PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 329 



imagination, and the faculty of forming mental habits, exist in 

 early life, while the judgment and the reasoning powers are of 

 slower growth." Hence less attention should be given to the 

 development of the reasoning faculties, than to those of obser- 

 vation : the juvenile memory should be stored rather vi^ith facts, 

 than with principles: and he condemned as mischievous "the 

 proposition frequently advanced, that the child should be taught 

 nothing but what it can fully comprehend, and the endeavor in 

 accordance with this, to invert the order of nature, and attempt 

 to impart those things which cannot be taught at an early age, 

 and to neglect those which at this period of life, the mind is well 

 adapted to receive. By this mode we may indeed produce 

 remarkably intelligent children, who will become remarkably 

 feeble men. The order of nature is that of art before science ; 

 the entire concrete first, and the entire abstract last. These two 

 extremes should run gradually into each other, the course of 

 instruction becoming more and more logical as the pupil advances 

 in yeai's." — ' The cultivation of the imagination should also be 

 considered an essential part of a liberal education : and this may 

 be spread over the whole course of instruction, for like the rea- 

 soning faculties the imagination may continue to be improved 

 until late in life." 



Applying this same reasoning to the moral training of youth, 

 he considered that (as in the intellectual culture) the object 

 should be " not only to teach the pupil how to think, but how to 

 act and to do; placing great stress upon the early education of 

 the habits. . . . We are frequently required to act from the 

 impulse of the moment, and have no time to deduce our course 

 from the moral principles of the act. An individual can be 

 educated to a strict regard for truth, to deeds of courage in res- 

 cuing others from danger, to acts of benevolence, generosity, and 

 justice. . . . The future character of a child and that of 

 the man also, is in most cases formed probably before the age 

 of seven years. Previously to this time impressions have been 

 made which shall survive amid the vicissitudes of life, amid all 

 the influences to which the individual may be subjected, and 

 which will outcrop as it were, in the last stage of his earthly 

 existence, when the additions to his character made in later years, 

 have been entirely swept away." Childhood (he intimated) is 

 less the parent of manhood, than of age : the special vices of the 

 individual child though long subdued, sometimes surviving and 

 re-appearing in his " second childhood." 



Affirming that culture is constraint, — education and direction 

 an expenditui'e of force, and extending his generalization from 

 the individual to the race, he controverted the idea so popular 

 with some benevolent enthusiasts, that there is a spontaneous 

 tendency in man to civilization and advancement. The origins 

 of past civilizations — taking a comprehensive glance at far dis- 



103 



