by such attention, and gratified with their success, and tempted to new questions. Never laugh at their mistakes. But, more than all, never put them off with evasive answers; they soon distinguish between truth and falsehood, and still sooner learn to act on the difference. We are to consider children in the same situation as we should be placed in, if we were thrown on a foreign shore, where everything was new to us, and every trifling object a matter of wonder and curiosity. This reflection should teach us to regard no inquiries of children as too trivial or unimportant. Nor need we be ashamed of the company and conversation of children, from whom a man of reflection may often derive advantages which he would not elsewhere receive. "The native and untaught suggestions of inquisitive children do often offer things that may set a considering man's thoughts on work; and I think that there is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child, than the discourses of men, who talk in a road."

One of the worst defects in the disposition is that listlessness sometimes observable, and which, in some cases, is perhaps constitutional. If a child seems to be addicted to this habit, we should carefully observe whether it be universal in him, or only connected with particular times and objects. If during play, or at other times, he evinces an interest in anything, be sure to cultivate that interest, and by awakening his mind more and more, you may get him at last to regard all objects with a greater degree of earnestness. A little timely ridicule may not be amiss in such a case. If he is incapable of applying his mind to a task, set him to some bodily labour in which you can, by overlooking, secure

that he works: this will teach him the power of application, which will thence become more easy of acquirement in the exercises of the mind. If a child has so uncontrollable a love of play as to be altogether unable to settle to study, let him have the tables turned upon him, -that is to say, let the play be enjoined as a task, the study be-at best-only permitted: the love of freedom and self-will will then convert the play into a species of burden, the study into a covetable relief; he will become so surfeited with the one as to fly to the other with desire. In short, so much depends on association and circumstance, that there is hardly any evil which may not be brought into disfavour and thus stopped, nor any good which may not be invested with attraction, and rendered an object of spontaneous pursuit. Children should not be restricted in the article of playthings, nor in the choice of them; but only a few of the principal kind should be purchased for their use, and for the rest they should be encouraged to exercise their own ingenuity. The confession of faults will be a matter of dif ficulty at first, and it will be necessary to give a premium for candour by withholding punishment where the error is acknowledged. There must be instilled a jealousy of reputation, and more disgrace must be attached to deception and prevarication than to any faults they can cover. If a child makes an excuse, however, in a case where you are unable to prove that it is false, it must be allowed to pass without any evidence of suspicion; it must seem to be implicitly relied on.

A true notion of the Divine Power ought to be implanted in his mind as early as possible; but scrupulously avoid bewildering him with ideas on this subject which he cannot properly comprehend; a few simple genera

VOL. I.

lities are amply sufficient to create the proper devotional feeling. Discourses concerning spirits should be forborne, as they tend to weaken the mind, and to produce timidity and nervousness. The fear of the dark is not natural, but acquired; and to dispel it, we must point out the use of the dark, and show that it is made by God for our good as well as the light, that it affords us its kind inducement to sleep, and has nothing in it to harm us. If you have educated your son aright, you will have rendered it unnecessary to inculcate goodnature by precept; it will form a fundamental part of his character, and mix in all his actions, sweetening them and making him beloved.

For

Breeding, or manners, was before noticed; but there are different species of ill-breeding which deserve to be particularised. These are either on the side of deficiency or of excess of confidence. the first, variety of company is the only cure. For the latter, it comprises these several kinds, viz., roughness, contempt, censoriousness (including raillery and contradiction), and captiousness. Raillery has generally the excuse of wit, and yet it is no more to be commended than the rest; for even where it carries no ill-nature with it, nay, where it is designed to convey some compliment, it is so liable to miscarriage, and so easily misunderstood, that it never can have so much propriety as plainer language. Contradiction and interruption embitter the pleasures of society. If we are in the right, it ought to be satisfaction enough to us; and to prove that another is in the wrong is sufficiently humiliating to him, without adding the injury of intolerance. Nor will the best intentions excuse heat and impatience; if we wish to serve a friend by advice, we best convince him

of our sincerity by displaying a temperate and considerate regard. One other fault in manners is superfluous ceremony; this is never acceptable, and creates that uneasiness which it is the part of good breeding to remove. True politeness does not reside in this or that fashion of doing a thing, a particular bow, or a certain scrape, but only in the heart. "And in good earnest," says Locke in conclusion, "if I were to speak my mind freely, so children do nothing out of obstinacy, pride, and ill-nature, it is no great matter how they put off their hats or make legs."

The system of keeping boys at Latin and Greek for eight or ten years at a school, from which they return as ignorant as they went of all other matters, and in most cases soon forget even that which they have learnt, is not patiently to be endured. The virtue of the child is the first grand object; subsidiary to this, and valuable only as contributing to it, is learning, which is not worth the having if it is to be acquired to the exclusion of every other species of mental cultivation. With respect to studies, and the means of facilitating them, the method hinted at before deserves to be considered. "I have always had a fancy that learning might be made a play and recreation to children."* It was observed, that a relish or distaste might be imparted artificially for almost anything; now this may be done not only in the manner there suggested, viz., by employing one passion against another, but by more direct expedients. Let a

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He mentions further, in confirmation of this view, that, amongst the Portuguese, it is so much a fashion and emulation, amongst their children, to learn to read and write, that they cannot hinder them from it. They will learn it one from another, and are as intent on it as if it were forbidden them.”

ball of iron, for example, be contrived, with spaces, and different letters painted on them; or dice, with letters in the same manner instead of the points; and let some good games be devised that may teach the alphabet in this way. And to sharpen his desire to play at such games, let him suppose that they properly belong to those older than himself. "I know a person who, by pasting on the six vowels on the six sides of a die, and the remaining eighteen consonants on the sides of three other dice, has made this a play for his children, that he shall win who, at one cast, throws most words on these four dice; whereby his eldest son, yet in coats, has played himself into spelling, with great eagerness, and without once having been chid for it, or forced to it."—“ Besides these, twenty other plays might be invented, depending on letters."

The Fables of Æsop, as containing matter at once easy and entertaining, and inculcating, in a familiar way, a quantity of memorable wisdom, may be the best book to put into a child's hands as soon as he can read; and the accompaniment of pictures is on every account to be recommended. It will add much to the utility of these lessons, if he be encouraged to relate the stories he has read to other people, and to converse about them. And let these two rules always be observed; first, that the lesson shall be over before the attention has ceased, so that he goes away with an appetite; and second, that he shall always have the satisfaction of feeling that he has learnt something which he did not know before. To Æsop's Fables should be added the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, which he should learn by heart, without waiting to be able to read them. But the promiscuous reading of the Bible