There are an infinite variety of associations, by which the orator has power to rouse the imagination of a person of cultivated understanding; there are comparatively few, by which he can amuse the fancy of illiterate auditors. It is not that they have less imagination than others; they have equally the power of raising vivid images; but there are few images which can be recalled to them: the combinations of their ideas are confined to a small number, and words have no poetic or literary associations in their minds: even amongst children, this difference between the power we have over the cultivated and uncultivated mind, early appears. A laurel leaf is to the eye of an illiterate boy nothing more than a shrub with a shining, pale-green, pointed leaf: recall the idea of that shrub by the most exact description, it will affect him with no peculiar pleasure: but associate early in a boy's mind the ideas of glory, of poetry, of olympic crowns, of Daphne and Apollo; by some of these latent associations the orator may afterwards raise his enthusiasm. We shall not here repeat what has been said[71] upon the choice of literature for young people, but shall once more warn parents to let their pupils read only the best authors, if they wish them to have a fine imagination, or a delicate taste. When their minds are awake and warm, show them excellence; let them hear oratory only when they can feel it; if the impression be vivid, no matter how transient the touch. Ideas which have once struck the imagination, can be recalled by the magic of a word, with all their original, all their associated force. Do not fatigue the eye and ear of your vivacious pupil with the monotonous sounds and confused images of vulgar poetry. Do not make him repeat the finest passages of Shakespeare and Milton; the effect is lost by repetition; the words, the ideas are profaned. Let your pupils hear eloquence from eloquent lips, and they will own its power. But let a drawling, unimpassioned reader, read a play of Shakespeare's, or an oration of Demosthenes, and if your pupil is not out of patience, he will never taste the charms of eloquence. If he feels a fine sentiment, or a sublime idea, pause, leave his mind full, leave his imagination elevated. Five minutes afterwards, perhaps, your pupil's attention is turned to something else, and the sublime idea seems to be forgotten: but do not fear; the idea is not obliterated; it is latent in his memory; it will appear at a proper time, perhaps a month, perhaps twenty years afterwards. Ideas may remain long useless, and almost forgotten in the mind, and may be called forth by some corresponding association from their torpid state.

Young people, who wish to make themselves orators or eloquent writers, should acquire the habit of attending first to the general impression made upon their own minds by oratory, and afterwards to the cause which produced the effect; hence they will obtain command over the minds of others, by using the knowledge they have acquired of their own. The habit of considering every new idea, or new fact, as a subject for allusion, may also be useful to the young orator. A change from time to time in the nature of his studies, will enlarge and invigorate his imagination. Gibbon says, that, after the publication of his first volume of the Roman history, he gave himself a short holyday. "I indulged my curiosity in some studies of a very different nature: a course of anatomy, which was demonstrated by Dr. Hunter, and some lessons of chemistry, which were delivered by Dr. Higgins. The principles of these sciences, and a taste for books of natural history, contributed to multiply my ideas and images; and the anatomist and chemist may sometimes track me in their own snow."

Different degrees of enthusiasm are requisite in different professions; but we are inclined to think, that the imagination might with advantage be cultivated to a much higher degree than is commonly allowed in young men intended for public advocates. We have seen several examples of the advantage of a general taste for the belles lettres in eminent lawyers;[72] and we have lately seen an ingenious treatise called Deinology, or instructions for a Young Barrister, which confirms our opinion upon this subject. An orator, by the judicious preparation of the minds of his audience, may increase the effect of his best arguments. A Grecian painter,[73] before he would produce a picture which he had finished, representing a martial enterprise, ordered martial music to be played, to raise the enthusiasm of the assembled spectators; when their imagination was sufficiently elevated, he uncovered the picture, and it was beheld with sympathetic transports of applause.

