BOOK SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

THE MEANS OF PERFECTING THE ART OF EDUCATION.

'When one perfect being shall have taught another, then shall we know what are the limits of the power of education.'— KANT.

EDUCATION, says a celebrated philosopher, is an art, since nature has not in respect to it given instinct that could serve to guide us. That instinct has been refused to us in relation to this subject does not admit of a doubt. While the brute creation have always the same manner of bringing up their young, man alone is destitute of any peculiar method. How many different customs do we find existing among savage people! Some plunge their children, as soon as they are born, in cold water; others press the head between boards; others suspend them in their cradles to the branches of trees, and thus abandon them; and others bind them tightly in narrow bandages. The most universal sentiment of nature, that of mothers for their offspring, has been permitted to introduce and sustain a multiplicity of barbarous customs, and even love itself has sanctioned them.

Civilized people have reflected more, and nothing so revolting is found a mong them. They have not succeed. ed, however, in reducing the theory of education to any fixed principles. Towards the middle of the past century attention to this subject very rapidly increased, and the extreme importance of it began to be felt. The best minds, as well as the most eloquent writers, have become interested in it; but the more they have reasoned, the less it would seem they have been listened to. In Ger. many, where under the name of Pedagogy, the learned. have wished to make education a true science, teachers are all at war among themselves. Each one has a sys tem differing from that of his fellow-cach method has in turn been blamed and justified. Authority, emulation, punishment, and reward - severity and indulgence, rigid rules, and the absence of rule, have each had their parti zans and detractors. What shall I say then of public and private education; of methods of teaching; of the distri bution of studies; and of their principal object? Almost all these are yet questions of debate. The paternal feeling has certainly always existed in the human race, and there is much reasoning about it at the present day. What is then wanting for the advancement of the art of Education? It needs that experience should be much more consulted; it needs those numerous and minute observations which alone can give to it a solid and reasonable foundation.

In works of the first distinction, where what is expressed makes us regret still more that which is passed in si lence- Mr. Edgeworth and his daughter have already said that education was an experimental science. Nevertheless, they have published the result of their observations, rather than the observations themselves. Who does not know, however, that we may draw different conclusions from the same facts? Who does not know that when one labors for science, he should exhibit the basis.

upon which he founds his results? And, indeed, what is the experience of one family, even though it be a family of such rare endowments?

It seems to me astonishing that, while the science of Astronomy has been cultivated with a perseverance so admirable, mankind have never studied infancy methodi cally. The most important of all problems, is perhaps that which has been least regarded with constant and rigorous attention. How many men are there who, with their telescopes, night and day, confirm the predictions of astronomers! How many others who keep an exact register of the wind, of the heat, and of the rain! How many indefatigable commentators! And in this number there is not found one father who has thought it worth his while carefully to note the progress of his own child! Even in the physical part, which it seems must needs full more immediately under the inspection of the learned, how much uncertainty exists! Some practices, evidently pernicious, have been excluded, and this is undoubtedly a first step. They know better what it is necessary to avoid-but are they sure what they ought to do? Have they ever determined precisely the influence of the first nourishment which is given to children? Do they know if there is any reason in the prejudice which declares the mingling of different kinds of milk to be pernicious? Do they know even the effect of these kinds of milk, taken separately? Aulu-Gelle has said that kids nourished by sheep, have the softest hair; and that lambs nursed by goats, have the harshest wool: but has this fact been ascertained?

After such indifference, we ought not to be astonished, that more complicated questions have not been resolved by means of observation. It may be asked if it is expedi ent to subject children to the empire of physical habits, or if, on the contrary, we ought to free them from it?

Shall we brave their prolonged cries in submitting them to a certain rogimen, such as the use of a cold bath, for example; or is their aversion an intimation to which we should always yield? Is it best to choose their food, or endeavor to acustom the stomach to all kinds of nourishment? Ought we to proscribe all mechanical means to protect the head from blows, and to prevent other accidents of a similar nature? What are the influences from which it is decidedly necessary to preserve children; and what, on the contrary, are those, of which we should make them. endure the inconveniences in order to harden them? Innumerable doubts on the best manner of preserving health, present themselves to the mind of mothers, which succeed in distracting more casily than in deciding them; and for want of knowing how to transmit their experience, successive generations transmit their perplexities.

If we approach the moral domain, every thing becomes more uncertain, and still more critical; but, with discernment, what inexhaustible sources of knowledge might not be found in the study of little children! what a multitude of doubts might not be resolved, or at least enlightened by careful observation! It might be ascertained if exercises that strengthen the body, have a favorable effect upon the mind also; if the increase of corporeal vigor corresponds in general with that of moral energy, we might learn what are the agents which develop both, or cause a mutu al paralysis. That dependence on our senses, to which authors have endeavored to subject the human intelligence, would be either acknowledged or controverted with more justice; and if the origin of ideas remained obscure, the first sign of their birth would be at least discovered. Bonnet and Condillac, in a very different spirit, but by means of the same fiction, have sought to explain the mysteries of the intellect in animating a statue. How much more would they really have advanced science, if they had

studied a new-born infant! What curious discoveries on the existence of instinct among men, on the formation of language; in a word, on the whole history of the human mind, would these young beings furnish!

It is undoubtedly necessary to beware of precipitate conclusions, and we can prove nothing from solitary examples. But as every body knows, that in multiplying observations abundantly, accidental differences become ob literated; and that the peculiar qualities of the individual disappear before the attributes of the species, experience on a great scale would be one of the most efficient means of instruction.

It is necessary to make our observations systematically: we should have, in the immense multitude that we know, that which would furnish most valuable data. The results of different educations are every where found in the spirit so strongly characterized in religious sects, in that which determines the several professions, notwithstanding the late period at which men ordinarily embrace them. It is also right to suppose that if we better knew the gen eral customs among all nations, of raising children from the earliest age, we should find in a great measure the diversity of national character explained, and that the ef fects justly attributed to the differences of climate and of race, would appear of small importance compared to those of education. The misfortune is, that they tell us always of the methods, and never of the good or bad success of their experiments. They tell us very eloquently what they have done, but not whether they had reason to do it; and among all who have arrived at the age of manhood, we forever remain ignorant, which have been systematically educated.

It is true that we judge of the education by its results: it is necessary, however, to take into the account the influ ence of political institutions, and those of various causes,