the subject of education spoken of as a science.* I am sure it was new to me but a few years ago. And it must be confessed that the term is applied to it, rather in consideration of

* For the leading reflections contained in this and some of the subsequent paragraphs, the reader is referred to an article, published by the author, in the United States Literary Gazette for Dec. 1, 1825. The author takes the liberty to add in this form, and as pertinent to the subject brought under discussion in this part of the lecture, the following remarks published by him, in the same article, to which he has already referred.

'We hold and have held for many years, undoubting belief that the science of education is capable of being reduced, like other sciences, to general principles. By a particular induction, or a long series of discriminating observations, the infant mind may be so far analyzed or its phenomena classed, as to enable us not only to define accurately its several powers with their mutual connexions and dependences, but to fix with precision the natural order of their developement, and to adapt to them such exercises as will develope them most successfully. It might perhaps seem presumption to call in question the axioms of the science; and it certainly would not be easy to point out in a few words the false principles whichlie at the foundation of our systems of instruction. Moreover, we should not lightly undertake to calculate the perplexity, and time, and perversion of talents they cost the young-the waste of money they cost parents and the public, and the waste of patient and laborious effort they cost instructers. We shall name only two false principles, which seem to us to lie at the root of the matter, believing that if they could be reformed the whole subject would assume a new aspect.

'1st. Education is understood to consist in the acquisition of knowledge. This we infer from the pompous catalogues of books and subjects, which are arrayed and set forth as constituting the course of every petty school in the land. They are subjects oftentimes for which the youthful mind is not at all prepared, and by which of course it must be baffled and discouraged. When a subject is presented to a pupil, which requires the exercise of an intellectual faculty not yet developed, he must be as much confused as a blind man would be, if called upon to criticise colors. Education, we believe, at least elementary education, does not consist in the acquisition of knowledge, but in the developement of mind. And subjects should be selected and arranged with reference to this object, the acquisition of knowledge being only incidental.

'2. When the subjects are selected, perhaps judiciously, they are presented in a form which neither affords a salutary discipline to the mind, nor facilitates the acquisition of knowledge. They are all too abstract, or are generalizations of facts, which are themselves unknown to the pupil. Particularly the whole course of the physical and exact sciences, to use a common but expressive phrase, come precisely the wrong end foremost,-first

what it should be, than of what it really is, or is understood to be, even by some who have been long engaged in its practical details. But is it incredible or even improbable, that a new science may yet be disclosed? The searching spirit which is abroad, has developed within a few years several new sciences, which before were almost unknown, or were made up of a few scattered facts, and those not systematically arranged, or reduced to any general principles. Within the short period of my recollection, political economy was despatched in a few paragraphs under some subdivision of the science of politics. Geology and mineralogy have recently sprung up and assumed the dignity of separate sciences. And chemistry has declared independence of natural philosophy. These are now, all of them, sciences, which are found to have important bearings upon the interests of society; and all of them are sciences, which now engross a liberal share of the public attention. And even these may be again subdivided, and others spring out of them which do not now exist even in the imaginations of men.

the general principle, then the particular instances illustrating it. Lord Bacon has taught us that this is not the method by which the human mind takes in knowledge, and it is time we had attended to his instructions. Upon all new subjects of which we have no knowledge or experience, we must first have the particular cases, instances, or facts, abstracting the qualities or points of resemblance, common to them all; then a description of those qualities or points of resemblance, which constitute a general principle.

'We have no room to enlarge upon these topics, but believe they will be found to reach the evils and defects, which have been so long and so severely felt. For, if the purpose of early education be the developement and discipline of the mind, then all subjects must be selected and arranged with reference to this purpose. And if Lord Bacon's philosophy is sound; then the subjects so selected and arranged must be put in that form, in which alone the mind can successfully encounter them.

'If these views are correct, and these principles philosophical,—and we do not see how any one can doubt that they are so,-the question occurs, how they can soonest be developed in all their details, and be made thoroughly effective in all our public as well as private instruction. It seems to us, as we have before intimated, that it can only be done by making the subject the ground of a distinct profession.'

