burst forth with the fullness of inspiration in the music of Handel; and who, with even the rudest power of appreciation, can listen to those immortal strains, without being raised into sympathy with the eternal aspirations of the highest minds for the spiritual and infinite?

In teaching children to sing, the simplest combinations, both of poetry and music, should be presented, but they should be beautiful as well as simple. The early associations are the most lasting. We ought to make them beautiful. The songs of childhood should be such as may be loved in after-life, and may contribute to form a pure taste. In the infant schools singing has received considerable attention, but has been much abused. Some of the rhymes in common use are miserable doggerel. It is an injury of no trifling kind to blend the enjoyment of singing with such wretched compositions. When the importance of presenting images of simplicity and beauty through the medium of singing, in early education, becomes generally understood, it will seem a worthy office for minds of a high order to compose songs for children.

It is unnecessary to pursue the subject of physical education farther. It opens a wide and important field for investigation. Enough has been said to show how large an amount of pain and suffering might be avoided by adapting education to the constitution of the human body, and how much a due cultivation of man's physical powers would contribute to his moral excellence and enjoyment

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.

Intellectual Education has a twofold object: first, the development of the intellectual powers; and second, the communication of knowledge. The mere communication of a certain amount of knowledge seems to be the object of a great deal of what passes for good education. But the matter of acquisition being ill selected, and the laws of the human intellect disregarded in the mode of presenting it to the mind, it happens that even this object is most imperfectly attained. Words instead of things form the staple of education; yet the merest smattering remains with most people, in after-life, of the languages at which so many of their early years are spent. Sometimes a certain amount of facts in history or natural philosophy is communicated in education; but being addressed to the memory, and taken in passively, it leads to nothing. When ideas are admitted without any working of the reflective faculties, they take no root, but lie in dead, useless masses on the surface of the mind. The communication of even real knowledge, for its own sake, is of secondary importance in early intellectual education. The main thing is the formation of habits of correct observation and clear reflection. The mind derives its knowledge, in the first place, from external objects acting upon the organs of sense. Sensations being once received, the corresponding ideas undergo various modifications, by the processes of comparison, abstraction, reasoning, &c. When the impressions of sense are indistinct, the subsequent operations share in the uncertainty and imperfection. Intellectual development, therefore, requires that the powers of accurate observation should be first unfolded. Clear ideas being furnished by them, the various intellectual habits of abstraction, classification, and reasoning, may be rendered quick and correct. The communication of knowledge in early education is primarily useful as the means of forming these habits. Education is a preparation for after-life. It should not attempt so much to communicate extensive knowledge as to excite the love of it. The results of the observations

of the most eminent observers, received passively into the mind, are worthless compared with the habit of observing for one's self. In the one case, a man enters life with cumbrous stores which serve no purpose, because he knows not how to use them. In the other, he comes with a slender stock thoroughly at command, and with skill to increase it by daily fruits of original observation and reflection. Many children, the wonders of admiring circles, turn out common-place men, because their acquisitions are never converted by mental assimilation into part of their own nature. Others, pronounced idlers, while in fact they are developing their faculties after a fashion of their own, stand out as men, and take a lead in the business of life.

The development of the intellect begins in the infant. He is perpetually receiving sensations from the objects about him; and while awake, he is constantly seeking to get things within his grasp, to feel them, and see them. There is an impulse within him to find out the properties of every object he meets with, so fresh and vigorous, that it may well seem enviable to students dulled by exclusive intercourse with books, and long abstraction from the actual world. This precious activity ought not to run to waste. It is in our power so to guide it, that instead of dim and imperfect impressions, speedily overlaid, confused 'and obliterated by other dim and imperfect impressions, the child shall constantly receive from without clear sensations, and by gradual steps attain full and correct ideas of the objects about him. We can present real objects to his senses in a certain order, and in such a manner as to attract his attention, until he becomes perfectly familiar with their sensible qualities. When he has got the idea of an object, or of one of its properties, and not before, we can give him the name. The name given when his interest is excited will be firmly associated with the idea. The child's attention is first drawn to the simplest sensations. The elements being clear, their combinations will be taken in clearly; and the perceptions of resemblances or differences must be also clear. Thus, by gradual steps, of which each is clear and certain, the development proceeds.

