To form the understanding or the mind of chil dren, implies, to give them right notions of things, and to habituate them to fuch a way of thinking and judging, as is consonant to truth, and by which they may become wife. Man by means of his intellect can represent to himself as well what paffes within him, as what is and happens without him; he can judge of the nature of these things, affociate them, feparate them, and by comparing and contrasting them together, can collect new images which may be augmented without end. But he is not fo confituted by nature that he muft neceffarily figure to himself the objects he may know as they actually are, or so as that he cannot err in the judgment he paffes on them, in the comparison he makes between them, in the agreement or incongruity he perceivés among them. He may reprefent to himfelf all the things that furround him on several fides, or only on one; as greater or lefs, better or worse, more profitable or more detrimental than in reality they are. He may connect things together which do not belong to one another, and arbitrarily divide afunder what were connected by an indiffoluble tie; he may take one fact for the effect or for the cause of another, which has nothing at all in common with it; and the lefs he has employed the faculties of his mind, the more negligently and carelessly he has used them, the oftener muft he fall into fuch errors in thinking, in judging and in determining. Of how great consequence then must it be for him, at the

time when he is beginning to exert and to employ thefe faculties, to be guided in the right application of them, to learn how moft juftly and properly to use them! And in this it is that the forming of the minds of children confifts. They stand in need of a prudent and experienced guide on the way by which we attain to the knowledge of truth, who fhall not only warn them of all the turnings and by-paths on it, and, as often as they inadvertently strike into them, bring them back, but teach them alfo how to` avoid all circuitous paths and mazes and to pursue their object without deviation. Their understanding must not only be exercised in general, and stored with various kinds of knowledge; but it must likewife be fo exercifed as by degrees to acquire the habit of examining and judging of themselves what they are defirous of knowing, of readily diftinguishing the true from the falfe, and in these investigations and judgments of constantly following the fafeft rules, and taking the shortest way. This, however, is not fo well effected by inftructing them in these rules of thinking, or by imprinting them on their memory, as by teaching them to obferve on all occafions whether and wherefore they have justly or unjustly reflected and determined; and by thinking, confidering, investigating, and remaining doubtful or decided, with them, in a fociable and familiar manner proportionate to their age. By this means we make them gradually attentive to the operations of their own mind, and acquainted with the prin

ciples and rules upon which it proceeds, and teach them by their own experience to mark the obstructions which impede it in its operations, and the advantages which affift it in its process.

But I perceive my discourse, by thus infifting on generals, to be growing abftrufe. I will endeavour to render it more eafy of comprehenfion, by calling your attention fucceflively to the different parts of the subject. The business of which I am speaking is likewife extremely arduous, my friends; the best precepts are not fufficient for meeting all the difficulties that occur in it; and practice in this refpect likewife is undoubtedly the ableft inftructress. At the fame time, I think you may greatly alleviate your task, and labour fuccefsfully in forming the minds of your children and pupils, by taking into confideration the following rules.

The first is this: Reprefs not their curiofity or their inquifitiveness. It is in itself no fault. It is rather a strong impulfe and an excellent means to become intelligent and wife. And it generally proceeds from ignorance, or pride, or indolence, or petulance when we authoritatively impose filence on children that afk queftions, and chide them for impertinence and idle curiofity, if they are not fatisfied with the first answer we give them. Indeed children fhould learn to behave with modefty, and particularly when in the company of strangers, who are not prefent on their account, but on that of their parents. But their parents, their guardians and tutors,

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tutors, will lose the best opportunities for inftructing them, if they constantly require them to be dumb in their prefence, and only to remain filent hearers. No, it is their duty, and if they love their children or their pupils, it will be their pleasure, not to answer their questions with a testy Yes or No, but to answer them in fuch a manner as fhall amply instruct them in what they wanted to know, and at the fame time be entertaining to them. Nay they will eagerly feize on these opportunities for exercifing the reflection of the child or the youth, and by continued questions to make them the difcoverers of what they did not know before. And even fhould their questions be of fuch a nature that their parents or their preceptors cannot answer them, inftead of being angry at it, they will confefs their own ignorance, or excuse themselves on the imperfection of human knowledge in general, or endeavour to make the inquirer understand, that the answering of his question prefuppofes knowledge which he has not and cannot have yet, but which hereafter will amply requite his industry if he do but perfift in acquiring it.

A fecond rule for forming the mind is this: Accustom your children or your pupils to the ufe of their fenles; teach them to apprehend juftly. The impreffion which outward objects make upon us by means of the fenfes, and the ideas that thence arise in our mind, are the materials as it were which our mind works up, and on which at length is founded

all

all the knowledge and fcience of mankind. The more various, the more juft, the more complete thefe ideas are, so much the more able is the mind to exercise itself in thought, and the more easily and furely can it ascend to fublimer and more univerfal knowledge. But, fince we acquire a knowledge of fenfible things far better from the impreffions their prefence makes upon us, than from any descriptions of them that can be given us in words; let your children learn what they may fee, hear and apprehend themselves, not barely from books or oral instruction, but shew it them actually, whenever you have an opportunity for it. In this manner let them fee and obferve the beauties of nature, the wonders of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, the various phænomena of the atmosphere, the magnificence of the starry heavens; and help them by degrees to distinguish and arrange the multiplicity of obfcure ideas which from all fides prefs upon their minds. But let them fee all these things with their own eyes, and apprehend them in their own way; and weaken not the impreffion they hence receive by untimely and far-fetched explanations. Lead them into the habitation and the barns of the countryman, into the work-fhops of the artist and the mechanic; point out to them there, how the various productions of the earth are wrought up, how they are prepared for the ufe, the accommodation and pleasure of mankind; teach them to know the principal implements and tools employed in these occupations, and to