herbs, 
 greatly to relieve three villagers of their 
 malady, on which occasion he thus spoke 
 to himself. 
 
 * 6 In the last three hours I have done more 
 service than in the three preceding years : I 
 now see that it is not by shunning society, 
 but by dwelling among men, that we can 
 most glorify God and benefit human kind/ " 
 
 " Well, that is a capital story." 
 
 " The daisy brings to my mind the little 
 flower, or sprig of moss, I forget which, that 
 gave comfort to Mungo Park, when in a fit 
 of despondency he flung himself on the ground 
 in a desert place. If, thought he, God takes 
 such care of the herb of the field, why should 
 I doubt his goodness to me ?" 
 
 " Well said, Mungo Park." 
 
 " I have now before my fancy a high bank, 
 near the brink of a river. I saw it when it 
 was c6vered with primroses of different 
 colours, for which it was so famous, that it 
 went by the name of the Beautiful Bank. 
 Many times have I thanked God for the sight 
 of those lovely primroses." 
 
 " Your thoughts do grow most famously." 
 
 " I must pass over some of the flowers, and 
 come to the convolvulus which garlanded 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 105 
 
 the ditch ; and if it brings nothing else to my 
 remembrance, it reminds me of that text of 
 Scripture ' If the blind lead the blind, both 
 shall fall into the ditch/ The ignorant may- 
 be said to be blind ; learn then to think, and 
 grow wise, and you will neither yourself fall 
 into the ditch, nor lead another there." 
 
 " It is as plain as that two and two make 
 four, that thoughts do grow, and very fast 
 too." 
 
 " Let me now see if you have been think- 
 ing of what I have said, and if a thought will 
 not grow in your head, as well as in mine ? 
 Instead of field flowers let us speak of birds : 
 what birds can you think of?" 
 
 " I can think of plenty of birds. There are 
 the robin and the wren, the martin and the 
 swallow, the magpie and the crow, and the 
 hawk and the eagle." 
 
 " Very good ! You have called to mind 
 these with very little thought, and now let us 
 see if your thoughts will not grow. I told 
 you where the field flowers were to be found; 
 tell me then where these birds build their 
 nests." 
 
 " The robin and the wren build their nests 
 in the bank. You can hardly put your 
 finger in the hole of a wren's nest, it is so 
 very small The martin and the swallow 
 
106 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 build under the eaves of houses, or other 
 buildings ; the martin's nest is made of mud. 
 The magpie and the crow build in tall trees ; 
 and the magpie has a covering of little sticks 
 over his nest. I never saw a hawk's nest, or 
 an eagle's ; but I have heard that the eagle 
 builds on the side of a high rock." 
 
 " Do you not see how your .thoughts have 
 grown already ? Why they take up twice the 
 room they did before ! But now try to think 
 still more of these birds. What did you 
 ever see or hear of the robin and the wren ?" 
 
 " A Robin used to hop in sharp weather on 
 my father's knee, as he sat in the summer 
 arbour, with a plate of crumbs on his lap ; 
 but when the warm summer came, he was 
 off to the fields, and no more came to the 
 arbour." 
 
 " Ay, there are many such friends in the 
 world as that robin ; but do you remember 
 any thing of the rest of the birds ?" 
 
 " I remember asking my uncle, why the 
 martins and swallows flew about so swiftly, 
 skimming along almost close to the water on 
 the pond ; indeed, sometimes they dipped in- 
 to the water ; and he told me it was to catch 
 the flies. I never knew before what the rea- 
 son was." 
 
 " Now for the other birds." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 107 
 
 " There was a crow and a magpie that 
 built their nests on the two elms at the back 
 of our garden. The crow did no mischief 
 that I know of, but the magpie flew off at 
 different times with a dolPs frock, a glove be- 
 longing to my sister, and one of my old 
 buckle garters." 
 
 " We must not be too hard on the poor 
 bird, Charles ; for boys are sometimes as mis- 
 chievous as magpies." 
 
 " You do not mean me, do you ?" 
 
 u Whoever I meant, I did not say that I 
 meant you ; but if you think that you are 
 mischievous as a magpie, I cannot help it. 
 Do you know any thing about a hawk or an 
 eagle ?" 
 
 " Nothing about an eagle ; but once when 
 I was at my uncle's farm, a hawk pounced 
 down upon one of the pigeons as he stood by 
 the side of the pond, a little way in the 
 water. Away flew the hawk, with the pigeon 
 dangling from his claws. While I was look- 
 ing at him, a gun went off, the pigeon flew 
 away, and down tumbled the hawk into the 
 fold-yard. It was my uncle who shot the 
 hawk from behind the pigeon-house." 
 
 "Do' you now see how your thoughts 
 have grown ? I question if your account of 
 
108 LEARNING TO THINE. 
 
 the birds is not better than mine 'of the 
 flowers." 
 
 " I hardly thought of getting on so well, 
 but if you had not put me in the right way, 
 and asked me the proper questions, how 
 would it have been then ?" 
 
 " Perhaps I may have helped you a little ; 
 but by thinking on what we have both said, 
 and adopting the same plan, you may be able 
 to talk quite as easily about the beasts of the 
 field, the fishes of the sea, and many other 
 parts of God's creation as of flowers and 
 birds. If Mr. White were here I know what 
 he would say." 
 
 " What would he say ? How can you 
 tell?" 
 
 "I do not mean, that I know the very 
 words he would speak, but very near the 
 meaning of them. He would say that whe- 
 ther we talked of one part of the creation or 
 of another, we should try to turn our conver- 
 sation to profit. The same Almighty hand 
 that made an ant, formed an elephant ; the 
 same Almighty power that spangled the grass 
 with dew, and scattered dust on the ground, 
 spread abroad the wide ocean, and piled up 
 the mountains one above another, for i the 
 sea is his, and he made it, and his hands 
 formed the dry land/ Mr. White would 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 109 
 
 say, that we should never think of God's 
 works without desiring to promote God's 
 glory." 
 
 " And it would be right, too, every word 
 of it. I feel sure that I could talk better now 
 about many things, than I could when I first 
 came to you." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say so, for it shows 
 that our time has not been wasted. Fare- 
 well !" 
 
 10 
 
110 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ELL, Charles ! you are here. 
 Let me tell you again, that as 
 you get more knowledge, you 
 must be more than ever on your 
 guard against being conceited 
 and high-minded ; for this, in a boy, is one 
 of the most difficult things to cure." 
 
 " I have not much to be high-minded and 
 conceited about, Henry ; for I know very 
 little." 
 
 " Those who know but little, are often more 
 conceited than those who know a great deal. 
 I do not think you are at all conceited now, 
 and I hope you never will be. Mr. White 
 tells me that he has more hope of a boy of 
 moderate talents who is humble and perse- 
 vering, than of one who is clever, who thinks 
 more highly of himself than he ought to 
 think. He says, we ought never to conclude 
 that another is more ignorant than ourselves, 
 merely because he does not do things in the 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. Ill 
 
 same way that we do them. There are such 
 different ways of doing things, that we ought 
 to compare his way with ours, and see which 
 is the best before we venture to call his 
 knowledge in question." 
 
 * There may be different ways of doing a 
 thing, but one way must be better than an- 
 other." 
 
 " It may be so in most cases, but not in 
 all ; and then our way may not be the best, 
 you know. 
 
 "In going a walk yesterday, Mr. White 
 threw his cane too far in showing me how 
 the Indians threw their lances, and it fell into 
 Fowler's large pool ; the question then was 
 how to get it out again, for it was nearly a 
 dozen yards from the side." 
 
 " I know what I would have done. I would 
 have thrown stones just beyond it, and the 
 splash of the water would have soon brought 
 it to the side." 
 
 " And so I thought, but the wind blew too 
 strong for that, and drove the cane back again 
 faster than the splashing of the water brought 
 it nearer. Mr. White thought a moment, 
 and then determined to take off his clothes, 
 and swim for it." 
 
 u Well, I suppose that was the very best 
 thing that could be done." 
 
112 
 
 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " He said, ' Now if I had a piece of string 
 long enough, by tying a stone or a stick to 
 the end of it, and throwing it beyond the 
 cane, I could pull it out;' but he had no 
 string." 
 
 " Ay, then he was obliged to swim for it 
 after all" 
 
 " You are wrong there, for just as he had 
 
 pulled off his coat, Reynolds, the baker, came 
 up with his great Newfoundland dog. No 
 sooner did Reynolds see what was the matter, 
 than he picked up a stone, and cried, * Carlo ! 
 Carlo !" He then threw the stone into the 
 water just b;y the cane, when in plunged 
 Carlo, and in two minutes he came out again 
 with the cane in his mouth." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 113 
 
 " Capital ! Well done, baker ! and well 
 done Carlo, too ! I dare say that the dog 
 thought it was the stick that was thrown into 
 the water/' 
 
 " Very likely. I once heard of an Indian 
 who was so surprised at the number of peo- 
 ple that he saw when he came into civilized 
 society, that he began to keep an account of 
 them by cutting a notch on a stick for every 
 person who passed ; his stick was soon full, 
 and finding still more people, he threw it 
 away as useless. Those who have thought 
 more than the Indian, would have used a 
 better method : they would have put down 
 the number in figures. You remember that 
 in one of our early meetings, I spoke to you 
 about anchors." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I remember it very well." 
 
 " And you know that a cable is a long 
 thick rope fastened at one end to the anchor, 
 and at the other to the ship. Well f in Eu- 
 rope, cables are made of hemp ; in Africa, of 
 straw, and in Asia, often of long grass : still 
 they are all cables, made with the same object, 
 and answer the same end, though they are 
 made in a different manner." 
 
 " The hemp cable must be the best though, 
 and I should think it foolish to make a cable 
 of straw or grass." 
 
 10* 
 
114 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Hemp may be, and no doubt is, the best, 
 but the others may be cheaper, or easier 
 made, or have some other advantage, so that 
 it may be as wise to make a straw cable in 
 Africa, and a grass cable in Asia, if they an- 
 swer the purpose intended, as to make a 
 hemp cable in Europe. Cables now are 
 usually made of iron, these being stronger 
 than those of hemp. If a mariner wished 
 to sail round the world, it would not matter 
 whether he sailed to the east or to the west, 
 for either would take him round the world if 
 he went on, and he would come to the same 
 place again, like a fly crawling round an 
 apple." 
 
 " I should not have thought of that, and yet 
 it must be so. I see clear enough that there 
 are different ways of doing the same thing." 
 
 " One man who wishes to measure an ob- 
 ject, takes with him a string for that pur- 
 pose ; while another puts into his pocket a 
 foot rule, or a yard rule, for the same purpose. 
 Indeed, there are half a dozen ways of doing 
 many things. Suppose half a dozen persons 
 want to find the text of Scripture, " A wise 
 son maketh a glad father : but a foolish son is 
 the heaviness of his mother," Pro v. x. 1. Not 
 knowing exactly where to find it, they look 
 for it in Cruden's Concordance; but every 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 115 
 
 one sets about it in a different way. One 
 looks for the word wise, another for the word 
 son, a third for maketh, a fourth for glad, a 
 fifth for father, and a sixth for foolish; so 
 that they all succeed in attaining their object 
 in a different course ; and if even two other 
 persons wished to find the same text, one 
 might find it under the word heaviness, and 
 the other under that of mother." 
 
 " Famous ! Why here are eight ways of 
 doing the same thing, and every one of them 
 as good as the other." 
 
 "I knew two labouring men who were 
 neighbours, and each of them had a garden. 
 One was always in his garden, in summer, at 
 five o'clock, but the other never did any thing 
 at his garden, till six or seven o'clock at 
 night." 
 
 " He must have been an industrious man 
 who began to work so early, but the other 
 was a sad idle fellow." 
 
 " Not so, for he was quite as industrious as 
 his neighbour." 
 
 " How can that be, when one was up with 
 the lark, and the other was never seen with a 
 spade in his hand till night ?" 
 
