unaffectedly, not according to any preconcerted fcheme, or for the purpose of perfuading him that he is what he is not. There are three confiderable advantages which would attend upon this fpecies of edu cation. Firft, liberty. Three fourths of the flavery and restraint that are now impofed upon young perfons would be annihilated at a stroke. Secondly, the judgment would be strengthened by continual exercife. Boys would no longer learn their leffons after the manner of parrots. No one would learn without a reason, fatisfactory to himself, why he learned; and it would perhaps be well, if he were frequently prompted to affign his reafons. Boys would then confider for themfelves, whether they understood what they read. To know when and how to afk a question is no contemptible part of learning. Sometimes they would pass over difficulties, and neglect effential preliminaries but then the nature of the thing would speedily recal them, and induce them to return to examine the tracts which before had been overlooked. For this purpose it would be well that the fubjects of their juvenile ftudies fhould often be difcuffed, and that one boy fhould compare his progrefs and his competence to decide in certain points with those of another. There is nothing that more ftrongly excites our enquiries than this mode of detecting our ignorance. Thirdly, to study for ourselves is the true method of acquiring habits of activity. The horfe that goes round in a mill, and the boy that is anticipated and led by the hand in all his acquirements, are not active. I do not call a wheel that turns round fifty times in a minute, active. Activity is a mental quality. If therefore you would generate habits of activity, turn the boy loofe in the fields of fcience. Let him explore the path for himself. Without increasing his difficulties, you may venture to leave him for a moment, and fuffer him to ask himself the queftion before he afks you, or, in other words, to afk the queftion before he receives the information. Far be it from the fyftem here laid down, to increase the difficulties of youth. No, it diminishes them a hundred fold. Its office is to produce inclination; and a willing temper makes every burthen light. Laftly, it is the tendency of this fyftem to produce in the young, when they are grown up to the ftature of men, a love of literature. The eftablished modes of education produce the oppofite effect, unless in a fortunate few, who, by the celerity of their progrefs, and the diftinc chimney-fweeper and a fcavenger, who, if their existence is of any benefit to mankind, are however rather tolerated in the world, than thought entitled to the teftimonies of our gratitude and efteem. ESSAY X. OF COHABITATION. No fubject is of more importance in the morality of private life than that of cohabitation. Every man has his ill humours, his fits of peevishness and exacerbation. Is it better that he should spend thefe upon his fellow beings, or fuffer them to fubfide of themselves? It seems to be one of the moft important of the arts of life, that men fhould not come too near each other, or touch in too many points. Exceffive familiarity is the bane of focial happiness. There is no practice to which the human mind adapts itself with greater facility, than that of apologifing to itself for its mifcarriages, and giving to its errors the outfide and appearance of virtues, The paffionate man, who feels himself continually prompted to knock every one down that feems to him pertinacious and perverfe, never fails to expatiate upon the efficacy of this mode of correcting error, and to fatirife with great vehemence the Utopian abfurdity of him who |