THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CERF LIBRARY PRESENTED BY REBECCA CERF 'oi IN THE NAMES OF CHARLOTTE CERF '95 MARCEL E. CERF '97 BARRY CERF 'l to them; this I cannot refrain from d< though at the hazard of even thu> pain to their modesty. I have only to add farther, that by ano- ther name, the daughter of the late /> Dr. Henry Hunter, once mon 1 her appearance before the Public. AGNES SOPHIA SEMPLE, 12, Felix Place, Islington, June 12, 1812. a 3 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. ADAMS, Mrs. High Holborn Adams, Mr. T.jun. 107, Holborn Ainslie, Mrs. Leman-street, Goodman's-fields Allen, Mr. William, City Chambers Arnauld, Mrs. Peckham Bailie, Miss, Peckham Rye Barlow, Miss, Hackney Barnes, Mrs. Tottenham Bayley, T. Hackney, 6 copies Bee, Miss, Peckham-lane Berry, Miss, Enfield Biggs, Mrs. Denmark-hill, 2 copies Bonar, Thomson, Esq. Clapham-common Bradshaw, Thomas, Esq. Woodford Broadhurst, Miss, Peckham Brooke, Mrs. Ladies' School, Brighton Brown 3c Stokes, Mesdames, Peckham, 20 copies Brown, Mrs. Bromley, Kent, 2 copies Bryson, Mrs. Snaresbrook-house, Essex Bryson, Miss, ditto Bryson, Miss M. ditto Buck, John, Esq. South-street. Finsbury-squarc Burton, S. Leadenhall-street, 10 copies Chaplin, Mrs. Bell-alley, Salisbury-square Church, Mrs. William, Woodside, Herts Clark, Miss, Walworth-terrace Clarke, Miss, Old England, Jamaica Clayton, The Rev. Mr. J. jun. Hackney Clout, Mrs. Walworth Cooke, Mr. G. St. Bride's passage, Fleet-street Cook, Miss, ditto Corsbie, John, Esq. Artillery-place, Finsbury- . square, 2 copies Cullum, Thomas Esq. Long-lane, Bermondsey Darton and Harvey, Messrs. Gracechurch-street, 6 copies Davies, Robert, jun. Esq. Shoreditch Davidson James, Esq. Fish-street-hill, 3 copies Deale, Miss, Peckham Dunn, The Rev. Mr. Buckingham Chapel, Pimlico Evans, The Rev. Mr. Pullen's-row, Islington, 6 copies Ewbank, Henry, Esq. Friend, A Gibson, Mr. Joseph, Gosport Gibson, Mr. William, Cornhill Gillespy, Miss, Prescot-street, Goodman's-fields Hardcastle, Joseph, sen. Esq. Hatcham-house, Deptford Hardcastle, Joseph, jun. Esq. ditto Hardcastle, Alfred, Esq. ditto Hardcastle, Nathaniel, Esq. ditto Hardcastle, Miss, ditto Hill, Mrs. R. Fore-street, 2 copies Hill, Mrs. Noah, Mile-end-green Highan, Mr. D. Orange-street Hooper, The Rev. Mr. Academy, Hoxton Humphries, The Rev. Mr. J. Newington Hunter, David, Esq. Calcutta Hunter, Miss Mile-end-road Ivatts, Mrs. Peckham Jenner, Mrs. Long-lane, Bermondsey Jutting, Mrs. Peckham Esq. 6 copies Knox, Miss, Circus, Minories Latham, Mr. Peter Xll Leedham, Mrs. Prospect-place, Lambeth, 2 copies Ling, William, Esq. Professor of Music, More- place, Lambeth Lowther, Miss M. 39, Gerard-st. Soho, 2 copies Lyon, Madame, Peckham Mac Dowall, Mrs. Nelson-street, City-road Mac Kellar, John, Esq. London Mac VVhinie, Mrs. Artillery-street, Horsleydown Maitland, Ebenezer, Esq. Clapham -common Maitland, Mrs. ditto March, Mrs. Finsbury-terrace Meriton, Mrs. Peckham Meyrick, Mrs. Great George's-street AVest Minchin, Mrs. Gosport, 3 copies Needham, Miss M. Newgate-street Nevvbold, Miss, Kent-road Nind, Mrs. Ladies' School, Dorsetshire Norton, Miss, Denmark-hill Peck, Mr. Robert, Hull, Yorkshire Peck, Miss Sarah, York Piper, Mrs. W. Eastcheap Pitkeathley, Mr.R. Anderson's-buildings, City-road, 100 copies Pyne, Mrs. Peckham Redman, Miss E. Sydenham Xlll Richardson, Mr. T. Charlton-crescent, Islington Rook, Black, Mr. Joseph Ryland, Mrs. Savage Gardens, 3 copies Samler, Mrs. Bridge-street, Blackfriars Samler, Mrs. William, St. Andrew's-hill Sent, Miss, King-> icn Shepherd, G. Esq. i u Hed-lion-square Stainer, Miss, Islington-road Styles, The Rev. Mr. Brighton Syme, Miss E. Dundee Taylor, Mrs. Charlotte-row, Wai worth Thelwall, Mrs. Institution, Bedford-place Thomas, Mrs. Westminster-bridge Thompson, Miss, St. George's East Voutin, Miss, Oxford House, Mary-le-bone Wasket, Miss, Miss Yates's, Lambelh Webb, Mrs. G. Dean-street, Bermondsey Were, Mrs. Dalby-terrace, City-road Whinn, Mrs. 5, Walworth-terrace White, Miss, Leith Willson, Miss, Lieut-Gen. Sir Charles Ross, Bart. Inverness Wilson, Mr. George, Camden-street, Islington Wilson, Matthew, Esq. 234, Strand Wilson, Mr. E. 88, Cornhill, 6 copies Wood, Mrs. 7, Park-place, Camberwell-grove XIV. \Vyatt, Mrs. Newington-green Wyatt, Miss, ditto Wyllie, Joseph, Esq. Hornsey-road Yates, The Misses, Paradise-row, Lambeth, 6 copies Young, The Rev. Dr. Doughty-street, Foundling Hospital Young, Mrs. ditto TABLE OF CONTENTS. Chap, J. Oa the Education of Infant! Hing Children II. Necessity of Pa; dren ; Formation of the human Mind com- mitted to Females; Muihod of i: ^Children before they cm r-ad III. -Impropriety of indulging Children : Absurd Argu- ;Us used by Parents for their Indulgen Evil Consequences ; How to make Children really happy IV. Importance of studying the Tempers of Children ; Necessity of Instruction as to Temper; Mis- takes of Parents in judging of the Capacities of Children 30 V. Some Children early evince Marks of peculiar Sensibility, Pride, Vanity, Gluttony .... 38 VI. Truth ; Parents should set Examples ; The Re- verse too often the Case 50 VII. Servants; Edgworth; Hamilton; Epictetus 58 VIII. Necessity of teaching Children the Distinction between Virtue and Vir-e ; should be encou- raged to give their own Thoughts; Art ot Thinking too much neglected; Distinction between Knowledge and Wisdom; Instructors must think themselves 74 b XVI Chap. Page. IX. Behaviour of Children toward one another; Po- liteness j Example; Conduct of Parents; Lan- guage of Children ; Witty Children, so called; Anecdote 84 X. Children should be taught the Practice of Cha- rity ; Self-denial a Mean of being generous ; Parents ; Anecdotes ; Cruelty to Animals ; they afford useful Lessons to Children .... 93 XL Punishments ; Plato, St. Pierre, Plutarch ; Fast- ing ; Banishment from Parents ; Solitary Con- finement ; Tasks; Gentle Methods, with Firm- ness and Constancy 102 XII. Parents ; Teachers ; Children ; Instruction at Schools, too often counteracted in every Par- ticular at Home ; Parents should co-operate with Teachers ; Anecdotes 112 XIII. Reply to a Question as to the Mode of Instruc- tion pursued by a Teacher of Youth; The Charge of Education requires the unremitting Study of Human Nature ; Hours of Study, as Habits and Morals are concerned, not the most important to Children, but those of Amusement ; The Young should be studied and watched over at these Times ; Instructors should partake of the Amusements of their Pupils 123 XIV. Depraved Children, notwithstanding all the Ef- forts of Parents and Teachers ; Punishment their own ; Example ; Hour of Separation an important one j Happiness of Parents who have virtuous Children; Of Teachers whose Pupils are virtuous ; Extracts from Letters. 133 XV11 Chap. P a &< XV. On religious Instruction ; Plainness ; Teach re- ligious Duties as a Pleasure ; Avoid gloomy and terrifying Ideas ; Examples of Harsh- ness; Anecdote i Danger of condemning in- nocent Amusements ; Children sometimes taught Deceit from too great Strictness ; Cha- rity MB XVI. Same subject continued ; Perception of Existence followed by that of the Existence of God ; First Ideas of him ; Occasion of Instruction ; Contemplation of the Works of Natxirej Knowledge of external Things leads to a K now- ledge of our own Minds ; Objections to Chris- tianity ; Consult the New Testament ; Prayer ; Politics 162 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. I, Spectator; Female Intellect ; Arria; Ruth, Pe- culiar Offices of Females ; Mrs. Unwin ; Fe- males form the Happiness of Home ; Harmony arises from occupying our proper Stations- 197 II. Instruction in domestic Employments essential in Female Education ; its good Effects ; Days we live in, particularly point out this ; Daughters of learned Men ; Misery of too refined Ideas ; Females taught to be helpless ; Active Employ- ments necessary 213 b 2 xvm Chap. Page.- Ill Female Schools ; Parents should consider their own Circumstances, else they may make their Children miserable ; Manners ; Witty young Ladies, so called ; Modesty the Basis of Fe- male Manners 227 IV. Offices of Females ; Nature has endowed them accordingly; Epictetus ; Dying Daughter; Death Beds ; Omit no Opportunity of leading to the Performance even of painful Duties ; Charity ; Active Charity ; Lessons to be de- rived from this ; Humility ; Good Temper 244 V. Dress ; Slovenliness ; Vanity of personal Charms; Dr.Fordyce 262 VI. Monopoly of Female Employments by Men ; Fe- males should teach Females, Dancing, Music, Drawing ; Study the Capacities of Children, even in teaching Aceomplisments ; in the Cul- tivation of Talents, Parents should consider their Circumstances 272 VII. Amusements ; Active ones ; Garden ; Games of Exercise ; Silk-worms ; Dolls ; various Ob- jects of Interest in London 287 VIII Females should be instructed to think and judge for themselves ; Elizabeth ; Religion ; Eliza- beth Smith ; Essays a proper mental Exercise ; Duties of Females bring Pleasure and Reward with them ; Epictetus j Conclusion ........ 295 PART I THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION, CHAP. I. J\. QUESTION frequently asked is " When should education commence ?" and to this it may be replied, it can scarcely commence too early. A child of a few months old, re- cognizes its mother, and those about it, and shrinks from strangers : before it can speak itself, it can understand speech and looks : angry words terrify it ; if it is smiled upon, it smiles again ; it learns that some 4 things it may touch, and some tilings it must avoid touching as dangerous to it ; before it can utter words it can utter sounds dis- tinctly expressive of different emotions, an- ger, pleasure, pain, and many others : its first efforts to walk, are made with caution and timidity, notwithstanding all the en- couragement and incitements of its nurse, it is conscious of its own weakness, and the risks which it incurs ; it clings to its nurse, and if she places it at a distance, totters to- wards her to grasp her supporting hand: they who compare the mind of a child to a sheet of blank paper, to be written on at pleasure, have surely never observed even infants : some have been born ideots, and have continued so through life ; but the mo- ment that an infant can distinguish, both by sight and sound, those around it from strangers, that moment the blank begins to be filled up, for then the rational faculties may be said to -commence, and then, even then, education may and should commence likewise. \Vlio then is sufficient for the work of education, and who will watch the dawn of intellect, and its almost imperceptible pro- gress in the infant mind? A motli her infant, because this love is perli. most powerful feeling which nature im- plants in the breast: it is an object of love to its father, for it is helpless, and lie is its natural protector: the sight of it awakens all the parent in his bosom : it is loved by surrounding friends, for who that has a heart can help loving a little infant? Yet few, if any of these, observe the first rays of intellect, and education scarcely ever begins till some passions and feelings have not only developed themselves, but actu- ally taken deep root. An ancient philoso- pher said that the most important science was to unlearn evil : obstinacy, impatience, passion, need too often to be unlearned be- fore a child can speak; and when it ac- quires the use of language, this will be per- ceived more evidently. B 3 Of important consequence is it therefore, how even infants are educated : let no one smile at such an assertion; let those who have an opportunity of observing infants, examine whether or not it merits derision. Children are sent abroad for education; perhaps it might not be amiss that schools were established in the first instance for mothers and nurses: this remark is not meant to give offence, but proceeds from a conviction of the necessity of attending to the first symptoms of intelligence in the hu- man mind ; and a conviction too, that this attention, in a person of common observa- tion, judgment, temper, and resolution, may, and will produce good effects. Why does an infant turn away from strangers, and cling to its mother or its nurse? Inde- pendently of receiving its nourishment from its mother, it has been accustomed to gentle tones in their voices, and to kind looks in their faces : when in pain, their accents have soothed it, and memory retains the impres- sion : towards strangers this cannot exist, and if in their arms, with tears, the lan- guage of Nature, it implores to be restored to those whom it loves. A simple occur- rence which takes place daily in every con- dition of human life, however trivial and in- significant it may seem, becomes of great importance, when it is to illustrate an argu- ment on that most important of all subjects, the formation of the human mind. If a child can be taught by signs and looks to shun touching a candle or a knife, although it has never been either cut or burnt, can it not be taught to give up quietly what it holds with so determined a grasp, and screams to be deprived of? If it is attracted to its nurse by her gentle tones and looks, cannot these be employed to correct and re- press its impatience, till the food it sees preparing for it be got ready? If some of these things are true, and what mother or nurse will deny them, why should others be left unattempted, and why is not evil checked in the first beginnings of evil? An infant reaches to obtain, and cries for an object B4 which attracts its eye, this is immediately given to it; it is quickly dropt, and some- thing else is sought for in the same manner, which it must not have : the desire was gra- tified in the first instance, now it must be controlled : you taught the infant to direct you, and now the lesson must be unlearned, and the cries are redoubled from the disap- pointment; might not diverting the child's mind from the first object, lead it imper- ceptibly to submit its inclinations to yours? All this may be said to be entering too much into details, but as a vast whole forms minute details, minute details united form a vast whole. Drops of water collected compose the ocean. As soon as a child begins to walk, he learns a lesson of dependence : and they who have seen children making the attempt for the first times, to walk alone, have seen the delight, and the consciousness of safety which they express when they have reached those who teach them these first steps : here we perceive a sense of insufficiency in them- selves, of protection and assistance to be received from others, of gratitude or love to those who give them such aid : they meet with frequent falls, but seldom with much hurt, because they are so near the ground; there is a foolish practice in grown people of uttering exclamations of terror when these falls happen, and the child is terrified, and taught to be timid; a glass falling from a table to the ground will be broken, but placed on, or near the ground, and over- turned, will receive no injury: it were much better to take no notice, nay, even to laugh on such occasions : the child will learn to laugh too; I kave seen this effect produced in one, by so doing, who had learned to cry most violently on falling before ; I say learned to cry, for this was evident from her learning to laugh ; even when a child does hurt himself, which will frequently happen, there is a great deal too much lamentation on the part of those around him: he is taught to think from their tones, looks, and B5 10 actions, that a serious evil has befallen him, and perhaps he never through life forgets the lesson : a slight pain is converted into a source of unreasonable complaint : if a hurt be received which renders an application necessary, let this be made with proper care and tenderness, but all expressions of ex- cessive pity are better avoided: I know a mother, and an affectionate one too, who now performs assiduously the duty of both parents to her children, for they were de- prived of their father at a very early age, and who, when her children fell, and even did hurt themselves slightly, appeared quite unconcerned ; the children learned the les- son, and became unconcerned in reality. As pain is one of the unavoidable evils of life, it is of importance that children be taught as early as possible, at least to suf- fer it with patience : the earlier a lesson is taught, the more easy it is to learn. A little circumstance fell under my own observation once, which struck me, considering the dif- ference of age and education, as almost an 11 equal instance of resolution with that of the Spartan boy, who in silence suffered the fox to eat out his vitals: and this resolution suggested by a consciousness of having done wrong. A little girl of three years old, in a house where I once staid some time, used occasionally to come and amuse both her- self and me in my apartment : with an ex- cellent capacity and dispositions of her own, the bad management of those around her had taught her great impatience of con- trol, and great impatience of the slightest pain : she was very fond of playing with my scissors, which I had repeatedly warned her not to do, and endeavoured to make her ible of danger, by cutting several holes in a piece of cloth with them : one day how- ever, she, unobserved by me, got them into her hands, and gave herself a very deep cut with them : she kept a perfect silence however, and in a little time asked my leave to go away; as she had seemed quite happy and pleased but a minute or two before, I could not discover w 7 hy she wished to leave 12 A me, till on examination I saw the blood streaming from one of her fingers, when the mystery was fully explained. There is a practice among parents and friends, of giving young children a great many toys, but they do not need them: they will invent amusements for themselves, and thus their minds too are called into exercise. I have seen a little boy brush the carpet with a broom, and appear quite de- lighted with his occupation : Nature dictates activity : a child runs or plays about from morning till night, without being told that exercise is good for the health. We shall scarcely ever find one