 " I will tell you. They worked at the same 
 place, and it was necessary for one to be at 
 the factory very early, so that he had no time 
 
116 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 to get into his garden till he came home in 
 the evening. The other being required at the 
 factory at a different time, did not go there 
 early in the morning, so that he was able to 
 work in his garden an hour or two before he 
 went to his employment. You now see, then, 
 that one might be quite as diligent as the 
 other." 
 
 " Yes I do, Henry. If I could only think 
 as you do, I should not make so many mis- 
 takes." 
 
 " Now, let me see if you can think right in 
 the following case. John and Thomas were 
 two neighbours, who wanted to speak with 
 each other when they had an opportunity. 
 One day they met in a wide road, but John 
 happened to be on one side the road, and 
 Thomas on the other. Now, ought Thomas 
 to have crossed over to John ? Or should 
 John have gone over to Thomas ?" 
 
 " Oh, that could make no difference at all. 
 In such a case it would not matter at all 
 which crossed over." 
 
 " When you have learned to think, you 
 will give me a very different answer." 
 
 " Well, I think you must be wrong there ! 
 Why what could it signify to either of them 
 in such a little affair as crossing the road?" 
 
 " Very little, certainly, if they were both 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 117 
 
 able to cross the road without difficulty, but it 
 would signify a great deal, if one of them was 
 upright, and the other very lame, or, if one 
 had a heavy burden on his back, and the 
 other carried no burden at all." 
 
 " You are right, that you are, after all." 
 
 " Learning to think should make us con- 
 sider the state of others. We should always 
 turn out of the way for one who is heavily 
 laden ; we should be ready to run on an er- 
 rand for the lame, and to read the Holy Scrip- 
 tures to the blind, or to those who cannot read 
 themselves. I wish you could hear one half 
 of what Mr. White says on the subject of 
 consideration." 
 
 " I can think about a knife, a piece of flint, 
 a hoop, a peg-top, and things of that sort, 
 better than I can about what people ought to 
 do and to say." 
 
 "Because the latter requires more judg- 
 ment. The great point is to gain the habit 
 of thinking, but most of us are apt to speak 
 and to act without thinking at all. After a 
 while, I have no doubt you will be a thinker." 
 
 "I shall try to remember not hastily to 
 blame a boy who does a thing in a different 
 way to what I do it." 
 
 "A very good resolution. If two men 
 have to go a dozen miles, one, being hearty 
 
118 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 and strong, may prefer to walk, for then his 
 journey will cost him little or nothing 5 but 
 the other, being weakly, may think it better 
 to hire a horse, and ride : for though it may 
 cost him more money than walking, it will be 
 more convenient to him, and he may gain in 
 time what he pays in money." 
 
 " Yes, and save himself a long walk into 
 the bargain." 
 
 " One man works with his hands, another 
 with his head ; one man works hard and 
 spends freely, another does less work, and 
 spends less money, so as to be equal with the 
 other at the week's end." 
 
 " I should think a long while before these 
 things would come into my mind." 
 
 " Well, you have had enough for the pre- 
 sent, but I hope you will not forget to keep 
 humble; and to be considerate, you must 
 also try to remember that there are more 
 ways than one of doing the same thing 
 Farewell." 
 
 " I hope I shall. Farewell, and thank you 
 Henrv." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 119 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ( OW are you, Charles, after your 
 walk ? But I hardly need ask 
 you, for the colour in your cheeks 
 tells me." 
 
 " Very well, thank you, Hen- 
 ry. I have had such a run, for I want to 
 know something about building: can you 
 tell me about it ?" 
 
 " Not a great deal, but I have heard some- 
 thing about most trades, and if your questions 
 are not very difficult, perhaps I may be able 
 to answer them." 
 
 "This morning I went into the hut that 
 stands on the edge of the common, and it 
 was full of smoke ; for old Betty was boiling 
 her pot, and a shower fell, and the rain came 
 through the hole at the top, where the smoke 
 ought to have gone. After that, the water 
 ran under the old crazy door, and the wind 
 blew through the cracks in the wall. If I 
 ever build myself a house, I will take pretty 
 
120 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 good care to keep out the rain, and to let out 
 the smoke." 
 
 "A great deal of thought is required in 
 building a house. How would you set about 
 yours?" 
 
 " That I hardly know, but I would have 
 a very wide chimney to let out the smoke 
 you may depend upon it, and it should run 
 straight up very high in the air. My house 
 snould be built, too, on a very high hill, and 
 then the water would not run in under the 
 door." 
 
 " If the chimney were very wide, it would 
 be very likely to let in the rain, but not quite 
 so likely to let out the smoke. A small 
 chimney would have a better draught than a 
 very wide one." 
 
 " Would it, indeed ?" 
 
 " Yes, and for this reason — the hotter, or 
 the more rarified the air is in the chimney, 
 the lighter it is, and the faster it goes up- 
 wards. Now, the fire could not rarify the air 
 in a very wide chimney, so much as in a nar- 
 row one." 
 
 " Oh, then, my chimney shall run up very 
 high, but it shall not be very wide." 
 
 " It would be rather dangerous to run it 
 up very high, especially as your house is on 
 a hill, for it might, in some blustering day or 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 121 
 
 night in November, come toppling down 
 upon the roof, and, perhaps, upon your 
 head." 
 
 " So it might, I never thought of that. I 
 will have a low chimney, a high one will 
 never do, I see." 
 
 " I can hardly approve of your plan of 
 building on the top of a very high hill : for, 
 in the first place, you would not be likely to 
 obtain a good supply of water in your well, 
 unless you sunk it very deep, and that would 
 cost a great deal of money, and after all be 
 very inconvenient." 
 
 " I see that I am wrong again." 
 
 " Then, though your house might be plea- 
 sant in summer, it would be sadly exposed in 
 the winter : and, besides, it would be no easy 
 matter to have every heavy thing you wanted 
 dragged up to the top of a very high hill." 
 
 " I will give it up at once, Henry. No 
 houses on high hills for me ; I see they will 
 never do at all. But if you had to build a 
 house, what would you do ?" 
 
 " No doubt if I were to have a house built 
 under my own direction, I should make sad 
 mistakes for want of knowledge ; but having 
 more thought than you, I might, perhaps, run 
 into fewer errors." 
 
 " Just tell me how you would proceed." 
 11 
 
122 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Well, then, I will. Food, clothes, and a 
 house to dwell in, are the first three wants 
 of man. The savage hunts and fishes for 
 food, wears the skins of animals for clothes, 
 and lives in a cave, a hut, a tent, or a wig- 
 wam ; but civilized people, that is, those who 
 have learned to think, cultivate the ground, 
 spin and weave wool and flax into cloth, and 
 build houses. You recollect, I dare say, that 
 beautiful text of Scripture which speaks of 
 the clothing of flowers. " Consider the lilies 
 of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, nei- 
 ther do they spin : and yet I say unto you, 
 That even Solomon in all his glory was not 
 arrayed like one of these,' " Matt. vi. 28, 29. 
 
 " Yes, I recollect that text, and always 
 think about it when I see a lily." 
 
 " Mr. White says, every one should think 
 twice, before he begins to build once, remem- 
 bering the saying, ' Fools build houses, and 
 wise men live in them.' " 
 
 " That is an odd saying, however." 
 
 " It does not mean that all who build houses 
 are foolish, but reproves the thoughtless 
 people, who begin to build without being able 
 to finish what they begin, or build extrava- 
 gantly, and thereby ruin or injure themselves. 
 *But now for the house that I am to build." 
 
 " Ah ! that is what I want to hear about." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 123 
 
 "In the first place, I would reckon up 
 what the cost would be, taking into consider- 
 ation that the expense of building a house is 
 almost always more than the builder's calcu- 
 lation. I would then choose a dry, airy spot, 
 where there was good water." 
 
 " A very good beginning, indeed." 
 
 " I must next either buy the land, or have 
 a long lease upon it, because when the lease 
 is out, my house will belong to the land- 
 owner. It will not answer my purpose to 
 build a house without having a long lease." 
 
 " I should never have thought of that." 
 
 " When I begin, especial care shall be paid 
 to the foundation, for if that is bad, all that is 
 built in a month may come down in a minute." 
 
 " Very true, you have learned to think to 
 some purpose." 
 
 " The premises shall be well drained, that 
 the house when built may not be damp, and 
 proper water-courses shall be made. The 
 walls shall not be built up too fast, so that 
 they may have proper time to settle ; the 
 bricks shall be grey stocks because they look 
 better than ugly, staring, red bricks; the 
 mortar shall be thoroughly well made, and 
 I will see after the bricklayers myself. The 
 fire-places and chimneys shall be well tried, 
 and if the smoke does not draw up well, or if 
 
124 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 the wind blows down, I will have proper 
 chimney pots put on the tops of the chim- 
 neys." 
 
 " You go the very way to have a good 
 house." 
 
 " As far as I can judge, the carpenter shall 
 use none but good, sound, seasoned timber, 
 for if the dry rot once gets into it, my house 
 will be worth but little. The mason, the 
 plasterer, the tiler, the glazier, the painter, 
 and the paper-hanger shall find me always 
 with them, that I may be satisfied every thing 
 is done in a workmanlike manner." 
 
 "You would look them all up most fa- 
 mously." 
 
 "The locks and bolts shall be well ex- 
 amined, as well as the bells, window fasten- 
 ings and water spouts. The grates, especially 
 the kitchen grate, with the oven in it, and 
 the boiler and the coppers, shall be well 
 set." 
 
 " There is nothing but what you seem to 
 think of." 
 
 " When my house is built, I must see that 
 it is properly furnished. It would take me 
 a long time to tell you all the things. One, 
 however, I will tell you of 5 but try to guess 
 what it is." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 125 
 
 a Why a large table, or a chest of drawers, 
 or a bookcase/' 
 
 "No, it is not one of these." 
 
 u Do tell me, then, for I shall never guess 
 it." 
 
 "Well, then, it is a family Bible. Mr. 
 White says, that the best built house in the 
 world, with the very best furniture, would be 
 incomplete if it had not the word of God in 
 it. My house, then, shall have in it a large 
 family Bible." 
 
 "Very good, Henry. I should be better 
 able to see to the building of a house now I 
 have heard you talk about it." 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but let me question you. It 
 is not so much by hearing the thoughts of 
 others, that we learn to think, as by deter- 
 mining to reflect on things ourselves. Now, 
 if you had a house to build, how should you 
 proceed?" 
 
 u First, I will reckon up every penny it 
 will cost me, to see if I can afford it ; and 
 then I will seek out a dry place, that has good 
 air, good water, and a good prospect." 
 
 " Very well ! Then you will begin to 
 build." 
 
 " No, indeed ! not a brick shall be laid 
 down till I have a good long lease. I will 
 11* 
 
126 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 never lose my house for want of a lease, I 
 warrant you." 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! you are learning to be thought- 
 ful indeed." 
 
 " When my lease is safe I will begin, but 
 not before the foundation is known to be a 
 good one. I am not going to have my house 
 tumble on my head, if I can help it." 
 
 " What next will you attend to ?" 
 
 " To the draining, and to the mortar and 
 the bricks. No red bricks for me. The brick- 
 layer shall not get on too fast : and if the car- 
 penter uses any bad timber, he shall be my 
 carpenter no longer. All the work people 
 shall be looked after ; and when I come to 
 furnish my house, I will not forget the large 
 family Bible." 
 
 " Who can tell, Charles, but what our con 
 versation to-day may be useful to you in 
 years to come; but, however this may be, 
 learning to think is the very best way to live 
 to God's glory, our own good, and the wel- 
 fare of those round about us. I am reading 
 a book which describes the human body just 
 as a house is described : the eyes are the win- 
 dows ; and the ears, the nose, and the mouth 
 are the doors. Now, if you like, when you 
 next come here, we will talk about it, for 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 127 
 
 hardly any thing is more likely to set you 
 thinking than such a subject." 
 
 " Yes, let us talk about it. I shall like it 
 of all things. Ever since you told me why it 
 is that a hoop bowls, a peg-top spins, a ball 
 bounces, a humming-top makes a noise, and 
 a kite flies in the air, I have wanted to learn 
 to think more than ever, and if you tell me 
 about the human body being like a house, it 
 will be just the very thing. Before the clock 
 strikes six I shall be here." 
 
