Glass 1 8 &the public seal of my office, the day and year aforesaid. EDMUND I. LEE, Clerk of the District Court for the District of Columbia. /£&. CONTENTS. PART I. Page. Of Education in general, 1 CHAP I. Of the original and use of the word Education, _...._- i CHAP. 2. Division of the subject, - - 9 CHAP. 3. Of a contrast of Education with a p ivation of it, 29 CHAP. 4 Of instituted mechanical means of Education, 33 PART II. Of Abuses and Delects in Education, - - 38 CHAP. 1. Of abuses and defects of Educationin respect to morals, 38 CHAP. 2 Of P ejudice, .... 50 CHAP 3. Of Example, 60 CHAP. 4. Of remissness in the impression and inculcation of principles, - - - 72 PART III. Of the remedies for the abuses and defects of Education, 89 CHAP I. Of circumspection or> the incipient pro- » session of the understanding, - - 89 C H A P. II Of the manage ry ther than the direction. There are innocent people of discretion who admiring the doctrine, seek improve- ment thereby, not moved by any contrasted accompa- niments: yet these, in time, are disgusted by the no- tice of such examples ; and sometimes there grows up thereout, a prejudice against moral teaching. There are public preachers who are addicted to pageantry, to luxury: nay, even those who are given to excessive drinking, to avarice, to calumny. The depravity of the public mind runs so far that it is even somewhere a receptory maxim that these characters cannot main- tain their dignity without splendor. But I cannot ad- vert to an instance of this kind more to be deprecated, perhaps, than in the character of teachers of schools. Young, gay, giddy, loose characters are too often em- ployed in conducting our common schools. This proves that universal derogation of morals, which cha- racterizes the commonalty of parents, who rate it a matter of indifference whether their youth be strictly impressed with regular precept and example or not. If this were not to them indifferent, they -certainly would exert themselves to select such persons for this oflice, as are disposed to cultivate both, not only ; but would study to co-operate with these persons. In- stead of this, we find them, in almost every neighbor- hood, setting examples of rebellion against the autho- rity and prescepts of their teachers, shewing their children specimens of contempt, indignation, and as- persion of them. The tyro returning from his daily restraint, informs his tender indulgent parent he has been abused, has been insulted ; the blockhead of a master struck him i The parent flies in a rage ; opens a torrent of execration against the teacher, of whom he says all manner of diminutive things in the ears of the child, who is now inspired wHh indignation at his instructor, for whom he shakes off all respect, and de- lights in pursuing retaliatory schemes of encroach- *6 66 mcnt anil insult. He comes to despise the man who teaches him useful arts ; and this prepares his heart for the most malignant ingratitude. The parent, not constraining him to obedience of his moral commands at home, tears him from his fealty to a master; that there may be no shadow of authority over him ! From this moment the tyro is in a worse condition than if he had no master at all ; for, having the appear- ance of two masters, he must naturally either hate the one and love the other, or cleave to the one and des- pise the other. This also is setting an example of condemning without examination, and of reproaching and traducing those whom we ought to respect and endear. A pupil ought to revere his instructor, for two reasons. One is, it is impossible for him to make proficiency in learning, by the lessons of one whom he hates ; and another is, the instructor deserves the es- teem and gratitude of those whom he initiates in the principles of useful knowledge. After all, the world will be found full of bad exam- ples. Coming into the world, the emerging tyro not judiciously fortified by well impressed principles and thorough habits in morality, inevitably meets with ex- amples of all manner of vices, to whose pernicious in- fluence he is artlessly open, to be blown up with pride, lust, ambition, revenge, profligacy. He meets with his coevals and his seniors on the one hand, and his juniors on the other, alluring him with patterns of profanity, intemperance, lasciviousness, contention, oppression, abuse. The examples exhibited by neighbors and companions, are at last, the great enemy to be guarded against, with alert scrupulosity. Their seducing insi- nuations are hardly to be resisted without preliminary habits of speculative virtue deeply established. From this very consideration, it behooves every parent to be specially attentive to the morals of his children. It behooves every one who has the care of young minds. 67 to maintain a serious violence over (he progressive rise of habits of thinking and actinjr, which must dis- criminate their character: that, by early nurture, he may radicate such principles as will countermine all conspiracies against social happiness; and make them proof against the stratagems of such subtle and horrid adversaries. To be fortified against the delusive ten- dency of vicious example, by early insinuation of sound maxims, is the greatest blessing human society is heir to. This is the great point Education should labor at. Yet how deplorably short we fall of it ! The burden of the account must fall upon parents, for the following reasons. t. People having had the pleasures and pains of bringing upon the stage of life, children, to add to the community of civilized mankind, who are to sustain characters either good or bad, whom also they design to be actors on this stage in certain capacities, trades, and relations, where they shall be able to do good and hart to their fellow creatures, are under a fourfold obligation to endue them with good social qualities : obligation to themselves, to their Maker, to their chil- dren, and to the community whereof they are mem- bers. The parentis own enjoyment of existence de« pends finally, in a great measure on this , and certain- ly he can never rationally expect to partake the fruits of filial gratitude unless he implants its principles in their breasts. Our Maker is not more honored and obeyed by any other conduct than by rearing and training children to virtuous manners, and by sedu- lously expanding and ennobling those faculties where- with "he hath endued them. Surely our heavenly Fa- ther must take delight in seeing those whom he de- sign'd for society and perpetual preservation, multi- plying and progressing towards that point of perfec- tion he had marked down for them to approximate. Again, their children's fate depends greatly hereon. 68 Their enjoyment as social rationnls, depends upon a sedulous nurture, a careful discipline of their parts and powers, in the tenderness of their infancy. Impres- sions stamped then, will endure through life. Fur- thermore, the interest of the community, is very much Concerned herewith. When men are governed as they ought to be, (by themselves) by persons of their own choice ; the government takes its character from the general sense of the people; which is according to the degree of improvement their natural powers have got ; the degree of civilization they have attained ; the degree of light has been superinduced to their capaci- ties : all which results as the event of early inculca- tion, which is in the hands of others. If Education be neglected, if Education be debased, the society gradu- ally falls to a state of anarchy Meanwhile evil dis- posed individuals are pests and torments, in a commu- nity, to others who are well disposed. 2d. It is in the power of parents to set examples which have great influence. Parents command great influence on their children. Their examples and treatment have insuperable efficiency. It is in the power of parents to bias their children to good morals with greater ease than any other party can do it. It requires but theirselves to know and love good morals, and to search out the fit means to produce such an effect in the young. Sd. Children more readily learn of their parents and nurses than of any other party. They are wont to copy the manners, words, and ways of thinking, used by their parents. All the world refers the weak unadvised youth to his parents. If he mistep,— is this your breeding ? Is ihis what your parents incul- cated ? Is the general cry. Parents, study, then, your part. The weight of the obligation incumbent on you, is serious. You say it is a hard task. What makes it hard ? Is it not want 69 of knowledge of natural causes, that makes it appear so ? A hard, a difficult task, you say, in a depraved world! True, it is a difficult task, in a depraved world : but it is not less a duty for being difficult. Countermine this deprnvM world by speculation and art. The depravity of the world, necessitates a deeper plot. Even the corruption of the world, shall refine morality. The whole secret of the business you have to do, lies in association of ideas. Associated these young minds, pleasure with what is good to be done ; then, the remainder of your work is plain and easy. For if pleasure accompany the impression of the first notices hereof which you introduce to their apprehen- sion, those ideas never will re occur but they bring that pleasure along with them, unless the connection be superseded by some superior and overbearing im- pression that substitutes a different association. Af- terwards, as the faculties gradually advance to matu- rity, this should be follow'd with argumentative lec- tures, which disclose the tendency and consequences of moral actions, and the importance of the social vir- tues. But more of this hereafter. Suffer me to add a few words relative to some specimens of example. "Without example of the use of books by the authors of their first pleasures, recommending it to children, they will not get an inclination to the use of books, and con- sequently, a love of letters. Nor will this important principle be likely to get its root without an exempli- fication of some delight and satisfaction found by the parent or nurse in the use of books, and of a choice estimate of them as if they were reckoned worth pre- serving with care. Obsequious to the alluring influence of such example, the supple observers become imita- tively assimilated to such an auspicious model of man- ners. Also, if we would have children respect a teacher, we ourselves must, in our manner, exemplify a respectful estimate of his character and^ profession. 70 This respect must be exemplified by a co- operating with him in his adopted process of culture. It is first necessary to approve the system of discipline and in- struction adopted by such one as we do employ to educate our children, and then to co-operate with dim in the measures he uses. It is seldom possible for a tutor to form the moral character of a child without a co-operation of its parent or nurse, with him, in the means to that end. Their anterior, pre-established, and prevailing influence, will otherwise perpetually undo all that he can do ; and pull down as fast as he builds up. The parent must concur in enforcing the same prescepts and doctrine ; or the tutor cannot suc- ceed to form the character of the child, whether intel- lectual or moral. Whatever its teacher may say or do to a child, it never will respect that teacher, if its parent speaks diminutively of him. When the parent or nurse contemns the teacher, the child will not res- pect him. These are general truths of the ordinary course of things. People are not aware of the odious habits that have arisen out of those things which have been employed merely as expedients to pacify chil- dren ; such examples as crimination, reproach, partia- lity, revenge, and nugacity, often finding an effective presentment in this medium, beyond the observance of those who produce them : and we little think that, by imitating their parents to the utmost of children's per- ception of an imitable model presented them by those they are wont to look to as standards, these children are contracting those very habits that we insensibly are exercising in those communications we are mak- ing use of to destroy others in them: thus we are not apt to suspect they are acquiring a habit of scolding, from our rebuking them. 71 CHAPTER IV. Of remissness in the impression and inculcation of principles. I imagine my reader will begin to suspect me to be one of those false lights that would lead him round in a perpetual circle , and be ready to infer from what I am proposing to go about, that instead of advancing him forward towards his journey's end, I am but now conducting him upon ground he has just before trod- den, where I am bringing into view what has been re- peatedly had under examination in some preceding chapters : but the main design in each of those, lying another way ; what 1 have hinted concerning princi- ples, 1 would improve by a more deliberate inspection of what they immediately depend on, and are consti- tuted by. Having treated of the unreserved omission of an important business incumbent on men, through mere indolence, or other disparageing causes, I go to expatiate upon another fault somewhat diverse from this; which is when men having set professedly about the prosecution of a given design, wherein they in- stanced all genuine marks of intention, do the thing by halves: go over it with a slightness, from a feeling of indifterency with regard to the event. These, if they go through the exterior accessary ceremonials, cheerfully pass ofl'with a persuasion that their task is done; never ascertaining the effect; which, in the matter of making impressions on the memory, or su- perinducing any habit or quality to any other faculty, is verv essential. The application may be so slight as to not produce a sufficient impression to continue 72 perceptible. It may not be accompanied by such other ideas as fix it in the memory by making its recurrence incident. It may not be repeated sufficiently to rivet it strongly in the memory. Pleasure, pain, and repe- tition, are the most efficient aids to infix ideas in the memory. When we say in the memory (speaking of it as of a place) we mean only that they are made lia- ble to re-appear ; being fixed within the power of recollection, or within the possibility of being remem- bered : which is no other than joining them to other ideas, to a greater or less number and variety; anji the business of repetition is to connect an idea with various others. Every time an idea is repeated, it is associa- ted with a different idea, either discriminating the time or place or some other particular ; so that there are so many chances, so many possibilities of a re-occurrence as each of those connections. Because each of these ideas wherewith the other was joined, may bring this with it whenever it occurs; and this, in fact, is a man- ner of committing -an idea to so many keepers, whi ;h is almost always sure to be found with one or other of them. So wont are fibres to move together, which have once moved together. If I would make impres- sion of the idea of a certain drawing, upon the mind of a painter, who is to limn it without the convenience of either original or visible pattern, I would give him a view of it in different places. I wonld repeat the im- pression of the thing upon his senses in several situa- tions ; that, taking a curious survey of every part at his leisure, the whole might be found to be (as it were) woven in with sometimes one prospect and sometimes another : I womd particularly let it connect itself with several individual objects that are apt to excite surprise or admiration : sometimes, for example, let it be joined with the idea of a curious tree ; sometimes with that of h rare fruit, a horse, a singular bird ; again, with same antique appendage of the way ; and, sometime s 73 with interesting ideas brought up in discourse ; — that, (in a retrospect,) whichever way \w turns the eye of his mind, he can not fail of effecting a recollection of his model Pain has equal efficiency with pleasure, to fix ideas in the power of recollection. A. great degree of pain catenated with any idea or scene of ideas, renders their reminiscence easily accessible Likewise any novel affection, or perception, concomitating any idea, fixes it in memory. Attention is necessary, still, to facilitate recollection : the efficiency of this is done by producing a particular habitude with certain distin- guished feelings which become associated with what is desired to be retained. A ttention, repetition, pleasure, and pain, are our chief aids of memory These are the grand instrumental means of strengthening the memory, and perpetuatinga reserve of knowledge Without digressing any farther, — men, I say, are addicted to a slackness in impressing and inculcating principles. There are who go about it as a duty ; but they go not heartily : so that either through ignorance or disaffection, they make not the application with sufficient energy to make such a deep and affecting impression as will prevail over all succeeding engage- ments of attention. The word principle has various uses. In one sense it signifies an essential constituent of a thing, without which that thing could not be. So, the chymists make the principles of certain bodies (or of all bodies) to be several species of particles dis- tinguished by their shape and motion. Sometimes it is taken for a determinate, prevailing, and steady cause : at other times, and perhaps very commonly it means the final cause. Again ; it signifies a proposi- tion, whether self-evident or otherwise received to be true, by which several other propositions that are more particular, are proved. Such are the axioms of the mathematicians ; and the dogmas of the moralists. 7 74 But it is sometimes taken for such a persuasion or posture of mind as induces it to determine on such a course as it does pursue; whether it be opinion of what arises from any other affection. A nd it is in a sense very like this, that I here make use of the word. The result of sensation and reflection, is ideas These are called ideas of sensation and ideas of reflection. When an impression comes immediately from an ex- ternal object, it is an idea of sensation. When it is revived by remembrance or recollection, or formed by the relation or aspect of any of the other ideas that are or have been in the mind, considered comparatively, in any point of view, it is an idea of reflection. Mow, what principles are, in infancy, if they be any thing, are such connections (called associations) of some par- ticular ones with other of these ideas, whereby they are accustomed to obey one common exciting cause, or be suggested one by other, as give certain direc- tions and degrees to the passions, and gradually tend to peculiar habits of thinking. The way that these operate as principles in the soul of man, is by involv- ing in their connection, objects that move desire: whereby, the prevailing desire being wont to accompa- ny or follow a certain appearance, this becomes a go- verning motive to the will, habitually determining it to pursue one thing or to avoid another ; which when it does steadily as a settl'd cause, it is aptly enough called a principle. Now these sorts of principles may be either good or bad. When I say they may be either good or bad, I mean they may be so, only as causes. They may be causes of good or bad determi- nations : for it is as motives ; as causes of different determinations i. e. determinations on good or bad actions, that these become good or bad principles, in the concern of morality. The wrong may be prevent- ed, and the good can be promoted, in very early in- fancy. It is important to establish such as have a 75 direct tendency to favor the practice of benignant de- terminations. Principles, then, so far as concerned in morality, are all those ideas, propositions, combinations of ideas, or relations of ideas, that in themselves become de- terminate causes of habitual courses of voluntary con- duct whether in thinking or perceptible moving. Of the relations of ideas amongst themselves, one ot which I have been speaking is association of them. Asso- ciation of ideas, is one of the relations or habitudes they have among themselves one to other, that does the most execution in the province I am speaking of. These associations arise from various causes; the chief of which, are the following: I. Mere chance may make two or more conceptions happen to immediately succeed each other, or be ex- cited at the same moment of time, which thereupon are afterwards more incident ; and more liable to ap- pear together, than others which never had been ob- served so nearly assembled. II. Co existence. Some ideas are naturally allied together: i. e. the causes that excite them, are united in one subject: as the whiteness and roundness of a snowball, the heat and colour of flame, the weight, colour, and ductility of gold. Sue!) are all those qua- lities of substance, that cohere in revum natura : and not only these, but also other things, that are not thus constitutionally united, are yet eminently apt/to ap- pear or operate simultaneously, or else to follow one another as by causation. % " III. Voluntary determination. Out of- choice we institute the connection of two or more ideas, aujd for some known purpose determine them to be suggeslepl* one by another, whether in our own minds ortiKthogg we instruct Thus we endeavor to associate vitith the '- idea of the name * God,' in the minds of childrenpthe j ideas of justice, goodness, wisdom, power, and infini- 76 ty. We endeavor also to associate the blandishments of address, with our admonitions and injunctions. Principles, in their metaphysical and moral use, resolve themselves into four sorts There are four sorts of principles used to be considered proper to be inculcated on the minds of those of whom we have the charge to form their characters ; viz : literary, scien- tifical, moral, and mechanical. By literary principles I mean those ideas, combinations of ideas, relations of ideas, and propositions, from which follow the proprie- ty of language and reasoning, and which are the im- mediate instruments of all knowledge that is acquired by the use of books and characters ; these are the rudi- ments of what, is called rational philosophy. Scientifical principles are those self-evident axioms and intuitive views of reality by which the structures of the sciences are tested, and which are directories in the forming of theories. Upon these rest the mathe- matics, and whatsoever consists of demonstrative knowledge, whether it relate to number, extension, motion, or any other incident of substance. But the use of these supposing a mature state of the faculties, when, if the agent have been but set right in the im- pression of literary and moral principles, he is in little danger of being deluded by any obscurity about these, I shall leave aside the consideration of scientifical principles any farther than they are essentially con- cerned in the other, since it is with literary, moral, and mechanical principles, which the common people have chiefly to do, ancl wherein they are mostly deficient. Moral principles are those combinations or relations of ideas, propositions, or persuasions of mind, which are entertained and admitted as governing motives to de- termine the general course of our voluntary conduct, as it respects other conscious beings to which we stand in a relation that makes us capable of affecting them. These are those persuasions and maxims, which con- cern us in all times and places, as directories to con- duct, in society and solitude, for the attainment of happiness. There is a sort of these moral principles, which may be called speculative, which consist of knowledge or persuasion of mind that such or such things ought to be done, and others ought not to be done, in consequence of certain tendencies, relations, or operations of things, known or believed to exist ; which propositions, the truth of which is so known or believed, are, so far as they have influence over our choice and determination upon any sort of action, mo- ral principles also. These speculative principles, though they are reasons of conduct, are not consider- ed as operating causes, and are thus distinguished from active principles. A pure active principle of this kind, consists of 1. An idea of a certain action or sort of action in one's power to do. 2. Delight or pain associated with that idea. 3. An idea of the beneficent or hurtful tendency of that action 4. A prevailing desire to practice that action, ari- sing from the acknowledged excellence of that action ; or, a prevailing aversion from the practice of that ac- tion, arising out the evident vileness or unfitness of it. This is a moral principle in its utmost develope- unent. Any habitual course or mode of action, whe- ther mental or corporeal, spoken of as a quality in the abstract, of which the principle is the constant motive, it is said to be the principle of ; as the principle of integrity, and of constancy. And these settl'd habi- tual ways, in their turn, are in themselves considered as principles also ; principles of active life, that are the modelling springs of general character. Thus we say, the principle of stability : but stability itself is a prin- ciple, in one view ; i. e. it is a constant cause of a uniform and moderate course of action in public life. #7 78 Mechanical principles are those ideas, maxims, and deductions of reason, concerning the properties of bodies, from which are drawn the proper rules and prescripts of those mechanic arts and trades that we use for subsistence, and by which the secrets of them are explained. I shall notice a remissness in respect to each of these. I. Literary. Men are slack in impressing rudiments of literature. The first principle of this sort, is a In- ter. The forms and uses of letters or literal charac- ters, are indispensable to be fix'd in the mind before there can be any use of such characters, as vehicles of other ideas. Effectual methods are not used to pro- duce this. Pleasure is not attachM to the first notices of these things. Nor is there sufficient vigilence ex- tended over the treatment these ideas receive from the untutored understanding ; the entertainment they get, whether attention or neglect; whether they are no- ticed cursorily and then passed by and avoided for a long interim wherein evolve more exciting objects ; or made the chief entertainment of the understanding, by reason of the greatest proportion of the agent's en- joyment being associated herewith in the first inter- view. This is a delicate piece of business, which requires attention. It is not for a parent to consider his children, altogether as little amusing delighting gifts of Heaven, that will, by and by, spontaneously grow into discretion and virtue, as their bodies grow in bulk ; but there is a task which is his serious duty to attend to, to modify these intelligences with cer- tain principles which shall be motives to actions; be- fore he can reasonably expect to realize the fruits of such qualities. More particular care is required in impressing the principles of literature because letters* books, and grammar rules, are such objects as to a child are void of all manner of charms. The incipient 79 exercise of the mind about these, brings nothing along with it, naturally, that delights. The consequences are greatly delightful ; but the outset must be sooth'd with artful combinations which will bias. Instead of this, we frequently find the laboring- parent (cherish- ing a most repressive contrast at his home) shifting this task upon a public tutor abroad. But a tutor can effectually do nothing to a child without the concur- rence of the parent : if the child be at home with his nurses and parents eighteen hours in twenty-four ; in the name of common sense, by what necromantic ma- chinery shall a tutor in the remaining six hours learn him any thing contrary to what he is taught at home, or make pleasing to him the reverse of what he is made to find pleasure in there? The parent is prompt to give injunctions in form:- ■'* you must learn your let- ters' — " you must learn those rules'— you shall learn : you must not fail to study — you must obey your teacher," &c. But all this is not sufficient. There must be the idea of reward ; there must be example ; and finally there must be a time (and it possible let this be the conjuncture of the first acquaintance with these objects) when the child's most pleasing prospect accompanies these h eas ; when the scene of instruc- tion is an affectingly or peculiarly pleasing scene. The intellectual faculties derive energy from the sub- ject of entertainment. The energy of the soul of man faithfully bears upon any resource which yields enter- tainment. Without this, there can be no atta- hment to letters: no aptitude to fix attention on that sort of objects. II. Men are no less slack about radicating moral principles. Obedience to parents, docility, gratitude, temperance, stability, and integrity, are the most im- portant of the first moral principles fit to be establish- ed in t e voun -.-. Instead of obedience, some seem to go about to teach disobedience : and they do this by 80 indulging their young in such courses as are directly repugnant to the parents' own desires and advice. What avails it to advis^ or enjoin my son one thing, when straightway I gratify him in a reverse inclina- tion. It avails this, ^tiat he comes to slight my com- mands and my advice, and to view me as a subject of insignificance. After this, he is likely to become my master. If you would have your son obey you, set him an example of a sort of obedience to yourself t by adhering to your own deliberate resolutions; not pitching upon one course to day, reversing your plan to morrow, the third day taking into the very contrary course, and the next day into a different one still; such veering makes him aptly conclude that you yourself not regarding your own counsel, is matter of little moment whether he follows it or not ; or rather, that it is no how eligible. This, again, sets you upon a foot of insignificance. If you would have your son grateful, set him an example of gratitude, by expression of a grateful sense, acknowledgement, and due return, of benefits received from your own patrons and benefac- tors. Neither is this all. Some pathetic lecturing is yet requisite to be administered, to confirm those who are any way exposed to the corruption of adverse ex- ample. The other virtues follow the sasjie rule. All are more confirmed by example than by any other aid. If with the best instructions we continually join ex- ample of levity, we shall hardly fix any principle what- ever, unless it be that of duplicity. An example of levity is the capital clog that encumbers the inculca* tion of virtuous principles in young minds : and herein it is, that men of the world fail : their own passions hold the ascendency over the consideration they have of Education. The social virtues are of the greatest concernment. The social virtues are what finish hu- man nature. The whole principle of these, is com- 81 prehended in the idea of philanthropy. Let the senti- ment of philanthropy once get place in the growing mind, the whole circle of the social virtues obsequious- ly attends this resplendant emanation of the divini- ty. Philanthropy must need imply the true essential principles of all the social virtues, for it comprehends in the object it embraces, the whole scope of all good purposes, wishes, and thoughts, so far as they regard the human species. It is the vital primordial of bene- volence, charity, hospitality, justice, gratitude, forgive- ness, and patriotism. For it is but by dint of some degree of love or esteem, that we are ever impulsed to do that good to our fellow creatures which we wish to have them do to us ; unless we be under external con- straint. This has for its end, the good of all mankind. Although we cannot expect to find or infix this senti- ment of philanthropy, in its full amplitude and extent, in the infant breast, yet we may approximate it. The steps to be taken, most likely to make this ap- proximation in the adolescent frame, are to repress emotions of anger, envy, hatred, &c. ; and to repeat those of love, pity, remorse, serene pleasure, and com- placency. In short, philanthropy is but an improve- ment of that natural sympathy which enters into the composition of all percipient beings. By docility is meant an ingenuous openness to conviction and a prompt auscultation to the directory communications of such as may afford instruction or improvement. This is promoted by what makes the temper mild, and represses all the harsh humors in the system: it is also subserved by associating serene pleasure with whatsoever is wont to fasten and engross the attention, or is capable of exciting intenseness of intellectual application. Gratitude is one of the loveliest traits the character of the adolescent mind, can exhibit. The elicitation of this, comprehends filial affection aud obe- dience. When we once get this principle established, 8S filial obedience naturally follows it as a necessary ef- fect. This principle is confirmed by reflection. Its perfection depends on cultivation of sympathy. There- fore the earlier we can inure the young to the practice of reflection, and reasoning on the feelings of their pa- rents and other benefactors, with a notice of the rela- tions they stand in, to them ; the more we shall acce- lerate this qualification. Moreover, the same physical causes that subserve the other principles, are propiti- ous to the grounding of this. But the greatest princi- ple, the climax of all principles that can be introduced into the heart of childhood or youth, is integrity. This substantially dignifies human nature. It in- cludes in it the essence of sincerity, equity, probity, punctuality, charity, and hospitality. The child that has this principle, will not disobey his parents' or teachers' reasonable commands; will not waste or misapply his time ; will not deceive ; will not disre- spect his teachers , will not do irreverence to aged persons or strangers; will not turn averse from the relief of the indigent ; will not insult or ridicule the deformed. Fortitude and patience also, are generally adjuncts of this;— which are of themselves two im- portant principles, and are surprizingly generated by early denials, privations, and trials of hardship. Ad- versity is the school where these are nursed with peculiar effect; and herein indigent parents may improve their misfortunes into, the greatest of bles- sings. III. This slackness prevails, to a certain extent, in mechanical Education. The children of this world, terminating their views in immediate gain, are content to shirk along by any means, and execute their work by any rude measures that secure this object It is a greater point with them to get the advantage of times and people than to adjust the application of their rules to their true principles, and finish their work accord- 83 nig to the original ends of these ; and what they deem most interesting to themselves, they are wont to teach to those of their apprentices and dependants, whose welfare they have at heart. IV. People also are neglectful of implanting true principles of science. They deem it a matter of in- difference whether they furnish the minds of their children with true determinate and distinct ideas of the qualities and powers of substances, or not. Some- times these are shamefully deluded, when they are young, about natural causes. From the age of five, to nine, children's curiosity is generally very alert ; and they eagerly seek after a train of causation. They importunately ask a multitude of questions concerning the beginnings and relations of natural beings that fall in their way ; to which the parent often gives evasive answers, and sometimes very fallacious ones. It is better to make no reply at all, than to imprint false ideas of qualities or causes: since, what impressions they take at this time of life, are to have great effect. As dilatorily and vaguely are the ideas of quantity usually infused, in their early years. The reasons wherefore men are so generally remiss and lax in the matter of fixing in the minds of others, certain correct principles, I suppose to be the follow- ing: 1. Discredit. Theirselves not making any use of principles, people think these not of due consequence, to be worthy of their attention. This is a fault very much marks men of the world. They confine them- selves to no certain prescripts of moral principles; governed by selfish maxims, whatever happens at any time to be most conducive to the eclat, wealth, or pleasure, of each one's own self, they are used to prac- tice ; and. not only to practice, but to recommend by their conversation, to those whom they regard with sympathetic concern. Now, what a man reckons of 84 no moment; what he conceives not essential to the support of his own enjoyment, cannot be reasonably expected he will consider necessary for him to incul- cate m others, to -perfect what he deems a good and sufficient Education. Hence, to substantiate a true directory principle is not, in their esteem siuSciently urgent and important to incite them to go about it in earnest. But this is not the worst : from the same cause, they come to hate such principles. They are averse to the incumbrance of exact principles. * am here speaking of moral and literary principles. Taese same people, I say, are inimical to good principles. A real hatred of what is good, is an alarming disorder in those who are influential in the Education of others. What may one expect of the Education of a drunk- ard's or gambler's children ? What may one expect of a jockey's family? All those who labor under any flagrant disorder of mind ; under the tyranny of any excessive passion or vice, are not in a fit plight to edu- cate others in morals. 2. Indolence. Men are too lazy to emphatically inculcate principles. Men are too fond of ease to be given to that intenseness in voluntary thinking, lequi- site for the instillation of judicious principles. It hap- pens that exercises of mind are more against the grain of slothful men than any other sort of exercise. We never find one who is alert in study, attention, reason- ing, or composition, impatient of labor. People, there- fore, although they are told it is their duty, and are sensible of it too, to attend to the establishment of clear influential principles, in the minds of their off- spring at least, yet going about something may have the appearance of it, to bias their neighbours into a favora- ble estimate of their dispositions, cannot confine them- selves to see the finishing of their work. 3- Ignorance. People are ignorant of the proper measures and methods to be pursued, to this end. 85 Some are ignorant both of the nature of the principles themselves, and of the fit ways to instil them. This ignorance is the case of thousands, of whom we are not aware : these are respected and popular. They are versed in the rules of decorum common in their socie- ty; and, being prompt in their practice and teaching of these, appear to be persuaded that this is the com- pass of what concerns them in morality, all other im- portant matters being handed them by the priests, or public preachers. This prevails in mechanic arts. Many a man has taught himself more in six months time than he had acquired by an apprenticeship of seven years 4. Craft. Public preachers are shy of establishing the principles of morals, lest they should overset their machinery of theology. They are shy of instating the true principles of morality on the ground of physical knowledge, by calling into exertion in the young the faculty of reasoning, lest they sap the foundation of that system of faith and mystery by which they are accustomed to subsist. Monarchs lay plans to prevent the diffusion of knowledge. Their thrones are built upon ignorance and delusion: it therefore subserves their policy, to slight and to impede the inculcation of literary principles. One would think that a p* . son %vhc never got the rudiments of literature, could make no proficiency in other departments of knowledge and art. He, however, acquires knowledge, in proportion to the extent of his observation and experiments : and what little, he does attain to, is substantial and last- ing ; for he is apt to retain it in his memory. •feasors of mechanic and other art.©, avoid initia- ting their a!)pre the per- son who gave him life snd sustain'd it ; but as an equal and an adversary. 2. The infant is become familiar with the ideas of vindictive violence, of painful punishments, of exas- perating threats, of revilings; and in consecution, the ideas of means to elude, are made familiar to the child, This is a predisposition to subtilty. 3. The receipt of great violence, confirms his cor- rupt notions of causation, and of common custom in moral modes. He is persuaded that his chastisement accrued from violent anger and hate, and thus goes to estimate his parent inferior to himself in respect of Self-government: Whereupon he sets out to practice with him as with a junior adversary whom he des- pises while he hates, (yet fears, for his strength,) by opposing stratagem to violence, to accomplish pur- poses of revenge. The contrary extreme has similar effects, or more contracting. Too frequent chastise- ment is as wide from good discipline as that which being too seldom, falls in with the weight of cruelty ; by too long procrastination the tutor's mind being soured and his affections estranged, through his own ridiculously imprudent managery. A constant repe- tition of mechanical correction, hardens the heart, benumbs generous feeling, and represses the seeds of delicate properties latent in humanity, which by the tutelage of wisdom, might be brought up to such splendid productions as embellish and glorify the hu- \nan character. I have enlarged the more on this head, because the art of reversing habits, constitutes a mo- mentous habilitation in the department of forming character : the greatest part of the business of educa- tion consisting in destroying habits, and introducing others to the places of these. For if man be neces- sarily about the repeating of some actions during his waking; it follows he necessarily has a number of ha- 137 bits. If man have habits, they are either good or bad. If bad, they must be destroyed in order to accomplish a correct education : if good, it was a part of that education to form them. Therefore the greatest part of the business of education, is the forming and un- forming of habits. There is a gradual formation of habits, from birth, without design ; i. e. without the design of forming such habits : the most whereof either not coinciding with, or else directly counterplotting, the genuine scheme of social happiness, which is the greatest object the world admits of, have need to be reverted and destroyed, in order to finish education. By putting away one habit, we admit another. Either some other particular habit, a habit of reflection, ov else a habit of levity, necessarily grows out of that cassation. What a copious field of study, then ; what an important post of vigilence thi«! A habit ot virtue is the grand object we labor at. This ought to be the universal goal of all who presume to adjuvate the de- sign of education. This includes a perfect prompt- ness to any and every action that is morally good ; otherwise, that aptly subserves the finish'd purpose of social happiness. This habit rises on the habit of contemplating, and meditating the nature of things and actions, as its natural foundation. But it is brought up by mechanical compulsory manuduction into ex- trinsical subserviency ; as children, before they are competent to such a purpose, must be constrained by discipline into such acts as the same modes which are used in the service of the purpose, till they are made habitual. This is tending into the thing from exte- rior beginnings. A habit of virtue is not so easy to attain as many imagine. It is very sublime and very multivious. Virtue is that sort of voluntary exertion that tends more or less directly to promote social hap- piness. Virtue is discriminated by its relation to this object. It is a tendency towards the accomplishment 4ft* 138 of this object, that properly discriminates virtue : and the reason is, that, man is naturally a social being ; and his Sympathy renders it impossible for him to be happy^ independently of the consideration of the feelings of others. The more direct and efficient the tendency, the greater is the degree of virtue. Obedience to the law of nature, promotes this object; therefore virtue includes relation of our actions to the law of nature, A prescript or law in nature, commanding one action and forbidding 'another, with a rew r ard and penalty annexed to the observance and infringement, may seem not so clear and consistent language as to be readily comprehended. But this is, in fact, what all other laws are by assumption and secondary conformation : for herein is solid authority and irresistible power to carry into effect these promises and threats to which language is so essential to give an air and figure in other laws. There is power in fire to decompose our bodies, and destroy life; consequently it is against the law of nature to thrust any part of our bodies into the space occupied by burning bodies. We leel the pains of other beings of our kind by reflection and sympathy: consequently it is against the law of na- ture to injure our fellow creatures. In (act, here is the reality ; the original of all laws '. the primordial prototype of all rational prescripts. The tyrant depends on the eternal properties of mat- ter, to be able to execute his threats. If steel had not the power to divide the fibres of living flesh when, under a due impulse, it is brought into contact with it, vain were his institutes ot torture. This law of nature is nothing but relative properties of matter in- variably radicated in all natural beings, and the es- tablished order of causes and effects, depending there- on. That part of this law, that relates to the casuality and consequences of our voluntary free actions, may fee called the moral law of nature. The relation of m our actions compared and refer'd to the law of nature, as they agree or disagree to it, is called virtue or vice, sin ©r "holiness. Virtue is either general or definite^ General ov abstract virtue is simply the kind or sort of action distinguished from all others only by this one discrimination, tendency to promote, directly or indi- rectly, social happiness, us an object to a motive : as virtue, virtuous conduct. Definite denotes all those particular varieties of action which being comprehen- ded in the import of the other, are distinguished from it by secondary criteria : as temperance, charity, meek- ness, industry, &c. In short, virtue in its abstract sense, means that kind or sort of moral action, or in other words, any free voluntary action, that tends di- rectly or indirectly to promote social happiness con- sidered as an object to a motive ; and which herein agrees to the law of nature. In its particular or defi- nite sense, it designates particular deed^ or varieties of such action, with discriminative names : thus any such action or course of actions, as serves the pur- pose of social happiness, and tends any way to ad- vance that end, is called a virtue. A certain sort of motion or thought marked by some good passion, or some good object had in view to which thai Action tends, is called a virtue. The virtues are distinguished into private and social. Private virtue is that which seems to have for its proximate end, the private ad- vantage of ourselves, families, and connexions; as the preservation and security of our life and comfort. The private virtues are temperance, continence, clean- liness, industry, frugality, fortitude, patience. Yet these have a more or less conspicous bearing as remote applicatives to the object social happiness. Social virtue is that whose primary and proximate end is the good of our fellow creatures. The final end may be our own happiness that necessarily depends on the promotion of that object. The social virtues are 1W philanthropy, hospitality, patriotism, justice gratitude, charity, meekness. Virtue is furthermore distinguished Into speculative and active. Speculative virtue is either contemplation of great and worthy pursuits and benignant schemes ; good desires, good wishes ; form- ing good purposes ; cultivation of sympathy by cherish- ing good passions and benignant emotions, as sorrow for past sins, condolence, joy in the good of others i. e. joy aptly accompanying the idea of others' good. J?c- tive virtue is the determination of the will upon the execution of those purposes and the mechanical ap- plication of the subordinate organs in the subservien- cy of this determination : As giving to the poor ; pro- viding comfortable subsistence for strangers ; diligent improvement of time to secure means to communicate happiness or to procure leisure to carry on some good design ; volunteering in the service of one's country in the field of public defence- Some particular vir- tues are purely speculative; some, purely active; while some partake of both the one and the other of those characters. Philanthropy when simply specu- lative, is variously expressed by benevolence, and benignity ; — when it becomes an active virtue, it takes such names as beneficence, munificence, liber- ality, generosity, &c. Speculative virtue includes the idea of voluntary thinking. For without act of the will, which distinguishes free agents, there is no virtue: neither merit nor demerit, praise nor blame, penalty nor reward, being rationally applicable to ac- tions altogether necessary, motions depending in no degree upon volition ; any more than honour or hap- piness is applicable to the drops of rain which fructi- fy our fields ; which yet they are no way susceptible of. Voluntary exertion is essential to virtue and to vice. Some virtues are apparantly negative : as omit- ting or refraining to do evil: and this is voluntary. £>ome indeed seem to be mere qualities or relations of 141 our actions; as fortitude. Yet there will ever be found voluntary act in them, from which they get all their merit. Some voluntary thought or motion, is es- sential in them. Even submission, forbearance, quick- ness in place of tardiness', contempt of obstacles, perseverance, resistance of inticements, are all vol- untary acts. And upon the same principle it is said with truth, that ' omitting to do good, is committing evil.' Now, such a thorough habit as makes all such sorts of actions easy and agreeable, and makes us find pos- itive pleasure in them, is a great object to compass. This requires great energy of application, and criti- cal vigilence. Such a habit as that whereby one should be prompt and ready at all times and places to per- form every action of such sort as tends to social hap- piness and is conformable to the law ot nature, is an exalted point of refinement in art, for humanity to gain. It is the business of a well conducted educa- tion, by gradual discipline training and moulding the powers and affections of man into an apt complacent concord to the laws of nature in his own constitution, and that of neighbouring beings deliberately explored by the eye of unwarp'd sapience. I say one general habit of all these sorts of action, that should make easy and optable any and every thought and deed that is morally good (now good is positive, as production of pleasure ;or negative, as diminution of pain) would seem to be a constitutional habit ; and require a change of the very nature of the creature. And such is the peccancy of our race, that some have thought it impracticable for men of themselves, to acquire this habit : and that there must be a new creation of the man before such a thing can take place. Indeed our de- generacy, our universal apostacy from rectitude is such, that in moral education we have little else but clearing away our ground, of the rubbish of bad hab- 142 its: reversing habits already engendered, being that which takes up almost the whole attention and ener- gy of those who are engaged in this department. And what makes these worse, i. e. more formidable, is the persuasion that they are part of natue. Such is the power of custom ; such the fixedness of nature's prescripts. I trust there has been said heretofore suffi- cient to evince the practicability of reversing habits ; which, if it be so, proves plainly that these bad habits are not a part of our nature. Man necessarily is equally susceptible of pleasure and pain, because both the one and the other are the same direction of motion in the sensorium ; i. e. a sweep from the extreme parts towards the centre ; they being, discriminatively, but relative degrees of this motion, referred to a distinct subject ; which distinct subject must be either the im- mediately preceding general moving of the fluids of the system, or the present prevailing one. Men are equally liable to transgress, and conform to, the law of nature. For liberty being power to do what oue will, he is no longer a free agent than he has this power of doing evil and good, in equal degree. It may be here asked, why has man the power to choose evil ? Wherefore is man susceptible to desire and to will that which is evil ? I answer, because he is susceptible ol' ignorance ; he is not born with thorough skill in the physical and moral laws of nature ; which is saying little more than that man is man ,- or that such a being as man, exists. For man is a progressive being: progressive in his capacity, and in the adscititious en « dowments of that capacity. Where there is maturity, there can be no progression. This profection or ad- vancing forward in the accumulation of knowledge, is incompatible with the idea of mature knowledge and ability. Therefore because, being ignorant of some parts of the law of nature, he is by reason of this ig- norance liable to mistake good for evil, he is liable to 143 incline to, and desire, that which being repugnant t» the moral law of nature, Works contrary to the con- servation of his existence, and the consummation of it* enjoyment. Habits may be revers'd. The methods I have, above mentioned, I think comprehend the chief of the most efficacious expedients for changing habits. If the practical repetition of action produces habit, why shall not the practical repetition of one sort of action pro- duce habit, as well as that of another ? If a bad habit can be attain'd, a good one can :and if one good habit can be acquir'd, a thousand can likewise be acquir'd, So, also, if one habit can be revers'd, every habit can be revers'd. Therefore it is practicable for man to attain a habit of virtue. For if repetition of action produces habit; discontinuing to repeat action, prevents it, and since it is impossible for the intelligence of man to be idle in his waking hours but that it is still repeating some action ;— of course, by forcing the energy and of will and understanding to the voluntary repeating of good actions instead of bad ones, he forms good habits. He has got such a trick, and he cant break himself, is a very common saying: — I have a habit by long use» and can't yut it away, is a sentiment too commonly entertain'd. This is the subterfuge which gives rest to those who are averse to adventuring on any enterprize for improvement, and to those whose hearts are fully set in + hem to do evil. There are five habits particularly incident to be contracted by children, of which we ought to consi- der the importance of being on our guard against the ascendancy, on account of their ruinous consequences. I. A habit of using'violence on the receipt of an af- front or disappointment ; as squealing, tearing, striking with the fist, crying, &c. The children of this world are so far (rom philosophizing on the rise and nature *f this sort of facts, that they even set down conten- 144 ted in tbe persuasion of this vague opinion, that it h impossible to keep children quiet when they are very young. They persuade themselves of an impossibility of making children perfectly tranquil in their infancy. Instances make directly against them, however ; but they attribute these instances to anomalous causes ; not discerning the efficacy of method, in relation to so desirable a state of things. It has been with-mixed sen- sations of regret and chagrin that I Have often heard ex- perienced dames confidently and seriously advance such erroneous doctrine, wherein they confessed their imbecility in concluding themselves unable to keep peace in their own households. For my own part, it has sometimes appeared very astonishing to me that it was possible for such, without scruple, to work prac- tically against the law of nature, in suffering their hands to be (by mere storge) habitually stayed from that salutary correction on their children, wilich their insolence daily calls for: which what ever pre- tence to sanctity they may show, indubitably proves that they worship the beauty of their beloved favorites more than any thing else, and their fancies idly dote on the pleasures attending their production and nursing. A habit growing out of this, is that of speaking with admiration and making remarks on every thing the little ones say extempore ; which blows up pride, and several inordinate calculations in the latter, from the aspiring pinnacle of which, by and by they are to fall, and have pity from none, but rather to grumble at providence because none cares for their rise. There be several methods may conduce to the tranquility of infancy ; but when this, habit of bawling and crying has got footing, it is necessary to proceed to punish- ment. Some make a feint of punishing, as others do of gifts. Punishment should be certain, invariably following the sentence : and seasonable, applied at the precise time when it is deserved. Punishment should 145 not be injurious ; as fractures, dislocations, bruises, stuperfaction ; yet sufficiently painful to make an af- fecting impression, and make the subject sensible of what it is done for; to this end, it should appear, in some cases to be sensuously affecting to the punisher, and often accompanied with other exegetical signs. This habit, I say may be reversed by the superin- Auction of pain as a conspicuous adjunct, according to the fourth of the foregoing methods. 