languid and miserable for want of something to employ him : every object is almost new to him, and therefore a perpetual succession of amusement pre- sents itself, even in the furniture of the room he is in : I have seen a child of four years old, confined in a small apartment, without any toys to play with, try to sew with a needle and thread, turn over a few 13 books to find out pictures, make a house for herself of the chairs, give and receive visits, and contrive many other occupations, and all these entirely by herself; and sug- gested by her own active mind. Those who are much with children will admit that this is far from being a solitary instance: I could indeed mention many others, but it seems scarcely necessary to prove that young children, if in health, are incessantly active ; even though they must contrive their own occupations. Indolence is the vice of riper years, never of early childhood. No child of three or four, or some more years old, will loll away his time on a sola, or lie in bed half the day, or look out at a window a whole afternoon. Children act as Nature prompts ; they have not yet, by corrupt habits of their own, destroyed her energies, and rendered their existence a burden to themselves: the brute creation evince to us the activity of Nature in early life: all young animals are playful: the colt bounds over the meadows, the kid 14 skips from declivity to declivity : life is new and delightful, every vein throbs with plea- sure: in the spring of the year, Nature bursts forth into motion and joy, so is the spring of our days. One of the punish- ments of children might be, to compel them to sit still; they would think it a very se- vere one : indeed I shall here notice a cus- tom which some parents who allow their children to dine at the same table with them, have, in order to make them what they call well bred, of compelling them, after they have finished their own dinner, to sit still till every body else has finished : they natu- rally wish to be gone, and renew their play : I have often observed with pain their con- strained and miserable looks, till they ob- tained the wished for release. In her Letters on Education, Miss Ha- milton says, " I believe any little girl in high health and good spirits would, if per- mitted to follow the bent of her own incli- nation, prefer beating the drum, or whip- 15 ping the top with her brother, to dressing and undressing the finest doll in her pos- session." My chief companions in my early years were two brothers about my own age : I played at all their games with as much ^faction as they did, but I was as fond of dolls as ever a girl was, and felt my greatest pleasure in them. Lord Kaimes appears to think that a fondness for orna- ments makes a girl i\m>\ of dolls: he says afterwards, " in due time the doll is laid !e, and the young woman's own person becomes the object of her attention." I may be laughed at for advancing such an opinion, but it appears to me that there is actually a natural instinct in girls which leads them to be fond of dolls : the feelings- of a mother I consider the most powerful in nature; may not some dawn of these feelings exist even in a very young girl? she not only " dresses and undresses her doll, and buys what ornaments will suit it best," but nurses it, talks fondly and sings to it, offers it food, puts it to bed, and carefully 16 covers it up: all this seems to indicate something better and more powerful than vanity and the love of dress. It may be said that this is imitation, but the child evi- dently takes pleasure in the imitation, and jn imitating the duties of a mother to her child. CHAP. II. PLUTARCH in his Morals says that " the chief study of parents should be to become themselves ellectual examples to their children, by doing those things which are right, and avoiding all vicious practices, that in their lives, as in a glass, they may see enough to give them an aversion to vice. They who chide their children for the faults they commit in their own persons, do, though they think it not, under their chil- dren's names accuse themselves : if their lives be utterly vicious, they lose the free- dom even of reproving their servants, much more do they forfeit it towards their chil- dren; nay, they even make themselves their 18 counsellors and instructors in wickedness : where the old are abandoned, the young must of necessity be so too." Rousseau says, " of all the branches of education, that which is bestowed on infants is the most important, and that branch in- contestibly is the province of the female sex." Providence has bestow- ed a high dig- nity on woman ; to her is confided the for- mation of the mind of man : they who de- grade her to an inferior rank in the scale of creation, will do well to reflect on this : and she likewise will do well to reflect deeply on the importance of the charge committed to her. If first impressions are the most last- ing, what care should a mother take in mak- ing those first impressions; how watchful, how observant should she be ; how indefati- gable in her study of the progress and the operations of the human mind, that most stupendous of all structures, even from the earliest dawn of intelligence. There are various ways of making instruction a perpe* 19 tual source of interest to children. Di, Doddridge relates that he acquired a know- ledge of the history of the Bible while sit- ting on his mother's lap, a mere child; she explained to him the pictures representing a part of this history, on some Dutch tiles, with which the chimney of the room in which they usually sat was adorned. I re- member learning in the same manner from the engravings in Saiirin's French Bible; and recollect the pleasure with which I used to contemplate the figures of the in- fant Moses, and the young Joseph. Pic- tures afford lessons of piety and morality to very little children, as leading to short abstracts of the histories they refer to : children may be told too, that when they can read, they will be able to find out the meaning of the pictures for themselves. It might be well to awaken their curiosity about some, without gratifying it, that a de- sire to read may be excited in them. In- struction may likewise be given to young children, by repeating little pieces of poetry to them: I mention poetry, because the rhymes attract the ear, and hence fix them- selves on the memory. I remember teach- ing a little girl, before she could say her letters, as she sat on my knee, to repeat little hymns after me, and the learning these pleased her as much as playing with any toy that she had ; insomuch that she looked forward to the times when she was thus to receive instruction. My mother has often related to me that when a child, after she went to bed, an aunt of hers used to come and lie down beside her, and tell her little histories, and teach her psalms and hymns, and that she felt great pleasure in being thus taught, and spoke of her aunt's me- mory with affection, from this remembrance. With respect to very young children, some people think that it is right to talk or to re- peat absolute nonsense to them, because they cannot understand sense. An ancient philosopher said, " there is no difference between living and dying." Some one asked him why then he did not destroy himself? 21 his reply was, " because to live and to die is the same thing." If nonsense and sense are the same thing to a child, for our own edification we may repeat what has some sense in it, and not go through a string of foolish rhymes to children, which would become only an ideot to utter; yet what volumes of such trash are daily sent forth, some of which, but that it would disgrace any serious thoughts on the subject of edu- cation, I should here enumerate, in order to hold them up to contempt. Let it be membered too, that for children, and young children, Dr. Watts, as Johnson says of him, " condescended to lay aside the scho- lar, the philosopher, and the wit, to write little poems of devotion, adapted to their wants and capacities, from the dawn of rea- son through its gradations of advance in the morning of life." A pious mother or nurse, if she cannot edify the child under her care, may edify herself by repeating the Cradle Hymn; and if, as soon as a child can speak, it must be taught to repeat something, one or two of his beautiful little pieces would certainly sound better in our ears, than the trash put into the hands of a little child by a foolish teacher; when this child begins to understand, he can perceive a meaning in the former, but in the latter what can he discover but what it is, a mere jumble of silly words? I am happy to notice too, and to mention here, with the regard which seems due to them, " Rhymes for the Nursery," and " Hymns for Infant Minds,'* written by the Miss Taylors; as likewise their " Original Poetry," for children of a larger growth. It is no insignificant, no trifling employment to study children, and to write to their capacities. If it be inte- resting to watch the progress of vegetation, how infinitely more so is it to trace the un- folding of the human mind : if with unre- mitting care we foster and rear a young plant, that it may one day become a flou- rishing, and a beautiful, and an useful tree, shall the plant which we hope is to flourish in immortal beauty and virtue be deemed beneath our tenderest, our incessant, our unwearied attention and exertions? Surely not. " Take heed how ye despise one of these little ones:" let those be honoured who devote their talents to their use and advantage. It appears to me a good method for teaching children their letters, to have an alphabet, with the picture to each of them, of some thing or animal, of which the ini- tial forms the letter: by association the child will more readily retain the name of the letter, and at the same time the particu- lar quality of the thing or animal may be taught: this might be rendered one of the great amusements to children. Take them to the fields, and shew them a living cow, a horse, or a dog, they will remember the letters which begin their names, will re- cognize the figure of the animal, and thus a still wider scope is given for their ideas to expand. Miss Edgeworth thinks that chil- dren must experience great difficulties in learning to read and spell first from the dif- ferent pronunciation of letters in different words. Children learn to speak from hear- ing others speak, before they learn to read or spell, and therefore they do not make the mistakes in pronunciation which have been supposed : a child has learned to say are, any, all, at, before he has an idea of spelling, and when he comes to learn this, he will not confuse the different sounds of the letter a in these different words. Grown persons sometimes imitate the im- perfect language of young children: how then, should they learn to speak intelligibly? Let great plainness of speech be used with them, but take heed that it be plain. CHAP. III. THERE is a custom among piuvnts and friends to permit young children to have and to do every thing because they are children : if any of us could come through life with the gratification of all our desires, or if this would make us happy, it might be perl, well to refuse children nothing; but every one knows that this is impossible. We must all experience disappointment, and we must all submit our will to that of others, let our rank and station in life be what they may : there are laws to which even a monarch is subjected. Is a child's present happiness increased by excessive indul- gence? Give him every thing he wishes c 26 for, but in a short time he will wish for something it is not in your power to give, and then he is miserable, and you have made him so: the most indulgent parent is in reality the most cruel one. There is a vast difference between ready obedience and ser- vile timid submission : there is no occasion for tyranny to insure the former, though the latter is certainly the offspring of tyranny, and this consequence will result from it, that the slave will in his turn become a ty- rannical parent, revenging on his children the injuries he sustained in early life. " Give," said an ancient philosopher to his acquaintance, " your child to a slave to be educated, and instead of one slave, you will have two." Opportunity however will be all that is wanted to convert the slave into an oppressor. There is kindness and wisdom in training children to habits of obedience : they can easily be made to un- derstand that their good is consulted, even in denying their wishes. Young children are in general fond of staying up beyond the time that they should go to rest: iiou often do foolish mothers, because they will not make the poor tilings unhappy, allow them to sit up, till they are both unhappy and unwell, and then they are conveyed to bed in tears ! I have seen very young chil- dren persuaded to go to rest, even by ap- pealing to their reasoning faculties. On a summer evening, point out to them the set- ting sun; tell them that it will very soon be night, when every creature sleeps except the wild beasts of the forest: shew them the little birds going to take shelter in the trees ; make them observe that the lambs have lain down in the fields; and^say that little chil- dren should go to sleep when the lambs and the birds do. This plan has, to my per- sonal knowledge, been adopted with success. Be firm: children will perceive that you are so, and obey you without a murmur. A little girl expressed some hesitation in doing what her father desired; he simply said " Mary," and she obeyed instantly. c 2 28 An argument made use of by weak pa- rents, for the excessive indulgence of their children is, " Poor things, they will meet crosses enough by and by, and so they shall not be crossed now." A most powerful ar- gument indeed ! One would suppose that it should have a directly contrary tendency. We are the better able to endure greater trials from having been subjected to lesser ones. The calamities of life bear the hardest on those who have lived long in prosperity. Perhaps the greatest evil in the lot of huma- nity is, to have suffered no evil: let the weakly indulgent parent be assured that never to contradict a child is the surest me- thod to make the unavoidable evils of life crush and overwhelm him altogether. With- o out looking so far forward, what is to be- come of a child, gratified in every wish at home, when he is sent to a school, where perhaps every wish is, and must be denied him ? where instead of dictating to all around him, he must obey, nay, be the slave of even his school-fellows in every thing they may chuse to exact of liiin ? Will he then 1 grateful for the fondness which indulged his every whim ? Will lie not rather lament that he had not been taught obedience, where obedience might have been prompted both by affection and duty? With respect to a young girl, unlimited indulgence is more injurious still : Nature seems to point out as a proper quality in a female, a certain degree of compliance and submission of temper: I am an advocate neither for Ma- hometan slavery, nor for the Rights of Woman. Let females occupy their proper station, and this no man of common sense will refuse tf> allow them to do : of the two, however, a woman had better be a slave than a tyrant. Can there be a more odious sight than that of a little girl dictating to her father and mother, stamping her foot at the servants, and talking to them as if they were of an inferior race of beings : every feature of her face distorted with passion, because she cannot have what it is impos- sible to give her? What sort of preparation c 3 30 is this for the obedience, I will venture to say, the meekness and docility which ought to form a part of the female character ? Is it not probable that in more advanced years, she will set all decorum at defiance, nay, trample on' the rules of common decency? that on meeting some of the ills of life she may madly attempt suicide ; and at all times transgress the laws of modesty with an unblushing face, and vindicate her trans- gression? Is this an overdrawn picture? No : such have been the sad consequences of passions unrestrained. " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it;" re- verse the saying of the wise man, and too surely will he persevere to old age in the way he should not go. Would parents make their children really happy, both in childhood and in riper years, let them teach them subjection to the will of others, to suppress some of their desires, to forego some of their wishes. In human life, there is no occasion to seek for opportunities of 31 giving lessons to children; unavoidable cir- cumstances will arise to furnish you with the means of instructing them : a consi- derate parent will profit by such circum- stances. There are few of us who have 1 not in our early days been disappointed of a favourite scheme, or a party of pleasure, by a rainy day, by an attack of sickness, either in ourselves or our friends, by many other causes : a child sees that such disap- np^^f !" "-" /-!/->/! o>-.