400 HISTORY OF 



that they are to be kept wet in the feet, to pre- 

 vent their catching cold ; and never to be cor- 

 rected when young, for fear of breaking their 

 spirits when old ; these are such noxious errors, 

 that all reasonable men should endeavour to op- 

 pose them. Many have been the children whom 

 these opinions, begun in speculation, have injur- 

 ed or destroyed in practice; and I have seen 

 many a little philosophical martyr, whom I wish- 

 ed, but was unable to relieve. 



If any system be therefore necessary, it is one 

 that would serve to show a very plain point that 

 very little system is necessary. The natural and 

 common course of education is in every respect 

 the best : I mean that in which the child is per- 

 mitted to play among its little equals, from whose 

 similar instructions it often gains the most useful 

 stores of knowledge. A child is not idle because 

 it is playing about the fields, or pursuing a but- 

 terfly; it is all this time storing its mind with 

 objects, upon the nature, the properties, and the 

 relations of which future curiosity may speculate. 



I have ever found it a vain task to try to make 

 a child's learning its amusement; nor do I see 

 what good end it would answer were it actually 

 attained. The child, as was said, ought to have 

 its share of play, and it will be benefited there- 

 by ; and for every reason also, it ought to have 

 its share of labour. The mind, by early labour, 

 will be thus accustomed to fatigues and subordi- 

 nation ; and whatever be the person's future em- 

 ployment in life, he will be better fitted to en- 

 dure it : he will be thus enabled to support the 



