xxxiv Appendix. 



by sympathy with the Hke states in those among whom the child receives 

 his early education. It is of the utmost importance, therefore, that the 

 companions of young childi'en should be such as it is wholesome for them 

 to imitate ; since it is upon the habits of feeling thus early formed that the 

 happiness and right conduct of after-life mainly depend. "We must carefully 

 watch and understand the disposition of our children, so as to suit their 

 surroundings to their peculiar wants. To allow a child who is perhaps duU, 

 and of what is known as a phlegmatic nature, to associate constantly with 

 another child similarly constituted, or with one who is in any way deficient 

 in mental power, would be to risk the healthier child, and probably cause 

 him to grow up dull and sullen ; our object should be to choose companions 

 for him quick and bright, and with as much animal life m them as possible, 

 so that the heavier child may from association catch some of their brighter 

 ways, and gradually grow into more cheerful thoughts and habits. It may 

 perhajis be urged in answer to this statement, that, as a general rule, the 

 activity with which the formation of new ideas takes place in a child, and 

 the quickness with which the attention transfers itself from one object to 

 another, prevents any single state from fixing itself, in anything like a per- 

 manent manner, in the mind, so that memory preserves but faint traces of 

 the greater part of what passes through the mind ; this is undoubtedly true, 

 but it must be remembered, that although individual impressions are more 

 speedily dissipated from the minds of children, than from those of adults, 

 yet that when impressions of the same kind are frequently repeated, the 

 brain grows into them in such a way that they become part of it, and take 

 part in its ordinary working ; and thus by establishing a particular mode of 

 nutritive assimilation, they tend to perpetuate this acquired habit, of what- 

 ever nature it be. As there is constant change going on in the body, old 

 particles giving place to new ones, and these again to others, it may be 

 thought that the diseased particles would in time die out, and give place to 

 new healthy ones. This is not the case, for each atom of the body imparts 

 to the atom that takes its place its own structure in every way, so that 

 marks, as scars and moles, never die out, but last as long as the person 

 possessing them lives. 



A writer on diseases of childhood says, " Looking at the physical health 

 of a child, as a means of judging of its mental strength, I think the com- 

 mencement of the second dentition is the earliest period when instruction 

 requiring brain-work can be safely pushed. Even then the knowledge 

 should be of a kind which accords with the evolution of the different 

 faculties, or the mind will become disgusted with the difficulties placed 

 before it, and not having mastered simple subjects it will be unfit to receive 

 more complex ones ; hence, precise methods of instruction, and exact defi- 