^l o -tr^^r tLIwi, i/v civ little reasoning will reconcile his mind to them: cheerful submission on his part, is a source of happiness to a child ; he per- ceives that by it he endears himself to his parents and his friends : he can early be taught, that what is for his good will not be denied him, and he learns to suppress impropo desires. c 4 CHAP. IV. IT is of importance to study the pecu- liar tempers of young children : there is in some a degree of reserve, and timidity of disposition, not unfrequently mistaken for sullenness and obstinacy. The methods put in practice to subdue the latter, serve but to increase and confirm the former, which pains should be taken to remove. When I was between four and five years old, I went to a little day school in the neighbourhood of my father's house; during one of my in- tervals of holidays, I was given to learn as a task the first chapter of the Hebrews; I shall not here stop to enquire into the pro- priety of giving a chapter in the Bible as a task to an infant, or chusing such a chap- 33 ter ; lying in bed with my mother one morn- ing, she desired me to repeat this chapter to her, but I did not ; she was angry with me, and imputed my not obeying her to obstinacy : but she was mistaken ; I remem- ber my feelings at this moment : reserve and timidity withheld me; I found, however, that she was displeased, and some little time after repeated my task voluntarily. In endeavouring to correct even obstinacy and sullenness, perhaps harsh methods arc bet- ter avoided : they have a tendency to harden the temper. Among the first requisites in a parent or teacher, are unwearied patience and perseverance ; a dull child will by an- ger and passion be rendered duller still ; a child of quick apprehensions has also quick feelings, and will be made miserable. We cannot begin too soon to correct a passion- ate temper in children ; direful in all ages have been the effects of violent passions unrestrained. Cain killed his brother : per- haps, had pains been taken in his early days to subdue his temper, this catastrophe c 5 34 uould not have taken place; but, alas! how- were those parents to teach him forbearance who could forego a life of perfect happi- ness, for the gratification of one of their lowest appetites ? Here again, parents have a lesson to attend to the government of their own conduct, if they would well direct that of their children. I have heard of a per- son, who when a mere child, would throw away in a fit of passion, a cup in which medicine had been given him ; and this person, in more advanced life, has threat- ened to murder his nearest connections. A disease may be eradicated in its first be- ginning, but when it has taken deep root, and infected the whole frame, it is seldom that the powers of medicine will avail. The example of Cain affords a striking lesson to children. Without being passionate, chil- dren are in general impetuous and impa^ tient ; what they wish to have and to do, must be had and done immediately. " Chil- dren should be formed to resignation : this may be done from the first ; a child exces- So; sively indulged becomes wayward and impa- tient ; whereas, if his real wants are supplied, his pains relieved when it is possible, and his caprices disregarded, he learns to set bounds to his desires, to bend his will to the will of others, and to bear unavoidable ills in pa- tience."* The progress of every thing around us affords us the means of giving useful lessons to children on this subject, and les- sons perfectly easy to be understood by them : the bee making honey; the ant toiling patiently to carry home her winter store; the fruit and the flowers advancing so slowly, that their growth is imperceptible; buildings increasing from day to day before their eyes ; the gradual progress of the sun, from tiie morning dawn to the perfect day ; even the increase of their own bodily stature, all may be pointed out as lessons of patience to young children ; in their studies too, such lessons are useful, that they may not be discouraged with difficulties in the begin- * Charters's Sermons. 36 ning. What is slowly done, is generally done the best; and here a caution may be given to parents, not to form too hasty judgments respecting what they may con- sider as indications of peculiar dulness, or quickness in their children; in this point they are frequently apt to err, and a child of quick apprehensions is rendered pert and conceited, by being prematurely brought forward, while one of perhaps better abi- lities, though more slow in displaying them, is depressed and discouraged. A gentle- man of quick temperament himself, had two sons, of the respective ages of six and four, whom he educated himself; the elder appeared remarkably clever, and learned immediately whatever he was taught : the other seemed dull of comprehension, and could with difficulty attain the spelling even of the most simple word ; the father was delighted with and proud of the first, and pronounced of his younger brother, that he would never possess even a moderate capa- city. A lady of superior sense and discern- ment, who was in the habit of making fre- quent visits at his house, said to him, " de- pend on it my friend, that if any one of your children distinguishes himself by superior talents, the boy of whom you think so little, will be that one." Her prediction was fully accomplished ; for his learning and genius in after-life, could be excelled only by his vir- tues. He was then one of a numerous family, and the first of that family ; his elder brother, the i {-table in point of understand- very far his inferior. 38 CHAP. V. THERE are some children, who early give indications of peculiarly tender feel- ings : such are objects of strong interest and regard to parents and friends, and well may be; yet should it be under control that they are so. Dr. Doddridge relates a charming anecdote of a little daughter of his, who died at the age of four years; although in his sermon on her death, in a short account which he gives of her, and in the anecdote about to be related, it is per- fectly easy to trace the affectionate father, parents may discern likewise the possibility of giving very early instruction to a child : for even in this little girl, we behold the in- 99 fant image of her amiable and excellent father; she was the darling of all his friends, each of whom was solicitous, from her en- gaging qualities, to have her society; he said to her one day, " My dear, how is it that every body loves you ?" she replied, " Indeed, papa, I do not know, unless it is because I love With such a father, what might not ha\ pected from such a child? yet in general, warm affections or feelings must be dire* and restrained, lest in after-life they be- come a source of exquisite misery to those possessing them, or unfit them for the more painful duties of life, which there are few who are not called on at some period to fulfil. I have seen an infant in arms quiver the lip, and at length melt into tears when her sister played a slow and affecting tune; and a little boy of three years old, when his mother, as he sat OH her lap, sung to him a Scots ballad about a girl who wandered over the mountains covered with snow, without shoes and stockings, burst 40 into tears, and exclaimed " I'll give her mine." In being pleased with such indica- tions of delicacy of feeling in their children, let parents be cautious that it degenerate not into excessive sensibility and selfish feelings ; but on this subject more hereafter. Pride is a fault observable in very young children ; but from whom do they learn it ? it certainly is not innate, for a child is con- scious of helplessness; those around them teach them the lesson. Children are too much encouraged to treat servants as if they were of an inferior race of beings. All parents who can afford to hire servants em- ploy them to perform the more unpleasant offices for their children, and to wait on them by night and by day; and it is the fault of parents if they allow their children to despise the persons to whom they are so much indebted; every hour's experience teaches a young child his dependance on a servant for at least his inferior comforts in life : he should be taught gratitude for these. 41 " Except ye humble yourselves and become as little children :" this expression seems to imply that humility is, and ought to be, a distinguishing mark of children ; when to their natural weakness, helplessness and dc- pendance, the grace of humility is added, how amiable, how engaging are they, what a hold do they take on all the strongest af- fections of the heart ; but to see a little creature, who can scarcely walk across the room without assistance, giving itself airs of pride and consequence, is utterly prepos- terous. I have heard a child of three years old say to a servant in a commanding tone of voice, after it had eaten as much as it could, and much more than should have been allowed it, " Take away my plate ;"' now what are parents to expect from per- mitting in their children such language as this? A servant who receives high wages for her attendance on children, may from this consideration submit to be thus com- manded, but from no other : human nature, but for self-interest, would revolt from the degradation. Let parents recollect too- that if they subject their servants to such servility in their presence, they may per- haps take revenge on their little tyrants in their absence ; if a grown person, who has no tie of foolish fondness, apparently sub- mits to the orders of a baby, there is a rea- son for it, or an opportunity of revenge. Domestic animals afford obvious and use- ful lessons against pride in children : they are in general fond of these animals, anf being prized, otherwise they would not be held out as bribes to children; a little self-ex- amination will serve to teach us this mor- tifying truth ; and if on learning it we aim at our own cure, we shall be better able to refrain teaching such lessons to children ; let them see that we set no value on one tiling above another, and neither will they. There is a most absurd custom of distinguishing particular days, by particular kinds of food; I have seen children, for some days before Christmas day, jumping and singing, from the expectation of regaling on roast beef and plumb pudding on that day ; and a birth- day, or other occasion of rejoicing in a family, is generally celebrated by an ac- cumulation of " nice things:" circumstances I cease to be trivial and insignificant, when they contribute to form the character.: the little glutton, or epicure of three or four years old, may in after-life, waste his sub- stance and his health in riotous living, and then may come the consequence, that he shall be fain even to eat husks with the low- est of the brute creation. Such are often the effects of early indulgence as it is termed : and here again the indulgent parent be- comes the cruel one. Baxter says that the fondness of mothers in letting their children eat and drink what they will, lays the fou:>- dation for most of those evils in life which .arise from bodily indisposition. It might be supposed that a consideration of the health of children, would prevent those around them from feeding them luxuriously; a very slight observation would serve to convince them that those the most plainly, nay, even in some degree scantily fed, are .the most healthy and active. Those who have the management of children, owe it as a sacred duty to them, to endeavour in 49 their early years, to establish a good, or to reform a bad constitution in them; for with- out the enjoyment of health, other com- forts are of little avail : one of the principal means to preserve or attain this enjoyment. is simplicity of living. 50 CHAP. VL ANOTHER of the sayings of Plutarch in his morals is, " We are to accustom children to speak the truth, and to account it, as indeed it is, a matter of religion to do so." Were any one to say to some pa- rents, professing both religion and morality, You give, yourselves, to your children daily lessons of deceit and falsehood, how would they startle at the accusation ! yet, let them strictly examine their conduct and conver- sation, and then pronounce sentence them- selves. The son, in the fable, who at the gallows bit his mother's ear off, for allow- ing his petty thefts in childhood to pass un- heeded, inflicted a just punishment on her; 53 but what does that parent deserve, who not only passes over, but encourages and teaches falsehood, that inlet to every other vice? The vice of falsehood is certainly an ac- quired one : a child never accustomed to hear lying and deceit, will not lie nor de- ceive. The integrity of children will be diminished by hearing their parents say to a visitor, "I shall be very happy to see you at dinner," when as soon as that person is gone, these parents will vilify him, and wish he may not come : this conduct, and similar, has lately been ridiculed in a very popular work;* the satire is just and good: but I have yet to learn that it becomes a child to hold up his own parents even to deserved contempt, and though but in a romance. As, however, the satire is just, let parents take heed to their speech. " Teach your children truth, by your conduct towards them ; never impose on them, never break * Thinks I to myself. D 2 your word ; do not recommend and sanctity falsehood by your own example : this is done oftener perhaps than parents are aware.* I have seen, and seen with indignation, in the presence of children, a visit announced to the family at an unseasonable hjur ; the master and mistress before their company were ushered in, have poured forth a torrent of invective against them, and then smooth- ed their countenances, and received them with every appearance of a cordial wel- come. Is such conduct as this of no im- portance? Then deceit and dissimulation are trifles, and the native honesty and inte- grity of children, and their undisguised ex- pressions of what they feel may be laid aside whenever convenience directs, because they are no way essential in the formation of a virtuous character. I have seen a child of three years old watch the counte- nance of its mother, to know what answer Charters. 53 it was to make. A child taught to lie. and for his parent, will learn to lie for him- self, against that parent, when a purpose of his own is to be gained. Children arc in daily habits of hearing their parents give orck < minis to deny them; but ibis | .Uice will be considered more at la; in a few thoughts respecting servants, to be introduced hereafter. As the custom re- spects children, let parents be admonish* here an absolute violation of truth is taught them : the servants, in their turn, may teach the children to lie for them : " Your fa- ther and mother think it no harm, why should you?" In the first letters of children to their parents, when they sign " your du- tiful and affectionate child," it would be useful to ask them what meaning they attach to this signature, and if they really are what they have asserted themselves under their own hand to be; point out to them the va- lue and the necessity of truth, the danger of asserting a falsehood : this may have some influence in teaching them to become, if they D3 04 are not already so, dutiful and affectionate. People in after life are in the habits too of signing themselves the " sincere and affec- tionate friends" of those for whom they feel neither affection nor friendship : a vile pros- titution of terms which should be held sa^ cred. One taught to love truth and inte- grity in early life will scorn this, whatever custom, and the fashions of the world may dictate. We should never say nor write what we do not actually mean, and it is of great consequence that this lesson be taught to children, even on the most trivial occasions. Even were not 'truth one of the first of vir- tues, we should love and practise it, for the pleasure, the security, the advantage which it procures us. He who lies to hide a fault,, makes that fault double; there is hope of him who makes a candid acknowledgment of one, that he will endeavour to avoid it in future : the strict adherent to truth will scarcely fall into any gross vices: virtues are united together. If "he that offends in one point is guilty of all," may we not 55 on the other hand suppose that he who is strict in the practice of one virtue, will prac- tise others also? As children are early taught to deceive, so falsehood quickly springs up. A little girl once told a ludy that she did not love her. " Oh!" replied the lady, " when you come to see me, and get some of the pears in my garden, I dare say you will love me then." " I will first take the pears, and then tell you what I think," answered the child. A lady was at the house of a friend in the country, where a little girl was also on a visit : there were some very fine filberds in the garden, which the child was forbidden to touch; but the lady observed her to walk backward to the tree, with her hands behind her, and pull a bunch : the lady went up to her, and re- proved her for doing what she had been for- bidden. " Madam," said the child, pre- senting them to her with a graceful air, " I gathered them for you." Children are care- ful observers ; a young girl was taught by D 4 56 her governess to hate and avoid falsehood, yet this child immediately afterwards heard and remarked that she told a falsehood to her mother. Our lessons are all in vain unless our conduct corresponds. They who merely teach, without feeling and practising what they teach, will infallibly betray them- selves even to the observation of a simple child. Unless we love virtue and truth, we need not pretend to do so, the disguise will be too thin. Charters x says, " Some wan- tonly tell lies to children, and then laugh at their simplicity for believing. It is laugh- ing at an amiable disposition, a disposition to believe what is said, which bespeaks the truth and innocence of their own hearts : it is teaching them to suspect others as deceiv- ers, and 'in their turn to deceive." Dr. Doddridge disapproves of children practis- ing little tricks on each other. Parents should be watchful that in their amusements they observe candour and openness with one another; little tricks and deceptions lead to $7 dishonesty and falsehood as they grow older. Cunnin^ is one of the most odious vices of o advanced life, but it is more peculiarly odi- ous in childhood, because it offers such a striking contrast to the simplicity and since- rity and candour which we look for in the day-spring of life, and which it is so delight- ful to contemplate. Let parents respect truth and candour themselves, and their children will respect them ; let them neglect these, and on their heads should fall the guilt of the falsehood and deceit of which they set the example. D 5 CHAP. VII. THERE is a Turkish proverb which says, " the corruption of a fish always begins at the head ;" meaning that bad masters are the cause of bad servants. There is much truth in the proverb, and when servants are cen- sured, which happens almost universally, it would become their superiors to examine into their own conduct, as perhaps giving rise to depravity in their dependants. Some writers on Education are very severe against servants, and say that children ought not to have the smallest intercourse with them. There is scarcely a possibility, whatever