SECTION I.

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TO THE DEVONSHIRE ADVENTURER.

SIR,

THE more important a task is, the greater skill and caution is required in the performance of it. The management of children is certainly difficult; their tenderness and their ignorance demand to be handled delicately. A boisterous and insensible tutor, who thinks all of himself, and nothing of his pupil, is sure to commit errors. The time in which instruction is first administered is that during which the soul sleeps, and the animal life predominates. It is necessary therefore to rouse by degrees the powers of reason, to direct the early activity of the mind in due proportions, and to do this with the greatest skill and gentleness. Learning is necessary, but it should by no means be pushed in wholesale, so as to clog up the young powers, and to jumble ideas into one confused mass. It is a chief art in education so suit instruction to capacity, as the one ripens to enlarge the other, and thus proceed by gradual but firm steps. The understanding of what is taught can be facilitated only by these means. When a child is brought to understand what he has already learnt, he will naturally endeavour to understand what is next offered to him. When he once begins to perceive the beauty or usefulness of what he learns, he will no longer want a stimulus to exertion. He will find in himself a gradual progression of intellect; memory tells him what he was, and pride whispers what he is. His most boyish productions will appear absurd

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and contemptuous in comparison with what he is now capable of, and he will look forward to a more advanced age, when he shall be yet more capable. This is an emulation of oneself, and the most effectual spur to application. All other kinds of emulation are mixed with evil. That produced by association with others engaged in similar pursuits has some alliance with envy ; and that excited by the institution of rewards, sometimes encourages selfishness. Of these two kinds however the last is preferable; but then the rewards should be of that nature, that the views and hopes of the pupil may be directed to generous and noble objects, and not to such as are calculated to flatter his senses. toimi sudbu, ai

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The disposition of a child should be well known before a teacher determines on the use of lenity or severity towards his faults. Lenity tends in general to promote instruction rather than severity: except in some cases of a disposition, that has been spoiled by an absurd indulgence, or that is very obstinate and perverse. The last is generally found in children, whose education has been neglected, until they have attained incorrigible habits, and yielded too much to the propensities of their senses. With these severity will often be unavailing, but an unbounded lenity will establish them in their folly. Yet fenity is altogether better than severity. Children know not what they do they are whelly ignorant of themselves, and of all things around them: they are too weak to encounter dangers; too ignorant to resist temptation, and too innocent to suspect deceit. Do they not then claim our pity and indulgence? To a mind ductile, open and submissive, severity is a monster, whose hideous aspect deadens every rising quality, weakens the noblest emulation, and converts a pleasing application into a fearful remissness. It is better to pardon many imperfections and many omissions in a

young

young learner, than by constant severity to implant the dread of continual rebuke. What child can be at peace under perpetual apprehension? What child can study, when he fears his best exertions will meet nothing but repulse and austerity? There are some so hasty and inconsiderate; so forgetful of the comparative incapacities of the child who is under their guidance, as to treat every fault with harsh reprimand or manual chastisement. Such a man should be avoided as a reptile, and have nothing to do with education. Many however of this description are received into the bosom of families, or preside at the head of seminaries, not only to the terror but the destruction of their pupils, who regard education as tyranny, and the lessons of instruction as the stings of a scorpion.

Children of a good disposition and a ready application should never be led to perceive that they are distrusted. Nothing that can excite disgust should be mingled with their studies but their studies should be made pleasing to them by the good temper and attention of the master, by the placidity of his remarks, and by his gentle commendations, all which will have great force with a docile and promising child.

But severity is not more injurious to the progress of education than unbounded lenity. If a child finds every omission passed over without observance, he will accumulate neglect on neglect, and so learn nothing. He will contract such an opinion of his own license and impunity, as to spurn at controul and rush into disorder. Severity will then be answered not by submission, but by anger and sullenness: and the self-sufficiency he has been permitted to acquire may probably never be cured. An idea of self-importance in children is as pernicious as an unjust depression. Nothing is more

proper

proper than that a child should have a right though not an abject sentiment of his own dependent state and uninformed condition.

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Either extreme should be avoided. Immoderate severity, like a cruel frost in the season of May, withers the opening buds of the human reason, stifles the early efforts of the mind, and encourages despondency and ignorance. Unbounded lenity on the other hand is as surely calculated to make a child whimsical and opinionated, and to render him selfish, ill-natured and impatient, and consequently incapable of receiving properly the copious benefits of education.

The system of rewards and punishments in families is often directed by caprice rather than justice. But if Parents would preserve the respect and secure the affection of their offspring, they should be very cautious on these heads. Children soon become sensible of what they deserve, and if they find themselves rewarded or punished without desert, they will immediately conceive that their Parents or Tutors are capable of gross error, and from that moment begin to doubt the right of that authority which they exercise. In order to avoid such an evil, instructors should be careful to command their own temper, and to preserve their judgment cool and unimpassioned."

We not unfrequently behold the life of a child divided between rigorous confinement and uncontrouled leisure. This gives to instruction the air of oppression, and converts leisure into absolute idleness. As the most efficient instruction is that which is mild and pleasing, so the best recreations are those which are devoid of violence and excess. Were study made pleasurable to children, the hour of play would cease to be anticipated

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