that a child is incapable of having any idea

of God before fourteen years of age, as has

been advanced by a writer, whom, in other respects, I love, Do we not convey to the youngest children, sentiments of fear, and of aversion, for metaphysical objects, which have no existence? Wherefore should they not be inspired with confidence and love for the Being who fills universal nature with his beneficence? Would to God I had preserved the sentiment of the existence of the Supreme Being, and of his principal attributes, as pure as I had it in my earliest years! It is the heart still more than the understanding, that religion demands. And which heart, I beseech you, is most filled with the Deity, and the most agreeable in his sight; that of the child, who. elevated with the sentiment of Him, raises his innocent hands to heaven, as he stammers out his prayer, or of the schoolman, who pretends to explain his nature. p. 107.

It is worthy of remark, that of all the sacred books, there is no one which children

take in with so much facility as the gospel. It would be proper to habituate them betimes, in a particular manner, to perform the actions which are there enjoined, without vain glory, and without any respect to human observation or applause. They ought to be trained up, therefore, in the habit of preventing each other in acts of friendship, in mutual deference, and in good offices of every kind.

All the children of citizens should be admitted into this national school, without making a single exception. I would insist only on the most perfect cleanliness, were they, in other respects, dressed but in patches sewed together. There you might see the child of a man of quality, attended by his governor, arrive in an equipage, and take his place by the side of a peasant's child, leaning on his little stick, dressed in canvass, in the very middle of winter, and carrying in his satchel his books and his slice of brown bread, for the provision of the whole day. Thus they would both learn to know each other, before they came

to be separated forever. The child of the rich man would be instructed to impart of his superfluity to him who is frequently destined to support the affluent out of his own necessary pittance. p. 108.

If you wish children to learn quickly to read, put a sugar-plum over each of their letters; they will soon have their alphabet by heart; and if you multiply or diminish the number of them, they will soon become arithmeticians. However that may be, they shall have profited wonderfully in this school of their country, should they leave it without having learned to read, write, and cipher; but deeply penetrated with this one truth, that to read, write, and cipher, and all the sciences in the world, are mere nothings; but that to be sincere, good, obliging; to love God and man, is the only science worthy of the human heart.

At the second era of education, I would have them instructed in the means which men employ in making provision for the wants of society. I would not pretend to

teach them the five hundred and thirty arts and handicrafts which are carried on at Paris, but those only which are subservient to the first necessities of human life, such as agriculture; the different processes employed in making bread; the arts, which, in the pride of our hearts we denominate mechanical, such as those of spinning flax and hemp, of weaving these into cloth, and that of building houses. p. 109.

Good will is more powerful than any other mode of constraint to which men can be subjected, for by means of it, every one becomes a law unto himself. p. 116.

If calamity be the road to truth, I have not been destitute of means to direct me toward her. The disorders of which I have frequently been the witness, and the victim, have suggested to me ideas of order. p. 135.

At the time when unconscious of having committed the slightest injury to any one,

after an infinity of fruitless voyages, services, and labours, I was preparing, in solitude, these last fruits of my experience and application, my secret enemies, that is, the men under whom I scorned to enlist as a partisan, found means to intercept a gratuity which I annually received from the beneficence of my sovereign. It was the only source of subsistence to myself, and the only means I enjoyed of assisting my family. To this catastrophe were added the loss of health, and domestic calamities which baffle all the powers of description.

But, I bear no malice to any of my persecutors. If I am, one day laid under the necessity of exposing to the light, their secret practises against me, it shall only be in the view of justfying my own conduct. In other respects, I am under obligation to them. Their persecution has proved the cause of my repose. To their disdainful ambition I am indebted for a liberty, which I prize far above their greatness. To them I owe the delicious studies to which I have devoted my attention. Providence has not