have a proper esteem for the persons that follow them. This will furnifh their underftanding and their reason, as well as their imagination and genius, with abundant fources of useful and agreeable meditation. Conftantly enure them to attention. Attention is the parent of all folid information. Habituate them not to pafs too quickly from one object to another, to confider every matter on feveral fides, and as far as poffible oh all; to view it not only in the whole, but in its feveral parts. It is not my meaning however that you fhould weary their attention in the first years of their education, by forcing them to tarry too long at one and the fame object; but I wish you gradually to convince them in a fenfible manner of the great utility of a more continued attention. This may be done occafionally even in the most trifling matters. They admire, for instance, and are gratified with the beautiful colours or the delightful odour of a flower. Hence you may take occasion to inform them how many other beauties, how many marks of wifdom and fkill, the practifed eye of the connoiffeur would find in the ftructure of this flower, in the formation of its leaves, in the conftruction of its pod, feeds and the like. Tell them therefore, how much they might have obferved in this or the other object, if they had confidered it a little lefs curforily, if they had dwelt fomewhat longer upon it. This method of exercifing and ftrengthening their attention, will certainly certainly effect more than the most earnest exhortations to duty, and the feverest punishment on the neglect of it. A third rule to be observed in forming the minds of children is this: Beware of giving them false or not fufficiently precife ideas of any matter, though of never fo trifling import. It is far better that they fhould be utterly ignorant of a hundred things, than have wrong notions of one; far better that you abfolutely refufe to anfwer certain queftions at all, than answer them in an ambiguous and inadequate manner. In the former cafe, they ftill know that they are ignorant on this point, and may fupply the defect of their knowledge in time: whereas in the latter they think themselves fufficiently informed on the fubject, and ever remain ignorant on that, very account. Befides, the firft ideas we receive of natural or moral objects are as it were the ground plot of all we afterwards acquire. Are they indeterminate and falfe, then will their baneful influence extend itself to all the reft. Yet how common it is to err in this refpect! It is thought that any anfwer is good enough to the queftion of a child or a youth. The imposing a palpable falfehood on them is a matter of no confideration, provided they are reduced to filence by it. We confole ourselves with thinking that in time they will learn to understand the matter more truly of themselves. But this expectation is extremely fallacious. First impreffions always laft the longest, whether they be in con formity formity with truth, or mislead us into error. And even if a man in riper years find out his mistake, yet must he be ever on his guard left it flip into his ideas and apprchenfions, and deceive him again. Give a child, for example, the falfe idea, that thunder and lightning are the effects and tokens of divine difpleafure, and that they are fent to terrify and to punish the inhabitants of the earth. How deep will this opinion fettle itself in his mind! How difficult will it be for him even in a maturer period of life, to take what he has fo long confidered as an evident proof of divine indignation, for the effect of fupreme wisdom and benignity! And even if the youth or the man difmifs that error and adopt this truth, yet how often will the impreffion which ftill remains, from the first mode of representation, unconsciously lead him to falfe conclufions, or overwhelm him with confternation and terror! Is not this fault in education that I am speaking of, the reason why certain kinds of fuperftition are fo hard to be rooted out, that they purfue and perfecute even perfons who actually perceive the folly of them, during their whole lives? Another useful precept in forming the minds of children, which is clofely connected with the fore. going, is this: Set them to learn nothing which either on account of their tender age, or from the want of other kinds of knowledge neceffary to that purpose, they cannot comprehend. Meafure not their capacities by yours. Attempt not to inftruct them your them in matters which you yourself can scarcely comprehend, or of which you only in later years have been able to acquire any tolerable notions, after particular exertions of mental powers. In vain, for example, would you labour, by philofophical argumentation, to certify them of the commencement of the world, of the neceffity of a first and eternal caufe of it, of the fpiritual nature of our foul, &c. By fuch endeavours you would only make them difgufted with your inftruction, and they would waste their time and apply their faculties for nothing. Even their memory would not long retain the feeble impreffion it received from fuch matters as they could not comprehend. Only that which we learn from confideration, and wherein our mind or our heart is thoroughly interested, can make an impreffion on us that is not to be effaced by time. Encumber not their memory then with figns or words, without at the fame time augmenting their knowledge with the real information they are intended to convey. On the contrary, allow them in the use of no words to which they annex no fignification, or one that is quite different from what should be communicated by them. When you hear them make use of such words and phrafes the meaning whereof, is probably as yet unknown to them, always afk them, what they understand by fuch expreffions; let them fignify to you what it is they want to indicate by them; or, if this does not fuit, inquire after the properties and effects of it; help them in tracing them out, make as much as poffible thefe properties, thefe effects, fenfible to them; or, if the matter be of fuch a nature that you can neither fhew it to them nor by any other means adapt it to their comprehenfion, then caution them at least against the mifapplication of fuch words, and teach them to reckon it a mere found, the meaning of which they must take time to learn. Would the gift of fpecch be fo much mifufed by the generality of mankind; fhould we fo frequently hear them talk, in fo confident a tone, and with fo voluble a tongue, of things which they either do not understand at all, or of which they have very confused ideas, if they had been accustomed in their childhood and youth to think fomewhat diftinctly at every word, and not barely to attend to the figns, but more to the things fignified by them? But how feldom is this rule obferved! What is more common than to hear children, still in their lifping ftate, making use of words it is impoffible they fhould understand; to hear them talking, for inftance, of the atmosphere, of the foul, of existence, of fpirits, of God, of virtue, without being reminded by any one of their ignorance, or any pains being taken to remove it? And what is the confequence of this? They con tinue to use these words, fometimes in a proper, and fometimes in an improper manner, as chance or luck directs, imagine they understand them, and yet even in advanced age have either annexed no meaning at all to them, or one very different from the |