are the circumstances of parents, of keeping children altogether from the society of serv- ants. A mother, even though she be but in middling circumstances, has claims upon her time, independently of her children, which must be attended to : but certainly it ought to be one of her first studies to find virtuous nurses and servants ; and the grand point toward the attainment of this object is to be virtuous herself. I have however known the imaginations of children pol- luted by servants, where the conduct and conversation of the rest of the family were blameless. To begin from the earliest stages, I am afraid that there is scarcely one of those persons usually hired as wet nurses, a respectable married woman: in- deed one of this description will hardly be allured by any bribe, to quit her own in- fant, and her own family. What is to be expected from admitting an unchaste woman among children? There may be those of an elder growth in the nursery, and while there is a risk of her poisoning the health of the infant under her own peculiar charge, she may commit a more grievous crime still, 60 by corrupting the minds of the others. She "may likewise corrupt her fellow-servants. There are some good servants, and in process of time probably their numbers will be increased. The benevolent efforts which are now almost universal, to instruct the lower classes of the people, have a happy tendency to do away the general complaints of the worthlessness of servants : for igno- rance is one of the great sources of vice. " The British and foreign Bible Society, and other societies for doing good, the Cheap Repository, conveying moral and pious sen- timents, by popular attractive ways, the pre- valence of Sunday schools, and growing at- tention to education in all its branches, are auspicious features of the age." * A good servant where there are young children is an inestimable treasure, and such are to be had. * Charters, v 61 Edgeworth says, f? Servants must have no communication with children if you wish to teach them the habit of speaking truth." Of whom do servants learn falsehood? Of their masters and mistresses. Is not the practice of what is called " being denied," almost universal? and are not servants instructed in this piece of falsehood ? Kdgworth does not disallow the custom of giving orders to say you are not at home when you are :* but a falsehood is a falsehood, and there should be no distinction between one lie and another. If we teach our servants to speak falsehood for us, are not we at least in part to blame, and have we any right to complain if they turn our instructions against ourselves? I never yet was denied by a servant, and if I have any knowledge of my regard for truth, I never will be. It is easy to say either in person, or by a servant, you have a particu- lar occupation which engages you at present, See Vol. I. p. 199, Chap, on Trutfi and you think that your visitor will not be angry with you that you must pursue it. We should be better without the acquaintance of those who would take offence at such an acknowledgment. This custom of denying one's self is finely ridiculed in a dialogue between two of the ancients,* one of whom had made a visit to the other, but was told by his servant that he was out, although his friend had accidentally seen him in the house. A short time after, the visit was re- turned ; the man himself called out that he was not at home. " How ! not at home, when you are actually speaking to me?" " I believed that you were not at home on the authority of your servant, and you will not believe that I am not, when I tell you so myself." It is matter of regret that the custom remains to be corrected in our days, or rather exists in a formidable degree. * Scipio and Ennius> 63 Many writers have directed us not to make confidants of servants ; but a distinc- tion should be made between those whom we have not tried, and those who have served us long and faithfully. One of the incite- ments to virtue is lost if no peculiar marks of favor are to be shewn to long perse- verance in it. Servants are beings of like feelings with ourselves, but the circum- stances under which they were born and bred have compelled them to service, as a subsistence : they have to submit their own will entirely to the will of others. A gene- ral condition (and it is a hard one) when they enter a place is, that they shall have ; as it is termed, no followers : they are thus debarred from the pleasure of occasional in- tercourse with their relations ; or supposing an attachment of the heart, this must also be relinquished, or deceit must be prac- tised. Let masters and mistresses, if they have feelings themselves, recollect that their servants have them likewise : let them be al* 64 lowed the indulgencies which human nature calls for, and I much mistake if they turn out the worse for such indulgencies. To nursery rnaids, if of good character, pecu- liar kindness should be shewn. Let pa- rents, at least let mothers recollect, that the care of children involves many unplea- sant offices, which it would seem to require even maternal tenderness to perform with- out shrinking. If an attendant on chil- dren, merely as concerns their bodily wants, perform her duties well, she is to be valued : she submits to close confinement, to bodily fatigue, to unpleasant offices, (as already named,) to sleepless nights. Those who love their children will regard her.* * I cannot refrain from mentioning here a class of people who seem entitled to peculiar considera- tion from those who have received the benefit of their services: I mean monthly nurses. Their occupat- ion is one, to which Captain Barclay's journey of a thousand miles in a thousand hours, is an utter trifle j and this occupation continued perhaps for ft The custom which has been recommended of speaking to servants on nothing but their business, i- proper with regard to those \vho have been with us but a short time; but an old servant should be an humble friend: there are few minds so utterly ignoble as five and twenty, or thirty years: it Wrings on pre- mature old age, and many diseases, the result of fatigue, and incessant watching. Women of this class I am sorry to say, from personal knowledge, are most generally loft, when they are past their la- bour, unprovided for. To a charity for the relief of aged women, to which I had once the honour of acting as secretary, a very great proportion of the applicants were decayed monthly nurses. Let mo- thers in easy circumstances recollect that their own health, at a very precarious time, was committed to the care of such a nurse, as were likewise their infants in their first days. A respectable woman of this kind attends perhaps twenty ladies. When she is past her labour, a small contribution from each of these, weekly or quarterly, might render her old age easy and comfortable. '1 hey owe this to her as n debt of gratitude, and so do their children after them. not to feel some humiliation from a state of servitude: let the fidelity of years be re- warded by the softening, nay, the removal of this feeling. A servant who has acted a virtuous part, will not be likely to grow ar- rogant, or to forget her station, from being treated with familiarity by her superiors. A gentleman of considerable fortune in Scot- land, whom my mother and I staid with for a short time, a few years ago, was, during that time visited by a woman who had for- merly been a faithful servant to him: she was admitted to sit down with him, his fa- mily, and their company. A serving wo- man in Scotland lived forty years in that capacity in one family : at the end of this period, a brother of her's died in a distant country, leaving a considerable property, and no relation but her: she of course in- herited it : became a boarder in the house where she had been a servant, observed al- ways the strictest propriety of behaviour, and at her death, bequeathed her fortune 67 to the children of her old master and mis- tress. Miss Hamilton, in her Letters on Educa* tion, is liberal in her opinions respecting sen - unts. Like her, I know one servant, who had the care of me during infancy, and indeed taught me to read, before my parents thought this necessary : her integrity has been uncor- rupted through many trying scenes of lite; she has suffered poverty and hardship, but she never sullered loss of character. She, while in servitude, lived but in two families, my father's and another. The last time she visited me, I desired her to sit down to din- ner at the same table with me, but all my entreaties could scarcely prevail on her to do so. Servants are uniformly included in the advices given in the Epistles in the New- Testament; their duties, and their rewards are pointed out. Those who live some time in a place, acquire insensibly something of the habits and way of thinking of their mas- ters and mistresses : . they do this the more where they are attached to their employers. fo? we all imitate those whom we love. It is a common saying, that masters may be judged of by their servants : every person's observation has probably furnished more than one instance of its truth. I never feel at home in a house unless I receive a wel- come from the servants. At one place where I visit, where these are numerous, I am as certain of a kind reception in the ab- sence of their superiors, as if they were pre- sent. These servants have been for some years stationary, and my heart is gratified at every visit I make, by witnessing their be- haviour. If we imitate those whom we love, we also imitate those whom we hold to be superior to ourselves : hence it is that if a monarch be vicious, his reign is generally marked with the vices of his subjects : those who are in superior stations should consider this ; and let it be one of their grand incite- ments to virtue. With what face can we re- prove servants for vices of which we are notoriously guilty ourselves 3 Do we teach 69 them falsehood, and then reprove them for being liars? Do they see u.^ proud and ar- rogant, and will they not become so like- wise? Are we restrained by no tie, moral or religious? What then are we to expect from them? A serving man, who had learned infidelity from his master, very justly reproved him, on his upbraiding him with his having stolen something from him, and asking him if he were not afraid of f gallows : " You, sir, removed my principal fear, and are you to upbraid me, if I chose to incur the lesser danger myself?" With respect to the education of children, I do not wish, even in its earliest stages, that it should be confided to servants; if it be, I consider that parents forego one of the sweetest gratifications which a kind Provi- dence has so bounteously placed within their power. It appears to me, indeed, that it is the chief delight of a virtuous husband and wife, to watch and direct the progress of their children ; but the aid of servants in lesser matters is absolutely requisite, and 70 may be made of high utility. I have heard complaints made of the tyranny of nurses over young children, yet still I should be inclined to refer this to tyrannical parents ; for an affectionate parent would examine into, and discover the temper of the nurse to whom a child was to be committed, I think loo, that there are few natures so savage, particularly among females, as not to feel a kindness for children: there is scarcely a girl who is not fond of a young child. Wise Nature makes this provision, for young children require incessant care and atten- tion. A woman, whether a mother or not, departs from the dictates of Nature when she ill treats an infant. To say that there are no good servants, is to say that there is no virtue in the inferior conditions of life; and that virtue consists in rank merely. I have seen a tomb-stone placed over a servant, by her masters, and inscribed by them in token of her long and meritorious services. Dr. Hawkes worth 71 wrote an epitaph for one who had been a nurse,* and who, through a course of event.-, became the support of the person whom she had nursed when an infant, and tiled at. the age of one hundred and two, full of years and of good works. Charters, in his Sermon on Alms, desires people to consi- der faithful servants who have been long with them. This implies that there an faithful servants. Virtue belongs to no condition in life; if it did, there could be. no relative virtue. A king can shew a good example to his subjects, and can exercise a mild government over them ; a master, in like manner, can set an example of virtue to his domestics, and treat them with lenity and condescension, even from a knowledge of their dependant state. In human life, it is necessary that one should have rule over another, otherwise endless confusion arises. If a sovereign loves his people, they will Elizabeth Monk. 72 love him, and will obey him with pleasure, though with the consciousness that they are subjects : they know that he likewise is re- sponsible to, and willing to obey, the laws of justice and humanity. The same holds good in all the relations of life. An affec- tionate wife feels it her pleasure to obey a virtuous and a kind husband. Wise, and good, and tender parents receive as the ho- mage of love, the dutiful conduct of their children : good masters and mistresses will rarely fail to have good and faithful serv- ants. The philosopher Epictetus was not only a servant, he was a slave. As Mrs. Carter says, " there is something strikingly beauti- ful and humane in his consideration about servants," expressed in the following frag- ment from his writings : " It would be best, if both, while you are personally making your preparations, and while you are feast- ing at table, you could give among the servants part of what is before you ; but if 73 ch a thing be difficult at that time, re- member that you, who are not weary, are attended by those who are: you who a eating and drinking, by those who are not: you who are talking, by those who are si- lent: you who are at ease, by those who are under constraint: and thus you will ne- ver be heated into any unreasonable passion yourself, nor do any mischief by provoking another." The great Author of the Chris- tian religion " took on him the form of a servant/' The centurion, a man of great power, and " under great authority," did not deem it degrading to come and implore him on behalf of his sick servant: but we see < >. : any proof that some qualities are inherent in children, we have it in this; that among those of the same family, and about the same age, and in the habits of constant in- tercourse with each other, some are decid- edly of a selfish, and others of a generous dispositon : one will reserve every tiling he gets to himself, another will give a share to iiil around him. While we endeavour to correct and counteract the former propen- sity, let us be careful in the encouragement t)f the latter, lest vanity and a love of praise be kindled, and that generosity degenerate not, in riper years, into thoughtless profusion and extravagance, and terminate at length In injustice. Conduct is right only whilst its motives are right. Lord Kames recom- mends that a sum of money be given to children for charitable purposes, and that each of them appropriate it to the best of his judgment, rendering an account to liis employer. An interesting discovery might thus be made of the peculiar dispo- sitions and feelings of children. It appears to me, that one of the best methods of teaching children benevolence from pure motives, is to enable them to exercise it .from acts of self-denial : and in this, let parents themselves set them the example. If they have proposed purchasing a rich dress, or a piece of plate, or even some- thing which they might think necessary to comfort and convenience, let them forego this, and lay out the money on the poor. If they give a dinner to a few needy persons, in the cold season, let them and their children be present, at least a part of the time while these people are feasting on their bounty: let these parents tell their children, and will it not be true, that this sight is infinitely more gratifying than the possession of v, f -A they desired. It is unreasonable and :ib surd to exact of childn ' f we do not perform ourselves. Goldsmith in his Kssays relates an anecdote of a French priest of the name of Godinot, an inhabitant of the city of Rheirns. He was known to possess im- mense riches, but was never found to gi any thing in charity, and led toward himself a life of the utmost parsimony. Mis fellow- citizens hated him, and pursued him v. execrations wherever he went; but he con- tinued his course of uninterrupted and amaz- ing frugality. He had long observed and felt the distress to which the city was ex- posed, from being destitute of water, and he laid out the treasure he had amassed, in the formation of an aqueduct. A child should be instructed that kind offices and words to the poor, are sometiun - more valuable than money : " to enter the abodes of the wretched, to examine debts and wants, and diseases ; to endure loath- some sights and smells, within the sphere of infection; to give time and thought, and lands and money; this is the substance, not the shadow of virtue.