SECTION I. ON ELEMENTARY DISCIPLINE. Iftiufmodi res dicere ornatè velle, puerile eft; planè autem et perfpicuè expedire docti et intelligentis viri. To affect ornament on fuch a topic as this, is puerile; but to dispatch it with plainnefs and perSpicuity, is the mark of an intelligent and well-informCIC. ed man. A Diversity of opinions has prevailed concerning the time at which education fhould commence. Many fuppofe that it is ufually begun too early. To determine the queftion with accuracy, difcernment muft be exercised in difcovering the different degrees of expansion which different minds display, even at an infantine age. Upon the principle, that the earlieft impreffions are the most durable, and with a view to fave time for future improvements, I advise that a child may be taught all that it can comprehend, as early as poffible. To acquire the art of reading, is certainly difficult to a very young boy; but we daily fee the difficulty furmounted at the age of five or fix. If it is not acquired about that time, we know that the difficulty increases with increasing years. Many boys, neglected at this age, have written a good hand, and have made fome progrefs in the Latin grammar, before they have B 6 been been able to read with fluency. Their inability in this refpect has difpirited them, by rendering them objects of derifion to their juniors; and this has given them an early difrelish of books, and has led them to feek employment in diffipation. Early inferiority has had a fatal influence on their fubfequent proficiency. Education fhould begin even in the nursery*; and the mother and nurse are, in the first stage, the best inftructors. The tafk of teaching an infant the alphabet, is too painful for a man of a very cultivated understanding. It is indeed, in the prefent age, not unusual among the rich, to folicit the care of fome ingenious perfons in teaching the very letters; and the reason affigned has been, that children acquire from the matrons, who have commonly held this province, little more than a difguftful monotony. This indeed is often true: yet the greater expedition with which a child will probably learn to read, under the females who are always with him, who have been used to manage him, and who can ftoop to his infirmities, than under a learned tutor, to whom the labour muft be irkfome, and therefore often ill-performed, is a fufficient reafon for adhering, during a few of the first months of inftruction, to the old and established method, A fenfible and well-educated mother is, in every respect, best qualified to inftruct a child, till he can read well enough to enter on the * Adeo in teneris confuefcere multum eft. VIRG. Of fo great confequence is it to habituate him in his tender years. Latin grammar. I have indeed always found those boys the best readers, on their entrance on Latin, who had been prepared by maternal care. Neither let this office be confidered as degrading. Boys thus inftructed, have feldom had vulgar tones, † but have read with unufual eafe and elegance. But even they who have been taught to read by the more illiterate, by nurses, and by aged matrons, and have acquired difagreeable accents, have foon loft them again on receiving better inftruction, and on hearing better examples. And thefe early proficients in reading have always made a more rapid progrefs in their grammar, and in all claffical learning, than boys who were kept back by fanciful parents, left they fhould be injured by too early application, or catch the inelegant enunciation of an illiterate woman. Let then the child be taught to read, as foon as the infant faculties begin to exhibit fymptoms of improveable expanfion; his attention, active in *The Gracchi were educated, non tam in gremio quam in fermone matris. Not so much in the lap, as in the converfation of a mother. + Ante omnia ne fit vitiofus fermo nutricibus; has primum audiet puer, harum verba effingere imitando conabitur; non affuefcat ergo, ne dum infans eft, fermoni qui dedifcendus eft. QUINTILIAN. "No;" fays Rouffeau, " keep his mind idle as long as poffible. You will never make wife men, unless you can make boys idle and wild." This fingular man tells us with an air of wisdom, that neither fables, languages, hiftory, geography, chronology, in the extreme, must fix on a variety of objects. Let his book be one of thofe objects, though by no means the only one. Let no long confinement, and no feverity of reprimand or correction attend the leffon. A little will be learned at the earliest age, and with the eafieft difcipline. That little will infallibly lead to farther improvement; and the boy will foon, and with little pain to himself or others, learn to read; an acquifition, confidered in its difficulty and in its confequences, truly great. He, on the other had, who is retarded, by the theoretical wifdom of his friends, till he is feven or eight years old, has this burdenfome task to begin, when habits of idleness have been contracted, and when he ought to be laying the foundation of claffical knowledge. It is much to be lamented, that mothers in the higher ranks of life, who are usually best qualified for the task, feldom have time or inclination to take an active part in the elementary education of their own children. The happieft confequences fhould flow from their immediate interpofition. But it must be confeffed, that the employment, though maternal tenderness and a fenfe of duty may render it tolerable, is by no means pleasurable; unless, indeed, under the particular circumftances of a remarkable docility in the pupil, and an amiable difpofition. It may not, however, be irkfome to fuperintend chronology, geometry, nor any of the ftudies in which boys have been ufually initiated in all ages by the greatest men, are proper for children under twelve or fifteen. Such doctrines do modern fages advance, for the fake of diftin&ion! See EMILIUS. the the child's improvement under the governefs or fervant of whatever denomination. To facilitate the acquifition of the art of reading, various contrivances have been invented. The letters have been made toys, and the whole business of learning to read has been converted into a game at play. The idea is pleasing and plaufible; but I never yet faw any great fuccefs attend the attempt. Loose letters cut in ivory, are apt to be inverted, and to puzzle the child by the different appearance they make in different pofitions. Reading, if it was a game, was ftill fuch a game, as the child liked less than his other diverfions. It was, indeed, a game at which he would never play if he could help it. I am not quite fure, that it is right to give him a notion that he has nothing to do but to play. Let him know, that he has business of a ferious kind; and, by attending to it periodically, let him contract a habit of application. A temporary attention to fomething by no means tedious or laborious, but which at the fame time he is not to confider as play, will make his diverfion more agreeable. Indeed viciffitude is neceffary to render diverfions pleasing. They become painful bufinefs, when continued without variety. We all come into the world to perform many duties, and to undergo many difficulties; and the earlier the mind learns to bear its portion of them, the lefs likely will it be to fink under those burdens which will one day be imposed upon it. To lead a child to suppose that he is to do nothing which is not conducive to pleasure, is to give him a degree of levity, and a turn for diffipation, which will certainly prevent |