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insufficient clothing, that the admirers may

cry out

Benedetta sia la madre

Chi la fece cosi bella.

In early infancy, the mind should not be strained at all. 66 According to Aristotle, more care should be taken of the body than of the mind for the first seven years. The eye and ear of the child should be most watchfully and severely guarded against contamination of every kind, and unrestrained communication with servants be strictly prevented. Even his amusements should be under due regulation, and rendered as interesting and intellectual as possible." Another mania, lately sprung up amongst parents is, to habituate them early to artificial gymnastic exercises. Now the more strength and activity a child can exercise in play the better; and it is not likely that, if left to companions of its own age merely, it will ever exceed its powers so far as to be detrimental. "Aristotle had strong objections to the more violent exertions of the gymnasium during early life; as he considered them injurious to the growth

of the body, and to the future strength of the adult. In proof of this, he adduces the conclusive fact, that in the long list of Olympic victors only two, or at most three, instances had occurred in which the same person had proved victor in youth and in manhood. Premature training and over-exertion he therefore regarded as injurious to the constitution."-Life of Alexander the Great. The most eminent physicians ascribe many diseases of the brain, and other disorders and debilities, to the mania for forcing the minds of young children.

In

One chief hold of delusion in this matter is confounding Instruction with Education; terms often used as synonymous, but the import of which is essentially different. struction is a duty of far inferior importance to education: the former refers to the intellect, the latter to the affections; the former may be delegated; the latter neither may nor can; it is the former only that is, or that can be, attended to in schools; the latter is the province of the parent alone. Education is habit derived from example.

"You may

engage a master or masters, as numerous as you please, to instruct your children in many things useful and praiseworthy in their own place, but you must, by the order of nature, educate them yourselves: you not only ought to do it, but you will perceive you must do it, whether you intend it or not. The parent, says Cecil, is not to stand reasoning and calculating. God has said, that his character shall have influence; and so this appointment of Providence becomes often the punishment of a wicked or a careless man. Rest assured, and lay it down to yourselves as a cardinal principle, that the business of education, properly so called, is not transferrable.”—James.

"In the proper sense of the term, educa

tion is a thing of great scope and extent; and within the doors of a household it is of far more important and extensive character, than any thing for which the children can be sent to schools of any description whatever. It affords, however, matter at once for surprise and deep regret, to observe how much this superior department of education, which no wealth can purchase, has been overlooked;

more especially since it is one in which the rich have little, if any, advantage over the poor: for education, in its largest sense, as it is enjoined in the word of God, includes the training up of a child-the bringing him up or educating him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; so that education, in this sense, includes the whole process by which a human being is formed to be what he is, in principles, and habits, and cultivation of every kind. Now, whatever proportion of all this may be in the power of parents, a smaller still, and that which has much less influence in forming the character, can be directed or acquired by purchased tuition of any kind. Besides, it is, and must be, by far the most valuable part of education which cannot, by any possibility, be purchased with money: neither can this parental department of education, by any ingenuity of man, be transferred or undertaken by others; for it will be seen, after every vain expedient, that parents will and do and must here educate their children. In one word, as neither love, nor friendship, nor wealth, can turn the course

of nature, so neither can they relieve they relieve parents, whether rich or poor, from those obligations, which God and nature, and their interest too, alike demand and enjoin. Let not the reader search about for exceptions. Exceptions may and do exist; but such, after all, is the course of nature, or, in other words, the will of God.

"Under these circumstances, let no parent complain of his limited means, of his other occupations, or of any disadvantages in his situation; let him only fix his eye with vigilance on that department of parental training, which is at once unpurchaseable and untransferrable. You engage for your children, and, with considerable anxiety, even the best masters in every department, and you do well, and nothing more than is incumbent; but in the business of education, properly so called, they can do little for you. After all, it is the sentiments you let drop occasionally; it is the conversation they overhear, when playing in the corner of the room, which have more effect than many things that are addressed to them directly in the tone of

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