*" A child of better : tation might visit a poor sick child, and strive to amuse it, and perform for it the little services of humanity within his power. Few children of any rank in life have corne through even the morning of their days without suffering pain and sickness : a re- membrance of this kind will lead one to do what he can for the relief of his poorer brethren: but these offices appear more Charters. peculiarly destined to females, and they will therefore fall to be noticed in some sul quent thoughts. Respecting cruelty to animals, I agree in opinion with Miss Hamilton, that children when they pluck off the legs and u ings of insects, are not aware of the pain they give. I remember in my childhood, there was a butcher's shop in the neigh- bourhood where my father resided, going frequently to see the sheep wounded and bleeding to death: with my present ideas of aversion to such a spectacle, I can scarcely summon up courage to recal this recollec- tion : yet no child could be fonder of ani- mals than I was, or more unwilling to * them pain. We can make children aware of the injury they do in dismembering in- sects, by explaining to them the use of their own legs and arms, and inflicting a slight pain on these. If we have domestic ani- mals, let children see that we use no seve- rity to them. If a father will lash his horse 98 or his dog unmercifully in the presence of his son, no wonder if the son become hard hearted and inhuman: on the other hand, let us beware of teaching false humanity. In those countries, where from a religious principle the brute creation are spared, in- fants are murdered by thousands. What horrible inconsistency! Animals must be used for the service of man, and noxious animals must be destroyed from the ravages they commit. This can be made intelligijble to the capacities of children : in a familiar instance, I would not give mice either to a child, or to a cat to torment; but mice are injurious vermin, and should be destroyed, but not put to unnecessary pain. Cruelty consists in tormenting animals. There is a necessity that some be put to death : it is well, however, to keep children from such sights ; but how are we to keep them from the spectacle daily presented, to the disgrace of our city, and of humanity, of the bar- barities inflicted on animals destined for slaughter, by those who lead them to the 99 market? Nay, what are the children of the present day to become, when we see thou- sands and tens of thousands of human be- ings, and some among the first ranks in the 'kingdom, flocking with eager delight to the horrible sight of two monsters of the human species, beating, bruising, disfiguring, and sometimes murdering each other? What a feature of the enlightened, and refined, and humane period in which we live ! This plunges us into the barbarity of savages, without their apology for their barbarity, their ignorance, while we are destitute of the virtues which characterise savage na- tions. What is to become of the child, whose father's eyes are feasted with the sight of human blood ? " The spring time of our years Is soon dishonour' d and defil'd in most By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand To check them. But alas! none sooner shoots, If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth, Than cruelty: most devilish of them all. Cowper. F2 100 From insects and animals instructors may furnish useful lessons to children in practi- cal virtue, and thus provide an excellent se- curity against their ill treating them. The daily labours of the bee and of the ant, a^ Dr. Watts says, awake the soul to industry, and to the necessity of providing for future want: the bee furnishes to children one of their most favourite repasts. Hence they can learn gratitude even to this little insect, and that no creature of God is to be de- spised. They see the hen gather her chick- ens under her wings, hence they may be taught affection to the parents who watch over, and shelter them in their early years : from the dog, the constant attendant of their father's footsteps, and the faithful guardian of his property, they can learn attachment and fidelity: from the provident care of every animal for its young, and from their feebleness, they may be furnished with a perpetual lesson of the need and the use of parental care and tenderness. Another les- 0n may be inculcated : Who teaches this 101 wisdom even to the meanest of creatures? The all intelligent, all bounteous Mind, who called universal Nature into existence, and without whom not even a sparrow fallcth to the ground. 10S CHAP. XL WE are told of Plato, that when his slave had committed a crime against him, he would not himself inflict punishment on him, for this reason, that he was in a passion, and therefore not master of himself. The saying of the wise man, that " he that spareth the rod, hateth the child," has been a dreaful one for many'children : happily the infliction of corporal punishment is in this country, at least, almost universally ex- ploded : I say happily, for I never yet knew of an instance in which it produced good. By this chastisement, the dull have been rendered duller still; the obstinate con- firmed in their obstinacy; the meek spirit 103 been broken; the generous mind de- graded, in the lowest degree of degrada- tion, its own esteem. It is an assured tact, that if the convicts in the hulks discover that a man sent among them has undergone the punishment of flogging, they refuse to associate v, ith him. Saint Pierre affirms that he could demonstrate, by a multitude of ex- amples, that the depravation of the most notorious criminals in his country began with the cruelty of their education. Plu- tarch says, " Children are rather to be won to follow their studies by exhortations and rational motives, than forced to them by whipping, or any other disgraceful punish- ments; for they when treated with seventy are rendered dull, and discouraged from the performance of their tasks. Praise and reproof are more effectual with children than any disgraceful correction ; the former to incite them to what is good, and the latter to restrain them from what is evil : but we must use these alternately, accord- ing to the variety of occasions." One whom F4 I knew, a nd highly respected, was educated in her early years by a relation. On a cer- tain day in every \veek she received corpo- ral chastisement; if she had committed faults, " the punishment was due;" if she had not, " she probably would in the week ensuing." At the distance of more than half a century, the memory of this woman, who bore a public character for piety and charity, was spoken of, and justly, with aversion, by the person she had thus treated, I have heard a gentleman relate, that once as a punishment at school, he w r as compelled to chew a certain quantity of to- bacco, the sickness produced by which nearly destroyed him. What a vile exer- cise of tyranny and cruelty was this ! Fast- ing is often imposed as a punishment on children; but fasting occasionally is bene- ficial to the health both of the young, and the more advanced in life; it is therefore a pity to make it an object of dread, and like- wise to give children an idea that eating is 105 one of their privileges : much more mischief is clone to them by making them glutto than by teaching them to be now and then abstemious, only not in the way of punish- ment. This is one of the modes of self de- nial which children may very early learn* Another punishment, as elder persons chuso to term it, is to give a child water gruel, or dry bread for his dinner; but let those per- sons recollect, that a great proportion of the inhabitants of the more northern part of our kingdom are fed chiefly on the ingredi- ents of water gruel, and that there are thou- sands in the day and country we live in, who would rejoice to have a sufficient quantity of dry bread to satisfy the cravings of hun- ger : let them consider too the evil that they are doing to a child, by teaching him an ab- horrence to simple food. The changes in human life are such, that it would be well for parents and teachers to accustom chil- dren from their earliest years to such habits of life as will render no situation or circum- stance in their after lot too grievous to be F 5 106 borne. The wants of nature are few and simple; the less artificial wants we have, the better. To give to a child as a punish- ment that bread which is the staff of life, is both preposterous and wicked : it were bet- ter to allow him, as a reward, to give the other part of his dinner to some poor child, and reserve his bread for himself. Punishments must necessarily be inflict- ed, or nothing could be effected. For say- ing this, I have the authority of one who has been for many years, and still is, a wise, and conscientious, and kind teacher of the young: " hourly experience shews," she has told me, " that so it must be, how- ever painful it is found for the instructor.'' I have known and felt, that silence on the part of an affectionate parent was a more grievous punishment than the utmost seve- rity of language, or harshness of treatment. I remember that having once offended my mother, she did not speak to me for a whole day, and this day appeared to me one of 107 the most miserable I had ever passed. The success of this method may prove that a kind parent has more influence over the mind of a child than a severe one; and that estrangement from such a parent is the worst punishment she could inflict. Pa- rents, would you have your children love you, begin by loving them ; make your so- ciety delightful to them, and they will not resort to that of improper companions. You accuse them of preferring the company of any one, even of your servants, to yours. Alas ! docs not the evil originate in your- selves? Be indeed the parents, the coun- sellors, the affectionate, unwearied, unvary- ing friends of your children, and you will have no occasion to chide or compel them into your presence : banishment from it they will regard as the greatest evil they have to dread ; punish them thus, and they are pu- nished indeed! The lady alluded to above, as a teacher of youth, on the subject of punishments, 108 thus writes to me: " Our punishments are proportioned to the offence. We have found privation a good method : this must be sen- sibly felt, or children little regard their of- fences: thus, for acts of carelessness, they pay a small fine in money; but if these acts are very frequently repeated, which is some- times the case, their names are placed on a slate which hangs in the school room, and it remains there during the day, and what- ever recreations are proposed, they are ex- cluded from partaking. We have found this plan beneficial. If the punishment be for any vice, such as deception, or false- hood, the name is conspicuously marked by a circle round it, and the guilty one is not allowed to speak to any of her companions till her name is obliterated, the time of which depends upon circumstances. This plan we hope is- a good one. These are OUF only punishments." Solitary confinement and idleness appear to me punishments likely to be attended' 109 with good effects. Some grown up crimi- nals have been known to wish death rather than the former, and those who have been sent to Bridewell, to beat hemp, would have found condemnation to doing nothing, inli- nitely more grievous than hard labour. A love of society, and of active employment, are peculiarly observable in very early i A child, even without companions about his own age, will have a gravity and silence be- longing not to his y id his unremit- ting exertions in some way or another, from the time he rises, till he goes to rest, afford a striking and undeniable proof, that restric- tion from employment would be a misery to him : if therefore he be shut up, and with nothing to engage his attention, he will think himself very effectually punished. . Tasks are frequently imposed as a pu- nishment. It was a custom once, let us- hope it is now discontinued, to give a chap- ter or a psalm in the Bible, to be learned in this way. A more effectual method to 110 make children dislike the Bible could scarce- ly have been devised: this book, which in the hands of a wise parent or teacher, fur- nishes an endless source of interest, attrac- tion, and instruction to children. If they consider instruction as irksome, where does the fault lie? with those certainly who give them lessons to learn as punishments. A portion of the Bible, of history, of geo- graphy, of grammar, forced on a child in this way, may go far to create in him a hatred to all serious study whatever. On the whole, I should recommend gentle methods even in the administration of pu- nishments; but with mildness, let firmness and constancy be mingled : without a steady rule of conduct, no good will be done. A father who severely chastises his son to-day ? and indulges him in every thing to-morrow, will ruin that son. The parent or teacher who is not possessed of a mild, patient, per- severing, steady temper of mind, will never succeed in the education of youth. Even Ill under punishment, a child may feel and ac- knowledge the tenderness of a parent: he may love you, while he holds you in awe and respect : indeed, in all the relations of life, where respect is extinguished, affection will soon die. Teach your child to love you, and teach him to revere you : the imion of these, forms the only true filial re- gard. " His son's best friend ! A father, whose authority, in show "When most severe, and mustering all its force, Was but the graver countenance of love. Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower, And utter now and then an awful voice, But had a blessing in its darkest frown, Threat'ning at once, and nourishing the plant," Cowper. 112 CHAR XIL AS these thoughts are of a general na- ture, I do not mean now to enter into the question, whether a public or private edu- cation should be preferred, but shall offer a few remarks respecting parents, teachers, and children. In these I shall avail myself, among other resources, of the aid of a friend, who is a teacher of youth. It is the advice of Plutarch, that we look after such teachers for our children as are blameless in their lives, not justly reprov- able for their manners, and of the best ex- perience in teaching; " for/' as he adds, 118 " the very spring and root of integrity and virtue lie in the felicity of a good educa- tion:" and he says farther, " how can that man deserve the name of a father, wlr more concerned to gratify others in their requests, than to have his children well edu- cated? For though parents know, and told before hand, by those who understand better than themselves, both of the inability and the profligacy of certain teachers, yet being overcome, either by their fair and flat* tering speeches, or prevailed on to gratify such friends as speak on their behalf, they nevertheless commit the charge of their chil- dren to them." As it was in the days of Plutarch, so is it in the days we live in. We have inefficient teachers, and profligate teachers, and pa- rents commit their children, the men and women of the next generation, to their care ! Complaints have been made, and justly, of schools ; but were there no inconside- rate parents, profligate teachers would have 114 no pupils, and thus a remedy would be provided for the evil. A young lady ac- companied an acquaintance of hers, a lady who was taking her daughter to school: she was surprised by hearing the mistresses of this school say that they were engaged to a card party in the evening. On her expressing her wonder that they should both leave their pupils, the lady answered, " Oh ! they will not go till they are gone to bed." The young lady replied, " I do not like them at all, and I wonder you al- low your daughter to remain with them." " It is so fashionable a school, and they draw so beautifully that I do not like to re- move her." These fashionable ladies shortly afterwards, stopped payment for . 15,000 ; k> clear which sum, nothing was left but the household goods : one of the ladies having disappeared with all the money she could procure. On the inconsistency of parents, a teacher of youth writes in the following manner: "We have a fine little girl of tea years old, of whom I have not 11$ the smallest doubt, had we alone the ma- nagement, that she would be all we could wish or desire ; b"ut I apprehend if in her case, circumstances produce their general effect, that she will be every thing we would not wish her to be ; I have hitherto counteracted, by incessant attention and ob- servation, the mischief done while at home, from the unnecessary, nay unlimited indul- gence which she experiences, and the un- bounded admiration she receives from the company at her lather's house, and from those whom she visits with her parents ; I plainly perceive that dress, visiting, eating, &c. will in a short time occupy her whole thoughts." Who can wonder then if chil- lren so instructed, become vain, selfish, and disobedient? Parents who thus educate their children, have seldom, if ever, any comfort in them, and for this they may thank their own conduct. The mistress of a school, on complaining to a lady of the injury her daughter sustained by being kept at home a long time after the vacation, had 116 ceased, received for reply, " I have had a music master for her at home, and other things I do not mind!!" Was not such a speech calculated to make the head of a school quit her employment in disgust and despair ? It was made too in the presence of that very daughter; was the child to blame then, if she neglected not only this u one thing needful," but every thing else, unless driven to do otherwise ? Wise teach- ers are not fond of giving long holidays, as they are called, to their pupils ; some inter- vals of relaxation are necessary : but as much for masters as scholars ; study cannot go on well which is constantly interrupted ; and it is a lamentable truth, that the habits children are allowed in at home, are in general directly contrary to those they are taught in schools ; and it need not be matter of wonder, if little good be done in them, when perpetual efforts are made to counter- act it at home. Parents must hold in respect the instructors of their children, otherwise those children will not respect them, and 117 consequently will not deriv. -It from their lessons. It has been a complaint of long standing, and made both in a serious and satyrical manner, that priv<; especially in great families, arc tn upper servants: " Give your child to a slave to be educated, and instead of one you will have two." At school, children are taught subjection to their instructors; a course of study is prescribed to them ; they acquire simple and regular habits, r-spect their food and hours of rest; they go home, say at Christinas, and are not every one of these habits too frequently re- versed? Parents, because they have been at school, and under subjection, set them free from every restraint; study is aban- doned altogether, as proper for school, and school only ; every luxury in diet is lavish- ed on them ; they sit up late, and of course the hours of the morning must be wasted in bed : one little month