 " Very well, you will find me ready for 
 you. Good bye !" 
 
128 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HAD to go on an errand, Henry, 
 or I should have been here be- 
 fore now ; but it is not six o'clock 
 yet, is it ?" 
 
 " No, it has not yet struck, 
 Charles ; hark ! it is striking now. If we 
 were always as punctual in other things as 
 we are when we expect to be pleased, it 
 would be well for us. When you first began 
 to learn to think, 1 was obliged to ask you to 
 come to me, but now that is not necessary, 
 for you are ready to come of your own ac- 
 cord." 
 
 " Yes, that I am. You told me once, that 
 the power of thinking helps us in every thing, 
 just like a schoolfellow looking over our 
 shoulder, and telling us how to do a sum that 
 we know not how to begin. I have thought 
 of that many a time since : but now for the 
 human figure and the house." 
 
 " There are few things that set forth the 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 129 
 
 wisdom, power, and goodness of God more 
 than the human figure, to the mind of a think- 
 ing person. Every part of it is so well suited 
 to the whole, and the whole is so well put 
 together, that none but God, who is all wise, 
 could have formed such an excellent piece of 
 workmanship. If we regard it as a building, 
 it is one of the most curious buildings in the 
 world." 
 
 " Tell me what it is that is so curious." 
 
 " Nothing if you do not think, but every 
 thing if you do." 
 
 " If I were to begin to think about it, I 
 should begin with its parts, and then go on to 
 its qualities, and after that to its associations, 
 just as I did with the flint stone." 
 
 "The human figure is composed of so 
 many parts, that it would take up all our time 
 to talk about them, even if I knew them ; but 
 I do not know one half of their names. We 
 should find enough in the human hand to fill 
 us with surprise. All that we can do now, I 
 think, is to speak of the body under the like- 
 ness of a house." 
 
 " Then you will begin with the foundation, 
 I dare say, for the dry, airy situation, and the 
 long lease will not be wanted." 
 
 " I do not see that the foundation will be 
 wanted more than the situation and the lease, 
 
130 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 for the foundation is not the house, but only 
 that on which the house stands." 
 
 " Very true ; but come ! I want to hear 
 you think aloud about it directly, for what I 
 say only hinders you." 
 
 " We may, perhaps, just say this much of 
 the foundation of the house of clay we inhabit, 
 that its ' foundation is in the dust/ and is 
 < crushed before the moth f and its lease is a 
 very short one, for < man that is born of a 
 woman is of few days, and fall of trouble. He 
 cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down : 
 he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth 
 not/ " 
 
 " Now, then, for the walls !" 
 
 " Not so fast. Let me go on my own way. 
 The account I shall give you is not my own, 
 it is taken from the book I have just read ; 
 but I shall give it you in my own words, and 
 add, every now and then, some of my own 
 remarks." 
 
 " Ay, that way will do very well." 
 
 " The house we live in has a cupola at the 
 top." 
 
 " The cupola is the head, I know." 
 
 " I might say a great deal about the tenant 
 that lives in the house, I mean the soul ; but 
 no, I will go on about the house itself. The 
 frame- work of it is the skeleton, or bone part, 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 131 
 
 and a capital frame-work it is ; and the pillars 
 are the legs." 
 
 " Well, what else ?" 
 
 " The windows, as I told you, are the eyes ; 
 and the doors are the mouth, the ears, and 
 the nostrils." 
 
 " Come, you have almost got to the top of 
 the house now." 
 
 " The covering of the house is the muscles 
 and skin, and the covering of the cupola is 
 the muscles, skin, and hair. I should have 
 told you that the hinges are the smaller joints, 
 for these move up and down, and backwards 
 and forwards." 
 
 " So they do, and very capital hinges they 
 are." 
 
 u The cupola is the head, and a noble cu- 
 pola it makes, just suited to the building, and 
 the apartments beneath it ; and now I come 
 to the furniture." 
 
 " Ay, what is the furniture ? I want to 
 know that more than the other." 
 
 " I can only describe a small part of it. In 
 the cupola are the teeth, the tongue, and the 
 brain; and the heart and lungs in the apart- 
 ments below. The house is, indeed, full of 
 furniture from top to bottom." 
 
 " Please to tell me what makes the heart 
 
132 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 beat so. I can feel mine quite plain, when I 
 put my hand against my side." 
 
 " If I knew that, Charles, I should know 
 more than any man in the world knows. Mr. 
 White says, that only God, who knows every 
 thing, knows what it is that makes the heart 
 beat. It is his almighty power that has 
 breathed the spirit of life in us, but what that 
 life is we cannot tell." 
 
 "But, really, does nobody in the world 
 know what it is that makes the heart move 
 up and down ?" 
 
 " The wisest men own that they know no- 
 thing about it. The use of the heart is to 
 circulate the blood through the frame ; and 
 the use of the lungs, which are like a pair of 
 bellows, is to breathe with, and to purify the 
 blood by circulating pure air all through the 
 body. Then there are the veins and arteries 
 to spread the blood to every part." 
 
 " Well, I never knew that, and I never 
 should have found it out by thinking." 
 
 " The use of the brain, among other things 
 is to enable us to think ; and the uses of the 
 tongue and the teeth you know as well as I 
 can tell you." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; most boys know the use of their 
 tongues and their teeth." 
 
 "Now consider, Charles, for a moment, 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 133 
 
 what wisdom and power are necessary to 
 form such a house as the human body, con- 
 sisting, as it does, of more than ten thousand 
 parts, and to keep it in repair ! And then 
 think of the millions of human beings which 
 are in the world, and the millions and millions 
 that have lived and died. What a wonderful 
 Being must he be who could do all this !" 
 
 " Yes ! there is nobody but God that could 
 do it. Millions and millions !" 
 
 " And think again of the millions without 
 number of animals, from the lofty giraffe to 
 the little mouse ; then of birds, from the harpy 
 eagle to the tiny wren ; of fishes, reptiles, and 
 insects, that are all alive at the same time, 
 living, breathing, eating, and drinking." 
 
 " There is no end to all these things, Hen- 
 ry !" 
 
 "Well, now, as I have told you a few 
 things about the house we live in, let me hear 
 you think aloud about it. Let me hear what 
 you think about the human figure." 
 
 " Let me see, there are the head, the body, 
 and the limbs, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, 
 tongue, heart, lungs, hips, legs, and feet. 
 Then come the uses : the head is to think with, 
 the eyes to see with, the nose to smell with, 
 the ears to hear with, the mouth to eat with, 
 and the tongue to talk with, and taste with. 
 12 
 
134 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 The heart is to circulate the blood; the lungs 
 to breathe with ; the hands to work with ; and 
 the legs and feet to walk with. And now for 
 its associations. The human figure puts me 
 in mind of young people and old people. 
 Some of the young people are at a Sunday 
 school, reading in their classes, or on their 
 knees at prayer; and some are at play, spin- 
 ning their tops." 
 
 " Very good !" 
 
 " Some of the old people are beggars, going 
 from door to door ; some are reading their 
 Bibles; others are walking, with sticks in 
 their hands, for fresh air on a summer's even- 
 ing." 
 
 " Well done, Charles \" 
 
 " I hardly know whether I can think of 
 any thing else. Oh, yes, there is this : if the 
 house we live in be so wonderful, how much 
 more wonderful God must be, who made 
 it!" 
 
 " A very good finish, indeed. It is a won- 
 derful thing, Charles, that the house we live 
 in, after being made with such wisdom and 
 care, should be allowed so soon to moulder 
 in the dust ; but, then, God can raise it again 
 more beautiful than it was before. Fare- 
 well!" 
 
 " Farewell, Henry, till to-morrow." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 135 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 F^^^^^HY, Charles, you are indeed 
 |j| v| \M^\ early. I did not expect you for 
 two or three hours." 
 
 " I dare say not, Henry; but 
 I am going out with my cousin 
 to-day, to see the ruins of an old abbey, and 
 so I want to make sure of my lesson about 
 learning to think, before I go." 
 
 " There is nothing like being in earnest in 
 a matter ; let us begin directly. I want to 
 convince you of the great advantage of think- 
 ing on a subject in a proper way : when we 
 know how to divide the subject of our thoughts 
 aright, we can understand it much more 
 clearly." 
 
 " I hardly understand you." 
 
 " I mean, that sometimes a subject which 
 is difficult as a whole, becomes very easy 
 when rightly divided. When we spoke of 
 the house we live in, you know, we divided 
 it into the lower story, the upper story, and 
 
136 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 the cupola, and that enabled us to describe it 
 much better than if we had spoken of it alto- 
 gether." 
 
 "Yes, so it did." 
 
 " Look at this piece of paper, it is covered 
 over with blots and dots, of different sizes, 
 all in confusion. Now, if you wished to 
 speak about these blots and dots to me, you 
 would not know one from another. If you 
 pointed to one blot, what would you call it, 
 so that we might both know it again ?" 
 
 " Oh, I would say, that blot in the middle 
 of the paper, or that dot at the top." 
 
 " But there are, you see, twenty dots and 
 blots in the middle ; and then, if the paper 
 happened to be turned the other way up- 
 wards, what is now the top would be the bot- 
 tom, so that you would be wrong altogether." 
 
 " Then I would say, the large blot, or the 
 little dot." 
 
 " That plan would not do at all, for I have 
 on purpose made many of the blots exactly 
 the same size as others, and the dots too." 
 
 " I should not know how to go about it at 
 all." 
 
 " A little thought will bring order out of 
 this confusion, so that you will be able to 
 talk about any single dot with as little diffi- 
 
 i 
 
* LEARNING TO THINK. 137 
 
 culty as if there were only a very few of 
 them on the paper." 
 
 " I would give a shilling, if I had it, rather 
 than not know how that can be done. If 
 learning to think will do that, it will do al- 
 most any thing." 
 
 " You shall see how easily it can be done. 
 First, I make a mark on that end of the paper 
 which is to be kept uppermost ; then, with my 
 ruler and pencil, I draw lines, say half an inch 
 from each other, all across the paper, and 
 cross them with other lines. See ! the paper 
 is now covered all over with squares. Now, 
 if I number the squares 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and so 
 on, till every square has a number, I can talk 
 about any blot or dot on the paper." 
 
 " You may talk about it, but how shall you 
 know one from another any better now than 
 you did before ?" 
 
 " Because I can say the blot in the middle 
 of number 3 square, or the dot at the bottom 
 of number 20 square, as the case may be ; 
 and if you had a piece of paper, blotted and 
 dotted, and squared and numbered, just like 
 it, we might write to each other about any 
 single blot or dot, if we were in different parts 
 of the world, and understand which it was, as 
 well as if we were together pointing toit with 
 our fingers." 
 
 12* 
 
138 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " That is famous, however ! I could not 
 have believed it. As soon as I get home I 
 will blot a piece of paper, and square, and 
 number it just in the same way, that I will/* 
 
 " And when you have done so, what good 
 will it do you ? To what use can you put 
 it?" 
 
 " Why, that I cannot tell." 
 
 " You must not suppose that I have blot- 
 ted and dotted this paper only to amuse you. 
 I did it that I might set you thinking, for by 
 this simple contrivance many useful things 
 have been done in the world." 
 
 "What, by drawing lines on a piece of 
 blotted paper ?" i 
 
 " Not that exactly ; but by the same prin- \ 
 ciple." 
 
 " If you had a large picture, and wished to 
 make a small one from it exact in every part, 
 you should draw lines across it, dividing it 
 into large squares, and make the sane num- \J(Sj 
 ber of squares on your drawing paper. Then, 
 by putting in the smali squares just what you 
 see in the large squares, you will have a cor/" 
 rect copy of your picture on a small scale." >*• 
 
 " So I should ; and I will try it, you may 
 depend upon it." 
 
 " If, instead of making squares on my blot- • 
 
 ted paper, I had drawn any other forms and 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 139 
 
 numbered them, it would have answered the 
 same purpose." 
 
 " I suppose it would." 
 
