184 A HISTORY OF 



in how short a time the little student begins to understand them all, 

 and to give evident marks of early industry. 



It is very amusing to pursue the young mind, while employed in its 

 first attainments. At about a year old the same necessities that first 

 engaged its faculties, increase as its acquaintance with nature en- 

 larges. Its studies, therefore, if I may use the expression, are no 

 way relaxed ; for having experienced what gave pleasure at one time, 

 it desires a repetition of it from the same object ; and, in order to ob- 

 tain this, that object must be pointed out ; here, therefore, a new 

 necessity arises, which, very often, neither its little arts nor impor- 

 tunities can remove ; so that the child is at last obliged to set about 

 naming the objects it desires to possess or avoid. In beginning to 

 speak, which is usually about a year old, children find a thousand 

 difficulties. It is not without repeated trials that they come to pro- 

 nounce any one of the letters ; nor without an effort of the memory, 

 that they can retain them. For this reason, we frequently see them 

 attempting a sound which they had learned, but forgot ; and when 

 they have failed, I have often seen their attempts attended with ap- 

 parent confusion. The letters soonest learned, are those which are 

 most easily formed ; thus A and B require an obvious disposition 

 of the organs, and their pronunciation is consequently soon attained. 

 'Z and R, which require a more complicated position, are learned with 

 greater difficulty. And this may, perhaps, be the reason why the 

 children in some countries speak sooner than in others ; for the letters 

 mostly occurring in the language of one country, being such as are of 

 easy pronunciation, that language is of course more easily attained. 

 In this manner the children of the Italians are said to speak sooner 

 than those of the Germans, the language of the one being smooth and 

 open ; that of the other, crowded with consonants, and extremely 

 guttural. 



But be this as it will, in all countries children are found able to ex- 

 press the greatest part of their wants by the time they arrive at two 

 years old ; and from the moment the necessity of learning new words 

 ceases, they relax their industry. It is then that the mind, like the 

 body, seems every year to make slow advances ; and, in order to spur 

 up attention, many systems of education have been contrived. 



Almost every philosopher who has written on the education of 

 children, has been willing to point out a method of his own, chiefly 

 professing to advance the health, and improve the intellects at the 

 same time. These are usually found to begin with finding nothing 

 right in the common practice, and by urging a total reformation. lu 

 consequence of this, nothing can be more wild or imaginary than their 

 various systems of improvement. Some will have the children every 

 day plunged in cold water, in order to strengthen 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 improvement. Quite opposite to 

 this, we have others, whom the courtesy of mankind also culls philoio- 

 pliers - and they will have the child learn nothing till the age f tr.fl 