sweeps away the labour of six: is this an unjust picture? Who can say it has not truth in it? How. 118 many lessons, fatal to their well doing, are thus acquired by children ! School is regard- ed as a place of confinement ; masters ap- pear -as tyrants:; study is irksome; simple food is despised.; regular habits are an in- tolerable restraint. Remember, parents, that this is not the fault of your children : what you have sown, that you must expect to reap ; co-operate with the teachers of your children, or do not suppose that they >till derive benefit from their instructions. A parent's house, that in which he first drew breath, where his earliest years were passed, should undoubtedly be the first object of regard to a child : he should quit it with regret, and feel pleasure in a return to it; but why cannot children be taught that the house of their instructor, is that of their friend? that the discipline of a school, is in every respect for their good; that it is of the utmost importance to acquire simple and regular habits in early youth; wise teachers, who act from motives of con- science, pass many anxious and painful hours; their care indeed never intermit how indeed should it, when they reflect that to them it is intrusted to form the minds of those who are one day to act a decided part on the great theatre of human existence, nay are destined to eternal life ! Let them not labour in vain: let tht-in have the hap- piness of set in;' thatl in<<; plants culti- vated by them with such ur. and in- cessant care, are nouri^i :tcd, and carried on to beauty and fertility, and usefulness by a parent's hand. A mother, one of those esteemed sen- sible and well informed, took her little daughter, of eight years old, to place her at school ; she was represented as in weak health; this was nothing surprising; for her whole years had been passed as those of children usually are in the Christmas vaca- tion. The lady of the house received her on condition that she was to be resigned wholly to her care ; her mother, however, 120 insisted on coming to see her once a week, because she said, the child loved her so much, that she would fret herself ill if she did not; she always left her little girl in tears. Why was this so? because she had just parted from a parent, from whom she had never experienced reproof, and who had gratified her every desire. An instance of the child's affection for her mother occurred shortly afterwards: a friend of her's called at the school, from whom she learned that this mother was very ill: her preceptress found her in tears : " What is the matter, my dear?" said she to her. " My mamma is very ill." " I am sorry for it, but I hope she will soon be better." A servant came the next day to take the child home : on going to bid farewel to the lady of the house, she asked her how her mamma was? '' I do not know/' replied the child. " You have not seen the servant, then?" " Yes, but I forgot to ask her." The lady detained her a. few minutes, to endeavour to make her 131 .sible of her incon a . In the o mi of time, she had the happine.-- the good effects of her labours on this chi: behalf. At first, as the little girl hud m been accustomed to study but when she chose, application, however slight, was bur- densome to her. She had never suffered straint, consequently compliance with re- gulations was a hardship: she had ahv been accommodated, therefore the rule. " Do unto others as you would they should do unto you," was not a pleasant one. She did not think, how should she ? that the comfort of society depended on an exchange of good offices; but by a different mode of education, the child who was selfish, deceit- ful, discontented, fretful, disobliging, and re- luctant to do every thing required of her. became liberal, open hearted, happy, healthy, lively, obliging, and ready to obey every command of her kind instructors, for so they certainly merit to be called. This is no solitary instance of the bad and good effects resulting from education. There may be nothing peculiarly novel in it, but by adding truth to truth, a grand one is established. - CHAP. XIIL IN reply to a question put sometimes to a lady who is a teacher of youth, " Whose mode of education do you follow? Miss Edgworth's, or Miss Hamilton's? she says, " I admire in many instances the plans of Miss Edgworth, and still more the observa- tions of Miss Hamilton; but I do not im- plicitly follow either the one or the other : my plans are simply my own, founded on my own observation and experience : I al- ways try to recollect what I was when a child myself, and what effect this or that privation or encouragement had on me : I then pursue that method with my pupil a? G 2 124 judgment dictates, as far as her feelings re- e, or differ from mine." The grand secret in education is to study human nature; and without this study car- ried on unremittingly, whatever may be the talents, or the accomplishments of the in- dividuals who take this charge on them, -and although they may arduously and industri- ously labour to effect their aim, namely, to render their pupils intelligent, amiable, vir- tuous, they will never succeed. The parti- cular temper and disposition of each child must be studied : general rules are destruc- tive ones : that discipline which is suited to, and productive of good to one, has a compa- ratively injurious effect upon another. In schools, therefore, where there are, suppose, forty or fifty children, the heads of these schools, if they become so from proper mo- tives, must be incessant labourers them- selves, devoting their whole attention to the good of each of their pupils, or the proba- bility is, that none of them will do well. The mechanical parts of education may be taught by assistants; but these things will not form the character, will not tix right principles, will not mature the- judgment, will not, in fine, render the pupil a valu- able member of society. If the heads of schools neglect their duty, no assistant will fulfil it for them. Exertion of mind, con- stant and unwearied, they must employ themselves, or they may expect to see their pupils moving about in after life as mecha- nically as Maillardet's automata, answer- ing certain questions very learnedly, draw- ing pictures very prettily, making certain ovements with much elegance, playing a number of tunes very correctly, and very gracefully, but nothing more. Well would it be were this all. Such personages may be innocent and amusing: like Goldsmith's Man in Black, " very good-natured, with- out the least share of harm in them :" but fit remembered, that if we do not incul- te good, vice will in all probability spring G 3 up. The human mind is not a barren soil; if the seeds of wisdom and goodness are not planted there in proper time, it will be over-run with noxious and poisonous weeds, corrupting that soil, and spreading pollu- tion around. However strange the assertion may seem, yet I have authority for saying, that the hours of study, as their habits and morals are concerned, are not the most important to children : their intervals of play and of leisure, those invaluable portions of their time, are too generally disregarded both in public and private education ; " You have finished your lessons, now you may go and amuse yourselves as you please :" 4 a dan- gerous permission, as it frequently proves, to the bodies, as well as the minds of chil- dren. An instructor of youth once wrote to me, " If I am more anxious for my pu- pils at one time than another, it is when they have no actual pursuit. I love to see them happy, but happiness is not to be obtaiiK/d by idleness. As the mind must be occu- pied, if not occupied properly, it will be so improperly, and whose fault is it? Not that of the children : if they be not in active exercise of body, let amusing books be placed in their hands: give them geo phical, astronomical, grammatical gaim.s: all these will interest, and instruct, and yet they are play -things, and a child is neve r displeased that he is set down to them, but is even delighted at being thus employed, and considers it as a favour." When hu- man nature is at liberty, is the time at which she may be studied with the most advan- tage; not when the fetters of the schools are imposed on her. In their hours of re- laxation, the peculiar bent of each child's mind may be the most easily discovered. When, indeed, do we display our own cha- racters and feelings? In company, where certain rules of conduct are prescribed to us, or in the freedom and confidence of our own homes, and fire-sides? The most sim-^ pie of us can answer this question. Wise. G 4 128 parents and teachers will study the young,. when they are themselves set free front study; and watch over their intervals of amusement. If this seem to impose toq much, be it remembered, that they who put their hands to the plough, should not look back: " in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand. Be not weary of well doing, in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not." The husbandman plants his corn in the ground, he guards it from those who would destroy it; he removes, what would be injurious to its growth; he waits with patience " till it receive the early. and the latter rain :" the morning sun finds him at his labours, and they are not relaxed at his going down: he watches with inces- sant care and anxiety the progress of his fields, in the hope of meeting the reward of his toils, in an abundant and glorious har- vest. Parents, teachers, you sow the seeds destined for immortality ! your cares must be incessant; if you relax in your vigilance* the enemy may SOW T tares, and the good 129 seed may be choaked; roots of bittern, may spring up. While Cain was with his brother " in the field," he slew him. Ja- cob's sons were absent from their father, when they devised and executed their wicked schemes against their brother. The prodi- gal son wasted his substance in riotous liv- ing " in a far country," at a distance from his father; for when he rqu-iits it is to his father that he resolves to return. What such a safeguard for a child, as the t\ watchful eye of an atU.rlionutr, and a vir- tuous parent? After Job's children had been feasting, with the example of such a father, we may suppose innocently, he " sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings, according to the number of them all : It may be that my sons have sinned. Thus did Job continually." The neglect of the intervals of leisure at school, appears the most prevalent cause of vice in them : by the presence of masters at these, bodily danger is avoided; improper language among 130 children is prevented: so are their petty quarrels; so is their improper association with servants. If his master is by, a child cannot read a bad book, he cannot put in practice a bad action (let it be understood a good master, indeed one who is otherwise will not give himself the trouble). The heads of a school suffer no degradation by partaking occasionally in the amusements of their pupils, and I know not that respect in the latter is weakened by their so doing. In the history of Sandford and Merton, we find that Mr. Earlow, after labouring hard with his pupils, retires with them to the perusal of an amusing story, walks with them in the fields, carries on the work of instruction still, while he appears to remit instruction. Nay, I am verily persuaded that children love their play hours the more, if an affec- tionate instructor shares them with them: they are at all times naturally inquisitive; it is pleasant to them to make enquiries where there is a probability of their being answered in a satisfactory manner. If they take de- 131 light in examining into the wonders of na- ture, they cannot deem that a trivial or U less occupation, which their teacher shares with them. Sir Isaac Newton, in his Phi- losophical Researches, was laughed to scorn by an ignorant blockhead, for blowing bub- bles of soap and water. This is an am . ment which children take peculiar pleasure in; and who that is able to apj the stupendous discoveries of l t mind, will hold such an employment an insignifi- cant one ? Children arc raised above their childish sports, when their teacher partakes their hours of relaxation: because puerile games have been taught them, that is no argument that they could not be as w r ell en- tertained, as much interested, and certainly much better instructed, by games, if we may call them so, of a superior kind. We may think him an affectionate fatiier who crawled about the room on all fours with his children on his back, in order to please them; but he might have maintained the dignity of a man, and pleased them quite as 132 well. If it be proper, in serious occupa- tions, to accommodate our lessons to the capacities of children, it may be equally proper, in their hours of play, to aim at raising them above their condition; that we may thus avoid the extremes of mak- ing ourselves unintelligible on the one hand, and leaving them childish on the other. Games of exercise, unless bound hand and foot, children will find out for themselves, 333 CHAP. XIV. AFTER all the care and watchfulness of wise and affectionate parents and teachers, there will still be, such is the depravity of human nature, ungrateful, unfeeling, un- principled children; history, both sacred and profane, affords innumerable and me- lancholy proofs of this truth. In all ages there have been those, over whom virtuous parents have shed bitter and unavailing tears, whom teachers have in vain instruct- ed both by precept and example. Fathers and mothers have felt How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child ; and their grey hairs have descended with sorrow to the grave. Profligate children have been, and profligate children still exist: like the deaf adder, they turn aside from the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so wise- ly ; but if parents and teachers have acted conscientiously, it is proper to warn such children, that their punishment will fall upon their own heads. A pious mother, had en- deavoured both by her conduct and her ad- monitions, to train her son in virtue, but without success, he determined on and per- severed in evil courses ; his mother frequent- ly remonstrated with him but in vain; at length with great solemnity she addressed him to the following purpose: "My son notwithstanding your career of vice, I still find that you are my child, and that I am your mother; my efforts to reclaim you, dictated in a great degree by the tenderness of a mother, have been useless ; but recol- lect that these bodies are to-be laid down ; and that at the awful day of judgment, the feelings of a mother can no longer plead for you : I must then acquiesce in the sen- 135 tencc which a righteous Judge will pronounce against a hardened criminal : my tears, so often shed for you, will be for ever wiped away; and the remembrance of my child will exist no longer." Her son heard her, but not now with contempt of her admo- nitions : he was struck with awe, and melted into contrition; he reformed his life, and became a model of goodness. Young per- sons should be warned too, that their guilt is aggravated a thousand fold, by the op- portunities for instruction and improvement which have been afforded them: for him who is determined to take the road to de- struction, it were well that he had never been instructed in the path of virtue; his teachers must become his accusers, and bear testimony against him. We pity those who without direction wander and stumble, and are misled in the darkness of the night; but what do they deserve, who in the face of their guides, and in the face of noon- day, resolve to follow the wrong path? they must infallibly be lost, because they will be 136 lost ; and their punishment must be entirely their own. In the course of human events, parents are called on to separate from their chil- dren, and teachers from their pupils ; these opportunities of touching the heart should not be lost, for they may have a powerful effect in after-life : " the last is a touching time." A pious mother on parting with her son, took him into her chamber, and fervently, and with tears, prayed with him, and for him ; at the distance of nearly half a century, I have heard this son record the circumstance with tears likewise. The tears and the prayers of a mother are indeed affecting; the last advices may make a- deeper impression than all those which have been given before : none of us can promise ourselves when we part, that we part to meet again,. The address of Paul> when he is about to depart from his friends and disciples, is deeply touching; he knew ? by the spirit of prophecy, that they should 137 " see his face no more," in this world ; he says, " ye know after what manner I have been with you at all seasons? : I kept baek nothing that was profitable unto you ;" he calls them to bear witness, both to his up- rightness of conduct, and to his incessant labours for their instruction ; he tells them to " take heed to themselves," forewarning them almost immediately after, that evil men would arise even among themselves; he calls on them to remember, that for three years he ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears : another argument for incessant attention to the young : his labours are accompanied too with tears ; he says, " I have shewed you all things;" he com- mends them to an Almighty care ; as the last act, he kneels down and prays with them : they all wept sore ; their greatest sorrow was that they should never see him again. He who forgets many exhortations, many tears, many prayers, may remember the last, and they should not be omitted. 