 '* Learned men, in this manner, have so 
 divided and classed the stars in the heavens, 
 that they can talk about any star they please 
 to each other, and be well understood, though 
 you know that hundreds of stars appear to 
 be of the same size." 
 
 " But they have not done this by drawing 
 lines across the skies ?" 
 
 " No ; but they looked at the stars, and 
 drew lines round them in their imagination^-- £5 
 forming one group of stars into the form ofa 
 bear, another into that of a ram, and so ohrv 
 Then, you know, they were able to say, the 
 largest star in the tail of the bear, or th^ "*x 
 smallest in the head of the ram. In this way, 
 by forming the stars into forms of some kind 
 or other, they were able, as I said, to talk 
 about any particular star. After that, they 
 drew these imaginary forms on paper, and on 
 globes, with the stars belonging to them, so 
 that by looking on the paper or the globes, 
 they might talk or write about the stars by 
 day as well as by night, just the same as if 
 they had the heavens spread out before 
 them." 
 
 " Well, that is clever. I see now why you 
 
140 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 blotted and dotted the paper; it lias made 
 the thing plain to me." 
 
 " The same principle has been made use of 
 with regard to the earth. Imaginary lines 
 have been drawn across it, called latitude, and 
 other lines across them, called longitude ; and 
 these lines being numbered, are great helps 
 to sailors, when they want to know what part 
 of the world they are in, when they are at 
 sea, a long way from land. The earth used 
 to be divided into four parts : it is now di- 
 vided into six. These six great parts are again 
 divided into lesser parts, such as countries, 
 kingdoms, counties, and parishes : and when 
 all these are drawn on paper, as you see them 
 in maps, we can describe in what part of the 
 world any place is situated ; and others, when 
 sitting by the fire-side with the map before 
 them, can understand where a place is, just as 
 well as if they were travelling over the very 
 places we were speaking of." 
 
 " I do want to be able to think, for think- 
 ing seems to tell one about every thing." 
 
 " Thinking clearly and properly is a great 
 help in gaining knowledge. Think, for a mo- 
 ment, what a number of trees and flowers 
 there must be in the world. Now, all of these 
 have been divided into classes, so that the mo- 
 ment a flower, or tree, with the blossom upon 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 141 
 
 it, is seen, it is known to what class it be- 
 longs." 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 " Yes ; and the same with the living crea- 
 tures of the earth. You would be surprised 
 if you knew how much knowledge a little 
 thinking gives a person. Now, listen sNjdp- 
 ment. Suppose a strange creature was found,-, 
 that nobody had ever seen before ; a thinking- 
 person would find out a great deal about itj 
 when another would find out nothing." 
 
 " What could he find out about it ?" 
 
 " Why, suppose the creature was covered 
 with feathers, and had large wings, like the 
 kite, a thinking person would directly con- 
 clude that the creature flew in the air ; but if 
 it had very small wings in proportion to its 
 body, like those of the ostrich, he would con- 
 clude that it could not fly, but that its wings 
 were only meant to assist it in its flight. If it 
 had webbed feet, he would know at once that 
 it was accustomed to swim on the water, like 
 the swan, the goose, or the duck. If it had 
 four feet with hoofs, like a horse, and no 
 feathers, and if it had no sharp tearing teeth, 
 but only cutting and grinding teeth, he 
 would conclude that it could not climb a tree, 
 not being able to lay hold of the branches ; 
 and that it fed on grass or leaves, because if 
 
142 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 it fed on living creatures it would have had 
 claws to lay hold of them, and sharp tearing 
 teeth to eat them with." 
 
 " These things I should never have thought 
 of." 
 
 " Then, if it had paws shaped like the hu- 
 man hand, with joints, he would conclude 
 that it was accustomed to climb trees, just as 
 the monkey does ; and if, instead of these, it 
 had strong, sharp claws, and sharp tearing 
 teeth, he would say, with confidence, that the 
 unknown creature lived, like the lion and 
 tiger, upon living creatures." 
 
 " You have set me thinking now, however ; 
 when I go home, I shall set about blotting, 
 dotting, squaring, and numbering a piece of 
 paper directly. Then I shall try to copy the 
 picture of a house and its windows on a little 
 bit of paper ; nor shall I forget how the stars 
 in the sky and the different parts of the earth 
 are divided. After that will come the trees 
 and flowers, and living creatures." 
 
 " Before you go, let me just try your powers 
 of thought, by asking you two or three simple 
 questions. If you heard of a strange creature 
 being found, and that its teeth were the size 
 of a walnut, should you know by that how 
 Dig it was ?" 
 
 " No 5 but I should say at once it was 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 143 
 
 a large creature ; because a little creature 
 would not have large teeth. It would eat so 
 little, that it would not want them." 
 
 " Very good. You have given me a very 
 good answer. But suppose the creature had 
 fins, should you know by that how it got 
 its living?" 
 
 " No, I could not tell that. But I should 
 know that it lived in the water ; because its 
 fins would be of no use to it any where else." 
 
 "Very good, again. And, lastly, if it had 
 a thick furry hide, could you tell whether it 
 inhabited a hot country or a cold one ?" 
 
 " I should think a cold one, and that the 
 thick fur was to keep it warm." 
 
 " Capital ! Once more, farewell !" 
 
 V 
 
 ji 
 
144 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 HAVE brought you my piece of 
 paper, Henry, blotted and dot- 
 ted, and divided into squares, that 
 you may see I have been think- 
 ing about what you told me." 
 " Yes, I see you have been very industri- 
 ously at work ; but where are the numbers 
 to your squares ?" 
 
 " Oh ! on the other side. I thought the 
 figures would be plainer there, than if put 
 among the blots and dots." 
 
 " So they are ; but, then, you have the 
 trouble to turn over the paper every time you 
 want to refer to them. Did you draw a house 
 on a small scale, from a larger one ?" 
 
 " Yes, here it is ! You see how small the 
 squares are on one paper, and how large on 
 the other." 
 
 " I see ! You have done it tolerably well, 
 but your house leans a great deal to one 
 side. Mr. White says, that almost all young 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 145 
 
 draughtsmen draw houses, and chimneys, and 
 trees, leaning to the right hand, and that, if 
 they would only try to lean them a little to 
 the left, most likely they would succeed in 
 drawing them upright." 
 
 " But why do they make them lean to the 
 right ?" 
 
 Mr. White thinks it is because they are 
 done with the right hand. If a boy were 
 left-handed, he thinks he would draw houses 
 leaning to the left. I saw a picture to-day 
 of a house being moved altogether from one 
 place to another." r 
 
 " How could they do that ? What a weight 
 it must be." V 
 
 " Yes 5 but very great weights may be used 
 with proper instruments. Machines of very 
 great power are now in use. After a while, 
 you must begin to think about the different 
 powers by which great weights are moved." 
 
 " Do you know anything about them ?" 
 
 " Not a great deal. I know that what are 
 called the six mechanical powers are the lever, 
 the pulley, the wheel and axle, the inclined 
 plane, the wedge, and the screw." 
 
 a I cannot think how you have contrived 
 to learn all these things. Please to tell me 
 what you know about the six powers." 
 
 " I can soon tell you the little that I know 
 13 
 
 / 
 
146 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 and if you will think about it, not only now, 
 but afterwards, it may lead you on to get a 
 great deal more knowledge than you sup- 
 pose." 
 
 " Now, then, for the six powers. The lever 
 comes first." 
 
 " Yes, the lever comes first. If you will 
 consider, Charles, you will see, at once, that a 
 working man is greatly helped in his em- 
 ployment by his tools. A man cannot scratch 
 up the ground with his fingers, that he may 
 sow seed, without great labour and pain, so 
 he uses a spade ; he cannot knock a nail, or 
 bore a hole in a piece of wood, with his hand, 
 so he makes use of a hammer and a gimlet ; 
 and as he cannot cut up a tree into boards 
 with his knife, he uses a saw. You see, then, 
 that he is greatly assisted in his work by the 
 spade, the hammer, the gimlet, and the saw." 
 
 " Yes ! I hardly know how he could go 
 on without them/'" 
 
 " In like manner, if man can find out a new 
 power, that is, a force, wherewith he can do 
 easily what he could not do before without 
 much trouble, it is of great use to him ; and 
 thus it is that, all over the world, men try to 
 make use of the powers they can find. When 
 a man puts a load on a horse's back which he 
 cannot carry himself, he makes use of the 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 147 
 
 power of the horse. When he employs a run- 
 ning stream to turn a wheel, he uses the power 
 of running water; and when he sets up the 
 sails of a ship, or of a windmill, he makes use 
 of the power of the wind." 
 
 " So he does. You make me think of things 
 so differently to what I used to do." 
 
 "The truth is, Charles, that, like most 
 young people, you never, perhaps, gave your- 
 self the trouble to think of them at all." 
 
 " I dare say that you are right, Henry ; but 
 you have told me nothing yet about the le- 
 ver." 
 
 "If you had a bank of sand to remove 
 from one place to another, though you could 
 not carry it away all at once, yet you might 
 remove it by a little at a time ; but if you 
 wished to take a heavy piece of timber, or a 
 huge stone, from one place to another, you 
 would be at a fault, because you could not, 
 as in the case of the sand, take it away by 
 degrees. It must all go together." 
 
 " Then I must get two, or three, strong 
 horses to pull it away." 
 
 " But it is not every one who has two or 
 three strong horses at his command; and, then, 
 if the tree or stone can be moved without 
 them, so much the better : the lever is the 
 very thing to do this." 
 
148 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 "Now you are coming to it !" 
 
 " A lever is a bar of any kind, either of iron 
 or wood, with a prop, or support, near the 
 end of it. See ! Here I place two books on 
 the table close together, and steady one of 
 them with my hand. Now, if I put the point 
 of my knife between the two books, it be- 
 comes a lever; for if I bear down the handle, 
 the blade, by resting against the book which 
 I hold steady, pushes away the other book. 
 The longer the handle of the knife, the easier 
 is the book pushed away. You have only to 
 suppose that the book pushed away is a tree, 
 or a large stone, and my knife a long bar of 
 iron or wood, to understand how a great 
 weight can be moved by a lever." 
 
 " That is very clever, and I must think it 
 over and over again." 
 
 " Yes, that is the way to improve in learn- 
 ing to think. When you dig in the garden 
 your spade is a lever, for when you press 
 down the handle one side of the spade rests 
 on the solid ground, and the other forces up 
 the earth. The longer the handle of the 
 spade, the easier is the earth forced up." 
 
 " Why, it was only yesterday that my spade 
 was broken ; and when I tried to dig with the 
 short broken handle, I could hardly force up 
 the ground at all." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 149 
 
 Ci That was the case, no doubt. When you 
 have learned to think a little more, and I my- 
 self am wiser than I am, we may, perhaps, 
 talk more about the lever. The second pow- 
 er is the pulley." 
 
 " Ay, the pulley 5 now for the pulley !' 
 
 " The pulley, as you know, is a wheel with 
 
 a groove, or hollow, round it ; this is fixed in 
 
 a block of wood. If a cord be passed over 
 
 the pulley, it enables a man to lift a weight 
 
 13* 
 
150 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 with much greater ease than he otherwise 
 could do ; and if he made use of several pul- 
 leys, a still greater weight might be lifted. 
 The greater the number of the pulleys, the 
 easier is the weight removed. " 
 
 " A pulley must be very useful indeed. 
 What is the next power ?" 
 
 " The wheel and axle ; and this power is 
 used in many machines. In large ware- 
 houses, or wharfs, we see it in the crane ; and 
 on board ship, we see it in the capstan and 
 windlass, for winding up the anchor or great 
 weights. The power it has is owing to the 
 wheel being larger than the axle ; and this is 
 like having a large leverage. You can raise 
 a bucket of water from a well with a wind- 
 lass easily, because the handle you turn round, 
 acts the part of a large wheel, or lever, while 
 the axle, round which the rope passes, is but 
 small ; but every power requires thought to 
 understand it." 
 
 " The wedge was the next. Oh no, the 
 inclined plane." 
 
