culinary operations may lead to the sublime principles of chemistry, or at least may excite a taste for chemical experiments. When any interesting facts have wakened his curiosity on the subject of chemistry, then will be the time to assist, not to overwhelm, him with books. An elementary work has lately appeared called "Conversations on Chemistry," in which the facts and reasoning are so clearly stated and ably developed, that it at once teaches the pupils the outlines of chemistry, and improves them in the art of reasoning. Those who have seen the effects of this book, and experienced its utility in repeated instances, speak with confidence of its excellence. As soon as the young reader is familiarized to the terms, and has been made thoroughly to comprehend the reasoning, the book should be perused a second time, and every experiment mentioned in it should be tried as he goes on. This will fix the whole in the memory. Reading chemical works without seeing the actual substances of which they treat, and the real experiments to which they refer, is waste of time; as far at least as the attainment of a knowledge or taste for chemistry is the object. It is true, that merely by studying these works young people may receive excellent lessons in reasoning, and thus may permanently improve their understandings, though every word of the books should be forgotten the day after they were read. But in the education of a physician, preceptors should not, as in the education of a lawyer, make it a principal point, that the pupil should reason by logical propositions expressed in words; his attention should be directed to things more than to their symbols, and he should be excited to accuracy of experiment more than to subtlety of argument. The child should be taught to consider, when he hears any thing

new in natural history or medicine, whether the facts be true, not whether they are stated in elegant language, or whether the reasoning deduced from them be just or ingenious. A continual reference and strict adherence to facts is absolutely necessary; and next a cautious examination of their alleged causes. On these points the pupil can scarcely be made too scrupulous; provided his facts are substantiated, and his descriptions of objects or events are accurate, much elegance, or even fluency of expression, need not be required from the young narrator. Preceptors need not, as they should in the education of a lawyer or a public speaker, insist upon his developing the whole of his thoughts in words, and supplying every intermediate link in the chain of his reasoning. The medical pupil should rather be permitted to suppress, than excited to exhibit, the process of his mind in forming judgments. That rapid kind of reasoning, which does not stop to embody itself in words, tact, as it is usually called, is necessary to a physician: he is not called upon to explain, or to persuade, but to judge and decide. His oratorical talents therefore may be left dormant, but his judgment must be kept for ever vigilant and alert. If there be, as some philosophers have quaintly supposed, an instinct of credulity, it should be strenuously counteracted from earliest infancy in the mind of a child intended for a physician; by playful ridicule his parents should expose to him the folly of believing on insufficient grounds; he should be taught to distrust the hasty or imperfect evidence even of his own senses, and should be shown, that appearances as well as assertions are fallacious. This philosophic state of doubt should be made as pleasurable to him as possible; and, instead of connecting the feeling of

shame with the avowal of mistakes or ignorance, he should be encouraged to acknowledge his errours candidly. He should be taught the excellent maxim, that to confess that we were mistaken, is saying only, in other words, that we are wiser to day than we were yesterday. The example of candour in his preceptors will have infinitely more effect upon him than their exhortations; and if he perceive, that they, who know so much more than he does, are cautious in their decisions, and willing to confess that there are bounds to their knowledge, he will insensibly learn similar habits of diffidence. The common phrases used by his parents and preceptors in giving their opinions will influence his temper of mind; therefore, instead of making positive assertions, they might say, "Such a thing "is so and so, as far as I know, or, as far as we have hitherto "learned. Such a thing is supposed to be the cause of such

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an effect, but we are not certain of it; for we have not "tried, or, we have not repeatedly tried the experiment."Dr. Franklin recommends the practice of speaking, even when sure, with seeming diffidence, as advantageous to every one in conversation, as well as useful to the philosopher in the management of his own mind. He says, that in advancing any proposition, he never made use of the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any other phrase, that might give the appearance of his being obstinately attached to his opinion. This refinement, however, borders upon artifice.

Both for a practising physician and a philosopher, the habit of doubting appears to be desirable. Examples of its advantages, that will probably interest and please, may be found in many parts of Franklin's life and of his letters,

In one of these letters', to a young female pupil, he says“This prudence of not attempting to give reasons before one "is sure of facts I learnt from one of your sex, who, being in

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company with some gentlemen, that were viewing and considering something, which they called a Chinese shoe, and disputing earnestly about the method of wearing it, and " how it could possibly be put on, said modestly, ‘Gentlemen, are you sure that it is a shoe? Should not that be settled "first."

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The examples of candour" in Dr. Franklin's philosophical letters are innumerable; and many of them might be selected, that would be suited to the capacity of a well educated boy of nine or ten years old. Franklin's works may be particularly useful to those who are intended for physicians; because this

The following is an example of his candour, which might be advantageously pointed out to the young pupil; it is the more striking, as it is shown where a favourite hypothesis was concerned.

"The questions you ask about the pores of glass, I cannot answer otherwise, "than that I know nothing of their nature; and suppositions, however in"genious, are often mere mistakes. My hypothesis, that they were smaller (6 near the middle of the glass, too small to admit the passage of electricity, "which could pass through the surface till it came near the middle, was cer"tainly wrong; for soon after I had written that letter, I did, in order to con"firm the hypothesis (which indeed I ought to have done before I wrote it) "make an experiment. I ground away five-sixths of the thickness of the glass, " from the side of one of my phials, expecting that the supposed denser part "being so removed, the electric fluid might come through the remainder of "the glass; but I found myself mistaken. The bottle charged as well after "the grinding as before."

m Vide Letters and papers on philosophical subjects, annexed to a quarto volume on electricity, by B. Franklin, published 1769.

writer relates facts applicable to common use in a simple, accurate, and interesting manner: he sets an example of activity of mind both in observation and experiment, and of the alternate use of analysis and synthesis to the natural philosopher.

To increase the pupil's habits of accuracy, and to fix his attention upon visible and tangible objects, it may be useful to teach him early the principles of mechanics. The method of doing this, without having recourse to abstruse books or lectures, has already been suggested*. In the profession of a surgeon a practical knowledge of mechanics is continually and essentially useful; but we recommend it to our young physician principally to teach him accuracy of observation, and to strengthen his disposition to refer to actual experiment. On the connexion between mechanics, anatomy, and surgery, there is no occasion to expatiate.

A German", who has been much celebrated on the continent, has made anatomy a principal object in his system of education: and he asserts, that he has found it extremely easy to instruct children even of five or six years old by his methods. His method seemed to consist in showing children outlines of the different parts of the human form, engravings of skeletons, with the names of the various bones, and muscles; in teaching

* Practical Education.

n Pestalozzi. The author saw him at Paris in 1803; but not having had an opportunity of seeing any of Pestalozzi's pupils, he cannot speak of the system with certainty. It is only mentioned here, that parents, who may be desirous of more information, may make farther inquiries.