If, on examining our own minds, we find that we have no other object in education, than to make our children excel in those fashionable accomplishments which will enable them to appear to advantage in the polite world; if, in our apprehension, all that is valuable be comprised in the word genteel; much unnecessary trouble may be spared. The common education of the nursery may then be considered as a very good preparative for the common education of the boarding-school; and as the culture of the heart and of the understanding would but counteract our designs, they may safely be left out of the account. To engage the taste and the imagination in our interest, will be an easy task. Fashion will be the preceptress of our pupils; and she is so engaging a mistress to young minds, that they will easily be brought to yield implicit obedience to her authority. Beneath her plastic hand, both sons and daughters will be formed to our wish. They will soon be qualified by her precepts for all that is required of them. They will be prepared

"To frisk their hour upon the stage,"

perhaps with some eclat. But if minds that have been embued with no solid principles of virtue should become the prey of vice, let us not be astonished. Let us not express the feelings of regret and disappointment at a consequence so natural. That it is not only natural, but inevitable, a little reflection will evince. For though to train them to vice made no part of our design-so far from it, that we, perhaps, can call many a weary hour to witness what pains we took to lecture them to virtue-yet we must confess, the early associations that gave

an exclusive preference for whatever was genteel, to have been the operating principle of their minds. The ideas connected with the word genteel may, in the mind of the mother, comprise all that is elegant, and all that is virtuous, in polished life; but to these may easily be added, in the minds of the children, pride and vanity, luxury and voluptuousness, contempt of all that is serious and sacred, and selfishness which knows not how to forego present gratification. Would to God, the fatal consequences of these associations had only their existence in the teeming brain of a visionary recluse! But, alas, the register of Doctors'-Commons, the coroner's records, and the tears of families overwhelmed with shame from the misconduct of once-promising relatives, leave us no room to doubt of their melancholy truth.

Could we, indeed, reduce the child to a mere automatón; could we teach it to dance, and dress, and play, and sing, as the only business of existence; and while we did so, totally arrest the operation of the mind, and prevent the association of ideas, we might safely pursue our plan. But since this is not in our power; since the ever-active principle must proceed in its course; we have no alternative but to direct that course either to truth or error. If the strength of our own prejudices lean towards the latter; if, by our conduct and our expressions of delight and complacency, we have taught them to associate the idea of good with what is in its naturę evil; and, by our manifest indifference or contempt, taught them to associate the idea of evil with what is in its nature good; we ought not to be surprised, if the associations thus produced should lead to cop

sequences beyond our calculation: Nor need we wonder, if the vehemence of desires thus engendered should, according to the predominance of vanity or appetite, either run the full career of folly, or sink into the depths of vice.

To expose the absurdity of making mere personal accomplishments the exclusive object of attention, is an easy task; but it is, perhaps, an error little less fatal in its consequences, to direct the attention solely to the cultivation of the understanding, while we neglect the heart. Whoever considers the operation of the passions, and the influence of the affections upon the happiness of individuals and of society, must be sensible, that if these do not receive a proper direction in early life, the acquisition of knowledge will never render a man "wise unto happiness or unto virtue, more than unto salva|tion."

If, upon taking these things into consideration, we acquire a proper view of the necessity of perfecting the intellectual and moral powers of our children, we shall adopt the means best suited to views so comprehensive. If we consider, with an amiable and enlightened philosopher,* the object of education to be "first, to cultivate the various principles of our nature, both speculative and active, in such a manner as to bring them to the greatest perfection of which they are susceptible; and secondly, by watching over the impressions and associations which the mind receives in early life, to secure it against the influence of prevailing errors,

Professor Stewart. See his introduction to the Elements of Philosophy of the Human Mind, p. 20.

and as far as possible to engage its prepossessions on the side of truth;" the importance of the object will command our attention, and our anxiety to accomplish it will prompt to vigorous exertion. I remain, yours.

LETTER II.

Objections stated.-Shown, in answer, that associations are deeply fixed in the mind, either by means of strong impres sions or frequent repetition.-Associations of the former class are generally those of aversion.-Examples.

BEFORE I proceed to a further investigation of the subject with which I coucluded my last, I shall fully reply to the objections you have so candidly stated.

You say, that "without having ever read a page of metaphysics, you can easily comprehend what I mean by the associations of ideas. But it appears to you, that I have laid too great a stress upon the strength of those that are given in infancy; as experience may convince us, that the impressions received in that early period are slight and evanescent; that the pleasures and pains of childhood are not the pleasures and pains of our riper years, and that this change of the objects of desire or aversion shows the early association of ideas to have been slight and transient."

That thousands of casual associations are of this 'description, I readily admit; and I believe, on close

and accurate examination, we shall find that the permanency of associations depends, in the first place, on the strength of the original impression, and secondly, on the frequency of the repetition.

To give an instance of each kind. First, that the strength of the impression occasions the associations to be indellibly fixed in the mind. Of this we have a convincing proof in the number of persons who are unhappily through life slaves to the terrors of darkness, from the idea of ghosts and darkness having been associated together in infancy, and forcibly impressed by means of the passion of fear. Long after reason has pointed out the absurdity of this association; long after the belief in apparitions has ceased to be a part of the creed; has this association continued to operate upon the mind, and to many a brave man, and many a sensible woman, proved a lasting source of misery and disquiet.

This is now so well known, that servants are generally cautioned against frightening children by those foolish stories which were once so current in every nursery. But is the fear of ghosts and hobgoblins the only false and permanent association of which the mind is at that early period susceptible? Alas! a thousand others of no less fatal tendency are often then received, engendering prejudices no less dangerous and indelible.

That all our desires are associated with the ideas of pleasure, and all our aversions with those of pain, no one who gives the least observation to what passes in his own mind, or that of others, can doubt. These associations take place at an early period, for it is by means of them that a child learns to distinguish the voice of praise from that of chiding.