LETTERS

ON

THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES

OF

EDUCATION.

LETTER I.

Preliminary observations.-Influence of early association exemplified in the characters of the Hindoos and Americans. --Subject divided into two branches, viz. the culture of the heart, and understanding-Reasons for treating of the former first-Term association explained by examples.The end and object of education to be thoroughly ascertained.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

THE task you have so long assigned me is at length commenced; and had inclination only been consulted, should have been undertaken at a much more early period; but whilst friendship impelled to an immediate compliance with your request, reflection convinced me of the necessity of delay.

The more deeply I contemplated the subject of education, the more thoroughly was I impressed with a sense of its importance. What I had at first considered as easy and simple, appeared upon close inspection to be difficult and complex; and as I traced effects to their causes, I frequently found cir

cumstances I had overlooked as trifling, rise into magnitude, and branch out into consequences unseen and unexpected.

Every discovery I made, tended to increase diffidence in my own abilities; which I became truly sensible were inadequate to the due performance of a task so arduous. With this consciousness, I should have been highly culpable, rashly to have undertaken it.

On every subject that requires serious investigation, our sex is doomed to experience the double disadvantage arising from original conformation of mind, and a defective education. From the quickness of our preceptions we are frequently liable, "where we see a little, to imagine a great deal, and so jump to a conclusion;" while, from an education conducted upon no regular plan, we acquire no regular associations in our ideas, no accurate arrangement, no habit of mental application. Of Nature, indeed, we have little reason to complain. She has sufficiently qualified us for that sphere in which she evidently intended we should move; and that this sphere is neither undignified nor confined, she has rendered evident, from the intellectual faculties with which she has endowed us. Why these should be given to us as a sealed book which ought not to be opened, I confess I cannot comprehend. Nor can I, perhaps, plead the cause of my sex more effectually, than by explaining the influence of early education; and thus rendering it evident to every unprejudiced mind, that if women were so educated as to qualify them for the proper performance of this momentous duty, it would do more towards the progressive improvement of the species, than all the

discoveries of science, and the researches of philosophy.

Could the biographers of illustrious men attain a perfect knowledge of all they had received from early education, I am fully persuaded, that it would shed a lustre on the maternal character, conspicu ous as glorious.* "Never," observed a man of acknowledged sense and penetration, “never have I known a man remarkable for wisdom and virtue, who was the son of a foolish mother." Nor will the assertion appear extraordinary, when we consider how often the tempers and dispositions, falsely attributed to nature, may be traced to impressions received in infancy. A fact which might easily be ascertained by observation on the characters around us; but as objects pressing so closely upon the sight, as to have their parts necessarily viewed in succession, have a less striking effect than those that can

*An honourable testimony to the truth of what is here advanced, is given by St. Paul in his epistle to Timothy, to whom he says: "When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grand mother Lois, and thy mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also."-2 Tim. i. 5.

The Historian Tacitus seems, likewise, to have taken a generous pleasure in pointing out the influence of maternal instruction; an illustrious instance of which he has given in the life of Agricola. "Julia Procilla, Agricola's mother, was," says Tacitus, "respected for the purity of her manners. Under her care, and as it were in her bosom, the tender mind of her son was trained to science and every liberal accomplishment." See Murphy's Translation of Tacitus, vol. iv. The degeneracy of morals under the Emperors is, by this distinguished author, traced to the period when mothers began to give up the education of their children to slaves and hirelings.

be surveyed at a single glance, I shall beg leave to present you with some proofs of the influence of early education, which appear to my mind sufficiently convincing.

Whether we cast our eyes on the effeminate and indolent inhabitants of the East, or turn our attention to the more sturdy savages of the Western hemisphere, still we shall find the effects of early education too potent for time to efface, or death itself to conquer. A sensible and accomplished traveller of my own sex, after having given a concise but striking account of the religion and manners of the Hindoos, observes as follows:*" It is astonishing with what strictness the Hindoos observe these rules, even to starving themselves to death, rather than break through them. The children of the Hindoos are not to be tempted to eat any thing forbidden, either by persuasion, or by offering them the greatest delicacies; which I have often been witness of." "It is the first impression their minds receive; they are used to seeing it strictly observed by their own and other casts; it grows up with them as the first and most absolute law, and is perhaps observed with more strictness than any other law, religious or civil, by any nation under the sun."

Never, surely, was the abiding influence of first impressions more evidently displayed than in this firm and undeviating adherence to early principle, evinced by a people remarkable for feebleness of mind, and gentleness of manners. That the fortitude, or rather torpid resignation, with which this feeble race have been observed to endure the extre

*

See Mrs. Kindersley's Letters from India.