success. The sooner the desire to obtain information for a given purpose is excited, the sooner the pupils can begin to accumulate that sort of knowledge, which will most conduce to the object they have in view.

In each profession there are certain principles essentially conducive to success, particular talents and tastes, which should be cultivated with peculiar care; and the earlier this discipline is commenced, it will the sooner become easy and habitual; and the sooner the associations of pleasure are connected with the idea of the profession the pupil is to follow, the greater will be the chance, that he will pursue it with ardour and perseverance.

Beside the advantage of gaining time, there are other reasons, which may be urged for parents making the early choice of the professions of sons. In a family where there are more sons than one, this would prevent injurious competition. Whatever natural advantages each may have would be considered as peculiarly fit to secure success in his future profession; and as all the brothers would early know, that they were to pursue different modes of life, there could never be any crossing interests, or jealousy of particular talents, though there might, and ought to be amongst them, an emulation of general excellence.

In addition to these reasons, there are others of an economical and prudential kind, which must

have great weight in deciding upon a profession: these must be in the consideration of parents; and since the means of forwarding children in any line of life are in the hands of parents, it is necessary, and under certain limitations it is just, that they should have the choice.

A

When these reasons are stated as preponderating in favour of parents choosing early the professions of children, yet in giving this opinion, it is fit to guard against the abuse that may be made of, in supporting the despotism of parents. despotism, which might be more injurious, because far more powerful, than the wilfulness of children. Parents should observe, that the power of education, great as it is, cannot, even in the most judicious hands, and with the most vigilant care, command all those external, accidental circumstances, which, influencing early associations, produce taste and predilection for certain pursuits. In carrying into practice any plan of education, much must be left to the operation of what we call chance, that is, to events of which we do not know the cause, or have not the control. Therefore it would be unjust and cruel in parents, to attribute every failure of their own plans, and every prepossession their children may show, for or against a given profession, to that vice of temper, that wilfulness, which has been just described and reprobated. The greatest care should be taken by every parent, who values his child's

happiness, or his own peace of mind, to examine impartially, whenever any such prepossession appears, from what cause it arises; not to proceed hastily, upon the presumption that there is a design to oppose his authority, or a perversity of temper; and above all, not to give an example of the love of self-will, of the fault which he attributes to his child. If, notwithstanding all efforts in the course of a boy's education, it should appear, as he grows up, that there are many circumstances in his bodily health, or mental qualifications, which do not suit the profession for which he is intended, a good and prudent father would change his son's destination, and allow him, his judgment being sufficiently formed, to pursue that for which he shows a decided preference. Even supposing there might be some degree of wilfulness in the youth, it would not be prudent for the father to force his son into a profession which he disliked, The fault of temper should have been corrected in childhood, and if that was not done by those who had the care of the child's education, it is just that the parent should afterwards endure his share of the inconvenience: besides it is probable, that the whole sum of the evil will be lessened to all parties and to society by this parental yielding and moderation.

Further, with all due deference to parents, it is proper to observe, that, where they are not them, selves both able and willing to pursue steadily a

system of education, or where they cannot procure preceptors who will undertake for them this charge, it will be much better not to attempt half measures. Parents thus situated, should not decide early upon the professions of their sons, because such a decision would be injurious, where no means are judiciously and uniformly taken to form the habits and tastes of the pupils for their destination. It will be more just to leave them to the course of school education, and to the chance of circumstances; it will be more prudent to wait to see the result of these, and then to choose whatever professions the talents and tastes of the youths, with proper consideration of the parent's convenience, may point out as most desirable. This average of expediency and prudence, of care and chance, is all, that in the generality of cases will be done, or ought, by those who know human nature, to be expected.

Those only, who feel that they are willing to take more than common care of the education of their children, should incur the responsibility of deciding early upon the choice of their professions, upon the fate of their future lives.

What the indications in children are, which should induce parents to prefer for them any particular profession, how the taste for each may be infused, and how the habits and qualifications essential to success in different pursuits may be taught, it is the object of the following essays to examine.

CHAPTER I.

On Preparatory Education.

Ir must be encouraging to those who have children to educate, to observe that knowledge on various subjects, both of literature and science, has been compressed into a compact form, convenient for those who are to learn, and for those who are to teach. In some arts and sciences such simple and expeditious methods of instruction, both analytic and synthetic, have been devised, that what cost a life of labour in the original attainment, may now be acquired by a pupil of common abilities before he is twenty. A boy of seventeen may now, without great labour, know all that the utmost stretch of the abilities of Newton discovered in the course of forty years. This general diffusion of knowledge makes it at once more shameful to be ignorant, and more difficult to excel. The little more (il poco piu) is now of arduous attainment. Numbers have arrived at a certain point; to surpass, requires still greater exertion or skill than when the standard of excellence was lower. This is the real cause of the complaints we sometimes hear of the mediocrity of modern times, and of the scarcity of men of superior talents: a scarcity which, instead of