stant watch kept over individuals, is most favourable to the formation of energy of character.-MADAME NECKER DE SAUSSURE: Progressive Education.

2. Of the Lesser Habits.

There is one advantage in a well-conducted early education, which, though of secondary importance, is not easily acquired in any other way-that of accustoming children to perform, without thinking, a number of actions, desirable and useful in themselves, though scarcely deserving to have much thought bestowed upon them. By giving them habits of complying with certain physical and conventional regulations, we are exempting their minds from future care on these subjects. The more we make use in this respect of the instinct of imitation, the more we shall spare ourselves hereafter the pain of having to prescribe as duties things which are not such in reality, yet which are almost indispensable; and we shall thus, too, render an inestimable service to the child. How much embarrassment, how much awkwardness, how much waste both of time and thought, is often occasioned even to grown men by doubts respecting the propriety of the most trifling actions !-MADAME N. DE SAUSSURE.

3. Of early Religious Instruction.

In the religious education of our children two distinct objects must be kept in view; one to inspire

them with devotional feeling, the other to enable them to defend this feeling against those who would destroy it by denying the existence of the Being who is its object. Our aim must, no doubt, be to attain both these objects; but it is not necessary to attempt to reach both at the same time: and by waiting for the most favourable moment of accomplishing the latter, we may have lost the opportunity of securing the former. We have no incredulity to Ideal with in children. It is useless to overwhelm

them prematurely with arguments; this would only be giving them false knowledge; that is to say, knowledge which though true in itself, is not so as it regards them, because they are not capable of appreciating the correctness of the principles on which it is founded. And this will continue to be the case long after the most favourable time for influencing the feelings has passed away.

It must be owned that we are here opposed by a difficulty which disturbs the systematic order of our plan of education. When we wish to establish certain truths, we should naturally begin by laying down principles, and then explaining the inferences which may be deduced from them; and when we wish to communicate certain feelings, we should attempt to give our children an exact idea of the object for whom these feelings are to be excited, in order that they may learn not to bestow their affections without reason. We may, perhaps, imagine

that if we had assisted at the creation of moral beings, we should have managed things differently; the reasoning powers should have been the first developed, and no feelings should have been cultivated without their sanction. But Heaven has not so arranged matters. Children love before they can form a judgment; the order in which their faculties unfold themselves is not according to the rules of logic, any more than the manner in which ideas enter into their head; nor are these ideas connected together by them in the same way that we should connect them. This is troublesome, no doubt; but what must we do? Shall we allow the fairest gifts of Heaven to fade away from a blind attachment to our own ideas of order? In everything that regards the feelings, we are too apt to fall into this error. But we might as well ask whether religion is necessary to men, as whether it is so to children.

I would go farther and say, that so far from its being necessary to wait for the age of reason in order to inspire a child with feelings of piety, I should not, even when he has attained that age, attempt to begin with argumentative reasoning. Only let the fundamental truths of religion be brought forward as facts, and mentioned with simplicity and reverence, and they may safely be left to their own power, and will not fail of producing conviction. But if these important subjects are introduced by discussions, proofs, refutations of supposed objections,

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that if we had assisted at the creation of moral beings, we should have managed things differently; the reasoning powers should have been the first developed, and no feelings should have been cultivated without their sanction. But Heaven has not so arranged matters. Children love before they can form a judgment; the order in which their faculties unfold themselves is not according to the rules of logic, any more than the manner in which ideas enter into their head; nor are these ideas connected together by them in the same way that we should connect them. This is troublesome, no doubt; but what must we do? Shall we allow the fairest gifts of Heaven to fade away from a blind attachment to our own ideas of order? In everything that regards the feelings, we are too apt to fall into this error. But we might as well ask whether religion is necessary to men, as whether it is so to children.

I would go farther and say, that so far from its being necessary to wait for the age of reason in order to inspire a child with feelings of piety, I should not, even when he has attained that age, attempt to begin with argument ve reasoning. Only let the fundarental truths religion be ought y and