tinct ideas he should be told that the kind of salt which he eats is not the only salt in the world; he may be put in mind of the kind of salts which he has, perhaps, smelt in smelling-bottles; and he should be farther told, that there are a number of earthy, alkaline, and metallic salts, with which he will in time become acquainted.

This

When an acid is put upon an alkali, or upon limestone, chalk, or marl, a bubbling may be observed, and a noise is heard; a child should be told that this is called effervescence. After some time the effervescence ceases, and the limestone, &c. is dissolved in the acid. effervescence, the child should be informed, arises from the escape of a considerable quantity of a particular sort of air, called fixed air, or carbonic acid gas. In the solution of the lime in the acid, the lime and acid have an attraction for one another; but as the present mixture has no attraction for the gas, it escapes, and in rising forms the bubbling or effervescence. This may be proved to a child, by showing him that if an acid is poured upon caustic lime (lime which has had this gas taken from it by fire) there will be no efferves

cence.

There are various other chymical experiments with which children may amuse themselves; they may be employed in analyzing marl, or clays; they may be provided with materials for making ink or soap. It should be pointed out to them, that the common domestic and culinary operations of making butter and cheese, baking, brewing, &c., are all chymical processes. We hope the reader will not imagine, that we have in this slight sketch pretended to point out the best experiments which can be devised for children; we have only offered a few of the simplest which occurred to us, that parents may not, at the conclusion of this chapter, exclaim, "What is to be done? How are we to begin? What experiments are suited to children? If we knew, our children should try them."

It is of little consequence what particular experiment is selected for the first; we only wish to show that the minds of children may be turned to this subject; and that, by accustoming them to observation, we give them not only the power of learning what has been already discovered, but of adding, as they grow older, something to the general stock of human knowledge.

CHAPTER XIX.

ON PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION.

THE anxious parent, after what has been said concerning tasks and classical literature, will inquire whether the whole plan of education recommended in the following pages is intended to relate to public or to private education. It is intended to relate to both. It is not usual to send children to school before they are eight or nine years old: our first object is to show how education may be conducted to that age in such a manner, that children may be well prepared for the acquisition of all the knowledge usually taught at schools, and may be perfectly free from many of the faults that pupils sometimes have acquired before they are sent to any public seminary. It is obvious, that public preceptors would be saved much useless labour and anxiety, were parents to take some pains in the previous instruction of their children; and more especially, if they were to prevent them from learning a taste for total idleness, or habits of obstinacy and of falsehood, which can scarcely be conquered by the utmost care and vigilance. We can assure parents, from experience, that if they pursue steadily a proper plan with regard to the understanding and the moral habits, they will not have much trouble with the education of their children after the age we have mentioned, as long as they continue to instruct them at home; and if they send them to public schools, their superiority in intellect and in conduct will quickly appear. Though we have been principally attentive to all the circumstances which can be essential to the management of young people during the first nine or ten years of their lives, we have by no means confined our observations to this period alone; but we have endeavoured to lay before parents a general view of the human mind (as far as it relates to our subject), of proper methods of teaching, and of the objects of rational instruction-so that they may extend the prin

ciples which we have laid down, through all the succeeding periods of education, and may apply them as it may best suit their peculiar situations or their peculiar wishes. We are fully conscious that we have executed but very imperfectly even our own design; that experimental education is yet but in its infancy, and that boundless space for improvement remains; but we flatter ourselves, that attentive parents and preceptors will consider with candour the practical assistance which is offered to them, especially as we have endeavoured to express our opinions without dogmatical presumption, and without the illiberal exclusion of any existing institutions or prevailing systems. People who, even with the best intentions, attack with violence any of these, and who do not consider what is practicable, as well as what ought to be done, are not likely to persuade or to convince mankind; to increase the general sum of happiness, or their own portion of felicity. Those who really desire to be of service to society, should point out decidedly, but with temperate indulgence for the feelings and opinions of others, whatever appears to them absurd or reprehensible in any prevailing customs: having done this, they will rest in the persuasion that what is most reasonable will ultimately prevail.