For the effective promulgation of this great principle of teaching by reality, which all philosophy of the mind supports, and which is destined to revolutionize education, the world is indebted to PESTALOZZI. It is practically exemplified in the well-known "Lessons on Objects" of Miss Mayo, in which the lessons are arranged so as to develop successively, by real objects, the faculties of observation, comparison, classification, abstraction, and to lead to composition. The child's strong impulse to acquaint himself with things must not be blunted by a premature attempt at teaching him to read, or by that absurd and confusing process, as it is commonly practiced, of teaching him his letters. The child must know many things before reading or spelling. The principle of submitting objects in a certain progressive order to the examination of his senses must be the basis of his intellectual education; and the habits of correct observation so formed must be systematically exercised, so as to insure their continuance throughout his existence.

Upon this knowledge of things, as a basis, the child acquires his mother tongue, never learning any word until he has had the idea, and felt the want of the name. Names, however, are for the most part complex sounds, and a very considerable and careful training of the organs of speech is necessary, before they can be uttered correctly. Here also a progressive order must be observed. We should begin with the simplest words, and gradually lead the child to the

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pronunciation of them, by requiring him to repeat after us the simple sounds of which they are composed. The child teaches us so much himself when he begins with some such word as "ma," or its repetition, "mama." The syllable "ma" is composed of two simple sounds, a vowel and a consonant. A mother, without any knowledge of the principle, often exemplifies it when she pronounces this syllable for the child's imitation. She makes the two distinct sounds, m and a, (as in bar,) with a slight interval. She does not pronounce em and a, (as in fate,) the names of the letters, but she goes through the peculiar closing of the lips, by which m is produced in combination, and then sounds a as it is sounded in the word. The child imitates each motion, and at length utters the combination. In the same progressive manner in which a child learns to take in the most complex sensations, and to conceive the most complex ideas, his organs are brought to utter the most complex sounds cor. rectly, and words become associated in an indissoluble union with the sensations and ideas they represent.

This is the basis, the only secure basis, on which to raise up a strong and clear intellect. When the first impressions are clear, and all the words that are known represent clear ideas, the processes of abstraction, classification, and reasoning may be made prompt, vigorous, and true.

At a very early period the child should be led, still from observation of real objects, to form ideas of number. And here also the progress must be by the most gradual steps. One finger, two fingers, three fingers. One finger and two fingers are three fingers. He must remain for a considerable time in the simplest and most obvious ideas. Here, if possible, more than anything else, is it necessary that each idea should be, as it were, worked into the texture of his mind before he proceeds to the next. The most complex combinations of number are made up of the simplest ideas; and, with many persons, ideas of number continue through life indistinct, because the simple elements of which they are composed were never clear in their minds. There should be none of the "senseless parroting" of the multiplication table, but a progressive attainment of real ideas of number from real objects,-addition and subtraction from real addition and subtraction; and from these that species of repeated addition which is called "multiplication," and that species of repeated subtraction which is called "division." Ideas of number, and of the elements of calculation, being obtained from real objects, and from different kinds of real objects, the mind may be led to clear abstract ideas of number. Clear ideas of number tend powerfully to general clearness of mind, and affect many subsequent acquirements. Confused ideas of number spread a haze and dimness over the whole field of knowledge.

Amongst the properties of external objects, of which the child obtains the knowledge by his senses, his attention may be early directed to their size and distances, and he will readily take in the simple ideas of measurement. He will have no difficulty in finding one thing to be longer than another, and, with the help of his clear ideas of number, one thing to be twice or three times as long as another; and two things, which can not be brought together, to be equal, by finding both equal to some third thing. His eye and hand should be exercised in measuring, and the engagement of both will interest him, and gratify

• We must be careful not to confound the names of the letters, as boe, sce, aich, double their sounds in combination.

the impulse to mental and bodily activity, which is almost incessant in childhood. Real measures of every kind, linear, superficial, solid and liquid, and weights, as inches, yards, linear, square, and cubic feet, quarts, bushels, ounces, and pounds,-should be set before him, until his eye and touch are perfectly familiar with them. These should take the place of the tables of weights and measures, which, with so bold a defiance of common sense, as well as of the laws of mind, are given to children to be committed to memory, before they have a glimmering of their meaning.

From ideas of distance he will easily and naturally proceed to examine the position of external objects Being presented with the simplest ideas of position, as straight lines, angles, &c., he delineates them on paper, or a slate, from the outlines of objects progressively set before him. He is gradually led on to many of the relations of triangles and circles,—the elements of geometry and of linear drawing.