It is usually thought, that persons of extraordinary imagination are deficient in judgment: by proper education, this evil might be prevented. We may observe that persons, who have acquired particular facility in certain exercises of the imagination, can, by voluntary exertion, either excite or suppress certain trains of ideas on which their enthusiasm depends. An actor, who storms and raves whilst he is upon the stage, appears with a mild and peaceable demeanor a moment afterwards behind the scenes. A poet, in his inspired moments, repeats his own verses in his garret with all the emphasis and fervour of enthusiasm; but when he comes down to dine with a mixed convivial company, his poetic fury subsides, a new train of ideas takes place in his imagination. As long as he has sufficient command over himself to lay aside his enthusiasm in company, he is considered as a reasonable, sensible man, and the more imagination he displays in his poems, the better. The same exercise of fancy, which we admire in one case, we ridicule in another. The enthusiasm which characterizes the man of genius, borders upon insanity.

When Voltaire was teaching mademoiselle Clairon, the celebrated actress, to perform an impassioned part in one of his tragedies, she objected to the violence of his enthusiasm. "Mais, monsieur, on me prendroit pour une possedee!"[74] "Eh, mademoiselle," replied the philosophic bard, "il faut etre un possede pour reussir en aucun art."

The degree of enthusiasm, which makes the painter and poet set, what to more idle, or more busy mortals, appears an imaginary value upon their respective arts, supports the artist under the pressure of disappointment and neglect, stimulates his exertions, and renders him almost insensible to labour and fatigue. Military heroes, or those who are "insane with ambition,"[75] endure all the real miseries of life, and brave the terrors of death, under the invigorating influence of an extravagant imagination. Cure them of their enthusiasm, and they are no longer heroes. We must, therefore, decide in education, what species of characters we would produce, before we can determine what degree, or what habits of imagination, are desirable.

"Je suis le Dieu de la danse!"[76] exclaimed Vestris; and probably Alexander the Great did not feel more pride in his Apotheosis. Had any cynical philosopher undertaken to cure Vestris of his vanity, it would not have been a charitable action. Vestris might, perhaps, by force of reasoning, have been brought to acknowledge that a dancing-master was not a divinity, but this conviction would not have increased his felicity; on the contrary, he would have become wretched in proportion as he became rational. The felicity of enthusiasts depends upon their being absolutely incapable of reasoning, or of listening to reason upon certain subjects; provided they are resolute in repeating their own train of thoughts without comparing them with that of others, they may defy the malice of wisdom, and in happy ignorance may enjoy perpetual delirium.

Parents, who value the happiness of their children, will consider exactly what chance there is of their enjoying unmolested any partial enthusiasm; they will consider, that by early excitations, it is very easy to raise any species of ambition in the minds of their pupils. The various species of enthusiasm necessary to make a poet, a painter, an orator, or a military hero, may be inspired, without doubt, by education. How far these are connected with happiness, is another question. Whatever be the object which he pursues, we must, as much as possible, ensure our pupil's success. Those who have been excited to exertion by enthusiasm, if they do not obtain the reward or admiration which they had been taught to expect, sink into helpless despondency. Whether their object has been great or small, if it has been their favourite object, and they fail of its attainment, their mortification and subsequent languor are unavoidable. The wisest of monarchs exclaimed, that all was vanity and vexation of spirit; he did not, perhaps, feel more weary of the world than the poor juggler felt, who, after educating his hands to the astonishing dexterity of throwing up into the air, and catching as they fell, six eggs successively, without breaking them, received from the emperor, before whom he performed, six eggs to reward the labour of his life!

This poor man's ambition appears obviously absurd; and we are under no immediate apprehension, that parents should inspire their children with the enthusiasm necessary to the profession of a juggler: but, unless some precautions are taken, the objects which excite the ambition of numbers, may be placed so as to deceive the eye and imagination of children; and they may labour through life in pursuit of phantoms. If children early hear their parents express violent admiration for riches, rank, power, or fame, they catch a species of enthusiasm for these things, before they can estimate justly their value; from the countenance and manner, they draw very important conclusions. "Felicity is painted on your countenance," is a polite phrase of salutation in China. The taste for looking happy, is not confined to the Chinese: the rich and great,[77] by every artifice of luxury, endeavour to impress the spectator with the idea of their superior felicity. From experience we know, that the external signs of delight are not always sincere, and that the apparatus of luxury is not necessary to happiness. Children who live with persons of good sense, learn to separate the ideas of happiness and a coach and six; but young people who see their fathers, mothers, and preceptors, all smitten with sudden admiration at the sight of a fine phaeton, or a fine gentleman, are immediately infected with the same absurd enthusiasm. These parents do not suspect, that they are perverting the imagination of their children, when they call them with foolish eagerness to the windows to look at a fine equipage, a splendid cavalcade, or a military procession; they perhaps summon a boy, who is intended for a merchant, or a lawyer, to hear "the spirit stirring drum;" and they are afterwards surprised, if he says, when he is fifteen or sixteen, that, "if his father pleases, he had rather go into the army, than go to the bar." The mother is alarmed, perhaps, about the same time, by an unaccountable predilection in her daughter's fancy for a red coat, and totally forgets having called the child to the window to look at the smart cockades, and to hear the tune of "See the conquering hero comes."