2. A habit of contradiction. This habit begins in the unlimited license of speaking, which is generally flattered rather than checked, and this for the mere sport the young articulators afford by their oddities ; and takes its first degree in disputes that take place among children one with another, where nothing is more easy and natural when they differ in their con- ceptions, than roundly to give the lie. It is presently considered a way of honouring themselves; he that lias the last word, pluming himself with the pre emi nence of understanding or authority. The practice of this very thing, breeds the primordials of animosi- ties ; nurses pride, irrascibility, hatred, and envy. But the odium of this not being noticed nor exposed by affecting them (by method) with a sense of the folly and turpitude of such vile communication, this man- ner of replication by and by takes aim at parents and guardians themselves, which is less grateful to come in this direction, from the mouths of their darlings: by dint of custom, nevertheless, it becomes tolerable, and in process of time, grows even to be agreeable, as most other habitrffel things do. In societies where pro- fanity and ribaldry prevail generally among the young, this being (to appearance) innocent in comparison with profane blasphemous expressions which are common, people are temper'cl to connive at it. Thus thousands of families grow up with manners disgustful to all cultivated observers; from habits of impertinent fa- 13 146 miliarities between offspring and stock, that trample the authority of the former, and eclipse their dignity in profound contempt. Clemency in the government of children, should be reserved. The considerate will be scrupulous of tolerating so glaring insolence as giving the He to a parent or guardian. One connivance paves the way to a thousand aggressions. Thcper- petrators of the crime enlarge upon the species, — and extend their plan. Adolescence is the period when every degree of liberty is wont to be reckoned a guar- antee from supervisors to follow the dictates of incli- nation, and obey the impulsion of natural emotions ; for they not possessing the power of judging correctly of moral relations, what rational ground have we to expect them to observe any other rule of estimate in this respect, than the approbation of their superiors? Permission operates as approbation. Now, they love the approbation of those from whom they derive their sustenance and enjoyments. The way to convince children of the criminal unreasonableness of this odious practice of contradiction, is to exemplify our disapprobation, not by argumentation which they can- not comprehend, nor by asking why do you thus? Why do you speak so ? but, while their apprehensions are incapable of taking in impressive views of remote consequences, by instituting pain to follow as an im- mediate consequent; which will have the knack of interrupting the wonted circle of action, and eventu- ally destroy it. Thus this habit may be reversed. 3. A habit of torturing animals. I know not what cause the peculiar delightfulness of this employ first originates from, unless it be the idea of superior power (in the relation of acquisition, to^he children's own pride) which the contrast of little weak creatures yielding to their touch, with their own size and abili- ties, affords. The love of power baleful ly gets rooted before sympathy assumes her full efficiency in mora! Af* v 147 views ; of else this propensity is hereditary. May not sympathy be made to keep pace with the Iove,ot power, which is self love and pride? Is it not possible to improve sympathy to an equal degree of influence with that of this festering propensity and attachment to pre-eminence ? Sympathy, reflectively extended to the feelings of fellow beings, is moral. In case of cruelty in infants, this sympathy gets no prevalence at all, on voluntary actions, before this love of emi- nence in power, gets into that operation that makes the destruction of insects and other small animals, pleasing, by proving the comparative strength of their murderers. Carniverous beasts kill for sustenance. Man kills for amusement. Carniverous beasts kill their weaker fellows for sustenance. Man, for pas- time. More savage than the lions' and leopards' whelps of the wilderness, he inflicts torture and death on inferior sorts of animals, without expectance of the least benefit. Flies, wasps, robins, wrens, rabbits, and green snakes promiscuously fall a sacrifice to his sanguine caprice, which makes him take an inhuman sort of del light in the downfall of unoffending inferiors. Cruelty to the brute creation, is akin to cruelty to hu- man beings. Indulged in adolescency, it generates ihr principles of tyranny, extortion, oppression, and implacable pervivacity. The practice of this very in- dulgence, constitutes one formidable obstacle to the improvement of sympathy.- and to this we owe the general hardness of mankind ; the want of compas- sion and compunction, which makes them untraceable to persuasory insinuations of moderate reasoners. Kxample of parents not unfrequently insinuate* this vile disposition into children, whom they suffer to wit- ness the killing of innocent animals, while none in- forms them that those creatures have similar feelings with their own, and thus educes an exercise of their 1 sympathy. Hence, we th'mk of the killing of a lamb; 148 a calf, or a turkey, without any more emotion than of the cutting of a sal lad, the felling of an oak, or the plucking of a melon. Thus, the habit is acquired by imitation and the most natural of all associations, that of their first and clearest attachments. Beware theti parents how you principle your children with cruelty and hardness of heart. Fancy not it will simply make them confident and manly to open to their view* scenes ef slaughter before yoU teach them to reason. To me, it seems no very difficult operation to supersede this aptitude to treat with violence the bodies of weaker animals, by the intervention of the power of sympa- thy. Pathetic inculcation will do in many cases ; but, on the accession of inveteracy, we must resort to re- tributive pain. 4. A habit of intemperance. The custom of stuff- ing children has three bad effects : it weakens the con- stitution ; generates a habit of gluttony and drunken- ness ; while it gives ascendancy to the baser parts of animal nature over the ennobling operations of reflec- tion. For what is a stuff'd child more than a beast? And is he not worse than a beast, in that having power to plot, by virtue of superior reason, he is master of more means of disturbance ? "Lest 1 be full and deny thee," was an ingenuous concession of the liability of human nature to be corrupted by luxury and superflu- ous gratifications. Never to let children know hun- ger and thirst, is to prevent their sympathizing with distress of those kinds. Pampering and nursing un- reasonable appetites, incurs clamour, and thoughtless expression* ; and a physical reason is obvious ; a sur- charge of the stomach and other organs, excites the recourse of voluntary energy to counteract a painful suppression, which, in some (degree, never fails to at- tend plethory of., the animal system. For all stuffings crowding, or urging the vessels or organs of the body- faster than they can convert aliment into blood, or 149 blood into other finer substances, directly induce ob struction, and retard that tree gentle circulation of the fluids, propitious to serenity. Now, voluntary motion being contrary to sensation, tends to lessen pain, by in- terruption, and likewise by dividing the sensorial power of the system: hence loud and harsh speaking ■ like the piercings of a sword,' hallooing, yelling, ob- streperious conviviality, amongst children: it being their labour, that helps them to digest that load of ali- ments which crowds them as a sort of goads, to violent exertion. Also a stufPd stomach presses the lungs so that it is impossible for them to speak audibly but by a strong impetus. One thing that encourages this habit, is the practice of rewarding children for their worthy acts, with sweetmeats, cakes, &c. instead of praise, friendship, books, and such things as would improve their minds and morals, at the same time that they would excite them to exercise themselves in the duties of their station. 5. A habit of lying. This odious habit subtly gets ground very early in those who are tolerated in much prattling; when, their first abberations from strict verity not being impressively marked out as objects of abhorrence and scandal by their dearest patrons and admirers, they soon and easily come to reckon an in- different thing to speak contrary to what they think ; which never being punished, how should the dear little chatterers know it to be a crime ? Directly, it comes about to serve some desirable end of theirs, to repre- sent to another party, ideas different from what they have in their minds, or put together their words and ideas different from the relation they perceive between, 'them : then they have a reason ; and this, even allow- ing they begin to feel some faint vellications of the moral sense, whispering them ' it is not perfectly equi- table', is to them more satisfactory than no reason at all: now if they can get some favorite object by mis- *13 1M) representing their thoughts and deluding their com- panions, escape some task, or screen themselves from some accusation or punishment, they begin to think the end justifies the means : Which manner of judg- ing, determining, and speaking, soon grows habitual. Thus injustice gets a strong root very early in the sea- son of life ; which if not checked, presently spreads into the most malevolent slanders, perfidious swind- ling, and deep plotted delusions of avaricious men. When the habit has got that pitch that shame, com- punction, or a sense of honour, cannot be worked into an operation strong enough to revert the inclination, severe chastisement is necessary to be applied. A mark of disgrace or contempt, early set on it, would be very salutary. But so far are some parents from impressing their children with the real scandal of ly- ing, that they set them a pattern of the very thing. From what has been heretofore said, this further re- flection arises. Habit may be an attribztte of every one of our trains of ideas. From the fourfold opera- tion of the sensorium, by its capacity of irritation, of sensation, of volition, and of association, arise^ certain trains of ideas, which are denominated by the modes and capacities from which they have their original ex- citation. An idea that takes place in consecution to that motion which is the consequence of the contrec- tation of external bodies on the extreme terminations of the sensory, is called an irritative idea. An idea that takes place in consecution to that mode of the sensorial motions that is called sensation, is called a sensitive idea. An idea that takes place in consecu- tion to voluntary exertion, is called a voluntary idea. And an idea that takes place in consecution to that exertion that connects ideas, and connects other movements, in such sort that one follows or comcomi- tates another^ is called an associative or associate Mea. 151 Trains of these, are called irritative trains, sensi- tive trains, voluntary trains, and trains of association, or associative trains. These trains are reciprocally interrupted, and one, as it were, runs into another ; so that there are trains compounded of all these varieties of ideas. The predominance of either one or other of these in the usual tenour of our intellectual oper- ations, is . a general habit of a peculiar way of think- ing ; a cast of mind. Within the significancy of this, are several particular habits \ as a habit of anticipa- tion ; a habit of forgetting some sorts of ideas and of remembering others, &c. Here are circles of action. Those in whom the irritative trains prevail mostly „ i. e. in whom ideas of this sort most take place and em- ploy more of the sensorial energy than any other sorts, are such as are given to be fretiul and snappish gene- rally good mechanics, and men of nice observation- Those in whom the sensitive trains prevail, are the sorrowful, the sensuous, the sensual, the melancholy, and the malicious. Those in whom the voluntary trains take place most, aftbrd us specimens of enterprize : such as have distinguished themselves by magnanimity; among whom are some of the greatest philanthropists. In whom the associative trains prevail, we find prompt memories. Of these are the orators and poets. Hence the propriety of those descriptions which de- nominate one habit, a melancholy habit, another an indolent habit: — some, habits of gloomy reflection, habits of pertinancy, of change, a versatile habit, a habit of sullenness,a habit of constancy. 153 CHAPTER. IV. Of Improvement of Institutes, The word institute I use to denote something fixed and established with general consent, whether a re- lation, mode, or substance, or a combination of any of these, used as a mean or medium for the promotion of education. As a system of geometry ; a school. There are four kinds of institutes : I. Parental gard ; II. Books ; III. Seminaries ; and IV. Religious es- tablishments. I shall take notice of what particular ways each of these is manifestly abused, or evidently wanting, with reference to its object ; and mention some of those particulars wherein I think they may be amended, or more advantageously applied. First, parental gard. This institute is partly from nature, and partly from human resolve and concur- rence. The patriarchal government in China, from time immemorial, extends to the full controul of the child's temporal course, equally to any popular insti- tution. Yet the father is a monarch over his family ; which is contrary to nature : it being repugnant to the moraZlaw which contemplates the preservation of the species, and the extension of its enjoyment, not only for one man to tyrannize over any of his fellow crea- tures, by circumscribing in any degree their natural liberty of conscience which results to them from the possession of common properties radicated in their constitution by authority of the physical law, but, fur- thermore, is manifest usurpation for any parent to ex- 153 ercise juridical authority over his children after their arriving at the age of manhood, which in civilized com- munities is generally fixed at twenty-one years, and I think, with good reason ; for it is just that the child before he encumbers himself with the cares and obliga- tions of parentage, should' stay to make some amends to his own parent for his sustenance and education, by the offices of filial gratitude, which in themselves con- centrate a reciprocation of sublime happiness. There- fore this institute, placing children in the condition of dependance on their originals for sustenance and initi- ation in science, which is established partly by the law of nature, and partly by human laws, is perfectly apposite to implicit views in the general constitution of animated nature. For, in the first place, the off- spring is not capable, for the want of knowledge and strength, to preserve its existence: and this institution well manag'd, secures the perfection of what appears to be universally design'd as the final goal of all con- stitutional modes and measures, which is the preserva- tion of existence, and consummation of enjoyment. This is an important thing with parents. The obliga- tion this brings parents, is critical. This thing is abus'd, to the daily depravation of human intelligences : a repression of their parts, arid perversion of their endowments to base pursuits. This institute is abused several ways. f. By parents neglecting to use compulsion and re- straint with infants. Parents defer coercive measures to force their infant children into such modes of sub- sistence and action as are essentials in the ceremr- nial applicatives of virtuous purposes; but are inured to allow scope to their spontaneous advances, as if they would grow into virtue, as stature, the first light of nature guiding them to what is good, when it in fact directs them (at the present posture of human society) in the exactly reverse course: for how can it be ima- 154 gined that the infant, not knowing that it is just and reasonable that he should sit still and eat his meals in one place, go to his rest at regular hours, be inoffen- sive, submissive, and quiet, shall go ultroneously into the practice of such duties, which being repeated have an invincible tendency to habit ? For there is scarce a mode of exerting our powers and parts, that is not to be made both easy, and in some degree agreeable, by custom. But in fact he is impulsed to clamour, to gluttony, to irregularity* to disobedience, to headiness, to violent motions. All these have their natural causes ; but there is a train of causes and effects that reaches to the consummation of human enjoyment ; and this is our moral law of nature. To address him with lan- guage, is trifling: and it is absolutely indispensable to confine him by unreserved cons' raint, to a mechanical compliance with such rules and prescripts as the pa- rent and nurse knowing to be good, the child's appre- hension is incapable of receiving and appling by means of their address. This mechanical conformity soon becomes habitual ; and those manners which for the well being of the family and their own future en- joyment, are absolutely necessary for children to practice, are now learned at a much cheaper and more advantageous rate, than after other habits having taken place, must be pre-requisitely reversed, they would be compassed at the beck of deliberate reflection. It* parents would compel their children to a regular course of action ; and addict them at least to regular- ity in all those repeated resorts and exercises that pertain to their subsistence, a great deal would be done towards laying a solid foundation of active vir- tue. It is proper that pain should be instituted to in- variably follow any capricious and useless violence, as crying, from trifling inconvenience (most especially when from the impulse of anger) that if the child can- not be made to apprehend any other thing that shall io5 persuade him that it is proper and necessary to be si- lent, he- may be induc'd to consider the urgency of it as a recourse to avert his own sufferance, and, though he yet cannot know the reason, comply, at his peril : which silence when habituated, is propitious to domes- tic tranquility not only, but eminently go to a purpose of contemplation, which is in future to adorn and exalt the mind of the child's self. Regularity in hours of eating, sleeping, shifting of clothes, washing, and in quantity and quality of diet, is a consideration of in- fluential moment. i I % actually humouring them to the most deprav- ing gratifications. It is a subject of admiration to see those people who appear on several occasions to be affected with a deep sense of immortality and the eternal weal of spiritual things, treating their offspring daily as if they had no souls at all : for it is not easy to conceive what idea they have in their heads, of the intelligent part, the soul, the understanding, of any of their children, when they are habitually using them as play-things, gratifying all their irregular desires, nurs- ing their worst passions by countenancing those violent sallies of volition wherein these are accustomed to find their exhaustion. One would think they were essaying to make daemons of them in good earnest, or consid- ered them as mere apes. Let not such people say much of the nature of tw * ul ; for it is in the nature of the soul to have bad passions, and the nature of these to grow by gratification. The fact is, the pa- rent allows the ideas of that pleasure which attended the origin of them, and of the endeared scenes of courtship, too strongly to coalesce with the ideas of the persons of these children ; by which associations he is constantly impulsed to inticing caresses, the scope whereof being his own private sensitive pleasure, a serene sort of exhileration of his own spirits, admits no scrutiny of the motives and emergence of moral 156 qualities they call forth or cherish. He considers not that love and joy should not be fixed to frivolous and evanescent things ; that angry emotions should be re- pressed, instead of being cherish'd. He goes so far as :o set them apish patterns, and drill them to such monkev tricks as can have no pretence to any other object than amusement; enters the lists among them in play, but considers not that though all these man ce- vres are mere diversion to himself, they are important business to the children. Men are too apt to make themselves the standards of all persons when considering their thoughts and feel- ings. I would not totally disuse this sort of applica- tions : when considered with a view to ground some useful mechanical arts by familiarizing their proper movements when the parts are ductile, they are lauda- ble. But when tending to excite extravagant laughter, or joy on immoment considerations, to foster resent- ment, countenance clamour, or to indulge children in such mancevres and set them such patterns as attach the passions love, fear, hope, joy, anger, &c. to impro- per objects, they are imminently pernicious. This capricious playing with children has a tendency to these two capital effects, which are so universally to be deprecated : 1st. It gives them a playfulness, a proneness to play, in the privation of which they are encumbered with ennui, and aversion to some objects inseparable from common life. 2d. It disqualifies them for, and gives them an almost unconquerable averseness to, exercises of reflection, such as contemplation, study, attention, &c. Now it is too well known what for- midable impediments these throw in the way of their initiation in necessary knowledge and art ; and in how many instances they forever block up their proficien- cy ; wherefore they remain vulgar, and contract inso- lence and rudeness, consecrating all immorality ! for vain are books, teachers, schools, and all manner of in- 157 stituies, without willing application of mind. Several effects of these, might be traced to the moral sense, in the way of some habitudes of the passions and trains of thought. But what seems the most unaccountably ridiculous in this kind of treatment of children, is teaching them to articulate incorrectly, while it were easier in them to learn proper words, and give them the proper sound. This is giving them a different lan- guage ; and may subtly insinuate into their minds a persuasion that they are a distinct class, and are to live differently from others around them ; at least it helps among other odd things, to assemble in their heads romantic ideas to precede and confuse their real ones. But it unquestionably impedes their articulation. I know of no excuse has been made for (his : it seems to be one of those fashions the world runs headlong into, they, know not wherefore. A habit of levity sometimes comes from this playing discipline ; since it gives a gadding turn to the spirits ; and also the accumulation of that sort of power, in the recession, produces after- wards restlessness, and this is unsteadiness already. How little does the commonalty imagine that by this Mightiness of the young, the extravagance of the world is to be traced very much to such a sort of treatment of children! Some are wearied out by importunity: so, from time to time gratify their children in their in- stinctive and puerile vagaries; which festers and strengthens bad passions. Teasing overpowers them. This is weakness of mind, from want of cultivation. Thus the world is corrupted, in one generation after another, for want of cultivation of mind ! Of so great consequence is this cultivation ! Indeed every degree of order and civilization, grow? out of this. It is that whereby we come at a knowledge of the laws of na- ture. It is to this we owe the perfect distinction of what is right and wrong, in the delusive multiformity ot our prospects. Would parents go about to collect 14 108 a philosophic view of this subject, they would so tar induce improvement upon this institute. For hereby they would abide in such treatment as would use the faculties of their offspring in a manner propitious to their advancement towards the end propos'd by nature, consummation of enjoyment. Now, this consumma- tion implies sublimation or refinement, as well as en- largement. This view requires cultivation of mind. More of this hereafter. III. There is another class who repress that which would be a proper degree of ardour, and use of a due degree of freedom : who injure their children by too much constraint. This is a common case mth mas- ters, who exercise no feeling towards foreign poor in their gard. They rear them to ignorance and vulgar- ity, besides giving them a slavish spirit. It would re- flect honour on human nature if governments would institute permanent provision for the employment, support, and instruction of all poor youth. IV. By parents' neglecting to give their offspring an attachment to the means and processes of learning. For, by failing to associate pleasing ideas with the ne- cessary preludes of knowledge and art, we preclude all inclination to sound voluntary thinking, and can never superinduce a propensity to study and contem- plation. V. By neglecting to give judicious precepts and examples to youth, and pursue them in such ways as to fix good principles. Many impart no precepts at all, but proceed as if they thought the children had mature reason and judgement; — when they have done any thing irregular, asking them the question, why ? wherefore f referring to a proficiency equal to their own experience: which is a ridiculous specimen of that degree of assurance with which people set out upon the executing of some business. It is important to be acquainted with the subject of what one under- 159 takes to be master of. Again ; having given good ad- vice and wholesome precepts, some continue to exhi- bit adverse examples: examples, which, from habit, they find their enjoyment adjuvated by acting, wit - out considering their influential character at all. Thus we see a universal disorder, from want of cultivation of mind, carrying on its baleful efficiency into all parts of the business of civil life. They are apt not to be considerate of power and manner, nor to be scrupu- lous of displaying any thing in their practice, repug- nant to what they have, in words, enjoin'd. This is a subject that ought to be critically studied. The im- portance of this, is conspicuous in reflection. Under this head, is concinnous to mention a sort of example people shew in punishing or rewarding children. The inconsiderate is apt to imagine the impression of what is designed, has the knack to supersede all other im- pressions. That which is most effective is seen in their punishments. Many of us, besides humouring our children inordinately, yet after having borne and for borne, with a degree of pusillanimity, their impudence, till it is grown into a very exasperating effrontery, fly at them in a fit of anger like wild beasts of prey. This is abusively trilling with the rational intelligence; for the precedent of resentment is more efficient in the mind of the tyro than any thing else that is done. And indeed this is the essential mould of the onset; it being a retaliatory scheme to inflict pain, which if it be done, we feel gratified, and our plea is the good of the child: but the pleading is not sound. Much anger must not appear, in punishment, on account of the contagious fascination of example. It defeats the purpose of correction. Oftentimes the whole bluster is to no other execution at all than to exemplify re- sen'-nent to the tender minds of the curious tyros: anc* the greater the degree of anger, generally the less affiic ive in its des*s ned effect ; and the reason is, the 160 exhaustion of the spirit in voluntary thinking, cuts it short in the sequel. Rewards also are often unsea- sonably applied ; and thereby fail of their desired ef- . feet. Some remember a child's desert at a time when they should think of punishing him ; and give him a reward in such a conjuncture that it seems to be for his doggedness. VI. By denying them access to schools y or else iwi- peding and perplexing that access in a manner that frustrates it. The infant must needs be manag'd at home. But the bulk of mankind is under necessity of having their attention taken up by some objects that pertain to subsistence, while their children in their adolescent state needing the hand of a tutor when theirselves cannot educate them, is requisite a hired teacher take charge of them. They need the constant oversight of some one, in all parts of their use of the day, till such time as good principles and habits shall have been fixed in a fair way of progressing towards per- fection Not only while the child remains within the pales of his seminary; but on his way, and in all in- terims, a controuling eye need pursue him with cir- cumspection and concern. If it be reasonable that he idle away time in sauntering about his road to school; if it be reasonable that he enter the orchards and gar- dens of his neighbors, devour or carry off their fruit; if it be reasonable that he enter into bickerings with his pheers, or spend his time in prosecuting plots of imposture or mischief; he should be indulged with freedom to do these things: if not, either his teacher or his parent should decidedly hold jurisdiction over him in these intervals. Here originates great trouble. The parent will neither give up this jurisdiction, nor exercise it. The tutor, on the other hand, will not assume it to himself, on account of the variance about it. This dispute is carried farther. It is denied, in effect, that the tutor, with propriety has cognizance of 161 the child's moral conduct. Here is a childish falling out, and quarrelling; among men, about trifles. If it be reasonable that the child be kept within the bounds of decorum, and also in the way of accustoming that which is good, in its remote bearings; then it is requi- site that either the proprietor, or deputed instructor of the child, have cognizance of his course ; that he hold and exercise authoritative jurisdiction of it. If it be more reasonable that the tutor have this controul of the scholar, in his appropriating all parts of the clay, than that the parent or guardian should have it ; let it be so ; or if it be most reasonable that the latter should retain the jurisdiction so far as the child's absence from school, let him exercise it: but it ought to be de- cidedly awarded to one or the other, and exercis'd too, by whomsoever it does belong to; since "a child left to himself brings his parents to shame." Mankind from want of knowledge, and due culti- tivation of natural faculties, are addicted to consider the modalities of a subject rather than the essence. Hence they contract aversion to teachers on account of their way of living, habits of regimen, their gait, their dialect, their air, and a thousand incidental cir- cumstances ; and under impression of this, retract their children from schools ; or temporizing to their puerile caprice, indulge them alternately with a few days' absence, then a few days' attendance ; wherein they can get no proficiency ; what ideas and exercise intervene to the trains of their studies, utterly over- powering the associations and habits that were begun ; and they are brought to more labour to recollect their little gatherings of learning, than was required at first to get them. For whatever sort of necessary knowledge or art they are put about requisitely ac- quiring the ideas of, arithmetic, reading, geography or writing, things indispensable in common life, these other ideas suffer'd to gupervene in the interims (of their re- •£4i 162 cession,) being what are associated with the prevailing ordinary pleasures of their stations, come in a more ex- citing form, and inevitably supersede if not obliterate the other. Any business must be pursued long enough to form a circle of action not only, but to also col- lect greater pleasure than another ready resort, before it can get the invariable bias of choice. Therefore this is the key j this is the secret with judicious teachers, of grounding a good education ; to collect more pleasure in the view of their process, than what prevails in averse views. And this, in the beginning, must be done by parents. A tutor can never do it without the concurrence of the parent, in some shape or other, for the following reasons, viz : 1. The child draws the first pleasures of its exis- tence from his parent ; and these first pleasures are of a nature to prevail in the substantiating of a tempera- ment of passions, because, first, they are continued with constancy for a considerable time, and are con- nected with the means of his existence; and secondly because the system being more delicate than ever after, takes stronger impressions. 2. The pupil being at home in the company of his parents and nurses the greatest part of the day, is more naturally biassed by their agency than by that of a tutor ; which, if their works be different, will impel him in as different a course, and will be found diffi- cult to supersede strong by weak; to overcome the original by the secondary. The teacher needs to be respected by the parent, and treated as a brother; es- pecially within the observance of pupils nothing should be said either derogatory or diminutive of him i the reverse is imminently pernicious. People are too apt, in presence of their children, to speak of their in- structors as servants and drudges, from that common aptitude arising from ignorance and depravity, to underrate the business of instruction. They even with 163 open opprobrium represent the occupation as -a low- fawning capricious subsistence, while theirselves are the cause ot its being such. They go still farther : on the most frivolous pretexts of umbrage, the slight- est misgoings of these instructors, they rush headlong into virulent phillipicks upon their characters, that re- flect contemptuous ideas into all bystanders. Little do they think of the prejudicial effects this operates in their listening offspring ; poorly do they conceive of the magnitude of the mischief; for it crosses the dear- est wishes of their own hearts, since it tears away the foundation of deference to all supervizing authority. Vainly now may they anticipate reverence, obedience, and the fruits of filial gratitude. Such is the impor- tance of respectful ideas of an instructor, in the mind of a pupil : but rnorf* of this hereafter. Vll. By the general extravagance of the multitude ex- hibiting depraving examples and consecrating corrupt manners, this institute is further more abus'd, and parents and children robbed of the blessings naturally affixed to an improvement of it. Reciprocal is the felicity of this condition, when improved according to the laws of nature. Children are most influenced by their parents, nurses, relations, companions, and neighbours: the examples these shew them, are apt to fix their charac- ters. The epidemic corruption of the wide world pestilentially steals into their innocuous hearts, and by one insinuation or another, biasses them to arrant af- fections. All this may be circumscribed, and finally countermined, by a circumspection of parents, having at first the energy of their minds concentrated upon this subject. The improvement to be suggested in this part, is for parents to keep their children out of the thoroughfare of temptations. This is negative. There is a process of positive advances to the weal of «inoral good ; which consists in studied insinuations, bv pre- 161 ceptand example, io counteract the influence of extern nal excitements. VIII. By ingratitude of youth. Children, by un grateful perversion of the good things they receive from the authors of their being, with their eyes fairly open to right and wrong, cherishing a habit of disrt* puting others' feelings, harden their necks, to the mu- tual deprivation of themselves and parents of the purest of earthly happiness : for what is more serene- ly charming than the domestic circle can be made ? Yet these exclude domestic happiness ; and afterwards treat with cold aversion and neglect, the source from which they emerged with all their supernumerary train of gratuitous and undeserved enjoyments. And in this they are almost unpardonable : for, the child, hav- ing become enlightened in the laws of nature, so as to know moral good and evil in the character of his con- dition, that is, knowing this institute and the use of it, if he falh away, he ensures to himself a horrific re- trospect wherein he is annoyed by those emotions of compunctious anguish which are an effect entailed by the constitution of nature upon his conscious and con- fest infringements ; as has been intimated in elucidat- ing the idea of sympathy. I here speak of children as acting for themselves, and being under obligations. It is the duty of children to be grateful to their pa- rents. There is a duty for children to do; and they have power to do it : they know how to do it. Here we suppose their judgment to be mature; that they know their obligations, and the means to perform them. Both in youth and manhood they are indebted to those who gave them life and sustenance, so far as to cherish an aifectionate regard for them ; as well as purposes of restitution whereever there is scope and support herefor^. * He that's ungrateful (says the poet) has no fault but one ; all other crimes may pass for virtues in him.' 46a How can human beings be unfeeling towards the au- thors of their being, sustenance and nurture? They can be so, as all human nature is susceptible of evil. Every event has a natural cause ; an ascendancy, in moving or moved matter. The essence of ingratitude consists in a want of cultivation of natural affection: for what is more natural than for us to love our benefactors ? and what greater benefactors can there be than those who gave us life and initiation? It seems like repressing the readiest emotions of sympathy. Were here place, I would point out some particular causes that lead up to this abuse But it is here supposed the tyro has receiv'd good precepts, good examples, from his parent; that he is sensible of these, and sensible of a series of good endeavours therein, to conform him to virtue ; that he has perceiv'd the solicitude of those who brought him upon the stage, concerning his moral character. Here is great burden on his own conscience; — for af- ter ha\ing receiv'd the knowledge of the truth, then falling away by resistance or avoidance into the path of immorality, is, in a sense, unnatural. This demon- strates the ingratitude of the agent. How can the ofl- springbevoid of natural affection to the stock? Af- fection that is efficient to prompt to works of justice ? Sympathy lessens in proportion to the unlikeness ot its ofjject in age, appearance, moving, and peculiarities of habits. It is very useful therefore in many cases, for the parent or instructor to exhibit the appearance of juve- nile habits. This may awaken the strongest impulses of sympathy. After all has been said of ingratitude, children are not so heinously ungrateful as is generally imagined. Free rational agents, they frame schemes and views for themselves. They plot : peradventure, too early, Care should be taken that there be not ad- mitted them large and splendid views of life ; nor too rapid openings of science, which may carry their feel- ings above the comparatively little concernments of 166 their real condition. They view their parents as all other bystanders, equal agents capable of benefiting and of annoying their darling purposes. They cannot pointedly persecute, or feel indifferent to, those pa- rents in the character of authors and preservers of their being. They are not ungrateful to them as au- thors and preservers. They have not in their minds the contemplation of those characters. Ingratitude in them, is neglect and avoidance of reflection on what they ought to be reflecting on. It is the character of that want of thoughtfulness and sedate observance of natural impressions, according to the design of nature : a want of thought ; a neglect of pursuing and cher- ishing certain sentiments. The whole may be general- ly traced to natural causes in the managery of their nurture : a pretermission of which, is calculating upon extraorninary force of sympathy and energy of vir- tue in youth. But when they get into years of man- hood,there is little excuse for them if they will not cultivate a tender advertence to the weal of their pa- rents ; for justice cannot grow on such soil. They can scarcely be disinterestedly just or honorable. A parent is cruelly contristatcd by the perception of the ingratitude of a child. The child is not sensible of this i nor is the parent sensible of this insensibility and ignorance of the child ; but feels a persuasion that he acts with absolute malignity. Perhaps this is one of the greatest evils under the sun. It is the most grievous calamity that betides human society. Reflect on this, children of all ages ! Consider this coincidence of circumstances, flowing out of the nature of things ! the source of the keenest, most inconsolable grief in- cident to humanity ! Consider the pains, the watch- ings,your parents have experienced for you in your helpless state; the tender cares, the anxious solicitude they ielt for your weal ; the griefs for your afflictions and dangers ; their complacent hopes, their enchanting itiy anticipations of your virtue, peace, and honorable en* jojment of the. stage of social life ; and how great a part of their own happiness hung upon the considera- tion of your future consequence and well being! Let it not have been altogether visionary Poison not the haunts of serene pleasure by blasting such reason- able hopes, and wildly frustrating those pleasing schemes that grow out of natural affection. Let not the placid emotions nature has interlocked with the tender scene of the domestic relations, be harrowed up by the abrupt intervention of so contristating a disap- pointment : It casts a gloom over the whole lace of the social stage ! Look at the brute creation. Look at the stork of the wilderness ! Look at the untutored savage ! Is not this an institution of nature ? That power that directs the organiz'd race to seek the continuation of their existence, institutes gratitude. It annexes the obligation of gratitude to the relation of offspring to stock. Secondly. Books are another kind of institutes, I shall next notice. The world is overloaded with books of all descriptions ,* of which, tew deserve the name of institutes by their serviceableness towards their proper end. Some are calculated to vitiate rather than improve education: to promote bad rather than good education. Romances, tales, polemic tracts of the ecclesiastics, rituals, and works treatii g of spiri- tual beings, are those which have the most flimsy pre- tences to the promotion of human improvement. The books which most concinnously wear the title of in- stitutes, are systematical treatises of sciences and arts, containing maxims and rules to teach knowledge and method : such as systems of arithmetic, grammar, natural philosophy, morality medicine, mechanics, &c. The greatest defect noticeable in these things, in ge- neral, is a want of natural order. Perhaps a refor- mation of language would go far towards remedying 168 this ; since a diversity in the use of words, making the same word stand for various ideas, and again, on the other hand, the same idea to be denoted by various words, introduces great confusion, and seeming devia- tion from fixed principles in the constitution of natuie whereon aspire the structures of human science. If men should be conducted by that gentle gradation wherewith the constituent ideas that make up any sec- tion of knowledge, are progressively engendered, un- der a due proportional, unbiassed appropriation of their natural powers (and afterwards arranged accord- ing to their use ar.d bearings, into their specific de- partments of learning) they would be trained to the most apt and successful way of communicating. Men are not accomplished to teach, till they understand the very rise of their subject, and the trains whereby their own apprehension compassed an acquaintance with its bearings Thus, if an institute of arithmetic should begin with the formation of the idea of number ;- of grammar, with the origin of sound and its designa- tion by visible objects, thence proceeding to the se- veral ways of articulating, and the parts exerted, to produce each sound ;-of astronomy, with the principles of the rules for deducing true quantities from assumed ones by way of a relation that objects magnified by glasses, have, to measured ones seen by the naked eve ;- now much more agreeable to the gradation eminent throughout the works of nature ! This, while it spreads the foundation of a particular science, beyond the ex- act limits of that science itself, gives an abstract view of the more general division it belongs to, and shews its connections; a repetition of which sort of views, increases the capacity of the understanding. Learners from institutes, must begin with the most simple. The most simple ideas, of a system, are the most abstracted ones; — as being, substance, manner, succession, white- ness, hardness, sound, motion, &c. The most natural 109 W!) livisiou of human science and art, t suppose to be that vhicli under the term philosophy, disposes all the ob- jects of our speculation into three branches, which are called natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and ra- tional philosophy. Natural philosophy teaches the knowledge of substances, their relations, properties, powers, affections, and operations, as number, figure, motion, &c. Moral philosophy is the science of find- ing out such rules and measures to the voluntary ac- tions of men as tend to happiness in general, and to the accomplishment of their desired ends in particu- lar. Rational philosophy embraces the nature, use, and proper arrangement and modification, of those signs employed by intelligent creatures in getting the knowledge of things ; forming opinions which may be influential on their moral conduct; and in communi- cating their thoughts one to another. Now the condi- tion of men being such as to necessarily intervolve these several sorts of knowledge, it is indispensable that some institutes within the scope of any of these branches, participate of the principles essential to those belonging to another: as an institute of morality partakes of physic and metaphysic. And, again, one particular science, of those of another: as an institute of geography interferes with astronomy. Conse- qently sciences are classed according to their drift, as it comports with the general design of those depart- ments whereander they are ranked. But above all, natural philosophy contains the primordial ingredients of all other science and art whatever. It is imme- diately connected with the nature of man, a know- ledge of the active and passive power of whose whole system, is indispensable to the finishing of this. So, a" system of ethics, which being built on, requisitely Includes, the several discriminative ideas of the con- stitution of human nature, falls under that distinct branch called moral philosophy ; because the uniform 15 170 receptory aim, both in the case of the particular and the general instance of its appropriation, is the direc- tion of mankind's voluntary actions by certain modi- fications towards the universal goal of all intelligent purposes ; the subsidiary views of men, or the prime design of nature to preserve and happify the members of her family. Now these heads are conspicuously distinct; and I know of no other predicamental distribution of these sorts of objects, that is perfectly so. 'For there is nothing that can employ our thoughts, or any way im- press our mind, but 1st. Things as they are, metaphy- sically, in themselves; substances whether material or immaterial, with their properties, affections, and re- lations ; 2d. That which dependant rational intelli- gences, like ourselves, may or ought to do, in order to obtain their ends; or 3d. The signs which they make use of, in both the one and the other of these, which are ideas, which are the signs of things;* and articu- late sounds, figures, motions, and colours, which are the designed signs of ideas. Natural philosophy comprehends three general divisions, which may be called metaphysic, physic, and history, Metaphysic is the science of beings, abstract from the considera- tion of their efficient operation ; realities as they stand in relation to our apprehensive capacity, and inactive. Physic is the science of causes and effects (instituted in "the constitution of matter;) and proportional rela- tion. History is that part of natural philosophy which embraces so much of the knowledge of things as that of their exterior modalities exclusive of the conside- ration of their relative powers and operations;— as their figure, dimensions, colour, and relative situations; and also the distinguishing points of fleeting existence, considered barely as evanescent appearances in rela- * Locke., 171 tion to time and place ; as the actions of living beings, &c. Metaphysic has been divided into six parts, called 1, ontology, or the doctrine of the general essence of all beings and their essential attributes considered a priori : 2, cosmology, the knowledge of the essence of the world and all it contains; S, anthropology, the knowledge of man, in his parts and properties, consi- dered as a distinct species of being; 4, psychology or knowledge of soul in general, and of the soul of inai in particular; 5, pnenmutology the theory of separate spirits, as angels, &c ; and 6, theodicy, or the doctrine of the existence of God, his attributes and perfections. Physic is divided into chymistry, physiology, optics, medicine, music; arithmetic, geometry, mechanics; meteorology and astronomy. History may be divid- ed into geography; natural history; biography; gene- ral history or history of nations, communities, king- doms, states, empires, ages ; and adventitious histon , as history of wars, expeditions, &c, and this is mixed of the two former, implicating the a:tions of indivi- duals and of collections. These, three last are some- times eall'd moral history, in contradistinction to geo* graphy and natural history. Moral philosophy is divided into ethics and handi- craft. Ethics is either sublime or formulary. The former teaches the true metaphysical aspects of sym- pathy, obligation, passion, will, and voluntary move- ments, and their causes and effects founded in the constitution of nature: the latter, ceremonies and me- thods, that, applicatory of the science to the purpose of human happiness, constitute the duties of life. Han- dicraft comprises all the rules and designs of mechanic arts, to exercise and employ the organs and powers of men for the procurement of a livelihood, or promot- ing the improvement of parts. 