Mankind, at least the prudent and rational part of mankind, have an aversion to pull down, till they have a moral certainty that they can build up a better edifice than that which has been destroyed. "Would you," says an eminent writer, "convince me that the house I live in is a bad one, and would you persuade me to quit it; build a better in my neighbourhood; I shall be very ready to go into it, and shall return you my very sincere thanks." Till another house be ready, a wise man will stay in his old one, however inconvenient its arrangement, however seducing the plans of the enthusiastic projector. We do not set up for projectors or reformers: we wish to keep steadily in view the actual state of things, as well as our own hopes of progressive improvement; and to seize and combine all that can be immediately serviceable; all that can assist, without precipitating improvements. Every well-informed parent, and every liberal schoolmaster, must be sensible that there are many circumstances in the management of public education which might be condemned with reason; that too much time is sacrificed to the study of

the learned languages; that too little attention is paid to the general improvement of the understanding and formation of the moral character; that a schoolmaster cannot pay attention to the temper or habits of each of his numerous scholars; and that parents, during that portion of the year which their children spend with them, are not sufficiently solicitous to co-operate with the views of the schoolmaster; so that the public is counteracted by the private education. These, and many other things, we have heard objected to schools; but what are we to put in the place of schools? How are vast numbers who are themselves occupied in public or professional pursuits, how are inen in business or in trade, artists or manufacturers, to educate their families, when they have not time to attend to them; when they may not think themselves perfectly prepared to undertake the classical instruction and entire education of several boys; and when, perhaps, they may not be in circumstances to engage the assistance of such a preceptor as they could approve? It is obvious, that if in such situations parents were to attempt to educate their children at home, they would harass themselves and probably spoil their pupils, irrecoverably. It would, therefore, be in every respect impolitic and cruel to disgust those with public schools who have no other resource for the education of their families. There is another reason which has perhaps operated, unperceived upon many in the middle ranks of life, and which determines them in favour of public education. Persons of narrow fortune, or persons who have acquired wealth in business, are often desirous of breeding up their sons to the liberal professions: and they are conscious that the company, the language, and the style of life, which their children would be accustomed to at home, are beneath what would be suited to their future professions. Public schools efface this rusticity, and correct the faults of provincial dialect: in this point of view they are highly advantageous. We strongly recommend it to such parents to send their children to large public schools, to Rugby, Eton, or Westminster; not to any small school; much less to one in their own neighbourhood. Small schools are apt to be filled with persons of nearly the same stations and out of the same neighbourhood: from this circumstance, they contribute to perpetuate uncouth, antiquated idioms, and many of those obscure

prejudices which cloud the intellect in the future business of life.

While we admit the necessity which compels the largest portion of society to prefer public seminaries of education, it is incumbent upon us to caution parents against expecting that the moral character, the understandings, or the tempers of their children, should be improved at large schools; there the learned languages, we acknowledge, are successfully taught. Many satisfy themselves with the assertion, that public education is the least troublesome; that a boy once sent to school is settled for several years of life, and will require only short returns of parental care twice a year, at the holydays. It is hardly to be supposed that those who think in this manner should have paid any anxious, or at least any judicious attention, to the education of their children, previous to sending them to school. It is not likely that they should be very solicitous about the commencement of an education which they never meant to finish: they would think that what could be done during the first few years of life, is of little consequence; that children from four to seven years old are too young to be taught; and that a school would speedily supply all deficiencies, and correct all those faults which begin at that age to be troublesome at home. Thus to a public school, as to a general infirmary for mental disease, all desperate subjects are sent, as the last resource. They take with them the contagion of their vices, which quickly runs through the whole tribe of their companions, especially among those who happen to be nearly of their own age, whose sympathy peculiarly exposes them to the danger of infection. We are often told, that as young people have the strongest sympathy with each other, they will learn most effectually from each other's example. They do learn quickly from example, and this is one of the dangers of a public school: a danger which is not necessary, but incidental; a danger against which no schoolmaster can possibly guard, but which parents can, by the previous education of the pupils, prevent. Boys are led, driven, or carried to school; and in a schoolroom they first meet with those who are to be their fellow-prisoners. They do not come with fresh, unprejudiced minds, to commence their course of social education; they bring with them all the ideas and habits