 " An inclined plane is a gradual slope, 
 whether it be on the ground, or on a floor, or 
 on any other place, by which heavy bodies 
 may be raised." 
 
 " But how can a slope raise a heavy 
 weight ?" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 151 
 
 " I do not say that it can ; but it enables us 
 to do so. When you want to go up to bed, 
 if the stairs were removed, you could not 
 climb up the walls, for they would be too 
 steep for you." 
 
 " Yes, that they would." 
 
 " And if you were to put a ladder straight 
 up the staircase, you would find it rather dif- 
 ficult to go up ; but the stairs are an inclined 
 plane, though a steep one, and they enable 
 you to go up to bed without difficulty." 
 
 " Yes ; but I could not go up so steep an 
 inclined plane without the stairs, could I ?" 
 
 " No ; the stairs enable you to ascend a 
 steeper inclined plane than you could other- 
 wise go up. But consider, there is a chalk 
 hill just beyond the turnpike, the road at the 
 bottom of it is level with the floor of the turn- 
 pike house, while the road at the top of it is 
 much higher than the chimney. Now, this 
 road is an inclined plane, and horses draw up 
 heavily-laden wagons, which, were it steeper, 
 they could not draw up at all." 
 
 " I see the use of an inclined plane." 
 
 " The next power is the wedge, which is a 
 piece of wood or metal, thin on one side, and 
 Xhick on the other. If you place the edge, or 
 thin side, in a crack of a piece of timber, and 
 then strike the back, or thick side, repeatedly 
 
152 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 with a hammer, by little and little it will split 
 the timber." 
 
 " Aye, I have split up a chump of wood 
 myself in that way ; but I shall think a little 
 more about it now." 
 
 " By putting a number of wedges under a 
 ship lying on the stocks, and striking them, 
 the whole ship, weighing more than a thou- 
 sand tons, is gradually raised up. The last 
 power is that of the screw, and this, like the 
 wedge, acts very gradually. It has the ad- 
 vantage of both the inclined plane and the 
 lever, for the power that turns it may be cal- 
 led a lever, and the worm may be called an 
 inclined plane. The power of large screws is 
 wonderful." 
 
 * I only hope that I shall remember what 
 you have told me. We have had a very 
 good conversation, and if I do not learn to 
 think after all your kindness, I shall deserve 
 to be pointed at for my folly." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 LEASE, Henry, to teach me 
 how to think about the sea. I 
 have seen a picture of a ship- 
 wreck, and I want to be able to 
 think about the sea better than 
 I can now do." 
 
 " Well, that is very odd ! Why, it was on 
 the subject of the sea that Mr. White talked 
 to me for an hour yesterday." 
 
 "Oh, then, you can tell me every thing 
 about it." 
 
 "' There is something else that I want to 
 tell you first ; it is, that I am going to see my 
 
154 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 uncle Hammonds, so that I shall not be able 
 to help you in learning to think after to-night, 
 till I come back again." 
 
 " I am very sorry, indeed, to hear that. I 
 shall forget half of what I now remember." 
 
 " No, no ! That must not be the case, for 
 I have spoken to Mr. White about you, and 
 he says that, if you will go to him while I 
 am away, he will help you all in his power." 
 
 " Does he say so ? But I shall be afraid to 
 go. It will not be like talking with you." 
 
 "You have no reason to fear; for Mr. 
 White is as kind and as friendly as any one 
 you ever knew. Before you have spent half 
 an hour in his company you will be as much 
 at home with him as you are with me." 
 
 " Shall I ? Well, then, I will go to him ; 
 but I am very sorry you are leaving home." 
 
 " And now, what shall we say about the 
 sea. Shall I speak of its great length, and 
 breadth, and depth ; of its tides, and roaring 
 waves ; its islands, sands, coral rocks, and ice- 
 bergs ; or of its pearls, sea-weed, shells, and 
 fish : for Mr. White spoke to me about them 
 all ?" 
 
 " I should like to have heard him ; but 
 there will never be time to speak about them 
 all. How large is the sea ?" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 155 
 
 "In some parts it is thousands of miles 
 broad, and thousands of miles long." 
 
 " And how deep ?" 
 
 " That no one can tell, for the bottom of it 
 has never been found ; but a writer says, i that 
 the ocean would fill up to the very brim 
 twenty-two millions of cisterns, if every cis- 
 tern was a mile deep and a mile long/ Think, 
 Charles, what a strong thing a whale must 
 be, whose mouth is wide enough to take in a 
 boat, and yet ten thousand whales could not 
 stop the tide for a moment, when it comes 
 roaring along." 
 
 " If the whales are so strong, what a strong 
 thing the sea itself must be! Why the 
 strength of a whale must be nothing to it." 
 
 " Very true ! Mr. White says, that all 
 thinking people, when any object is set before 
 them that strikingly sets forth either the wis- 
 dom, the goodness, or the power of the Al- 
 mighty, feel inclined to pause. The ocean is 
 indeed strong. 
 
 " 'But what, if such be the strength of the sea, 
 Must the power of its mighty Maker be V " 
 
 " Aye, what, indeed !" 
 
 " Now, if you really want to think about 
 the sea, Charles, first remember that it is God's 
 sea. ' The sea is His, and he made it : and 
 his hands formed the dry land/ Psa. xcv, 5." 
 
156 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Yes, I ought not to forget that." 
 
 " Then think that it has been rolling back- 
 wards and forwards for thousands of years as 
 obediently as a little child, never so much as 
 once disobeying the commands of its Almighty 
 Maker." 
 
 "This is the way that I want to think 
 about the sea." 
 
 " Think next, that it is the great highway, 
 joining one country to another, so that those 
 who live the farthest apart may visit each 
 other in ships, and trade with one another." 
 
 " Do you say, the sea joins one country to 
 another? Why, I thought that it divided 
 them." 
 
 "Mr. White says it joins them; for if the 
 water were land, it would be inhabited by dif- 
 ferent people, who, by their different laws, 
 customs, languages, and wars, would separate 
 us from those distant countries which we now 
 are continually visiting." 
 
 "No doubt he is right. I shall try to 
 remember in future, that the sea, which I 
 thought divided countries far from each other, 
 really joins them all." 
 
 " Think, Charles, of the abundance of food 
 that the sea has supplied mankind with, in 
 turtle, turbot, salmon, codfish, herrings, lob- 
 sters, oysters, muscles, cockles, and a hundred 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 157 
 
 other kinds. Why, there are shoals of fish, 
 many miles in breadth, come swarming along 
 in different parts every season." 
 
 " I never heard of such a thing !" 
 
 " Well : Have you enough to think of 
 now, or shall I go on ?" 
 
 " You have given me enough to think of, 
 indeed ; and yet I want you to go on." 
 
 " Besides supplying us with food, it waters 
 and refreshes the earth at a distance from 
 it." 
 
 " How can it do that?" 
 
 " I will tell you, for Mr. White explained 
 it all to me. He said, that when the sun- 
 beams fell on the surface of the sea, it drew 
 up millions of hogsheads of water into the 
 air, though we could not see it ; by what is 
 called evaporation, the water becomes vapour; 
 and that the winds carried the steam over the 
 land, on which it fell, making it abundantly 
 fruitful." 
 
 " I never heard a word of this before, and 
 it quite astonishes me." 
 
 " When we are astonished at the wonders 
 of creation, we should never lose sight of His 
 almighty hand who performed them. Besides 
 all this, the sea provides us with an amazing 
 amount of salt, as well as with pearls, coral, 
 shells, sponge, and other articles, both of use 
 14 
 
158 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 and for ornament. Having said so much 
 about the sea, let me leave all its storms and 
 tempests, whirlpools and waterspouts, whales 
 and walruses, sharks and shipwrecks, and 
 listen awhile to your thoughts about it. You 
 have thought aloud very well on some other 
 subjects, now let me hear you think about the 
 sea." 
 
 " Well, I will do so as well as I can. The 
 sea is a very great pond, or space of water, in 
 which God has put large fish and small fish 
 for our use." 
 
 " Very good ! A very good beginning." 
 
 "It obeys God when it is rolling about, 
 roaring and raging, as much as it does when 
 it is still and quiet." 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " When we think about the sea, it should 
 tell us of God's goodness, and make us love 
 him ; and when we think of its roaring and 
 raging, it should tell us of his power, and 
 make us fear him." 
 
 " Come ! You have thought very well upon 
 the W&, and I hope you will not forget what 
 you have said. Go on learning to think, and 
 learning to think aright, and you will have 
 reason to be thankful for it all the days of 
 your life." 
 
 " How many things we have talked about 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 159 
 
 since you first stopped me bowling my hoop 
 along ! and how little did I think of your 
 teaching me, night after night, as you have 
 done ! I wish you were not going." 
 
 " Oh, the time will soon pass away, and 
 Mr. White can help you along faster than I 
 can." 
 
 a Thank you ! thank you ! Farewell ! for 
 I see that our time is quite up. A pleasant 
 journey to you." 
 
 " Farewell ! farewell ! Be sure that you go 
 to Mr. White in time, Charles, for he likes 
 people to be punctual/ 
 
 " Depend upon it, Henry, I will be with 
 him by six o'clock." 
 
160 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ELL, my young friend, you are 
 come ; I am very glad to see 
 you. Henry told me that you 
 would be sure to be here by 
 six o'clock." 
 " Thank you for being so kind as to let 
 me come. The last word that Henry said to 
 me was this : < Be sure that you go to Mr. 
 White in time, Charles, for he likes people to 
 be punctual. 5 " 
 
 "He is very punctual himself; and, to 
 speak the truth, has improved very fast ever 
 since he began to learn to think. He knows 
 ten times as much now, as he did before." 
 
 "He seems to me, sir, to know almost 
 every thing." 
 
 " He is certainly getting on to be a very 
 thoughtful boy; but we must not lose our 
 time in talking about him. Henry tells me 
 that you have already made some progress. 
 Do you think you could tell me why a peg- 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 161 
 
 top spins, a ball bounces, a humming-top 
 makes a noise, and a kite flies in the air ?" 
 
 " Oh ! Henry has told you all about these 
 things, I see." 
 
 " Could you think aloud, now, about a 
 knife, a piece of flint, a bullet, and a bit of 
 cork ? Or of food, clothing, fire, a pipe, a pin, 
 loaf sugar, alum, and a mahogany table ?" 
 
 " Why, sir, you know all that Henry has 
 talked about to me !" 
 
 "Well, I believe that is pretty near the 
 truth, for he has always told me what has 
 passed between you, and asked me how he 
 should go on with you. Do you remember 
 what he told you about a chair, a wheelbar- 
 row, and an umbrella ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, very well ; and about the steam- 
 engine, safety-lamp, microscope, telescope, 
 telegraph, a ship, and the mariner's compass." 
 
 "Well, your time has not been thrown 
 away. He asked you, I think, a great many 
 questions, that you might use your wits and 
 look sharp about you. I dare say that you 
 know now, very well, which is heavier, a 
 pound of lead, or a pound of feathers." 
 
 " 1 know that there is not the least differ- 
 ence in the world between them ; but it puz- 
 zled me when Henry first asked me." 
 
 " Did you ever make any inquiry of him 
 
162 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 about such things as a squirt, a pipe, and a 
 weather-house ?" 
 
 " Yes ! About all of them ; and he ex- 
 plained to me how it was that the sun put 
 out the fire ; and made it quite clear that the 
 earth was round/' 
 
 "Did Henry ever tell you that thoughts 
 grow ; and talk to you about flowers ?" 
 
 "Yes, he did; and I was quite surprised 
 at what he said." 
 
 "And he was a little surprised at what 
 you said, when you thought aloud about 
 birds ?" 
 
 "If he had not put me in the way, I 
 should never have been able to say any thing 
 about them." 
 
 " You know, I believe, that there are dif- 
 ferent ways of doing things, and that we 
 ought never to think lightly of those who 
 adopt a different mode to our own." 
 
 " Yes ; Henry explained all that to me, 
 and showed me how foolish I was in my 
 thoughts when I pretended to build a house ; 
 and spoke a great deal about < the house we 
 live in/ that is, the human body." 
 