17^ Rational philosophy comprehends logic, grammar, and rhetoric. I do not conceive why music, which consisting altogether of ideas of sounds and their re- lations, all which sounds and relations are partly by nature and partly by general consent, made to stand for certain thoughts and feelings, the whole import of xhe science being involved m this same significancy, can mean little else than doctrine of signs, does not Reserve to be ranked in this department of lore. Chymistry discloses and distinguishes the elements of all material beings; the changes they are capable of; their relative properties and efficiency ; and shews how one body may be changed into another species, by cassating some of its secondary qualities and supplying others. Physiology investigates the constitutions of living organized beings, and explains their powers; and com- prehends anatomy a description of the structure and parts of animal bodies - ; the skill of the several mea- sures and principles whereby they perform their mo- tions; and that metaphysic which treats of the opera- lions of cogitative substances. Now, if ideas be mo- tions of sensitive matter, and if the only thinking in- telligent beings we have any real knowledge of, be animals, I see not why what science under the ancient predicament of metaphysic, had for its province mind, and whose scope was to illustrate the operations and aftection,s of thinking beings, is not properly included in this branch. For all motion of sensitive matter as a part of an organiz'd system, (alls of course within the province and scope of physiology. Since meta- physic seems to be nothing other, effectually, than what constitutes the proper, necessary objects of all and any sort qf science, considered abstractedly from all peculiar application and operation ; and in a word, the science of abstract ideas ; metaphysic may be a part of every science; or rather it is but a form and cha- 173 racier into which every one may be thrown, a sublime view of being. Vegetable organization, also, as well as animal, comes under the consideration of physio- logy- . Optics is a science that discloses the nature and laws of vision, and partakes of meteorology and phy- siology, as light and the organ of seeing, are its pri- mordial ideas. Medicine explains the phenomena of diseases inci- dent to the bodies of animals; and the powers and effects of several other bodies on these, in relation V) such diseases, and applied as remedies, — this part is called materia medica. This science partakes of chymistry, natural history, and physiology. Music considered as a physical science, is other- wise harmonics, the skill of harmony; shewing the relations of sounds, and the laws and measures where- by their combinations produce certain effects. Arithmetic contemplates merely the nature and uses of number ; and treats of the characters whereby its several variations are designated, and the ways for applying its diversification inductively, for the discovery of truth. Geometry explains the phenomena and proportions of figure ; its modes and relations. Mechanics shews us the laws of communicated motion; the proportional mobility of bodies; and the measures and degrees whereby force may be convey'd and applied from one body to another. This includes statics. Meteorology is the science that explains the na- ture and causes of the several sorts ot meteors that make their appearance about our globe ; which are either ae- rial, aqueous, igneous, or mixed : the principal where- of are the atmosphere and the several sorts ot air as far as electrical fluijj, wind, or current of air, hurricanes, whirlwinds, thunder ; exhalations, dew, fogs, mists, rain, waterspouts 9 frost, sleet, hail, snow ; light, ignis- *15 174 tatuus, falling stars, lightning, earthquakes, aurora bo- realis ; clouds, rainbows, parnelions, halos. Astronomy treats of the motions, magnitudes, dis- tances, figures, relative operations and influences of the great bodies of the world ; as suns, planets, comets. Geography describes the surface of the globe, its several natural and artificial divisions, its lakes, ri- vers, mountains, states, kingdoms, &c ; and is distin- guishable into three sorts, as it participates of astro- nomy, natural history, and moral history. Natural history defines the several fixtures and de- pendencies of the earth we inhabit; and is divided into zoology, a description of animals ; botany a de- scription of vegetables ; and mineralogy a descrip- tion of stones, fossils, minerals, metals, earths, &c. Biography describes the trains of particular per- sons' actions, and the incidents immediately connec- ted therewith. General history describes those of communities of men ; tribes, nations, &c. Adventitious history is con- fined to the consideration of particular enterprizes or courses of events, which are determinate. As wars, voyages, journies, embassies, expeditions, plagues, fe- vers. These varieties of history, although their ingredi- ents may seem to be objects of assent rather than of knowledge, are class'd among the sciences because these things are supposed to be real, what others have actually known making up a great part of the stock. In short, moral history no farther belongs to the physi- cal department of philosophy than its objects are con- sidered matters of speculative truth; which are events taken place, and their periods, and either the relative points of duration, which mark noticeable occurrences, the registry whereof is called chronology ; the actions of particular persons, called biography; or the trans- actions of bodies of men, fortune of nations, &c. most* 473 ly called general history. As a branch ol rational philosophy, it is description; particular use of signs to display those objects ; which itself being made an ob- ject of our speculation, falls under the consideration of rhetoric. Ethics treats of will, volition and its motives, li- berty, obligation ; and explains the active and passive powers of man, as they concern the modification of his duties. Sublime ethics is an abstract consideration of the active and passive powers of men, as free intelligent agents, and the physical tendency of their voluntary actions, from which it deduces their obligation For- mulary ethics searches out ihe right modes of these actions as means to attain the greatest good; as vir- tuous habits : and to tins scope, explains laws, pre- cepts, and exercises to good measures. Out of these two, are framed the science and art of education. Handicraft comprises the secrets of the measures of all those arts used for the subsistence and entertain- ment of mankind. Of these arts, are two kinds : sublime arts and mechanic arts. The sublime arts are alchymy, poetry, music, oratory, painting, sculpture, architecture, navigation, reasoning. The mechanic art*, are hunting, clothing, husbandry, surveying, printing, smithery, engraving, building, cooking, penmanship, and innumerable others. Logic teaches the art of reasoning, and rightly arrang- ing ideas and words, so far as concerned in the estab- lishment of truth. It comprehends description and ar- rangement of the materials of all our knowledge and opinion, which are ideas, the signs that to our under- standings represent things; likewise several opera- tions of the mind ; and is, in institutes, generally di- vided into four parts, which are called 9 simple appre- hension, judgment, reason, and method." Grammar contemplates the nature of articulate 176 language, its progressive formation) its customary modes, arid Its propriety. ilhetoiic is the science of expression. It has two parts : i xpression of feeling and expression of thoughts. To this end, it considers the definition of words, and several modes of motion and sound fitted to -display and excite certain sentiments and emotions. Civilized nations are possessed of several valuable institutes in natural, moral, ami rational philosophy. Some of the best whereof, under the first head, are Eu- clid's, elements of geometry, Newton's, Locke's, and Darwin's works. Under the second, Smith's theory of nigral sentiments, Seneca's morals, Tully's offices* Hutchinson's system of morality, economy of human life, the proverbs of Solomon, and the preachings of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. And under the last, Tooke's diversions of Purley, Perry's and Murray's grammatical works and selections ; Duncan's logic, Bailey's and Johnson's dictionaries. Now since knowledge of these several sorts, is pro- miscuously induced ; is impossible to be otherwise than that learners come at knowledge in either of these di- verse predicaments with irregular alternations, be- cause the scenes of this stage of our existence, are in perpetual fluctuation : but there is a train which in- structors can maintain by skill and art; a train of means, aud exercises of mind, may be kept up by skill and art, that substantiates a sort of uniform scale of education. Yet natural philosophy is the founda- tion of all other science. The knowledge of things physically, must constitute the basis of all digestsof knowledge and art. All systems necessarily have such ideas and combinations of ideas as are essentially discriminative of our speculative knowledge of natur- al existence, for their fundamental maxims. There- fore an initiation in natural philosophy, is an indispen- sable prerequisite tojhe digesting of the materials of 177 any class, order, kind, or sort of knowledge, into in- stitutes or scales of doctrine. Consequently although institutes of grammar are the first we make use of (of this kind) to teach children, yet this is not the first. knowledge they get : much physical knowledge is pre- viously stowed into their little heads. Yet the first literary institute required and properly employed about education, is that of language. One of the best of tins sort Englishmen were acquainted with, was drawn up by one William Perry, who furnished a clear and easy- method to initiate and train children in the use of the accustomed articulation of his countrymen's language. This system has been improved by Lind ley Murray. The only perfect. system would be none short of that which should afford a distinct character to every dis- tinct sound that is made by application of the organs of articulation. Thus, written words would have a regular formation, and a natural expression. Nothing more indubitably evinces the imbecile and childish manner men engendered knowledge and art, than their awkward shift of making one character do the office of a diverse representation, and another, that of one uniform sound. This shews how irregularly and slowly they blundered into what improvements they got ; and likewise how inveterately tenacious they are of inured manners. If men had made regular progress in improvement — i. e. in discovery and inven- tion, by way of perseverance and forecast, they would certainly have form'd their expressions according to the natural powers of things. There is consideration of exery particular sound produced by the articulating organs, as marking the difference of one word from another, and what is more rational than to denote this sound by a separate character? Darwin, an English philosopher, offered a scheme of natural representa- tion : also, Kneeland, an American, a similar improve- ment: but sue!) is the predominance of custom, and 178 such the inveterate fixure in the vulgar mind, of the association of the form with the import of so accumu- lated a body of literature as is infolded in a palliament which is spun out of that irregular stuff; that it is supposed to be impracticable to change the alphabet of any nation. As soon as the child is able to form sy ta- bles into words, give them their proper sound, and can understand some easy words, we put into his hands little moral institutes, contrived to insinuate by similitude and endearing description of example, the spirit of benignant principles. Care should be taken how these are written. A prevailing errour is, the ad- mitting of too many romantic images, which accus- toming the understanding to fantastical ideas, carry the affections beyond realities of nature, in this che- quered state of mediocrity. The next thing is an in- stitute of arithmetic. But very little proficiency can be attained in this branch, before the mind of the tyro being capable of discerning and comparing the modes of articulate language as it is represented by printed or written characters, it is proper to initiate him in etymology and syntax. After this he should complete the circuit of arithmetic. Next, geography should be learn'd. Next to this, institutes of logic and rheto* ric are appropriate. Note this ; during the progress through all other Sciences, ethics should be kept close and true to the understanding; it being that which applies its measures to all parts of the employment of our time. It is the science of sciences. It devises and directs the appropriation of all sciences and arts whatever. Morality, (says Mr. Locke,) is the great business of mankind. Moral philosophy undoubtedly comprehends the first essential concerns of education. Gradual institutes of this sort, must be successively applied, with scrupulous'reference to the weal of the rational intelligence. Of so great importance is this, that if the spirit of morality be lost from the channel 179 of physical and rational lore, other science usually proves a curse instead of a blessing, to the social stage It is medicine without skill, which cannot minister health, but destruction : machinery without motion, which only encumbers the domestic field, and precludes other advantages without superinducing any benefit. I have noticed a defect in institutes in the want of natural order of system, which, by a predicamental arrangement of the several ideas"that being progres- sively traced out by the inquiring mind, go to make up the body of a science, derives each from its genuine base and primordial; and elucidates the progressive steps of the intellect, in gathering its ascendant views of nature. I shall now take notice of two other de- fects conspicuous in several institutes extant; — 1- A want of succinctness ;— 2. A want of uniformity of expression. 1. The excellent advantages coming from succinct and comprehensive presentments, are acknowledged on all hands. Not only can the maxims be the longer retained within the memory; but more can be at once comprehended in memory." In all practical systems especially, this ought to be studied, as being a thing indispensable. Less time is taken up in communica- tion, and there is less diversion of attention from the subject belonging to the design: so that it gives life and force to all conveyances of thoughts. Many of our writers of practical tracts on the sciences, to whom the schools look as to standards of instruction, have been too circuitous and verbose; and interpos- ing an amusing display of general knowledge or emi- nent genius, neglected the study of this inestimable art of representing much in small compass. 2. Uniformity in the use of words, in the several systems made use of either, successively by the same persons, or of the same kind in different parts ot the 180 community, is of great consequence in the regulation of habits of thinking and arguing. Men are in the habits of using the same word in different places to signify different ideas; and also of denoting the same idea by various words. Sometimes this is done in one individual treatise, and then it is hardly tolerable un- less the writer do therein explain the use of his word every time he applies it in a sense different from com- mon usage or from what he had previously used it in. This is the only way men can be excused for using the words of their own country's language contrarily to common propriety, and the only way their writing can be made intelligible at all. Thirdly. Anotr.er kind of institute is a seminary. A seminary is constituted of— 1st. A determinate space that includes a commodious station for the assem- blage of a number of individual persons for the pur- pose of initiation in arts and sciences, by methodical exercises, and application of books ; 2d, select persons, deputed as tutors, to explain the books and supervise those exercises; and 3d, certain laws which are of two sorts: 1, such as regulate the proceedings within the seminary and prescribe ttie conduct of the attendants : 2, such as stipulate the appointment and sustenance of the instructors and the location and furnishing of the school, instituted either by bodies politic or vica- rious boards qualified for such institution. There are three sorts of seminaries. First, universities and in- corporate schools ; secondly, common public schools for the first principles of language, and accomplish- ments for ordinary life; thirdly, private schools kept by jobbers in the occupation. Seminaries of the first class, are either colleges designed for teaching the whole circle of human science ; or what are called academies used to prepare students for the former. There are deficiencies in the constitutions and use of these institutes. 181 First ; in those of universities may be observed con- siderable failings, as 1st. In the measures of the provision for supporting the establishments; which make the terms of indivi- duals' instruction expensive; so that none but the fa- vorites of fortune can have the benefit of college-edu- cation. This gives an aristocratical appearance to such institutions. "Full many a gem of purest ray- serene, ihe dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear," says the poet Gray ; and there is little doubt that seve- ral bright and philanthropic genios are lost to the world, in obscurity, by penury. Many intelligences with excellent natural qualities and great capacities, are precluded from the pleasure of such communica- tive operations as would, haply, have enlightened and ameliorated societies of mankind, and adorn'd and charm'd the stage of civil life. Little does the com- monalty imagine how this monopoly of the medium, to general improvement in science by the wealthy, favors that spirit of aristocracy which so abusivelv prevails in governments. Men thinking that none can be possessed of the secrets of the sciences and arts but those who command great pecuniary resources, look for standards among the pageant inheritors of this world's pelf; and, from looking for standards, they come to look to the same quarter for rulers. This is a consequence that is natural, and very obviously sus- ceptive to a course of reasoning from such principles, however fallacious. Millions of property lie dormant in the clutches of misers; and worse than dormant in the hands of the harlequins of pageantry, and the panders of destroying luxury, which, being appropri- ated to the support of seminaries, would yield a com- mon benefit to republican communities, and advance the cause of philanthropy by making that to be the free and equal advantage of all the natural pre-emi- nences in the constitution of humanity, whether found 16 n 182 among the poor or rich/instead of being monopolized by the favourites of. fortune, which otherwise was the immunity of the latter. A trifling taxation Mould, methinksjin addition to the funds already engendered, with what of that kind would supervene, be sufficient to render all manner of seminaries free. The univer- sal freedom of seminaries is a desideratum which would redound to the honor of human nature, in. the melioration of civil society; and i believe it is a thing essential to the only medium wherein we are to rise to a spirit of universal peace, whereby the true design and principles of Jesus Christ's doctrine shall prevail over all corrupt systems, to the introduction of that halcyon period wherein all mankind shall live like brethren, and be linked together in the bonds of cha- rity from one end of the world to the other. 2dly. In the laws and regulations which modify the operations of the school, the secret of keeping alive the spirit of moral principles is not critically improv- ed, by a skilful adherence to all laudable mechanical measures and recourses that tend to impress the im- portance of, and habituate moral virtue. Too much libertinism is yet to be deprecated as being suffered to prevail among the members of our seminaries. Mo- ral exercises should be attended daily, and that with- out their being marred by any taint of superstition. Again: in the timing and arrangement of studies which scholars are employed about in these semina- ries, there is fault which has operated much against the interest of philanthropy in the fit habitation of hu- man intelligences. It is rational to conclude that a man's occupation which is to characterize his future condition or station in life, as matter of subsistence or eminence, ought to be decidedly pitched upon before he goes to college; and that, the choice of the studies he goes there to spend his time about, should follow that choice: that those studies in which the vigour of 183 a man's thoughts is to be elicited, in the prime of the strength of his parts, should concern those depart- ments of human science and art, of which he is to make practical application in his future part on the stage of active life, and other speculations which are not immediately connected with such, should only be taken up by the bye, as improvement of leisure, or in fact, as matter of entertainment or diversion, which may be done at any intervals after he has gone out of college. For example ; if a man be designed for a mere metaphysician, a speculatory philosopher (whose labors of mind may yet be very extensively service- able to humankind by analysing the system of natural being, to the exposing of the true principles of social purposes;) his attention should be more particularly drawn to the compass of letter'd philosophy extant in that channel of human speculation; but separate sys- tems handled only as subsidiary things to those views which may pertain to that capacity or office of his destined existence on the stage of life. Tims, if ano- ther design himself for the profession of a practical physician, his main business is with medical, chymical, meteorological bucks, and books in natural history, to become intimately acquainted with whatever lights have been elicited in the tracks of literature, upon the intncate concerns of that science which discovers diseases and their cures; and, to this end, with the several properties of the human body, as well as of other bodies, relative to this. This is the subject which he should dwell on most intently, and make his chief theme of contemplation ; and other systems which cannot subserve this scope, should riot be pursued as matters of indispensable accomplishments to the man, any more than of any other private citizen without profession; all which common accomplishments he is supposed to be pos- sess 'd of anterior to, and independently of, his resort 184 to a public seminary; or which at least he can acquire at any interval of leisure so far as they depend on li- terature. Whereas on the contrary, we find certain set compasses of systems are used to be allotted as the stints of collegians, to which boundaries having ad- vanced by an irksome round ot constrained attention and repetition, they are considered worthy of what are called degrees, and are dubbed doctors of laws, masters of arts, &c. as if it were an ordinary thing for any one human creature to be capable of being master of all arts, or even of the whole of those which are commonly call'd liberal arts : Whereas the same per- son can scarcely be a finished adept in more than one, m this fleeting life! All these superfluous accom- plishments in systems beside the main pursuit of his active life, are but the transient glitter of the butter- fly's attire, that are to set him off in the short season of his college-career, for which he is never after dis- tinguished in busy life; so that it is but stuffing his head with arts which he means to forget, or is at least necessary for him to forget if he be ever useful in any single department. It is making serious matter of ac- quiring such things as he is never to make use of; but, after the flitting shine of college parades, to be aban- doned to the chaos of oblivion. Diversions of some sort, are necessary. The mind requires relaxation as well as the body. Diverse views rest and recruit the intellectual eye, as well as the animal organs of vision. But to give up whole davs, whole weeks, nay whole months, to the intent, pursuit of themes which are nev- er to concern or interest (immediately) the essential business of life, pertaining to a man's station on the stage of society, is absolute perversion of power and privilege. For, what is more idle than to lavish so much time, to spend week after week of that portion of a man's life which he sets out to appropriate to the purpose of acquiring some valuable habilitation in 185 knowledge, aptness, or art, which may distinguish him with the privilege of some useful ascendancy in active life, to the setting himself out by a temporary distinc- tion in those attainments which he is never after to make any practical use of ? If all our scholars should .go seriously to college, deliberately intent on some worthy pursuit, and when they got there should con- fine their attention to those departments of specula- tion which they went there to distinguish themselves in, and intended to put in practice in future life, so far as to make them their serious business from day today, whereon the energy of their maturest thoughts was to be exerted, whereby every diverse view might be ba- lanced in its proper point of subsidiary use ; I am apt to imagine we should have more able and better accom- plished statesmen, more skilful physicians, chymists, moralists, meteorologists, and in fact greater adepts in every liberal art, than we have. If seven years be reckoned hardly enough time to perfect a man in one of the mechanic arts, I see not why it should not be thought little enough to make him perfect master of one of the liberal arts and sciences, of so sublime a nature and extensive concern as that of medicine. Again: too much stress is laid on the study of the dead languages : which languages, in fact, it is impos- sible to attain a correct pronunciation of; and in the next place are no longer of any further use than to read and translate the most useful books written in those languages ; the latter of which being already done, and the power of doing the former being to be acquired at the leisure which every prudent freeman's life affords, there is no need of spending so much time over them as there is spent in our colleges and academies. For I cannot conceive any other use to the leanvng of dead language than the gathering of what those extinct nations who us'd that language, dis- covered in arts and sciences, beyond and above what *16 186 the moderns have discover'd :' which being now no very enormous task, and the thinking part of the world not having been wholly idle for seven or eight hun- dred years past, and listless of such a research, the most of that kind of literal arcana is m«?de pretty con- spicuous to all polished civilized nations. The same observations are in some proportion appli- cable to academies as to other universities ; with tins difference, that much about the whole time of the pu- pils in those schools, is taken up in speculation about language that never is to be used ; and is thought essential to their " fitting for college" to be thoroughly versed in the grammars and idioms of those languages which have been out of use for ages; which now can he put to no other serious purpose than the ascertain- ing of the ideas the ancient speakers of those languages had, which we have not. It seems as if there were something more important to engage the thoughts of youngpersons than the peculiar forms of language which nations now dead, spoke a thousand years ago. Some knowledge of those languages indeed is very conve- nient by the laying open of the roots of those foreign words which have been derived therefrom into ours, and thro' the successive vicissitudes of men's custoirs and habits, have received a variety of modification and meaning ; to subserve a diversity and elegancy of style, as well as to amuse. But a critical knowledge of their grammer rules, has no active application but the translating of them into living language : and I think that for a general maxim, we may admit that it is even eligible for a man to think for himself, rather than be at the pains to dig up the thoughts of those who are dead, out of the rubbish, and ruins of ages, where mankind of every nation has progressively fluctuated from one use of words to another, and perhaps every lan- guage on earth ever did, and is ever likely to, undergo altnost a total revolution in 300 years ; not m the general 187 rdioms and specific modes of framing propositions, but in the forms and powers of its individual elements whereof those propositions are made up. I am in a fairer way to get knowledge and art by applying my faculties o{ thinking to the meditation of things, than by moiling in translation to grub the thoughts of others out of a foreign language. Thoughts are not at so formidable a par : they may be commanded at a cheaper rate. It may be said that the Latin and Greek langua- ges are exquisitely musical, and charm by their harmo- nious structure and the peculiarly expressive associa- tions they bring into view. I grant they are particularly pleasing and entertaining, and they amuse by their in- genious frame, such as speculate in them : but, for com- binations of sound, 1 am apt to think one can fiud full as much real musick in Handel's and Madan's harmony as in the Latin and Greek languages. Howbeit, I can- not conceive how the philological constructing of those dead languages can materially advance the knowledge of metaphysical truth, any otherwise than, as mere ob- jects, the words they consist of, and their modes, may afford such knowledge. The like common neglect of morality prevails, as in other schools. I say neglect/ as in effect it is a privation of perfect principles, by way of erroneous measures with the ostensible design of supporting and advancing good morals; which fail of doing it by reason of the interference of superstition, hypocrisy, inconstancy, worldliness, vanity, or some other impediments, and the reverse character is inter- posed in its stead. To instil good moral principles into youth, and to accomplish them with good charac- ters, is a secret which requires aptness and skill to put into effectual application There is a settled course of means instituted in the very constitution of nature, leading to this important result. Secondly. In the next place, our common public schools claim our notice; wherein may be observed 188 many defects that make them imperfectly contributory to their contemplated end : as 1st. In the very laws which institute and prescribe their support. In those polished portions of civil society, which have attained to the projection of this advanced utility, those laws enjoining upon towns the maintainance of schools du- ring given parts of the year, yet fall short of enforcing the appropriation of a certain amount of taxes to that purpose ; which indeed were essential to the only ef- fectual means of securing profitable schools; and were sufficient of itself without prescribing time, since on the one hand it stands with the interest of societies to obtain for this as great a part of a year's teaching as they can get (if it be confined to this sort of appropriation,) and on the other, affords encourage- ment enough to worthy characters in the profession, i. e. skilful, stable, studious, well disposed instructors to give up their time and attention to this critical bu- siness, when they can have answerable wages for a considerable number of months together. Whereas now being enjoined on pain of forfeiture to keep semina- ries open for and during certain number of months, and being left to their voice how much money they shall appropriate and set apart to pay the expense of that, their schools must of course follow this pattern left for them to be cut out of, and of necessity are liable to be very short or very cheap, either one or the other of which whether is more disgraceful or frustratory to the cause of education, may be questioned. For if societies and parts of towns have but little money al- lotted them to defray the incidental expenses of keep- ing their schools, they are yet prone to crave as many months' teaching as they can get for it, that their pupifs may make some effectual progress in learning, and from this, run into parsimonious calculations about this delicate business of perpetual consequence to the hu- man race, and exhibit this quality in a place where it is 189 most odious, nothing being more disgusting to cultiva- ted minds (and such are requisite to educate youth correctly) than niggardliness; which in effect, in this plight, sets oft* school-societies with the most despara- ging figure : Or else the result of their speculations, is a cheap teacher, of course a poor one, or one who being reduced to the alternative by misfortune, being gulled by these speculators in his destitution, never has the excitements of friendship, home, reward, or gratitude, to a full discharge of his duties. On the other hand, being constrained to afford generous pay, it can last but a short time ; and, supporting a school but two or three months in a year [and why are not those scattered children who inhabit districts which afford a smaller number of pupils than others, and certainly they stand in need of as much tutoring to initiate and discipline them, worthy of as great a privilege in the access to schools, as those who happen to be born in more popu- lous Districts? and by what system of economy can an instructor afford to spend his time over twenty pu- pils cheaper than he can over fifty ?] the pupils make, in general, but small advancement, and directly forget what acquests they had compassed, before the year comes about, which the cares and pleasures where- with they are beset, suffer not to be resuscitated Hi their minds: and the consequence of the whole is, that in respect to literary accomplishments, they re- main stationary. But perhaps we ought not to com- plain of the best things we have got : — it is but a small part of the civilized world, which has yet adventur- ed to support free schools by equal taxation. But a small part of this republic has become so far the sub- ject of liberal sentiments as to be induced to adopt this philanthropic measure, whereby education being pursu- ed purely as an expedient belonging to the public in- terest, is made as freel> accessible to the poor as to the rich members of the commuuilie or the ether of these sorts of characters, unaware of the consequences ? Thus, is owing to the body of the people being ignorant of, and indifferent to, cor rect means of education, that we experience such dis- orders in the social world resulting from bad princi- ples and habits engendered in young persons. The mischief which this does, is this : such agents neglect to keep in repair a school-house such as they have ; in consequence of which, their school is confused, un- comfortable, of course unprofitable ; or else vacant. Also from the same principle of neglect, they employ (very , aptly) < unfit persons to teach. Hence we ob- serve young, gay, giddy, and coxcomical persons oc- cupying the stations of teachers to our youth ;— who by a display of some fashionable foolery or other, as gaming, drinking, dancing, Addling, gallanting, jesting, profanity, if they avail to teach some valuable arts, generally do more hurt than good, by distorting their morals with bad principles. But many others are promoted to this trust for their cheapness, who have - 197 little pretension to skill in any part of what belongs to their office ; novices in arithmetic, in grammar, and such things as are most thought of as the proposita of this business. They are chosen out of economy of the people's expense, id the presumptuous calculation on their gathering skill by the way of their exercise in teaching, which sometimes proves to be matter of fact : yet if they be skilful to infuse morals, all other ac- complishments might be dispensed with (which yet is the farthest from their thoughts whose choicest inter- est is the most concerned in such a supervention;) but it falls out that those who have taken the steps fit to be good teachers of morality, have not faded ot the other accomplishments required in the management of com- mon schools : hence we shall find these ignorant teachers commonly falling as short in this as in other respects. Others again, although they may possess the requisite habilitation adequate to conducting the business of tuition, are too lazy to put their talents into use ; who, suffering indolency to prevail over their deference to the object of education, feel no concern for the furtherance of the public interest in this par- ticular behalf. Yet such agents get such characters into these places as they happen to have the opportu- nity or the humour to make bargains with. All these things may fall out by mere chance; since it is not possible that they discern the qualities or foresee the managery of whom they employ, unless they happen to be neighbours or particular acquaintances of them, which is not a case that is universally incident. But, one thing is clear; if agents be not competent to the examination of teachers, judges of the fit accomplish- ments of instructors ; it is of little import how the latter sort of characters beat their heads about getting very nice qualifications: at least, if these deputed in- spectors be such as have not the art of reading, I see not to what end candidates for this kind of business *17 198 carry with them letters of recommendation, in {ravel* Jing among; such societies ; as in the round of my ob- servation might be noticed instances of a total asper- nation and disuse of this sort of documents, which ene might as well be altogether destitute of, were it not for the name of them ; which indeed answers more than the substance to those who could not com- prehend their purport, even if they could read them. After all, there is not so much to be feared from igne- rant committees as depraved ones. Yet, if a fitly qualified person be employed in the department of in- struction, a society, frequently, gets quite a circum- scribed benefit from his labours. The common peo- ple are whimsical in this respect. Therefore the ad- Vantage of public instruction is contracted, and schools made trilling, by the following circumstances. I. In consequence of some economical contrivance ©r some other occurence, the teacher is fain to depend for his daily sustenance upon some family with whom hh genius does not perfectly accord. It is a subject of regret that professional teachers are not (what were for the honor and advantage of human societies) so far independent as to possess the means of living com- fortably out of the reach of the capricious humours of such as they by chance depend on lor employment. It falls out, moreover, to be a very usual case that those who being competently endued, habitually inquire for this business, are poor and have not established well- furnished homes. I think it some reflection upon so- cieties of civilized men, that this important profession is not so far respected as to yield a competence to a studious life,, without the interference of anxious plot- tings for sustenance The worst of it is, ft is unavoidably incident that the teacher, especially if unsettled, contracts some tinc- ture of their turn of character with whom he lives ; >yhich, among the children of this world, being devious 19l> liom the gemime views of true philosophy, is apt to carry his thoughts aside from such a track of specula- tion as is fit to arrange with equanimity and manage with a steady hand the business of his station. II. Sojourning amongst his employers, his hosts are sometimes inclined to quarrel with him about his ha- bits of regimen, diet, dress, or some trivial incident or other. The children of this world want gain. They grow weary of the. trouble and expense of feeding, washing, and the like services they feel chained to, which wear hard on them in the want of that sympa- thy they have not, with studious persons. From these things come a strong prejudice against such persons : when the subjects of it seek by indirect means to ex- emplify their aversion; — whence evil minded persons are stirred up to pick flaws in their business, and make disturbance in schools. The students get into their heads, as quick as lightning, a hint ot any sort of party, and take active parts, in very insolent forms. So their schools are often made matter of contention between suspicious neighbours, and the channels of useful lore poisoned by babyish antipathies. Besides; a boarding promiscuously with pupils is sometimes unpropitious to education by giving every one a fami- liarity with its teachers. This familiarity with the person and movement of their teacher, is used differ- ently by different scholars ; and though some will not turn it against the account of their proficiency, yet some have their deference intjrely overcome by it, and from not fearing, come to despise their instructor. III. People being tenacious of little whimsical pe- culiarities of methods for managing children, all dif- ferent in almost every family from those of another, so that an i»»structor"findirig it difficult to use a dis- tinct system of treatment with each pupil, and keep a regular school, at the same time entertaining a predi- lection for a favorite system uf his own; eventually too none is well pleased with his manners. From an in~ ordinate attachment to the persons of offspring, too prevalent, people are so imprudently tender of their bodies as to be cruelly suspicious of the means of con- straint used by tutors. Some squeamish woman, cr uxorious tool of a petticoated tyrant, is generally rea- dy to clapperclaw an austere tutor for striking some favourite pug, and, pestiferously breaking in upon this critical and vexing employ, with indiscriminate slander against a sort of form in punishing (to which is super- added every circumstance of reproachful contumely that may aggravate,) sets the prerogative of the pro- fession at open contempt. These things being suffered to be, discourages the best instructors from persever- ing in a good system of manager v. I V. The parents in general neglecting to cultivate the art of education at home, and not concurring with good practitioners of the art in those measures they deliberately adopt for the training of their children to knowledge and virtue ; which uninterruptedly carried into operation, would not fail to effectuate the desired habilitation. But a variance between tutors and pa- rents, tends to make void the benevolent purposes of public teaching, because it vitiates children by cherish- ing the seeds of insolence, ingratitude, disobedience. &c. That part of education which people are the most universally delinquent in endeavoring to bring 'forward in their offspring, by their early treatment, is moral education. To discern the right methods to radicate true moral principles, and to begin habits of amiable action in adolescent minds, is a delicate piece of work ; to apply them aright, a critical duty which implies integrity. We find this wofully shunned. The children of this world are averse to what is serious, if it partake not of mystery. Romance and mystery have the knack to awaken admiration, fear, horror, as- tonishment, and seem to excite a train of solemn re- 201 flections: but any thing whose prime and immediate use is the application oftheir powers to some business which may be necessary to be repeated, they have a fixed antipathy to. Therefore our children grow into youth without being tutored to those amiable duties which would make them a source of comfort and de- light to all around them. To improve constraint, and make it effectual by repetition and attention, fences with their love of the children's persons, and their love of ease. And now this gentry of ten or twelve years' standing, are troublesome scholars ; for, not ac- customed to restraint, they ill brook the trammels of such rules as are proper for the regulation of a school. To reduce such to peaceful subordination, is out of the question without the concurrence of their parents; and even with it, is generally an almost insurmounta- ble task to reverse, at this period, all the bad habits which have got footing in the reign of licentiousness; to effectuate restraint; and at the same time to make study so pleasing as to insure proficiency: yet it is never too late to set about the pursuit of rectitude. The greater the difficulty arising from inveteracy, the greater the urgency of reformation. This humoursome dotage on the bodies of children, which makes people irreconcil cable to coercive correction, is that* which strikes at the essential roots of rectification. And this it is which makes the occupation of a public tutor to a common school, the most capricious, perplexing, and unthankful office in the world. For the common peo- ple's children are trained in such a careless manner that there is no living with them in any peace without correcting them ; and the parents are so whimsically suspicious of the oppression of their darlings under the hands of those of whom they use themselves to entertain diminutive ideas, that there is no living in comfort if they do correct them. Therefore education should begin at home. Those principles which we 202 conscientiously wish other public tutors to cultivate, we ought carefully to plant as soon as the soil is fit to receive them. The earlier this is done, the easier and more prosperous the cultivation is. Whereas when this scil is left to engender all manner of noisome and worthless weeds, merely for the want of turning our thoughts to the planting, dressing, and tending of what is valuable, to expect instructors to raise good charac- ters upon this foundation at the age of twelve years, till which time we have remained indifferent to our own obligations, is imposing much what as reasonable a task as the Egyptians-did upon the children of Israel. To kill all that has taken root, is laborious ; and pain- ful to the subjects too. whom it must reduce (in regard to self-government) to the condition of iwfafttS agaitt. A dallying nugacity seems very prevalently to take the place of a serious estimate of this business* 2dly. Those laws which prescribe the measures ot proceeding in the business of the school itself, are of- ten found defective, and unpropitious to the interest of the society for whose benefit the seminary is, insti- tuted. These must vary with the tutors. Of unskilful professors we are not to expect good regulations. Par- tiality is a thing which is very apt to worm itself into the systems of those who depend on particular households of those who employ them, for their daily sustenance. So, it often happens that a teacher being young and de- pendant, let him be ever so well qualified in talent and erudition, and even if he be disposed to put into oper- ation the best moral systems, tends to conform a little to the inclinations of such as he depends on. having something of a predilection to please (by way of treat- ment of their children) those who serve him most. Being destitute of the possession of substance, one must have great temptation, in such plight, to let a scrupulous regard of morality yield to the preservation of existence. In consequence of this concourse of circumstances, some irregularities take place in the ►03 business of a school when it happens one scholar suf- fers punishment while another has impunity for the same transgression; which has a demoralizing effect upon a collection of young. Some teachers are in the practice of maintaining one system of government during one day, and substituting another the next : it being no other thing in effect, when we put iaws in force at one time, and by and by suffer them to be trampled down without reserve; as it ib little other than holding different individuals under separate syg- terris of government, to punish one and connive at another for the same sort of action. Different sorts of punishment, adapted to the dispositions of the of- fenders, ac coiling to the motives that respectively op- erate in their minds, which constitute the measure of their turpitude, are the peculiarity of school govern- ment, which ought to distinguish it from what is usu- ally operable in governments of commonwealths. * Punishment should be mild but certain,' has been ad- vanced for a general maxim of school government, and is one which, I fancy, few rational observers can frame any plausible objections to. There be, however, as to all general rules, exceptions to its applicability. "We shall find some young persons with such tempers, and habits of such sort and inveteracy as nothing short of severity avails to reverse. This custom of putting laws strictly into force one day or one week, and slackening the reins of coercion the next, grows into a habitual circle of action, which affects both master and pupils; when correspondent feelings in both the one and the other, recur with the return of the alternate periods discriminated by these different ways of passing the time. Such a managery is notoriously inauspicious ; and on no account perhaps more than on this; it is impossible for scholars to get stability by such treatment. For children to get the habit of con- stancy, tliej must needs have the example of it-set be* 204* fore them in some form or other, at least so far as to keep them in uniform subordination to fixed prescripts by awe of penal sufferance if no other considerations be made to operate such a condition ; so that they shall feel themselves as accountable for the same con- duct one day as another. The ili effects of this sort of proceeding are in a great measure reduced when the teacher to shuffle off* the burden of adjudication from day to day, calls his subjects to account for the misgoings of a preceding day, or of two or three preceding days : which method I think in some situations is commendable ; although its advantage depends much on continuance; and continuance is necessary to get the benefit of all moral things, which nothing but repetition can improve. For I must confess that in addition to simplyfying the busi- ness of the teacher, it affords these good effects. 1. It tends to strengthen the memory. Pain, dis- grace, sorrow, have the knack of fixing ideas on the memory, as well as pleasure, joy, commendation. Cer- tain circumstances may attend these painful emotions ; certain ideas may concomitate them, which tend to heighten their effects and deepen the impressions made by them. And when a scholar is called to account for faults he has committed on two or three preceding days while he had no apprehension of their bringing any disaster on himself, and punished for them in an impressive manner ; he, after that, when he thinks of those sorts of action which he feels an inclination to do on the presumption of escaping the notice or re- tribution of a supervisor, is apt to remember the trou- ble they once brought on him as an instituted conse- quent when he had entertained no suspicion of it, and of course gets a habit of remembering from day to day and from week to week, the tendency and effects of certain manners of conduct. Now punishments may be too frequent ; when by immediately following every 205 transgression they grow familiar, and either begin to assume a disgustful appearance that makes a bad im- pression ; harden the heart as well as the hide, or else repress the ardour of intellectual liberty, and make the sufferers, as irretrievable outcasts, defy good au- thorities. Some certain degree of novelty is requisite to attract notice to an object. 2. It improves the moral sense. When the atten- tion of a child is seriously drawn to past actions, for which he is to account when all incitements and temp- tations have receded, and fixed to them by some af- fecting punishment whereby he is made sensible they were unreasonably offensive to his superiors, this power of distinguishing right and wrong of his volun- tary actions, is brought into exertion, and gets ascen- dancy by use. The moral sense is called also the mo- ral faculty. Every faculty is strengthened by em- ployment The exercise of any faculty or part of the human system, strengthens it. The exercise of the memory produces a retentive mind, and makes a good historian. Habitual exercise of the arms, makes one strong in the labors of art. And the exercise of the moral faculty by the occasions of discriminating the good and evil of one's own conduct, begets a habit of nicely distinguishing right and wrong. 3. It gives rise to a habit of reflection. When a child is punished for and seriously put in mind of, ac- tions which are gone by, and the occasions of them succeeded by diverse trains of perception, the ideas of which actions being impressively associated with, the existing circumstantiality of his retribution ; when the latter recurs to remembrance it brings the other along with it : which together with some degree of solemnity impressed on his thoughts by the occasion, tends to accustom him to take a retrospective view of his past conduct. Thus by being forc'd upon a re- view of what they have done from day to day, children 18 206 get a habit of this sort of reflection, which otherwise were superseded by a heedless frivolity, wherein the the trains of volition that make up their usual con- duct, were as so many traces on loose sand, whereof there can be no collected ectype ever to serve a faith- ful representation. The same thing cultivates sym- pathy. And the contemplative frame it leads to, fa- vours the improvement of all the faculties. 