"thoughts on physical, education." 95 



seclusion suggested by an excess of delicacy. Their food should be 

 generous, nourishing, easy of digestion, and taken in quantities suf- 

 ficient to invigorate the system, and to maintain all its functions in 

 full vigour. Their minds ought to be kept in a state of cheerful- 

 ness and tranquillity ; and, in a particular manner, they should be 

 protected from the effects of frightful appearances, alarming acci- 

 dents, and agitating and impassioned tales and narratives. The 

 blighting operations of the n Reign of Terror" on the children born 

 in Paris during that period, furnishes fearful evidence of the influ- 

 ence of the distracted and horrified condition of the mother over the 

 system of her unborn infant. An unusual proportion of these chil- 

 dren was still-born; a number equally uncommon died at an early 

 age j and of those who attained adult life, very many were subject 

 to epilepsy, madness, or some form of cerebral disease. 



According to Dr. C/s scheme, which is excellent, the sound nur- 

 sery-education of children consists chiefly in the judicious manage- 

 ment of diet, cleanliness, clothing, atmospherical temperature, respi- 

 ration, muscular exercise, sleep, and the animal passions. He 

 would not exclude every degree of moral instruction from children 

 at a very early period ; but since the organs of their moral faculties 

 are then not only small but immature, and cannot be operated upon 

 to much advantage, attempts to excite them powerfully might even 

 do mischief. His precepts on these departments of physical educa- 

 tion are beautifully practicable, and delightfully instructive. He 

 contends that parents, especially mothers, whose responsibility to 

 God and society for the conduct of their children is unspeakably 

 weighty, have it in their power to do, for the morality of a country, 

 ten thousand fold more than all the teachers of theology, litera- 

 ture, and science, and all the pastors of churches united. Habits of 

 correct and efficient morality, with a fruitful love and pursuit of 

 virtue, are the issue chiefly of practice and example under the pa- 

 rental roof. It is, therefore, his deliberate judgment that children 

 ought not to be too soon dismissed from an education exclusively do- 

 mestic. Many parents are over anxious that their young ones 

 should have a knowledge of the alphabet, spelling, reading, geogra- 

 phy, and other branches of school-learning, at a very early age : but 

 this is worse than tempting them to walk too soon ; because the or- 

 gan likely to be injured by such exercises is much more important 

 than the muscles and bones of the lower extremities : these exer- 

 cises may then do irremediable mischief to the brain, which is as yet 

 too immature and feeble to sustain fatigue. Until the seventh year 

 of life, all the energies of the brain are necessary for its own 