 " Some of his questions were very curious, 
 when he tried to sharpen your wits by com- 
 pelling you to think. He sadly puzzled 
 you." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 163 
 
 " Yes ; but I should be able to answer a 
 little better now." 
 
 " Which do you think is the best way of 
 conquering an ill-natured, spiteful school- 
 fellow ?" 
 
 " I would threaten to tell his master of him 
 if he did not act better." 
 
 " There is a better way than that." 
 
 " Perhaps you would give him a good 
 beating." 
 
 6 No, for that would most likely make him 
 worse ; to do him a deed of kindness would 
 be the best way, in my opinion. When I 
 was at school, I had a sad spiteful school- 
 fellow, and I hated him with all my heart ; 
 but this was wrong. I then altered my course, 
 and prayed for him ; and one day, when he 
 was sadly distressed, not being able to do his 
 sums, I took an opportunity of telling him 
 how to do them : he never acted spitefully to 
 me again." 
 
 u Well, that plan answered very well." 
 
 " And no wonder at all ; for it was in agree- 
 ment with God's word, which says, < Love 
 your enemies, bless them that curse you, 
 do good to them that hate you, and pray for 
 them which despitefully use you, and perse- 
 cute you," Matt. v. 44. 
 
 " Before Henry left home, he told me, i You 
 
164 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 need not be at all afraid of Mr. White, for he 
 is so kind and friendly, that, before you have 
 been with him half an hour, you will feel as 
 much at home with him as you do with me !" 
 
 " And you find it so, do you ?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed I do." 
 
 " Well, I am glad of that ; for, to tell you 
 the truth, I have been talking in Henry's 
 way, that you might feel quite at home with 
 me. It will give me great pleasure, in his 
 absence, to help you in learning to think ; but, 
 after all, your success will depend chiefly on 
 yourself. Let it be your constant aim to think 
 reverently of God, and kindly of your fellow 
 creatures, and to exercise judgment in all 
 things left to your decision. You have made 
 a short visit to me to-day ; the next time you 
 will, perhaps, stop longer." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 165 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 H, here you are, Charles ! Now, 
 without losing a moment, let me 
 see if I can do something in the 
 way of improving your judg- 
 ment." 
 
 " Henry told me that by learning to think 
 my judgment would be improved." 
 
 " It is not thinking much, but thinking 
 wisely, that increases judgment. Now, listen 
 to me. Good and evil, right and wrong, and 
 truth and falsehood are so mingled together 
 in the world, that without a sound judgment 
 we are always liable to be in error. If things 
 were all black or white, it would require no 
 care to distinguish them ; but when they are 
 of all grades and shades of colour, much care 
 is required. Do you understand me ?" 
 " Yes, I think I do." 
 
 " Now, mind that you are on your guard 
 in listening to a little tale that I will tell you. 
 I shall soon perceive if you have any judg- 
 
166 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 ment. A poor bald-headed old man, who did 
 not know his letters, set off by himself to a 
 distant common, a long way from any houses, 
 to set up a school there. He had but five hun- 
 dred dollars in his pocket, and — " 
 
 " Five hundred dollars ! Why, you said he 
 was a poor man. How could a poor man 
 have five hundred dollars?" 
 
 " Very true, Charles. I see that you are 
 thinking, and that you are not without judg- 
 ment. Let us suppose there is some mistake 
 about his having five hundred dollars ; let us 
 suppose he had no money. Well, on went 
 the poor old man, his gray hair blown about 
 by the winds — " 
 
 " Gray hair ! You said he was bald- 
 headed." 
 
 " Did I ? Then I suppose there must be a 
 mistake in his having gray hairs. No sooner 
 did he reach the common than he called at 
 one of the cottages — " 
 
 " At one of the cottages ! How could he 
 do that, when the common was a long way 
 from any houses ?" 
 
 " Did I say so ? Then there must be a 
 mistake about his calling at a cottage. Well, 
 he set to work to build his school, and — " 
 
 " How could he begin to build a school, if 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 167 
 
 he had no money, and was alone on a com- 
 mon ?" 
 
 " Did I say he was by himself? Then there 
 must be some mistake about his building a 
 school. 7 ' 
 
 " It seems to me to be nothing but mis- 
 takes, for, if he could have built a school, 
 where would he have gone for his scholars, 
 when there were no houses there ?." 
 
 " You are right, Charles. I filled my tale 
 with mistakes on purpose to see if you had 
 judgment enough to find them out, and I am 
 pleased that you have discovered them. Be- 
 fore we know how to judge right in any case 
 we must see it in its different bearings. Two 
 knights are said to have fought a battle toge- 
 ther, in ancient times, about a shield ; looking 
 on one side of it, one of them declared it was 
 of gold, while the other, looking on the other 
 side of it, would have it that it was made of 
 silver. Now, had they prudently examined 
 the shield on both sides, instead of fighting 
 about it, they would have discovered that one 
 side of it was silver, and the other gold." 
 
 " They had not much judgment, however. 
 They had never learned to think." 
 
 " When a witness is called into a court of 
 justice he is sworn to speak the truth, the 
 whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; and 
 
1GS LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 I will show you how differently a case may 
 be represented. If I were to tell you that a 
 poor lad, the son of an honest day-labourer, 
 went into a shop, and asked the old woman 
 who kept it to change him a sixpence, and 
 that, after giving him the change, she called 
 him all manner of names, you would think 
 the woman was an ugly old crosspatch, and 
 the poor lad an ill-used person." 
 
 " Yes, that I should." 
 
 " Now this, remember, is a case wherein 
 the truth is spoken, but not the whole truth. 
 A person of judgment, thinking upon this 
 matter, says to himself, if the lad had done 
 nothing more than what has been reported, 
 why should the old lady be bitter against 
 him ? He, therefore, prudently makes further 
 inquiry, when he discovers that the sixpence 
 which the boy changed was a bad one. This 
 alters the case at once ; and now, instead of 
 pitying the boy, and feeling angry at the old 
 woman, we pity the latter, and agree that the 
 lad deserves a good flogging." 
 
 " So we do. I was wrong, certainly." 
 
 " But suppose a witness comes forward in 
 the boy's favour, saying, that though the boy 
 did offer a bad sixpence, he did not know it 
 to be a bad one, and that his father sent him 
 with it to get it changed." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 169 
 
 " Then I should say that, after all, the poor 
 lad was ill used, and that the old woman was 
 too hard upon him." 
 
 " It might be concluded so at once by a 
 thoughtless person, but a prudent one would 
 not be so easily satisfied. What should you 
 think, if you went straight to the boy's father, 
 who not only denied having given his son the 
 sixpence, but declared that he had already 
 given him two separate floggings for doing 
 the same dishonest thing." 
 
 " I never knew the like ! Why the lad 
 was a cheat and a thief, after all." 
 
 "You have here an instance wherein, 
 though a case is represented in different ways, 
 judgment is enabled to discover the truth. 
 If we were to have you in the jury-box, be- 
 fore you had learned to think more, the inno- 
 cent would most likely be condemned, and 
 the guilty go free. A little deliberation is ne- 
 cessary for us all, if we would act prudently. 
 One night, when taking my walk, I some- 
 what suddenly began to run, when instantly 
 a man followed me as hard as he could scam- 
 per, crying out, f Stop thief! stop thief V I 
 stopped, and the man came up, out of breath, 
 and asked me if I had seen him? 'Seen 
 whom V said I. ' Why, the thief/ replied he ; 
 ' he ran this way like a shot.' I then told 
 15 
 
170 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 him that I was the person he mistook for the 
 thief, and should be obliged to him if he 
 would tell me what I had stolen. This made 
 him, no doubt, feel very foolish in having 
 been so hasty in his judgment, for he slunk 
 away directly." 
 
 a He was hasty, indeed." 
 
 " I once heard of a culprit being brought 
 before a magistrate for stealing a spade. ' I 
 can bring two witnesses that saw him take it,' 
 said the man who appeared against him. 
 'And 1/ observed the culprit, 'can bring 
 twenty witnesses, your worship, who did not 
 see me take it.' c Set the man at liberty/ said 
 the magistrate, ' for it is ten to one in his fa- 
 vour.' Now, what say you, Charles, was the 
 magistrate right or wrong ?" 
 
 " Well, I hardly know." 
 
 " Hardly know ! Why, do you not see 
 that the culprit had twenty witnesses, while 
 the other had but two ?" 
 
 " I suppose the magistrate was right, then." 
 
 a And I suppose he was altogether wrong. 
 Why, the twenty witnesses who did not see 
 the culprit take the spade might have been a 
 mile from the place when the spade was 
 stolen. Now, be a little more on your guard. 
 What should you say, if after hearing a shriek 
 you ran to the spot, and saw one man lying 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 171 
 
 on the ground, and another running away 
 with a bloody knife in his hand ?" 
 
 " What would I say ? I would cry after 
 the runner, ' Stop him ! stop him !' and, if he 
 was overtaken, I would have him, if I could, 
 dragged to prison, or before a magistrate, di- 
 rectly, as a murderer." 
 
 " So I thought ; but, in so doing, you might 
 be as much out of order as the man who ran 
 after me." 
 
 " What ! when I saw one lie dead, and the 
 other running off with a knife in his hand ?" 
 
 " There would be enough, certainly, to 
 make you think a murder had been commit- 
 ted 5 but, in such a case, it would be wise, be- 
 fore hurrying him off to prison, to hear what 
 he had to say for himself." 
 
 " Why, what could he have to say for him- 
 self? Not a word, for he would know him- 
 self to be guilty." 
 
 " He might say this : that he was by trade 
 a butcher, and that, as he was killing a sheep, 
 he heard a. cry ; lifting up his head, he saw a 
 gentleman stagger and fall ; hastening to him 
 he found him in a fit, and, therefore, without 
 stopping to lay down his knife, he ran off 
 towards his own house, which was at a little 
 distance, for a glass of water. Every word 
 of this might be true ; and, on examining the 
 
172 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 man on the ground, you would find that 
 there was no wound ; and thus, instead of 
 feeling anger against him, and hurrying him 
 off to prison, or before a magistrate, as a mur- 
 derer, you ought rather to admire him for his 
 humanity." 
 
 " Who could have thought it possible ? I 
 never shall, I am afraid, learn to think pro- 
 perly." 
 
 " Oh, never fear ! You are, however, sadly 
 too hasty. You must, as I say, look at a 
 thing in all its bearings, to ascertain the 
 truth." 
 
 " When you point out my error to me, I 
 can see it, but, the worst of it is, I cannot see 
 it when left to myself." 
 
 " ' Rome was not built in a day/ and you 
 have not begun to think long. There are so 
 many cases in which judgment has to decide 
 on the character and lives of others, that every 
 one ought to try anxiously to attain it. To 
 set a rogue at liberty would be a bad thing, 
 but oh, how sad, through want of thought 
 and judgment, to be the means of depriving 
 a fellow-creature of liberty or life !" 
 
 " Yes, that would be very sad." 
 
 " Now, remember the few following hints. 
 If your judgment is ever required about any 
 thing, first take pains clearly to understand 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. .173 
 
 the case, whether it be a trifle, or an affair of 
 importance. Then pause a little, to consider 
 whether what you have heard agrees with 
 itself. When I told you of the poor man 
 having five hundred dollars, you found out 
 that his poverty and his money did not agree. 
 Next consider whether you want more infor- 
 mation to enable you to decide, or whether 
 you have not already more than the truth. 
 Then take into your thoughts the particular 
 circumstances of the case, for a man will do 
 that when in anger, in distress, or temptation, 
 which he would not do at other times. Any 
 one attending to these points, would be sure 
 to increase in judgment." 
 
 " I am sure that my judgment ought to 
 improve, with all the pains you take with 
 me." 
 
 " I must now say farewell ! The three 
 great points necessary to observe, in increas- 
 ing your judgment, may be given you in three 
 words : pause, inquire, and consider" 
 
 15 
 
174 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 I HAT is right, Charles. I am 
 glad you are come, for I am now 
 just ready for you. You seem a 
 little out of breath, have you 
 been running?" 
 " Yes, sir, I had a good run, for I was afraid 
 of being late." 
 
