only by the eloquent Rousseau, but by the judi cious Locke. In these days, when the fortunes of men of the most elevated rank have been so suddenly changed by revolution, many, who were born to large incomes, have been reduced to the necessity of maintaining themselves by the work of their own hands. Therefore arguments immediately applicable to the present times must occur to every prudent parent, in favour of this precautionary measure. But independently of this consideration, it must be particularly useful to an officer in the army or navy, to have a taste for some mechanical art, which may supply him with agreeable occupation in idle hours during peace, and in time of war, it will be highly advantageous, to be able to do with his own hands in the exigence of the moment many things, for which gentlemen are usually forced to wait for the directions and assistance of ordinary workmen, and to officers belonging to the engineer or ordnance department, mechanical knowledge and expertness in the use of tools may be of essential service. To all men it is agreeable, as extending their power. The education of the eye, as well as of the hand, should be attended to. Children should be early taught to measure distances, and to judge of them by the eye. The estimating of distances at sight, which in some people seems an intuitive art, is in fact merely the result of habit; yet how few can judge with tolerable accuracy

how far objects are from each other, or from their own eye! To estimate the angle, which objects make at the eye, is another practice of real utility to all men, and to military men in particular. This knowledge of the relative distance of ob jects, and of their distance from the eye, leads imperceptibly to the power of estimating the angle, which they subtend. Familiar objects may serve as measures for those, of which the size or distance is to be estimated; for instance, cattle, or the height of a man. By teaching children to observe at what distance a cow, or a horse, or the human figure, appears of a certain size, they may be led to form a scale of comparison of the sizes of all other objects at given distances. This is peculiarly applicable to the education of young men for the navy.

Next to accuracy of eye, the power of representing faithfully to others what is seen should be taught. The art of drawing will be extremely useful to a military man, and absolutely necessary for a seaman; and the sooner the child begins to practise it the better. During long winter evenings, when a boy of seven or eight years old is at a loss for occupation, in one of those critical moments, when the pain of ennui has become insupportable, and consequently when any employment will be agreeable, put a pencil into his hand, and begin to teach him to draw parallel lines, first with a ruler, then without one; the

use of the compasses should next be taught, and the pupil will soon proceed to drawing plans and elevations of houses. Young people should be carefully practised in the imagining and representing sections of various objects. They should be frequently asked,-If such an object were cut in such or such a direction, what would you see of it, and how would you represent it in a drawing?

The names and use of all the lines employed in mathematical diagrams should be early impressed upon your pupil's memory. The names of chord, sine, versed sine, and cosine, tangent, &c., will not alarm or flutter his understanding when he first goes to a military academy, if he have been familiarized to them at home. After having learned the names, the child should imitate the lines, and by degrees should be led to comprehend, that the relations which they bear to each other are not limited to the particular figure, in which he has first seen them drawn; but that they may have different relative proportions, and yet retain the same denominations and properties. To fix these names in the memory, and to make them applicable upon proper occasions, they should be applied by the pupil to familiar objects as well as to diagrams. A bow and arrow, for instance, furnishes an obvious example. Arch, chord, and sagitta, are actually derived from these implements. Without frequent repetition, the

technical terms of any art or science soon fade from the memory; but with occasional and well chosen applications, they may be easily rendered part of the common language of our pupils. These fundamental rudiments of the science of geometry, and of the art of surveying and drawing, early acquired, will give a clearness of idea, and a firmness of belief on these subjects, joined to an expertness of hand, which can seldom be acquired late in life. The particulars of infantile tuition may perhaps be soon effaced; but something remains, which facilitates future acquisition. The Platonists believed, that human knowledge is only reminiscence of what has passed in previous existence; in the same manner the aptitude, which sometimes appears in youths for certain arts or sciences, is frequently nothing more than the revival of obscure traces left by former instruction.

A boy intended for the army or navy should be as soon as possible initiated in geography. By frequent and short lessons the relative situations and particular shapes of the great continents and islands may be readily taught, and if learned early, will be indelibly fixed in the memory. In the technical use of the globes the pupil should be instructed; and if one lesson be carefully explained, and thoroughly understood, before another is attempted, no fatigue will be felt, and no disgust will arise. But, alas! how seldom do

parents attend to this simple rule! A good teacher would probably employ ten minutes a day for a month, on what an eager mother thinks she ought to accomplish in an hour.

Learning geography by globes and maps is very unjustly ridiculed by Rousseau, who catches hold of an unfortunate expression in a book of geography," The world is a globe of pasteboard,”—and in all the gaiety of rhetoric he attacks the whole system founded on this inaccurate assertion. He triumphantly proceeds to show, that a child would mistake the meaning of the words, and would have a confused idea that the world is a pasteboard globe. To this no answer need be made, but that every day's experience shows the contrary. It is one of the principal arts of intellectual education, to substitute symbols in the place of real objects, and to make technical description subservient to demonstration. Upon this depends the whole of algebra. One of the most obvious and natural means of rendering this mode of substitution familiar to the mind is in the very case of geography. For example, if in making a common globe a small magnet be inserted, and if a little figure containing a magnetic needle be placed on this globe, it will stand on any part of it, and will give a distinct idea of the antipodes, and of that attraction, which keeps bodies attached to the

It appears, that the same idea has occurred to M. Mentelle.