disposition, which makes a child, or youth, passionate, false, or revengeful, and which in the man, produces murder, perjury, and all the most atrocious crimes. The very same turn of mind which puts a child, or youth, upon beating his playfellows with his little harmless hand, will afterwards, if not corrected, arm him with a sword to execute his revenge. How then can parents be so unthinking as to connive at, much more to encourage, a wrong turn of mind in their children? At the same time that they would do their utmost to rectify any blemish in a feature or limb, as knowing that it will else be quickly incurable; they allow the mind to run into vice and disorder, which they know may be soon irretrievable.

If your child threatened to grow crooked, or deformed; if he were dwarfish and stunted; if he were weak in one or more of his limbs; or did not look with both eyes alike; would you not give any thing in the world to have such infirmity strengthened, or wrong cast of features redressed! Would you put off endeavouring this for one day, after you had discovered the defect? And will you trifle with a deformity of infinitely greater consequence, a blemish in the mind? Would you answer to any one, wha advised you a remedy for weak hams, or an arm threatening to wither; that, as your child grew up, they would strengthen of themselves, and therefore it was needless to take any trouble at present? Why then should you put off using your utmost endeavours, and that as soon as possible, for breaking the impotency of his passions, bettering his temper, and strengthening his judgment? Will you say, that, though your child is now at six years old, fretful, perverse, crafty, given to idleness, lying, and disobedience; it does not follow, that he must be so at twenty or thirty? Why do you not likewise persuade. yourself, that he must outgrow squinting, or a high shoulder? You cannot think a short neck, or a wrong cast of the eye, a worse blemish than a turn to falsehood, malice, or revenge? Yet you encourage your son, at three years of age, to vent his spite upon whatever disobliges him, even upon the floor, when he catches a fall. He asks you what you have got in your hand: you do not choose to let him have it; and you have not the courage to tell him so. You therefore put him off with answering, that

it was nothing. By and by, he has laid hold of somewhat not fit for him, which he endeavours to conceal. You ask him what he has got: Has he not your own example and authority for putting you off with a shuffling answer? He asks somewhat not fit for him. You refuse it; he falls a crying: you give it him. Is there any surer way of teaching him to make use, constantly, of the same means for obtaining whatever his wayward will is set upon? You trick him up with tawdry ornaments, and dandle him about after all manner of entertainments, while he ought to be applying to his improvement in somewhat useful. Is not this teaching him, that finery and gadding are the perfection of life? Is not this planting in his mind, with your own hand, the seeds of vice and folly? Yet you would turn away a nursery maid, who should, for her diversion, teach him to squint, or stammer, or go awry.

It is strange, that parents should either be so weak, as to look upon any fault in the minds of their children as of little consequence, and not worth correcting; or that they should not generally have the sagacity to distinguish between those infirmities, which, being the effects of unripe age, must of course cure themselves, and those, which, being occasioned by a wrong cast in the mind, are likely to grow stronger and stronger. Thoughtlessness, timidity, and love of play, which are natural to childhood, may be expected to abate as years come on. But it is evidently not so with a turn to deceit, malice, or per

verseness.

I cannot help adding here, one advice to parents, which, if it should not be thought over complaisant, is however well meant. It is, that they would take care to set before their children an unexceptionable example. The consequence of a neglect of this, will be, that children will be drawn to imitate what is bad, and be prevented from regarding what good advice may be given them. Do not imagine you can effectually inculcate upon your son the virtues of sobriety and frugality, while he sees your house and your table the scenes of luxury and gluttony; or that your affected grave lessons will attach him to purity and piety, while your conversation is interlarded with swearing and obscenity; or that you can persuade him to think

of the care of his soul as the great concern, while he sees that you live only to get money.

Those natural inclinations of the human mind ought to be encouraged to the utmost (under proper regulations) which tend to put it upon action and excelling. Whoever would wish his son to be diligent in his studies, and active in business, can use no better means for that purpose, than stirring up in him emulation, a desire of praise, and a sense of honour and shame. Curiosity will put a youth upon inquiring into the nature and reasons of things, and endeavouring to acquire universal knowledge. This pas sion ought therefore to be excited to the utmost, and gratified, even when it shows itself by his asking the most childish questions, which should always be answered in as rational and satisfying a manner as possible.