4 It forms a great circle of action, that is happily subversive of many bad habits, and propitious to moral improvement. When children are inured to the re- currence of periods of retribution at every two or three days, when all their little aberrations from rec- titude are to be eventilated, searched out, and weigh'd in the scales of justice, the very sensibility of such a plight keeps them from several arrant pursuits which might engender pernicious associations. And the ve- ry habit is an important one; and admirably advances moral rectification. Bat the chief advantage of this way, is its condu cement to a habit of steadiness in thought and action. The larger any circle of action is, i. e. the more distant its periodical points of recur- rence, the more (if I mistake not) it opposes levity: for I fancy I discover in this, some analogy to slow motion of the spirits. Therefore, this promotes sta- bility. There are those employed in this department, who feel above their business: with whom the con- cerns of their charge have so little attraction, that they conceive it a burden to take cognizance of all the faults of their pupils. To such is dangerous to trust education. Others again, through mere laziness, having begun a good course of discipline, neglect to go through with it. The business of conducting a public school, in the present .state of human society, is unquestionably irksome; therefore it requires one who not only is capable of, but delights in, vigorous exercises of mind ; and one who, having a capacity 207 of extensive speculation, can make himself happj "with diverse trains of thought, which have ascendancy over the concerns of his station without interrupting his punctual attendance to them. Minds of this cast not being every day met with among the common peo- ple, methinks since this sort of characters is somewhat rare, it behooves social men to make the occupation of a teacher a respectable one, both by endowing it with encouraging salaries, that those who being well quali- fied every way for that sort ot service have different resources of comfortable sustenance, may be induced to engage their talents in it ; and by a suitable defer- ence to the character of tutors, regarding them (as some other mechanic adepts) as being persons possessed of some accomplishments ourselves have not. But what from niggard Ihi ess, ignorance, aversion to the signs of studiousness, excessive storge, pride, depra- vity of morals in the generality of people or particu- larly in those in whom they repose agency, or poverty in those who offer to teach ; it falls out that a great part of the civilized world are from time to time served with such characters to till this department, as they can make nothing but eye servants: it seeming necessary to dictate and critizise such as having not the respect some mechanics get, feel not the stimulus of a sense of honor, in the want of a pecuniary re- muneration, to excite them to emulation or eminence in the duties of their calling. The. first thing taught from books, is the alphabet, or set of rudimental characters that are the ingredients of written language. Inconsiderate persons were us'd to teach these in the order they found them set down in a row, without varying it. When a child has learn- ed to apply the true sound to each of these characters as they are ranged in a train either perpendicular or horizontal, he no more knows, in consequence of that acquirement, how to apply them to the same objects §08 standing in different positions and habitudes, than the musical tyro, who has simply got the names of his notes in one succession as they stand in the order of the gamut, knows how to perform a piece of harmony ; or a sawyer, who has been constantly accustomed to a vibration of his arms up and down or horizontally, knows, merely by dint of that, to exactly hand and reef the cordage of a vessel. For this connecting of certain sounds with the impression of certain figures, is a sort of mechanical association, that with those who do not extensively reason, as strongly implicates the situation of those figui estas the figures themselves : and the way to catenate the articulation with the figure and determine the name to that, separately from all other circumstances, is to practice the connection (by shewing, &c.) in all possible situations and habitudes they can be placed in, whether by retrograding or alternating the order in which they are usually arrang'd. Associa- tions are either in trains or tribes. A train of sounds or movements may be learned by what is ealled rote, w ? hen one suggests or introduces the succeeding. — So there is no more ado than to say A, and the whole En- glish alphabet comes into the imagination of a child. But it is necessary to discipline children to a more studied association, wherein all incidents not essential to the concernment of the designed habilitation, are disconsideted. It is impossible for a child to get a perfect knowledge of an alphabet, by repeating it only in one order of succession. Next: the next literary thing we are used to incul- cate on young minds, is the putting the names of char- acters together, into syllables ; which operation must be so nicely attached to, as to be suggested by, the ideas of the figures of those characters which answer to those sounds which in another view are called names of the characters, the nature of which is mere- ] v to represent those sounds or tones ; which are but a £09 part of the multiform machinery made use of to re- present ideas in one man's mind, to others' who have not the same scene of perception and imagination. To frame words with these, is vain to attempt before there is a determinate and certain knowledge and full distinction of all the characters here used to form words. Some of the common people imagine if a pupil has gone over a certain tract of pages by put- ting together the sounds of the letters, of which he has made syllables, and of these given utterance to words, he is just so far advanced in the art of reading, But proficiency is not to be measured by pages ; it be- ing discriminated by aptness and retentiveness : to acquire which, we continue the operation of regular repetition, with all manner of entertaining accompani- ments that are compatible. Every simple sound used in a language, should be represented by a distinct character. Most cultivated languages being made up by the lingo's of different nations, are notably erro- neous in this respect. The english language is greatly encumber'd and perplex'd by silent characters, put into some words, which having a capacity of represen- tation of sound in other words, illude learners. Upon the numerous cases, of silent h in bright, silent t's, o's, e's, and w's in some words and audible in others, would be tiresome to expatiate. Yet such is the in- veteracy of these forms, we cannot expect a reforma- tion of language. Pupils should be taught the proper meanings of words and exercised in the means of re- taining those meanings as soon as they come to be ca- pable of reading correctly. Whenever they have the habit of justly modulating their sound, and giving to every letter, syllable, word, and sentence, its proper utterance, the true signification of every word, (or at least every one it is important to exercise their reten- tion about) should be associated with it. To this end, it is propitious to get into their heads as soon as possi* *18 21Q ble, such abstract ideas as sorts of signs: and to teach sorts and tribes of words by proceeding from the pti mary stock, or principal, to all the gradual variations which by various terminations or inceptions distin- guish the particulars one from another, whereof those bundles or tribes are constituted. In so doing we in- troduce a strong and extensive association which sub- serves excellent purposes in the way of their gathering knowledge, both of language and things themselves '* wherein are involved the idea's of different words connected by resemblance, the ideas of their several, meanings in the same connection of resemblance, the kleas of the particular variations by which they are distinguished, the ideas of their proper bounds, and the idea of the dependance of one word upon another by its relation of derivation. Thus those which are called inseparable prepositions, such as un,re, dis, di, sub, pre, trans, super, en, fer, have their determinate original meaning, which being superadded to, modify, those of the words to which they are joined. Alse, 1*he terminations tied, eial, date, ion, ate, tiate, ion, aion. t big, fy, ly, and the like, have their s-ignificancy, by which the words to which they are affixed are qualified and made to be of a different class, in the respect of signification, from what they were without them. The meaning of each of these should be noted, and the ef- fect it has upon the word it is united to. This pro- ceeding exercises them in abstraction- as well as atten- tion, while it extends their knowledge of language, It is frivolous to enter upon arithmetic and syntax be- fore the faculty of judging has some aptness. There be means which may advance the discerning faculty ; which, without dignity and importance be annexed to 'the duties and rules of a school, fail of that degree of stability, gravity, and pertinency, indispensable to a successful pursuit of truth and excellence. For if a scholar considers the laws of his school of no impor- 2Li tance ; ami the feelings of his instructor, no concern- ment of his conduct ; and consequently feels no weight of obligation to obey and reverence that instructor ; what improvement can we expect him to get from the privileges of public tuition ? "What application of mind to the instituted business of the school ? "What Concern for his advancement, in one who rates his station a frivolously complimental tribute to some nu- gatory or malevolent project of aristocracy ? For sotiie have reason to think their confinement "in school is a recourse to answer some bye-end of their parents or teachers : to keep them out of the way, or make the vulgar world think they have a* good education' or that their parents have a concern for seriously improv- ing their children in good accomplishments ; or else, the emolument of the teacher : the latter has place when the tuition of each scholar is done for a stated premium per day, week, month, quarter, or year: which arrangement, generally is not without pcrni- ciousness enough ; for it puts in the power of every child, and every pettish old woman to injure the teach- er, by encroaching on his subsistence, in a way of circumscription. It is necessary that one understand what he reads, before he advance in grammar. No proficiency can be made in etymology and syntax, before the mean- ings of the words used in common discourse not only, but of those used in the plainest of elegant writing, are comprehended and made familiar to the understanding. For while one is ignorant of the signification of the words made use of to describe the elements of those parts of grammar, in vain may we hope to infix the ideas of those elements in his memory by the futile ceremony of iterating set taska or lessons of those descriptive discourses to learn them by heart, which leave, in effect, nothing there but those empty sounds and figures without any determinate impression of signifieancy, or else an erroneous one*. For the whole substance of these departments of sci- ence is little else but a stnng of definitions ; and a definition supposes the person to whom it is given, to have previous knowledge of the meanings of the words of which it is composed ; which since those young persons have not who read grammars having not been otherwise task'd to commit them to memory, they can- not get the ideas grammar writers would convey them* There is an inured extravagance in many of our seminaries, of pushing pupils forward, as if their pro- ficiency were to be determined by the place or book they had reach'd in the course of their reading. Hence some we find are hurried into the study of grammar before they understand any thing that is written about it. This has injurious effects on many ; for in the first place, by what they are accustomedto recite without understanding it, they contract a habit of inattention to books: since a continual reiteration of sensitive ideas, such as meaniess sounds or motions, where the attention is not attracted and fixed to any serious notices, is but an irksome piece of drudgery : so that the attention (if I may so speak) is wearied away from every thing that relates to the sub- jects those sounds are designed to express. Where- fore I think cultivating the memory by charging it with unmeaning sounds which are no way pleasing or interesting to their minds, is apt to make dull scho- lars. I incline to think that for this purpose of im- proving the memory, it is best to exercise the young with tasks which contain valuable moral sentiments expressed in agreeable language with some degree of wit ; or else, pleasing descriptions of natural things. In the next place, the form or shadow passing for the substance, with their preceptor, their parents, friends and neighbours, scholars having regularly traversed by recitation certain chapters, books, tracts of science or art for the second, third, and perhaps fourth time, are 213 apt to be proud of their knowledge before they have got it, and make their boast that they have been en- tirely through such or such institutes at such an age ; when upon a critical exploration of their real erudi- tion, it will be found like a grain of wheat in a bushel of chaft; their heads being stufPd with the ideas of sounds and figures without the ideas of their determi- nate significancy and use. As little ground have we to expect a child to make any progress in arithmetic before the judgment has a habit of being exercis'd in se- rious concerns. Such a habilitation (respecting the judgment) belongs to the moral part of the business of education, which, as L think has been sufficiently evinced, depends mostly on parents. There be, ne- vertheless, means, whereby the indication of moral principles may be advanced in public schools ; and common sense teaches that this ought to be the fore- most concern in such institutions. Literary and sci- entific principles require much repetition, to make a deep impression. To effect a permanent fixure in the young mind, of any thing that is not apt to please at first, or any thing that does not bring along with itself in some firm intervolution either as cause or effect or some anterior association to any other that prevails, some eminent degree of pleasure, delight, satisfaction, or else pain, is not fixed so surely in the power of memory without more repetition whereby it gets a connection with some very common and influential perceptions than that which coming in with strong sen- sation either of pleasure or pain, is thereby durably imprinted. The common objects of perception ex- citing some degree of pleasure or pain, and their no- velty invariably carrying pleasure, make lasting im- pressions upon the unpractis'd sensorium, and are long retained, even during life. But whatever implicates the application of the reasoning faculty, requires the notice of it to be many times repeated, to be familiarly 214 incident to recollection. Therefore systems of gram- mar, logic, or arithmetic, cannot be thoroughly learned by young children till, by a course of exercises repea- ted, their judgement, with regard to such objects, is mature ; not even by any contrivance that shall make them perceive all the parts of the system, and their connexion ; and this for the following reasons. 1st. There is not pleasure enough attends the per- ception of such an object to make an effecting impres- sion, with influence to continue its efficiency. For there is no great pleasure nor pain in the perception of a set of grammar rules or of problems in arithmetic, nor in that of the signs that represent them, as there is in the sight of the rainbow, a watch, a beautiful bird, a cascade, or any thing sublime, surprizing, or so pathetic or excrutiating as to make irresistible way into all the ties of retention. 2dly. It is too complex an object to make such an impression immediately ; for it requires an exertion of the understanding energies to apprehend its parts clearly. By the young it cannot be instantaneously comprehended ; and, of course, what is retained, is not the ascendant power to apply it in all its parts and relations, to its appropriate ends, but is partial, being some accidental glimpse of a part, that has been cir- cumstantially affecting. Sdly. It involves the use of the faculty of reason- ing, which must be trained by gradations of essays, and in the nature of its business implies the frequent repetition of notices, to examine things whereof they are, on all sides, and compare them together;— a great part of the business of reasoning consisting in the comparing of ideas. Of consequence, machines for teaching grammar, whereby the sorts of words, and rules for their arrangement and constructure into sen- tences, with their several classes and connections de- lineated on conspicuous surfaces, are successively dis- 215 closed by revolution of mechanical forces, although they may make effectual impressions on adults whose discursive powers are practised to an ascendant expert- ness, are not very serviceable to the young, in whom although all the parts of that art or science are here made sufficiently clear to their senses, yet their intel- lectual powers are not trained to discern the true ap- plication and references of these parts without a more deliberate and repetitious process than the motions and figures of these machines admit of. 4thly. Another reason why machiues for teaching any such sciences as grammar, arithmetic, logic, are not perfectly answerable to their end, is this : — In or- der to render the maxims that make up those systems so familiar as to be readily applicable on all occasions in common life, their connection must be diffused by associations with a large number of different percep- tions that take place in the course of it ; and this re- quires time. Whereas when by one of these machines the several parts of a system are obtruded rapidly up- on the sense, although the impression may be striking, yet its effects are not thereby so interfused with the parts of the ordinary tenour of our perceptions as to make it sufficiently permanent or familiar: for the depth of an impression does not depend more upon the emotion that attends it than upon the variety of its associatians. There is a certain contemperament of intellectual operations, opposed to all violent movement as serene weather to a storm, wherein the understanding being susceptible of clear and adequate ideas, and the mo- ral faculty of energy while no corrupt bias is derived from inordinate passion, the human soul may be turned to the most noble aims, by the medium of the contem- plation of that which is seriously useful, good and con- sequential ; even till it attain to very abstract views. This condition of mind and temper is I think the 216 same the latins called placida et quieta constardia % which being peculiarly propitious to the superinduc- tion of all valuable principles, moral, literary, scienti- iical, or mechanical, admirably serving as an inlet for every durable accomplishment desirable for rational beings in a state of society to possess, methinks we ought to labour to establish, as a fundamental piinci pie whereon to superstruct the main works of educa- tion. Whereupon, I fancy it will not be a miss here to take a stand to make some remarks upon this thing, and endeavour to find out some means which may con tribute to the production of this desirable frame. And first, it is evident this is an habilitation which concerns not only the current Of our thoughts ; but also the re- lative energy and the degrees of the passions. Our perceptions are more clear herein, than when distur- bed by a confusing supervention, from levity and gid- diness, that hurries the intellectual eye from one di^ vergent view to another, without the satisfaction of use, resulting from attention and contemplation. This is a hastiness of animal spirits, peculiar to passionateness and opposed to tranquility. Reflection and its several operations combine more sublime pleasure there : even in the case of an obtrusion of real resources of sorrow, contemplation has the knack to find out a degree of satisfaction, which casual remeniscence barters for horror. But the pass beiDg habituated to a state of due subordination to the ascendant operation of the faculty of reasoning ; this power being directed by the moral faculty to speculative virtue, regulates the man into a course of prudence ; and upon private, depends public, tranquility. The contemperation of the pas- sions is the greatest benefit we immediately get from this frame. Now when the trains of our ideas which succeed one another in every part of our waking ex- istence, move calmly and clearly, and seem to flow in a regujfctr unruffled stream, the will has greater ascen- 217 dancy over them in the several forms of voluntary thinking, as attention, contemplation, composition or compounding, study, abstraction, recollection, compar- ing, discerning, &c, than when by too quick motion of the spirits and ungovern'd state of the passions, they are incessantly interrupted. These things are essen- tial to the influence of reason over moral conduct. Secondly: tranquillity concerns not only the course of thought and the energy of passions, but also the moral faculty. There is in man a power or attribute that is by some called the moral faculty ; sometimes it is called the moral power, sometimes the moral sense, sometimes the moral principle; (while the same tiring passes, with some, under the name conscience ;) which is the faculty of distinguishing moral good and evil, accompanied in its act of discerning, with the approbation of one kind of actions, and disapproba- tion of another, according to their general tendency. This seems to be merely a modification of the primary faculty of discerning, being distinguished from it only by the designation of its objects being voluntary ac- tions, and the accompaniment of delight and pain with that discernment of those objects. From which some may infer that the developement of this trait of the human character, must wait on the advancement of judgment: yet we find this appears very early in life ; and infants of a year or two seem to discover, on se- veral occasions, exquisite conceptions of right and wrong ; which yet cannot be supposed to have very accurate discernment of things; much les3, mature judgment. Besides, a man who discerns ever so ex- quisitely the nice diversities of all other things, yet, never the more feels those peculiar emotions of plea- sure and pain which accompany the ideas of good and bad actions Excellence in this, does not follow per- spicacity in other respects. The most perspicacious persons are not always the most sympathetic or the most compunctious. Therefore this faculty has by 19 218 some philosophers been reckoned a distinct part of hu- man nature, and I think for the purposes of morality, very aptly. Brutes are not supposed to possess it: yet if I mistake not, some brutes have indicated com- punction ; and compunction cannot be without it, in some shape or degree. Finally it seems unquestion- ably evident that this peculiarity accrues from the combined causation of sympathy and rationality. The degree of force with which this sort of distinguishing faculty acts, and the emotions that accompany the act, are clearly affected by placida et quieta constantia. In the bustle of inordinate and irregular gratifications, in the eager career of curiosity and ambition, we can- not pathetically recognize the discernment of moral relations because our passions are moved by other ob- jects; and things are used to be estimated good and evil as they are causes of other sorts of pleasures and pains than those which pertain to the perception of such relations. Silence and solitude promote true comparisons of moral things ; and silence and solitude are the sensible types of tranquillity. I proceed to point out some of the most likely means which may contribute to substantiate this desirable frame of mind. I think this auspicious trim of the in- telligent system is capable of being accelerated by the following measures. 1. By mild nutriment. High stimula habitually used, have a tendency to irritate and inflame the stronger passions, as desire, anger, jealousy, hatred, &c. ; and they manifestly counterwork thorough re- flection in several ways : for in the first place, if the stimulus be in any degree inebriating,the intervention of vertigo immediately deranges the faculties and con- fuses the conceptions of the understanding by hallu- cinating the medium of perception. Or if otherwise, as food, — excessive meals directly bring on heaviness, since they crowd the vessels, overwear the secretory 219 organs, and obviate celerity in the internal revolutions of the animal machinery. A certain degree of stimu- lus invigorates all powers. Excessive stimulus iterated, weakens the system Plethory, and certain sorts of aliments and drinks, introduce morbid qualities into the blood : and viscid humours getting head, incur ir- regularity in sensorial movement;— and this is in a great measure the standard of reflective movement. Now a course of mild diet, by repressing all violent motion in the body, makes the operations of the mind calm and regular. Intestine violence in the animal machinery, from gluttony, drunkenness, or the use of that which abounds with unwholesome particles or with such as have a corrosive action, necessitates the re- course of irregular voluntary motions to mitigate the pain by diversion or interruption. Thus in the pain- ful sensations attending pressure from flatulency or hard substances in the stomach, some relief is accus- tomed by a constant struggle of voluntary exertion. As has been heretofore observed, voluntary counteract sensitive motions : which yet when assumed by starts •with repulsive view, are incompatible with the prose- cution of regular speculation. Now multitudes of the eommonalty think there is nothing that they can do to infants to make them quiet, i. e. habitually mild. Yet I presume to assert this, — if parents would merely inure their offspring to a course of mild stimulus, such as milk, (which is intirely nutritive,) and neither allow them to taste strong or harsh matters as spirits, fer- mented liquors, spices, and the like, in any other form than that of necessary medicine, they would exhibit softer tempers, more obsequious passions, and be more ductile and tractable to all the purposes of intellectual and moral improvement. By this process I fancy it is easy to prevent that peevishness and squalling so in- cident to infants. This expedient, that places the foundation of intellectual serenity in the constitution 220 of the body, has an efficiency which is more extensive than many are aware of. 2. By early exercise of reason. The powers em- ployed in reasoning, are as susceptible of amplification and refinement by use, as any other faculties. Early trials of reason if they be about moral modes and relations, are remarkably propitious to the cause of human education. There are other ways of exercis^ ing reason than by the rules of logic. The reason of infants must be trained by odd methods: by verbal and moral exemplification. There is a pathetic way of exciting the use of reason : a way to allure the ty- ro to use reason. By moving the passions on certain occasions we allure the young to the resort of the exercise of this faculty. For if the passions be, as has been often asserted, the " springs of action," I see not but they must sometimes operate as springs to this mode of voluntary thinking as well as any other sort of action. A habit of reasoning about causes and effects, approximates placidity; for it prevents sur- prize, and improves Sympathy by the use it makes of the experience of others. S. By regularity in arrangement of business. Re- gularity contributes to the facility of business; and facility supersedes that perplexity which makes busi- ness a source of misery. Regularity in the arrange- ment of the several parts of the employment and use of time, whether in schools or in other stations, grad- ually introduces a general habit of regularity in think- ing : and this supersedes the confusion and irregulari- ty that come from the inordinate violence of habitually excessive passion. 4. By soft and gentle speaking. A soft answer turneth away wrath, says the proverb ; and we have no conception of the charming effect this has upon the temper, any farther than we notice a regular exper- iment of it. Look into the domestic circle. See whether you often find calm contemplation and ten- der dispositions in those whose parents and guides are habitually vociferous. 5. By example of signs of the thing itself we would promote. People contract yawning from the impulsion of others setting a pattern of it. The per- cipient frame is incited to imitate all imitable move- ments it observes in correspondent systems : and from the same principle as by what hyatus and yawning, and certain smiles and scowls, are propogated from one person to another, this placidity of mind and temper we are now alluding to, is in a greater or less degree transfused. Very fine fibres in one system, move in imitation of other. A habit of moderate and gentle ways of communication, scrupulous moving, and in general, benignant conduct as social beings, if con- stancy concentre with them, are effectively impres- sive upon the minds of the rising generation when the latter have not received any adverse bias. If a par- ent or a constant tutor be mild and inoffensive in his words and actions (and a person may possess wit, jocularity, humour, without obstreperousness) it is de- lightsome to see how wonderfully apt children are to copy the temper whereof these manners are the ectypes. For if the stock is apt to reason, the off- spring we usually find is so likewise, very early; If apt to consider, and exercise prudence in his proceedings, the offspring is used to pause, to deliberate, to be calm, and hush, as if to give place to reflection. A vocife- rous nettlesome child generally descends from such as are tinctured with some degree of those qualities, in some form or other. A moderate way of speaking to children, is equally impressive from the beginning, as any more rousing noises, to convey either commands, threats, caution, or advice. And slow deliberate mo- tions are more solemnly impressive than rash unplod- ded onsets : and what has t>e essence of dignity in- *19 %%% spires dignity in inferior intelligences. We have extraregular appearances among the productions of na- ture ; and very young minds are sometimes irreproach- fully biassed by external influences ; which happens when their infant faculties are unguardedly abandon- ed to the perverting corruption of foreign example and the managery of disinterested servants, companions, neighbours, and strangers, which carries them aside the channel of reciprocation with the stock. But that there is something hereditary in the configuration and arrangement of the primordial particles of the animal fabric, a something which disposes to certain appe- tites, desires, habits of thinking, rather than to others, which original is the same in respect to the diseases of the mind, as the predisposing cause among physicians is to those of the body, is a general truth. I main- tain nevertheless that there is nothing of this sort which it is not possible to overrule. In reference to this predisposing aptitude, we observe one has a strong mind ; which we should be cautious of setting into a wrong course, as it is not easily turned back. Another has a weak, susceptible and pliant mind, in whom we need be scrupulous of inducing a habit of levity. Another seems prone to part : »>ar sorts of extrava- gance in passion, or to excess Oi^pleasure: — and these we must be cautious of exposing to what nourishes the seeds of their disorders, and keep a guard over £hese weak parts of the soul. 6. By pathetic communication. Discourses which awaken the tender passions, pity, love, sorrow, com- punction, are powerfully adapted to calm the minds of the young. TJiese should be of proper length ; not so short as not to fix the attention, nor so long as to tire it out : and the subjects should conspicuously con- cern the actions of free agents. These things improve sympathy. The mind listens calmly to what interests it's feelings. Parents would do well to talk patheti- 2*23 cally to their children about the cares and pains their- selves have undergone in sustaining them, and point out the only things which can afford them a satisfac- tory reward ; to exhibit in affecting colours the many heartaches, fears, sorrows, restless nights and laborious days, in which nothing stayed them but the hope of seeing their children one day virtuous and honorable members of society, fixes deep the principle of grat- itude, and by accustoming compunctious emotions, ex- alts, refines and ennobles sympathy with them, while it lulls the festering passions into peace, and opens trains of serene reflection. The violent passions, an- ger, hatred, desire, pride, ambition, &c. we should med- dle as little as possible with, and no farther move them than by evolving the contrasts of their proper objects they may be useful towards resolving the energy of the system to the principles of active virtue. The same thing is done by exciting admiration, astonish- ment, and their kindred emotions. Hence those ora- tions and poems which exhibit sublime objects, such as the great works of nature and the aspiring operations of heroes, hold the hearer in profound auscultation. And such a posture of mind can be made habitual by repetition, as well as any posture or action of the body. Books serve the same end, to those who can read and understand elevated themes. This induces a habit of reflection. 7 Silence is very useful towards the end I am speaking of. Silence, by which I mean the privation of hard unnecessary sounds, has a natural tendency to compose the mind, by precluding all those vagaries of passion and imagination, which owe their rise to the continual irritation from those things which in the tu- mult of corrupt usages convey the ideas of provocation. There is no where any thing that affords a more amia- ble example of this mean than what we observe in the religious meetings, of the friends or quakers, and witii very hnppy effects too, although these may in some in= stances be defeated by carelessness at home ; for dwel- lings should be kept calm and regular as well as churches. A man's family is his school, and a tutor's school is his family : and both the one and the other should be tranquil, in order to take full impressions from the application of what is designed to promote the end of all good seminaries. 8. Frequenting assemblies of strangers. The next thing to the recess of violent noises, one of those things that operate very favourably towards the end we are here speaking of advancing, (especially in young peo- ple) is the changing of the scene of perceptions by a transition from the company of intimates to companies of strangers : which induces a degree of awe to the young; forcing the mind sometimes to intentional re- flection ; which were otherwise the sport of incidents by the ascendancy of common associations. This is approximated by the usage of the quakers, who bring their children into all their public meetings; which, in this view, is the most judicious measure in their dis- cipline ; for it tends to acquaint them with the esta- blished ways and habits of their parents, their car- riage in public life, and the laws that govern their so- ciety, at the same time that it takes their minds from the common work-day round of vanity, while it calms and awes with the prospect of things serious, Mature persons feel these effects in travelling whereby they are brought into assemblies of strangers and into plights they are unused to. To investigate the parti- cular causation of this whether the absence of the constant accompaniments of their boldness in the used acts of their power, deprives them of the power itself to act and think as in familiarity they are wont, or the novelty of the objects of perception attracts and con- fines their attention more than any other, and so ab- sorbs the energy of the voluntary power, I shall not 223 say ; it sufficing we at least perceive that it is so ; and there is scarcely any body who has not observed this ef\'ect in himself, or who when he comes into large as- semblies of worshippers or others or indeed into the company of any number of strangers in a novel place, does not feel somewhat of awe or impression of the idea of some manner of ascendant power over him, which is greater in proportion as these strangers' man- ners and discourse deviate from his own, or those of his intimates. Now this impression secondarily pro- motes placida et quieta constantia. And here I would take occasion to recommend the discipline of young persons to frequenting assemblies of strangers who are their superiors, in such instances as are governed by strict order, still being so far kept within their lead- ing strings as not to run under the controul of cor* rupting appearances; and with the like qualification, early excursions into distinct neighborhoods. 9. Some sorts of music are propitious to the fur- therance of this design Music which is pathetic, is remarkable, in several instances, for a composing ten- dency. The mood best adapted is to be determined by the sort of passion that prevails, to the want of tranquility. The lydian mood is best in some cases, and the ionion serves the purpose in others. The case wherein the lydian mood prevails, is that of animosity and rage that revert the course of sympathy ;~- which, evolving ideas of distress, excites pity, and pity be- ing adverse to those emotions of hatred and antipathy in which are grounded the purposes of revenge and cruelty, subdues them. The doric mood serves in the case of a festinate motion of the spirits, when an un« due degree of voluntary energy is collected in the system, producing restlessness and rashness. It like- wise serves sometimes to tune the thoughts to abstract reflection. Ionion is favorable only in cases where grief, sorrow, regret, or compunction, is in the excess 226 that verges to the irregularities of atrabilariousness : where on the one hand is no danger of incurring greater irregularity than what does prevail, and on the other, no hope of inducing perfect serenity ; but, by a chime to superinduce a measure of uniformity, to which end the pleasure that attends the melody serves sometimes to allure, is the most we can calculate upon in this re - sort, where if we can only produce a fixed circle of ac- tion and intercept the progress to derangement, we need expect no better atchievements. Even the phry- gian mood is serviceable in this way sometimes in case of that agitation which arises from the doubtfulness or difficulty of any subject the mind has been exercised about, or from a lack of confidence as in the presence or approach of others with whom there is no intimacy, or equality of conversation. There are several sorts of sound which nature herself seems to have accorded to certain emotions and certain degrees of movement in the human system, and given them a tranquillizing quality ; such as the hum of bees, the purling of brooks, distant fall of waters, murmur of winds in a forest, dashing of waves upon a shore, which have na- turally a soothing power and accelerate sleep. These, independently of custom, seem to have such a com- posing effect. Whether it be that the sensorium is fitted to imitate the motions of inanimate beings, which in these instances being equable and even, produce the like in ourselves by a kind of physical sympathy, or that the perceptions of these monotonies supersede the agitations arising from excessive passions, is a question in physiology which of however curious matter of spe- culation, I shall not here meddle with. The effects however being acknowledged on all hands, suggest the propriety of situating a seminary in a rural retreat where such sorts of rounds (if any) commonly prevail. 10 Serious reflection: abstract speculation. By voluntarily fixing the energy of their mind upon the 2£7 consideration of momentous concerns, men make them- selves tranquil ; especially if these concerns be made of abstract ideas. This- is a thing by which mature persons bring about this frame (which in another view is the cause of it,) when we consider habits of contem- plation and meditation with their eventual preeminen- ces, as results of the proper uses of such a posture of the soul, which thus can be recovered and quiet tempo- rarily induced upon the tumult of undue agitations of mind by men making use of their voluntary ascen- dancy they have got by habit, in resolutely turning their thoughts to deliberate and abstract trains in spite of the obtrusive interference of inticingor commoving irritation. I have hitherto considered this placid tern- perament as a medium in and by which we were to rise to habits of voluntary thinking, and accumulation of knowledge, with the advantages they bring us ; and a? a sort of stage on which only we could act advanta- geously in such expeditions. And in this view it is necessary to superinduce it to the young by mechanical helps ; it being accessible to them no other way. It being a mean to the advantages of mental ascendancy and assecution, it is evident these cannot reach it by means of that which they have not got. For it is con- sidered the groundwork of all solid attainments and all improvements that depend on voluntary thinking : as an institutionary preliminary, and preparatory re- quisite indispensable to proficiency in intellectual ex- cellence: without some Megree of this there being no such thing as fixed attention to anyone serious design, sufficient to imprint any valuable maxim in the mem- ory. This, in fact, I think consitutes grei*t part of the essence of the highest degree of liberty we are competent to, freedom of intellectual operations. But I am now considering it as a desideratum valuM ia rapport to another end, to be pursued by the interme- diacy of that which was (at first) its object; to which, 228 intent reflection gives cultivated intelligences a direct pass. And here it is principally valued as an essen- tial of the greatest good. For 1 think it is necessary to the greatest happiness we are capable of; for if our greatest happiness consisted of nothing more than what brutes are susceptible of and makes their chief enjoyment, our superior faculties were a disadvan- tage to us instead of an advantage ; for those facul- ties certainly interfere with that sort of happiness. Now no body I presume will deny that men have so far a voluntary ascendancy over their thoughts that they can select certain ideas or sorts of ideas which they will examine on all sides, and consider in all their relations, which out of choice pursuing in train, ex- clude all others from their particular attention, and hold these in view for a considerable time together. And abstract speculation tends to make permanent and habitual this calm ; this tempered movement of the system : one obvious reason whereof is, abstract ideas imply a slower movement than particular ones. These are some of the principal causes of placida et quieta constantia, and the most likely measures I can think of, to accelerate this auspicions state of the human system. To work these expedients into the regulation of a school so far as they are applicable, is an advantage obvious to all judicious supervisors. From what has been said it is evident that to approxi- mate the substantiation of the principle we have been speaking of, should be the immediate design of all school government. In the present state of human manners, in the ordinary course of things teachers can do little more than approximate towards it, and any tiling that serves best to do this, and carries us the nearest to this point, is accordingly estimable as an expedient of school government Quiet is at least necessary: in order to this, silence; to this, regularity ; and to the whole, proper situation and structure of the 229 material part of the seminary, are ot invariable con- sequence. Writing, or penmanship, is a mechanic art which is taught in this sort of seminaries; the principal secret whereof consists in the association of a certain posture and pressure of the fingers and thumb (in grasping a pen or pencil) with a certain motion of the muscles of those fingers and of the arm. The primordial s of this may be secured in infancy. Thirdly. Private schools kept by jobbers in the occupation whether at their own dwellings or those of others, or situated upon the Y enancy of buildings de- signed for such institutes, wherein the pupils are taught for a stated price per head, the greater number whereof the instructor can get, the more permanent is the in- stitution of this sort and the more excitement he has to enter heartily into the study of the means of im- provement, altho' in the laws that provide for their maintenance they are not subject to the capricious distributions of public funds, yet in their internal re- gulations have many abuses, and the same remarks may be applied to them, in general, as other schools. There can be no permanency to this sort of schools but in an estate belonging to the teacher. If the teacher have an independent fortune, and is disposed to maintain and keep open a seminary of this sort under some, favorite arrangements, it is a permanent and a valuable school so long as he lives and keeps in the same mind ; and whenever it does take place, has utility too; for no one would have pleasure in keeping a seminary open upon such grounds, but one who understood edu- cation, and being skilled in the means to make his work agreeable, and effectual, could render it also a public benefit to the society he was connected with. Other- wise, the existence of the school (of this sort) depends so immediately upon the variable humours, whims, and conceits of the participators of it, that it must be very precarious; and there is less dependance on it than 20 ;o (if possible) on public schools. Yet some prefer this sort of schools to other, upon the assumption that the teacher is more 'faithful' where he is paid according to his number: but there is little hope of faithfulness where it has no determinate character ; where faith- fulness, being but temporizing to customers' liking, each of whom has a separate theory, may be every thing and nothing, and in propriety can scarcely be any thing more than faithfulness to one. Fourthly. I come now to consider another kind of institute, called a religious establishment; which im- plies all those modes, substances, relations, and com- binations of them, which are fixed by the concurrent consent of collections of mankind to be the direct medium for expressing the persuasion of supernatural efficiency, and for exemplifying those modes which come under the tenns worship and devotion. A reli- gious establishment is a sort of institute which was originally applied simply to a purpose of devotion ; but which has, in process of the corrupt operations of ill-formed characters and misguided societies, been worked into a very different appropriation, to promote the ends of ambition, such as monopoly, usurpation, dominion, eclat, and the like; and is now very com- monly reckoned an expedient of great subservience to education. In this I comprehend all the means and modes of those exercises called devotional, and used in address and reference to the consciousness of invi- sible agents. Some reflecting men consider this thing a recourse of important instrumentality to right edu- cation ; and deem it a potent auxiliary to the meliora- tion of the moral characters of men. In religious es- tablishments are these four things to be considered ; creed, apparatus, ceremony and discipline. The whole subject of a religious establishment is constituted of these elements; — things to believe; things to do; things to do with; and things to define and determine 231 tvhat is to do, which are those rules, orders, and pre- scripts to which what is done is to be conformed, and by which all the regulations of an establishment are to be governed. Every religious establishment, then, is reducible to four parts: I. Creed, or things to be believed ; which are either hypothetical propositions, that are objects of superna- tural faith; or mere historical matters of probability: since science belongs to what results from the regular application of our natural faculties, and is common to all societies, and tlie resort of all establishments with- out discrimination. This part governs the others. Their creed modifies the ceremony, apparatus, and discipline, of all sects. II. Apparatus: such as churches, chapels, taberna- cles, synagogues, altars, organs, hvmns, music-books, service books, oracles, symbols, idols, &c. Every es- tablishment has some house or station, to perform its instituted operations in; and use is made of a great variety of implements, of artificial modification, to execute the purposes ot ceremony and discipline. III. Ceremony: which is any manner of acting, or sort of action, which is reckoned essential to fulfil the design of the institute, and complete the characters of members. IV. Discipline; or the rules and measures of the internal regulations, by which the conduct of each member of a society of such sort is guided, officers and ranks appointed, and the business of the society squared; as the conditions and preliminaries toad- mission of members, installation and expulsion of ministers, and whatever else governs and limits the ceremonies used by the society. Every one of these parts is varied in different etsa- blishinents according to the creed of e.tch corporation and each sect. £32 The original of this institute I suppose to be the idea of supernatural efficiency : while the rude children of nature, anterior to civilization, I imagine derived their first notions of worship from awe of powerful men who held in their disposal the prevailing goods and evils of their inferiors. It seems probable that their first devices of penance and homage were sug gested by their dread of superior beings who were known or believed to be volitive causes of sufferance to them. Men not comprehending the beginning and opera- tions of causes, were persuaded that sundry pheno- mena they did not understand, were produced by in- visible beings which (they considering intelligence which urey f-ur.d inhuman adversaries to be the inse- parable concomitant of superior causes which predo- minated in their fate) being supposed intelligent and volitive, were thought to understand their requests not only, but to be susceptible of persuasion, and apprized of desires, fears, aversions, and pains, in their peti- tioners, of being moved like human tyrants. Whence they fancied because enraged tyrants could be pacified and determined by ilatteries, gifts, prayers, &c. that those powerful beings who directed the secret opera- tions of the universe, were susceptible of like impres- sions. Hence the ancients had their Jupiter the thun- derer; and several operations of nature, as well as material elements, had their supervising divinities,-— as Eolus the God of wind, Neptune the God of the sea, Vertumnus the God of spring, Eos the God of the morning. Thus several visible objects which were used to excite fear or admiration they came to worship, as thinking because infuriate tyrants were sometimes appeased and wrought into clemency by adulation and entreaty, that therefore all other superior agents might also be affected by like applications. Crafty men made a matter of questuary speculation of the imbe- 233 cility and credulity of their fellow mortals: kings saw in it a great adminicle to their views of dominion and aggrandizement. Afterwards they found it necessary, in order to support their pre-eminence, to keep the common people in ignorance and delusion ; and these are the ostriches which have hatch M superstition and fanaticism into the world. For, to make people sub- mit tamely to the terms of slavery, and have what na- ture has endowed all rational creatures with, trampled over or made matter of trade to upstarts, it is neces- sary to manacle their intellectual parts, as wagoners are fain to blindfold their horses in harvest. Several sober men in all ages and nations, have been seriously impressed with an opinion that this kind of institute is calculated to make men better: and others have considered it an indispensable part of those deli- beratia oportare, in a well-order'd community, whose scope is the acceleration of the end of human educa- tion ; which is the consummation of enjoyment. In proportion as any instituted mode points more or less directly towards this great end, it is to be estimated important or unimportant for mankind to accustom. This consummation of enjoyment, which is the last end of education, being the finishing of human nature in this sense that it is that in which all its perfections terminate, what tends to the advancement of this, must be something that improves human nature. Therefore education is an amelioration of human nature. Now God having designed man for a social being, endued him with sympathy, whereby it becomes impossible for him to be perfectly happy in the presence of those he makes miserable. On the improvement of sympathy, rests social happiness. To improve sympathy, is to reflect on the feelings of others and to practically as- sociate the consideration of those feelings with that of every part of our conduct by which those feelings are probably affected. Sympathy improved, tend* into *20 234 all those forms of moral good that under the general term social virtue, are called justice, charity, hospi- tality, meekness, gratitude, &c. wherein regarding the feelings of others as our own, we interestedly go to promote the good of others, which in effect becomes the general good ; which when sincerely advanced from natural principles, must approximate the highest degree of perfection the enjoyment of human beings is susceptible of. For sociality being a radical part of human nature, such enjoyment must partake of reci- procity. The utmost degree of improvement the powers and parts of the human system are capable of, seems to me to be the perfection of social virtue. So- cial virtue is the chief end of man in this state of ex- istence. That for which any system was made, its freatest improvement must consist in what tends to ring forward ; and vice versa. Whatever process tends to bring forward this state of improvement of the moral and intellectual powers of man, i. e. the greatest sublimity and facility of operation in the pur- suit of that which is the ultimatum of all improve- ments, perfection of enjoyment, is essential to true education. In proportion as any mean adjuvates the purpose of education by subserving the acceleration of its goal or ultimate object, the same is estimable as a mean : consequently, that which by an interrupted or indirect aid contributes to moral improvement, is bet- ter than what affords no influence at all, favorable to- wards this end. And therefore those corrupt systems which in their projection having had prevailing refer- ence to this end, are in their operations adventitiously propitious to the suppression of vice and to the inuring of reflection, and, by dint of prescription, work as in- dispensable to the keeping of good order in a commu- nity, are better to be retained, than exploded without substitutes that are better fitted to promote the same good. Aad upon this principle I think it is that the 235 rash plan of subverting the authority of venerated pandects of religious tenets, has been universally dis- commended by the stable and considerate. Hence Paine, Hume, Hobbs, Spinoza, and others, have been regarded as common enemies of mankind, because in their running down and bringing into contempt inured systems, they seem'd not to have principally in view to substitute any thing better in the room of them. Which, since many of those who disapprove these, were sensible of great errors in those systems they at- tacked, seems to me a proof that they are generally valu'd for their indirect aid to the cause of virtue ; which is inured in the want of something more direct. Which to me evinces that moral goodness is that which all men are prone to value mankind by, finally ; and to rate all moral institutes by their subserviency to it ; which subserviency is their conscientious criterion of such institutes. And I think it is a very considerable argument for the existence of a principle of goodness in human nature, when we find the common people (when pressed) pin their whole estimate of every system of faith and ceremony, upon that which they are per- suaded has a greater or less bearing towards benefi- cience, and that the most zealous sticklers for such system, have at last no other argument they presume to place reliance upon in their vindication, than that it is favorable some way or other to the cause of vir- tue ; which argument they have, in extremity, full confidence in. I think it affords a pleasing reflection on human na- ture, to perceive that it has, originally, more satisfac- tion in a conformity, in action, to the design of nature, and in what produces that conformity, than in any adverse view. For what is it but that men generally are in heart attached to the cause of moral virtue, when the subserviency to this, is the last refuge that any system of religion can find, when examined in S30 the scales ot ratiocination ? No sentiment is more receptory than that any thing is valuable in proportion to its use or serviceableness to any end. This mea- sure of estimation obtains the controul of our opin- ions of all other things, and ought to prevail equally in matters of religion. Yet the arts of tyranny cir- cumscribe t\\Q rigid adherence to this measure of esti- mation among the common people, so that it takes place only of the debates of prejudiced adversaries when a sect or thesis being at tacked argumentatively it presently comes into vogue because no other test will hold way with ratiocination. Shakespeare says there is some soul of goodness in things evil, would men ob- servingly distil it out : and there is scarce any thing in the world that may not, in some point of view, be traced into an efficient connection with good as well as evil. There is scarcely a conditionary scheme of moral modes in the civilized world that is not in some place or condition, time or relation, resolved into a cause of good, and even of moral good. In man him- self is some soul of goodness, whereby any system of faith and worship ever comes to be rated by its con- duciveness to real virtue: and this is conscience, or the * moral sense.' And there is not a more ingenuous exemplification of this * soul of goodness' than in the upholding of an antiquated and burdensome ritual, for no other reason but a persuasion of its apt- ness to serve the end of moral instruction, either pos- sitively, as conveying such instruction, or negatively by standing in the way of its opposite and keeping people out of evil ;— which has place when a custom cannot be at once exploded by one man which is com- mon to many, and when the cassation of it would be the ascendancy of depravity because there supervenes no feasible substitute more directly subsidiary to the value'd end. A blind cripple being suddenly restored, requires direction and discipline, to acquire the art of 237 walking: and if the cause of morality has ever so blind and blundering guides, they are better than no guides at all (if we suppose these to be its whole visi- ble support and all it has to keep it from subsiding into insignificance or finally verging to utter ruin ;) and if we bluntly take away such things as men use to ap- proximate an end, without instating in their room something else which answers the purpose better than ihese which derive much of their prevailing influence from their associations with the common pleasures of life, we straightly put the attainment of that end at utter hazard. For whatever in the human system embraces the most extensive spliere of ideal connection, is most efficient as a principle of action. What is associated with the greatest number of different ideas and move- ments, must have a chance to operate most frequently as an incitement or discouragement in respect to cer- tain actions in our power, which tend to secure certain goods or avert certain evils. I would not be under- stood to speak exclusively of that which ought to be reputed real good or evil, but of that, generally, which is made so by habit. And the greater variety of points of connection I say, of this sort, any system has ac- quired, the greater prevalence it has, and the higher estimate. This kind of institute seems to be of a nature that is not adapted to facilitate the extension of knowledge ; and its operation to induce, refine, and appropriate habits of virtuous speculations and actions, is not the most direct and expeditious that may be. That it does operate somewhere towards the desired end, is not denied ;— all we can say is, the use of it is not immediate, but catachrestical, by remote causes and fortuitous associations. Yet it is thought by many serious and well meaning persons, to'be essential to the means of finishing education. Now education being but to form and adjust associations of ideas in the infant 238 blind ; to open physical knowledge of things ; to con- duct the tonic organs to proper articulation ; to estate lish such associate movements of the muscular organs by habit as are necessary to subsistence ; and to form habits of voluntary action conformable to purposes of social" virtue ; it will be no frivolous consideration to inquire how far this institute will naturally serve to advance either of these parts of the work : in do- ing which, it will be most convenient to examine every part of an establishment separately, in this respect ; and consider each of these in application to the several stages of education. After which it will be proper to inquire whether there be any way to render this thing more beneficial, by any improvements upon the com- mon ways of employing it. First, then, how far does that part of religious establishment I have called creed, operate towards the furtherance of human education? Or in other words, what improvement comes from this quarter, that tends to insure or accelerate the true end of this business ? 