perceives a considerable change in his constitution. There are even some places where scarcely any stranger escapes a fit of sicknefs, more or lefs severe; and if he recover from it, he afterwards enjoys health as the natives do. Though this does not always act directly on the complexion, it is a sufficient proof of the influence of climate on the human body, and that it will operate till it has brought the body into that particular state which is best suited to that region.

As for other differences in the features of the face, colour or size of eyes, thick or thin lips, acquiline noses, small noses, or no noses at all, or the conformation of other parts of the body, it is no more than what may often be found amongst ourselves in the same families. It is true indeed that the descendants of such people will often resemble their more remote progenitors; but if people who have the same peculiarities of features or persons were constantly to intermarry, we cannot doubt that what was at first accidental, or at least anomalous, would become constant and habitual in their posterity, and at last become the distinguishing mark of a whole people; and this could not fail of being confirmed in the race much sooner if they were in a climate where the air, occupation, and *whole manner of life, contributed to give the body a tendency to those peculiarities. Even among us, an anatomist can, from the form of the muscles and bones, give a tolerable judgement to what mechannic occupation a person had been addicted; but in Hindostan, where people almost invariably follow the

profession of their particular tribe, every careless observer may distinguish what tribe or cast every one belongs to.

All animals in a gregarious, and still more in a domesticated state, exhibit great diversity. The pigeon of the wood is of an uniform colour; in dove-cotes the bird diversifies almost infinitely; and the same is remarkable in the dog both in colour and size; nay, the very fhapes and instincts are lost or increased in an infinite degree.

The wild cattle of the north are chiefly white and dun; in the south, dark brown, deep ruddy, or black.

The same circumstances have been observed in the elephant.

After all it is to be supposed that the effects of phlogiston on the fat or animal oil placed between the rete mucosa and the epidermis, may be the preponderant cause of the jetty blackness that is at last superinduced in the lapse of ages, among a people exposed to the vertical unabated rays of the burning equatorial regions of Africa, which fades in Asia, and disappears every where in arctic' and antarctic approaches, becoming in general insensible beyond the tropics.

As to the coarse and curly texture of the hair, and the fetid smell of certain tribes of Africans, that, with a thousand other peculiarities, may be obviously accounted for from facts that have been already mentioned. So much for colour.

HINTS FOR ESTABLISHING A SEMINARY OF EDUCA

TION ON A NEW PLAN.

Continued from p. 95.

WHEN the pupil goes to learn French, then we must suppose him to be boarded in the house of his French preceptor, where he is never to hear any other language spoken, or be himself allowed to speak any language there except the French; the preceptor and his family being supposed to be natives, who speak the most polite dialect of the French language. Our pupil, however, will here possess one advantage which he did not enjoy when he en, tered to the Latin clafs, which will render the acquisition of this language, to him, much more easy than the former. During the four years he has already resided in the gymnasium, he has been allowed a certain number of hours each day for play; at these hours all the boys in the different classes there taught, have been suffered to mix together in the area, and sport with unreserved freedom, of course the students of French, and of La tin, and of every other language, by then conversing freely together, would naturally communicate to each other many words of the languages they respectively spoke. By this means, our pupil at entering to the French, would already be acquainted with many of the most necefsary common words; and be able, in some measure, at the very first, to converse with those about him. This would greatly facilitate

his acquisition of the French language, in so much, that by proceeding in the same manner he did at the Latin, there can be little doubt but he would be able, in one year, to speak it with ease and propriety, as well as to write it fluently.

During this time, however, he should attend the Latin preceptor one hour a day, to acquire a still greater knowledge of the elegancies of that language, and fluency in the use of it. He fhould also still attend to the Greek; and continue to carry on the other necessary branches of education, that were adapted to the genius, station, and future views of the pupil. The English language, in particular, éspecially if he intends ever to become a speaker in public, ought also to be studied with care, that he may become as perfect in the articulation and use of it as pofsible. He fhould likewise, as the faculties of the mind come to be unfolded, attend such of the lecturers in the academy as he is capable of profiting by, and thus be by degrees initiated in the study of the sciences during the time he was acquiring the languages.

After being one year with the French preceptor, he may pafs into the house of the Italian teacher; and from that to the teacher of Spanish; and from him to the Portuguese preceptor. These languages have all such a dependence on the Latin, are so analagous to the French, and have such an intimate relation to one another, that they will now be acquired with the utmost facility. Under the circumstances we have supposed, and considering the many opportunities

June 5. he must have had of learning words in these respective languages in the hours of relaxation, during the five years he has already resided in the gymnasium, it would not be at all surprising if a boy of quick parts fhould be able to speak and understand them tolerably well at the time he fhould enter to the several teachers; and it can scarcely be supposed, that in any case more than six months would be necefsary to perfect him in each of these languages.

While he was employed in these studies, our pupil fhould not be allowed to fall into the disuse of those languages he had already acquired, but should still be made to attend to his Latin, French, and English; for which purpose, a time fhould be set apart once a week, by the respective teachers of these languages, for exercises in the higher departments of their different profefsions. On these occasions, nice and critical questions fhould be agitated and discussed by the oldest pupils, in presence of the preceptor, and such of the students as had gone through the usual course under his tuition. This institution, like the practisings at a dancing school, would serve to give to those branches of education a finishing polish which they never could have had without it, and would accustom the pupils to an ease, and a firmnefs of elocution in each of these languages, which it is impossible ever to acquire without much practice, under the correction of a skilful preceptor. This mode of practising fhould be observed by every teacher of languages established in this gymnasium.