When the eye has been in some degree trained to the observation of form, and the hand to the imitation of outline, the child may begin to read; not with letters, but sentences containing words of which the object is before his eyes. He will learn the letters of print by a species of analysis, and by attempting to form them with his pencil, and his formation of the writing character will be much more free and rapid by the accuracy and pliancy which drawing has given to his eye and hand.

When people attempt to teach children geography, by compelling them to commit to memory a number of proper names, it is almost needless to say, that they are following that wretched system of word-mongering which has so long reigned supreme in every department of education. When they set a globe or a map before his eyes, they do what is, indeed, much better, but they still begin at the wrong end. Here, as in every other branch of intellectual instruction, we ought to begin with the existing experience of the child, and evolve out of it, by the most gradual progression, what we want him to know. We must begin with the reality which is in him and around him, and make known to him what he can not see, by means of that which is before his senses. A map, or plan, of the school-room or the play-ground, which he should be led to draw for himself, ought to be his first lesson in geography. This should be followed by one of his own town or district, which he can verify by personal observation. When he thoroughly understands the relation which a map bears to the reality, he may be led to the map of his country, not crowded with names, but a simple outline, with the principal mountains and rivers and a few great towns marked. In conceiving the extent of a large country, or of the globe, his clear ideas of number, acting upon the real distances which he knows, will secure clearness in the combined ideas. The natural divisions of the earth should be the first learned, and the productions, tea, cotton, &c., and animals which are before his senses referred to their several homes.

Naturally connected with ideas of the surface of the earth are those of remarkable events in different places, and of the past history of the earth's principal inhabitants. Although history, properly so-called, should be perhaps the latest of all studies, there are certain leading ideas of great events and characters, which may be advantageously made known at an early period. As a basis of this knowledge the child must be led to the measurement of time. And here, as before, he must begin with what is within reach of his senses, (or what

may be popularly said to be so.) He must learn the comparative lengths of small portions of time,-as a minute, an hour, a day, a week. He should be led to think of the trifling events which he can recollect, in the order of time,his getting up in the morning-his coming to school-his first lessons-his game in the play-ground. Having learned to conceive events of his own expe rience, in the order in which they occurred,―extending back over a continually increasing period,—his clear ideas of number, acting upon these clear ideas of his own little chronology, will lead him to a conception of the chronology of the human race. The chronological order will be found the most natural and easy way of presenting such interesting facts of past history as the child can comprehend.

Even if education were carried no farther than this, how great would be its effects! How superior a race of men might be produced by such a system thoroughly worked out! What power of observation, arrangement, and deduction,-what rapidity of eye and dexterity of hand, would be ready for application to any branch of the business of society. What independence of judgment would be generated in such men, by the sound and practical nature of their acquirements. Yet what modesty, from a just apprehension of the extent of knowledge above them; and what a tendency upward and onward, from the spirit of progression infused into all their labors.

It is plain, however, that if circumstances admitted of the education being carried farther, the same principles might be continued. The lessons on objects would flow on easily into complete courses of Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, and Geology; the principle being strictly adhered to of examining real objects, when procurable, and when not, of using good pictures. Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry, and the higher branches of mathematics, would easily follow, upon the thorough comprehension of the simple relations of number and position. The different branches in Natural Philosophy, exhibited by progressive experiments would be not so much a labor as a recreation.

There are two deeply important branches of study, which, as they are seldom considered proper to form a part of early education, deserve particular notice. They might be included under the single head of the study of the human constitution, but this at once presents two great divisions, which it is more convenient to consider apart. Every child then might be made to possess a considerable acquaintance with

1. The structure of his own body.

2. The structure or constitution of his mind.

It ought to require little reasoning to prove the utility of making these studies a part of general education. Indeed, if education were not beyond all other things governed by mere prejudice and custom, this kind of knowledge would seem the most fitting for universal acquisition, as concerning all men alike and affecting all pursuits. A knowledge of the structure of a man's own body, acquired in early life, would prevent many injurious practices, which, in most cases, are persevered in through ignorance,—such as want of cleanliness, doficient ventilation, excessive or insufficient exercise,-over-action of diseased organs. People may be told forever that they should have a regular supply of fresh air; they assent in words, and forget it because it does not get into their thoughts. A single exposition of the use of the blood, and of the part performed by the lungs, in fitting it for its purposes, would stamp the idea deeply,