1st. With regard to the fashioning of associations in the system, which is the first step of the process of forming character, I don't see that we can come at any important bearing of this hereon, unless we consider opinions in a different point of view than merely as objects of assent, and, unravelling the relations of "the ideas whereof the opinions consist, examine the habi- tudes these have with progressive association, and of course the share of efficiency the one may have over the other. Now the creeds of various sects are so di- vers and complicate that to recapitulate ever so brief- ly what history exemplifies of this sort of description, would be to make a volume; wherefore it is necessary in this place to concentrate our investigation in those specimens, of most influence and notoriety. Some associations are arbitrary ; and some natural. Some things are found to co-exist in rerum natura, and 239 others casually coalesce in the flow of our imagina- tions ^ while there are others which we voluntarily put together, and institute their connection for certain purposes. And the forming of associations, susceptive to the province of education, is nothing more nor less than making some ideas and movements apt to appear together or follow one another rather than others. The influence the subjects of opinions concerning for- eign existences, are capable to command, in direct causality, on this part of the work of education, does not take place very early in life. A bias from this quar- ter does not take place very early on the associations of children, any otherwise than by secondary occasion, in the manner supervizors are hereby used to manage them. Whenever children understanding the terms used to represent the subjects of those opinions, are capable of comprehending them, which may yet be before they have the knack of investigating their grounds, weighing probabilities, and judging of truth and falsehood, their practical associations (I mean such as are likely to 53 Ve effect to motives, and turn to actions) are obviously liable to be biassed by them. e. g. What effect shall we expect the opinion of the Mahometan ° that the prophet in a nocturnal visit to the Empyrean, and subsequent communications of the angel Gabriel, collected the alcoran," or of the papist "that the uttering of certain words r.nd acting of cer- tain motions, by a priest, has the en'ect to change the very nature oV a substance and convert bread into flesh, wine into blood, &c," to have upon the associations of a young mind, but, superinducing ideas that are aside from the natural course and consistency of things, to nonplus the efficiency of its best principles of ac- tion, such as sympathy and reason, which they con- troul, much to the prejudice of phiianthropby ? ^ And herein we see what makes mystical opinions pernicious is romwtic ideas t which have been heretofore noticed 210 to have a depraving tendency upon the understand- ings of social agents, by bearing aside the energy ot the moral powers from the natural establishment of human enjoyment. For if happiness be associated with things which we see no where connected in na- ture, and the means of it placed without the compass of human possibility, how shall we form upon this prin- ciple a system of moral conduct adapted to our real condition ? Chimerical ideas are baneful to the mo- rals of youth. And for this reason 1 think that of those, opinions of foreign existence which may be reckoned true, the abstruse part should not be let into the notice of the young. Those opinions which con- tain mystical and incomprehensible things, should not be let into the notice of the young very early. To accustom the understanding to fantastical ideas, is to pervert the understanding. Understanding be- ing given man to preserve him and direct him to hap- piness, should evidently, for the advancement of these purposes, be cencern'd with the ideas of those things which are capacitated to comfort or trouble, preserve or destroy him, rather than with what has no discover- able connection with those causes adapted to effect u« in these ways. Now to use the understanding to ideas different from what it was designed for, is perverting it : and to connect supernatural ideas (if there be any such) with natural ones; to introduce supernatural ideas into the scene of natural connections with what we by sensation and reflection find ourselves here en- vironed by, and subject to the operation of, with the presumption to lorm any system of conduct thereby, is like putting an institute of geometry into the hands of a child who yet has learn'd no more of mathematics than to name and count the nine elementary numbers. Supernatural will no more consist with natural ideas, to constitute the same system for the guide of a finite being, than a crane will serve for a pilot to a fieet. 241 The world abounds with absurd opinions ; and upon ; ; »e whole matter I think that theological, and hypothe- tical opinions in pneumatology, in general, however se- riously we may be persuaded oftheir reality, were to all intents and purposes of advancing the interest of mo- rality (since no man is under any obligation to disclose his opinion to another, and men might live much more harmoniously and believe that all had the same opinions of such things if one did not voluntarily blurt to another his secret and impracticable notions) better kept in the heads of those to whom they belong than industriously propagated toothers; because they in- variably tend to associate fantastical ideas with real : and to this end, the mind is prepared by the placing of frivolous ideas in the condition of motives, in- stead of such as have a conspicuous practical conse- quence: for principles of action are wont to be refer'd to something real. He that shall examine the creeds of the several sects in India, China, Africa, Norway, and some other countries, and observe what influence they have or are likely to have on the early associa- tions of ideas in the mind of man, which every day's experience shews to engender connexions that have a very conspicuous ascendancy in the direction of his will and the fashioning of character, will have reason to conclude that the impression of these on young minds, has no very auspicious tendency in respect to the end of moral principles. Secondly. To initiating Vnc mind in the knowledge of things, Ihese can scarce be conceived to contribute any aid at all; since opinion failing short of know- ledge, and being something less clear and satisfactory, run no more produce the latter, than the light of a taper can increase that of the sun. But: yet I think, on the other hand, the persistive inculcation of fantas- tical creeds, tends to retard and obscure the know- ledge of realities. For the persuasion of thirjgs un- 2i 24& real, so, far as they are contradictory of what is real, completely shuts out real knowledge. Indeed they furnish the mind with some perceptions; but these are no longer of any import if the matter of the opinions be unreal ; or they are of a delusive import. Delu- sion may sometimes conduce to temporary good. But the general good of the whole race, or of any commu- nity, requires the extent of knowledge, and real know- ledge too, so far as our faculties are fitted to reach. And now these things to be believed, are not things that are known, nor the proper objects of knowledge ; — if they were, they were no longer to be believed. We were no longer required to believe that which we were to know. Belief is an operation of the mind very different from knowledge, and falls much short of it, in respect of assurance. What a man knows, he is past believing ; he does more than believe it, he has certainty of it. He clearly perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas; whereof belief is but the assumption;— a taking it to be, without perceivingit. We maybe called to believe, in these creeds, proposi- tions that are no way mystical nor romantic ; but his- torical matters of fact : propositions that carry such a weight of probability with them that when presented to our understandings we cannot choose but be- lieve them. For the act whereby the understanding assents to and acquiesces in a proposition, is a necessary act determined by the preponderancy of the probabil- ity perceived. Yet of these, some may have practical import, fit to be observed in our necessary business as social rational agents ; and some may be such as have no practical import at all ; and which however easily they are believed, have no consequence in our conduct, to make one single duty or default of a duty, and have no effect in or upon actions that come after it, that has any constant or necessary connection with the belief of them ; any more than the persuasion, upon report, of the flying of a crow or the falling of a tree 2L8 in a southern or northern direction. Finally no one is likely to become much more knowing by being ap- priz'd of a variety of opinions and articles of faith ; or much better stocked with means and devices to ad- just or execute the purposes of life. Thirdly. What good can we expect these creeds to do towards the arts of speech ? This might be na- turally enough supposed a point quite out of the verge of their operation; yet will be found upon examination to throw several obstacles in the way of the finishing of this habilitation ; and this, without taking into ac- count that some of these creeds themselves dictate imprudent methods of serving this accomplishment; there being among the jumble of absurdities which confuse and debase mankind, the incidence of erro- neous ways of representing ideas by speech, which accustom the use of odd circumlocutory phrases, or confine and cramp the dialect to ungrammatical and defective application of language. The quakers think they must speak in a fashion that is ungrammatical : I mean the rudest part of the society. About two in a thousand of them, speak more grammatically than other sects. The catholic creed precludes the laity from acquaintance with the bible : therefore they cannot so much as come at a habit of speaking in the style of that book which they are taught to believe their find salvation rests upon. Several blundering ways of talking come from the fantastical creeds of several sects; which so far as they bring up their children in earnest constraint to their favorite modes, trammel their initiation in language with the incumbrances of error and imperfection. There is a number of words and phrases, of great currency among the professors of belief in some of these creeds, to which it is difficult to discover any determinate meaning — such as ' effec tual calling,' * sanctification,' J regeneration of the spirit,' 'special grace,' 'sufficient grace,' 'effectual 244 grace,' 'spirit of grace,' 'spirit of faith,' 'trinity;' ex- perience of religion in the soul, and sundry others, which many of those who use them I imagine have no clear determined ideas in their minds, to which as common standards they uniformly apply them ; but that every one has peculiar notions in his own mind, which he has annexed to them, and intends them to signify, or else the sounds themselves are thought to carry some certain meanings invariably, and to have an uncontrollable power of significancy, so that there is no concern of explaining them, one to another of those who use them. Fourthly. To morals I cannot discern that these ire often very propitious: for most religious creeds ascribe to supernatural beings the dispositions of men. So, those things they revere as gods, are made re- vengeful, cruel, proud, versatile, and ambitious; — and these bad qualities being associated with an object of veneration, perverts every principle of moral estima- tion ; since it confounds moral good and evil ; and God being at first imaginatively fashioned in the like- ness of man, man is apt to esteem man in proportion as he emulates that model. Thus by being strongly catenated to the emotions of esteem and admiration as being the characteristic appendications of their objects, the excessive passions, ambition, pride, revenge, cruel- ty, &c. are too apt to become objects of those emo- tions : and this is the actual subversion of morality. Creeds may in some cases, by occasion of the discipli- nary influence of those passions, fear and hope, which they stir up to a remarkable degree sometimes where ardently receiv'd and not doubted, cause some courses* of decent moral conduct which otherwise would not be. And yet at the same time we find some of the most selfish, sordid, unsocial, as well as also profli- gate persons in civil communities, to be of those who profess to believe strictly in these creeds, Other me- 245 thods are necessary, to instil moral principles, than the inculcation of creeds. Philanthropy w iH hardly get root by such culture. A slavish fear of superior beings, can never produce benignity; and the exertions that are excited by ardent hope with assurance of re- ward, are of a venal nature ; not terminating in those large and diffusive views which distinguish true virtue. Fifthly. What can these creeds do towards the perfecting of those arts and trades that serve men's livelihood? To which I cannot imagine they can do any thing, any more than smoking tobacco. As they fill the trains of imagination with a succession of fan- tastical creatures.and iorms, of unnatural combinations, instead of real beings, I suppose they give occasion to those odd fashions of architecture, painting, and cloth- ing, used by different sects in various parts of the world. They may likewise be observed to give rise to several peculiar occupations, which otherwise had no use. The Mahometans have one fashion of building their houses of public worship ; the Pagans of India, another ; and among the christian sects, the quakers have one fashion and the episcopalians another. Yet though they give occasion to trades, no one learns any mechan- ic art more expeditiously for firmly believing in these. So that it does not appear that this part of religious es- tablishments called creed, is indispensably necessary to the finishing of right education, or has any necessary connection a* a cause, with either of tire essential parts of the work. II. Let us inquire into the influence of the second part of a religious establishment, which is apparatus, upon the advance of education. All the improvement education gets either directly or indirectly from the apparatus employed in plans of this sort, must be purely accidental. For what do altars,' lavers, tan- kards, vases, beads, churches, prayer-books, music- books, hymn-books, organs, images, bells, towards ad* 246 justing those associations which form the primordial principles of moral character, the operative motives of our actions; more than any natural objects, as rocks or trees, which is no otherwise than as they stand within the same possibility of being associated with other ideas, as any objects of our undertsar_ding ? They operate only as secondary prompture, if we except books (at least what are contained within the books ;) and their music books serve as vehicles to an initiation in vocal music. These materials, however, by their grotesque fashions intruding themselves among the ac- customed perceptions and fantazies of the young, have an influence that is of little or no utility, or is pernicious. But when to these supervenes the consi- deration of their divine tutelage and appropriation as- cending hereon, they become the ties of very delusive and cramping associations, making fantastical distinc- tions among common things, whereby the young mind attaches certain degress of importance in estimate, and solemnity in aspection, to pieces of matter which mere chance and the humours of men have given a peculiar modality. To adjust associations, is to fix things in their true natural ranks* as organized or unorganized, remote or proximate causes or effects. But when a, piece of matter is supposed to be the receptacle of an invisible almighty being, or one particular shape of it more pleasing to that being than another ; an altar the peculiar fireplace the deity chooses to have for the roasting of animals, or the water of a certain river that which he makes his favorite vehicle for washing away the depravity of sinners ; then these things are thought to be better than others of their kind ; and an unnatural system of estimate prevails, when connec- tions are assumed, that have no existence in nature. But,— . Secondly. If it be of little service in the adjustment of associations of ideas, it may contribute something 2±7 to the second stage of education, in furnishing the mind with real knowledge and correct opinions: and to this, I think the apparatus of this institute adds as much physical knowledge as that of the particular existence of the materials whereof it is, with their va- rieties and instituted uses, wiiich being allusive, tra- ditionary, or peculiariz'd, cannot afford knowledge that has much practical import to social beings at large. As much valuable knowledge may be infused and as sublime and important truths deliver'd in a hovel as in the most superb dome The same things may be done in the open air. And men by applying their natural powers to such operations as they are fitted for, in any place and condition whatever, attain use- ful knowledge, and opinions that are fit to direct their conduct. And although these materials serve the pur- pose of accommodation, are used as means for the dif- fusion of that which is deemed important moral in- struction, and are the occasions to the impression of some individuals with peculiar associate emotions, which still may be of no general consequence ; yet there is no causality inseparably and naturally inher- ent in these particulars, connected with such effects as they are thought indispensable to the insurance 01. The books, in this part, convey the materials of opin- ions, of greater or less weight. Demonstrative know- ledge they seldom exhibit. The worst of it is, they contain specimens of mystical opinions ; reports of supernatural and incomprehensible things that are wont to engender romantic ideas in the minds of those who acquiesce in them. There are also many historical matters that are doubtful because they are obscure ; and their obscurity is a necessary consequence of their antiquity, which places their original beyond our ex- ploration ; insomuch that it is difficult to satisfactorily determine what particular things the writers of them had before their minds, that they applied their words to represent. There is some moral knowledge very 24S handsomely displayed in these books ; but they are not the only resource of it. Thirdly. What assistance are we to expect from the natural tendency and invariable efficacy of this in the third process of education, viz. the training of the powers to the proper use of articulate signt? This we must seek altogether in the books employed in this de- partment ; for the other articles can afford nothing of the kind but their names. The directory codes, pan- detfs, magazines, or histories, that societies are guided by in their opinions and operations, being mostly an- cient, and the nature of human language being to fluc- tuate and change with the succession of generations of men, and the variation of their accustomed manners, do not always afford standards of propriety. For, if words there used are now applied to different ideas from what they stood for at the time they were writ- ten, in the same language, or (the people being extinct that used that language) at the time they were trans- lated ; or else not being used at all to signify any thing in common communication ; it is plain that to inculcate upon the young the use of these is different from train- ing them to exact propriety of speech. Some sects undoubtedly have standard books very correctly writ- ten. But to come at propriety in the use of words, we look to the common most usual ways of a commu- nity or nation in the matter of communicating their thoughts, or those of the prevailing part of it. The adjustment of articulation is out of the province of re- ligious establishments. Fourthly. If we can get any instrumentality to mo- ral education from this part, it will be an important ar- gument for the institute : since this being the sublim- est and most momentous part of education, whatever remarkable service recommends this kind of institute, must be in advancement oftMs; and in fact, as it falls out, it has most pretence to serve this, of all parts of 219 education. The houses dedicated to the services of these establishments, are generally adapted to accom- modate a purpose of moral teaching. There is one thing (which however takes effect only in cold cli- mates) that is incident to these stations, restrictive of their advantageous instrumentality, and that is an ex- posure to cold, from a custom of disusing chimneys or stoves in this sort of buildings in country places; which, in those nations who accustom themselves to a high temperature at their dwellings constantly,induces too great a contrast in the sensory for the purpose of calm contemplation, which h first necessary when any moral or intellectual excellence is to be cultivated. But although these may be made very serviceable to the purpose of assembling several people together, and disseminating valuable instruction ; yet what very much intercepts their utility, in this branch, is their pa- geantry. This takes place in most civilized nations. Men make the apparatus of their religious establish- ments, the vehicle of pageantry. The pride of appear- ance, and the ostentation of sensible pre-eminences, no where displays itself more than in the buildings and fur- niture of some of these establishments. Their churches are exemplars of gaudery. This splendor, that they are used to envelope ihe apparatus of their insti- tutions in, has bad effects. In the associations of ideas it has an operation rather frusti atory of the end men seem generally to propose to themselves in these esta- blishments, by strongly associating with the most seri- ous things the vain ostents of human rivalry : and that can hardly be esteemed a pure philanthropic work, the elaboration of which is the consecration of human pride, and that the very meanest of pride too, pride of distinctions in appearance. Now this association of the appearance of vanity with what is designed to in- duce the most solemn conceptions men are supposed capable of, brings on a frivolity of thought, and a habit 250 of superficial views of natural beings, that precludes deliberation, sound reasonings, and thorough reflection. Hence those the most intimately connected with this apparatus, by instituted attendance or otherwise, are not the most considerate people in the world. It is said the pandects of religious sects are useful to moral education by affording valuable prudentials, and substantial doctrine of that sort that directs to the greatest good. It is difficult to do justice to this sub- ject, by reason of the multiformity of sects and esta- blishments, and of their standard theories. The Ma- hometan ethics contain undoubtedly some good dog- mas ; and the Christian, more philanthropical ones. Se- veral other sects may possess true moral directories, mixed with mystical things. The consequence is, in proportion as their books contain these, they are esti- mable. But to prove they are indispensable to the pur- pose of completing this part of education, it is neces- sary to shew that the like moral truths are not disco- verable by afay other source than by an acquaintance with the creed.s and standard data of these sects* Of all others, the Christian sect possesses the truest ethics. The most rational chain of moral doctrine is found in the Christian books. Such should be the whole guide of this sort : but fact is lamentably otherwise ; and the reason is, men, being degenerate by bad practices, hate the restraints of moral virtue. The ethics of the Ma- hometans, the Hindoos, the Persians, and the Chinese, so far as involved in their religions establishments, are not such as are directly deduced from physiological realities, and so interpretations of the law of nature; but the result and dependence of their instituted creeds, discipline, and ceremonies ; being fashioned according to the accommodation of worldly views in such establishments. There may be excellent ethics in the books of all those sects, but they are intertwin- ed with mysteries, and mixed up with such proposi- 251 lions as counteract philanthropy. In our Christian gospels, and in writings connected with them, we find the most benign and universal dogmas of ethics, the most liberal and enlightening apothegms, that strike at the roots of aristocracy, of usurpation, of tyranny, and of every fashion of human pride. Fifthly. In advance of those trades and associate motions that are the mechanic means of life, I conceive this does little, except by affording patterns of various workmanship. These give rise to some occupations, and furnish some persons with work which otherwise they had not Besides this, I cannot see that it affects arts and trades in any other way ; and I do not con- ceive how these materials can serve as aids to accelle- rate the acquisition of any degree of skill or aptness in any of the mechanic arts, or the sublime arts, or in fact, any fashion of useful associate movement, unless it be singing and praying, which the music books, hymn books, and prayer books may subserve. III. We will next examine what influence that con- stituent of a religious establishment which is call- ed ceremony, has upon the advance of education. First. Upon the association of ideas; I apprehend this many times has a bad effect. Ceremony, consi- dered as a thing instituted by a tutelary power, to accompany the exercise of devotional emotions, is not reckoned a cause so much as a sign ; an expe- dient to represent something to human observers ; in which capacity, since it is not an indispensa- ble mean, exclusively expressive, it implicates a dimi- nutive estimate of Deity ; it seeming little other than trifling to annex to certain sentiments a set form of moving, and make it essential to whatever is intended to be advanced by the expression of them, while there are various ways (perhaps others much apter) where- by men can come at the assurance of one another's emotions and persuasions of mind. It serves to exer- cise the body rather than the mind, which it tends to 252 paralvze and constrict by its unavoidable irksomeness. To the Deity they can express nothing : therefore to suppose the Deity to institute such ceremonies, is to suppose him frivolously employed. The principal ce- remonies used by the Christians are the washings and plungings of the baptists; the groanings, shriekings, screamings, shoutings, kneelings, tumblings, &c. of the methodists ; singing, which is used by all except the quakers ; eating and drinking what is called sacra^ inent, a symbolical meal, which most of the sects use ; also preaching and praying, common to all. Now these formalities in general when strongly as- sociated with the idea of moral good in the minds of the young, have an effect that rather debases than elevates human excellence. For vague unaflfecting irritation is likely to be taken for the substance of a thing of which it is only a catachrestical concomitant. And if children be taught that religion is the only good thing, and that religion consists in these ceremonies, or that it is a thing to which these are essential, what becomes of meditation, contemplation, benevolence, chanty, hospitality, gratitude, and patriotism ? The ceremony preaching, is of itself a good institute. This com- mands real utility. Yet none is more abused. Nothing is more important in the whole circle of the means of education, than the access of communicating orally from the treasures of experience, erudition, and wis- dom, the directories of prudence, the precepts of mo- rality, the knowledge of the sublime parts of nature. This sort of communication is more pathetic to young minds than reading. Nothing is more conducive to the improvement of the mind and forming the heart to virtue, than the public dispensation of moral teaching on stated days set apart for that purpose. But the way in which this is generally used, is rather corrupt- ing than improving to morals. StufiTis dealt through this channel, that does no good. Much that goes in. at i 25i one ear and out at the other, of very intelligent per- sons ; and much of that which really deludes, and *ets awry the thoughts and affections of ingenuous lis- teners. The Quakers have a ceremony that is happily adapted to settle a good association in the minds of the young; and that is their instituting stillness, and natural easy posture of body, maintained in their meet- ings : to which may be added, the audience of their young to their public transactions. Secondly. In the second part of education, wherein we are engaged in enlarging the human mind with real knowledge, and notices of real existence, ceremony has very little efficien?y, any farther than the bare perception of that ceremony itself, in its varieties. For its origin, its design and ends, are mostly very ob- scure and afford no knowledge at all, being little other than conjectured. The knowledge of a system of ceremonies and their order, holds no very high rank in the scale of human accomplishments. The bare know- ledge of a ritual I consider as much worth as that of a picture. It is imagined these have efficacy to induce stability. Truely, where is constancy, certain syste- matic forms are adopted ; but rather gathered from prescription than speculation. There must be some forms accustomed ; and who is constant, who is stable, has a stated form, and uniform circle of action, in his course. But this is the effect, not the cause, of sta- bility. It is not inform, to substantiate the principle of stability. Charity, hospitality, patriotism, grati- tude, punctuality, are the ceremonies which have real value. The knowledge of these is a good thing ; and the habit of acting them, a better. But these are ge- nerally left out of church formularies. There is how- ever an excellent practice still kept up in some church- es, of periodical contributions to the poor. This is the best ceremony extant in the whole round of religious institutions. 254 Thirdly. That the appropriate rites of worshiping societies, serve to facilitate the assecution of expert- ness or propriety in the use of the articulatory organs, or association of certain exertions of them with the per- ception of certain figures conditionarily representative of the sounds made by those exertions, I presume none will contend. There are habits of dialect, there are ways of talking, peculiar to every club or knot of so- cial mankind consociating for some particular reason, or promotion of some favorite view: ways of applying words that discriminate them from others. The chy- ipists have one way of talking ; the Martinists and 11- luminatists have their peculiar ways In our Christian churches, there is often a whining or singing way of reading the hymns, praying, &c. which displays no ve- ry eligible example of speech to young who attend. The quakers make it a point to speak ungrammatical- ly. Bating this, I don't know of any thing in ceremo- ny that hinders training young, in the societies of Christian establishments, to a proper and correct use of the powers of communicating. But the same may be done out of the pale of those establishments. If we have any ceremonies fitto forward this part of edu- cation, they are preaching, praying, and reading j which, if they be philologically done, set forth good examples to young who listen hereto, of propriety of sound and application, worthy for them to imitate. Fourthly. To that part of education whose immedi- ate drift is to ground, habituate, and establish, such as- sociate motions of the parts of the human system as are applicative of, and comport with, che abstract pur- pose of social virtue issuing in the greatest good of the circle of percipient beings susceptive to the sphere of our reflective reciprocity, I fancy the ceremonies in most common use are not conspicuously desirable for fheir serviceabieness by way of inuring to operative measures of moral good ; because they nave no deter- 255 ruinate or efficient connection with benevolent put poses. They seem generally to have a symbolical re- ference to something that does not come within the fetch of our projection as finite intelligent agents ; and so falls not within the province of our speculative virtue ; and a mechanical conforming of the body to such measures, has not the knack to infix moral prin- ciples, or habituate good purposes. Preaching, how- ever, is a ceremony that, judiciously employed, might be a vehicle of very excellent impressions: but the vague manner in which it is used, incurs pernicious results. If pure moral science were invariably con- veyed by this, instead of peculiar opinions and disputa- ble hypotheses, it were a blessing to the human race. The formal preaching of traditionary and cabalistical discourses on things confessedly mysterious, contracts, in the minds of youth, habits of inattention. It makes them habitually inattentive to solemn discourses on morals or religion ; and entirely disaffects their minds from them; but generates a general habit of inatten- tion, and quiescence of the reflective energies. And the reasons I have for this opinion are these : 1st. Whatever nonplusses the understanding of man and mocks his powers of judgment, being repeated several times in the perception, counterbufts the advances of curiosity as directed to the subjects of such discour- ses ; the soul seeks for something to entertain it in oth- er directious of its thoughts. Here (when young) not rightly conducted, it is dissipated, and fixes upon no- thing. Here then is a privative of the exercise of atteu - tion, at a period of life when that exercise is of the ut- most consequence, and of indispensable requisition. The whole circle of reflective energies depends on the exercise of attention in early life. Whereas any thing that is understood more or less interests the feelings, and confines attention ; to preach to a young man about the ' three persons in one God,' ' the miraculous 256 conception,' * the foreknowledge and pre determina- tion of all events,' * eternal fire,' * regeneration of the spirit/ sanctification," crown of glory,' • breast-plate of righteousness,' &c. is to make him dull and inatten- tive to preaching. 2dly. Any thing too often and too constantly re- peated, becomes irksome. This is the case with mys- tical discourse^ that are periodically reiterated ; which, were they ever so true, would make them unaffecting;, and the mind less and less attentive to them, without some new accompaniments or improvement. There- fore these things lose their power of excitement ; peo- ple are no longer irritable to them : and as the clatter of a market is not heeded by its inhabitants, and those sleep soundly who live by a cataract ; so these sleep in the midst of the discourses with which they are ad- dressed. Sdly. Even allowing it all to be true and clearly un- derstood, as clearly as human capacity allows most communications to be comprehended, yet such as they are constantly accustomed to hear, will not interest and concern the mind of those who listen to them. They will not chain down the attention. We will take for a sample, a discourse that on a particular day of the week is delivered out of several thousand pulpits* What is the whole compass and burden of it? There is a sort of affected, catachrestical invocation to grati- tude for something that is done that is above our com- prehension. All is done that can be done ; it is said to be a sin to think we can do any thing ourselves that is meritorious ; nothing for us to do, a spirit of medita- tion and prayer being to be given us from above by a vouchsafement of special grace : so that in effect we are merely told to sit still, as supine and listless as the hounds in our kennel, (with respect to any sublime duties :) this is the apparent drift of the whole. : v ow what ardour can be excited by such an object ? Can 257 stlch an object excite any degree of ardour, either of at- tention, hope, or desire of action ? It presents not the eligibility of any action ; for it condemns it. What concern can the mind feel about such an object? Now 1 declare that this fills the mouths of the young with jests and reflections on religion. This, in the first place, by making the mind habitually inattentive, pre- disposes them to licentiousness and all extravagance. Ridiculously shall divines complain of the ridicule of religion ; theirselves the original fomenters of it. For their own measures and operations, the absurdities in their own schemes, make them the remote causes of the disgust and contempt that, in the minds of the young, are attached to the religions of the world : and induce all that sorry scoffing and sneering at things sacred, that without reasoning the multitude runs head- long into. Some sects have ceremonies that have an aus- picious aspect towards moral improvement. But these are isolated, and few m-comparison of the whole Of this kind, among the Christian sects I fancy thequakers have two of the most eligible; their training youth to an acquaintance with the transactions of the community ; and their silent meetings, which, accustoming each member to absolute liberty in pursuing his own trains of thought, give place to originary and conscientious reflection. The system of ceremonies used by the En- glish episcopal church, is the dullest and vainest, per- haps, except the Roman catholic, of all the formularies of the civilized world. The catholics exceed the ex- travagance of this, in some particulars, and in others they i'all short of it. The end of a sign is to denote something to some other. By these formal manners and recitations so far as they are used for signs, (and they can have no pretence to any considerable end in any other capacity, because they produce no effect that is conspicuously beneficial) men seem to aim to signi- fy, either to God or to men, that they have certain sen- S2* 258 timents, opinions, wishes, and desires, within them. Now with respect to the first of these, this representa- tion is frivolous and presumptuous, and cannot be a part of good moral manners, nor a valuable expedient to promote the design of moral improvement (and the means are so repetitious, and the variety so small, that they cannot obviously serve intellectual improvement) for the Almighty possesses a direct aspection of all the most secret thoughts of our hearts, and the beginnings of all our volitions and aims, independently of any of our twistings and turnings ; and to use these formal ex^ pressions under the pretence of any such view as de- noting to the Deity that we possess particular opin- ions, emotions, wishes, or desires, whether with regard to His existence or attributes, or to our own duties at destinies, is manifest nugacity, if it deserve no worse name : for I am apt to think* if men can insult the De- ity, it may be in the way of this parade to affect to per- suade him of the existence of things whereof they must be sensible He has perfect knowledge : and this is treating like a man a being of infinite sapience and power. To signify to their fellow men these things, this seems to be a roundabout and idle recourse. For in the name of common sense let me ask, were it not much more expeditiously efficient towards all the ends of communication, to succinctly tell them in plain ex- pressive words, that they (the communicators) had in them such opinions, passions, wishes, &c. than to moil through such an uncouth tissue of vain repetitions of words and gesticulations, of obscure reference, for the sake of a common-plac'd parade, that can have no pre- tence to utility but as it draws in an aping passive mul- titude to be fit tools to some aristocratical project? Indeed it serves to obscure, rather than display, any thing that is really felt or opined J and is at best as a shroud to the want of thought. Sj9 So rotten must be the support of those arguments that pretend to hold up this system as an efficacious expedient to promote moral education. As little can be pretended of the usefulness of these forms towards intellectual improvement. For what can it do towards the clearness and regularity of our conceptions, or the propriety of our sentiments and emotions, to have oth- ers insinuating to us, by allegorical ways, that they have certain persuasions on their minds, and that they deem it a duty to express them publicly ? The ways to improve the understanding are by knowledge, proofs, distinct ideas, habit, and correct associations; and whether this repetitious system of ceremony and alle- gorical allusion to things obscurely symbolized, can forward any of these, may confidently be questioned : and I think those who lend their service to lead or su- pervise this farce, drudge for subsistence set off with a fantastical dignity, whose chief worth is yet in security of ease from more masculine labors. For my own part I have found it an insipid treat, when, coot-like, I have danced attendance at the chapel, and awkward- ly passive to the harness of fashion, waited like an ape, the moving of each diversifying feat. Some ingenious man has held that, to discipline chil- dren to bowing, kneeling, leaning, and the accustomed postures at church, in conjunction with their per- ception of the sounds of words used in service, while yet they understand them not, accelerates the im- pression of a true idea of God, by associating with the signs used to express it, certain feelings and emotions : and for what reason ? Because men are used to cringe and kneel to tyrants and nobles ? Thus a sort of re- verence directed to whatever object, may always be induced by one mechanical process, by way of the same set of associations. But the question arises whether these associations themselves are right f To ask whether they are right, is, in regard to morals, to £60 ask whether they are (according to the law of nature) conducive to a due contemperation of passions I For it is worthy of remark, the way in which men view a man in great power; as a king, a duke, an emperor, is not the true conception of the Deity. Fifthly. All other arts besides those of performing the ceremonies themselves, these couduce to the fur- therance of, I fancy get their help by way of the wants these generate, of certain materials mechanically mo- dified, and customary attendance, whereby occasions are brought about for work, and of course rise given to habit in that work : which is not saying that we can either teach or learn the principles of any other occu- pation or trade with any greater facility within the scene of ceremonial parades, or within the knowledge of them, than in any other condition. IV. In the next place, what is the tendency of that part of religious institutes which is called discipline ? Every church has a form of government. There are distinct duties, pertaining to the members, supervis- ors, and servants. These, fashioned according to va- rious systems, obviously incline to influence several parts of the progressive education of those who live in the habitual observance of them. First, then, what bearing has this species on the first part of education? That it must naturally tend to fashion the early associations to the sentiment of aris- tocracy, is very evident in a general view of this sub- ject. For what else can we expect of the unpracticed intelligence, when a priest is reckoned superior (by some inseparable attribute) to other members of the society; that itis his duty to visit and console the dy- ing; that his communications there have peculiar effi- cacy, paramount to those of other ranks ; that it is his province and function to preside at communions, and. the duty of lay members to pay some formal reverence- to that personage, and submit to cettain forms laid S6l down, (sometimes perhaps capriciously) by him ; that certain other officers and heads of departments, as clerks, criers, wardens, elders, curates, rectors, bish- ops, archbishops, popes, cardinals, prebendaries, deans, prelates, confessors, chaplains, dignitaries, friars, Do- minicans, Jesuits, Carmelites, Benedictines, bramins, bonzes, muftis, imans, vicars, have their institution and authority from the special delegation of the powers above, or have something paramount to human ap- pointment for the reason of their precedency and dic- tation, but to imbibe a monarchical or aristocratical turn of mind that discountenances the genuine senti- ment of natural equality belonging to all the individu- als of a species ? And the powers of understanding are more kindly distributed than to circumscribe their ex- cellence to the circuit of collegial advantages. Soci- ety must have some distinctions. The simplest and best contrived democracy that can be, requires some distinctions in a community, but they are all subsidia- ry, and are controllable by the idea of universal equa- lity. Whatever tends to multiply these distinctions beyond what is necessary to the subservience of the public good, verges to aristocracy. The distinctions which the disciplines of many sects disclose, have such a bearing; and tend to interfuse among our associa- tions commentitious ideas of merit and demerit, virtue and vice. They impress no mechanical art ; they evi- dently do nothing towards the improvement of speech ; and the duties they impose are not moral duties ; and all other duties are to be known without the know- ledge of such an existence as church discipline. Those peculiar modes of motion which they make incumbent on the members of religious societies, are but ceremonial services whose use is barely symboli- cal, or else expedients to an aristocratical scheme. The whole is but as the drilling of a company of sol- diers to a purpose of conquest or defence. For what 262 is the issue of the whole matter? A community is kept established in certain general habits of moving, i e. certain great circles of action are kept up ; and what are these great circles made up of? Not charity, hos- pitality, return of benefactions, oblivion of grudges ; no. The best of it is (generally) the hearing of pub* lie harangues ! This community hereby held up to thd world in certain ranks, orders, divisions/ that mark several degrees of respect and influence, exemplifies a distinction that is incipient aristocracy. For when men are used better by, and get more favors of, this select society by belonging to it, and being in uniform with the rest ; what is the tendency but to set one por j tion of human society above another, or to give it some pre eminence and ascendancy, by awarding it a con- fessed preference in esteem ? Secondly. How shall we convert this to the enlarge- m2nt of real knowledge of things ? The internal re- gulations of churches, whereby certain offices and ranks are substantiated, are, in general, not adapted to enlarge the views of the human mind ; but seem, on the contrary, to cramp them. Discipline that enforces certain creeds, and the revolving of emblematical ap- plicatives, cannot give freedom to thought. Without freedom of thought, knowledge cannot be extended* When the mind is stopped at a certain creed ; when the career of investigation is stop'd at a settled creed, and a conformity to certain formal measures imposed by authority ; the understanding, especially if it be young or unaccustomed to enterprize, seems fettered, and is apt to become stationary in respect to improve- ment* For any establishment whose scope is to bound the view of mind, to set land-marks to its free inquiry, and to hamper its flight with the vindication of assum- ed principles taken to be pre-established without know- ledge of their being so, in order to support which all other knowledge must be kept in check, especially all 2t53 lights that countervievv such vindication must be in- dustriously shut out, and whose whole business is a fixed circle of repetition, it is evident tends to make mind stationary, rather than to carry it continually forward towards its perfection. The moral efficacy of this by way of preserv- ing settled order and regularity, to dispose and in- cline the mental powers to scientific accessions, must be adventitiously instrumental if it be any thing; and in proportion to the constancy of this instrumentality, is the true estimate of this mean in relation to this part of our business. To get physical knowledge it is ne- cessary that we examine the material world by our perceptive faculties, und the aid of various experi- ments. To get moral knowledge we must exert our reflective powers in observance of the causes, nature, tendency, and effects, of voluntary actions. To get logical knowledge, and knowledge of signs, we are to carefully note the several signs made use of, and the reasons and measures of their application. But em- blematical signs are not of great importance when bet- ter ones have got into extensive use. And to confer the reality of all these sorts of knowledge, we have no way but to teach the young to opproximate an imita- tion of what we ourselves do to get this knowledge, i.e. such exercises of the faculties. Thirdly. If this be useful in perfecting the art of communication, it must be by inuring a body of men to a certain dialect, the habitual exemplification where- of, influences all young observers. But this influence is not likely to be very extensive, nor permanently predominant. The people that venerate this kind of government, and live in a kind of drudging conformi- ty to it, are not such as are scrutinously observant of causes and effects ; and, entertaining imperfect notions of morals while they neglect education in general, are not prone to strictly pursue properly adapted 264 methods to accelerate perfect articulation and pro- priety of language in those of whom they have the bringing up. If it be so, that this thing diverts from true physiology (skill in which is necessary to the pur- pose of education) it may be so far considered a hin- drance to the success of that process we are here seek- ing the advance of How far certain forms of speeph instituted to be statedly used, contribute to produce a confinement of the skill of language, and inure a dull repetitious way of talking, every one's observation must determine. Fourthly. In the conforming of the powers and parts of the human system to moral purposes, I fancy the discipline of church polities is not able to afford us any indispensable service. For whoever shall warily look after the partiality, and sometimes encroachment on natural liberty, that are frequently put into effect by such as have any degrees of instituted ascendancy as- signed them by the accustomed institutions of this de- partment ; also the pride, jealousy, fear, envy, and oth- er bad passions that are exercised by it ; together with the cramping and prejudicate views of things, devolv- ing to selfishness and brutality ; will have reason to be- lieve it tends to throw embarrassments in the way of moral advancement. Witness the brawls, the schisms, the private and public church quarrels, on history. Witness the crusades. Witness the Jews' treatment of Jesus Christ and his disciples. Witness the inqui- sition in Spam. I presume to assert that this disci- pline, in its usual fashion is not inseparably connect- ed with moral skill and aptness. For there does not seem to be a conspicuous institution of reward to vir- tue or disgrace to vice. Certain public discipline, establishing a true esti- mate of actions by fixing to each its proper consequent in praise or blame, to be displayed by some affecting way, is an important desideratum in formulary ethics! S6j Rare specimens of this are accustomed in some clubs , — hut it is very little known. There is one tendency in this part of our religious establishments, I fancy, that militates against good moral instruction ; and that is auspices of a spirit of aristocracy. For anyone that considers these church governments as distributing out several distinct privi- leges of jurisdiction, in consequence whereof the com- munications of priests are thought to be efficacious, and a priest is thought to be better than a layman ; whereby bishops, curates, chaplains, vicars, rectors, archbishops, deans, prebendaries ; pontiffs, popes, cardinals, pre- lates, dominicans, confessors, censors ; imans, bonzes, brarnins, &c. have several powers and degrees of ex- cellence, and their peculiar ministration is conceived higher in influence, and preclusive of that of other ranks; will perceive that these things directly oppos- ing the equality of man, so far oppose democracy ; and therefore will have rational ground to conclude that they cherish the principles qf aristocracy, in opposition to universal philanthropy. This is rather stiff' sort of machinery to bring forward a profection in morality, in point either of skill or art. For any thing that in- timates fortuitous or elective superiority of some indi - vidual rationals above others, in respect of audience with the Divinity, or dispensation of his effluences, or that others cannot come at the same degree of intui- tive knowledge or demonstrative, by exercise of like powers theirselves have, hab an aspect of repressing those liberal emotions and speculations that universal- ly announce true philanthropy. Periodical assembly for the purposes of meditating, and hearing didactic and persuasory discourses on morals and the laws of nature, is a good tiling; a desideratum really impor- tant, and publicly beneficial. Periodical lectures of ethics are of great utility to a republic. Agents to conduct these operations are collaterally necessary. £3 >M Fifthly. Those establishments whose discipline ne- cessitates the use of service manuels— particularly hymn-books and music books, furnish some versifiers, musicians, and printers, with work, thereby adjuvating their temporal weal ; but they form and substantiate no trade, any farther than they use peculiarly modified implements, of exclusive adaptation to their particu- lar designs characteristic of such establishments. That this any other way secures the instillation of the prin- ciples of the arts* of life, seems very doubtful to me. Moreover, by dint of example itself it may favor the establishment of several knacks and arts in those who live within the irritation of such example. The arts of singing and dancing, one would think might be learnt with particular facility and advantage where such ceremonies are carried on in these establishments, when the example is regularly bolting upon the ap- prehension of bystanders, and also by pleasurable sug- gestions egging the imitative faculty. The shakers have a ceremony of dancing, in connection with sing- ing wherein they use much of the doric mood, which (of itself, ndependently of the subjects its accompani- ments may be designed to express) suggesting to the minds of observers trains of ideas that have a cast of the sublime, either in the movement of their succes- sion, or of the ideas themselves, may remotely subserve good morals by inducing magnanimous emotions, and, therefore, is no trivial spectacle. So then it seems on this cursory survey, that no part of a religious establishment [such as the present state of human society affords] is a necessary cause or in- strument of the right finishing of any part of educa- tion ; and that its utility is not very extensively con- spicuous by its adventitious subservience. This thing being granted, the next and last question that arises on this head, is, whether this same institute can be possibly fashioned and applied in a manner that 267 would be productive of good impressions, and directly contributive to the design it is valued by. That the re course is susceptible of amendment, is obvious to com- mon notice. Among all the divers species' of religious sects, I know of none that is possessed of a collection of lore capable of being elevated to such an improve- ment except that which has obtained the appellation, christian. The doctrine and history of this species are really abused. Nothing is more evident than that the founder of this religion singly intended, in all the course of his communications and operations, the re- finement and elevation of the moral part of man. Leaving aside therefore for the present moment tl:e consideration of the other species', such as those of In- dia, China, Turkey, Persia, &c. as they are generally granted by studious philanthropists and moral philoso- phers at large who have taken notice of them, to be mere tissues of absurd and monstrous chimeras forever irreconcileable to the true and most natural appropri- ation of our intellectual and moral powers, and to the economy of practical benignity, we will particularly adapt our observations to this, which, for its universal dogmas of sublime ethics, that are to be found amongst the originals of its creeds, transcends all others. 