intention, we are inclined to regard the pains expended as, in great measure, labour lost. Any one concerned in the education of children must soon become aware that all matters of science, however familiarly put, must depend mainly on the explanation of the teacher. There is no reason, therefore, why the best books should not be used at once; and this, in point of fact, is most generally done by those who teach such things with any success. We e must, we suppose, include under the category of schoolbooks—at least we know not where else to place them-those 'much-ado-about-nothing' systems-those ingenious teachers who 'climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate,' who care not how vague an idea their pupils may possess of the multiplication-table, or of the number of the commandments, but sternly insist on their accuracy of distinction between a horse and a cow,* * and on their clearness of apprehension of the kingdom of a needle,' and 'the parts and properties of a halfpenny!' By which we beg to observe no allusion is intended to the conventional province of the one, or the fugitive disposition of the other-no assistance tendered as to the use of the needle, or the disposal of the halfpenny, but, on the contrary, the attention is solely concentred on certain minutiæ, which the negligence of all former ages had unaccountably left children to find out for themselves. Indeed it is sad to think how many a needle has been plied in mere vulgar mechanical industry, without one thought of its being 'mineral, artificial, metallic, opaque, bright, cold, taper, pointed, slender, useful, fusible, grey or steel-colour, hard, brittle, solid, steel.' It is painful to reflect how many a halfpenny has been pocketed, and, what is worse, spent too, without the slightest attention to its surfaces, edges, milling, impression, image, superscription, reverse, date,' &c. What has the world been about? Another feature of this novel system is a species of exercise which, we understand, in those particular schools where they teach long words and little matters, is called Elliptical Questions,' but in a printed form assumes the name of Rational Readings." The recipe consists in leaving blank spaces in the narrative, whether verse, or prose, for the child's imagination to fill up-a plan which combines the twofold advantage of requiring_no thought to do, and conferring no instruction when done. For Now what can possibly be gained by such exercises as these? A clever child might possibly conceive that the blanks in the prose piece were typical of certain lapses in James's life; but the gaps in Miss Aikin would decidedly be too much for him. If puzzling the brain in search of a word be a necessary portion of education, a few charades from old pocket-books will answer the purpose much better. There is no child but who would look upon this kind of exercise as mere play, and get sick of it on that very account. And yet, reader, these are Rational Readings! and are mixed up pari passu with lessons on astronomy and hydraulics, &c., requiring a mind of about thrice the age. * Equally absurd in principle, but older we believe in practice, are those specimens of false spelling, the rectification of which is supposed to be instrumental in promoting a correct idea of such matters; but which, in reality, much more generally succeed in leaving impressions of the wrong way than of the right. This would hardly be worth mentioning here had we not observed a recent advertisement announcing the pains which have been taken to supply the present rising generation with quotations from the best poets, and the choicest sentences from our great writers,' all spelt wrong! So that it may be reasonably expected that for the sake of a t too little or an e too much, the best ideas of writing will henceforward be inseparably connected in their minds with the worst of spelling. It is like cutting a Sir Joshua to shreds to show them the texture of the canvas. 6 Having thus expressed our opinion of the majority of modern juvenile books, it may be urged upon us, that, with few excep * A Series of Lessons in Prose and Verse, by J. M'Culloch, D.D. tions, the minds of children are far more healthily exercised and generally cultivated than in a former generation. But, while gladly admitting this to be the fact, we are inclined to attribute it far more to the liberty now allowed them in promiscuous reading than to any efforts which have been made of late in their own department-far more to the power of ranging free over field and pasture than to all the little racks of ready-cut hay that have been so officiously supplied them. Children seem to possess an inherent conviction that when the hole is big enough for the cat, no smaller one at the side is needed for the kitten. They don't really care for Glimpses' of this, or Gleanings' of that, or Footsteps' to the other-but would rather stretch and pull, and get on tiptoe to reach the sweeter fruit above them, than confine themselves to the crabs which grow to their level. The truth is, though seldom apprehended by juvenile book-writers, that children are distinguished from ourselves less by an inferiority than by a difference in capacity-that the barriers between manhood and childhood are marked less by the progress of every power than by the exchange of many. A mere weaker decoction of the same ideas and subjects that suit us will be very unsuitable to them. A genuine child's book is as little like a book for grown people cut down, as the child himself is like a little old man. The beauty and popularity of Lamb's 'Shakspeare's Tales are attributable to the joint excellences of both author and transposer, but this is a rare exception :-generally speaking, the way in which Froissart is cut into spoon-meat, and Josephus put into swaddling-clothes, has only degraded these authors from their old positions, without in any way benefiting the rising generation by their new. The real secret of a child's book consists not merely in its being less dry and less difficult, but more rich in interest-more true to nature—more exquisite in art-more abundant in every quality that replies to childhood's keener and fresher perceptions. Such being the case, the best of juvenile reading will be found in libraries belonging to their elders, while the best of juvenile writing will not fail to delight those who are no longer