114 SUMMARY OF THE FOREGOING REPRESENTATIONS : 



a certain degree of rank being taken, or lost, and rewards 

 bestowed, according to the evidence of attention elicited by the 

 examination. When a boy appears to be particularly defi- 

 cient, he is associated with some others who are actually re- 

 ceiving the instruction already given, with comparative or tem- 

 porary ineffect, to him, and is thus again led through the sub- 

 ject ; and this process is repeated until he has made the re- 

 quired amount of progress. Such, generally, are the methods 

 which have been adopted ; but to describe them fully would 

 require me to enter into an explanation of some parts of the 

 Hazelwood System, in detail, which is foreign to my present 

 object, but which will be found in the work entitled " Public 

 Education. Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruc- 

 tion of Boys, in Large Numbers," which was published, a few 

 years since, by the Conductors of the Schools. 



The proposed objects of this Memoir being now fulfilled, 

 it remains only to add a brief summary of the whole, and to 

 offer a few concluding remarks. 



The aspect which Society, at the momentous epoch in hu- 

 man affairs that we now behold and are all deeply concerned 

 in, presents, with respect to the intellectual pursuit and the 

 practical application of the Knowledge of Nature, has been 

 succinctly reviewed. In connection with this subject, the rea- 

 sons which have induced the Conductors of the Schools of 

 Hazelwood and Bruce Castle, to offer, for public approbation 

 and support, a new Department of General Education, founded 

 upon those sciences by which the Knowledge of Nature is con- 

 veyed, have been distinctly stated. The principal design of the 

 foregoing pages has been, not to propose the substitution of 

 that Department for any of the branches of scholastic study 

 hitherto pursued, but to offer it for selection, to those who 

 may perceive its importance, and to furnish the preparative 

 means of reflecting the light of Natural Knowledge, on every 

 other object of mental inquiry. The connection of the Physical 

 Sciences with the principal subjects of intellectual contem- 

 plation, and with the chief branches of study which are now fol- 

 lowed, has, accordingly, been traced. The utility of the Know- 

 ledge of Nature, in imparting the power of rightly apprehend- 

 ing some of the testimonies of Divine Revelation, on the one 

 hand, and in protecting the mind from the fallacies of supersti- 

 tion, on the other, has been pointed out. The peculiar claims of 

 the Physical Sciences, as constituting a branch of Education, 

 to the attention, at the present sera, of those members of society, 

 whose occupation it is, to extend the commerce of their coun- 

 try, or to increase its wealth by improving its manufactures, have 