"Hear you me, Jessica," says Shylock to his daughter, "lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum, and the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife, clamber not you up into the casements then."

Shylock's exhortations were vain; Jessica had arrived at years of discretion, and it was too late to forbid her clambering into the casements; the precautions should have been taken sooner; the epithets vile squeaking and wry-necked fife, could not alter the lady's taste: and Shylock should have known how peremptory prohibitions and exaggerated expressions of aversion operate upon the female imagination; he was imprudent in the extreme of his caution. We should let children see things as they really are, and we should not prejudice them either by our exclamations of rapture, or by our affected disgust. If they are familiarized with show, they will not be caught by it; if they see the whole of whatever is to be seen, their imagination will not paint things more delightful than they really are. For these reasons, we think that young people should not be restrained, though they may be guided in their tastes; we should supply them with all the information in which they are deficient, and leave them to form their own judgments.

Without making it a matter of favour, or of extraordinary consequence, parents can take their children to see public exhibitions, or to partake of any amusements which are really agreeable; they can, at the same time, avoid mixing factitious with real pleasure. If, for instance, we have an opportunity of taking a boy to a good play, or a girl to a ball, let them enjoy the full pleasure of the amusement, but do not let us excite their imagination by great preparations, or by anticipating remarks: "Oh, you'll be very happy to-morrow, for you're to go to the play. You must look well to-night, for you are going to the ball. Were you never at a ball? Did you never see a play before? Oh, then you'll be delighted, I'm sure!" The children often look much more sensible, and sometimes more composed, in the midst of these foolish exclamations, than their parents. "Est ce que je m'amuse, maman?" said a little girl of six years old, the first time she was taken to the playhouse.

Besides the influence of opinion, there are a number of other circumstances to be considered in cultivating the imagination; there are many other circumstances which must be attended to, and different precautions are necessary, to regulate properly the imagination of children of different dispositions, or temperaments. The disposition to associate ideas, varies in strength and quickness in opposite temperaments: the natural vivacity or dulness of the senses, the habit of observing external objects, the power of voluntary exertion, and the propensity to reverie, must all be considered before we can adapt a plan of education exactly to the pupil's advantage. A wise preceptor will counteract, as much as possible, all those defects to which a child may appear most liable, and will cultivate his imagination so as to prevent the errours to which he is most exposed by natural, or what we call natural, disposition.

Some children appear to feel sensations of pleasure or pain with more energy than others; they take more delight in feeling than in reflection; they have neither much leisure nor much inclination for the intellectual exertions of comparison or deliberation. Great care should be taken to encourage children of this temper to describe and to compare their sensations. By their descriptions we shall judge what motives we ought to employ to govern them, and if we can teach them to compare their feelings, we shall induce that voluntary exertion of mind in which they are naturally defective. We cannot compare or judge of our sensations without voluntary exertion. When we deliberate, we repeat our ideas deliberately; and this is an exercise peculiarly useful to those who feel quickly.

When any pleasure makes too great an impression upon these children of vivid sensations, we should repeat the pleasure frequently, till it begins to fatigue; or we should contrast it, and bring it into direct comparison with some other species of pleasure. For instance, suppose a boy had appeared highly delighted with seeing a game at cards, and that we were apprehensive he might, from this early association, acquire a taste for gaming, we might either repeat the amusement till the playing at cards began to weary the boy, or we might take him immediately after playing at cards to an interesting comedy; probably, the amusement he would receive at the playhouse, would be greater than that which he had enjoyed at the card-table; and as these two species of pleasure would immediately succeed to each other, the child could scarcely avoid comparing them. Is it necessary to repeat, that all this should be done without any artifice? The child should know the meaning of our conduct, and then he will never set himself in opposition to our management.