children. Robinson Crusoe,' the standing favourite of above a century, was not originally written for children; and Sir Walter Scott's Tales of a Grandfather,' addressed solely to them, are the pleasure and profit of every age, from childhood upwards. Our little friends tear Pope's 'Odyssey' from mamma's hands, while she takes up their 'Agathos' with an admiration which no child's can exceed. Upon the whole the idea of a book being too old for a child is one which rests upon very false foundations. If we do not mistake his department of enjoyment, we can hardly overrate his powers of it. With most most children the taste for Robinson Crusoe will be carried out into Columbus's discoveries, Anson's voyages, and Belzoni's travels; the relish for scenes of home-life into Evelyn's Diary, Cowper's Letters, or Bracebridge Hall. With very many the easy neatness or pompous sounds of verse, from John Gilpin, or Gay's Fables, to Alexander's Feast, or Paradise Lost, have an ineffable charm. Some of no uncommon capacity are known to be smitten with the mysterious pathos of Young's Night Thoughts. But yesterday we saw one little miss sucking her thumb over Thalaba. But to return to the present liberty of indiscriminate reading: we doubt in most cases if it be owing to any conviction of its real superiority, or whether, in the great increase of publications, and the prevailing fashion of throwing open libraries and scattering books through every room of a house, it has not rather been suffered from an impossibility of prevention. We fear, in short, that parents are far more inclined to look on this as a necessary evil than as an incidental good, and are by no means satisfied in their consciences as to the time spent in useless reading, or the risk incurred by pernicious. But may not these misgivings, like many another concerning the education of children, be traced to our giving ourselves too much credit for judgment, and them too little for discernment? As regards useless reading, so long as it does not interfere with habits of application, and powers of attention, we are but poor judges of its real amount. Children have an instinct of food which more cultivated palates lose; and many is the scrap they will pick from hedge and common which to us seem barren. Nor may the question of pernicious reading be left to its usual acceptation, more especially as what is so called deserves the epithet, not so much on account of any absolutely false principle as from a tendency to inflame the passions or shock the taste, and therefore falls innocuous on a mind where the passions are silent and the taste unformed. With the immense choice of irreprehensible works before us, no one would deliberately put those into a child's hands where much that is beautiful is mixed up with much that is offensive; but, should they fall in their way, we firmly believe no risk to exist-if they will read them at one time or another, the earlier perhaps the better. Such works are like the viper-they have a wholesome flesh as well as a poisonous sting; and children are perhaps the only class of readers which can partake of one without suffering from the other. We are aware that a small party exists who not only deny the utility of the modern juvenile school, but go so far as to question the utility and policy of children's books altogether. Tieck, a true genius as well as a most learned man, is said never to have allowed one to enter his house. Such a mode of prevention, however, is worse than VOL. LXXIV. NO. CXLVII. good advice and personalities were carefully summed up in three awfully dry lines at the conclusion, labelled, for fear of mistake, MORAL,' which you treated at will, and either swallowed whole or skipped altogether. The consequence, it is true, of this plan was, that children became accustomed to look on tale and moral as two utterly distinct concerns, in no way connected except by conventional proximity; and the little girl of ten years old, who had just been devouring a story where this usual appendage was failing, on being questioned as to the moral, earnestly denied the fact of there being any at all, and brought up her book to prove it! Certain it is that if the moral does not find its way to the heart through the narrative itself, it will scarcely reach it in a subsequent set form; yet the present plan of general distribution is by far the worst of the two, inasmuch as, by the perpetual interruption to the sympathies, you lessen the effect of the tale, and with it the chance of edification. We should always bear in mind that the instruction, whether moral or intellectual, arising from works avowedly of amusement, can be only incidental. It is of no use endeavouring to teach in hours which children consider exempt from learning: they like neither lessons nor lectures in their wrong places, or they cease to be children if they do. We pass on to another description of juvenile works, which, considering all the parade of protection implied in those we have quitted, have rather puzzled us. It would seem that parents who would on no account permit their children to wander among the absurd extravagances of fictitious life, will not hesitate to introduce them to the pitiful meannesses of real life—would far rather they should dwell on the vulgarities of mere fashion—the nonsenses of mere convention, or the behind-the-scenes of what is most contemptible in the world that is about them-than on the high-flown exaggerations and impossible atrocities of a world with which they have nothing to do. With a certain class of writers facts are truth, and fable falsehood—no matter what either may be in themselves. Children are welcome therefore to know all about the petty hopes and contrivances of a modern dasher— the vanities and flirtations of a modern coquette; but Heaven forbid their being tempted to imitate the cabals of the grand vizier, or the loves and intrigues of Shelsemnihar and the Prince of Persia. Accordingly we have the mean calculations of mushroom manufacturers, the dirty tricks of low lawyers, the personal animosities and emulations of their wives and families, and the eventual smash of all parties, with other scenes of domestic and professional degradation, put into a familiarity of form which is ten times more disgusting as reminding us for whose eyes it is especially intended. God knows, parents need be in no hurry to |