tion, we hope that all we have said on servants and on acquaintance will be full in the reader's recollection. No private education, we repeat it, can succeed without perfect unanimity, consistency, and steadiness, among all the individuals in the family. We have recommended to parents the highest liberality as the highest prudence, in rewarding the care of enlightened preceptors. Ye great and opulent parents, condescend to make your children happy: provide for yourselves the cordial of domestic affection against that sickness of long life-old age.' In what we have said of governesses, masters, and the value of female accomplishments, we have considered not only what is the fashion of to-day, but rather what is likely to be the fashion of ten or twenty years hence. Mothers will look back, and observe how much the system of female education has altered within their own memory; and they will see, with “the prophetic eye of taste," what may probably be the fashion of another spring-another race. We have endeavoured to substitute the words domestic happiness instead of the present terms, "success in the world-fortunate establishments," &c. This will lead, perhaps, at first, to some confusion in the minds of those who have been long used to the old terms; but the new vocabulary has its advantages; the young and unprejudiced will, perhaps, perceive them, and maternal tenderness will calculate with more precision, but not with less eagerness, the chances of happiness according to the new and old tables of interest. Sectary-metaphysicians, if any of this description should ever deign to open a book that has a practical title, will, we fear, be disappointed in our chapters on Memory-Imagination and Judgment. They will not find us the partisans of any system, and they will probably close the volume with supercilious contempt. We endeavour to console ourselves by the hope, that men of sense and candour will be more indulgent, and will view with more complacency an attempt to collect from all metaphysical writers, those observations which can be immediately of practical use in education. Without any pompous pretensions, we have given a sketch of what we have been able to understand and ascertain of * "Another spring, another race supplies."-POPE'S Homer. the history of the mind. On some subjects, the wisest of our readers will at least give us credit for knowing that we are ignorant. We do not set that high value upon Memory, which some preceptors are inclined to do. From all that we have observed, we believe that few people are naturally deficient in this faculty; though in many it may have been so injudiciously cultivated as to induce the spectators to conclude, that there was some original defect in the retentive power. The recollective power is less cultivated than it ought to be, by the usual modes of education; and this is one reason why so few pupils rise above mediocrity. They lay up treasures for moths to corrupt; they acquire a quantity of knowledge, they learn a multitude of words by rote, and they cannot produce a single fact, or a single idea, in the moment when it is wanted: they collect, but they cannot combine. We have suggested the means of cultivating the inventive faculty at the same time that we store the memory; we have shown, that on the order in which ideas are presented to the mind, depends the order in which they will recur to the memory; and we have given examples from the histories of great men and little children, of the reciprocal assistance which the memory and the inventive powers afford each other. In speaking of Taste, it has been our wish to avoid prejudice and affectation. We have advised that children should early be informed that the principles of taste depend upon casual, arbitrary, variable associations. This will prevent our pupils from falling into the vulgar error of being amazed and scandalized at the tastes of other times and other nations. The beauties of nature and the productions of art, which are found to be most generally pleasing, we should associate with pleasure in the mind: but we ought not to expect that children should admire those works of imagination which suggest, instead of expressing, ideas. Until children have acquired the language, until they have all the necessary trains of ideas, many of the finest strokes of genius in oratory, poetry, and painting, must to them be absolutely unintelligible. In a moral point of view, we have treated of the false associations which have early influence upon the imagination, and produce the furious passions and miserable vices. The false associations which first inspire the young and innocent mind with the love of wealth, of power, or what is falsely called pleasure, are pointed out; and some practical hints are offered to parents, which it is hoped may tend to preserve their children from these moral insanities. We do not think that persons who are much used to children, will quarrel with us for what we have said of early prodigies of wit. People who merely talk to children for the amusement of the moment, may admire their "lively nonsense," and will probably think the simplicity of the mind that we prefer, downright stupidity. The habit of reasoning is seldom learned by children who are much taken notice of for their sprightly repartees; but we have observed that children, after they