as given. If it be some action you would have done, or done otherwise, whenever they forget or do it awkwardly, make them do it over and over again, till they are perfect whereby you will get these two advantages. First, to see whether it be an action they can do, or is fit to be expected of them. For sometimes children are bid to do things, which upon trial they are found not able to do; and had need be taught and exercised in before they are required to do them. Secondly, another thing got by it will be this, that by repeating the same action, till it be grown habitual in them, the performance will not depend on memory, or reflection, the concomitant of prudence and age, and not of childhood: but will be natural in them. Thus, bowing to a gentleman when he salutes him, and looking in his face when he speaks to him, is by constant use as natural to a wellbred man as breathing; it requires no thought, no reflection. Having this way cured in your child any fault, it is cured for ever: and thus, one by one, you may weed them out all, and plant what habits you please.

"I have seen parents so heap rules on their children, that it was impossible for the poor little ones to remember a tenth part of them, much less to observe them. However, they were either by words or blows corrected for the breach of those multiplied and often very impertinent precepts. Whence it naturally followed, that the children minded not what was said to them; when it was evident to them, that no attention they were capable of, was sufficient to preserve them from transgression, and the rebukes which followed it.

"Let therefore your rules to your son be as few as possible, and rather fewer than more than seem absolutely necessary. For if you burden him with many rules, one of these two things must necessarily follow, that either he must be very often punished, which will be of ill consequence, by making punishment too frequent and familiar; or else you must let the transgressions of some of your rules go unpunished, whereby they will of course grow contemptible, and your authority become cheap to him. Make

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but few laws, but see they be well observed, when once made. Few years require but few laws, and as his age increases, when one rule is by practice well established, you may add another.

"But pray remember children are not to be taught by rules; which will be always slipping out of their memories. What you think necessary for them to do, settle in them by an indispensable practice, as often as the occasion returns; and, if it be possible, make occasions. This will beget habits in them, which, being once established, operate of themselves, easily and naturally, without the assistance of the memory. But here let me give two cautions:

"1. The one is, that you keep them to the practice of what you would have grow into a habit in them, by kind words and gentle admonitions, rather as minding them of what they forget, than by harsh rebukes and chiding as if they were wilfully guilty.

"2. Another thing you are to take care of, is not to endeavour to settle too many habits at once, lest by a variety you confound them, and so perfect none. When constant custom has made any one thing easy and natural to them, and they practise it without reflection, you may then go

on to another.

"This method of teaching children by a repeated practice, and the same action done over and over again, under the eye and direction of the tutor, till they have got the habit of doing it well, and not by relying on rules trusted to their memories, has so many advantages, which way soever we consider it, that I cannot but wonder (if ill customs could be wondered at in anything) how it could possibly be so much neglected. I shall name one more that comes now in my way. By this method we shall see, whether what is required of him be adapted to his capacity, and

way suited to the child's natural genius and for that too must be considered in a right

The habits of attention and concentration are the great main-springs of education.

As we have already observed, the great secret in securing the attention of children is to interest them; and the habit of attention is cultivated by keeping the faculty in a state of vigorous activity, during the whole course of our instruction. The habits of listlessness and inattention are engendered by injudicious or inappropriate plans of teaching. The habit of directing the undivided force of the faculties to a given subject is the great main-spring of self-education. But this habit, in its fullest vigour, is rarely acquired in early life; notwithstanding, the teacher should be prepared to avail himself of all the occasions most favourable for its cultivation. The principle of emulation and a judicious system of rewards are two of our most powerful supplemental aids in the cultivation of this habit.

The habit of observation should be specially cultivated.

Object lessons are highly calculated to foster the habit of observation. Children should be accustomed to examine, analyse, and inspect every object of interest around them: the flowers and minerals by the wayside, the animals of the fields, the warblers of the forest, the various household utensils, &c., all present us with excellent subjects for exercising the observing faculties. The habit of observing the structure, uses, and properties of familiar things, prepares the mind for entering upon a higher course of scientific inquiry.

PART II.

ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL FACULTIES.

CHAP. I.

PRELIMINARY NOTIONS.-IMPORTANCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS IN RELATION TO TEACHING, ETC.

No class of men require a knowledge of intellectual and moral philosophy more than teachers: self-knowledge is valuable to all, but it is especially valuable to them. Selfknowledge, in its fullest acceptation, requires that we should know ourselves in relation to the three states of our existence, the past, the present, and the future: consciousness tells us what we are, remembrance informs us what we have been, and reason, by combining the facts of our past and present existence, enables us to anticipate what we shall be. But self-knowledge, in this comprehensive sense, is rarely found amongst teachers: we seem to regard our minds as little as we do our watches, look at the dial plate, but heed not the internal machinery

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the springs, the regulators, or the beautiful combinations of wheels within wheels by which the results are produced. A man, who is entrusted with the direction of a machine, should surely be acquainted with the principles of its construction, Now the teacher has to regulate and develop the faculties of a human soul,—his mind has to act upon another mind so as to give a right tone and direction to its development. Here mind is the agent which acts, and mind is the object acted upon. The teacher should, therefore, study the philosophy of our intellectual and moral nature.

The most wonderful work of God is the human soul,

for it has been created after His own image; and the laws which govern its action and development demand the most patient study. The highest of all intellectual efforts, is that of the mind engaged in the study of itself, the principle of thought engaged in the investigation of the laws and processes of thought, the intellectual vision turned inwardly upon itself. Here we must arrest the current of thought, in order to determine the modes and conditions of its action and development.

The child is the man in embryo: the child has the same faculties as the man, but they are in a different state of development. In order that a man may teach children, he should thoroughly sympathise with them,he should realise their habits of thought and action, peculiar tastes and modes of self-development; he should frequently, in imagination, conceive himself to be a little child, and recall to himself all that he thought and felt when he was a little child; so that he may be able to tell what effect any particular form of instruction or mode of training will have upon them. A teacher, therefore, should not only know himself as he is, but he should also look back to the early history of his own mind, and analyse the facts of this past existence with the view of determining the causes which had been most operative in stimulating the growth and development of his faculties.

Let us for a moment glance at the panorama of our early years, with the view of realising our thoughts and feelings relative to the educational influences which were brought to bear upon our own intellectual and moral development. This psychological inquiry will bring home to us the momentous fact: that there is not a single act, not a single thought, of our past life, that has not had an influence in fixing our present intellectual and moral condition. What WE ARE is but the last link in a long chain of sequences, extending from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to age; and what WE SHALL BE will only be an extension of the links of this chain of sequences.