ON LEARNING SCRIPTURE BY ROTE.

WHERE the knowledge of scripture is forced upon children as a task,-where they are compelled to recite long portions of it by rote, in the same manner as they decline nouns and conjugate verbs, the passages learned may be retained by the memory, but we may reasonably doubt whether they will ever impress the heart. I am, I confess, the more inclined to doubt it, because the most confirmed reprobates I have ever known, had an accurate knowledge of scripture, acquired in the manner above alluded to.

The first step, towards inspiring your children with a veneration for the sacred writings, and with a desire of knowing something of their contents, must be, the observations they will naturally and voluntarily make upon your frequent perusal of them. While they see other books read and dismissed, and that the Bible alone remains the constant companion of your serious hours, the subject of your daily and delightful meditation, they will associate the idea of superior excellence with the Bible, before they are able to read. But, on the contrary, if they see it only brought out on a tedious and gloomy Sunday, and then read as a

duty, and a task, the prepossession that will take place, in disfavour of its contents, will probably never be eradicated.

IBID.

ON ABRIDGEMENTS.

AN abridgement may be a bridge, it may help us over the water, but it keeps us from drinking. GUESSES AT TRUTH.

THERE seems to be a mistake in the use of abridgements. They are put systematically into the hands of youth, who have, or ought to have, leisure for the works at large; while abridgements seem more immediately calculated for persons in more advanced life, who wish to recal something they had forgotten; who want to restore old ideas, rather than to recover new ones: or they are useful for persons immersed in the business of the world, who have little leisure for voluminous reading.They are excellent to refresh the mind, but not competent to form it. HANNAH MORE.

ON ARITHMETIC.

IN learning the power of numbers, the judgment is much improved, provided that the judgment be permitted to be duly exercised; but if we only aim at hurrying the pupil on as fast as possible, through the rules of arithmetic, that we may be able to boast of its astonishing progress, in having got to the rule of three, while others of the same age, have not proceeded beyond simple addition ; the memory will probably have been the only faculty exercised, throughout the process.

In the whole course of education, children are great sufferers, from our having forgotten the process, by which we ourselves acquired the knowledge we now possess. The intermediate ideas, which served as links in the chain of our original conceptions, have fled from our recollection; we therefore never think of presenting them to the minds of our children; and yet without these connecting ideas, it is impossible that we should ever succeed in communicating instruction.

HAMILTON.

NUMBER presents a most important field, on which to develope and strengthen the minds of children. Its obvious connexion with the circumstances surrounding them, the simplicity of its data, the clearness and certainty of its processes, the neatness and indisputable correctness of its results, adapt it in an eminent degree, for early instruction. Arithmetical exercises tend to give clearness, activity, and tenacity to the mind; many an intellect that has not power enough for geometry, nor refinement enough for languages, finds in them a department of study, on which it may labour with the invigorating consciousness of success. But the advantages must of course depend, in a great measure, on the manner in which arithmetic is taught. More than any other branch of instruction, has it suffered in this country, from the influence of circumstances.

Were the true ends of intellectual education more clearly apprehended, the means of prosecuting it would be more justly appreciated.While the question, Cui bono? so judicious in itself, is answered by a sordid reference to mere money-getting, or by a narrow-minded consideration of mere professional advancement, every method of instruction, that proposes to itself a more exalted, though less obvious utility, will be

ridiculed as visionary, or neglected as unprofitable. But when the true end of intellectual education shall be admitted to be, first the attainment of mental power, and then the application of it to practical and scientific purposes, that plan of early instruction, which dwells long on first principles, and does not haste to make learned, will be acknowledged to be the most economical, because the most effectual. Experience will shew, as it has indeed already shewn, that while superficial teaching may prepare for the mere routine of daily business, whensoever a question, not anticipated in the manual occurs, none but the pupil whose faculties have been exercised in the investigation of truth, who is the master, not the slave of rules, will solve the unexpected difficulty, by a novel application of the principles of the science. MAYO.