have learned to reason, as they grow up and become acquainted with the manners and customs of the world, are by no means deficient in talents for conversation, and in that species of wit which depends upon the perception of analogy between ideas, rather than a play upon words. At all events, we would rather that our pupils should be without the brilliancy of wit, than the solid and essential power of judgment. To cultivate the judgment of children, we must begin by teaching them accurately to examine and compare such external objects as are immediately obvious to their senses; when they begin to argue, we must be careful to make them explain their terms and abide by them. In books and conversation, they must avoid all bad reasoning, nor should they ever be encouraged in the quibbling habit of arguing for victory. Prudence we consider as compounded of judgment and resolution. When we teach children to reflect upon and compare their own feelings, when we frequently give them their choice in things that are interesting to them, we educate them to be prudent. We cannot teach this virtue until children have had some expérience; as far as their experience goes, their prudence may be exercised. Those who reflect upon their own feelings, and find out exactly what it is that makes them happy, are taught wisdom by a very few distinct lessons. Even fools, it is said, grow wise by experience, but it is not until they grow old under her rigid discipline. Economy is usually understood to mean prudence in the management of money: we have used this word in a more enlarged sense. Children, we have observed, may be economic of any thing that is trusted to their charge; until they have some use for money, they need not be troubled or tempted with it: if all the necessaries and conveniences of life are provided for them, they must spend whatever is given to them as pocketmoney, in superfluities. This habituates them early to extravagance. We do not apprehend that young people should be intrusted with money, till they have been some time used to manage the money business of others. They may be taught to keep the accounts of a family, from which they will learn the price and value of different commodities. All this, our readers will perceive, is nothing more than the application of the different reasoning powers to different objects. We have thus slightly given a summary of the chapters in the preceding work, to recall the whole in a connected view to the mind; a few simple principles run through the different parts; all the purposes of practical education tend to one distinct object; to render our pupils good and wise, that they may enjoy the greatest possible share of happiness at present and in future. Parental care and anxiety, the hours devoted to the instruction of a family, will not be thrown away; if parents have the patience to wait for their reward, that reward will far surpass their most sanguine expectations: they will find in their children agreeable companions, sincere and affectionate friends. Whether they live in retirement or in the busy world, they will feel their interest in life increase, their pleasures multiplied by sympathy with their beloved pupils; they will have a happy home. How much is comprised in that single expression! The gratitude of their pupils will continually recall to their minds the delightful reflection, that the felicity of their whole family is their work; that the virtues and talents of their children are the necessary consequences of good education. NOTES, CONTAINING CONVERSATIONS AND ANECDOTES OF CHIL DREN. SEVERAL years ago a mother, who had a large family to educate, and who had turned her attention with much solicitude to the subject of education, resolved to write notes from day to day of all the trifling things which mark the progress of the mind in childhood. She was of opinion, that the art of education should be considered as an experimental science, and that many authors of great abilities had mistaken their road by following theory instead of practice. The title of "Practical Education," was chosen by this lady, and prefixed to a little book for children, which she began, but did not live to finish. The few notes which remain of her writing are preserved, not merely out of respect to her memory, but because it is thought that they may be useful. Her plan of keeping a register of the remarks of children, has at intervals been pursued in her family; a number of these anecdotes have been interspersed in this work; a few, which did not seem immediately to suit the didactic nature of any of our chapters, remain, and with much hesitation and diffidence are offered to the public. We have selected such anecdotes as may Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, daughter of Edward Sneyd, Esq. of Litchfield. As this lady's name has been mentioned in a monody on the death of Major André, we take this opportunity of correcting a mistake that occurs in a note to that performance. "Till busy rumour chas'd each pleasing dream, The note on these lines is as follows:"The tidings of Honora's marriage. Upon that event Mr. André quitted his profession as a merchant, and joined our army in America.” Miss Honora Sneyd was married to Mr. Edgeworth in July, 1773, and the date of Major André's first commission in the Welch Fusiliers is March 4th, 1771. |