If it is not convenient, or possible, to dull the charm of novelty by repetition, or to contrast a new pleasure with some other superior amusement, there is another expedient which may be useful; we may call the power of association to our assistance: this power is sometimes a full match for the most lively sensations. For instance, suppose a boy of strong feelings had been offended by some trifle, and expressed sensations of hatred against the offender obviously too violent for the occasion; to bring the angry boy's imagination to a temperate state, we might recall some circumstance of his former affection for the offender; or the general idea, that it is amiable and noble to command our passion, and to forgive those who have injured us. At the sight of his mother, with whom he had many agreeable associations, the imagination of Coriolanus raised up instantly a train of ideas connected with the love of his family, and of his country, and immediately the violence of his sensations of anger were subdued.

Brutus, after his friend Cassius has apologized to him for his "rash humour," by saying, "that it was hereditary from his mother," promises that the next time Cassius is over-earnest with "his Brutus, he will think his mother chides, and leave him so;" that is to say, Brutus promises to recollect an association of ideas, which shall enable him to bear with his friend's ill humour.

Children, who associate ideas very strongly and with rapidity,[78] must be educated with continual attention. With children of this class, the slightest circumstances are of consequence; they may at first appear to be easily managed, because they will remember pertinaciously any reproof, any reward or punishment; and, from association, they will scrupulously avoid or follow what has, in any one instance, been joined with pain or pleasure in their imagination: but unfortunately, accidental events will influence them, as well as the rewards and punishments of their preceptors; and a variety of associations will be formed, which may secretly govern them long before their existence is suspected. We shall be surprised to find, that even where there is apparently no hope, or fear, or passion, to disturb their judgment, they cannot reason, or understand reasoning. On studying them more closely, we shall discover the cause of this seeming imbecility. A multitude of associated ideas occur to them upon whatever subject we attempt to reason, which distract their attention, and make them change the terms of every proposition with incessant variety. Their pleasures are chiefly secondary reflected pleasures, and they do not judge by their actual sensations so much as by their associations. They like and dislike without being able to assign any sufficient cause for their preference or aversion. They make a choice frequently without appearing to deliberate; and if you, by persuading them to a more detailed examination of the objects, convince them, that according to the common standard of good and evil, they have made a foolish choice, they will still seem puzzled and uncertain; and, if you leave them at liberty, will persist in their original determination. By this criterion we may decide, that they are influenced by some secret false association of ideas; and, instead of arguing with them upon the obvious folly of their present choice, we should endeavour to make them trace back their ideas, and discover the association by which they are governed. In some cases this may be out of their power, because the original association may have been totally forgotten, and yet those connected with it may continue to act: but even when we cannot succeed in any particular instance in detecting the cause of the errour, we shall do the pupils material service by exciting them to observe their own minds. A tutor, who carefully remarks the circumstances in which a child expresses uncommon grief or joy, hope or fear, may obtain complete knowledge of his associations, and may accurately distinguish the proximate and remote causes of all his pupil's desires and aversions. He will then have absolute command over the child's mind, and he should upon no account trust his pupil to the direction of any other person. Another tutor, though perhaps of equal ability, could not be equally secure of success; the child would probably be suspected of cunning, caprice, or obstinacy, because the causes of his tastes and judgments could not be discovered by his new preceptor.

It often happens, that those who feel pleasure and pain most strongly, are likewise most disposed to form strong associations of ideas.[79] Children of this character are never stupid, but often prejudiced and passionate: they can readily assign a reason for their preference or aversion; they recollect distinctly the original sensations of pleasure or pain, on which their associations depend; they do not, like Mr. Transfer in Zelucco, like or dislike persons and things, because they have been used to them, but because they have received some injury or benefit from them. Such children are apt to make great mistakes in reasoning, from their registering of coincidences hastily; they do not wait to repeat their experiments, but if they have in one instance observed two things to happen at the same time, they expect that they will always recur together. If one event precedes or follows another accidentally, they believe it to be the cause or effect of its concomitant, and this belief is not to be shaken in their minds by ridicule or argument. They are, consequently, inclined both to superstition and enthusiasm, according as their hopes and fears predominate. They are likewise subject to absurd antipathies—antipathies which verge towards insanity.

