with different degrees of rapidity; let him determine also fineness of texture in cloth, of grain in wood or stone, and after deciding, correct himself by looking at the substances. Again, he may judge of the temperature of liquids, and when it is possible, correct his judgment by a thermometer. The pupil may also learn to write and to draw various figures without the help of his sight, and distinguish coins and all kinds of substances from each other.* The scope of his exercise of this sense may in this way be unbounded. The ear may receive its discipline in distinguishing, without direction from the eye, the causes of each noise that is made, as that of writing, moving a chair or a table, and in telling the kind of article drawn upon the floor or elsewhere, as wood, or stone, or paper; with what a blow was given, with the hand, a stick, a hammer or a stone, and what received the blow. Determining all the different musical tones and detecting the counterfeit voices of his companions, will involve great efforts at discrimination, and great exercise of the sense of hearing, as will also the judging of the distances and directions from which sounds proceed. The smell without the aid of the eye may distinguish the rose, the lily and the pink, and the untold variety of fragrant plants and flowers, and may decide between different kinds of food, aromatic drugs and other odorous substances. The taste may be disciplined by discriminating between the profuse diversity of fruits, of liquids and of food, without assistance from the other senses. Additional exercise for the taste may be found in distinguishing many kinds of roots and plants and wood and metals. Such are some of the direct means of improving the senses; and they are probably susceptible of great variation and extension, and numerous combinations; let us pass to others, more indirect it may be, but still more important. If the Deity have created the universe partly or wholly for the education of the See Parent's Friend. human soul, he has completed his plan by giving to the soul the senses to act as its instruments in receiving that education. Accordingly the various sciences which are and have long been ⚫ used for developing the intellectual powers, are based upon the intercourse which the mind through the senses holds with the material universe. Geography surveys the great natural and social divisions of the globe; astronomy looks upward to the march and array of the heavenly host; arithmetic first counts the sensible objects about us, and mathematics dwells upon their motions and their forms; grammar and rhetoric make the science of language, and language depends upon the ear; and chemistry, mineralogy and natural history all rest upon observation. All these sciences, founded upon the action of the senses, can be understood only through the senses. Books serve to tell and explain what great study and genius have learned. But the only way in which a science can be practically and well understood, is that of mingling with the study, of books a sufficient leaven of original observation, and experience to imbue the whole with life. We deal too much in abstractions in our schools, both for young and old. The senses are not sufficiently used; yet theirs is the evidence most satisfactory to boys' minds as well as ours. In astronomy, the boy studies a treatise, and, as the word goes, learns it. But he does not learn it, that is, he gets no practical knowledge, and comparatively little useful discipline. Let him use his eyes. Let his first lesson be in the open volume of the skies. Let him watch the order and motions of the heavenly bodies, and learn the planets and chief constellations. In studying geometry, let him, construct figures; in surveying, let him survey; in geography, let him examine the country around him, making his observations the foundation and standard of comparison for his future studies, and let him delineate every place of which he is learning an account. Follow the same principle in other sciences. What mechanic would think himself preparing his apprentice for usefulness, by giving him books to read about his trade, and some lectures upon the subject, without letting him work at his business. The apprentice and the student both want the practice as well as the theory, and the practice rather than the theory. How stiff and cramped a thing is a mere book-education! As learning once secluded itself in the monasteries, so now, not always, but too generally, it retires into the school-house eschewing the senses, its natural and most thorough means of education, and grows mystified and confused with poring over abstract ideas alone. Let the pupil be educated to watchfulness and attention to his sensations in school. Let him not be dull in hearing and seeing, but rouse him by making his studies and recitations interesting by sensible illustrations. Let him not be fickle in attention, but strengthen that faculty by judicious discipline of the senses, till he have acquired the command of it even in studies entirely abstract. We have seen that sensation awakes the soul from its original sleep, that the great creation is evidently designed to educate the soul and the soul is fitted to be educated by it, that all the intellectual powers are at first and for a long time solely employed upon impressions upon the organs of sense, that all sciences and branches of education are grounded upon observation and can be understood only by means of observation. We know that the accuracy and activity of all business, that skill in every art and mechanical pursuit, that the correctness and life of most literary and scientific description and illustration, all greatly depend upon the state of improvement to which the senses have been trained. To strengthen and sharpen the senses is to give vigor and keenness to the mind. And throughout human existence, whether it be when the lively child is attentive only to feeling and the works of nature, or when he has become an adult, and mingles reflection with observation, or when the man has lost the acuteness and power of his bodily organs in advanced age and lives only in memory and meditation, or even when he has been removed from the world of sense to the world of spirits, at all times |