338 CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



assenter to the modern doctrine of the physico- spiritualist. The 

 authoress has arrived at truths so important only by many years 

 of thoughtful application. Truth is not communicable or receivable 

 at once, but arises slowly in the mind by the collision of its own 

 thoughts. 



Miss Whit well has had much to contend with in the promulga- 

 tion of her opinions. That truth is not always victorious over pre- 

 judices and pre-educated susceptibility, a thousand precedents will 

 confirm. How patient, how confident, how consistent, Miss Whit- 

 well has been as a public teacher of truth, is known only to a few. 



The laborious productions on education of De Stael, Montague, 

 Edgeworth, and Barbauld, receive universal commendation, because 

 the plan in each is only a modification of what preceded it ; but to 

 teach children to be what Nature has organized them for, to per- 

 suade instead of to compel, and to institute a penalty without the 

 consequence of stubbornness and hatred, is a process unsuited to the 

 comprehension of those who fancy, by a vain appeal to themselves, 

 that a thousand varied instruments can sound the same note, and 

 that, as extremes meet, they can cure one evil by the counter-irritation 

 of another, and between shame and the birch train up a child in the 

 way he should go. Let parents look to it — let them remember that 

 the sins of the child are reflected back upon the parent with a two- 

 fold aggravation. We recommend Miss Whitwell's pamphlet to 

 the serious attention of the public ; we wish she had enlarged it 

 into a book, and had laid down the plan she so efficaciously pur- 

 sues with her own pupils. It contains applicable truths of incalcu- 

 lable worth ; it teaches us how best to remedy suffering by antici- 

 pating evil, not by vending an empirical catholicon, but by the salu- 

 tary means of a good moral and physical education, realizing a truth 

 that without a rule has grown into a proverb — the possession of a 

 sound mind in a sound body. Miss Whitwell has not said enough, 

 she has hinted more than confirmed, but the fault arises from the 

 limited extent of the address. The style of this pamphlet is perspi- 

 cuous and accurate, and the instances are such as belong to all 

 periods of history. We think illustrations from modern times would 

 have been better, but as we hear Miss Whitwell is engaged on a 

 most admirable work on this subject, we refrain from all further 

 remarks. 



If there were half a dozen Howards for infants who, by joining 

 in a sort of Joint Stock Company for the education of children up 

 to a certain age, with all the advantages of situation, with gardens, 

 and everything to teach rather by God than man, by example than 

 precept, independently of the pecuniary interest, the moral pre- 

 mium would be incalculable. To supply a ruling and governing 

 spirit imbued with gentleness and truth might be a desideratum. 

 Let them read this pamphlet, and then decide on the choice. 