1 know of no religious system whose archives possess such treasures of ethical lore as are to be found in the discourses of Jesus Christ as represented in our lan- guage in the gospels ,• in some of those of the apostles who taught after him ; in the proverbs of Solomon ; and in other writings connected with these. Since then all other species' are generally admitted by the enlighten- ed part of the world to be inferior to this, I shall not now rummage history for particular details of the pe- culiarities of other systems, but shall proceed to point out some of those particulars wherein this sort of esta- blishment (particularly exemplified in that of the Christians) considered as an institute, is misapplied, 268 Wrongly fashioned, or deficient in regard to the promo- tion of the end universally desired to be advanced by it: which, by the way, will suggest the means and mea- sures whereby it may be improved to a more direct and successful use. And these particulars are the rea- sons M\y the moral world is not more refined under a prevalence of religion ; why those communities which are distinguished for their punctilious attendance on religious operations, are not distinguished by hospitali- ty, charity, munificence, meekness, &c. .; and likewise why the children of persons noted for sanctimony and professional conformity to religious discipline, are not retnariraDie for stability, sobriety, nor integrity, in their active characters. The same things, further- more, may satisfactorily account for the growing con- tempt of religion so common among all ranks of lay- men. I say, the scope of the first preacher of the doctrines men built this establishment on, was the melioration of the moral character ot man. If his design was any thing, it was this. This design seems evident from those parts of his communications which we can indu- bitably comprehend, and are evidently not ambiguous. Now either the preaching of Jesus Christ had some fix- ed design to it, whereon it proceeded to some deter- minate end ; or it had no fixed design. It seems un- questionable from the evidence of several circumstan- ces, that the communication of Jesus Christ was some- thing designedly. This received, it follows that it must be either good or bad ; for what is purely indif- ferent, supposes no design, no determinate purpose. Either the design of Jesus Christ's preaching was good, or it was bad. It seems more evident to be the for- mer than the latter; i. e. it seems satisfactorily so, if there is any reliance on the authenticity of its repre- sentation in our language. Now, if either good or bad, it must be either morally good or bad, or physically 269 (i. e. sensitively) good or bad : I am now speaking of efficiency. It appears to be, mostly, the former of these, inasmucli as he was daily delivering out moral instruction to the people he was amongst; and al- though many cures were done, and the bodies of per- sons delivered from torments and restored from dis- eases and infirmities, yet the main design seems to be moral improvement. That this is so, appears reasona- bly conclusive to me, from those parts of his ministra- tion wherein he enunciated these beautiful and sub- lime precepts : " Whatsoever ye would have others do unto you, do unto them:" " Forgive your brother not only seven times, but seventy times seven :" " Go ye and learn what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice:" And his illustration to the law- yer, of the proper objects of benevolence, when the propriety of the answer to the question ■ who is my neighbor ?' being defined by the relation of a being with like wants and feelings, a due exercise of that be- nign and godlike affection being exemplified in the character of the Samaritan, closing with a pathetic in- version of the lawyer's last question, which being sa- tisfactorily solved, the reply to his introductory ques- tion resolves itself by way of inference, into this sen- tentious exhortation, " Go thou and do likewise." AI - so in his reply to the rich young man who inquired of him the way to complete his moral character, " Go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor." These and several other passages of his doctrine, together with the tenor of his practical life, shew that his pre- vailing scope was to exalt the morals of human socie- ty ; and that in whatever point of duration or of space his mission originated, it intentionally tended to make men better, and more directly progressive to their greatest good. This is all the determinate aim we can gather from those pjrts of his preaching we can clear- ly understand ; and if it was not this, we may conclude *3S 270 there was none ; i. e. if the determinate aim of it was not this, that there was no determinate aim in it. The same conclusion we collect from his life as from his preaching. If it was this utility that stood as a mo- tive to the project of this communication to, and treat- ment of, mankind, that the gospel exhibits, it behooves mankind to carefully attend to the good things he taught and ensampled, and endeavor to walk in his steps so far as his character is imitable, when they pre- sume to take on themselves the denomination of disci- pleship to the author of the Christian religion. For, these premises admitted, the immediate purpose of it is, undeniably, social virtue. Christ inculcated the social virtues ; the social virtues he transcendantly en- sampled. He went about doing good, though suffer- ing privations, and in continual danger ot the violence of his enemies. To be a disciple of one, is to follow. To follow, is to imitate and obey. Therefore one who practices the social virtues, is a Christian ; and one who does not practice the social virtues, is not a Chris- tian. Indeed he made use of parable ; but he used it to be explained, and in order to apply, not to lock' use- ful truths from the scrutiny of human reason. He gave it to be explained to those to whom it was given to un- derstand the mysteries of the kingdom oi heaven : such as in sincerity sought to know pure truth. The life and conversation of the author of Christianity, com- port with the apparent purport of what we understand of his doctrine. It is from what we understand that we are rationally to form our judgment of the main design and original intent. It behooves men when they find any thing that is morally eulightening, or consolatory, to sincerely appreciate and apply it, en- suring the advantage of its inherent excellence, and not beat their heads about inquiring where he who said it, came from, or whether it first originated in his own Blind or in that of a superior Being, who transfused it 271 to the other ; but, if they find a good moral maxim, to value it principally for its being such, to be eager to make good use of it and improve it according to what it is capable of doing and appears originally designed to serve, let the first starter of it have come fro.n whence he would : and not let the benefit of it be whol- ly rejected and lost, by idle seeking to know demon- stratively, or carry irresistibly the persuasion to oth- ers, where he came from, to what destined, how, with what, and by whom commissioned, who kindly divulges to them such truth. For the natural and unavoidable conclusion from the whole ot this piece of history, is, Jesus Christ was a universal philanthropist, who had in view the elevation of the moral chaiacter of social mankind, and designed the amelioration of the real condition of men, by guiding and habituating an access to the consummation of their greatest good ; which ly- ing by the way of social virtue, he inculcated and practiced the social virtues in their perfection. He illustrated the moral law of nature ; he taught the uni- versal equality of men in natural right. And now what greater, more noble, more benignant scheme, can we enter into a clear itnd adequate conception of, than that of the amelioration of a whole species ? What sub- limer effort oi philanthropy can we ascribe to any be* ing in the range of our sensitive or speculative know- ledge, than this, the design to elevate the moral charac- ter of man, when this elevation is considered the ex- clusive access to the consummation and perpetuation of his greatest enjoyment? I presume none can de- monstratively make out and attribute a more munifi- cent one : for the creation of millions of worlds, and of as many species 1 of intelligent beings, is not an act of philanthropy done to percipient beings which before that act was exerted existed not, and could not be ob- jects of any act, nor feel either pleasure or pam in con- sequence of any intention in the universe. Yet if any 27% one has a larger idea of benignity, to which this does not agree ; and can frame to himself a different plan (a more extensively beneficent) to agree thereto, h6 is welcome to enjoy it ; only he ought, as a friend to mankind, at least to disclose it for their edification. But, as it may be presumed to be of the same species, varying merely in degree, if there be any safe reliance on the established significancy of our words ; if the reality of the actual design of Jesus Christ, in refer- ence to the experience of mankind, as purported by his converse and actions, have been any thing that is repugnant to, or incompatible with, what is above re- presented, the question must arise, was it good ? Was the design good ? For cultivated communities have certain fixed ideas of modes which by general consent they customarily denote by certain representative words, and one thing is called benignity, another ma- lignity, another munificence, another utility ; in ih& use of which there is a general coincidence of the* greatest part of those in a community, who use them the most frequently : and the idea of infinity, which is merely an endless addibility of successive acts of phi- lanthropy or benignity, or of individual objects of one such act, joined to this idea that is signified by the word benignity, is all that can be meant by infinite goodness. This respects the number of the acts and of their objects: but in the strength of the emotion and the directness of the intent, that go into that idea, we have certain bounds which our conception cannot transcend. Now, if that benignity which moves to promote the greatest good we can conceive men to be the subject of, and to promote it in the most direct way or in the only way we can rationally assign, be not the greatest degree of benignity men can form any clear, distinct, precise notion of, 1 desire to know w T hat that is But if these things be so, as the above statement gathers them from the plainest parts of the 273 gospels (and no one will pretend that it is a revealed duty to learn a foreign language, especially the lan- guage of a nation that is dead, to corne at the signifi- cancy in which an ancient book was written,) it fol- lows we are to look upon Jesus Christ to have been a universal republican and philanthropist, a practical moral teacher, whose express scope was to advance the grand design of moral philosophy, the business of civilization, by thedevelopementof all those moral ex- cellencies human nature is heir to, which is the fixed track the universal forming principle has assigned for the greatest enjoyment of the species. To be a Chris- tian, is to be his disciple. To be his disciple, is to fol- low him. To follow him, is to imitate his iraitable manners, and put into practice his practicable pre- cepts. In order to this, it is requisite and incumbent to search out the purport of his lessons, to attend to his words, to meditate on his doctrine and the tenden- cy of his manners in social life. The form of church- es, of service-books, of ceremonies, is indifferent True religion is true morality. True Christianity consists in social virtue. The head and founder of this order of religion, sought to do good to men of all ranks, un- der all conditions in all times, on all days, equally : not excepting his bitterest enemies. If any thing of his meaning be lost by the obscurity, imperfection, trans- ference, or change of language, or by the disparity of the manners of remote times and nations, we are not to account for it. We are to judge of, and infer from, what we see and comprehend ; and if we have not a test within us of what is morally good, we are no long- er the subjects of virtue or vice, praise or blame. Re- ligion is good in those parts wherein all rational man- kind can conscientiously acquiesce. Apologues and parables that, being interpreted, serve to insinuate the spirit of valuable moral truth, are good things. Those w Inch, imperfectly deprehended, pleas- 87* ing while they teach, avail to incite to the application of important maxims, allure to the auscultation of any teacher or leader ; and we are to consider them addi- tions, not disparagements, to a course of preaching. Many reasons may be assigned for this cabalistical way of communicating ; among which none perhaps are more probably adequate than the jealousy of the Jewish people concerning innovations, and their tena- city of their creed and discipline on account of the in- tervolution these had with their civil polity. It seems upon the whole matter, then, that these es- tablishments stand deficient in adaptation to the de- sired end which they ought to be and generally are valued for subserving, by reason of the following cir- cumstances : First. The creeds, I say, contain mystical postulata, enigmas, romantic ideas. The matters of opiniative speculation that make the objects of faith, supposed essential to true worship, exhibit many romantic and enigmatical ideas. Of all the rhapsodies of reveries ever urged upon the assent of human understanding, the heathen mythology presents the most monstrous spectacle. But this is not now in credit. The pro- fessors of it are dead. Of the creeds of existing na- tions, those of the Persians, the Hindoos, the Arabi- ans, and the Chinese, I suppose are the most replete with chimeras ; although numerous other nations fall little short o( them in this respect, b ow these roman- tic ideas are of two sorts ; either representing such things whereof there is no human possibility of existing in rerum nutura, or such things as are not conceivably probable to exist. These, when put into propositions, with other ideas, can only make irreconcileably con- tradictory postulata and inexplicable solecisms, and put mankind at sword-points upon that which is not reducible to any moral use. These m^ke the incon- sistencies that disfigure so many systems of faith-. 2? 5 These fantastical ideas have a perverting influence upon the understanding, very unpropitious to morals ; and the greater the persuasion of their reality, the more prejudicial their effect. For my part I don't see the necessity of any historical fact being put into a creed. All we want in a creed, is, certain things believed to be reasonable to do. in consequence of certain substances having certain powers and tendencies. And this I conceive, is all of a creed that can practically direct our purposes and actions as social agents. Facts and incidents indeed may have weighed in the mind, to produce an assent to a proposition, and made us have such an opinion, which, when the acquiescence of the mind has taken place, the subject matter of the opinion that operates as a motive, reason, or modifier of our conduct, is all that ought to appear in a creed. Secondly. The belief of them is reckoned a moral duty. Belief of these creeds is represented to be a mo- ral dut}\ It is customary for the supporters of a par- ticular system to urge upon others the belief of their articles, not only as an advantage, but an important moral duty which they owe to their maker and to their own souls, and of serious consequence to their eternal weal. Now to tell men that it is their duty to believe a proposition, is to tell them something that insults the cultivated and sagacious, misguides the enthusiastic, staggers the ignorant, and distresses the weak. And that which does these things, cannot be very conducive to the end of moral education. Obligation can extend no farther than power. Where is no power to do, is no duty. The act of assent which is called belief, is a necessary act. We have a moral duty to cultivate our understandings, to improve the faculties and ta- lents we are endowed with as rational intelligent be- ings: it is our duty to inquire after truth, to collect proofs, and to weigh probabilities; for all these things, to a greater or less extent, we have power to do or 276 forbear to do. We have the same power to forbear to do them as to do them ; as we will. But when at any momenta proposition is proposed to the understanding, the understanding necessarily assents to it, or does not assent to it, according to the preponderancy of the evi- dence at that moment present to the view of the un- derstanding, on the one side or the other of the ques- tion whether it has a foundation mrerum natura, or has not a foundation in rerum natura, or whether it is or is not veritable : and this as fixedly as one body gravitates towards another, and as the heavier bodies attract the lighter, in the mundane system : it being as impossible to believe that which appears not probable, or less probable than the contrary, as for a river to as- cend a mountain. This therefore being a point out of the verge of human liberty, cannot be a duty. It is reasonable to tell mankind it is their duty to study, to satisfy their minds of things they cannot have intu- itive certainty of, and discover the probability of im- portant questions that may have great influence on their condition. Thirdly. The establishment is made a matter of con- tention, and a nursery of parties. The managers dis- agree among themselves, and aspire at predomination. The spread of these sectaries called baptists, method- ists, presbyterians, universalists, quakers, congrega- tionalists, episcopalians, and the like distinguished bands of opiniative speculators, has a bad effect upon the condition of human society, by the following modes of operation: — 1st. By cramping the minds of men in theic specu- latory views of moral and natural relations, wherein their sentiments are contracted, and the develope* ment of philanthropic designs and sympathetic emo- tions is circumscribed or utterly blocked up. The prevalence of these sectarian doctrines to engross the speculations of the commonalty, is attendant upon the 277 -multiplication of their meetings and the strife whicU they generate. Now their doctrines are generally of a nature to cramp the estimate of men's worth by con- ditioning; their desert and imputed excellence upon mystical things beyond the grasp of natural power, and which are objects even transcendant to human compre- hension : wherefore no worth and real excellence are to be discerned in their fellow creatures but what they are pleased to honor with that estimate, which are no other than what, passing with them as the only allowa- ble signs of them, are their external conformity to the distinguishing ceremonies and discipline of the re- spective clubs or lodges, which they accept as a pledge of their fealty and effectual devotion to their aggran- dising views. For when one is told that true Chris- tianity consists in a " new heart," and not told where- in this altogether differs from a disposition which arises from a desertion of bad principles and habits, and a pursuance of good ones — since the latter is competent i.o our apprehension, and the other is not ; it follows that moral excellence is resolved into a subtlety that is inconceivable by the human understanding, and the adjudication of merit involved in utter darkness and incertitude, wherefrom it becomes suspended upon ca- price, and determined to arbitrary signs that sensibly mark their inclination with respect to the mechanical prevalence of particular bodies of men with such fash- ions and theories as they are upholding. 2. By infusing party spirit ; which is but a habit of distinguishing and contesting parties. Such a habit is strengthened by the influence of these sectarian ope- rations ; consequently party spirit is strengthened by it, if not originated. This clashing of one party with another, and the aspiring ambition which attends it of excelling in strength awHnfluence. the means to which are numbers, wealth, and show, effectually preclude social haopiness in those communities where they ara 378 operating. For their impressions are the very reverse of those feelings which constitute social happiness, therefore they are absolutely incompatible with it Bickering and contumely rise out of these; and neigh- bors are unsocial and disobliging: their interests be- come in their view separated, by being associated with this fanatic extravagance which, at the beck of humor, diverges into different courses, the whole being esta- blished by tradition, and senseless apish custom, which, without perpension, travels in a beaten road. 3. It introduces aristocratical distinctions among the parts of civilized society. It leads up an aristo- cratical distinction of the qualities of different mem- bers of civil society at large, and breeds secret jea- lousies and unaccountable antipathies between different persons. For a professed adherent of one of these par- ties is hardly admitted to a free intercourse with the domestic society of another. A strict baptist shall not be thought competent to marry a methodist, nor a pres- byterian a quaker : and a person of a liberal turn of mind, in the balance of whose estimate whatever dis- tinguishes them is vanity or political artifice, shall be denounced by all as a cause of alarm : so that he must either be a downright hypocrite, or be scouted as a brutish, lowliv'd, thoughtless ninny, below the medium rank of quality, or else a dangerous character ; in ei- ther case, thought unworthy of their intimacy. If he speak sincerely, he gives the preference to neither par- ty, and condemns what constitutes their distinctions ; and if he give the preference to none, he is thought to be of neither, and not to value what constitutes them : thence, he is excluded from very great privileges merely for his sincerity. Whereupon, if the princi- ples of human estimation are resolved either into fri- volous and fantastical things, or into inconceptible ones, it is plain that men are liable to be perversely estimated oije by another. Their estimate must be 279 vague, defective, and erroneous ; for mankind must be esteemed for that which they do not possess or cannot achieve, or else disreputed tor that which they cannot avoid. Fourthly. The preaching that is accustomed, is not strictly steady to the dispensation of pure ethics or the impression of practical principles. To preach doc- trines which are distinct irom, especially if they mili- tate against, true ethics, is obviously unfavorable to moral education, which immediately depends on the application of the principles of ethics. Instead ol this, mystery is often preached. Contradictions are often held forth. Paradoxes and enigmatical subtleties abound in the preaching of the day. If there be any thing more eligible than ethics to be preached in order to promote moral education, it is that which goes direct- ly to confirm or elucidate its dogmas : which may be any part of the physical world which shews the con- nection of causes and effects, and their permanent adaptation. Use is also had of these things to produce, train and habit in thinking ; which are apt to conduce to stability. But our preachers customarily go beyond nature, and build up theories that baffle human com- prehension. To preach mystery does at best but set the human understanding to conjecturing, instead of deducing useful truths, or purposing beneficent pur- suits. And where this mystical preaching is, nothing more useful can occupy the thoughts of those whose attention is engrossed by it : so that if it does no other harm, it precludes that which would set the thoughts upon the contemplation and pursuit of good purposes and benignant views. Fifthly. Most of the other ceremonies in use. have no conceivable utility ; and if they shew any thing they are designed to shew, more than that those who act them see fit to act them, it is by strained symboliz- ing : e. g. ablution, circumcision, genuflections, sacri- £80 Sees, sprinkling, change of dress, &c. Now what natu- ral connection nave good thoughts with these things? What original affinity, or aptness to combine, have those ideas and feelings which constitute the excel* lences of our nature, and the ideas of these modes? Moral virtue certainly gets no advancement by the practice of these. Meekness, charity, gratitude, and hospitality, are not made habitual by the repetition of such sort of actions as these ceremonies. They divert from, and being put in the place of, effectually inter- cept the perfecting of the social virtues. Any cere- mony that recommends or habituates any of these, as a contribution for the poor, for strangers, or for the pro- motion of any great and good work, is commendable, and worthy of rational beings. Sixthly. Too much show and splendor are attached to the churches and other materials of an establish- ment. When we accustom ourselves to pageantry, and make the most alluring fascinating examples of it r to what amounts our preaching against vanity ? How can we lift up our voice in indignant declamation against the pride of appearance, when we openly exempt fy the very thing, and the churches over our heads, wherein we are denouncing vanity, are specimens of it? By what subtle knack in the art of oratory can we put on the aspect of sincerity when we are declaiming against that of which we indulge ourselves in the practice, for no other than that very reason by which we expose the imbecility of others, viz. because the multitude uses it ? But this is not very often made the object of censure in pulpits, any more than any other vice : The main drift of public preaching, is theology. This magnifi- cence is so strongly united to religion that it is thought to be a part of it. Seventhly, A vile habit of prostituting the privileges of the sanctuary to occasions of personal ostentation and eclat, is tolerated ; whereby young people come to 381 make the institution a mere hobby of vanity, and attend church constantly for the express purpose of shewing themselves, and curiously surveying others, with no other speculation in their heads but that which con- cerns trie color, figure, and texture, of the stuffs and trappings that envelope their bodies, or their features, then- sound, and motion, where the highest pleasure tiiey aspire to, arises from the novel, pretty, and ena- mouring appearances hereby elicited, which making up the whole of their entertainment there, is all that moves them to attend. Eighthly. The establishment is of such a nature, and is so estimated that an adherence to the exteriors of ceremony and discipline, and a professional acquies- cence in the matters of belief, become a cloak of hypo- crisy. The superficial gear of sanctimony is used as a cloak of hypocrisy. Whereas a scale of plain ethics, with instituted attendance on stated lectures, in plain easy habiliments, where extravagance is disallowed, would not be liable to be perverted into so base an ap- propriation. But now men can turn their religion in- to such a cloak because the essense of it is taken inde- finitely to be something besides mere benfiecence, and not clearly understood what. The children of this world, perceiving that moral virtue is universally ad- mired, desire to get the honor of Christianity without the trouble of it. Hence comes a counterfeit Chris- tianity. They patch up a sort of religion to serve their turn ; it being their interest to make the rest of the world believe that Christianity, which common sense teaches consists in the practice of those things which Christ taught and set patterns of, is essentially consti- tuted of something very distinct from what we can come to a notice ot by our senses, that is not vouchsafed ^ven to the purest morality. It would cost too much to be real Christians. To be in fact grateful, charita- ble, hospitable, meek, or scrupulously just, would in S4* I ! 282 ait too great an expenditure of this world's goods, to© much circumspection, too much serious thought; and in earnest to act out the philanthropist in all his ven- turous mazes, would subject them to too much priva- tion of selfish enjoyment Therefore to cut a snorter and cheaper way to their end, they substitute long prayers, washings, groanings, punctilious sanctimony of port, attendance of church, &c ; thinking hereby to make their fellow mortals believe that they are Chris- tians, and give them the honor of that which they don't have the trouble to practice. And in this way they. ultimately aim to insinuate into those mortal observers the persuasion that they possess benignity, when in matter of fact they are void of it, and basely substitute ihis vile counterfeit for true religion. Ninthly. The establishment is made a refuge of im- piety. Just so far as any thing aids vice, it disserves virtue. Persons who have notoriously bad characters, get favor of the world by belonging to an establish- ment of this sort. Some, on the commission of sin ; fly to penance as a screen from due punishment ; as some- thing that atones for their excesses, their oppressions, ©r their worldliness ; so that being steady and true 4o this exterior tackling of religion, becomes a sort of sanctuary to wickedness ; and as long as men can per- suade themselves that there is in this, that which gives them the tutelage of heaven in spite of vice, we can hardly bound the mischief it does the cause of morali- ty in this line, where its operation is rather under- ground. Not that every thing is evil in itself, that by being abused becomes the accidental cause of evil : but the wrong estimate, the wrong appropriation of things, are moral evil. Tenthly. Those delegated to preach to and lead communities, are not r tneirselves, remarkable for ex- hibiting good examples ; but often are what they ought with utmost zeal to preach against, examples of pa- £83 geantry, luxury, suflenness, worldliness, inhcspitahty, and sometimes superciliousness. Eleventhly. The preaching is not designated, and limited in its kind by the popular authority of a com- munity ; insomuch that all preachers have the latitude of their imagination and caprice, to display their gifts and proselyte knots of sticklers to a favorite scheme, by preaching theology, history, ethics, astrology, pneu - matology, witchcraft, or conjuration. If it were made lawful only to preach ethics in their meetings, that is, in the religious meetings of all societies in a nation, the establishment would be better adapted to the right direction of our education. In this case a religious esta- blishment would be a school of moral science ; which it in fact ought to be, and which rightly conducted would redound to the honor of human nature. Where- as now our preaching is mostly of a sort that goes in atone ear and out at the other, (as the common phrase is,) not being correctly aimed at the objects it should properly influence ; that is to say, the moving princi- ples of moral life: and all this not solely on account of its irksomeness and repetitious way, but as much on account of the catachrestical and mystical nature of its matter. And this is one predominant cause of the tri- lling amongst young people and others, in their notice and use of religious ordinances. While serious and pathetic addresses on the nature, tendency, and con- sequences, of their voluntary actions, would insupera- bly seize their attention, which being continually chained to such objects, must habituate such a state of mind as would effectually rescue the faculties from the pursuit of vain or more pernicious themes. For the mind of man, particularly when in its vigor, must have some object to concentrate its energy: and that which is most exciting, will engross this energy, to the pre- clusion of others. This excitement works by way of the ruling passion ; and hereby reason itself is called into activity, and gets improvement. g84 These are 9ome of the most conspicuous circum- stances that obviate the utility of religious establish- ments ; and the principal reasons why these establish- ments, as they are at present usually modified and managed amongst mankind at large, do no more con- duce to the finishing of the moral part of human educa- tion. An improved establishment, I think would be one which should consist of the following primordial articles. 1. A spacious, commodious, though plain building, adapted to the comfort of people in general, for the use of the assembling of several persons together on stated days, to hear and inquire into important truths. 2. A speaker attending this building periodically, as one day in seven, to deliver discourses in ethics, on those things that are first and most essentially import- ant for mankind to do, in the use of their faculties and government of their lives ; and who should be superior to all craft. 3. A habitual though not constrained attendance of the people of the country on those stated days, for the purposes above mentioned, and without pageantry. 4. Certain distinguishing permanent marks or pledg- es of the commendation of virtue and disfavor of vice, instituted to be awarded to certain courses of conduct ; which, in favor of virtue, should be proportioned to the general tenor of their carriage who by a given continu- ance in exemplification of the principles drawn from the ethical lectures they hear, evince such habits of mind, and such modes of the social affections as con- stitute certain degrees of the real excellence of rational mankind. 5. Select persons deputed to keep order, and apply those marks and pledges according to the sense of the society ; as well as to distribute and appropriate the funds appertaining to such society. 385 6. An institution of periodical collections by contri- butions of money or other means, for the. relief of stran- gers, of poor, and for the promotion of other benevo- lent works. Such an establishment I think would be useful to mankind in general, in all countries ;and signally sub* serve moral education. In this brief view of religious establishments I have not dwelt with particular scrutiny upon the tenets and manners that distinguish the pagan and other foreign establishments ; but have in the main, centered my ob- servations in those which are accustomed in the parts of civilized society where the sciences and arts at pre- sent stand at the greatest degree of advancement is extant ; and that, for several reasons, whereof perhaps none is better than that it is proper for such to whose notice what I say may come, to study the improve- ment of the religion of their own country, and that, in the matter of their design, these establishments repre- sent most other. And thus I have taken a general, however imperfect, survey of the chief institutes used by mankind in edu- cation, and some of their most prominent defects ;and hinted at some means by w r hich I think they may be remedied : wherein, if I have suggested anY thing that may be of use to excite any new train of thought in such as having superior genius and the means to carry their plans into execution, have power and inclination to pursue such sort of improvements to a beneficial re- sult, I shall have the satisfaction of believing myself to have been a remote instrument of the happiness of some of my fellow creatures. %m TA^lT IY Draught of a practical scheme of Edu- cation. chapter I. Of gradation in steps and forms of instruction, ap- plied to the different stages of life. All things have gradation. The universe is replete with marks of this mode. Every system of substance and mode is marked with this character ; and tempo- ry works are not without it. All complex produc- tions necessarily suppose gradation. All organized bo- dies have their growth, prime, senescence, and dissolu- tion. There is not in the round of animated matter, such a thing as a system coming into light in a state of maturity. No animal, no vegetable, is known instan- taneously to emerge to a state of absolute perfection in all its parts and powers. Not only the operations of nature, but all intricate works of art require grada- tion to effectuate their accomplishment. Every great accomplishment is constituted of accessory advances from small beginnings. No complicate machine that men contrive, is finished without deliberate compari- sons deductions, and progressively regular classifica- tion of thoughts, by the confirmations of experiment. All systematized things have their gradual and pro- cessionary developement. The vegetable principle re- 287 quires the successive application of several varieties of nutriment according to the progressive variation of its texture and appetencies, in order to advance to germination. The animal requires milk at first, be- fore it is capable of converting harder matters to nour- ishment. Ano\ afterwards when the parts are extend- ed and strengthened by consolidation of texture as well as by exercise, it is able to digest bread, and soon- er or later, meat also. The capacity of intelligence likewise is gradually enlarged : and that which at first comprehends and can detain but one simple idea, comes to be competent to the intricate operation of abstrac- tion, which comprises a variety of acts of the thinking agent, whereby at first comparing each ot a large num- ber of complex ideas with other, and considering them to coincide and agree in one of their simple compo- nents, though differing in all other parts, it makes this the representative of all those different ones, and keep- ing under its view this single idea not only, but also the idea of its representing all those and making a part of every one of them (in which it takes in at once ob- scure impression of each) and furthermore the idea of its relation to a determinate mark or articulate sign which it affixes to it as its constant representative, with an implicated reference to all those diverse par- ticular beings the ideas whereof this collectively re- presents by a common property or ingredient, it frames to itself that sort of simplified complex ideas which is called an abstract idea, and comes at what is called genera or kind; as universe, animal, man. Every important enterprise requires gradation to accomplish, and bring about the end projected in it : as a war, an expedition, an embassy, a journey, a revolution of go- vernment ; the parts whereof successively coining into being, one cannot exist before the preceding one has existed, except the very first step in the undertaking, which as a link in the chain of causes (each part being £88 by recpirocal reference ft cause and an effect of the preceding and succeeding one) may be the first im- pulsion of the principle of animation that awakens a motive to the purpose of that undertaking. Again; one part cannot take place before the other has pre- pared the way for it ; and each is considered the cause of the possibility of the other. Education likewise requires gradation. This is im- mediately deducible from the progressive nature of the human system itself, and of all its powers. The animal system progresses to a certain point, and then declines ; successively loses what it had successively gained ; and falls back to its original state. The pow- ers of mind may still continue to progress and to in- crease in the proportion of its enlargements, when the body has past the climax of its maturity, and begins to decay. Nay even while it verges to the threshhold o£ dissolution, the soul may reach accessions of know~ ledge and habit. Education as well as any other de- liberate work, requires gradation. The compass of knowledge and habits the system can imbibe, cannot be superinduced at once, but must be done in gradual succession, and progresses even to the remotest day of life. This gradation is twofold ; as it respects ar- rangement or train of subjects fit to be understood, to forma compass of knowledge and aptness ; and as it respects the exercises appropriate and competent to be used in order to attain that. The adaptation of both is to peculiarities of constitution and condition. I have, heretofore distributed the work of education into five stages of operation, each distinguished in some mea- sure by the process fit to be pursued in it, but not bear- ing any invariable adaptation to the successive parts of the subjects' existence ; since on the one hand the adaptation of each of these designs, i. e. inducing right associations ; art of communication ; correct impres- sion of realities, mechanical movements in association, 289 and habits of virtuous movements, must be most pro- perly to the exigency of those subjects, since it is not every one that comes at the perfection of either in the early part of life, some neglecting to acquire the read- in«; and even the speaking of their own language cor- rectly till years of maturity, and many, nay even the greatest part of the race fall short of a habit of virtue till the remote part of their lives, and too many, alas, never reach any thing that bears a close resemblance of it: and. on the other hand, the man, in every part of his course, is susceptible of impression by each of these parts, in kind, (although he is less so of that of the se- cond after the age of youtn) it we except some mecha- nic associate motions ; and indeed some of these may be induced in infancy. Hut to learn the art of rudi- mental articulation, no time is fitter than the early part of life, when the parts of the frame are pliant. Yet there are not any of these complicate sets of associa- tions that make up the art.% to be perfected in infancy ; but merely the primordial*, the rudimeutal grounds of some distinguished ones to be introduced. Yet ge- nerally speaking, mankind may be advanced in know- ledge and conceptions of realities (and indeed are so, insuperably to the concern of supervisors ;) in deter- mined combinations of ideas aod emotions ; in the art of using articulate signs with propriety ; in moving se- veral, parts of their body voluntarily in conjunctive motion, as in trades and in formulary morality, in some degree or other, in all parts of the;r iilv after they be- gin to have distinct perception : at ieir r the advance of these several parts of the work is alternate and con- fusedly promiscuous. I <•*';'<. upon this oc- casion; make use of another c!< >.he suthj&ct matter of the work of education, co*. v fcoVae conspicuous varieties of the sfc: :ce i :■■:•• of m* s'g life ; in doing which I shall c<>. tf m »>at life as comprehending the scene c,t V- of tiiis 25 290 business, which therefore I set under the denomina- tions, education of infants, education of youth, and education of persons farther advanced in Hie ; ot w hich t shall speak in their order. These ages, infancy, youth, and manhood, I shall consider under different measures than what for the purposes of other specula- tions are usually employed ; and extend them from birth to the tenth or eleventh year ; from that to the twenty-second; and thence through the remainder of life. That portion of this business which I shall put under the appellation of infant education, is diversified by the several degrees of intellective capacity that in* tervene birth and the age often years. These degrees are various in different individuals. This variety de- pends on several causes, among which even the pecu- liarity of the animal constitution has some participa- tion. This compass contains the most critical varia- tions of treatment. The greatest and most effective modifications fall within the limits of this first period or stage of human life. It is a general truth, that with- in this small part of the natural extent of human ex- istence, from birth to the eleventh year, the intellectu- al part undergoes more revolutions and diversifying impressions than have place in any other stage or stages of life. To this may happen exceptions, but it is what is most generally found to exist. The pheno- mena of these, give the strongest casts and mosjt last- ing discriminations to the first unci chief faculties : and this is the reason why infant education is so much more nice than any other. Puberty puts a new aspect npon the system, "and seems to renovate all its func- tions, as well mental as animal ; but it will generally be found upon examination, that indelible impressions are made anterior to that, upon the percipient frame, that -generally determine the predominating temper and turn of the thinking powers that prevails in all , succeeding parts of education. The education of !9i youth I consider to ba that portion of our work which properly is commenced at this termination of infancy, and extended to the period when people are of fit age to provide, and wholly govern themselves. And after that, takes place the iast part of education, wherein we are always our own tutors, whatever assistants we may have at our service. The propriety of a practical scheme of education consists in common utility. For this end, the fittest form is that of a series of succinct rules which should exhibit a synoptical view of what is essentially neces- sary to apply, and that in the gradual order in which it is practically appropriate. To lay down unexcep. tionable rules for the conduct of education, is difficult. The difficulty arises from these three causes. 1. Di- versity of constitutions, 2. Diversity of conditions. 