vated, and all his other faculties will remain as it were extinct or torpid.*

The powers and faculties of our nature, physical, intellectual, and moral, are developed only by slow degrees and by repeated and varied opportunities for exercise. These opportunities for the exercise of our powers in the very earliest stages of education, are afforded in the ordinary course of nature without any direct efforts of parents or teachers. And a kind arrangement of Providence it is, to check our presumption, and prevent the rude interference of men with the delicate and subtile operations of this noblest work of God. But soon, man has a part to take in the most momentous and responsible business of giving form and direction to the opening faculties of a fellow being. And it becomes him to approach his duty in this regard with great deliberation, and with that awe, which he cannot but feel, when he reflects that he is about to blend his imperfect means with his Maker's, and cooperate with Him in giving form and character to an immortal mind.

The organs of sensation, only, are born with us; their use, which alone gives them their value, is acquired by intercourse with the material world. And this intercourse is carried on, partly in the ordinary course of nature, above and beyond the reach of human interference; and partly by means, which lie distinctly within the sphere of our control. The child hears, sees, and feels things as they are, only by practice, by repeated efforts, trials, and alternate failures and successes. It walks not with a firm and elastic step, till the several muscular organs employed in the operation have been disciplined, tried and strengthened, one by one, and in more limited combinations; nor even then, till large experience and many failures have taught it where greater strength and agility are wanting. It walks and moves not gracefully, till a still later peri

* See 'Journal de Genève,' 1790. also Bibliothèque Universelle' of Professor Pictet, Feb. 1817.

od,-till it feels the luxury of a perfect control of all the mus cles and limbs of the body.

So it is in the developement of the several intellectual faculties. No one of them is born with us, nor have we even an idea, upon which they may employ themselves, till the material world is presented to the physical senses. They are brought out but gradually, by slow degrees and by gentle use; and they are prepared for high and masculine efforts, only by a long series of healthful and vigorous exercises. We have not the power of steadfast attention, till we have been baffled many times by its waywardness. We are not quick in comprehending, exact in reasoning, sound in judgment, sagacious and original in invention, till we have much exercised, one by one, and in their more limited combinations, all the elementary powers of mind, on which its highest efforts, of course, essentially depend.

The affections, and all our moral faculties, too, on the character and exercise of which depend not only the well-being of society, but all the absorbing interests of the individual, are not less the creatures of habit; which is only the results of education, in its widest sense, combined. Where exists, but in the benevolence of God, filial affection, till it is called into exercise by the mother's smiles? How can we conceive of gratitude, and how does that affection receive a character and become a habit within us, till our hearts have been touched by the varied and repeated tokens of kindness in those about us? How does it receive its highest and holiest direction, till we have largely experienced and deeply realized that protection and those mercies, which men cannot give? Or how do our hearts rise spontaneously upward in prayer, till we have been placed in circumstances beyond the control of human means, and perhaps beyond the reach of human sympathy, and there felt the utter impotency of man to relieve our keenest wants, or satisfy our highest aspirations ?

I have, perhaps, said more than enough to bring before my fellow laborers in the cause of education, some of the main

grounds of my belief, that the prevailing systems of instruction. have been formed upon a somewhat mistaken principle; that the selection of subjects on which to employ the young and tender minds of children, and the arrangement of those subjects in our text-books, have been too often made with reference to what I cannot but consider a mistaken purpose of elementary studies. They seem to have been made upon the supposition, that the acquisition of knowledge is everything, and the discipline of, the mind nothing; or, at best, that the acquisition of knowledge is the main thing, and the discipline of the mind a secondary or subsidiary consideration, which may be regarded or neglected without essentially affecting a system of instruction. Now, if the principles I have stated be correct, these two purposes of early education have been misplaced in regard to each other. The discipline of the faculties is the main and legitimate object of elementary instruction; and the acquisition of knowledge is a secondary and inferior consideration, which may be, and should be, neglected, whenever it would interfere with the main aim. When professional education begins, the main object of instruction is changed. The faculties being fully and harmoniously developed, the individual now properly seeks to acquire that knowledge, which will be most useful to him in his intended course.

