ོ་ ༢ CONTENTS. III, IV. Of the Sources of Genius V. Of an Early. Tafte for Reading VI. Of the Study of the Claffics VII. Of Public and Private Education THE ENQUIRER. PART I. ESSAY I. OF AWAKENING THE MIND. THE true object of education, like that of every other moral procefs, is the generation of happiness. Happiness to the individual in the first place. If individuals were univerfally happy, the species would be happy. Man is a focial being. In fociety the interests of individuals are intertwisted with each other, and cannot be separated. Men fhould be taught to affift each other. The firft object should be to train a man to be happy; the second to train him to be useful, that is, to be virtuous. B There object from time to time under every point of view which is calculated to demonftrate its lovelinefs. Criticife, commend, exemplify. Nothing is more common than for a master to fail in infufing the paffions into his pupil that he purposes to infufe; but who is there that refufes to confefs, that the failure is to be afcribed to the indolence or unfkilfulness of the mafter, not to the impoffibility of fuccefs? The more inexperienced and immature is the mind of the infant, the greater is its pliability. It is not to be told how early, habits, pernicious or otherwife, are acquired. Children bring fome qualities, favourable or adverse to cultivation, into the world with them. But they fpeedily acquire other qualities in addition to these, and which are probably of more moment than they. Thus a diseased state of body, and still more an improper treatment, the rendering the child, in any confiderable degree, either the tyrant or the flave of those around him, may in the first twelve months implant feeds of an ill temper, which in fome inftances may accompany him through life. Reafoning from the principles already delivered, it would be a grofs mistake to fuppofe, that the fole object to be attended to in the first part of education, is to provide for the present eafe and happiness of the individual. An awak-. ened mind is one of the most important purposes of education, and it is a purpose that cannot too foon enter into the views of the preceptor. It seems probable that early inftruction is a thing, in itself confidered, of very inferior value. Many of those things which we learn in our youth, it is neceffary, if we would well understand, that we fhould learn over again in our riper years. Many things that, in the dark and unapprehenfive period of youth, are attained with infinite labour, may, by a ripe and judicious understanding, be acquired with an effort inexpreffibly inferior. He who fhould affirm, that the true object of juvenile education was to teach no one thing in particular, but to provide against the age of five and twenty a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn, would certainly not obtrude upon us the abfurdest of paradoxes. The purpose therefore of early inftruction is not abfolute. It is of lefs importance, generally speaking, that a child fhould acquire this or that fpecies of knowledge, than that, through the medium of inftruction, he should acquire habits of intellectual activity. It is not fo much for the direct confideration of what he learns, that his mind must not be fuffered to le idle. B 3 The pre |