3. Diversity of customs, habits, and degrees of intel- lectual improvement in those people that have the su- perintendance of the education of the young. These diversities have brought about such a modification of this business, that an unexceptionable system of prac- ticable precepts for the thorough education of one hu- man creature, dated from its condition in respect to those causes, shall be as different from a system equal- ly adapted to finish the education of another human creature, as almost any two arts whatsoever, differ one from another. The truth i s , in improving this art we. must quit circumstance, and consider the human sys- tem as a blank unimpressed, and detached from all such influence. We are to consider human nature as a unit ; and in the modifying of this, we shall find there are certain invariable prescripts to be drawn from the laws of nature, which are uniformly applicable in this behalf on all parts of the globe ; to which even people of various manners may be allured, to the gradual coun- termine of the eccentric influence of their peculiarities of habit. For there are certain particulars wherein all 293 human beings are one and the same thing : and there- fore are equal with one another. To have common utility, then, rules of this sort must be applicable to various cases. To be applicable to various cases, they must be universal. And if universal, they must be short. And this last requisite were a great excellence in any thing whatsoever to be put to practice; since the less the memory is encumbered with particulars, the more ready is an aptness in -conformable move- ments. But one inconvenience that may be incident to this method, is that many ol the steps as important as any in the course of our work, may be overlooked and left without any particular directory, and certain gaps, as it were, left in our strict train of operations and measures, wherein the pupil being without guide suffered to ramble at the beck of his natural impulses, may engender bad qualities and habits, unchecked and unobserved. In reference to this, the possibilities of these are properly from time to time taken into ac- count, and conformable provision of treatment collect- ed into the precepts that are given. Nothing however is more evident than that mankind must necessarily be advanced gradually in their education : that they must know some truths before they can know some other truths ; that they must go through some exercises be- fore they are competent to others. In fact, many re- petitions of the same motion are required to have place, before such a thing as habit can exist : and the main part of our acquests is made up of habits. It being lit- tle else at last but some habit, facility, aptness, of ei- ther thinking or motion, that all we labor at to qualify ourselves or others with, finally resolves itself into. For it is the habit of placing two or more ideas togeth- er and taking a view of them m comparison as they relate one to another, that gives us that knowledge that is constantly useful to us. It is a habit of thinking that puts us in possession of most of our opinions and per- 293 suasions of mind, consolatory or directing. Habit makes the essential part of the arts. Art itself is but a habit of the mind prescribing rules for the produc- tion of effects according to nicely observed tendencies and powers of things. And virtue is very essentially dependant on habit, if it does not principally consist in it. So that finally it is little more than a bundle of habits we are contending for, in all our scrabble of edu- cation. Now, habit has a gradual rise. One degree of facility is produced by the first repetition of an ac- tion ; another degree by the second repetition ; and finally, the oftener it is repeated (within certain lim- its) the easier becomes the performance. Habit also is the main support of knowledge itself ; for that which breaks out as in the the transient corruscation of a me- teor, or like a flash of light, is of little use if it leave no trace of incidence or aptitude in the faculties by which it is realized, to disclose the like perception. A habit of comparing ideas together comes before ex- tensive knowledge in any branch or branches whatso : ever. So then education, rightly conducted, progresses gra- dually from the beginning to the finishing of it ; by a regular gradation in the steps by which it is conduct- ed, and in the forms of the measures used in superin ducing impressions and principles. What we can iin- J press by elegant articulate language at the age of twen- * ty, we are fain to make use of a very different vehicle to express at the age of two years. The latter indeo " is not competent to apprehend the same extent of > by any medium of communication whatever, r ,d. former is capable of comprehending : yet th -dea some things equally admissible to the undent" ity. Rule L. Never promise a child any thing which you do not seriously intend punctually to perform. Rule LI. Never flatter it with the expectation of things not in the highest degree probable. For want of observance of these two foregoing rules, many pupils are injured by tantalizing. They get a habit of cherishing vain hopes of vile goods of fortune; which drags down the raind to a very scanty circuit of speculation, and pre- pares it for base pursuits. Rule LII. Open not upon its mind any splendid views of future life that seem to evolve very desirable improvements of condition, even if they appear to yourself ever so probable. Futurity exists not. Many youns; persons from the age of nine to twelve, are led into very delusive reveries that involve them in distracting and ruin- ous speculations, the issue whereof is but to sour their tempers and blast the genial germs of gra- titude and benevolence in their hearts; which even sometimes suppresses natural affection it- self. Never raise any expectation of this kind, otherwise than as a regular consequence of dili- gence and temperance : such illusions seldom fail to bring about disastrous reverses in their trains of reflection. Rule UII. Cordially acquiesce with the tyro in any recourse of its own original invention, if it tend to more usefulness than waste. 311 Hereby you encourage in the hiost endearing ami at the same time innocent manner, the liveliest and noblest exertions of intellect. Rule LIV. Be cautious of exemplifying the association of the pleasures of -wit with slander, within the no- tice of the pupil. Rule LV. Keep the subject clear and aloof from the extravagances of fashionable companies herding together upon the celebration of nugatory or bale- fid manners, till long after the termination of in- fancy. Rule LVI. In application of those rules that imme- diately regard the perfecting of the particular faculties and functions of intellect, pursue the same course as in giving habit to any mechanic function ; i. e. practical repetition of exertions, ivkith is the universal access to all ascendancy that comes by habit. Rule LVIl. In order to associate pleasure with the pursuits of intellectual improvement, keep up an example of the mf. of books, and accustom your- self to speak of their entertainment. Rule LVI II. Insinuate a proper estimate of books, by example of a choice regard and earful use of (heirr. M2 CHAPTER III. Education of youth' The age of youth I call that season of life which, commencing after the tenth year, supposes some of the governing associations in the system, whether of ideas or other movements, to be formed ; and some little ad- vance made by the child in the other parts of educa- tion, especially in articulation, in the knowledge of things, and in ceremonial morality. This is a general account of civilized society's proceeding ; — what takes place in the greatest number of individual instances. I extend the age of youth to the twenty-second year of life, being that which civilized communities have fixed as the bound of minority, whereat their laws set their members free from the control of parents and guardians, as the most agreeable to nature. From the age of 10 years, then, to the age of 21, takes place the scene of that stage of education which is called the education of youth. Truly some attain discretion' sooner than others, and seem to be entirely fit to go- vern themselves long before that period ; but this limit is that which has the most general adaptation to reali- ty. The education of youth may be as laborious and trying in some parts, as the education of infants : but not so consequential ; for it is easier for manhood to supercede the impressions of youth, than youth those of infancy. It is easier in men's education of them- selves to correct the errors of the education of youth, than in the education of youth to correct those of the first stage of education ; for there be those-impressions StB incident to and inseparable from infant education, that seem to be insuperable and carry their effects to th^ last of our existence, though we can in no wise recol- lect the impressions themselves. Many of the same precepts are appropriate here as are fit for the preced- ing part, though applied in a different extent. We tread the same round, in part; but finish some of that work whereof the capacity of infants admits only of a partial advance. In this period takes place the pro- priety of some variation in the treatment of the two sexes, in the carrying on of this work. But this is not of that measure that some would have it. The education of the female and male must insome degree vary, of course, in conformity to the different parts they are to act in life ; but in the absolute extent of erudition, and quantity of accessions in acquired ex- cellence, I think they should not stand materially apart. Some have maintained an opinion, that 'girls ought not to have so learned an education as boys, 9 Upon what principle they ground this persuasion I know not unless it be the supposition that girls are prone to make a dangerous use of learning: for other- wise why this premonition against giving girls as muck help of erudition to enlarge and enrich their under- standings, as boys? Or do they mean by learning, or learned education, the extent and number of those particular arts and sciences that are practically em- ployed in subsistence, and make professional charac- ters? For it is admitted girls have no need to learn, and ought not to spend their time (which might be employed upon something more elevating and improv- ing) to learn geometry, surveying, and navigation; because these arts and sciences are opposite to their commonly design'd ways of living, in the civilized world at large: and since they are not what they are usually called to practice, to confine their thoughts to $iem were keeping them out of that which might more 27 314. profitably elevate and liberally replenish their minds with such things as are a source of comfort and de- light, as well as practical utility in social life. But the female is not to be idle, nor employed about meaner themes than those. They are indeed during their lives to be employed mostly in household affairs, but it is not only fit that they be possessed of such intellectual goods as afford as high entertainment as the opposite sex attain to, and the highest enjoyment any of us is capable of, but particularly that they have the skill of educating children correctly. In the name of common sense, is not the femab soul of as much value as that of the male ? Indeed there is no need of girls' being puncti- liously proficient in several practical portions of science which none but males are wont to put into use, such as those of surveying, navigation, practical astronomy, mechanics, &c. ; but their faculties are worthy of as high cultivation as those of the male. It is from the im- provement of the faculties of the soul, that our greatest happiness, our chief good, results. All cultivation of mind subserves the advance of our perfection as intelli- gent and passive beings. To improve these faculties, as well as to store with what may be serviceable to enter- tainment or action we keep the girl in exercises of gram- mar, arithmetic, geography, logic, or whatever other use* ful sorts of knowledge we happen to have the opportuni- ty and materials to draw her notice to : for by exercise, the faculties are improved. It is use and application that strengthens them. Hereby the capacity is enlarged, and the agent made susceptible of that pleasure that pertains to contemplation, meditation, and abstaction. Study exalts the human mind to this point, whether in the female sex or male. What time the boy takes up in perfecting himself in certain arts and sciences that are of a masculine appropriation, the girl is consistent- ly put to needlework, sewing, or to studies of a more 313 general and entertaining nature than the boy is pursu- ing, that embellish the mind with more engaging en- dowments which tend to diffuse animating charms over the scene of social intercourse. And here, although women cannot be so great mathematicians and artists, yet they have a chance to be greater moralists, if their thoughts be conducted into this track early, while the opposite sex is taken up with different views. And if there be many arts and many compasses of science which men ought properly to be more thoroughly ver- sed in than women, to whom they are not necessary as lying out of the way of the concernment of their des- tined conditions in iife ; it does not follow that there- fore 'girls ought not to have so learned an education as boys ;' that they ought not to have so much learning, so great a quantity of learning as boys ; — for the ex- tent of erudition 1 don't conceive is any where dange- rous to them, nor with them, more than the other The study of solid science humanizes, while it not only li- beralizes their views, but sets them above vanity. "The study of solid science is equally important to estab- lish tkeir worth; and perhaps here, it is more influen- tial abroad. I don't think it would injure a female to be possesed of the whole circle of sciences. The first years of this age are the most critical part of it. A peculiar susceptibility of moral and intel- lectual biases, is assignable to this conjuncture. This seems to be a time of life when the power of voluntary thinking having got the start of the animal powers, a trifle is able to turn the superflux into a particular course. This, I say, is accumulation of a particular variety of sensorial power, whose force like the mo- mentum of an overswelling body of waters, carries it irresistibly forward into the first furrow into which it finds a vent. Hence the taste is wont to be fixed at this juncture, and tracks of genius struck out, that are kept in eye through life. All this depends very much 316 on what has taken effect in infancy. From the accu- mulation of power of voluntary thinking, and also sen- sitive, when there not having existed any accountabil- ity for any plans of active life, nor any great cares nor pleasures, the energy hereof has not had its re- course of exhaustion, it is here liable to take a long and weighty sweep. And this portentous calm in life, this spell, this boding intemperature in the intellectual region, is the original of incalculable variagations in the scenes of moral and sensitive life, both painful and pleasurable; and is ef great moment to be husbanded in the most careful manner, and filled up with judi- cious inculcations. All the processes of education can be advanced in this age of life. All manner of asso- ciation, knowledge and opinion, language, and almost every art, may get an important degree. The first and chief ideas we ought to impress by strong associ- ation, are implied in these three abstracted ones, causality, obligation, and progression. These are what we should labour to establishes^, in this stage, in the department of associations. The following rules com- prise the principal of what is necessary to do in edu- cation of youth. Rule f. Teach the youth pen manship, grammar, arith- metic, and geography, Jn application of thi3 rule, follow rule thirty-eighth in education of infants ; and observe the general recourse of repetition of impressions, and associa^ tion of due pleasure with them. Teach universal grammar as soon as the subject is able to appro* hend its maxims. Rule II. Having in infancy impressed it ivith a re- verential regard of your own person, shew the youth by exemplification that you respect its tutor- as a brother, and persttade it that you reckon it as 317 important to enforce obedience, respect, and sub' mission, to one as to the other. Rule III. Never put a young scholar immediately up- on a task which he has been repeatedly baffled in attempting to get the mastery of; since every new trial adds a disagreeable association that, being painful, proves a clog that impedes not only this particular undertaking, but casts a disparage- ment upon study in general. Rule IV. Let the pupil carefully and legibly write down what it is to commit to memory. One such exercise is equivalent to a dozen recita- tions, in efficacy of making the matter of the theme familiar. Rule V. Freely answer all its serious inquiries, whe ther in natural, moral, or rational philosophy. Answer it sincerely and candidly too, in such words as it can under stand, giving it all the satis- faction it is able to receive by such communica- tion } for curiosity ought not by any means to be impressed, but under proper direction stimulated, it being the vital principle of all scientific profi- ciency. The application of this rule must have this qualifi- cation,— that it be protracted till such age as seems to indicate capacity to apprehend their simplest and most expressive answers ; till which time the loquacity of youth's inquisitiveness should be circumscribed, and they taught silent musing. This will have good fruits in them. Rule VI. Set an example of constancy : let this be im- pressive : there is no other way to substantiate the principle of stability but to exhibit an even- ness of conduct to the tyro's sensitive observation^ that, acting on the imitative faculty in association %7* 318 with the pleasurable ideas of natural affection, fa< voritism, and recollected beneficence, forces itself to his-' approbation. Rule VII. Give it rousing representations of what it is progressing to, in a course of nature modified by its voluntary actions. Rule VIII. Let one corporeal chastisement be sufficient and effectual, so fur as any thitig of that kind serves the turn to dissuade from a bad course : in order to this, it must be distinguished by the fol- lowing circumstances: I. That it be sufficiently painful j 2. That it be applied at the proper con- juncture, and the sufferer made to perceive that it is done for that which deserved it ; 3. That it be attended by solemnity of preliminary examina- tion , and ceremonials that favor reflection. Rule IX. Teach it sorts of signs j and the classifica- tion, derivation, and declining of words. "Rule X. Store it with abstract ideas in moral modes and relations. This enables to reason on such themes; dignifies, and substantially entertains. Rule XI. In training the reasoning power, give the pupil time and scope to open its views, and rather allure than compel. Hule XII. Give the youth opportunity to freely gra- tify its curiosity by examining the usual ways of society abroad, where it is not exposed to ruinous temptations ; and afterwards faithfully explain to it (he novel appearances that have com* wider its view. These things associate pleasure with knowledge ; make t)ie pupil have pleasure in knowledge, and 319 pleasure in the society of yourself in the character of its teacher. Rule XIII. Teach it natural history. Rule XIV. In teaching the subli/ne arts, as poetry or oratory, let the pupil, on committing models to his memory, throw off the expression and clothe the ideas in his oivn ; and wgistering these, recite them afterwards in answer to a suggestion of each clause of the propounded task. Rule XV. Give the girl equal improvement of mind with tie boy. Rule X^I. Teach them the elements of astronomy, /o» gU, and geometry. Apply ru ^ e sxxviii of the education ofinfants. Rvle XVII. Fix the boy's animal love to a single ob- ject, and convert it to sentimental love. Represent the object in an attracting light. No mat- ter if the object be hypothetical, so that he be per- suaded it is real, and it be so conformed to nature that it be constituted of nothing over and above what he can some future day easily find in real existence ; its attributes no way transcending what is frequent in reality. Rousseau remarked that • a young man is either in love or is a debau- chee :' and indeed we shall do better to direct, qualify, improve, and facilitate, the course of na- ture than attempt to repress it. But the predo- minating attractions ol this object are to be moral and intellectual. Rule XVIII. Transfer the energy ofthegirVs ani- mal love to moral and sentimental beauty. In order to effectuate this, we must endeavor to as- sociate more pleasure, i. e. the idea of more prevailing pleasure, ivith such beauty, than is $26 joined to other, sensible objects that act as excite-- ments to animal Jove, make such beauty more pleasing than sensible beauty, which can only be done by its having a stronger and wider intervo- lution with pleasurable ideas. Hule XIX. Talk pathetically and argument atively to the girl of the danger, the fatal consequences of unguarded and promiscuous conjunctions ; and of the advantages, the happiness, the safety, the Utility, of an instituted union ivithm individuaL Rule XX. Describe and point out to her contempla- tion an attracting and virtuous individual $ (not a real one who is a neighbor, lest it encumber with solicitude and subject to disappointments. J It will not frustrate this design for them to be sensi- ble in the advance of it, that this object, as sttjh particularly denominated and circumstanced on^ is fictitious instead of being real ; so that this en* ergy is collected and habituated to act on a deter- minate point, directed by proper qualifications of such object. Rule XXT. In application of the three preceding rules, avoid repressing sympathy, but deduce to her the duty of a candid, pacific, honorable, free liberal, reasonable procedure, toiva* ds those of the oppo< site sex; justly disclose the malignity of tanta- lism, and lay open the odious nature of coquetry. Let sympathy (by refining reason) be cultivated, not repressed. Rule XXII Talk persuasively to both the boy and the girl, of the fitness, the importance, the urgency, and the agreeableness to the moral and physical laws of nature, of the connubial compact, a faith- ful and permanent concentration of the affection in an individual. 321 Rule XXIII. Collaterally herewith, argue the preli- minaries of securing a station commanding the means of comfortable living. These things allure them to industry and diligence* keep their thoughts from dissipation, and from ex- travagant flights of vague concupiscence. Rule XXIV. Teach them the foundation of morality ; the reason of all duties : explain apologues, inu- endoes, parables, and fables, to insinuate the spi' rit of valuable dogmas, and practical maxims im- port ant to put into use. Rule XXV. Open to the aspiring mind the most en* gaging traits of scientific structures ; lead it to the most attractive beauties of the moral world. Rule XXVI. Talk to them of what their train of vo- luntary conduct is carrying them to, and how your own experience stands related to it. Rule XXXVII. Speak pathetically of what their pa- rents have undergone on their account, and with what views; and what objects of hope sustained them therein. Rule XXVI II. Regularly appropriate their time to properly distributed employments dive' sified with intervals of meditation ; and let them be constant- ty and usefully busy. Rule XXIX. Disalloiv their close pursuit of tracts of speculation their condition does not admit them to put into actual use. Rule XXX. Cordially befriend them in such themes of their choice as be allowable. Rule XXXI. Give the boy one useful mechanic art at least, be his external condition what it may : and give the girl the complex art of housewifely. 3SS This hinders not giving them sublime arts, ancUci- ence that is to form what are called professions ia life, when your condition admits of it. Rule XXXII. Talk of your genuine sentiments on morals to others in their presence. Rule XXXIII. Express to them personally those same sentiments at some other opportunity. Hereby they will be likely to be confirmed. Rule XXXIV. Keep them in their leading strings iir twenty-one years of age ; yet through the four las of those years, let them be rather friends and com- panions to you than servants : and let them be so well habitated to compliance that it is pleasure to comply , and having their work set out and the day properly divided, that they go without the least com* pulsion or direction, to finish it faithfully. In the meanwhile talk familiarly and instructively to them on topics important for them to contemplate, with the same freedom as to any equal. Rule XXXV. Set before them an example of all the virtues. The best way to keep them clear of the influence of bad example without depriving them of an accu- rate knowledge of the world, is to counteract fo- reign example by your own. Rule XXXVI. Practice wary admonition to direct them in the forming of friendship and other weigh- ty connections in civil intercourse, and to shape their habitual plans to rectitude. In a strict adherence to the foregoing rules I think we shall find a very sure way to bring forward the young to a maturity of discretion, and prepare them tor usefulness* honor, virtue. It may be objected the 323 diversity of the human character frustrates their use ; since one is capable at the age often, of what another is to be initiated in at eighteen. Answer: — These rules are not conformed to the results of custom and prescription: let children m general be trained precisely under all these rules of treatment, according to the exact extent of their im- fort, from birth to the age of twenty-one years; and presume that at the latter period, their diversity in temper and active powers, will not be great. 824 CHAPTER IV. Education of people more advanced in life. Therf is a time when youth is swallowed up in the prime of men's parts and the climax of their age. There is a time of life when youth and childhood being left behind, all their privileges and prospects being cassated, a different state of things supervenes. There comes a day in the progress of man's life, when all the scenes of infancy and youth having successively vanished and gone by, he shakes off all yokes and res- traints of parents, tutors, nurses, guardians, and sets up for his own guide. There is a season of life which is called manhood : but this word has been applied by some, to that which by another word is puberty, and virility, the period when the species is capable ot gen- eration, commonly limited at the fourteenth year. The consideration I have had of this matter, has su- perseded this arrangement for another wherein I had only in view the adaptation of the several stages of education, which depends on the graduation, not of the animal powers, but of the intellectual. And of this we can come at no perfect unexceptionable stan- dard, because nature seems to have made some little diversity in that department of the human constitu- tion whereon the intellectual capacity depends, where- by we come into the world with different powers of mind (in the passive sense of the word) which the same proceeding will carry to different and unequal acquests in the same times. We can approximate it fey some general measure of distribution, to which 325 none seems to have a more conspicuous propinquity than that which the most refined governments have bounded by the termination of pupilage and minority. Tins part of education, that is, of such as having ad- vanced beyond this point, are properly men and wo- men, or the consistent depositaries and suscipients of self-government, is usually conducted by the persons themselves who are the subjects of its effects, — who are in some sense both agents and objects: since per- sons having no visible superior to controul their pri- vate conduct, must in propriety have the charge of the arrangement of those measures and processes where- by they are advanced in knowledge, aptness, and art. The capital desiderata the scope of this part tempo- rally terminates in, i. e. the things men generally seek to promote themselves in by education, are a livelihood independent of charity; knowledge of the world; ease from laborious exertions of invention and bodi- ly strength to accomplish the necessary purposes of life ; and extension and refinement of their absolute enjoyment. To live independently of the charity of others ; to live easy ; to be acquianted with the world ; and to live happy ; — these four pursuits are those which comprehend whatsoever men reckon upon as being their desired investiture, in the immediate aim of their enterprize of education. 1. To live independently of charity, the main chance is to establish and habituate some sure expedi- ents to compass the materials of sustenance ; as a me- chanic art, or something else that can bestead them in this behalf. To settle themselves into fixed stations is a great adminicle, in tins way, which very few de- cry. A fixed tenable station securing opportunity to carry on the business of life, is an important desider- atum with all who set out to live honestly and honour- ably without having recourse to solicitations of alms or favor. Education discovers these expedients, and 38 326 gives the power to use them successfully : and this is no mean pursuit neither ; for he that depends on the charity of mankind, is in danger of falling short of the means of life, if not of life itself. 2. Another thing men drive at, is knowledge of the world ; by which is intended knowledge of things that are in the world ; whether it be of the actions of men, and the operations and revolutions in general that are going forward there; — or the knowledge o( the make and powers of animals, vegetables, and minerals, that make a part of it ; or that of the affections of substances in general. There is a knowledge of the world that is not commendable to be advanced in the young : and is no way delectable to the considerate, even though it may be useful : and that is a know- ledge of its vanities and vices; the inventions of the malignant, the vofuptuous and the idle. Yet to know even the corruptions of the world, their rise and ends, is necessary in order to avoid them, to such as have the direction of their own course through life. But a general indubious acquaintance with the realities around us, is obviously useful in every point of our agency, and has a utility that is acknowledged on all hands. 3. In the third place men think by education to get ease from laborious and racking efforts of mind and body to bring about those effects that are indispensable in the preservation of life. In this view all those ma- chines that are used about the arts, and various subtly contrived methods of bringing about what required much labour of body or casting about of mind, have their origin. Which though requiring extraordinary exertions of mind, and perhaps body too, to complete them, yet being done to get rid of the necessity of them, this labour is lightened by that consideration : men being content to go through great hardships in the present moment, tor the sake of being entirely at 327 ♦ase from labour in future. Fame, however, the idea of applause, is a great stimulant to inventions. More- over, this pursuit may be carried to excess. These cash g arts may he carried to excess; so far to excess as to shorten our usual length of life ;— for stong vo- luntary exertion prolongs life 4 With regard to the extension and refinement of real enjoyment, although it properly expresses the ap- proximation to the true end of education, and is in fact the natural tendency of it when rightly plotted and conducted ; yet the multitude lave a;i imaginative idea of this refinement and extension. Many possess not a true idea of what it realty con- sists in, nor of what the true means to it really consist in : still sue!) as are governed by such an object to education, are actuated by a correct motive, however they may be deluded about the medium. That men agree in what they conceive to constitute their chief good, is not to be expected. It requires a sublimely abstract view, to come at the indubitable perspective of that winch is the greatest happiness of the whole race, winch every individual must agree in and find his chief enjoyment consists in. To these, men are wont to make education an ac- cess, or general applicative or mean. Which are in fact but intermediate objects, none being perfectly satisfied short of the ultimate e\\(\, consummate enjoy- ment, of which hope supplies them with the substt- ute. " Hope springs eternal in the human breast, Man never is, but always to be blest." Yet these answer to make up men's common hap- piness in this world. The idea of increasing good or advantage, implies a reference to things future; and this hope is essential to their enjoyment in life. All the passions are (in nature) necessary to our enjoy- 328 inent, such as we are; their contemperation necessary to the security and increase of that enjoyment. The want of such contemperation necessarily brings de* generacy of it, and in procession, complete misery. Whatever exceptions may be made of several of those sagacious and imitative brutes which are brought to acquire several simple arts, and discover progressive improvement under a careful culture ; it is obviously a general truth that in the ordinary course of things a brute arrives, in a very short time after coming into the world, at a point of perfection which he cannot exceed, in amplitude of his capacity: although he may have a succession of noval appearances on his sensory, and continue to perceive variety of ideas; yet his memory does not seem to be strengthened hereby unless practice be joined, as in the case of hounds tutored to thechace. A repetition of voluntary exertions consecutive to the impression of those re- peated perceptions, is necessary to be connected there- with, to produce a habit of remeniscence and streng- then the memory in these species. Brutes, from their want of abstraction, and their paucity of memory as well as of other powers, are incapable of advancing in intellectual improvement ; incapable of enlarging their views and carrying on a train of successive ac- quirements of ascendanc3 r and expedients; and are in these respects, in a sort stationary. But man seems to be placed at the head of this terrestrial race, the lord of all the animal world, and may innovate im- provements indefinitely ; his intelligence, as if a grow- ing principle, still increasing in its possessions even whether he will or no. The happiness of an active being, is not wholly separable from action. The highest happiness must pertain to the action of the highest faculties. There- fore our greatest enjoyment lies in the operations of our minds. Large comprehensive views contribute to 329 the perfection of human happiness. In particular ones, brutes have their highest enjoyments. As we approach to such conception as depends upon gross visible contact of matter, we recede from the emi- nences of intellect, and verge to the regions of insen- sibility. The subject matter, then, of man's chief happiness, consists in the operations of the mind; and more perhaps in contemplation than in any other par- ticular one of those operations. Contemplation and abstraction are those which combine more enjoyment than any other. Each operation of mind, draws plea- sure with it. Abstraction being the peculiar privilege of the human intellect, whereby it is wholly distin- guish'd from brutes, must have a peculiar pleasure which inferior intelligences never attain to. There is more pleasure in contemplating abstract ideas than particular ones, for these following reasons, viz : First The pleasure is more lasting. The move- ment of the spirits, to be sure, in a nice collecting of these views is more slow than in observance of parti- culars of real existence the effect of impulses on our senses: yet there is more pleasure, because more per- manent and constant. These objects preserve their conspicuitv and impressiveness in spite of the failings of the objects of sense, for they depend not on the fluctuating powers of our flimsy tabernacle. Neither do they depend on the existence of rhese varying and shortliv'd objects which are the efficient causes of particular ideas ; it being all one whether there be now extant any such thing as hospitality in the world or no, my idea of that sort or kind of action remains still tenable, equally without the existence of the par- ticular actions that are called hospitable and go to con- stitute that virtue in the actual instance, as with it J the idea in my head, of such a mode, no more depend- ing on the existence of, or ceasing to be, with, the par- ticular achetype in rerum natura, than the idea of a 88* 330 mammouih ceases to be and is annihilated with that race of animals; which is supposed to be now extinct, The variety which is implicitly involved in the capa- city of these ideas, whereby they have a greater fund of novelties upon which a continued examination can draw, unquestionably contributes to the durability of this pleasure. Secondly. These abstract ideas are (to use a coarse expression) < our own property ' Abstract ideas are of our own forming. For particular ideas, i. e. of par- ticular tilings, such as are those of a horse, a deed of charity, a basket of fruit, a pig, an elephant, a journey to Mexico, an epileptic fit, we are indebted to nature, chance, or whatever plastic or ascendant power there is in the great substantial world above us or about us, that we cannot reach. But abstract ideas are what we ourselves frame : are essentially the workmanship of our own minds. True, we depend upon other pow- ers for the materials of their composition, and in fact we make them up from our notices of those particular things that have affected our senses. But then, we see, these ideas, when once framed, don't depend upon the actual existence of these particular beings the ideas of which they are made out of. So they se#m to be some- thing we have got (from whatever originals their ele- mentary ingredients) and made up for ourselves, of which they seem to be a part, and appear to be as last- ing as any part of our frame, especially as those parts upon which our memory depends : and there is more pleasure in contemplating this sort of ideas, than those giblets (if I may say) of the universe, that are as it were blown to us by the four winds of heaven j and they get an additional pleasure from the consideration of^ro- . to this very ob- ject. It requires a perception of something represent- ing the object to the understanding, by'meians of which it prevails to produce the greatest desire, of which it becomes the end, and ultimately determines the will. This energy, I say. is required to direct the operating acuities into a train of actions which eventually pro- duce a habit of attention. This train of actions is a continued course of voluntary thought, wherein the same acts are repeated, and which includes in it that which is called attention. Truth should be the imme- diate scope of all our inquiries. Truth is the proper and natural object of pursuit, to intelligent creatures that seek improvement. Truth is the conformity of the reciprocal relations of signs, joined or disjoined, with the reciprocal relations of the tilings signified by those signs, to be properly considered as represented to be joined or disjoined Thus if the idea of exist- ence and the idea of a piece of gold are joined together in our mind, this junction and consistence of them there, is a relation, i. e the reciprocal relation of them one to another ; and if the piece of gold itself is joined with existence, that is, if it really exists in nature, this coincidence is a relation ; the conformity of these two relations is truth. If, furthermore, to the idea of a ', --- 336 piece of gold, i. e. of a body yellow, hard, and heavy, 19 joined the idea of ductility, this state of connection in- cludes the reciprocal relation of these two ideas; if at the same time in real existence this ductility has a place among the qualities of thepiece of gold itself, their co-existence is the reciprocal relation of ductility and the other constituents of gold : and the conformity of these two relations, to wit, of our ideas and of the things which they represent in real existence, is truth. And if also we affirm of the piece of gold, it is ductile, we join the expression of ductility and the expression of gold, and there is a relation of these two words one to another ; and if in our minds gold and ductility stand thus related one to another as they are expressed, i. e. have agreement or coalescence as they are joined in the affirmation ; this aspect is a reciprocal relation ; and this conformity of these reciprocal relations, is truth. Words are the signs of ideas, and ideas are the signs of things separate from our ideas. Truth is of two sorts ;•- metaphysical truth and moral truth. Metaphysical truth is the conformity of the recipro- cal relations of ideas as representing things, with the reciprocal relations of things, or with the relations of things to our own conscious existence. Moral truth is the conformity of the reciprocal relations of signs voluntary joined or disjoined in affirmation or negation, to the reciprocal relations of the things those signs re- present. There is that which maybe called historical truth, which though it has no visible certainty about it, has the same effect in the purposes to which it is ap- plied, as absolute, certain truth ; which is when we put together ideas in an assumed conformity to the rela- tions ot the things they represent, without any actual perception of such conformity, which thus is taken to be, without perceiving it to be ; as when we believe a proposition, having no actual knowledge ot its verily. Apd such is the truth of most of our opinions. Thus 3S7 if a neighbor tells me that one hundred and fifty wild geese havingjourneyed from a southwestern compass, are refreshing themselves in a certain pool seventy rods from the spot where I abide, I am satisfied of a con- formity existing between the relations of these words and those of the ideas which are in the mind of the speaker, although I do not perceive it : and not only so, but I consider these ideas which are conveyed into my mind by those words, as having a correspondence, in their reciprocal relations, with the scene of real exist- ence they are representative of: that is, putting the ideas together in affirmation, conformably to what is supposed to be in reality of things, I assume this con- formity to exist, without actual knowledge thatitdoes so ; and therefore I believe the proposition. What I shall offer, by way of particular direction to the managery of the remaining part of the business I have been disc oursingof, I shall address to those grown men and women who are the objects of it, as being sup- posed to be both preceptors and pupils of themselves. The following rules therefore are adapted to the con- dition of mature persons governing themselves, for their glide in such government, to the finishing of their education ; and are accordingly addressed to such, in tlv form of directory precepts and injunctions; those whip mp eriniend the education of others in this condi- tion (being supposed to have the same care for their weal as they have for their own, to propose the same ends and be disposed to prescribe the like measures and trams of exercises as they would to themselves in the same pursuits,) standing in the same habitude as the others to these prescripts. You who are the pro- per objects of tne appropriation of these rules (persons over the age of twenty one years) are supposed, what- ever counsellors or preceptors you may have beside, to be the dreetors of your own conduct, and depend On your own will what measures it shall be effectually 29 338 modified by, to what ends directed, and to what habits it shall lead. Now men can teach themselves the sciences as well as the mechanic arts. Instances of the latter are too frequent-to admit of a question. What I mean here by teaching themselves, is in effect, acquiring, by their own resolute pursuit and voluntary application, inde- pendent of direction and patterns put them by living guides. Rule I. Make your first study to make all feasible returns to your parents and other early benefac- to) s, for your preservation and nurture. Indeed such debts are best discharged by upright and amiable deport, and perhaps cannot be effectually done in any other way, without this. But where parents are in need, it is the invariable indication of a good heart to be alert in relieving and pro- tecting them. Rule II. Pitch upon an honorable course of life, and abide in it steadily. This rule is equally appropriate within the limits of several years. In studying the application of this rule, consider that fortune may call you to various occupations and your career may be diversified by many different recourses for a livelihood. Rul*, III. The regularity and equanimity ofyou r life consists not in, nor depends on, the uniformity of your corporeal actions that make your external occupations, so much as the general Pack, and habits, of your trains of thought : and an ab- stracted arrangement is the best. ule IV If you have not had opportunity, or have neglected, in your minority, to acquire sufficient skill in arithmetic, grammar of your language 339 penmanship, and geography, scruple not to set diligently about to compass it at this present pe- riod, And to this end appropriate all your lei- sure till you have gained the desired proficiency. Rule V. In pursuing these sciences and arts, keep their utility in view, and deduce from it all your urgency in this pursuit. Let this single consi- deration, its usefulness, impel you to a titrefiti improvement of every opportunity, and undivided application to the quest of any particular deside- ratum. Rule VI. Read books of metaphysics, physiology, as- tronomy, chemistry t medicine, geography \ and na- tural history, as you are able to procure them. Where your condition admits of a choice, procure a few of the most valuable in these sorts, and abide by them as your principal standards so far as re- concileable to your reasoning, in preference to a fluctuation in compliance to dogmatic pretenders or new -tangled theories. Some of the best authors in those departments were Locke, Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, Chaptal, Culien, and Linnaeus. For a general exploration of speculative know- ledge, no helps of this kind are so admirably adapted to common life as encyclopedias, ot which the French and British nations have given some of the best specimens now extant. In a tho- rough course of studies, the several branches of the mathematics would have their place prior to physiology, Rule VII. In devoting time to the pursuit of art or science, keep a single eye to utility, as your final goal. Rule VIII. Avoid novel reading, except in bnrlesquc. 340 Rule IX. Read history, — especially travels and vayr ages. Rule X. Move all others, fail not to read the best books of ethics. There is a variety of excellent books of this sort; among which I think that work of Mr, Adam Smith, entitled a ' Theory of Moral Sentiments,' is as good as any I know of. in the form of a sys- tem. Hutchinson's * System of Moral Philoso- phy' also is a valuable book of this sort. But * Tully's Offices,' I take, holds the first rank as a practical work in this department. ' Seneca's Morals' is a book of this sort, which no young per- son ought to be without an acquaintance with. A book called the 'Economy of Human Life ;' also the Proverbs of Solomon ; but above all the doc- trinal parts of the gospels, the teachings of Jesus Christ, ought not to be omitted- TIule XI. Let morals be yoiir chief study and concern ; and study them as a system of science the founda- tion of which is sympathy, wherefrom is demon' stratively deduced alt our social obligation. This is the most natural rise of the duties of life, and the most satisfactory to account for them ; and thence is calculated to make them more easy and agreeable. Hule XII. Let the timing and arrangement of your studies be gradual and lucid. In order to put into effect what is purported in this rule, let the day (or week) before you, be delibe- rately distributed to appropriations distinct as the particular themes, circuits of speculation, or sorts of exercise you have to pursue therein ; and leana 341 one thing thoroughly before you venture upon the entangling of your thoughts with the next. Ru«E XIII In the advancing of your knowledge from one subject to another, make as small removes as it is possible to make and get distinct knowledge. The object of this rule is thorough improvement of the capacity of the mind ; to which end learn per- fectly a little new knowledge at a time, and let that little recede in as small degree from the pre- ceding accession as it can and be a distinct com- pass of knowledge. Regular and slow gradation of new knowledge, is most propitious to improve- ment of mind, because each of these several pieces of knowledge (if I may so speak) has by its affini- ty and other lines of association, more or less to do with the other, which accustoms them to a fre- quent concomitance whereby they gain a sort of topical propinquity and a strong association .with one another; whence they run as it were intobne body and enlighten the whole soul, when one part is as intimate and ready to recollection as the other. Rule XIV. Indirectly inquire of artists (with an in* terspersion of entertaining remarks) for the rules of their operations. This practice contributes to induce cultivation of sympathy, at the same time it extends useful knowledge, and exercises the understanding. Rule XV. To preserve what useful things you get in this way and by observation, accustom yourself to register, in words and abbreviations, the par- ticular curiosities you discover. Rule XVI. In the estimate of any new course of ac- tion proposed to yourself to enter upon, consider 29* 343 the tendency and effects of the habit to which the repetition of that action ivovld lead, and let your estimate of the habit be that of the action, and ac- cordingly determine its eligibility. The due adjustment of our estimate of the right and wrong of our actions depends in great measure on the consideration of the incidence of habit, which is the inseparable consequent of their repe- tition. In proportion as we become accustomed to any posture of mind, or habituated to any par- ticular course of whatever sort of thought or mo- tion, their reverse becomes repugnant to our satis- faction : therefore we proportionably become averse to a contrary course and to whatever sug- gests it. If we accustom ourselves to passing our evenings in conversation with our neighbors or strangers, we recede from a habit of reading in those intervals of our occupation. The question per- ceiving another to grieve exquisitely (without consi- dering any definite cause) we have some degree of this emotion raised in our own selves. But to consider that he grieves for the loss of a son, and feel a corres- pondent grief, requires a little farther-extended view. Another thing that is encumbering to the true inter- est of philanthropy in the pursuits of this intercourse, is a tyrannical custom with some parents, of controui- ing the marriage of their offspring against the course of nature. That parents exercise their authority to prevent their marriage within the age of their minority, i. e. before the a^e of twenty-one years, is undeniably equi- table in civilized communities : but aside of this limit and qualification, for a parent or any other to control and dictatorially modify the marriage of any, is unna- tural tyranny. Many, however, make this a matter of principle, and think they do but their duty when of their own accord they choose a partner for a descend- ant, and fix upon irreversible plans for their conjuga- tion. To this we may add a disgusting and injurious trick multitudes of people blunder into, of interfering about other individuals' plans of this sort, wherein that which practically concerns the thoughts of but two or three persons, they make a subject of much talk and speculation ; and delight to throw contempt on those individuals. These are some of the lets that lie in their way, who from a philosophic train of speculation, pur- sue this important connection with society. But these 352 are not all. There is another, which most of these may originate from ; and that is a defect of female edu- cation. Cultivation of the female mind is shamefully neg- lected. The boys get more knowledge and improve- ment by running about the world, even if they have no more tuition than the girls ; or sometimes by emula- tion in some particular art, such as arithmetic, pen- manship, grammar, geometry, or the like ; but more rarely is any incitement given to girls to cultivate learning. The female mind is suffered to go wild (in a great measure) in tins economical age. It is thought prudent to circumscribe the improvement of females rather more than that of males. It seems to be thought they would make a dangerous use of intellectual re- finement and liberal science. There is craft in keep- ing the female mind fallow. The leaders of the " chil- dren of this world" have a policy in it, to keep up the distinction of the two great divisions of the world, called the rich and the poor ; to strengthen and widen the partition between them ; and give ascendancy to the rich. The dull, the ignorant, and uncultivated, are generally rich. * Poets and philosophers,' it is said, 'are always poor.' Those who, neglecting inferior objects, have pursued enlargement of intellectual views, are generally poor. Penury usually goes along with cultivation of parts; and love of money is usually the associate of dullness and narrow thoughts. Now, it seems as if the leading aristocrats of this world thought, by keeping the female mind uncultivated and dull, to make women (especially such as have wealth) hate and despise those of the other sex who are culti- vated ; (and nc likelier recourse, for such as have no learning are disaffected at the signs of it in others) lest otherwise, that is if they were cultivated, thousands of them might intermarry with the others out of pure af- fection, in spite of poverty : and this, you know, would 358 lend to level: this would be to profane the porcelain clay of the nobility by an intermixture of the plebeian spawn, and confound or obliterate the choicest dis- tinctions of civil society. For they know, that since marriage depends more on the wills of women than of men, if women that are rich, or are heirs to wealth, should marry the poor ; or if, being poor, it should be so fashionable that they should have influence in com- mon custom, to marry the rich ; it would defeat their design, which is to keep the wealth of this world with- in the paws of the brutish and fatwitted, where it is likely to keep close, compact, concentrated and se- cure. Should it unfortunately get into the hands of the cultivated, it would be liable to be diffused and scattered abroad over the stage of civil life ; for such would delight even to distribute it to the poor. So the liberal arts and sciences are thought to be impru- dently trusted in the hands of females ; they being na- turally tender hearted, and more readily inclined to benignant emotions, it is thought that by their influ- ence, they would with such means, diffuse and equal- ize the concentrated wealth of aristocratical monopo- lies. These arch emissaries that affect to controlby underhand influences, t lie condition of society, are well aware that if girls were enlightened and refined in their understandings, it tvould be incident for them to intermarry with the poor : that is, they would choose men for their talents and accomplishments, rather than for their wealth ; because they would be competent to discern some other charms between those of wealth and beauty- If they were so liberal and ingenuous as a cultivation of mind would make them, they would choose men for their real worth, and not for their for- tune; and thence would prefer a cultivated intelli- gence with no estate, to one who being wealthy is void of erudition and art. For this cultivation gives them a capacity to apprehend the blandishments that 30* 354 appertain to a refined and enlarged understanding i gives them a perception of moral and intellectual beau - ty, transcendant to corporeal beauty. For any that has learning, is sensible to the charms of it in others. The same thing, also, would make them despise wealth. Now, as a greater proportion of those who are cultivat- ed are poor than rich ; and women, both before and after their marriage, have great influence over the men, it is plainly seen by these sly grovelling mongers of aristocratical distinctions, that such care of the female mind would tend to resolve the knots of worldlingmo- nopolists ; to dispand and disseminate their hateful and disgraceful masses of pelf; and to distribute into many parts what would be serviceable to thousands of others. It requires cultivation of mind, to be able to estimate men according to their real worth. Wo- men, if they be able to estimate men according to their real worth, are inclined to do it ; as they are naturally predisposed to benignity. If this were not the reason, wherefore should we so frequently hear so many respectable persons affirm that ' girls otight not to have much learning' — 'it is never worth while to send girls to school a great deal'? So this operates at the very ground-work of literary education. This reason operates with the choice spi- rits, the few, that lead the fashions of the day. The bulk of the ' children of the world,' for the gain they expect by their service, aim to make mere drudges of women, like brutes designed solely to subserve* the do- mestic economy by propagation or labor. But their views are coincident with those of the other : emanat- ing from another motive, they terminate in the same effect, so far as it regards the mind. For it is the main lever of both to keep that dull and circumscript. It is the interest of both these parties to keep the fe- male mind in a state of vulgarity, and as inept and far tuou£ as possible* For it indeed is truly said that those 355 select distinguished individuals who wish for such a state of things, and intently study to promote aristo- cracy, are but a small part of civil society ,- therefore cannot consistently presume upon bringing it about. Yet it must not be denied that they have great influ- ance upon the rest, and even controul them, the rather perhaps because they drive at the same point. If it be not so, how comes it about that we find so few fe- males, even among the politer circles, who have any noted extent of erudition (did I say ?)