 " Well, now for a little serious conversation. 
 Learning to think is an excellent thing in a 
 hundred ways, for it defends us from many 
 evils, and secures to us many advantages. 
 But what would be your opinion of a boy 
 who was very thoughtful about his mornings, 
 but never thought at all about his after- 
 noons ?" 
 
 " I should think him very silly. We have 
 as much reason to think in an afternoon as in 
 a morning." 
 
 " But if he thought a great deal about the 
 beginning of the day, is it necessary that he 
 should think as much about the end of it ?" 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 175 
 
 " Every bit as necessary. Why, something 
 might happen in an afternoon that required 
 more thought than what happened in the 
 morning." 
 
 11 1 am glad that you see this so clearly, be- 
 cause now you will admit that we ought to 
 think about the end of life, as well as of the 
 beginning." 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " And the more especially because some- 
 thing will happen at the end of life that re- 
 quires more thought than any other thing that 
 can happen at the beginning. I mean death, 
 If it is certain that we must die, and do not 
 know when, ought we not to think of death 
 every day of our lives ?" 
 
 u I think we should." 
 
 " I dare say that in your play you some- 
 times blow bubbles with soap and water." 
 
 " Yes, I have done that many a time." 
 
 " Well ! which do you value most, one of 
 the glittering bubbles you blow, that look so 
 bright, or your humming-top ?" 
 
 " Why, my humming-top ten times over : 
 I would not give up my humming-top for a 
 hundred bubbles of soap and water." 
 
 " No ! Why not ?" 
 
 u Because the bubble does not last a minute. 
 The humming-top will serve me a very long 
 
176 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 time ; but the bubble bursts while I am look- 
 ing at it." 
 
 " What you say is true ; and now as you 
 are learning to think, if in your mere play- 
 things, you value more what is lasting than 
 what is passing away, you must learn to ap- 
 ply the same reasoning to time and eternity. 
 This life is very short, the life to come is very 
 long ; you ought, then, according to your own 
 showing, to value the life to come a hundred 
 times more than the life that now is." 
 
 " I certainly ought to do so." 
 
 " The more you think of this, the more you 
 will be convinced of its truth. 
 
 'The bubble of life a breath may sever. 
 But the precious soul will last for ever.' w 
 
 " Old people ought to think a great deal 
 about death." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 " Because they are sure to die soon, and, 
 therefore, they ought to think about it." 
 
 " And are not young people liable to die 
 soon, also ? Some of them will doubtless live 
 to old age ; but for every aged person that is 
 carried to the grave, many younger people 
 die." 
 
 " Indeed !" 
 
 " What I say is quite true, and the more 
 we think of death, the more likely are we to 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 177 
 
 act well throughout our lives. Who would 
 like to die thinking a bad thought, speaking 
 a bad word, or doing a bad action?" 
 
 " Nobody would like that." 
 
 " And yet none of us know when we shall 
 die, so that unless we think on death, we may 
 be taken by surprise in an unguarded mo- 
 ment. Tell me, Charles, what have been 
 your own thoughts about death?" 
 
 " I have always tried to put death away by 
 not thinking about it." 
 
 " They say that the ostrich of the desert, 
 when hunted, hides her head in the sand, 
 supposing that because she cannot see the 
 hunters, the hunters cannot see her." 
 
 "What a foolish bird!" 
 
 " But do you think the bird more foolish 
 than he who imagines that he can put off 
 death, merely by putting away the thought 
 of it?" 
 
 " Perhaps not,but death is so very gloomy." 
 
 " We make it so, Charles, when we see not 
 the life that is beyond it. A good man says, 
 ' Death has nothing terrible in it, but what 
 our life hath made so/ Is it not wiser, think 
 you, to lessen our fears of death, by preparing 
 for it, than to increase our terrors by living 
 thoughtless lives ?" 
 
 " I think it is." 
 
178 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 "We are talking on a serious subject 
 Charles ; but learning to think will be of little 
 use to us, unless it enable us to learn to die. 
 I wanted to speak with you on this point, not 
 to put a shadow on your brow, but rather to 
 put sunshine in your heart." 
 
 " You are very kind to talk to me as vou 
 do." 
 
 * Why, it would be very unkind if I did 
 not do so. I love to see you happy, but then 
 I wish you to be happy for time and eternity. 
 Suppose you were enjoying a day's pleasure, 
 but had to cross a deep river at night, on 
 your return home. Would it be acting the 
 kinder part, to keep you laughing all the day 
 long, or to say, Charles, you are very happy, 
 but you will be not the less so, if you see 
 after a boat to bear you over the water at 
 night?" 
 
 " Oh, it would be very unkind indeed, to let 
 night come on without reminding me of the 
 boat, if I had forgotten it. Night would be 
 the worst time in the world to run about 
 after a boat." 
 
 " Well, then, as we have all to cross the 
 river of death, we all ought to remind one 
 another to make preparation. God's holy 
 word calls upon us continually. ' The time 
 is short/ 1 Cor. vii. 29. ' We all do fade as a 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 179 
 
 leaf/ Isa. lxiv. 6. ' Dust thou art, and unto 
 dust shall thou return/ Gen. iii. 19. 6 Watch, 
 therefore : for ye know not what hour your 
 Lord doth come/ Matt. xxiv. 42, are texts 
 of Scripture ; and there are hundreds such, 
 that we ought to regard." 
 
 " I must think a little more about death." 
 " God's word points out, too, a great dif- 
 ference between the death of different peo- 
 ple. i Mark the perfect man, and behold the 
 upright : for the end of that man is peace.' 
 
ISO LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 Psa. xxxvii. 37. ' The wicked is driven away 
 in his wickedness : but the righteous hath hope 
 in his death/ Prov. xiv. 32. To learn to 
 think of all the things in the world, and not 
 to think of death, would be a terrible mis- 
 take." 
 
 "But it is so gloomy to think about the 
 grave. I remember seeing my uncle before 
 he died : I saw the doctor come and feel his 
 pulse, while he held his watch in his hand : I 
 always feel sad when I think of it." 
 
 " 'If the grave affright thee/ says one/ learn 
 to look beyond it.' It is sin, Charles, that 
 makes death terrible ; but God can pardon sin, 
 and take away the fear of death." 
 
 " I should like not to be afraid of death." 
 
 " Do you think the caterpillar has any 
 reason to fear death ? Why it only changes 
 him into a butterfly, giving him wings to fly 
 with and be happy." 
 
 " I should not fear death, if it would do for 
 me what it does for the butterfly." 
 
 " But, my dear Charles, if you have a friend 
 in the Saviour of sinners, death will do a 
 thousand times more for you than it does for 
 the caterpillar. We will speak a little more 
 of this the next time we meet, what I now 
 want you to think of is, the necessity of both 
 young and old preparing for death. I have 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 1S1 
 
 a book here that, in one part of it, sets forth 
 the subject in so plain a way, that you will 
 be sure to understand it.?' 
 
 " Please to read that part to me." 
 
 " A certain traveller, who had a distance to 
 go — one part of his road leading through 
 green fields, and the other through a tangled 
 road of brambles and thorns — made great pre- 
 parations for the first part of his journey. 
 
 "He dressed himself in light and gay clothes, 
 and put a cake in his pocket; he stuck a 
 nosegay in his bosom, and taking a light slen- 
 der cane in his hand, nimbly proceeded on his 
 way along the beaten path across the green 
 meadows. The sun shone in the skies, and 
 on went the traveller comfortably, pleasantly 
 and delightfully. 
 
 ' After a while, the road became rugged, 
 and by the time night drew on, the traveller 
 was in a pitiable plight. His provisions were 
 exhausted; his clothes wet through, and 
 partly torn from his back by the briers ; his 
 flowers were faded ; and weary as he was, his 
 slender cane would not bear his weight : a 
 stream of water was before him, and darkness 
 around him. 
 
 " < Alas V said he, smiting his breast, € I am 
 hungry, and have no food; wet to the skin, 
 and have no dry clothes ; weary? and no staff 
 16 
 
182 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 to rest on ; I have a stream to cross, and here 
 is no boat; I am bewildered, and have no 
 guide ; it is dark, and I have no lantern. Foo' 
 that I am ! why did I not provide for the end 
 of my journey as well as for the beginning V 
 
 "Now, Charles, time is hastening away, 
 and we are all travellers ! Life is the begin- 
 ning, death the end of our journey. If we 
 have made preparation for both, happy are 
 we ; but if otherwise, we resemble the foolish 
 traveller." 
 
 " I am a foolish traveller, that is certain, 
 but what you have said will make me think 
 about death ; the caterpillar and the foolish 
 traveller will be uppermost in my thoughts." 
 
 " Come again on Wednesday, and we will 
 say something more about crossing the river." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 183 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 OME in, Charles ; better be a 
 great deal before time than a lit- 
 tle after it. I am glad to see you 
 so ready to come. Whenever 
 you make an appointment, ne- 
 ver be behindhand, if it is possible to avoid 
 it." 
 
 " I ought to be in time, sir, when you take 
 the trouble to teach me." 
 
 " Punctuality produces order, the want of it 
 causes confusion. I once heard of a man 
 who called on a prime minister to be put into 
 some office ; he was five minutes behind the 
 time appointed. i The office was disposed of/ 
 said the minister, ' five minutes ago.' " 
 
 " And did he lose the place, sir, because he 
 was five minutes too late ?" 
 
 " He did ; and if you put the circumstance 
 down in your memory, it will do you no 
 harm." 
 
 " If ever I have to call on a prime minister, 
 
184 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 1 will take care not to be five minutes too 
 late." 
 
 " The prime minister will not want to see 
 you on such an occasion just at present. You 
 must learn to think a little more first, but it 
 is very well to be prepared. To make a good 
 resolution is a good thing, to keep it is a bet- 
 ter. I was rather afraid of having tired you 
 the last' evening we were together. We were 
 speaking on a very grave subject 5 but your 
 coming early seems to say that you are not 
 displeased with me." 
 
 " You are too kind for me to be displeased. 
 I have thought a great deal of what you said 
 about the caterpillar, and the traveller, and 
 about its being sin that made death terrible." 
 
 " I am glad to hear that. To see my young 
 friends cheerful is a very pleasant thing, 
 but then they should not forget that they 
 are not to remain in this world for ever. Have 
 you been much in the hq,bit of reading your 
 Bible, Charles ?" 
 
 " Not a great deal ; but I have read about 
 Joseph and his brethren ; and king Pharaoh 
 and his people being swallowed up in the sea ; 
 and of Samson rending a lion ; and about the 
 golden image ; and about Christ, and his 
 apostles, in the New Testament." 
 
 •" After a while I hope you will read it more, 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 185 
 
 not so much for the interesting histories it 
 contains, as to mark the dealings of God to- 
 wards his chosen people, and to ponder on the 
 way of salvation it sets forth before sinners." 
 
 " I must read it more than I have done, 
 and think more about it ; indeed, at present, 
 I have hardly thought about it at all." 
 
 " That is the case with hundreds and hun- 
 
 dreds, who, though they read it from time to 
 time, take it up and lay it down as though 
 they have no interest in its contents. Shall 
 I read a few striking remarks about it from 
 a book I have here, which appear to sum up, 
 in a few words, a great part of its contents ?" 
 " Do, if you please." 
 
 16* 
 
186 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 u The account is very short, it begins thus 
 ' The Bible tells us all that we know of God, 
 as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; all we 
 know of heaven as a place of joy, and of hell 
 as a place of torment.' " 
 
 " If no other book besides the Bible tells 
 us these things, we ought to read it indeed." 
 