It is by habit rather than precept, that a young person is best formed to readiness and address in doing things. If your son hands a glass or a tea cup awkwardly, he will profit more by making him do it over again, directing him how, than by preaching to him an hour. It is the same in scholarship, and in his behaviour to his equals, as to justice and sincerity; which shows the advantage of a social, above a solitary education. Therefore, opportunities of planting proper habits in young people ought to be sought, and they kept doing, merely that by practice they may come to do things well at last.

On this head, I cannot help remarking on the unhappy constraint I have often, with much sympathy, seen very young children put under before company. The chiding lectures I have heard read to boys and girls of eight or ten years of age, about holding up of heads, putting back shoulders, turning out toes, and making legs, have, I am persuaded, gone a good way toward disgusting the poor children against what is called behaviour. Did parents consider, that, even in grown people, the gracefulness of behaviour consists in an easy and natural motion of gesture, and looks denoting kindness and good-will to those with whom they converse; and that if a child's heart and temper are formed to civility, the outward expressions of it will come in all due time; did parents, I say, consider these obvious things, they would bestow their chief attention upon the mind, and not make them

selves, their children, and their friends, uneasy about making courtesies, and legs, twenty times in a quarter of an hour.

The bodily infirmities of children may often, by proper management, be greatly helped, if not wholly cured. Crookedness, for example, by swinging and hanging by the arm next to the crooked side. Squinting, by spectacles properly contrived, and by shooting with the bow. A paralytic motion in the eyes by the cold bath and nervous remedies. Weakness in the eyes, by washing them in cold water, and not sparing them too much. Bashfulness and blushing, by company and encouragement. Crookedness in the legs, by being swung with moderate weights fastened to the feet, and using riding, as an exercise, more frequently than walking; never standing for any time together; and by iron strengtheners properly applied. Shooting with the long bow, is good for strengthening the chest and arms. Exercise, and regular hours of diet and rest, and simple food, for the appetite. Riding, especially on a hard trotting horse, is the first of exercises, and a cure for complaints, which no medicine in the dispensatory will reach. Stammering is cured by people who profess that art. And even dumbness so far got the better of, that persons born so are brought to be capable of holding a sort of conversation with those who are used to them. Shortness of the neck, and stuntedness, are helped by being swung in a neck-swing. Almost any bad habit, as shrugging the shoulders, nodding, making faces, and the like, may be helped by continual attention, and making the child do somewhat laborious, or disagreeable to him, every time you catch him at his trick.

Of those parts of education, which take in science, I shall have occasion to treat in the following book.

SECTION VIII.

Of the peculiar Management of Daughters. FEMALE children being as much by nature rational creatures, as males, it seems pretty obvious, that, in bringing them up to maturity, there is some regard to be had to the cultivation of their reason, as well as the adorning

of their persons. As to the forming of their tempers, the directions above given, will, with some small variation, suit them. As girls are more apt to run into vanity, on account of their beauty or dress, than the other sex, it will be necessary to guard against this folly, which, else, will grow with years, till it becomes unsufferable. And after all, there is no doubt, but a foolish head is always contemptible, whether it be covered with a cap or a wig. And a creature, that values itself only upon its form, and has no other ambition but to make that agreeable, must be sunk to a very low pitch of understanding, and has little pretence to rank itself with rational beings.

The proper education of a daughter, if a parent has a mind she should ever be fit for filling a place in society, and being a suitable companion and help meet for a man of sense, is, first, reading, with propriety and life; readiness at her needle, especially for people in middling stations; a free command of her pen, and complete knowledge of numbers, as far as the rule called Practice. A woman cannot, with ease and certainty, keep or examine the accounts of her own family, without these accomplish. ments. The knowledge of English grammar, or orthography, is absolutely necessary to any person who would write to be read. Without some acquaintance with geography and history, a woman's conversation must be confined within a very narrow compass, and she will enjoy much less pleasure in that of her husband and his friends; and his entertainment from her conversation must likewise be very much abridged, if she can bear no part on any but the subjects of fashions or scandal.

Plays, romances, love verses, and cards, are utter ruin to young women. For, if they find any entertainment in them, they must unavoidably give their minds a cast, which can never be suitable to the useful part of a female character, which is wholly domestic. For, whatever the fine ladies of our age must think of the matter, it is certain that the only rational ambition they can have, must be to make obedient daughters, loving wives, prudent mothers and mistresses of families, faithful friends, and good christians; characters much more valuable than those of skul gamesters, fine dancers, singers, or dressers, or than even of wits and critics.