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ON ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



forsworn by the teacher himself. There are too many Books for 

 Infants, Infants require no books. Good books for infants teach- 

 ers are what are wanted ; and these will tell them that they 

 cannot give the children too much of the play-ground and its 

 exercises, mingle too much with them there, or too much 

 observe, and regulate, and guide, the dispositions which they 

 manifest in their play-ground intercourse. We recommend to 

 any infant-school teacher to be possessed of a copy of the 

 work of an American writer. Dr. Amariah Brigham, On the 

 Infuence of Mental Cultivation and Excitement upon Health, 

 In nearly every word of that admirable little work we cordially 

 concur. No teacher can read it, and continue blindly to overtask 

 the infant brain. It is a work which, properly understood, will not 

 discourage infant schools, but prevent their abuse and perversion — 

 will not supersede that early training of the dispositions without 

 which they never will be trained at all, but will guard that para- 

 mount object from being rendered of less effect, by a course inju- 

 rious, and often destructive, to the mind itself. We also recommend 

 another American work. Dr. Charles Caldwell's Thoughts on Phy- 

 sical Education, a discourse delivered to a convention of teachers in 

 Lexington ; and Dr. Andrew Combe's Physiology as connected with 

 the Preservation of Health, and also his Physiology of Digestion.* 

 These four works should be the constant companions of every in- 

 fant-school teacher. It may here be briefly noticed that Dr. Brigh- 

 am justly holds that the exercise of the moral faculties or feelings 

 is unattended with the dangers attending excessive intellectual 

 labour, provided always that over-excitement and every thing that 

 rouses selfish passions, such as rewards offered to emulation, or 

 punishments addressed to fear, are carefully avoided." 



The foregoing extract is followed, in the same treatise, by a sec- 

 tion entitled, "Prevention of prejudices, fallacies, tyrannies, cruel- 

 ties, unfairnesses, selfishnesses, bad habits, &c." The section is 

 thus introduced ; — '"■ There is no part of the infant system more im- 

 portant than the field for watchfulness and exertion indicated by 

 this title. There are no greater moral evils, or causes of evil, than 

 that title enumerates. It is by judicious infant training alone that 

 they can be warded off, and society defended from their conse- 



* We beg to add our tribute of praise to the excellence and practical utili- 

 ty of the productions of the three talented physicians here mentioned ; those 

 who have not perused these works are not a little in arrear of the times, and 

 should, without loss of time, become acquainted with then* contents. — Eds. 