 " < The Bible is the only book that tells us 
 of the beginning and the end. It is the only 
 book that makes known to us our creation 
 and redemption. No other book is the word 
 of God. The Bible excites us to kindness, 
 zeal, holiness, and happiness : it upholds all 
 that is virtuous and good, and condemns 
 every thing that is sinful in thought, in word, 
 and in deed. The Bible tells us that all men 
 have sinned, and come short of the glory of 
 God ; and that the wicked shall be cast into 
 hell, and all the nations that forget God. It 
 tells us that God has found a ransom : that 
 Jesus Christ, his Son, died upon the cross for 
 sinners ; and that all who believe in him shall 
 not perish, but have everlasting life.' Of all 
 subjects most worth knowing, this is what 
 every one in the world should know. All who 
 believe the Bible, and live a life of faith in 
 the Son of God, have the promise not only 
 of this life, but of that which is to come. And 
 those who disbelieve the Bible, despise the 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 187 
 
 hope of salvation in a crucified Redeemer, 
 and lead a life of ungodliness, have in this 
 world a life without peace, and a fearful look- 
 ing for of eternal judgment in the next/ I 
 hope that your friend Henry thinks much of 
 these things; but he told me, that he had 
 rather I would talk to you about them before 
 he did." 
 
 " I dare say he thought you knew them 
 better than he did, that was the reason." 
 
 " Very likely it was ; but it may do you 
 both good to talk of them together. ' Those 
 who reverence, love, and practise the precepts 
 of the Bible, will find the book a blessing 5 
 while those who deride, hate, and disobey its 
 precepts, will bring on themselves the heaviest 
 condemnation/ " 
 
 " ■ The word of God has both warnings and 
 encouragements, and it invites even little 
 children to come to the Saviour. We all love 
 glad tidings, but what tidings are there in the 
 whole world of so joyous a kind, seeing that 
 we all are sinners, as the glad tidings of the 
 gospel, " God so loved the world, that he gave 
 his only begotten Son, that whosoever believ- 
 eth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life," John hi. 16/ This is a truth that 
 should sink deep into every heart. I said, if 
 you remember, that we were all travellers." 
 
188 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Yes, you did ; and you spoke of the tra- 
 veller who set off without being provided for 
 his journey." 
 
 ? Every one, too, who is journeying for- 
 wards to heaven is also a pilgrim. In this 
 journey, there are three very important points 
 to which we should attend. The first is the 
 setting off, and this should be done in youth. 
 < Remember now thy Creator in the days of 
 thy youth/ Eccles. xii. 1. The next is, hav- 
 ing set off, to hold on our way without loi- 
 tering, or drawing back. ' No man, having- 
 put his hand to the plough, and looking back, 
 is fit for the kingdom of God/ Luke ix. 62. 
 The last is, to finish our course with joy, for 
 then we shall find the end to be eternal life. 
 Do you think you shall remember any part of 
 this conversation ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! a great deal of it." 
 
 " It would have been a sad reflection on 
 me, if, :n helping you to learn to think, I had 
 neglected to speak to you of the way of sal- 
 vation, the subject of all others the most 
 important for us to think upon I trust 
 that, by God's mercy, you and Henry will 
 mourn for sin, pray against sin, hate sin, and 
 forsake sin ; and that you will believe in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, love him, obey him, and 
 praise him. So long as you do this, your 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 189 
 
 learning to think will be turned to good ac- 
 count. I suppose, Charles, that you never 
 had such a serious conversation before." 
 
 " Never in my life. I have been told that 
 the Bible is the best of books, but I have 
 never been talked to in this way before." 
 
 " Here are two or three little books. Put 
 them in your pocket. You will find them in- 
 teresting, and all of them say something about 
 the Saviour, and the only way of salvation ; 
 namely, through faith in Him who died on 
 the cross, the just for the unjust." 
 
 " Thank you, sir. They are pretty books, 
 indeed. Every one has a picture." 
 
 a Yes the pictures are meant to catch the 
 eye, but the printed part is to catch the heart. 
 There was a time when such little books 
 could not be had for love or money, but now 
 they are scattered about the country by thou- 
 sands. A book is one of those things from 
 which every thinking reader may take some- 
 thing away, without leaving the less behind." 
 
 " So it is ; how strange !" 
 
 "That will do for you to think upon. 
 Suppose you try to puzzle Henry with the 
 question, and put it in this shape : the ans- 
 wer will be, you know, the contents of a 
 book : — 
 
190 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 I have what seems, as I may say, 
 
 A wonder to the mind, 
 For you may take it all away, 
 A dozen times, or more, a day, 
 
 Yet leave it all behind." 
 
 "Yes, that will do capitally. It will be 
 sure to puzzle him ; and yet, I hardly know, 
 for he thinks, and thinks, till he finds out 
 most things." 
 
 " Well ! if he should find it out, ask him 
 another question. I have one here that I 
 have puzzled at for years, and have not found 
 out yet. It is this, and if you and Henry 
 puzzle at it for an hour, it will not be an hour 
 thrown away : — 
 
 How should the young attempt to know 
 
 Betimes the Saviour's love ? 
 How can they best serve man below, 
 
 And praise the Lord above ? 
 
 " The best answer that I can find is in the 
 119th Psalm, and the latter part of the 9th 
 verse ; but try if you and Henry can find out 
 a better." 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 191 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ELL, Charles, this will be our 
 last evening, for Henry is ex- 
 pected home to-morrow. I 
 must now see what progress 
 you have made in learning to 
 think." 
 
 " You will call me a very dull learner ; but, 
 by and by, I may get on better. Such a 
 comical thing happened to me last night. 
 When I went up stairs to bed, I heard a noise 
 among some boxes which had been piled up 
 one upon another. Every time I walked 
 across the room, the noise came. It was just 
 like a mouse gnawing wood." 
 
 " And very likely it was a mouse gnawing 
 itself a hole through the floor." 
 
 " I stood still a minute to consider. Now, 
 thought I, if Mr. White and Henry were 
 here, they would be sure to find it out, so I 
 determined to do the same." 
 " And how did you proceed ?" 
 
192 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " On walking across the room, I found that 
 the noise did not come till I set my foot on a 
 creaking board. Then I tried it over and 
 over again, till I traced the noise to the top- 
 most box. ' Oh, oh ! ? thought 1, 6 now I have 
 got you, Mr. Mouse/ So I suddenly lifted 
 up the lid, but there was neither mouse nor 
 any thing else to be seen." 
 
 " Then what did you do next ?" 
 " Why, I said to myself, neither Mr. White 
 nor Henry would give it up, so I will find it 
 out yet. When the box was opened, it never 
 made the least noise, though I set my foot on 
 the creaking board ; but when the lid was 
 down, the noise came as before. I sat down 
 on the side of the bed, and thought a moment, 
 and then it struck me, that it might not be a 
 mouse, but something about the box itself." 
 " Very good reasoning indeed." 
 " I went to the box and shook it gently, 
 and the noise came directly. I then put 
 down the lid and shook the box, but all was 
 quiet. ' Oh V said I, ' it must have something 
 to do with the lid/ Looking at it all round, 
 at last I saw the fastening shake." 
 
 " You are a thinker, Charles, already." 
 "Looking at the lid, while I shook the box 
 gently, at last I saw that the fastening was 
 quite loose, and that the staple went nick-nack 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 193 
 
 against the lock. It was the staple that had 
 made all the noise ; so I put a bit of paper 
 round it, and never heard the noise after." 
 
 " You managed very well. This comes of 
 learning to think. But now, Charles, let me 
 hear you think aloud about this sea-shell." 
 
 " Oh, it is a very pretty one. Let me see ! 
 What are its parts and qualities ? It has an 
 outside, and an inside. It is hard and brittle, 
 for the edges are chipped a little. It is of a 
 yellowish brown on the outside, and of a 
 beautiful pink in the inside. It is light, and 
 of a curious form ; it has no taste ; and when 
 I put it to my ear, it roars." 
 
 " Very good ! You get on very well." 
 
 " It is useful as a chimney ornament, and, 
 very likely, the fish that lived in it was good 
 to eat. Now for its associations. It reminds 
 me of roaring billows, of floating islands, of 
 coral rocks, and of shipwrecks ; and the les- 
 son I learn from it is, that if God gave the fish 
 such a beautiful house to dwell in, he will take 
 care and provide for all who trust in him." 
 
 " You are getting on in learning to think 
 very creditably. And now for some ques- 
 tions. How would you find out the number 
 of gooseberries in a peck ?" 
 
 " I would measure 01 a half pint of them, 
 17 
 
194 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 and count them, and multiply the number by 
 the number of half-pints in a peck." 
 
 " And that would be the very best way 
 you could adopt. I dare say that you re- 
 member why a kite flies in the air ?" 
 
 " Yes ! It is because the paper of which it 
 is made is so light, and because the string 
 pulling it one way, and the tail of it the other, 
 it is held with its broad face to the wind." 
 
 " Tell me why a hoop bowls along ; why 
 a peg-top spins ; and why a ball bounces." 
 
 " The hoop bowls and the top spins, be- 
 cause, being set in motion, according to a 
 law in nature, they must keep up that motion 
 till stopped by other causes. And the ball 
 bounces, because the part dented in by strik- 
 ing against the ground, makes a sudden spring, 
 being elastic, to recover its round form, and 
 this forces it upwards." 
 
 " Now, perhaps, you will tell, me, if one 
 man can hear the report of a gun a mile off, 
 at what distance twenty men can hear it." 
 
 " Why twen — no, no ! Twenty men can- 
 not hear it any farther than one man. They 
 can all hear it at just the same distance, that 
 is, if none of them are hard of hearing." 
 
 " It is not so easy to puzzle you now, as it 
 was, by a great deal. Since you have begun 
 to learn to think, you have had your wits 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 195 
 
 more about you. I dare say that you could 
 tell me now where they catch red herrings ?" 
 
 " They catch the herrings in the sea, but 
 they are not red herrings till they are salted 
 and dried, I remember that." 
 
 " Henry told me that he summed up for 
 you some of the advantages of thoughtfulness. 
 Have you forgotten what he said ?" 
 
 " I should have forgotten it, I am afraid ; 
 but I asked him afterwards to write it down. 
 See, I have it here, and will read it, though 
 now I almost have it by heart. c Thinking 
 adds to our pleasure, making every thing 
 around us interesting. It produces a love of 
 thought, and a habit of pausing and consider- 
 ing before replying to a question. It extends 
 our knowledge and power, quickens our 
 faculties, corrects our judgment, enlarges our 
 minds, and explains many things around us, 
 which we do not understand. It lessens la- 
 bour, makes hard things easy, protects us 
 from evils which thoughtlessness brings upon 
 us, and renders us more useful and more hap- 
 py. In a word, if we learn to think, and put 
 our thoughts to a good use, we shall not fail, 
 through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to 
 fear and obey God, and to love and serve 
 mankind.' " 
 
 " Did you read any of your little books ?" 
 
196 LEARNING TO THINK. 
 
 " Yes ; and I lent one of them, which was 
 about the value of the soul, to my cousin ; for 
 I thought that, perhaps, we might both get 
 good from the same book." 
 
 " A very proper thought too ; I hope you 
 will follow out your intention of reading God's 
 word more, for that will put the best thoughts 
 into your head at all times. I hope you will 
 often seek divine aid by private and earnest 
 prayer. To get to heaven should be the first 
 object of every one on earth ; and let us, also, 
 seek to help others on their way there. Fare- 
 well, for the present. Now and then, I shall, 
 no doubt, see you." 
 
 " I am very much obliged by the pains you 
 have taken with me, and I shall not forget 
 to think of what you have told me." 
 
 " May it please God to make it a blessing 
 to you." 
 
 " Farewell, sir ; I thank you again and 
 again for all your kindness." 
 
 " Farewell ! Earnestly pray to God to 
 give you his Holy Spirit that you may be 
 taught aright, and made wise unto salvation, 
 through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Good 
 thoughts are the beginning of good deeds. 
 To think aright is the seed, or the sapling ; to 
 act right is the tree and the fruit. The way 
 to be useful, and peaceful, and happy, is to 
 
LEARNING TO THINK. 197 
 
 seek Divine grace, to watch and pray, and to 
 fear God and keep his commandments. 
 
 ' The Lord of glory keep in sight, 
 In all your thoughts and ways; 
 He only learns to think aright, 
 Who reads His word with true delight, 
 And lives to act His praise.' " 
 
 THE END. 
 
 
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