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ties that first engaged its faculties, increase as its acquaintance 

 with nature enlarges. 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 obtain this, that object must be 

 pointed out ; here therefore, a new necessity arises, which, very 

 often, neither its little arts nor importimities 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 pronounce 

 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 attempt at- 

 tended with apparent 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 m some coun- 

 tries speak sooner than in others ; for the letters mostly occur- 

 ring 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 con- 

 sonants, and extremely guttural. 



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

 to express the greatest part of their wants by the time they ar- 

 rive 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 ad- 

 vances ; 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 intel- 

 lects at the same time. These are usually found to begin with 

 nothing right in the common practice ; and by urging a total 



