It will no doubt be a great step, to have taught them to describe with clearness and perfect precision, all the objects which strike their senses; but the circle of those of which they hear others speak; and will in consequence learn to express themselves, is incomparably more extensive.

Children ought to feel the affections of love, gratitude, and confidence; and ought to know how to express them: and their moral perceptions ought to furnish them with terms for these, as their physical perceptions have furnished them for those which are the objects of their senses.

As the art of knowing and speaking with relation to material objects, unites itself with the first interests and first solicitudes of a mother, so the developement of the first moral affections, and the expression of this developement ought to be learnt whilst the child is yet in infancy.

PESTALOZZI.

A MOTHER should give her children a superfluity of enthusiasm, that after they have lost all they will lose on mixing with the world, enough may still remain, to prompt and support them through great actions. A cloak should be of three-pile, to keep its gloss in wear.

GUESSES AT TRUTH.

THE manner in which children describe what they have seen or learned, affords the best criterion that I am aware of, whereby to estimate the strength and vigour of conception. By requiring clear and accurate descriptions, we do much more to invigorate this faculty, than by all the set lessons in the world.

Children who have never been exercised in this way, are at first at great loss for expression; and it is no small advantage for the mind, to be thus set to work for words, to express the new ideas it has acquired. A little assistance, may at first be not only useful, but necessary. But of assistance in this way, the parent ought never to be lavish ; as it is one of the greatest drawbacks upon the improvement of the infant faculties, that teachers, to save themselves trouble, tell all, and leave the children to tell nothing. HAMILTON,

THE little one was dancing at his side,
And dragging him with petty violence,
Hither and thither, from the onward path.

The sage,

Though dallying with the minion's wayward will, His own premeditated course pursued;

And while in tones of sportive tenderness,
He answered all its questions, asked others
As simple as its own, yet wisely framed

To wake and prove an infant's faculties;

As though its mind were some sweet instrument, And he with breath and touch were finding out What stops and keys would yield the richest music. MONTGOMERY.

We are surprised that persons possessed of loads of knowledge, should speak and act so foolishly, as they sometimes do. We might as well wonder that the jack-daw who stole half-a-crown piece, did not lay it out in purchasing bread or barley.

It is not merely being in possession of a certain sum of knowledge, that will give judgment or discernment. These are inherent qualities knowledge may improve, but it cannot create them; nay, I am verily persuaded, that in our ill-judged anxiety to fill the mind with what we call knowledge, we often weaken or destroy those faculties, without the aid of which it can make no use of the knowledge it acquires.

By assiduously cultivating the faculty of attention in early infancy, we do more towards laying the foundation of a wise and useful character, than if we were to cram all we know into its little brains. The children of a sensible mother, have

all their faculties so judiciously exercised, that their minds are ever in a state of preparation for the reception of new ideas. Every field-flower which they gather in their walks-every pebble which they pick up in their road, will be rendered a source of new ideas to their tender minds. Curiosity will be thus awakened, it will be gradually turned to higher objects, and so judiciously gratified as to lay the foundation of a love of knowledge, the first step to all improvement. Reading will then be taught with ease, and considered as a privilege rather than as a task. The command of attention having been already attained, it will be ready to obey the call; and having been habitually exercised on all the objects of perception, will without difficulty apply to those new objects from which new ideas are now to be acquired. HAMILTON.

THE ideal aim and end in a perfect scheme of education, as far it concerns the intellectual part of a man, is to produce a classical and catholic mind; classical, from the refinements, the justness, the orderliness of all its perceptions; catholic, from the range of its comprehension, as well as from the cordial affectionate welcome and acknowledgement with which it receives and entertains every form of existence. Such a spirit will venerate all

things; yet nothing will enslave it: thus is it the direct antipode to the liberal spirit now in vogue; for of the latter it is not exaggeration to say, that it venerates nothing; yet is the servilest of slaves to every shifting gust, tossing about amid that heap of dead leaves which a misplaced courtesy terms public opinion.

The foregoing definition is a sufficient answer to the advocates of professional education. GUESSES AT TRUTH.

LET us suppose a child, whose conceptions have been gradually improved by the unceasing, though almost imperceptible, efforts of a judicious and attentive parent. She marks the time when ideas upon the subject of numbers may be given with effect; she seizes the most proper period for beginning her instructions, or rather leading the mind to instruct itself. By frequently-recurring opportunities, she exercises the conceptions and the judgments upon units; she renders all the different combinations, that can produce numbers under ten, familiar to these faculties, and then proceeds to add ten to ten, till the conceptions can embrace hundreds. Tables of numbers are then given to be summed up, and at every step, the judgment is taught to decide on its truth and certainty. Multiplication is explained as a