So I believe it will be with education as a branch of moral and intellectual philosophy. There is a whole science wrapped up in that mysterious thing, the infant mind, which has never been developed, nay, hardly yet been discovered to exist; a science, too, which will have a stronger influence upon the condition and prospects of men than any other. I say a stronger influence, because it relates to that part of ourselves which is susceptible of the highest, perhaps of indefinite improvement, at a period of our lives when every bias is soonest felt, and every impression made, most permanently remains; and because it has for its object to call forth those moral and intellectual powers, that constitute the very instruments with which we must proceed to accomplish whatever is within the reach of man.

Moral philosophy has been studied, reduced to principle, and inculcated in all systems of public instruction; but it only teaches men their duty and the reason of it. We have a moral nature and moral feelings, which are susceptible of influence, developement, and direction, by a series of means, before we can reason upon them ourselves. This is the field for the moral philosophy of education. It opens almost with our existence, and extends through all the stages of childhood and youth, till our intellectual faculties are so far developed as to enable us to excite, suppress and control our feelings, and regulate our actions with a reference to distant motives. Then we may begin the study of moral philosophy. Before that time we must act from motives, placed before us by those who control our education, without being able to comprehend the ultimate tendency or the reason of our actions; and his moral education is most perfect, whose feelings and habits are so formed, that he needs not to change them when his reason comes to decide upon their fitness with reference to his being's end and aim. The skill of the instructer, therefore, in this department of education, consists in comprehending the temperament and disposition of his pupil, and in addressing those motives only to him, which will induce such actions as he approves, and lead

to the formation of such habits as he wishes to establish.· If this view of the subject be correct, it must occur to every one, that there are several stages in the developement of our moral nature, and the formation of our moral character, which have never been subjected to a sufficiently minute and rigid exam ination.

General principles in the moral education of youth, must be established, like all other general principles, by a regular process of induction. And in order to this, a great variety of particular cases must occur, and a great many discriminating observations be made; or, in other words, we must have at hand large experience either of our own, or of those upon whose observations we may safely rely. With sufficient materials for philosophy, or the necessary facts of the case, I know not why we may not establish general principles upon this subject as well as upon any other of a similar nature. And when they are so established, they must be of incalculable utility to those of slight experience in the management and government of youth; and such there must always be, while men attain only to threescore years and ten.

Metaphysicians have analyzed the human mind often enough, and perhaps minutely enough; but it has always been the mind in a state of maturity. This class of philosophers always open their subject, and vindicate its claims to extraordinary dignity, by saying that the materials to be analyzed and the instruments to be employed upon them are all within themselves. So indeed they are within themselves. And for that very reason they describe only those faculties and those operations, of which no one can be conscious, whose mind is not yet in the same advanced stage of developement. But there is a series of years, and important years, in our education, of the intellectual operations peculiar to which we can in manhood have no recollection, and of which we can form no adequate conceptions by reference to the operations of a mature mind under similar circumstances. The analogy between the feeble and fluttering motions of an infant mind, with its faculties partially and

unequally developed, and the steady operations of a mature one in full and vigorous action, is by no means so close as to enable us to infer, that what is true of the latter will necessarily be so of the former. The kind of evidence, on which our general principles are to be formed, in the two cases, is almost entirely different. When we attempt to describe the operations of a mature mind, we do it by a consciousness of the movements of our own minds under given circumstances; and we strengthen our conclusions by appealing to the consciousness of other mature minds under the same circumstances. But whatever we learn of the intellectual habits of children we must learn by very different means. Our own consciousness will do no more than suggest the direction of our inquiries; and we cannot appeal to the consciousness of the child, because it has not yet learned to call off its attention from the external objects of sensation and fix them upon the operations of its own mind; much less has it learned the language suitable to convey to another, ideas, which it has not yet itself received. Here, then, although the instruments of observation, to use the language of metaphysicians, are within the philosopher, the subject upon which they are to be employed, is not. this important circumstance constitutes the difference between the science of metaphysics, as it has usually been understood and defined, and the new branch of it, which is about to be developed as the basis of the science of education. Nature proceeds by uniform laws in the developement of the infant mind as well as in everything else. What then are these laws, and how shall we trace them? This is a field where there is scope for the exercise of the highest degrees of discrimination and sagacity. Before we can approach with any degree of rational confidence to conclusions in regard to the operations of a child's mind, we must direct the most patient and scrutinizing observations to all the external indications of thought; such as broken sentences, to be made intelligible · only by our own ingenuity; the words; the actions; the unconsciously changing countenance, and the beaming eye.

And