GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION. SECT. I.. - On the Object of Education 1 SECT. II. - How the greatest Improvement is to be made of the Natural and Social Inequalities of Human Beings SECT. III. - Influence of Education on the Strength 9 17 On the Dispositions to be cultivated during the First 38 52 66 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. WHEN I first undertook to write a sort of moral history of life, in which the various means of improvement offered at different ages should be pointed out, I expected to pass rapidly over the period of childhood. Impressed with the important idea that our existence here is only the prelude to another, that our passage through this world is only an education for a better, I wished to follow out this idea in all its bearings. My attention was attracted rather to the result of life, than to that preparation for life itself which occupies its commencement. I considered the education necessary during childhood to be a subject which, as a part of my plan, I was called upon to notice, but which had already been exhausted by the many distinguished writers who had devoted their thoughts to it. But, on examining the subject more attentively, it appeared to me that it was still little un derstood; especially as regards the first years of infancy; to which even those who have reflected and written on education have paid little attention. Instructors by profession are not called upon to take charge of children at so early an age; and, when they do apply themselves to the task, they consider their future pupil as so much raw material, destined to receive its value from their hands. They look upon him as an ignorant being who is to be instructed; and it never enters their imagination that, in order to render him capable of being brought to that point at which he becomes susceptible of rational education, the endowments of the child must be very different from those of the man. Women, on the other hand, however quick in discovering the most trifling marks of character,—in guessing at the most slightly indicated intentions, content themselves for the most part with understanding everything by means of sympathy. Their feelings tend directly to practical utility; and when they have once been led, by their quick discernment, to form a decision, they take no interest in general results. I had myself been long and earnestly occupied with education; but I had studied my own children, without imagining that I was studying children in general; all my observations appeared to me individual. Not having found, amongst the various systems of education with which I made myself acquainted, any one which satisfied me, I took as my guides, good sense,— at least what appeared such to me, and an experience which had been acquired by degrees. Yet when this experience had been confirmed, and a greater degree of leisure had permitted me to weigh and examine my reflections, it seemed to me that, in the constancy of the phenomena presented to our view by infancy, the effect of general laws was perceptible. I may, perhaps, in describing these phenomena, have been too much led away by the charm attending the contemplation of this age; but owing either to the numerous facts I have brought forward, or to the conclusions I have deduced from them, the subject has insensibly grown under my hands. The first volume begins with a short introduction which explains the plan of the whole work, and has afforded me an opportunity of entering into some details as to the different objects which have successively occupied my |