138 But it is pleasant to contemplate the re- verse of the picture"; " Behold me> and the children whom thou hast given me : of all "which thou hast given me none is lost." May it not be said, that they that lead, as well as they that turn many to righteous- ness, shall be as the stars for ever and ever, sprinkling with a radiance derived from that Sun which is the everlasting source of life, and light, and glory ! "_Nor gave his father grief but when he died :" a noble eulogium of the poet to the memory of a son. Parents have in all ages enjoyed the delight of seeing their efforts rewarded in the virtues of their children r the morsel has been sweet, though some- times eaten with bitter herbs. If our first parents had a wicked Cain, they had an innocent and a righteous Abel ; if they were called on to shed tears over his untimely fate, they were not unmingled tears : for the remembrance, of departed innocence, though 159 painful, is. yet pleasant; what appears an aggravation of the calamity, is in reality its solace: so kindly does Providence min- gle the cup for us. Jacob lives to see his beloved Joseph, the eldest son of his be- loved partner, as exalted in honor, as he was in virtue : nay, to see his virtues infi- nitely transcending his honors ; and his grey hairs descend, not in sorrow to the grave, as in the grief of his heart he had believed they would, but in tranquillity and joy. How touching is his dying language : " I had not thought to see thy face, and lo! God hath shewed me also thy seed ; the blessings of thy father, unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills, shall be on the head of Joseph." We may suppose that virtuous children are sometimes the reward of virtue : I know a woman in hum- ble circumstances in life, who, speaking of a sister, has said, " Surely she must have acted very virtuously, that God Almighty rewarded her with such a daughter ;u 140 she has; and although it has- been already related in a former work, I cannot refrain from introducing here another anecdote of this mother and daughter ; when the former was on her death-bed, she called her family about her: a husband, two sons, and this daughter; to her two sons she gave her parting admonitions : she exhorted them to goodness and virtue, and to dutiful conduct to their father ; turning to her daughter, she said, to you my child, I have no advice to give ; you have been your mother's comfort and support for many a day: receive her thanks and her last blessing. It is pleasant to teachers to see by the good conduct of their pupils in after-life, that their anxiety on their behalf, and their unremitting efforts for their welfare, have not been thrown away. We cannot by a pecuniary recompen.ee reward instructors who have faithfully discharged the duties gf their office; the only adequate one which 141 v can receive, is the gratitude of parent- and the gratitude displayed in the virtues of those whom they instructed. The following is an extract from a letter written by the Rev. John Fell, to a pupil of his, soon after lie left him, and on his entrance intr th I " Do you, my dear youth, think nobly; act justly; always remember that there are more in this country than yourself and fa- jitc party; never forget that your own country is not the only one in the world ich has a right to divine privileges; be assured that whatever is unjust in England, can never be just elsewhere. You have a natural right to eat and drink, and to enjoy likewise all the advantages of your own na- ture, which is intelligent and rational: so have the wild Africans, and the wretched slaves in Jamaica; you ought to think and judge what is best for yourself, and folio w* your own conscience : so ought your neigh- 142 hours; others ought not to pursue their own interests at your expense, nor to pro- vide for their own safety by stripping you of all defence: nor ought you in any case to act thus toward others; abhor what is mean, selfish, and base ; as far as possible, let your conduct be consistent with your professions; and be always assured that you have more defects than are known to yourself: for this reason be modest before men, and be abased in the sight of God, who looks into the heart. " Forgive the length of this letter; I love to talk with you; I expect to hear good things of you : but if ever it should be said in my hearing, that you encouraged what is in itself, unjust, oppressive, tyrannical, or injurious to the rights of human nature, I will weep for it in silence." Young persons educated by a wise and affectionate teacher, will never forget the years passed under his roof. I have seen 144 young men returning after the lapse of much time, to the house of their instructor as to the house of their father, and to the society of their brothers and sisters : they loved the learning place of their early days. May I be pardoned for introducing a short passage from a letter addressed to myself, from a foreign country, where he was settled, and at the distance of years, from one who was among the most cherished of my father's pu- pils : " I had always pleased myself, that I should be able to revisit a place, which -so long a residence in had taught me to consider as a home, and to find your house, undimi- nished in numbers, and unimpaired by mis- fortune. I have again and again thought on the happiness I should feel at finding your revered parents easy and comfortable, and those promising young men I left rising into life, enjoying around them the fruits of their matured abilities and integrity. I assure you of my sympathy in the pain which these recollections will occasion ; but you are not related to the man who reared you, if you 144 have not met, and do not meet affliction with dignity, and submission to the will of Heaven." I shall close this chapter with a letter ad- dressed by a young lady to one who had been her affectionate instructress for nine years, on taking leave of her, to return to her parents, residing in a distant part of the kingdom. " Since letter-writing has become at all easy to me, I have always, my dearest ma- dam, experienced great pleasure when ad- dressing you : but you will believe me when I say, that I feel no small degree of pain in writing this letter. The period is now very fast approaching to which I have always looked forward with comparative dread; far be it from me to say that I feel no pleasure at the thought of meeting my dearest pa- rents, and of returning to my native coun- try; were that the case, I should be un- worthy of having parents, and I know that in i 145 you would be the last to sanction any thin* so unnatural ; yet still it is impossible that I should quit, perhaps for ever, a place in which I have passed more than half my and friends from whom I have received ch unremitting, such affectionate attention, without some painful feelings. It would, indeed, my dear madam, be vain to attempt iving you an idea of the gratitude I shall al- ys bear toward you, to whom I owe all the information I possess. May that infor- tion ever be employed in a proper man- er, worthy of those who imparted it; and y the precepts you have instilled be too ply engraven on my mind ever to be ! May they direct me in every un- rtaking, and in every difficulty! Then 11 I best prove my gratitude, and you ill best know that your instructions have not been altogether bestowed in vain. When am far removed from you, I shall often in ncy revisit , and renew again those happy years that were passed under your roof: I siwll often enjoy the pleasing re- wh 3 Wit ind giv wa the ma ner 140 membrance of your kindness and affection : I have indeed received from you and maternal tenderness, and had I not been deprived of the society of my beloved pa- rents. I am certain that my happiness could not have been more perfect than during the last nine years of my life it has been. Far different is my case to that of girls who quit places of instruction as they would the walls of a prison ; this house has not been to me only a scene of improvement, but of enjoyment; and I shall quit it with unaf- fected sorrow, I feel assured that I have frequently, by my conduct, occasioned you much uneasiness; but I trust I can with truth affirm that whatever I have done amiss, has not been premeditated, has not proceed- ed from ingratitude, but from thoughtless- ness; but you do not store your memory with the faults of your pupils ; I well know that they are pardoned almost as soon as committed, therefore believe me that I am sincerely grieved for every painful moment you have suffered on my account. 147 " What I have written has proceeded from the heart, without any embellishment, id as such I hope you will receive it. hen far removed from you, you and dll be remembered with gratitude, by your incerely dutiful and affectionate pupil." H 14S CHAR XV. ON religious instruction, thoughts have been interspersed through the preceding chapter : a few more are now offered, and I am permitted to introduce some reflections on the subject by another hand, which will succeed my own. It appears strange that people should fill the minds of children with speculative* no- tions on religion, which they cannot possibly understand, and which, indeed, they proba- bly do not understand themselves, and do not teach the simple obvious truths placed before them in the Bible. This is as if they were to lead them into a dark intricate 149 road, in which thousands have been be- wildered, when a beautiful, and plain, and easy path is before them, where they may walk with security and delight: " the way- faring man, though a stranger, need not err therein." " Objections are made to teaching piety to children. Parents will judge for them- Ives; but in forming a judgment, they light enquire whether they who do not re- lember their Creator in the days of their routh, be ever likely to remember him: they might enquire what this meaneth: 1 Suffer little children to come unto me:' what this promise meaneth, ' they that >k me early shall find me.'"* Children should be taught the perform- ance of religious duties as a pleasure, and a privilege; and not be compelled to these, Charters. H 2 150 as to a task : neither should parents and teachers terrify the young into being reli- gious, by representing, as I fear is too often done, the dreadful punishments to which the guilty are liable, It has been said, " forced believers believe nothing." Gloom and rigidity in conveying religious instruc- tion, may render the mind timid and feeble, or inspire a hatred of religion . altogether. Some of the greatest profligates may have been among those who were educated in the severest discipline. Terror is a miserable leader : how can we love him of whom we are afraid? A friend \\hom I remember with reve- rence, was educated in childhood by a rigid parent: she has told me that this parent obliged her every night to go into a dark room to say her prayers; and allotted a cer- tain .time for the pericrmuace of this duty, I believe half an hour. Brought up in a country place in the northern part of our kingdom, and more than half a century \->" -lit ^ the 161 ago, she had imbibed many of the super- stitious terrors prevalent there at that time ; lie has told me that she did say a prayer as astily as she could, but that the whole of time she was under the greatest terror of some supernatural appearance, and crept afterwards as closely as possible to the door f the room in which she was shut, waiting trembling for the moment of her release. er parent used to say to her on her return, ' you know best how you have employed time you have been absent;" and this truck her as a reproach, but her fears uld not be overcome ; they absorbed every other sensation. What a lamentable picture does this present! yet the parent was es- emed a woman of extraordinary piety. This her child became, but certainly under etter teachers. The same person has told me too, that once when a mere child, put- ting her hair in papers, her mother's servant Id her there would be no curling of hair in hell. This servant had doubtless read er Bible, for no servant in Scotland is ig- H 4 norant of it; but did she remember respect- ing children, " of such is the kingdom of Heaven?" No. Children will perform the duties of reli- gion as a pleasure, if instructed in them by affectionate parents and teachers, who them- selves take pleasure in them. If our hearts overflow with gratitude and love, and reve- rence to the Giver of all Good, will not those of children, whose feelings of the bet- ter sort are still more lively, glow in the same manner? But if religious offices be a mere form in their instructors, so will they be to their pupils, and one which they will probably lay aside whenever they are at li- berty, On a visit a few years ago to a ladies' school, I happened to be there on a sabbath evening: the duties of the day had been per- formed, and the children had retired to the school- room. Seated in a distant part of the house, I heard the sound of their united 153 voices in hymns of their own selection : this had not been imposed on them as a neces- sary duty, and they were at the time from under the eye of their instructors. I cannot describe the pleasurable sensations I ielt, but the impression remains at the distance of years; the remembrance is sweet; a re- membrance of the hearts and voices of the young and the innocent, attuned to the >raise of their Creator. Oh! if religion be >t a source of delight to children, the fault not their own. The Assembly's Catechism with the roofs, is frequently put into the hands of lildren to learn. I remember learning it, >ut without the smallest understanding of One precept of the Bible, well under- tood by a child, will be infinitely more ser- iceable than learning by heart, as it is tiled, a collection of texts, chosen as con- iccted with peculiar doctrines. It appears me, that the historical parts of the Old New Testament, particularly as -con- H 5 154 nected with morality, should be first taught to children ; and this, as has been already said, may be done even before they can read, both by pictures and reciting. Chil- dren love to sit on the knee of a parent or a nurse, and hear her sing, or tell stories. The stones of the Bible have certainly as much interest as any other, much more than a fairy tale, even to a child : humanity must always interest humanity. The histories of Cain and Abel, of the flood, of the infant Moses, of Joseph and his brethren, of Ruth, of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, of Da- niel, of Jesus Christ, and his disciples : an endless source of instruction and pleasure is here opened to children at all ages. The ac- count of Christ and the apostles which little Sandford gives, in Sandford and Merton, is such an one as a child of six years old might be supposed to give, instructed by a Mr. Barlow. In teaching the scriptures, let not parents and teachers wrest them, either to their own, or their children's destruction: if the truths contained therein are so obvi- eh be is : 155 ous, that "he who runs n beware of " darkening con: v words without knowledge," and of ob- ihat i'hich is clear. Religious parents and teac fall into an error, the sad consequeneflS f which are sometimes olnious in those horn they have instructed : that of ivpro- ting too severely .'iMocrnt an; The human mind is so constituted s to require variety : we see this through the whole course of nature ; day and night succeed each other ; the seasons are per- etually changing ; the sea ebbs and flows; gain ; our own bodies change : the infant comes a child: there is a progress from childhood to youth, and forward still ; the bow must occasionally be relaxed, or there is danger that it will break; a pleasure may be utterly harmless in itself: its abuse con- itutes its mischief. Let rigid instructors member, what they are too apt to forget, that they were once children themselves. 156 1 am no advocate for cards, or places of public amusement, and I dislike both, as far as personal feelings are concerned ; but there is danger of inspiring an inclination for these, even in positively debarring them : the young are thus taught a false estimate of them : it appears a matter of question whether a young person who has now and then been permitted to see a place of public entertain - ment, will when he comes to act for him- self, frequent it so often as one who under the same circumstances, had been hitherto restrained from such a place : the pleasure of liberty is a great one, and there are many charms in novelty : he may not be sensible of the evils that have been pictured to him as attendant on an amusement of this kind, and hence be led to doubt the truth of other things in w r hich he had been instructed. Well educated children,, who are permitted either at home or at school, such amusements as wise and kind parents and teachers judge pro- per for them, will not be eager after public places or cards ; but in mentioning these, let 157 their proper place be assigned them : they are idle amusements, and there arc amusements which are not idle ; and much more inter- esting : be it the care to provide such. I knew a numerous family, who in their earlier years, had no restrictions imposed on them, with respect to games of chance, or public places, and not one of them in after-life re- sorted either to the one or the other, by way of passing their hours of leisure. Amuse- ments may be abused, and so may religion : let it be remembered that the most atrocious crimes have been committed under the sanc- tion of her name* By too great strictness, children are some- times taught to practise deceit : the day-spring of life, is the natural season for cheerfulness and joy ; and if innocently, let them be in- dulged, if they are not, the evil conse- quences that will arise be on the heads of those who restrain them from pursuing the dictates of nature. 