It is astonishing, that while in every other science requiring observation, such admirable perseverance has been displayed, no regular and methodical attention has ever been paid to the observation of infancy. How many, armed with telescopes, will watch night and day in order to prove the correctness of an astronomical prediction! How many keep an exact register of the state of the atmosphere, the wind, heat, or rain! How indefatigable are our annotators! And yet, amongst all these philosophers, there is not one father who has taken the trouble carefully to note down the progress of his own child!

Even with regard to the physical part of education, which might be supposed to come more immediately under the consideration of the learned, how much uncertainty still prevails! Some customs, evidently pernicious, have indeed been abandoned: the first step has thus been taken: we know better than our predecessors what should be avoided; but are we more sure what plan we ought to pursue? Many questions still remain which can be answered only by experience. We are still ignorant whether it is right or wrong to make children submit to the dominion of physical habits — whether we should, in spite of their continued crying, persevere in subjecting them to some particular treatment: such, for instance,

as the use of the cold bath; or whether the constant distress of the child should be a warning to us to desist. Whether we should choose for them a certain fixed diet, or whether they should be early accustomed to a variety of food. Whether we should endeavour to preserve them from particular hardships and inconveniences, or, on the contrary, should try to strengthen their constitutions by obliging them to brave such hardships. These, and many other questions, will naturally arise in the mind of a young mother, anxious as to the best way of securing the health of her child; but she generally finds it easier to lay them aside than to answer them: and thus do successive generations hand down to one another their difficulties instead of their experience.

As we approach the moral part of education, we begin to tread upon still more doubtful and uncertain ground. Yet what an inexhaustible fund of knowledge would be obtained by an attentive and judicious study of young children; and how much light might be thrown on many most important questions by a series of careful observations! What curious discoveries would these little creatures afford, on the existence of instinct in man; on the formation of language; in short, on the whole history of the human mind! We must, no doubt, be careful not to form general conclusions

hastily, or from isolated examples: but as every one knows, that by sufficiently multiplying observations, accidental differences disappear, and the peculiar qualities of the individual are lost in the general attributes of the species, experience, on a large scale, would be one of the most efficacious means of instruction.

. But though we are not fortunate enough to possess, relative to education, a series of facts systematically observed and arranged, still, from the great mass of information which has been collected on the subject, many valuable hints might be obtained. It is probable, too, that if we were better acquainted with the various modes in which different nations bring up their children, we might be able, in some measure, to account for the diversity of national character; and that the effects which are justly attributed to the difference of climate and race, would appear of little importance when compared with those which depend on education. The great evil is, that we are constantly told of the methods employed, but are left in ignorance as to their results; we are told what has been done, but not whether it has succeeded; nor do we know what the children, thus systematically educated, became, when engaged in active life as men.

Is it then probable that education can ever be raised to the rank of a science, and that when we have examined and methodically ar

ranged all the facts which we can obtain respecting children, we shall be able to arrive at some determined results? We cannot answer this question; but we may, at any rate, hope that our difficulties and uncertainty will be greatly lessened. Private education must ever remain a mere art; that is to say, a collection of means, to be used according to the skill and judgment of individuals. The practice of this art can never be taught by books; and its most powerful weapons will always consist in the influence which man exercises over man; and in the power he possesses of making himself loved and obeyed, and of gaining an ascendency over the minds of his fellow-creatures. But even an art must have some fixed principles; and public education may become something much more certain than an art. Here there is more room for methodical arrangement: individual differences disappear in the general mass, and the working of the machine does not depend entirely either on the pupil upon whom it acts, or on the master who regulates its movements. Many more experiments, however, must be made, before such an important instrument is brought to perfection.

We have then two different subjects for our observation; private and public education. In the former, children must be studied individually and separately; in the latter, collected together

in such numbers as to exercise a mutual influence on each other; so that, by a kind of moral fermentation, the constituent parts of their several dispositions are combined in a new and peculiar manner in each individual.

The study of every single child must begin from its very birth, and on that account a mother only can carry it on successfully. She is particularly fitted for this duty, both by her position with regard to her child, and by the peculiar qualities of her sex; for without that pliability of disposition, which is one of the characteristics of a woman's nature, she could not follow these little beings in their perpetual variations of disposition. Such a study cannot be completed in a single examination: we can never perfectly understand these young creatures, unless we possess that versatility of imagination which will enable us to embody ourselves in them, to be at the same time ourselves and another. Above all, if we would perfectly know and comprehend them, we must love them; the heart has more to do with this knowledge than the head. Yet we must not be content with merely following the course of their feelings, and living, as it were, in them; for then every impression would be easily effaced: by constantly sympathising with them, we should become as inconstant and trifling as they are,