men,

Without using any deception, there are fair and honourable means of forming a child's taste early to the profession which he is to follow. All the pleasurable ideas, which can be connected with it, should be presented, and this should be done as early and as constantly as possible. Even the most trivial circumstances may make a salutary and indelible impression upon the child's imagination; for instance, the sight of a judge in his robes, or of a judge's entry into a county town, with the train of sheriffs' officers, and the carriages of gentlewho attend to do him honour, and who swell the dignity of the legal procession. Long before a child's reason is capable of deliberate choice, his imagination may be struck by such external circumstances as these. Long before children can comprehend the relations of society, or the real advantages of any one profession compared with any other, they are capable of making minute observations upon the manners, of those with whom they live; and from the degree of respect with which they see individuals of certain professions treated, they form a predilection for or against those professions, without exactly knowing the cause of their own feelings. If a boy see, at his father's house, lawyers treated with deference; or if he hear men of eminence at the bar spoken of with esteem and admiration, he will imbibe an habitual reverence for the law. If he hear lawyers talk of their profession with that natural degree of interest and enthusiasm, which all men feel for a profession in which they succeed, the boy will catch a portion of this enthusiasm, and will desire to be what he admires. Anecdotes of celebrated lawyers should be told or read to him; and when he is able to read with perfect ease to himself, but not before that time, he may be amused with

reading the lives of those, who have raised themselves from low condition to the highest honours of the state. Slight as these means of inspiring professional taste may seem, they will be found sufficient to effect great purposes. The imperceptible seeds of ambition, once sown in the mind, germinate, and in course of time are able to make their way through the most ponderous obstacles, that impede their growth.

All that has hitherto been suggested for the early education of a young lawyer is addressed peculiarly to parents, as it relates to that preparatory instruction, which may be given at home before the age when a boy should be sent to school. In particular instances, where parents have talents, leisure, and resolution sufficient to pursue for many years a steady plan of instruction; and when they have a large family, which gives them the means of exciting generous emulation, a private education, not a secluded, is to be preferred, even for a lawyer: but such a combination of advantages as we have enumerated can seldom occur; and, except in these rare cases, every attempt at private education for boys intended for public situations must be deprecated. As Quintilian observes, a man intended for a public orator ought to be so bred as not to fear the sight of men, since that can never be rightly learned in solitude, which is to be produced before numbers.

Previous to his going to school, a boy must be taught whatever is necessary to place him upon an equality with boys of his own age; else, let his abilities and other knowledge be what they may, he will, as soon as he goes to school, be left

behind in the race of learning, and will consequently be discouraged. Without stopping to determine the precise value of the knowledge required, and without being deterred by the idea, that a more useful course of early instruction might be devised, parents must be governed in these respects by the temper of the times; and when they have decided on public education for their boys, they must prepare the pupils for that course, which they are likely to receive in these' countries..

Boys are sometimes sent to initiatory schools, when they are about eight or nine years old; by that time they should know how to read English well, to write a good round hand, and to spell correctly; they should have learned the first four rules of arithmetic; and the general principles of grammar should have been taught them by the easy conversation lessons, which have been formerly recommended*. Their future progress in learning languages will be much facilitated by their having early acquired clear ideas of the meaning and use of grammar. Even the being familiarized with the names and nature of nouns, substantives, adjectives, verbs, &c. will prevent their feeling that confusion and dismay, by which a poor, ignorant, little urchin is often overwhelmed, when a Latin or English grammar is put for the first time at school into his trembling hands, and when the eight parts of specch, the conjugations. and cases, come upon him at once in all their terrours. boy at school must learn much by rote, it will be expedient. before he goes there, to practise him in getting by heart.. Though, philosophically speaking, this exercise of getting by rote is not advantageous, and though it is not the best culti

Practical Education, Chapter on Grammar and Classical Literature..

As a

vation for the memory, yet here, as in many other cases, what is expedient must be preferred to what is right: so much of a school-boy's happiness, his exemption from so large a portion of bodily pain and mental disgrace, so much of his power of attaining to school honours and rewards, will depend upon the single circumstance of his being expert in learning words by rote, that all these incentives must not be resisted. Then let the intended school-boy be rendered as expert as practice can make him in this tiresome exercise; but at the same time, for the love of his understanding, assist and improve this nonsense memory with as much sense as you can: excite him always to try, at least, to make out the meaning of what he learns, and to recollect, wherever it is possible, by the connexion of ideas, instead of by the mere gingle of sounds.

In the choice of an initiatory school, peculiar attention. should be paid to the accent and language both of the masters and scholars. In some provincial schools in England, and almost every where in Ireland, the pronunciation and dialect are bad. No motives of convenience or œconomy, no consideration whatsoever, should prevail on parents to place boys, of whom they hope to make orators, in such seminaries. After having chosen with all possible circumspection one of these seminaries, it is strongly recommended to parents to abide by their choice, even though they should afterwards discover some objections, or though they may hear of some tempting circumstances in other places. The bad consequences of changing from school to school are great. The pupils have to recommence their studies according to the fashion or whim of each new master, and besides habits of idleness and inat

tention, a disposition to cavil at the orders of their tutors, and a love of change will be induced; all of which will be found more disadvantageous than any local or casual circumstances, that may be disagreeable in any given seminary.

Before a boy is removed from initiatory masters to any of our great public schools, he must have learned perfectly by heart the Latin grammar; and if it could be accomplished, he should have some knowledge of the Greek grammar: at all events, he must know how to read and write the Greek characters. His knowledge of English grammar and of arithmetic should be kept up; and he must be practised in spelling, in writing, and in reading English prose and poetry. If any of these things should have been neglected, the deficiencies. ought to be remedied during vacations. If, either from want of application or defective tuition, the pupil have not acquired the necessary knowledge of the rudiments of Latin, he must not, upon any account, be removed to a higher school; which would only be putting him into a situation, for which he is unequal. A boy should never be pressed forward from one school to another, or from one class to another, till he is perfectly firm on all the previous steps; otherwise he will be compelled to go over them again with disgrace, and he will lose all confidence in himself and in his instructors. It is much better, that he should be for a year or two what is called backward in learning, than that he should never be able to get forward; a disaster, which often befalls those, who are put beyond their speed.

Many expect to find in a work on education not only