— nay, that un- derstand so much as the structure of their vernacular language, whereby they might be enabled to pursue the meditations of others to the knowledge of tilings ? How comes it about that we have to observe in them such an indifterency to the subject of erudition and literary achievements? Why are books, schools, and scientific pursuits spoken of so diminutively ? How is it that they are treated with such total aspernation, not only by young ladies themselves, but by those of their parents who are abundantly able to invest them with very liberal accomplishments of mind, and who yet deem it a more considerable object for their daugh- ters to make a stylish head-dress, or embroider a cur- tain, than to be familiar with the classics. Whence comes it that a sedate votary of the muses, who mute- ly moils in the mines of literature, cannot present his real sentiments (of ever so respectful a cast) to the un- derstandings of that sex in the vehicle of elegant lan- guage, and in such expressions as comport with an ac- curate and familiar acquaintance with the practical principles of philology? Suppose one of this condi- tion has a desire to cultivate an acquaintance with an individual of that sex, by whose languishment of form or moving he is pleasingly ingratiated, and that for that purpose he chooses to direct her a card in as ele- gant yet intelligible a style as he is capable of, to which also shall be superadded the blandishments of 336 oratory. Shall he have a reply ? Shall he be noticed with any degree of respect ? Shall he be understood ? Shall he be regarded as one who aims to treat that per- son ingenuously and sympathetically as an intelligent person having common information of her native lan- guage ? And shall he not rather be despised for pre- suming to communicate his ideas in such a way ? In- deed he shall be reckoned a novice in the * ways of the world!' shall indeed be held in derision for that which is literally to the object addressed, a piece of gibber- ish ! It is truly a subject of regret that the love of philosophy should exclude one from civil society; yet this is a state of things perfectly conformable to the views and wishes of the vulgar minions of aristocracy. That the finest and fairest part of the creatiou should be always immersed in vulgarity ; that in females deli- cacy of form should be deemed an adequate substitute for developement of intellectual excellence, and a nice outside for an improved understanding and liberal heart, is seriously to be deplored. It is very unnatu- ral, perhaps impossible, for the serious and contempla- tive to use some coarse hacknied mechanic processes to communicate their sentiments, their wishes, or emo- tions ; while it were not only easy but improving to make use of literature for such purpose. That which exercises the mind as much as the senses, and calls to early trials the highest faculties of our nature, is really delightsome to speculatory persons as a medium of such enunciation : whereas the stiff formal ways in use amongst the crowd, are disgusting, and repel the ac- quiescence of the heart. Those vague symbolical formalities, that have no other original than the caprice of those who have gone before us, encumber the intercourse of the sexes with modes forbidding to the considerate. I would not be thought to upbraid with their igno- rance and indocility those whose fate has been beset 357 with a succession of such circumstances as are repres- sive of all learning, an i which utterly extinguish or misapply curiosity. But I think it not an illaud.ible wish to apprize them of the importance of a proper ap- plication of their faculties while now it is in their pow- er to meliorate their condition in this respect ; to awak- en an attendance to this subject in persons who ha\e influence to enlarge female cultivation ; and to justly expose that contracted sentiment, that hackuied sav- ing, 'girls ought not to have so much learning as b.)y>,' than which none can be more puerile. l?ome reeu - mend very punctiliously to apportion and limit the studies of females: as if they should say "needle- work, plain sewing, embroidery, penmanship, reading, and simple arithmetic, are all that women ought to learn :" they speak of the pursuits of scholastic esta- blishments. But does not every faculty of their soul, every latent endowment of their nature, require cul- tuie and supervision ? Give their mind general im- provement; particularly set it right in morals, and it will of course betake itself to a diligent employment of its faculties. The female mind requires universal improvement ; and needs the same thorough cultiva- tion as that of the male. What is said of the compa- rative urgency of cultivating them, is very fallacious and very illusory. When it is said ' girls ought not to have so much learning as boys,' this should be consi- dered as put rashly, in a very doubtful sense. There are indeed certain arts and sciences of a masculine appropriation, which in the ordinary course of things in the civilized world at large, women are never called to make a practical application of; such as navigation, mechanics, geometry, &c. and of which therefore they may not properly give up any considerable part of their Jiine to the study. But what time they do not appro- priate to the pursuit of these objects, they should em- ploy in studying other themes that are more useful in 858 their particular conditions: and while the boys are studying the mathematics, astronomy, navigation, me- chanics, surveying, &c. the girls should be diligently applying their studies to the grammar of their native language, universal grammar, ancient history, logic, metaphysics. They require as much study, as great a quantity of learning, however it may vary in its qua- lity. There is no time for them to lose; there is the same length for them to go to the perfection of their faculties. In such an arrangement of things, they have the chance to be more critical philologists and ju- dicious moralists than the boys. Not that their facul- ties require any less exercise in order to give them the same degree of aptness and facility in operation, or extent of comprehension ; nor that as intelligent agents they need less improvement, for otherwise we make them an inferior rank of beings, or else the soul is inferior to the body. It is quite a common notion that it is inconsistent with the propriety of the female character to be addicted to close thought and reason- ing: that they are more pleasant companions if not encumbered vvith any heavy concerns of reflection ; and that thoughtfulness is highly unbecoming a lady of fashion. There is considered, however, a difference of rank ; and a kitchen-maid or a washer may with more seeming propriety appear considerate and studious : a drudge or waiter may be allowed to think deeply, and shew some marks of a speculatory frame of mind. But the appearance of it exquisitely deforms a lady of qua- lity Such would grossly shock a circle of the choice wares of the species. Light thoughts and superficial remarks of things are the most fashionable traits of the female character. But let me ask who they make them more agreeable companions to? To the vulgar only: for to such as are refined they are no longer pleasing than they exemplify what is correspondent to the favorite exercise of mind, of such skillful and 359 considerate observers. They are those who are criti- cal and speculatory that are fitted to please and capti- vate the aft'ections of others that are ; for they only can reflectively and thoroughly sympathize with them. The society of the thoughtful pleases the thoughtful; and vacant minds please vacant minds, in their socie- ty. In the first place, the society of women more or less attracts all. Now if it be proper for us all to be vacant-minded, it is proper for women to be so. For the more those who associate together assimilate each other's views and capacities, the more harmonious is the society. There are many reasons why women should not on- ly be addicted to serious thought, but possess extensive erudition ; among which there is none perhaps more weighty than that the first part of the education of chil- dren falls principally upon their hands The study of metaphysick aud physiology is signify appropriate to their stations. The negligent and careless manner in which ourfe- males are educated, is seen also in their ignorant and pert behavior ; their scornful and rude carnage towards strangers and studious persons, net. unlike that of ob- streperous house dogs that incessantly berattle passers by. who carry any appearance to which they are unused. Hence arises coquetry, the barbarous recitation ofil- luding and tantalizing men. Even assaults of the coarsest insolence sometimes from this quarter shock the surprised feelings of the considerate observer as he passes among them When a man passes :i house and hears from a window a peal of he burst- ing from female observers of seme peculiarity in his gait or personal appearance, he is constrained to infer a gross deficiency in their early education, wherein moral principles seem to have had no participation at all but as names to excite contempt. It is pity that in the most tender and elegant part of the human family J60 the cultivation of sympathy should be abandoned ; which surely we cannot suppose to have any great de- gree in those who do not scruple to mimic a stran- ger's oddities, in reproach: yet instances of this de- pcr'ment are not unknown in the civilized world. If urbanity is not to begin with the soft enchant- ing community that presides in the domestic scene, where is it to emerge ? Here, I say, the mocking and malignant arts of coquetry take their rise, i.e. in a total want, of thought of other's feelings ; and this immediately results from a contracted view, by a profane repression of the intellectual energy in early youth. This defect of education likewise shews itself in the almost universal pursuit of pageantry and fash- ions. Due cultivation of mind would tend directly to dissipate this flaring envelope of vanity. But there comes a time of reflection in age, when the stimula of juvenile amusements are exhausted, when the mind must feed on reflections, or sink into mere insipience and dotage ; and when these reflections must either be pleasant or unpleasant. If the understanding have not been cultivated in early life by inuring it in a proper manner to those exercises that tend to make its opera- tions habitual and pleasing, these reflections assuredly will not be pleasant But if the moral powers have not been properly improved, and by this sort of negli- gence the memory be charged with abuses of talents, privileges, means and opportunities of doing good, these reflections must be pointedly contristating. Moreover the most delightsome reflections arise from a sedulous improvement of all our talents to the best use practicable. The most sublime, durable, and sub- stantial enjoyment of our existence, is in our reflections. Here is the depositary of all the variety in nature. The mind is the most noble, the most elevated, and the most precious part pf the human system ; and the pleasures of it are more secure, constant, easy of ac~ 364 cess, and extensively diversified, than those of any other part : which part, if we have earnestly cultivat- ed, and inured ourselves to contemplation in the early- part of life, we fail not to inherit a copious and ample round of solid entertainment, to the irremeable verge of eur existence. Rule XXII If you determine to travel extensively either for amusement or for science, set out with no particula> suspense in your considerations of matrimony as an object of your practical course* The design of this rule is to avert anxiety, and there- by give that freedom to thought, indispensable to the advantage of observation. In application to this, if your choice be not conclusively fixed upon celibacy ; either enter into such a conditional con- tract of future establishment, within the round of your acquaintance, as you can complacently rely upon; or else decisively defer the determination to another place and time. But a mind that is wandering and at random with respect to these concerns, or under any particular entanglement ot suspense, is not likely to get much s'»lid im- provement by exploring the varieties of different regions and communities. Rule. XXII 1. Contemplate the relation of the wants and feelings of other individuals of your species, to your own* This improves sympathy* These wants and feel- ings are of two classes : I . Natural, original ; such as are the very same in every human creature: 2. Habitual; such as rise out of custom and pe- culiar courses ot indulgence in diverse indivi- duals. Rule XXIV. Practice the social and pnvate virtues; 31 362 Social virtue, in its sublimest sense may be defined, intentionally advancing the greatest good of the sys- tem of percipient beings with whom we can intelligen- tially reciprocate any emotion. In a little more limit- ed sense, it maybe called that sort of voluntary action that goes directly to promote the good of our fellow creatures. Otherwise, it is doing to others in evej-y particular case, that which we are apt to desire them to do to us. The social virtues are philanthropy, hospitality, gra- titude, justice, patriotism, charity, meekness. Philanthropy is, speculatively, that emotion of love and sympathetic regard to beings of the human species, and in fact to percipient beings in general, that moves us to desire their preservation and happiness. Active- ly, it is beneficence. Hospitality is kindness and be- nignity practised particularly upon strangers; as pro- tection, sustenance, employment, information, direc- tion, &c. ; and is no more than active philanthropy qualified to this sort of objects. Gratitude is, specula- tively, the emotions of love and good will towards those who have been the intentional causes of any good to us : actively, the practice of such actions as tend to confer a return or retribution of such good, whether in the same kind or otherwise. Justice is giving, in thought, determination, word, or deed, their exact due to all volitive agents that come within the sphere of our reciprocation ; i. e rendering the appropriate as- signment to merit and demerit. In a larger sense, it is doing unto others what we would have them do unto us ; and this is justly the due of one sympathetic be- ing from another. In this sense it comprehends the essence of all the social virtues ; which are but various modifications of it. But in the sense in which it here stands distinguished from the rest of the social virtues^ it is cequimenti and doing to others what ought to be done to ourselves in the like cases, in reference to the 3fi3 good of the universe. Yet in its inflictive application it is not to be practiced by an individual, but by the collected power and choice of a community. To turn it out of this channel, in civil society, is to convert it to injustice. Patriotism has been thought not to be reconcileable to philanthropy, and indeed it is not in any other point of view than considered as a prevailing attachment to a particular nation on account of its having adopted a frame of government which is signally favorite and applicative of philanthropy ; and actively, the practice of such things out of a zealous attachment to, and ve- neration of, such frame of government, as are necessa- ry to those purposes of its support, which we wish all mankind, friends and foes, to acquiesce in and impli- citlylubserve. Chanty is exercising compassion and beneficence oh those who are in want of the comforts of life, or of any desideratum whose privation makes them unhappy. Meekness is negative and actual : as 1. Forbearance of resentment ; and < 2. Forgiving injuries. Clemency also is included in this virtue. What are called private virtues are those modes and recourses necessary for preserving the health of the body and of the mind ; for preserving the order of the trams of thought regular, clear, and serene; and for acquiring and retaining the ascendancy and controul of the necessary materials for executing all purposes of social virtues. They are patience, industry, forti- tude, temperance, continence, cleanliness, frugality, &.c. Let the person who conducts education, keep close to these few plain rules 1 have set down in the pre- ceding pages, for each stage of life; and I hesitate not 4.0 assert that he will find his work not only without insuperable difficulties, but to prosper beyond what from a cursory advertence to them ho is apprized o£ 365 aLPYEXDIX. A MORAL CATECHISM. Question. What is the chief end of man? Answer. Happiness. Q. In what sense is happiness the chief end of man? A. Happiness is the chief end of man in this sense, that it is the chief end of his pursuit, the prevailing ob- ject in which all his wishes terminate, and that to which his desires ana aversions have continual refer- ence. Q. What is happiness? A Contentment or satisfaction. Q. What is contentment or satisfaction ? A. The possession of such a state of mind as from a clear view of the realities that environ us, and to which our capacities are competent, precludes the prevalence of desire over serene pleasure. Q. What does contentment immediately depend up- on? A. Such a contemperament of the motions in the human constitution, as precludes violent desire ; inso- much that a greater degree of pleasure than of unea- siness, is in that constitution. 31* sm -Q. Is happiness capable of being increased? A. It is capable of being made more permanent am! more sublime. Q. How can it %e made more permanent ? A. By rendering more permanent the causes upon ^vhich it depends : and this is done chiefly by expimg* ing what is fluctuating, from the usual exciting objects of desire, and reducing them in number. Q. How can it be made more sublime ? A. By abstracting and subliming the relations of de~ -sire, and by relaxing its attachments to sensible ob- jects. The principal secret of procuring the greatest degree of happiness our constitution admits of, con- sists in reducing the objects that prevail to move de- sire, to such as are within the controul of our power; so that those objects shall be the pleasure of doins: 'good, the pleasure of knowledge, and the pleasure of exercising the highest faculties. Q. What proceeding is that by which tnen bring about these effects $ A, Exercise of the power of voluntary thinking. Q. Is it this alone that is sufficient to carry man to this consummation ? A. No ; but this is the beginning of what is within "his power to contribute towards it, and is first neces- sary. The effect of his actions upon other beings has great influence either to retard or accelerate this ac- complishment. ts of visible n»- iure, obey this law ? A. By attraction and gravitation. Herein this im- mutable law, which the plastic original of all impressed upon each particle or atom of substance, so operates upon the bulky portions of matter as to hold intervolv- ed systems of planets and comets in a steady circiri- tion at proportionable distances about mor* massy 868 globes, whose attractive influence balances their cen- trifugal tendenc3 r . 0. Jlre not those of the same kind of properties that exhibit their effects in the operations of smaller pieces of matter? A. The very same: thus stones thrown to a certain distance from its surface, directly redound to the earth by virtue of their gravitating tendency. Also flame ascends from the earth's surface, and likewise smoke till it reaches a region of the atmosphere where a;r of the same volume is of the same weight with its own. Water is invincibly prone to seek a level, or to be con- tinually gliding, one particle over another, till all be- come level. Q. How does the law of the universe affect the dif" ferent races of percipient beings ? A. In general by uniformly subjecting them all to the consequences that flow from the property of per- ceptivity. Q. Are all the races of perceiving beings social, and have fellow feeling for the same species ? A. Most of those we are acquainted with, particu- larly mankind, are gregarious, and have peculiar feel- ings among themselves in regard one individual for an- other. Q. Does not the law of the universe annex to a cer- tain species of organization peculiar powers, active and passive, and to those powers certain effects, which are inseparable from their operations and relations? A. It does ; and we find that man has some powers and properties which far exceed those ot all other ra- ces which we are acquainted with, and inconsequence of them is subject to, and capable of, a great number of feelings and actions, which never come within the comprehension of those. 369 Q. Are not the tendencies of our voluntary action's imposed by the law of the universe ? A. Certainly they are ; and we can no more alter those tendencies than we can alter the motions of the planets, suns, and comets. Q. But if the very causes of men's actions, as of all things, are the natural ascendancy of certain p* oper- ties impressed upon atoms by the origina y principle cf mobility, what skill can man put into practice to shape his course, what counsel can he take, what has he to do ? A. Man has liberty ; therefore man has much to do. Q. What is liberty ? A. A power to do or forbear to do what one will. Q. What is will? A. A movement in the sensorium, contrary to per- ception. Q. Wliat is the sensorium, so called by the physio- logists ? A. A substance that distinguishes organized loco- moving systems from vegetables, and is supposed to be the constituent matter of the brain and nerves ; its centre being the central part of the brain. Q. What is that which immediately causes the wto- tion of the sensorium ? A A substance supposed to be secreted from the at- mosphere, and to be the same as electric fluid. Q. What are the powers of the sensorium ? A. They are four ; the power of irritation, tne power of sensation, the power of association, and the power of volition, from which follows voluntary action. The results of these several powers exerted are respective- ly called modes of the sensorium, or of sensorial ope- ration. 870 ^ What n*e these modes ? A. Irritation is a movement in the extreme parts of the sensorium that reside in the secondary organs of motion and sense, in consequence of the appulse of ex- ternal bodies. Sensation is a movement of the central parts of the sensorium or of the whole of it, beginning in the extreme parts residing in the secondary organs ef motion and sense. Association is such a connect- ing of two or more motions of different fibres as makes them -simultaneous, or follow one another in immediate consecution. Volition is a movement of the central parts of the sensorium, or of the whole of it, beginning in the centre, and terminating in some of the extreme parts which reside in the secondary organs of motion and sense. Volition is called the act of the will ; it is the beginning of voluntary exertion, and whatsoever action follows it in consecution of dependency, is call- ed voluntary action. Q. What is that which determines the ivill ? A, Desire. The greatest uneasiness of desire at the present moment felt, usually determines the will rath- er than the idea of any future good however clearly discerned, or rationally adjudged to be a greater good than is the gratification of the present desire. But in a prudent man these are collateral ; the greatest desire is that of the greatest good. Q. If then the successive motives that determine the will in the actions that make up our lives, have their glace in the concatenation of effects that comes from, original impressions upon substance, and sometimes ■seemingchance, and if a concourse of extraneous causes may make one desire to prevail rather than another, and it is out of the province of will to determine which Mt any particular time shall be the greatest desire- where is liberty? 871 A. Liberty comes after the act of the will. Liberty being a power to do, and to forbear to do, what one will, (to forbear being equally in one's power as to do,) it is evident that it essentially consists in these two things: 1. An indift'erency in the operative faculties to action or rest ; and 2. A power to suspend the ope- rative faculties from proceeding consecutively to the first volition, into the execution of what the will has therein directed, and, in the interval, to deliberate up- on its eligibility. Here then is liberty. Here is the highest degree of freedom we can form any notion of. Man then is a free agent in those cases wherein he has this power to hold his operative faculties in suspense so far as respects a particular act of his will. For when man exercises this power to forbear to do what he has willed, and, suspending the consecution of his action, deliberates and applies his reasoning power to the balancing of the consequences ot those respective actions which are equally in his power, he becomes the modifyer of his own motives,— the motives that deter- mine his will. For if the last determination be dif- ferent from the fiVst volition, it is beyond question tiiat that suspension and deliberation constitute the effi- cient cause of it. This state of mind and ascendancy of the motive, are brought about by the man's free ex- ercise of the power to forbear to act If we ex- tend his freedom a hair's breadth farther than this, we give man the power of creation : for we cannot conceive man to have any higher power than this, without supposing him to have a power equal to the renovation of the whole system of things. And also this is the highest degree of liberty and all the free agency of which we are competent to an adequate and distinct idea ; whether any other degrees of this kind of power are possessed by superior beings or no. Q. What is morality ? 378 A, Morality is that which is used instead of the word ethics, to denote that science which directs us to the appropriate means and processes to attain the greatest degree of happiness we are capable of; and in order to this end, to improve our active powers to their highest perfection in habit : which, for this purpose, takes into view not only the specific powers and properties of our constitution, and the causality and tendency of our ac- tions, but also several measures and rules to direct our conduct towards the attainment of that end. The main business of its inculcation is to define the parti- cular duties that arise from our several relations to oth- er parts of the universe, especially to individuals of our own race ; and to render those duties pleasant Q. Does not morality draw all its dogmas from the law of the universe r A. It does. The law of the universe contains the principles of all the maxims of ethics. Q. What particular part of the law of the universe is that upon which is grounded the reason of our sense of obligation towards other living creatures ? A. Sympathy Q. What is sympathy ? A. A species of imitation. Q. What is imitation r* A. Acting over, or copying, such movement as is acted, or conceived to be acted, by another subject. Q. How many sorts of imitation are the' e ? A. Three sorts ; physical, sensitive, and voluntary* Q. What ispliysieal imitation r> A. Physical imitation is that which takes place among the parts of an organized animated system, in* dei end ently of a perception of the movement that is imitated ; as the fibres of the tace imitate the stomach S7S in a vivid action when the latter is excited by a copi- ous meal. The salivary glands are imitated by the pancreas in the degree and manner of their action. This sort also is called sympathy by the physicians, and is called reverse sympathy when one part imitates or follows another in its change of motion or course, yet acts contrarily in the degree of the movement to which it changes : as the nerves of the head, on the quiescence or decreased motion of the stomach, in- crease in action ; and vice versa. Q. What is sensitive imitation ? A. It is the imitating or acting over, by our nerves of sense (or sensitive fibres) the motions of correspond- ent parts of other individual systems, in consequence of the conception or idea of their existence in those foreign subjects. Thus on seeing the arm of an indi- vidual bruised or violently torn, we feel pain in a cor- respondent part of ourselves, by reason of the nervous fibres of our own arm approximating an imitation of those of the wounded limb, in their movement. See- ing one we judge to be cheerful or serenely delighted, we feel serene pleasure obsequiously to the irritation of the significant concomitant. And thus also the ap- pearance of a depressed countenance makes us sad. Q. What is voluntary imitation ? A. That which is free, and follows volition : as mon- keys imitating the actions of men ; one man imitating the manners or pursuits of another, — as aping one's style, gait, dress, &c. Q. What is that species of imitation which is called sympathy, as in the concerns of mirality it relates to our accountability as social beings ? A. Sensitive imitation. Sensitive imitation is that sort which in this view takes the name of sympathy : in which we consider ourselves put in the places of oth- 82 S74 ers in regard of those particular feelings, the ideas of which produce such movement. This is refined and extended as the operations of intellect are improved, and may be called reflective sympathy i when we sym- pathize with the reflections and enter into the views okothers. When this concerns those things that stand immediately connected ' with voluntary exertion, it is sometimes called moral sympathy. Q. What is the distinction of sympathy when ap- plied in the concerns of morality ? A. Sympathy, as applied in the concerns of morali- ty, is distinguished into direct and indirect. Direct sympathy is assimilation of our thoughts and feelings, or emotions, to those of another. Indirect sympathy is the like conformity of our thoughts and feelings, or ^motionSj to those of a third party, in the consequence to thoughts, feelings, and emotions, in another party, and which, in relation to the latter, may be either con- genial or repugnant,— as gratitude for good received, and resentment for evil ; when we are said to sympa- thize with the approbation or with the disapprobation of others. Thus indirect sympathy has a double refer- ence ; direct sympathy, only a single and immediate reference. Q. Does our voluntary power extend to our thoughts? A. We have the power to direct and determine the trains of our thought : and what follows this direction, is called voluntary thinking. It is also called reflec- tion ; it being a diverse operation upon those ideas we get by way of our senses ; the possibilities of the varie- ties of which operation are called faculties. Q. How many sorts %f voluntary thinking are J/im ? A. Discerning, comparing, compounding, attention, contemplation, study, abstracting, recollection, and reasoning which is compounded of several of the oth~ 373 crs. These are called the modes of voluntary think- ing. There is also resverie which is merely an intent continued course of voluntary thinking, comprising any or all of the foregoing modes directed to some de- terminate theme, wherein the energy of the voluntary exertion excludes all other sensorial operations in eve? ry instance that does not conspicuously coincide with the train that immediately occupies the mind. Memo- ry and imagination are not voluntary ; but may be call- ed inodes of sensitive thinking, although ideas that have been voluntary ate sometimes resuscitated, in their trains. Q. By what distinctions do you define these several modes ? A. Discerning is perceiving the relation and mutu- al habitude of two ideas, in their difference or like- ness, — as their proportion, &c. Comparing is taking a view of two ideas or objects, one in reference to an- other, in order to determine their relative aspects. Compounding is considering two or more of those ap- pearances successively in addition one to another. Attention is a more than ordinary alert observation of any perception or succession of thoughts ; or otherwise a circumspect voluntary notice of the train of our per- ceptions and reflections. Contemplation is the retain- ing of one idea or train of ideas under a single view of the understanding for a considerable time together. Study is a deliberate curious examining of an idea or number of ideas on all sides and in all habitudes in which they may be considered. This is made up of attention, comparing,- and discerning. Mstr acting is the forming of general ideas that represent whole classes and races of beings ; which is done by separat- ing any particular idea or select contexture of ideas from those circumstances of connection which deter- mine it to a subject of particular existence, and consi- dering it as representative of a large number of indi- 376 vidual beings which correspond in that particular. Re- collection is the voluntary seeking to revive ideas for- merly impressed ; and voluntary excitation of all pos- sible accompaniments that lead to such revival. Rea- soning is the process for discerning the agreement or disagreement of two ideas remote from each other whose aspects do not at once yppear, by the agreement or disagreement of two or more other ideas immedi- ately compared together ; thus deducing and deriving propositions at present unknown, from other proposi- tions previously known and established ; and consists of four parts, or stages. 1. Finding out intermediate ideas for the purpose,— these intermediate ideas are called proofs ; 2. Laying them together in just order: 3. Perceiving their agreement or disagreement ; 4. Drawing the conclusion ; which is determining the agreement or disagreement of the two extreme ideas thereby. Therefore this is made up of attention, com- paring, compounding, and discerning. Besides these, there is a state of mind called resverie, which is a train of voluntary thinking that surmounts the irritation of external objects of sense, so far as they counterview a certain point which for the time bei*ig concentrates the whole energy of contemplation. This excludes the intervention of all other notices that do not fall with- in an experienced connection with, or resolve them- selves into, the immediate object of this voluntary en- ergy. Remembrance is a revival of any of those ap- pearances, images, ideas of sensation or reflection, that have before existed in the mind. This is done with- out the aid of volition and is incompatible with it ? therefore this is not voluntary thinking. So neither is imagination, which is a succession of ideas which do not immediately arise by way of volition, sensation, or irritation, but rather by association, whereby differ- ent ones are made to appear than those which have been formerly perceived, by the various coalescing of 377 such particulars as have been before experienced by any or all the ways of thinking. Q. What is conscience} A. That sense whereby we distinguish right and wrong in our voluntary actions, and whereby delight is accompanied with the idea of right, and pain or un- easiness with that of wrong ; which is no other than the faculty of discerning applied to the relation of our free actions to a rule. It is also called the moral sense v and the moral faculty. Q. Wliat is conscience derived from ? A. Sympathy. Q. What is right and wrong ? A. The direct and confessed tendency of an action to produce happiness in any of our fellow creatures, or to produce pain ; or else, in its ultimate efficiency, of -one action to produce more happiness than pain, and rof another to produce more pain than happiness. Q. What then is the rule to which our actions are referred as to a standard ? A. The law of*the universe. So, as one has more extended knowledge and adequate conceptions of this .part of the law of the universe which relates to the ac- tions of men, the greater is his power of conscience, that is, the keener his sensibility of right and wrong. Q. How does the law of the universe determine the right and wrong of actions? A. By fixing and bounding their tendency ; direct- ing it to the ultimate production of pleasure or pain in others ; and making some actions to be the causes of happiness and others to be the causes of misery ; whence it is said to command some actions to be done in order i to avoid the misery to which they regularly tend. And ihe relation of those actions which, conformably to this 32* 378 placit of the law of the universe tend to produce hap- piness, is called right, or moral good ; and the actions themselves virtuous actions ; and the relation of those actions to the same principle of the law of the uni- verse, which by being contrary to this command tend to produce pain or misery, is called wrong, or moral evil ; and the actions themselves vicious actions. Q. What is passion when applied to morality ? A. Passion is an emotion originating either in irri- tation, perception, or memory, which partakes of more than one of the operations of the sensorium ; in which either sensation or volition predominates, and is there- fore either sensitive or voluntary. There are nume- rous and various passions. Those passions in which voluntary motion predominates, may be denominated voluntary passions ; and those in which sensation of pleasure or pain predominates, maybe denominated sensitive passions* Q. How can this definition be true ? A. In every passion is voluntary thought and sensi- tive thought ; one or the other of which predominat- ing, must properly fix the distinctive character of the passion, and denominate it either voluntary or sensi- tive. Irritation has no share in a passion, actually ; and association has less to do than the other two modes. There is unquestionably attention, for with- out attending to the objects that cause emotion, no •emotion could be developed. Attention is a voluntary act ; therefore passion participates, in some degree, of voluntary exertion. Surprize, and all its degrees, are affections of the mind^ which are indifferent to the ac- companiment of either pleasure or pain, and therefore surprize is not specifically a passion. It moreover may accompany a passion : it frequently accompanies fear. Surprize is an incident of our ideas as they flow or arise in succession ; and passion is an incident of •ur sensorial motions. 379 Q. How are the passions distributed ? A. The passions are either primary or compounded, Q. What are the primary passions ? A. The primary passions are those which are origi- nal, and have their distinctive characters without any mixture with other particular passions. They are de- sire, love, anger, joy, hope, fear, sorrow, hatred, pity, despair, grief, envy, shame. Q. What is desire ? A. Desire is uneasiness felt in the want of pleasura- ble sensation, and incitement of volition towards the procurement of that which is the cause of snch plea- sure. This is the approach towards volition ;the first struggle of the voluntary power with sensation, to- wards any object. This might therefore be called a voluntary passion : but it being uneasiness, partakes of sensation, aud is painful ; which also being its be- ginning, and first excitement, it is probably with more propriety termed a sensitive passion. Q. What is love? A. Love is the emotion that accompanies the thought of an object the possession of which is apt to delight. Love is mostly a gentle sensation, originating from an idea of memory, or imagination, or irritation. Q. What is anger $ A. Anger is a thought of an injury received, volun- tarily kept in view, with strong impulsions of the vo- luntary energy towards the purpose of revenge, i. e. towards a determination on the return of injury for it. This is obviously a voluntary passion ; yet it is seen also to participate of sensation, in that it is a painful and uneasy emotion. Anger, in its intensity, sup- presses sympathy. Q. What is joy? 380 A. Joy is distinguished by the assurance of some present possession or event which is capable of caus- ing delight. Joy is principally a pleasing sensation, rising from a sensitive idea, either in memory, ima- gination, or perception. Q. What is hope? A. Hope is that emotion which attends the thought of the probable possession of some future good. This is a pleasing sensation, and differs from joy in these two respects, it has not so perfect assurance with it, wherefore the sensation is less intense; and always kas reference to something future, as its object. Q. What is fear? A. Fear is what attends a thought of some evil that is likely to befal, or of the approach of some object that has power to produce pain in us. Fear is a pain- ful sensation. It has several degrees and modifica- tions, which are called awe, panic, terror, horror, cow- ardice, pusillanimity, laziness. Q. What is sorrow ? A. Sorrow is a painful emotion attending the thought of some good which is lost or prevented, and gives place to uneasiness. The lowest degree of it is regret, which implies a thought of some action which it was once in our power to do, the opportunity whereof we no longer have, the benefit of which we now want. Q. What is hatred? A. Hatred is an emotion that prompts us to fly from its objects, and is the thought of an object which is apt to produce fear, disgust, or pain, of which object we generally have at the same time, a strong desire to be rid of the perception. This though partaking much of sensation, is rather a voluntary passion. , it is sometimes ne- cessary to deceive that class of the insane who being in power ask the question what is our secret belief concerning things that are doubtful, while they stand ready to take away life if we do not profess a propos- ed creed. It is necessary and fit to deceive these on such occasions. In many instances the reverse is ca- lamitous to the feelings of rational and considerate persons with whom we stand connected. In a few such extreme cases it is right to speak contrary to what we think? Q. What is duty ? 385 A Any action that we are under obligation to do, and any just action that is necessary to enable us fully to perform such as we are under obligation to do. Thus if it be ray duty to fulfil my promises, to requite my benefactors, to pay my debts, it is also my duty to pre- serve tny life, and to protect and defend what belongs to me, that I may have the opportunity and means wherewith to do those things. Q. What is habit? A. Facility in, and disposition to the performance of any sort of action, whether intellectual or corporeal, arising from custom or practice, which is the continued repetition of an action. Q. What is art? A. A habit in the mind prescribing a systematic ar- rangement of causes for the production of certain ef- fects, and a consequent power of producing those ef- fects readily. Q. What is the summary of the true process to at- tain our greatest degree of happiness ? A. Habitual exercise of our highest faculties, and practice of virtue. Q. What are our highest faculties ? A. Our intellectual faculties, or powers of reflection. Q. What are the highest employments of our highest faculties ? A. Study, reasoning, abstraction, contemplation of abstract ideas, projects of philanthropy, and cultiva- tion of sympathy. Q. What is cultivation of sympathy ? A. The considering of others' feelings in compari- son with our own, and governing ourselves by this con- sideration in those actions in our power whereby those feeLngs are probably affected. In this way we are 38 386 said to ' put ourselves in the places of others,'— or «make their cases our own.' Q. In what manner does the exercise of our high- est faculties contf ibute to the production of our great' est degree of enjoyment ? A. By centering our satisfaction in those circum- stances of which the modification immediately depends upon our own Will, or at least is within its influence, and which are removed from the contingences of ex- ternal fortune. Q. What is virtue ? A. Any sort of voluntary action, whether intellectu- al or corporeal, that intentionally goes to promote the good of others, directly or indirectly. Q* How many s^rts of virtue are there ? A. Two ; called private virtue and social virtue. Q. What is the distinction ? A. The distinction is, that although all virtue has a view to the good of others, there being even in thrift, neatness, and industry, a continual reference to the feelings of other beings , yet, whereas social virtue has the good of others for its primary end, private virtue has for its primary end the good of one's self, his fami- ly, or kindred. Q. Js there no other distinction of virtue ? A. Yes. Virtue is distinguished also into specula- tive and active. The former reaches no farther than the operations of our minds; as contemplation, good wishes, good purposes, &c. The latter proceeds to corporeal action that carries those purposes into exe- cution. Q. What are the social virtues ? A The social virtues are philanthropy, hospitality* justice, gratitude, patriotism, charity, and meekness. 387 Q. What is philanthropy ? A. Philanthropy consists in those motions of love and good will directed to all beings of the human spe- cies, which have for their objept their preservation, well-being, and true happiness. In its practical part it is called beneficence. Q. What is hospitality ? A. Hospitality is philanthropy directed to strangers ; as protecting them and providing for their exigences. Q. What is justice ? A. Justice is rendering to every being; its due. Jus- tice is either universal or commutative. Universal justice is doing to every volitive being what we would have that being do to us, and in this sense it compre- hends all the social virtues Commutative justice is doing or forbearing those actions which we feel our- selves under special obligation by the law of the uni- verse, to do or forbear to do to other beings, in consi- deration of something actually done or to be done by them to us ; which is doing what we perceive ought to be done to us in the like cases, in reference to the good of the universe. t Q. What is gratitude ? A. Gratitude is a complacency and sympathetic re- gard exercised towards those who have done us good offices or been the intentional causes of any good to us, and a promptness in remunerating them therefor. In other words, gratitude is, speculatively, a strong sense of obligation prompting us to perform certain ac- tions by way of repayment for benefits received from others : actively, it is the performing of those actions according to our ability. Q. What is patriotism? A. Patriotism is the principle of philanthropy di- rected to that community or body of men which wf. 888 have chosen for our country on account of their adopt-' ed government being adapted to promote the true weal of the species at large ; and the practice of certain ac- tions for the effectuating of purposes calculated to sup- port it, which we from the same principle wish all ranks of mankind to acquiesce in and subserve. Q. What is charity ? A. Charity is relieving the distressed and desti- tute, by supplying them with the necessaries and com- forts of life ; and also exercising candor and sympathy in our thoughts and discourse of those who appear in a bad light. Q. What is meekness ? A. Meekness is forbearance of revenge, forgiveness of injuries, and also clemency in inflicting condign pain. Q. What are the private virtues ? A. The private virtues are temperance, continence, cleanliness, industry, frugality, fortitude, and patience. Q. What is temperance ? A. Temperance is habitually circumscribing those gratifications of the natural appetites, hunger and thirst, necessary to sustain our being, to such a com- pass as consists with the due temperament and healthy action of all parts of the animal frame. Q. What is continence ? A. An abstaining from all irregular and immode- rate indulgences of venereal pleasures which are de- structive of health and peace ; and is by another word called chastity. Q. What is cleanliness ? A. The preserving of one's person, clothes, furni- ture, and dwelling, clear from all unnecessary foul- ness, dirt, and filth, which gradually tend to engender 389 disease. This is necessary for health. Show is some- times mistaken for this;— as wearing a fine neat coat that is tainted with contagious effluvia rather than a ragged one ; and scouring of floors at the approach of holidays. Q. What is industry ? A. Industry is a cheerful, assiduous, and active at- tendance upon the performance of our duties or what- ever is appropriate to execute our purposes. Q. What is frugality ? A. Frugality is a habitual saving from waste what- ever things, coming within our controul, are capable of a valuable appropriation in reasonable purposes; and is opposed to prodigality. Q. What is fortitude? A. Fortitude is a persevering in any actions for a desired end, in defiance of the danger of any pain or inconvenience that lie in the way to it. Q. What is patience ? A. Patience is an unruffled continuance, by a judi- cious and conscientious perpension, in any course or condition in spite of present pain, privation, or diffi- culty, that discommodes it. Q. In what way does the practice of virtue contri' bute to increase our happiness? A. By making us the exciting objects of complacen- cy and benevolence in others : whereby, by recom- mending ourselves to mutual approbation, we remove all suspicion and apprehensions of moral evil. Q. What are reward and punishment ? A. The consequences of actions, as they affect the agents. As pain that follows bad or vicious actions; and pleasure that follows good or virtuous actions. Rewards and punishments are of two kinds : necessa- 83* 390 ry and instituted. Of the first kind are those conse- quences our actions inevitably draw upon us from the natural constitution and course of things according to the universal law, — such as remorse, dread, suspicion, resentment of others, &c. that follow as the necessary effects of injuring and wronging our fellow creatures; and self-approbation, complacency, and tranquillity, that follow the exercises of justice, hospitality, chari- ty, and meekness. Instituted rewards and punish- ments are such as men have contrived to follow cer- tain actions as the arbitrary consequents of them, which are brought about by the direction of voluntary power and choice in individuals who have superior in- fluence and efficiency; — as the cutting off of a man's ears for stealing a sheep ; or giving a man a piece of silver for killing a crow. Q. Who were the greatest preachers of ethics that have appeared in the world , that are recordod in the history extant ? A. Confucius, Epictetus, Socrates, Seneca, and Je- sus Christ. Q. In what chiefly consists the excellence of Jesus Christ's preaching 9 A. In its universality, and its levelling all manner of monopoly and pride. Q. What particular discourse of 'Jesus Christ's con- tains the most of his moral maxims plainly expressed ? A. His sermon on the mount. Q. What is the most sublime and benignant precept that he delivered ? That which is called the golden rule : " Whatso- ever ) e would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them " Q. What was the cause of his speaking cabalisti- rally ? 391 A. The opposition of the Jewish government to his designs ; the barbarity and jealousy of the leaders in it Q. Why do men, since his time, tabor to obscure the tenor of his doctrine, and make it supernatural instead of making it plain ? A. For the same reason that the Jews sought to kill him. ERRATA. Page 22, line IS, « radictiori," read radieation. 63, line 28, * all" read at all. 98, line 21, " inconsiderable," read inconsiderate. 117, line 12, "their," read these. 119, line 6 from bottom, f the," read this. 126, line 8 from bottom, " particular, " read practical. 133, line 9 from bottom, M envolve," read evolve. US, line 19, dele " and." 164, line 3 from bottom, c< herofore," read herefor. 361, line 13, " to," read of. 381, line 8, " unattainableness," read itsunattamablenc 303 It having been incident to the process of the fore- going discourse to use several words in some variety of sense, and to apply some words not in common usage precisely as they are applied in these instances ; I shall faithfully set down the following list of those which I have used in various or peculiar senses, and of the particular places where I have so used them. Advance, page 20, 181, to serve to execute; to help forward. Advance, 187, to bring forward, to develope. Advance, 144, to hold forth, bring to view. Advance, 184, to proceed, to progress. Accomplish, 13, 52, 187, to endow, to qualify. Accomplished, 168, 185, gifted, endowed, qualified. Accomplishment, 2, 60, 180, 183, 184, 189, 193, 197, 207, 211,216, 243,253, qualification, acquired excellence. Accomplish 137, 287, 325, 345, to execute, bring to efFect. Accomplishment, 7,32, 126, 129, 169, 286, execution, and completion of effect. Capacity, 23, 30, 55, 67, 209, 251, 257, province of ef- ficiency. Capacity, 330, compass of representative power. In all other places, this word is used to signify ex- tent of power, active or passive. Nerval, 22, consisting of nerve. Outset, 42, 79, a setting out in any business, a begin- ning. Scrupulosity, 40, fear of acting. 394 Scruplosity, page 67\ conscientious care. Compass, 537, same as point of the compass. Susceptive, 98, 101, 181, 254, capable or incident to be admitted, (distinct from susceptible, and corre- lative to it;) likewise in every other instance* Humanity, 136, 1G6, 181, human nature. Urgency, 201, press of need or importance. Accelerate, 238, to hasten the approach to. Acceleration, 234, promotion and insurance. Bias, 295, b^nt, propension. Climax, 324, as climacteric. Pursuit, 294, 325, 557 the thing pursued, object, end. Appetency, 287, fitness and aptness to receive what is required in support of organic parts. Concourse, 202, casual assemblage and conspiring to- gether towards one event. Recession is used generally for recess ; a retiring from, or being retired from ; ceasing, and being ab- sented. Stock, when confronted with offspring) invariably means parent. Reversion I have constantly used to signify the total changing of a thing, either for its opposite, or for some- thing that is incompatible with its existence. Apprehension, 389, expectation with dread. In all other places, it means the power applied, of taking cognizance of any object, by sense or intuition.