or generals, or physicians, or lawyers, cannot be born with children, "I hate," says Dr. Johnson, "to hear people ask children whether they will "be bishops, or chancellors, or generals, or what

profession their genius leads them to; do not "they know, that a boy of seven years old has a genius for nothing but spinning a top and eating "apple pye?"

It is well worth the while of parents to bring the vague notions relative to genius within some definite boundaries. Beside the advantage of being at liberty to decide early upon the choice of a profession for a child, according to local circumstances and convenience, many other good consequences would ensue, and many pernicious practices in education would be prevented, by the refutation of this fundamental error. A father who is persuaded, that there is an immeasurable difference between the natural capacities of children, and who admits all the pretensions and all the prerogatives of genius, will act in consequence of this conviction, and, in the management and education of a family, would not perhaps hold an equal hand over his children; he probably would neglect those, whom he believed to be dunces, and thus create or confirm the inferiority that he presupposed: those, whom he fancied to be geniuses, he would on the contrary exalt so much in their own conceit, that he would run the risk of making them disdain that patient

labour, which is essential to the success and utility of even the greatest natural abilities. He may be led by his erroneous opinion into a still greater danger in moral education; the danger of exciting feelings which render their victims at once odious and wretched. No intellectual attainments, nor their most splendid rewards, wealth and celebrity, can compensate for such misery. Envy and jealousy may be easily excited among children, by a parent's showing his opinion that some are born with, and some without, a genius; none are envied for labour or perseverance; in these the competitor can be imitated, followed, and excelled. These efforts are acknowledged to depend upon the will; and the wages of industry are the same for all, by whom they are patiently earned: but if children, who have less natural vivacity than others, are taught that the success and facility of genius are the privileges, the unattainable privileges, of a favoured few, who are exempt from the necessity of perseverance and labour, this belief must induce either despair, or envy, or both. The unreasonable manner, in which the predestined dunce is usually treated, increases his sense of injustice he is exhorted to labour without giving him motive, and even without his having the hope to reach what he is previously assured he never can attain. Instead of this cruel and absurd injustice, a perception of the truth would induce parents to pursue a more equal and

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encouraging conduct, and thence would result the most beneficial effects on the temper and intellectual progress of the pupil. If one child has a more accurate or quicker eye or ear than another, or shows more natural vivacity or strength, or if, in consequence of this superiority of organization, he early exhibits greater powers of attention, memory, or imagination, let this be fairly acknowledged to him and to his competitors, but without making use of the mysterious and delusive term genius, to denote the difference of capacity. The human mind, even in childhood, submits to necessity; therefore it is much less dangerous to state explicitly the natural advantages which one child possesses over another, than to hint that any of his companions are superior to him in an indefinable, indescribable something, which he can neither see, feel, nor comprehend. But when a child hears the mortifying fact, that any of his senses are defective, that he wants natural vivacity or sensibility, and that consequently he shows less attention, memory, or imagination than his competitors, he should at least have the consolation of hearing the whole truth, and his parents should encourage him by the assurance, that these deficiencies may be amply compensated by patient perseverance, and by careful and judicious education.

Upon the whole it appears, that we often mistake the effect of accidental circumstances for

proofs of natural propensities; that there are original differences in the organs of the senses, or perhaps in the nerves of the brain, or in the vivacity of the perception of pain and pleasure, that hence arises a difference in the quickness and strength of the power of association, consequently in the memory, judgment, and imagination; but, that altogether the sum of this natural difference in minds is not nearly so great as it is commonly believed to be; that whatever it may originally be, it is subject so much to the influence of education, that it does not oppose insuperable difficulties to the attainment of eminence in any profession. Where there exist any natural defects of organization in children, these are obvious at an early age, and parents may be guided by these indications. No father, for instance, would be so absurd as to breed up a stuttering child for the bar, or a lame, or weakly boy for the army; but an early apparent inferiority in the memory or imagination of a child need not be considered as an irremediable objection to his being destined for any profession, in which memory or imagination is requisite.

The result of this examination into the nature of original genius does not, however, decide the question, whether the choice of professions should be made by parents, or left to children: for though it be admitted, that there is not such an original difference of talents, as should, independently of

education, and consequently of parental judg ment, decide the professional destination of children, yet there are many other important points to be considered.

It is here necessary to advert to the opinions of those, who object to the plan of a parent's choosing a child's profession, not because they believe in the innate force of genius, but because they imagine, that all restraint is unfavourable to the growth and developement of the mental powers. Under the term restraint they comprise a regular course of instruction; adopting the maxim, that people never learn any thing well but what they teach themselves. These disbelievers in the power or utility of education produce some examples of self-taught geniuses, as evidence in favour of their opinions. It is true, that some men born in the lowest ranks of society have, under many disadvantages, cultivated and formed uncommon talents: it is true, that in some instances the acquirements made by such undirected, unassisted exertions, have surpassed what has been produced by the solicitude of rents or the vigilance of preceptors: but a few meritorious, extraordinary examples of this kind are not sufficient, to form a decisive argument against regular modes of instruction. It is to be wished, that some of these self-taught prodigies would give the history of the progress of their own minds, including their mistakes, difficulties,

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