34"^ STUDIES OF NATURE. 



read, put a fugar-plumb over each of their letters ; 

 they will foon have their alphabet by heart ; and 

 if you multiply or diminilh the number of them, 

 they will foon become arithmeticians. However 

 that may be, they fliall have profited wonderfully 

 in this fchool of their Country, (liould they leave 

 it without having learned to read, write, and ci- 

 pher; but deeply penetrated with this one truth, 

 that to read, write, and cipher, and all the Sciences 

 in the World, are mere nothings ; but that to be 

 fincere, good, obliging; to love God and Man, is- 

 the only Science worthy of the human heart. 



At the fécond era of education, which 1 fuppofe 

 to be about the age of from ten to twelve, when 

 their intelledual powers reftlefsly ftir, and prefs 

 forward, to the imitation of every thing that they 

 fee done by others, 1 would have them inftruded 

 in the means which men employ in making pro- 

 vifion for the wants of Society. I would not pre- 

 tend to teach them the five hundred and thirty 

 arts and handicrafts which are carried on at Paris, 

 but thofe only which are fubfervient to the firft 

 neceffities of human life, fuch as agriculture, the 

 different procefles employed in making bread, the 

 arts which, in the pride of our hearts, we denomi- 

 nate mechanical, fuch as thofe of fpinning flax and 

 hemp, of weaving thefe into cloth, and that of 

 building houfes. To thefe I would join the ele- 

 ments 



