and the course they have pursued, in addition to other bad consequences, has often tended to aggravate the very evil they so irrationally deplore and treat in so injudicious, not to say in so unchristian a manner. Undoubtedly such faults are to be counteracted; but by moderate measures, unaccompanied by anger or discontent in the parent, and not habitually harassing to the child, or likely to make him hate reading, and dread the lessonhour, and, worse than all, likely to alienate his affections from his natural protector and guide.

What has been said will shew, that though a warm advocate for mildness, temperance, and forbearance in education, I am no friend to Rosseau's plan, or those, built on the same foundation, which have been proposed by others. I shall not stop to speak of such plans at any length, because I do not believe they now receive much countenance among those who are likely to read these observations, and shall only say, that they are founded on not merely an erroneous view of human nature, but on a view the very reverse of that given of it in the Scriptures; and that in their operation they are calculated to set aside the christian system, and to steel the mind against it. What can be more false and mischievous than to represent, and treat man as a creature disposed of himself to act rightly, and to cultivate every good disposition, if he be but preserved from being spoiled by priests and pedants, and be put in the way to see, by the established order of things in the world, that virtue will best promote his happiness! Had this been agree

able to truth, since man confessedly wishes to be happy, we should have seen virtue clearly predominant among men, if not universal; and vice merely an exception to the general state of things. It is true, that God, in his wisdom and mercy, has so ordered things, that virtue does promote happiness, and vice leads to misery, even in this world. At least this is the strong tendency of things; and it is very important to point out this truth to children, and to accustom them to feel it in the common occurrences of life. Doubtless, the writers under consideration have ingenious devices for effecting this object: devices, however, in which there is by far too much address and management to suit my taste. I should be very apprehensive, that placing a child in the midst of so artificial a system was a bad introduction to the sincerity and godly simplicity of the Gospel. But if this objection were unfounded; if these devices were as innocent and useful as they are ingenious; still to adopt the system of such writers, as a whole, would be most ruinous; so to recommend their works, without great circumspection, to those around us, is, in my opinion, highly dangerous. I have thought some good people very unguarded on this point. Such a recommendation is, in fact, a recommendation of poison, for the sake of the virtues that, by a chemical process, may be extracted from it. But in the cases to which I allude there has been no due caution against the deleterious qualities of the poison, and no due consideration whether those to

whom the recommendation was given had any competent skill in christian chemistry.

According to a just view of human nature, whether derived from religion, from observation, or from history, in education it cannot be left to the choice of the child, what he will learn, and when he will learn it. Education cannot by any means be reduced to a sort of play; but it must be a discipline upheld by parental authority, mild indeed, and gentle in its exercise, and sweetened by affection, but still a discipline; having for its object, in humble dependence on the divine blessing, the conducting of an immortal creature, in the first stage of its existence, from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. Its great business must necessarily be the counteracting of the natural bent of the mind to evil, and the instilling and fostering, under the guidance and by the help of the Holy Spirit, of a new nature, the very reverse of that which we all bring into the world. How can this be effected on the plan of Rousseau or his followers? It is plainly impossible; and the attempt would only increase the evils which education should remedy, and fill the mind with fascinating, but deadly errors, which it would be very difficult afterwards to eradicate.

The ends of education are to be attained partly by regular lessons, and partly by attention to the child out of school hours.

With respect to lessons, I have already made some remarks, and now proceed to offer others.

It is important that the lesson should be learnt in the

presence of the teacher for some years after reading commences. A young child is too thoughtless, and has too little self-command, to be left by himself, while he learns a lesson. His time will probably be misspent, and the lesson will accustom him to trifle over his book; and what is more important, he will fall into a habit of omitting what he knows he ought to do, which will naturally be extended to other branches of duty; and this failure will, in all probability, lead to another and a worse evil, namely, that of making disingenuous excuses, and even of telling direct lies in order to avoid punishment.

Another circumstance, nearly allied to the foregoing, deserves attention. A parent should be ready, if possible, to hear a child's lesson as soon as he offers to say it. It is not uncommon with teachers to make their scholars wait as long as suits their own convenience, and expect them to be getting their lessons better during this delay. Such expectation is not at all rational, and will almost always be disappointed. It is not easy to induce a child to attend to his lesson, even when he is convinced of the impossibility of saying it unless he gives his attention. But to expect continued attention from him to the study of a lesson in which he thinks himself already perfect; to expect that he will bestow on the lesson time and labour which appear to him superfluous, and proceed in the same dull round of getting and getting, what he thinks he can say already; this surely is absurd. Is it not also an offence against that law of love, which, while it demands an attention to the feelings, and a condescension

to the weaknesses of all mankind, lays us under a peculiar and more pressing obligation to consult the happiness of our children, and forbids us to expect to occupy the place we ought in their affection and confidence, if we will not obey its dictates? An unnecessary delay in hearing lessons must tend not only to disgust the scholar, but to add to the labours of the teacher, who will generally find that a lesson which would have been said ten minutes before with good humour and alacrity, is now either not said at all, or said in an imperfect manner, and with weariness and dissatisfaction. Where there are several scholars, it will be difficult entirely to avoid this evil; but by good management it may be brought within such narrow bounds as not to be formidable. When children become somewhat older, say eight or nine, they may bear waiting for a short time till a teacher is ready; and, under proper guards against attendant evils, may sometimes be even a useful discipline.

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Something will shortly be said as to religious books. With respect to others, there is ample choice of proper ones; but there is a still greater number of such as are improper. Those ought to be selected which are not so easy as to require little, if any, mental exertion, nor so difficult as to be necessarily a burden; which will be interesting to the child, but not frivolous or absurd, or bearing a resemblance to novels; which convey useful instruction, and which harmonize with good principles.

Little children are apt to contract unnatural tones in reading, and also a low, indistinct, and muttering articulation. A teacher must guard against these evils. The