From these examples, and from the experience of others, Britain will profit; in all her attempts to improve, she will proceed with cautious prudence: she will never destroy ancient institutions. If they be not worth repairs or support, suffer them to moulder silently under the hand of Time; or if this be too tedious an operation, construct some new and better edifices, and the old fabrics will soon be deserted. Those who are interested in the preservation of certain ancient establishments will, it is to be hoped, have the good sense and candour to observe, that this can only be done by repairing them in time, and by adopting useful and popular improvements. Champagny, one of the most judicious of the late French writers on public education, observes, that the college of France, of which he was the director, escaped that general destruction, in which all the other colleges and universities were involved, by the timely adoption of improvements, obviously useful and popular ".

1 We may judge by the following, and many other passages of equal merit in the celebrated Biot's Essay on the History of the Sciences during the French Revolution, of the state of the public mind in France on this subject:

"Professors should be guided, not enslaved. When every thing, even the ❝smallest details, are regulated, no room is left for emulation. Determine upon the object, arrange the general plan. Let the whole be directed by "the most enlightened men: but let the manner of public instruction be free. "Minds should be excited to inquiry, not chained to dogmas. Let there be no "corporation of teachers. They are like those ancient statues, which served as guides to travellers; their motionless fingers still point out a road, that "has ceased to exist these thousand years."

For the French, see Appendix.

Elementary schools are in all countries of the first and most immediate consequence: unless they are good, pupils cannot be well prepared for the higher class of schools. Our initiatory seminaries, our country schools, require improvement; and these will best be made in consequence of the conviction of parents, that they are necessary. The increased demand for good instruction and good masters will produce both without the interference of government, or the patronage of the great. As soon as the publick is convinced, that certain alterations would be useful, and are feasible, parents will wish that these were put in practice; and as soon as that wish is generally, or even partially expressed, it will become the interest of many to establish new seminaries, or to reform the old. The first impulse therefore must be given to the minds of parents; and they must in the first place be convinced of the folly of treating children as mere playthings, as mere creatures to be fondled, humoured, and spoiled till they are eight or nine years old, and then to be hurried away to schools, when the bad habits, moral and intellectual, which they have by that time acquired, begin to be too troublesome at home; when friends or acquaintance begin to be alarmed by the growth and the ignorance of the boys, by the vicious pronunciation and vulgar language, which they have learned from servants, by the bursts of passion, the fits of obstinacy, habits of idleness, or love of mischief, which break out in consequence of parental neglect, or cruel indulgence. The careful mother says, Upon my word it is shameful, to let "these children grow up in this way; it is quite time to "think of sending them to school, and to give them some "education."

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Time to think of giving them some education!-That should have been thought of long before; but every thing is to be repaired by dispatching the children directly to some school or other; the parents are terrified by the idea of the immediate necessity of " doing something." They have not time or patience to inquire or deliberate; they listen to the first plausible recommendation which they hear of a country school, in haste to rid themselves of the trouble and responsibility of keeping such great boys at home. What these darlings, what these victims suffer, when they go to school, when their spoiled tempers and their idle habits are to be suddenly disciplined, when they are to be fixed on benches, in a crowded schoolroom, conning over unintelligible tasks without respite, relaxation, air, or exercise, for eight or ten long hours of the day, when they are after all to be flogged for not knowing what they had never been taught, for not understanding words that had never been explained to them, these fond parents neither know nor inquire. They hear their children in the holidays complain of the miseries of school; but they settle the matter with their conscience by the convenient axioms, that all boys hate school, and that this only makes them love home the more; that all boys must learn Latin, and must be flogged to make them learn it: that it is a sad thing to be sure, but children must suffer a great deal in being broken in at first, for they must not be let to grow up wild!

But children should not be thus suffered to run wild like colts for a certain time, and then be taken and broken in by the most harsh, violent, and unskilful methods. Parents should, with real kindness and affectionate foresight, begin as

early as possible to prepare their children for school education; and even when they are properly prepared, parents should take time to deliberate, and to select the best schools: if they show themselves to be judges of what initiatory schools ought to be, and if they absolutely refrain from sending their children to vulgar, insufficient seminaries, they will excite and produce all the improvements, of which they thus demonstrate the necessity.

A good initiatory school' should, as much as possible, resemble a well regulated private family. Ten or twelve pupils, at the utmost, should be the limited number. Several of these seminaries will of course be requisite in every country town; and the competition that must necessarily arise amongst their masters will be advantageous. In towns, the boys should be day-scholars; their going to school from breakfast to dinner-time, will expose them only twice instead of six times a day to the hazard of the streets, and will continue their connexion with their parents, and their domestic habits. They will gradually feel their powers strengthen, and their independence and courage increase, before they are turned loose into the great world of a large school.

Every reasonable person must be fully aware, that all parents cannot devote their time to the education of their children. Men who are employed in business have but few hours or minutes to themselves; therefore it would be absurd

i If the author were sure of a dozen pupils for such an establishment, he could recommend a master, and, what is more rare, a mistress peculiarly fit to conduct it.

to recommend private education indiscriminately for all ranks of people. Hence the necessity for good initiatory schools, to receive children as early as possible from the nursery, or rather from the care of their mothers: mothers in most families must have time to attend to the habits of temper and early instruction of their children, till they are five or six years old, and if proper gradations of elementary schools were established, they need not be kept at home till they are nine or ten, as they now must be for want of such seminaries. In country places, the system of day scholars is impracticable; the pupils must be boarders, but the holidays should be more frequent in these schools, than they need be at a more advanced age. The first object should not be to teach them reading, or grammar, or Latin, or arithmetic, in any given quantities, or in any stated time; but gradually to give them the desire to learn, and the power to attend; their lessons should be made agreeable and short, their attention should be required and fixed for a short time; and then they should have intervals of recreation, air, and exercise. Most of what they learn should be first taught by conversation; and even their walks and hours of amusement may be usefully employed. Their masters should take them out into the fields; should let them run, and leap, and exercise their limbs, and make observations on the various objects they meet; from these objects, that strike their senses, he should lead to such knowledge, as will lay the foundation of a love of instruction in their minds. Masters should proceed, in short, exactly as judicious parents would do with pupils of the same age in private education; and it is needless here to repeat what has been said elsewhere* of the early modes of instruction by conversation. Great