with the delight of active experiment. However trifling the action may be, whether it be tying up the leaves of a lettuce, putting a plant in a dark room, or planting a bean the wrong way downwards in his garden, still it is action, and action in childhood is pleasure; we repeat, that the young philosopher will be doubly interested in any experiment, that he is to manage entirely himself, and of which he is secure of seeing the beginning, the middle, and the end.

The most celebrated philosophers and naturalists have often formed their tastes for science from some slight circumstances, some pleasurable associations in their earliest childhood. Linnæus, even from the time when he first left his cradle, used almost to live in his father's garden, which was full of beautiful and curious flowers and shrubs. "He was "scarcely four years old, when his father took him to some "rural feast in the neighbourhood; and in the evening, it

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being a very pleasant season of the year, the guests seated "themselves on some flowery turf, listening to the pastor, "who made various remarks on the names and properties of "the plants, showing them the roots of the succisa, tormentilla, orchides, &c. The child paid the most uninterrupted atten"tion to all he saw and heard; and from that hour never "ceased harassing his father with questions about the names, qualities, and nature of every plant he met with: indeed, "he very often asked more than his father was able to an66 swer; but like other children, he used immediately to forget "what he had learned, and especially the names of plants. "Hence the father was sometimes put out of humour, and "refused to answer him, unless he would promise to re

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"member what was told him. Nor had this harshness any "bad effect, for he afterwards retained with ease whatever he "heard."

After hearing this, parents surely will not be discouraged by the forgetfulness of childhood, since even the great Linnæus, afterwards so remarkable for the retentiveness of his botanical memory, put his father out of patience by his incapacity to remember the names of plants when he was a child. Copious nomenclatures of botany should not early be forced upon the memory; this, in fact, would be at best but an unprofitable exercise of memory; and, for reasons which shall hereafter be explained more fully, it would be peculiarly injurious to a medical pupil to associate the first pleasures of praise and success with the idea, that the retaining mere names, or the adherence to any classification established by authority, is real science and useful knowledge. To teach a child botany, parents should begin as the good pastor began with the young Linnæus, by showing him at some happy moment the different parts of some plant, and explaining to him its structure and properties. The names of the plant, and of its parts of course, must be taught; and he may learn by degrees the characteristic distinctions, upon which the classification of plants in the Linnæan system is founded. These are well taught in Rousseau's and Martyn's Letters on Botany. This will please his ingenuity and enlarge his mind; but the detail of the nomenclature and the infinite train of many-syllabic names can be of no service to his understanding, or to his future progress in his profession. His attention should be turned rather to the uses and properties of plants, than be suffered to rest

satisfied with counting their pistils and stamina, to ascertain to what class, order, and genus they belong. The knowledge of the medical and dietetic properties of plants has yet been but little cultivated; and the desire to make observations and discoveries in this, the most useful part of botany, should be excited early in the mind of a young physician. Therefore it may be advantageous to him not to have his first lessons from a professed or an enthusiastic botanist, who might teach him to annex undue importance to the technical part of the science, or who might set him the example of falling into ecstasies upon the discovery of some new moss or cryptogamic prodigy. A young botanist should have a garden of his own: on however small a scale this might be, the pleasure and pride of his territorial rights would increase the activity of the cultivator. As soon as he had strength enough to dig, Linnæus had a small portion of ground given to him, which he delighted to cultivate; before he was ten years old he had, in the little excursions he made in the neighbourhood, collected many indigenous plants in his little garden. This garden was ever afterwards called Charles's Garden. His mother, who wished him to go into orders, was much disappointed at his becoming a physician; she attributed his love of botany and of natural history, and his consequent choice of the medical profession, to his having had so much pleasure, when he was a child, in this garden: so strenuously was she of this opinion, that, lest her second son should follow the same course, she would never permit him to set his foot in the garden.

There can be little doubt that a boy, who is early amused and interested by natural history, should acquire scientific

tastes; there might, however, be some danger, that a predilection for one of the sciences might seize his mind to the exclusion of other studies necessary to his future profession: or there might be reason to apprehend, that he would prefer the luxury of general literature, and the sedentary delight of philosophic pursuits, to the severe and active duties of a medical life. If a course of domestic education, such as has been here described, were to be pursued from childhood to youth, there might indeed be imminent danger of making the pupil a chemist, a mechanic, or a natural philosopher, instead of making him a physician: but this mode of instruction is not designed to be continued beyond the age of nine or ten, when it will be time to send the boy to a public school.

A physician must acquire a competent knowledge of the learned languages; and if he become an elegant classical scholar, beside the pleasure, it will be an advantage to him in his profession. But the pain or labour necessary in learning Greek and Latin should be associated with school and schoolmasters, and should not be mixed with the idea of scientific pursuits or with medical studies. It is always beneficial, that the pupil should be forced to hard labour and application upon subjects, which are foreign to those essential to his profession. When the pupil is sent to school, it is not necessary that he should go with the repute of being intended for a physician; care should be taken, that he does not acquire the title of the young doctor; this might expose him to some sort of ridicule among his school-fellows, and might thus tend to disgust him with his future profession. Mixed with

school-boys, he must appear a school-boy. In this period of scholastic discipline, his principal object should be to become a scholar. During the intervals which he spends at home in vacations, he may enjoy the pleasure of pursuing some of the tastes of his childhood; and his parents may then assist in improving his knowledge of science and general literature: but this must be attempted with great delicacy and judgment; for every school-boy considers his holidays as a portion of time dedicated to pleasure, in the vulgar sense of the term, and sacred to idleness. It would be dangerous to infringe upon the rights of the Saturnalia. The very appearance of a book, associated as all books are with the recollection of grammars and lexicons, is often odious to a school-boy. Perhaps the associations of pleasure, which our pupil might have formed with books previously to his going to school, may continue sufficiently strong to counteract these prejudices; but if this should not be the case, parents need not be anxious: the seeds. they have sown will not be lost, though they do not immediately appear; they will shoot forth hereafter to their surprise and delight. If the boy at this period of his life show an aversion to books, his friends should not oppose the bibliophobia with vehemence, or with any signs of severity; but they should rest secure in the belief, that it is only a symptomatic disease arising merely from adventitious circumstances, and that it will pass away without doing any permanent injury. Instead of forcing books upon his attention at these times of recreation, it will be better to cultivate his former propensities by instructive amusements, that have not the repulsive appearance of lessons. He may see chemical experiments;