IMPROVEMENT IN EDUCATION. 255 



A knowledge of phrenology is indispensably necessary to an in- 

 structor of youth, as this science clearly shows that every pupil pos- 

 sesses faculties differing in power, and each pupil, consequently, 

 requires a different mode of treatment. The generality of teachers 

 appear ignorant that the capacities of children differ ; but if these 

 enlightened instructors of the nineteenth century would consult one 

 who wrote nearly two hundred years ago, they would learn that 

 " God has stamped certain characters upon men's minds which, like 

 their shapes, may, perhaps, be a little mended, but can hardly be 

 totally altered and transformed into the contrary. He, therefore, 

 who is about children, should well study their natures and aptitudes, 

 and see, by often trials, what turn they easily take, and what their 

 native stock is, how it may be improved, and what it is fit for : he 

 should consider what they want, whether they be capable of 

 having it wrought into them by industry, and incorporated there 

 by practice ; and whether it be worth while to endeavour it : for in 

 many cases, all that we can do, or should aim at, is to make the best 

 of what nature has given, to prevent the vices and faults to which 

 such a constitution is most inclined, and give it all the advantages 

 it is capable of. Every one's natural genius should be carried as 

 far as possible, but to attempt the putting another upon him will be 

 but labour in vain." For instance, if a person has the organ of lan- 

 guage largely developed, but that of number small, he will make a 

 good linguist, although it will be a vain attempt to make him an 

 arithmetician. In the above- quoted passage, Locke recommends 

 that the teacher should, " by often trials,'* discover the natural turn 

 of the pupil's mind, but phrenology renders this unnecessary. An 

 inspection of the pupil's head will give the teacher a more intimate 

 and a more correct knowledge of a pupil's character and aptitudes, 

 than he would gain by living twelve or twenty years under the 

 same roof. 



In a former paper on the subject of education,* I observed— 

 '' it may safely be affirmed that if a pupil does not advance in his 

 studies, or does not advance so quickly as is expected, the fault is 

 never his own ;" and I subsequently came to the conclusion, that, 



* Vide Analyst) vol. ii., p. 413. 