I have thought it worth while to be thus explicit in stating the proper purposes of elementary studies; because, in forming plans and devising means for the attainment of any remote object, it is the part of wisdom first to place the object itself as distinctly in view as its nature will admit. With a clear and well defined idea of what we would attain, constantly in the mind, we shall be much less liable to mistakes, either in our choice of means to be used, or in our manner of applying them. The necessity of this cautious mode of settling a plan of operations becomes more obvious, just in proportion to the remoteness of the object, and the variety of the means to be used for its attainment. It must, therefore, be peculiarly important in devising and adopting a system of practi

cal education. For here, no reasonable parent or teacher looks for a conclusive result of his labors, till the object of his solicitude has taken his place among the busy actors in the scene of life. Indeed, though we may see enough in the progress of education to inspire us with high hopes, or fill us with painful apprehensions for the result of our efforts, we cannot know the full measure of our success or failure till a decision is made upon the characters of the immortal beings, we have contributed to form, beyond the grave.

The means to be used, too, in the education of the young, requiring a cool and watchful discretion in their selection, as well as in the time and manner of their application, are as various as the forms of visible creation,-infinite, even, as the states of the ever changing spirits within us.

If this view of the proper object of elementary instruction be correct, the foundations of the science of intellectual and moral education, are to be found in the phenomena and principles of the infant mind. And a deep and thorough knowledge of these is as essential to the accomplished and scientific instructer, as the maxims of a system of morals are to the moralist, or the definitions and axioms of mathematics are to the mathematician. The foundation of a teacher's professional skill being laid in an intimate acquaintance with the condition, states, and wants of the youthful mind, and his object being the developement of all its powers and faculties, in their natural order, and each to its due degree of strength and maturity—the superstructure of his science must embrace a thorough knowledge of the various means, direct and indirect, suitable to be used in the attainment of the desired end.

It will at once be perceived that I do not pretend to have found out, either for pupil or for teacher, any royal road to learning. No such thing. On the contrary, though I have laid down principles, which would somewhat smooth the way for pupils, I have greatly magnified the duties and the responsibilities of the teacher. And I hope something may be found in the remarks I have made and may hereafter make, to dis

courage the temerity of inexperienced teachers in assuming the labors of a profession, upon which they have never bestowed a thought, and for which, of course, they are totally, totally unfit. What will you require a seven years' apprenticeship, before you will allow a man to drive a nail in the shoe of a horse's foot, or set a stitch in the shoe of your own foot, and yet commit the training of an immortal mind to one who has served no apprenticeship? Will you always be so inconsistent as to lay your hands upon the heads of little children, and invoke the blessing of Heaven upon them, and then send them to a knave to learn morality-a debauchee to learn chastity—or a dunce to learn philosophy? I hardly know which most astonishes me, the presumption which ventures heedlessly upon such high responsibilities, or the folly and inconsistency of parents in committing their children to be educated, to those who can know nothing of their business and duties. I do believe the time is coming, when a more due estimate will be formed both of the difficulties of conducting education, and the consequence to be attached to those who do it successfully. I do believe the time is coming, when he, who has devised means for enlarging the capacities of happiness both here, and hereafter, will be considered as great a benefactor, as he who has invented gunpowder or engines for destroying them.

The study of the youthful mind, the first branch of the science of education, or of a teacher's preparation for his profession, is one of uncommon difficulty. It is not an easy matter to analyze the infant mind, even so far as to enumerate its elementary powers, and state the natural order of their developement, and their mutual connexion and dependence, with intelligible precision. However interesting and alluring it may be, I am not about to make a deliberate essay upon this virgin field of philosophy; nor shall I even enter it, farther than by and by to describe a few of those powers, which I think the correct method of studying geography peculiarly adapted to develope.

It may be new to some of my hearers, even now, to hear