338 WRITINGS OF JOSEPH HENRY. [1854 



to expertness in these processes, or who merely does enough 

 in this way to awaken a distaste, and who fails to overcome 

 this condition of mind by subsequent judicious drilling, is 

 unworthy of his high vocation, and should give place to a 

 more industrious or more philosophical instructor. 



All the processes we have enumerated, besides various 

 manipulations and bodily exercises necessary to health, re- 

 finement, and convenience, may be taught previous to the 

 age of ten or twelve years. At the same time the memory 

 may be educated to habits of retention and precision ; and 

 for this purpose definite, and if possible elegantly expressed 

 rules should be chosen, to be committed without the slight- 

 est deviation, and so impressed upon the memory that they 

 will ever after remain a portion of the mental furniture of 

 the man, always ready to be called up when neeeded, and 

 always to be depended upon for accuracy. The mere under- 

 standing of the rule, and the power of being able to express 

 it in a vague and indefinite way in original language, is in 

 my judgment, not of itself sufficient. The memory is an 

 important faculty of the mind, and is susceptible of almost 

 indefinite cultivation. It should however in all cases be 

 subservient to the judgment. 



Habits of observation may also be early cultivated, and 

 a boy at the age of twelve years may be taught to recognize 

 and refer to its proper class almost every object which sur- 

 rounds him in nature; and indeed the whole range of de- 

 scriptive natural history may be imparted previous to this 

 age. 



Nothing, in my opinion, can be more preposterous or mis- 

 chievous than the proposition so frequently advanced, that 

 the child should be taught nothing but what it can fully 

 comprehend, and the endeavor in accordance with this, to 

 invert the order of nature, and attempt to impart those 

 things which cannot be taught at an early age, and to 

 neglect those which at this period of life the mind is well 

 adapted to receive. By this mode we may indeed produce 

 remarkably intelligent children who will become remark- 

 ably feeble men. 



