ANIMALS. 



137 



cold water,in order tostrengthen their bodies; 

 they will have them converse with the servants 

 in nothing but the Latin language, in order to 

 strengthen their minds; every hour of the day 

 must be appointed for its own studies, and the 

 child must learn to make these very studies 

 an amusement ; till about the age of ten or 

 eleven it becomes a prodigy of premature im- 

 provement. Quite opposite to this, we have 

 others, whom the courtesy of mankind also 

 calls philosophers: and they will have the 

 child learn nothing till the age of ten or ele- 

 ven, at which the former has attained so much 

 perfection ; with them the mind is to be kept 

 empty, until it has a proper distinction of some 

 metaphysical ideas about truth; and the pro- 

 mising pupil is debarred the use of even his 

 own faculties, lest they should conduct him 

 into prejudice and error. In this manner, 

 some men, whom fashion has celebrated for 

 profound and fine thinkers, have given their 

 hazarded and untried conjectures, upon one 

 of the most important subjects in the world, 

 and the most interesting to humanity. When 

 men speculate at liberty upon innate ideas, 

 or the abstracted distinctions between will 

 and power, they may be permitted to enjoy 

 their systems at pleasure, as they are harm- 

 less, although they may be wrong ; but when 

 they allege that children are to be every day 

 plunged in cold water, and, whatever be their 

 constitutions, indiscriminately inured to cold 

 and moisture ; that they are to be kept wet in 

 the feet, to prevent their catching cold; and 

 never to be corrected when young, for fear 

 of breaking their spirits when old; these are 

 such noxious errors, that all reasonable men 

 should endeavour to oppose them. Many 

 have been the children whom these opinions, 

 begun in speculation, have injured or destroy- 

 ed in practice ; and I have seen many a little 

 philosophical martyr, whom I wished, 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 permitted to play among 

 its little equals, from whose similar instruc- 

 tions 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 thereby ; and for every reason also 

 it ought tohave its share of labour. The mind, 

 by early labour, will be thus accustomed to 

 fatigues and subordination ; and whatever be 

 the person's future employment in life, he will 

 be better fitted to endure it : he will be thus 

 enabled to support the drudgeries of office 

 with content; or to fill up the vacancies of 

 life with variety. The child, therefore, should 

 by times be put to its duty; and be taught to 

 know, that the task is to be done, or the pu- 

 nishment to be endured. I do not object 

 against alluring it to duty by reward ; but we 

 well know, that the mind will be more strongly 

 stimulated by pain; and both may, upon some 

 occasions, take their turn to operate. In this 

 manner, a child, by playing with its equals 

 abroad, and labouring with them at school, 

 will acquire more health and knowledge, than 

 by being bred up under the wing of any spe- 

 culative system-maker; and will be thus qua- 

 lified for a life of activity and obedience. It 

 istrue,i:ideed,that when educated inthis man- 

 ner, the boy may not be so seemingly sensi- 

 ble and forward as one bred up under solita- 

 ry instruction ; and, perhaps, this early for- 

 wardness is more engaging than useful. It 

 is well known, that many of those children 

 who have been such prodigies of literature 

 before ten, have not made an adequate pro- 

 gress to twenty. It should seem, that they 

 only began learning manly things before their 

 time ; and, while others were busied in pick- 

 ing up that knowledge adapted to their age 

 andcuriosity,these were forced upon subjects 

 unsuited to their years; and, upon that ac- 

 count alone, appearing extraordinary. The 

 stock of knowledge in both may be equal ; 

 but with this difference, that each is yet to 

 learn what the other knows. 



But whatever may have been the acquisi- 

 tions of children at ten or twelve, their great- 