158 " Perish the lore that deadens young desire, Fancy and hope too soon shall of themselves expire." Beat tie. A little girl laughing aloud in the gaiety of her heart, an elder person in company said to her, " Aye, my child, you are very merry now, but by and by" -the child's attention was instantly arrested, and a cloud overspread her countenance : the person perceived her error, and corrected herself " by and by you must go to school and work/' Openness and sincerity are cha- racteristics of early years ; grievous is the change when children substitute for them, deceit, cunning and falsehood ; but if a yoke is imposed on them too heavy to be borne, they will slip from under it whenever they can; if they dare not do so in the pre- sence of their instructors, they will do it in their absence, and contrive excuses for absenting themselves ; " draw them," but forget not to do so " with the cords of love." 159 An ancient Christian on being; asked what was the first grace of a Christian, replied, " humility;" what the second, " humility;" what the third, "humility:" were I asked the same question, I should answer, " cha- rity;" the second, " charity;' 1 the third, " charity :" charity breatlics through every precept of the gospel ; and let those who take the gospel for their guide in the edu- cation of the young, remember this, and teach them accordingly ; but let instructors study and practise universal charity in them- selves, toward all their brethren of man- kind. The noblest lessons which we can give, and those the most likely to be fol- lowed, are those which example offers : let instructors remember that the sun arises equally on the good and on the evil ; the rain descends on the just, and on the unjust; the meadows are clothed with verdure ; the vallies are covered over with corn ; flowers breathe their perfume, and trees are laden with fruit; rivers pour forth their streams to gladden and fertilize the earth: an All- 160 v ise and beneficent Parent and Creator has " clothed a world with beauty for rebellious man ;" yet ungrateful and narrow -minded as we are, we set at nought, revile, and persecute, nay, consign, without remorse, or one compassionate feeling, our brethren of mankind to everlasting condemnation : and for what? because their religious opi- nions differ from ours ; because they were born, brought up, lived, and died heathens ; to whom no opportunity was ever granted of receiving the precepts of Christianity. What are we ourselves ? our habitation is in the dust; we are so ignorant that we cannot comprehend the least of the innumerable wonders that surround us ; on looking through a microscope at the smallest speck of dust which we can collect from a flower, we perceive in it an order, a variety, and a beauty, astonishing, endless, and inimitable : yet we shall presume to set bounds to the mind of man, that most stupendous of all structures, in comparison of which the sun, whose influence sustains our world, fkdes 161 into nothing ; and which shall survive when lie has set to rise no more. My brother, my friend, the whole human race, must think and believe as I do, or I sweep all away to utter destruction. What then am I, to arrogate to myself such a power, when the Almighty Governor of the Uni- verse diffuses blessings innumerable on the meanest and most unworthy of his creatures ! If we contemplate the starry heavens, and suppose that each of those stars, whose numbers are not to be counted, may be a world infinitely larger than the one we in* habit, and peopled by beings of an intelli- gence superior to ours, let us be humbled to the dust with a sense of our own little- ness: this world shall pass away, and the stars shall fall from their courses, but cha- rity endureth for ever. 16*2 CHAP. XVI.* THE perception of our existence is quick- ly followed by that of the existence of God, or rather, they grow up together. The pleasures of novelty and beauty and gran- deur are early felt ; it seems possible to ex- cite, even in the minds of children, a reflec- tion on the author of those pleasures. Chil- dren are indebted to their parents for food and clothes and other comforts, and they feel gratitude and attachment. But who makes the sun to rise, and the flowers to grow, and fruit to ripen? They are the questions of * This was printed in loose Hints, in the year 1/81, and is revised by the author, 163 children, the seed of an answer is in theii own mind, it only needs to be unfolded. By beginning here, the first idea of God is that of a benevolent Being, and the first devout sentiments are those of gratitude and admi- ration. Gloomy views of the Supreme Be- ing, and of the service which he requires, have the worst effects on the minds of youth. The celebrated Boyle, when a young man, visited the scenes of St. Bruno's solitude. The stones and pictures of that Saint overwhelm- ed him with melancholy. The misery of his creatures seemed to be the sacrifice which God required. According to his own ac- count, " nothing but the forbiddenness of self-dispatch prevented his acting it." In unfolding a truth which affects the imagination and the heart, proper seasons must be chosen. When the sun rises from the sea, and dispels the clouds, and gilds the mountains, while birds sing arid the air is fragrant, you may aid your pupil's con- templation on that power which daily renqws 164 our joy. In the silenee and solemnity of a starry night, his thoughts ascend to the Cre- ator. While it thunders, he readily per- ceives that reverence is due to the Almighty. There are seasons when the doctrine of Providence, and of immortality, a branch of that doctrine, may be deeply impressed. Recoveries, and escapes and deliverances are often experienced in youth; when your pupil has experienced any of these, with the slightest aid he will recognize a Providence. Your disease was extreme, the physician gave no hope, your companion was carried to the grave. What power restored you to your sorrowing friends? What gratitude is due to that power? What love to those friends who took so deep interest in your af- fliction? You have escaped an accident which the next moment had proved fatal. Who preserved your life? For what end was it preserved? Marcus Antoninus was thankful to Providence that his mother re- covered from a sickness which had like to have cut her off in her youth. Such an in* terposition duly weighed, leaves a more powerful and permanent impression than profound reasoning, and awakens a lively gratitude. Those who have cultivated piety, and, like Antoninus, recorded its progress, have all been touched with early interposi- tions of providence, and treasured them up as memorials of Divine Goodness, and grounds of hope. Youth seldom passes without a time to weep. The death-bed of a parent, or of a young friend, melts the heart. Concern and attachment grow as the hour approaches. Death leaves him inconso- lable. Immortality is the source of conso- lation, and now is the time to open it. It accords with lively sorrow, which clings to a departed friend, and dwells on the thought of an everlasting union. Divine Goodness, which the shadow of death had veiled, shines forth again. Were dying parents, in the solemn hour of separation, to awaken a sense of God and immortality in the minds of children, it would make an indelible im- pression. The steps by which your pupil advances in knowledge, all lead to the Cre- ator. By giving them this direction, im- provement and delight will mingle. There is an early tendency to contem- plate the works of nature, and to enquire. If the inclination and capacity of youth were consulted, natural history would be the first branch of education. On this subject, the pupil is introduced with ease and plea- sure to industry and thought. Curiosity is gratified and excited by turns. A way of knowledge is opened in the desert, and a path in the deep waters. Final causes are perceived, and views of wisdom open. He is introduced to communion with God. Much depends on the method in which na- tural history is taught. The sophistry of materialism darkens the understanding, and chills the heart, and damps the ardour of pursuit. The sense of Deity, which the mere detail of facts would cherish, is blasted by cold and captious reasoning; the result is doubt and melancholy, perhaps indolence 167 and sensuality. But when marks of and beneficent design are pointed out, the detail of facts becomes more interesting. Reason is exercised. Admiration is felt. The heart warms at every new prospect of benevolence. Fresh ardour kindles in a pur- suit by which the highest feelings of the mind are gratified. If the inclination and capa- city of the pupil be still consulted, exj < mental philosophy is the next step. It << tributes to the arts of life, and it may like- wise contribute to the knowledge of God. " It gives a relish," as Mr. Boyle observed and felt, " for abstract truths which do not gfatify ambition, sensuality, or low inte- The laws of nature suppose a law- giver. The properties of body, subjected to the power and ingenuity and use of man, lead to the Author of these properties, and of this subjection. The doctrine of cause and effect is explained. The metaphysical dust is easily wiped off. With intuitive conviction, the mind rests in a first cause, independant and self-existent. It rests in 168 silent awe. The explanations of schoolmen are blasphemy. The sciences acquire new importance and dignity, and reflect new ho- nour on their possessors, as they dispel su- perstition, and establish faith in the perfec- tions and providence of God. " Our views of nature/' says Mac Laurin, an eminent and enlightened teacher, " however imper- fect, serve to represent to us in the most sensible manner, that mighty power which prevails throughout, acting with a force and efficacy that appears to suffer no diminution from the greatest distances of space, or in- tervals of time ; and that wisdom which we see equally displayed in the exquisite struc- ture and just motions of the greatest and subtilest parts. These, with perfect good- ness by which they are evidently directed, constitute the supreme object of the specu- lations of a philosopher, who, while he con- templates and admires so excellent a system, cannot but be himself excited and animated to correspond with the general harmony of nature." Sir Isaac Newton concludes his principal works with Thoughts of God, lime in proportion to the objects which filled his mind, and the clearness with which he viewed them. In a late Essay on Gravita- tion, an idea is presented of some centre of the universe unspeakably remote, round which the sun and stars may gravit After supporting the hypothesis by ai and by tfie change of place actually obs< ed in many stars, it thus concludes: " What an astonishing thing is this, wlien consi- dered in its proper and full extent! It seems the voice of nature reaching from the uttermost heavens, inviting us to enlarge and elevate our views." From the know- ledge of external things, the mind is con- ducted to the knowledge of itself: a brighter display of the Deity opens. Human wis- dom appears in mechanical arts, but still more in the arts of government. The laws of motion in matter, and of instinct in brutes, are suited to their subjects; but the laws which regulate a mind capable of think- ing and chusing, lead to more profound re- 170 searches. The labour is difficult, but the recompense is great. In tracing these laws we discover the end of our creation, and the means of attaining it. We discover hidden treasures of Divine Wisdom, in a subject of higher dignity and more exquisite work- manship, than the material world. The principles of taste are the easiest and most pleasant branch of human nature; and with them, perhaps, it is fittest to begin. The pleasures of imagination are relished in youth : as their sources are traced with the means of purifying them, they acquire a new relish. Means fitted to their ends in so complicated a machine as man, display pro- found wisdom: when these ends are so many delicious pleasures, they renew the impression of Divine benevolence. The benevolence of God is the foundation of piety, and it cannot be laid too deep. While the pleasures of imagination are en- joyed, gratitude may at times be roused. Many of these pleasures accord with devo- 171 tion, and rise in the exercise of it to their highest note. Great and awful and immea- surable objects are sublime; as they n the thoughts to God, the mind swells with still more exalted pleasure. The enthusi- asm of poetry is felt, and the fire of devo- tion burns, Hymns to the Creator vv early expressions of piety among men, and piety may still be cherished in early \ songs of praise. Laws which regulate con- duct, are more important than those by which pleasure is dispensed. Kind affections spring up in youth, it is the season for rear- ing the amiable virtues. Pleasure accompa- nies every act of goodness; the gratitude which it excites, and the praise which it at- tracts, heighten that pleasure, devotion pu- rifies it. Benevolence, which is animated by views of Divine Benevolence, and works together with God, is pure and permanent; it is proof against ingratitude and unmerited reproach. While justice is explained, the obligation is felt, and the sanctions which en- force it. Human laws are contemplated as i2 172 a part of God's administration, founded on the sense of justice which he has given, in- flicting punishments which that sense ap- proves, and establishing order in society. So far the prospect is bright. But your pu- pil must be instructed in the disorder which actually prevails, the imperfection of human laws, the partiality and deceivableness of judges, the triumphs of iniquity. A cloud gathers on the prospect. Indignation rises at the view of oppression, and sympathy with the oppressed, and an appeal to that Being who made man upright. Immortality, opened through the vale of death, opens again through the vale of iniquity. If diffi- culties occur in comparing the justice of God with his benevolence, the following hints by Muralt are submitted: "The faculties with which man is endowed, tend, when properly exercised, to the perfection of his nature. When they are turned from their true des- tination, disorder ensues, great in propor- tion to the excellence of the faculties per- verted. The order which subsists among the members of the bos > -scntial not only to its perfection, but to its happim Disorder in any m i-f the body, is notified by pain; disorder in the 1'aculi. of the mind, is in like manner notified by pain of mind. Pain is the consequence of disorder, the necessary unavoidable con quence; were it otherwise, both body and mind would go to ruin. Detach the idea of severity from the justice of God: were creatures free from disorder, that severity would not exist. The essential justice of God, is his approbation of that order which renders intelligent creatures happy ; and of consequence, a disapprobation of the dis- order which renders them miserable. The seeming severity of his justice is a constant and pressing call to return to happiness, and to that order with which it is necessarily connected. The justice, which seems se- vere in its effects, is, in its principle, good- ness directed by wisdom. The principle by which he consents to the pain of his crea- tures, is the same by which he wills them i 3 174 to be happy/' Reason is of late growth ; much must be done in the way of discipline before it can be applied: that discipline, however, should be adapted to reason, which is hereafter to review it. Beware of con- veying to your pupil religious principles that will not stand the test of inquiry; when he comes to winnow them, the wheat may fly off with the chaff. In a dark age, preju- dices friendly to virtue may operate through life ; but when light rushes in, the foundation of piety and virtue may be shaken. Erasmus observed, that all the reformers he was ac- quainted with, became worse men than they were before. The first reformers, in renounc- ing venerable prejudices with which the most important truths were mingled, under- went a severe trial ; nor is it much to be won- dered at, if in breaking the bands of super- stition, the bands of love w r ere loosed. The Bible is the religion of Protestants, and the knowledge of what God has revealed is to be studied there : many of the objections to Christianity are owing to misrepresentation? 175 of it. Let the New Testament be consult- ed. Does it ascribe to God a c: worthy the Creator of the universe, and the Father of men? Does it clear and extend the view of his wisdom and benevolence? Does it make the way to communion witli him more plain and pleasant? Is the ap- pointment of a Mediator analagous to the ways of Providence, expressive of divine condescension, and suited to human nature? Is it consoling to the heart, under a sense of guilt, to be assured of pardon? Does moral ex- cellence, made perfect by suffering, seem to be a sacrifice which God will accept? Is it natural to the mind of man to feel admi- ration and love at the view of moral excel- lence, and yield to its transforming influ- ence? Take a view of man in his low estate : Think if it be godlike to send glad tidings to the poor, if it be godlike to console the miserable, and if the sympathy of an affec- tionate and powerful friend be a strong con- solation ? Man is mortal, and Jesus passed before us through death, not with an awful i4 176 insensibility which leaves the feeling heart behind. Does the doctrine of a resurrec- tion fall in with our predilection for these bodies, and open as it were to the eye of sense the prospect of immortality? And does the doctrine of a judgment to come accord with the natural feeling that we are accountable? Do the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which followed, illustrate and ratify his important doctrine of a state of trial, preparatory to a state of retribution? Judge Christianity by its effects. Does it kindle love to God and man, and establish the authority of conscience, and reconcile you to your lot? If your child be satisfied that Christ is a teacher sent from God, and is willing to be his disciple, it is meet to confess him before men. The celebration of his death is a proper testimony of regard. Such a Benefactor deserves to be had in everlasting remembrance. The hearts of the young, when first introduced to communion with the faithful, are accessible and soft, Parents might avail themselves of this sea- 177 son to recall their early dedication to God, to explain the wisdom and love which in- spired the discipline through which they have been made to pass, to forctel its in- fluence on their future conduct, to antici- pate the time when that conduct shall bc- judged, and to devolve the care of it on themselves. While other passions are spring- ing up, and attended to with a wise and watchful eye, the devout passions claim a share in that attention. The works of God inspire humility; when we look up to the heavenly bodies, and meditate the extent and the number and the glory of them, we return to ourselves with lowly thoughts.