ed totally unable to cope with those hardships and difficulties, which they may have to encounter in after-life. Should neither hardships nor difficulties be their lot, the evil will be still more serious; for the dispositions and habits of mind engendered by this attention to personal indulgence will then have nothing to counteract them, and complete selfishness must be the consequence.

Would we seriously consider and weigh the difficulty of changing associations that are early and strongly fixed in the mind, we should be less sanguine concerning the effects of that part of education on which our hopes and expectations are chiefly placed. Small is the influence which the lessons received from books have upon the passions and affections of the heart, where these have not been predisposed to the impression.

In vain, to a child brought up in the lap of luxury and indulgence, will you point out the virtues of an ancient hero, in the fond hope of inspiring esteem and emulation. Do you in reality admire the virtues you recommend to his imitation? Reflect how they were acquired. That it was in the school of simplicity and rigid discipline; that the greatest men who adorn the page of history, were taught to attain an ascendancy over the selfish passions, by the early habits of obedience and self-denial. Had their early ideas of happiness been associated with the idea of self-indulgence, Fabricius would have bartered his honour for gold, and Cato been the enslaver of his country.

Parents who are devoted to pleasure, must be contented to have their children run the same course; for if the imagination be once inflamed with an idea of the happiness resulting from these

gratifications, they will inevitably become the prime objects of pursuit.

A mother who is fond of dress and company, whose aim is to attract attention, and whose ambition is to outshine her friends and neighbours in the splendour of her furniture and equipage, may, if she pleases, teach her children to repeat the catechism, and employ a spare hour on a sunday evening to instruct them in what their godfathers and godmothers promised for them in baptism; but what can she expect as the result? What can her

children think of the pomps and vanities of the world, which they are taught glibly to say they will renounce? Are they not taught by her example, more powerful than precept, that these very pomps and vanities are the prime, the only end of existence? And will this association be changed by running over the words of a catechism? No. Such lessons will be to them as tinkling brass and sounding cymbal; they may play upon the ear, but will never sink into the heart.

Upon the heart the uniform tenor of precept and example wrought into habit, and confirmed into principle, can alone be expected to make an effectual and permanent impression. All the experience of mankind goes to confirm this truth; and yet with all the experience of mankind before our eyes, we cherish the idea of effecting wonders, by giving our children lessons of virtue, and storing their memories with facts and theories. Let us look into the instructive page of history, and be convinced of the sandy foundation on which we build our hopes. Why, in the decline of the Roman empire, does every noble, every generous sentiment, seem to have been extinguished? Instead of the martial and gallant spirit of their virtuous ancestors, why do we

behold nought but one black catalogue of crimes and vices; cruelty and cowardice, linked to luxury and pride; perfidy and ingratitude, joined to superstition and sloth? Was it because there were no schools in the city of Constantine? Because in the Western empire the youth were without instruction? No. The sages and orators of ancient Greece and Rome still spoke to their degenerate sons. Their precepts were familiar to the ears of the preceptor and the pupil. The seed remained, but the soil was lost. The associations of honour and esteem were changed. The luxury and indulgence to which they were accustomed from the cradle, rendered luxury and indulgence the primary objects of desire. The ideas of glory, honour, and renown, which, in former ages, had been connected with the virtues of the patriot and the hero, were now attached to the splendour of dress, the smiles of the Prince, and the admiration of the populace.

Let

The character must ever rise or fall, in exact proportion to the object of ambition. When that is elevated and sublime, approved of God and conscience, it will call forth the noblest energies and affections of the human soul; but when base and ignoble, it will not fail to corrupt and vilify the nature. such, then, as are engaged in the formation of the infant mind, remember, that where an inordinate desire for sensual and selfish gratification predominates in the heart, the grand object of ambition will be low and sordid, for it will centre in self. That " as the strength of the body lies chiefly in being able to endure hardships, so also does that of the mind. And that the great principle and foundation of all virtue is placed in this, that a man is able to deny

himself his own desires, cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as best, though the appetite lean the other way.'

Let the fond parent examine the magnitude of the barrier she throws in the way of her child's ever attaining this necessary ascendancy over the selfish and dissocial passions, when she stimulates his desires by fond and pampering indulgence. Let her, therefore, learn to deny herself in this particular; and if she wishes to see her children really happy, let her make it her business to excite and cherish the benevolent and social affections in their little souls; for in the exercise of these, the true happiness of intellectual beings, through every stage of existence, will be found to consist.

All young creatures are naturally disposed to joy. It is the crossings of self-will that most frequently overcast "the sunshine of the breast." Where selfwill is early subdued, which it may be by very early notions of obedience, and uniform simplicity in dress and diet, these crossings, which provoke and irritate the temper, will be unnecessary. The felicity will be uninterrupted. The buoyant spirits will have full play. Cheap and simple are the joys of Nature! Directed by her, the happiness of childhood is an easy purchase; for never did she intend that it should be paid for by the misery of the future life. Under her guidance, the pleasures and amusements of infancy may be made introductory to that wisdom, "whose paths are pleasantness, and whose end is peace!"

* Locke.

Adieu.

LETTER XI.

ASSOCIATIONS PRODUCTIVE OF VANITY.

Advantages resulting from directing the attention to an examination of the objects of sense.-Associations begetting preference for the splendid, and contempt for the useful.-Illustrations.

THE associations which beget esteem, or inspire predilection, for certain objects or qualities, naturally present themselves as the next subject of our consideration. On the formation of these depend the strength and virtue of the future character, which will be found to rise or fall, to become wise or foolish, virtuous or vicious, in exact proportion as the objects of esteem are found worthy or unworthy of a rational and accountable being.

I fear I may be thought to proceed upon a chimerical hypothesis, when I refer these important associations to the early age of which we are now treating; but let it be remembered, that we are still speaking of those associations which are rendered permanent, not so much by the strength of the impression, as by the frequency of repetition. Now it appears to me that those we wish to remain permanent cannot be too early impressed, or too frequently repeated; and that it is of the utmost consequence that we proceed in the education of the heart and mind in an uniform tenor, never counteracting ourselves, by teaching at one period of life what we wish untaught at another.

The pleasurable sensation produced in early infancy by gaudy colours, by light and sound, is intended,