Dr. Darwin relates a strong instance of antipathy in a child from association. The child, on tasting the gristle of sturgeon, asked what gristle was? and was answered, that gristle was like the division of a man's nose. The child, disgusted at this idea, for twenty years afterwards could never be persuaded to taste sturgeon.[80]

Zimmermann assures us, that he was an eye-witness of a singular antipathy, which we may be permitted to describe in his own words:

"Happening to be in company with some English gentlemen, all of them men of distinction, the conversation fell upon antipathies. Many of the company denied their reality, and considered them as idle stories, but I assured them that they were truly a disease. Mr. William Matthews, son to the governor of Barbadoes, was of my opinion, because he himself had an antipathy to spiders. The rest of the company laughed at him. I undertook to prove to them that this antipathy was really an impression on his soul, resulting from the determination of a mechanical effect. (We do not pretend to know what Dr. Zimmermann means by this.) Lord John Murray undertook to shape some black wax into the appearance of a spider, with a view to observe whether the antipathy would take place at the simple figure of the insect. He then withdrew for a moment, and came in again with the wax in his hand, which he kept shut. Mr. Matthews, who in other respects was a very amiable and moderate man, immediately conceiving that his friend really had a spider in his hand, clapped his hand to his sword with extreme fury, and running back towards the partition, cried out most horribly. All the muscles of his face were swelled, his eyes were rolling in their sockets, and his body was immoveable. We were all exceedingly alarmed, and immediately ran to his assistance, took his sword from him, and assured him that what he conceived to be a spider, was nothing more than a bit of wax, which he might see upon the table.

"He remained some time in this spasmodic state; but at length he began to recover, and to deplore the horrible passion from which he still suffered. His pulse was very strong and quick, and his whole body was covered with a cold perspiration. After taking an anodyne draft, he resumed his usual tranquillity.

"We are not to wonder at this antipathy," continues Zimmermann; "the spiders at Barbadoes are very large, and of an hideous figure. Mr. Matthews was born there, and his antipathy was therefore to be accounted for. Some of the company undertook to make a little waxen spider in his presence. He saw this done with great tranquillity, but he could not be persuaded to touch it, though he was by no means a timorous man in other respects. Nor would he follow my advice to endeavour to conquer this antipathy by first drawing parts of spiders of different sorts, and after a time whole spiders, till at length he might be able to look at portions of real spiders, and thus gradually accustom himself to whole ones, at first dead, and then living ones."[81]

Dr. Zimmermann's method of cure, appears rather more ingenious, than his way of accounting for the disease. Are all the natives of Barbadoes subject to convulsions at the sight of the large spiders in that island? or why does Mr. William Matthews' having been born there account so satisfactorily for his antipathy?

The cure of these unreasonable fears of harmless animals, like all other antipathies, would, perhaps, be easily effected, if it were judiciously attempted early in life. The epithets which we use in speaking of animals, and our expressions of countenance, have great influence on the minds of children. If we, as Dr. Darwin advises, call the spider the ingenious spider, and the frog the harmless frog, and if we look at them with complacency, instead of aversion, children, from sympathy, will imitate our manner, and from curiosity will attend to the animals, to discover whether the commendatory epithets we bestow upon them, are just.

It is comparatively of little consequence to conquer antipathies which have trifling objects. An individual can go through life very well without eating sturgeon, or touching spiders; but when we consider the influence of the same disposition to associate false ideas too strongly in more important instances, we shall perceive the necessity of correcting it by education.

Locke tells us of a young man, who, having been accustomed to see an old trunk in the room with him when he learned to dance, associated his dancing exertions so strongly with the sight of this trunk, that he could not succeed by any voluntary efforts in its absence. We have, in our remarks upon attention,[82] pointed out the great inconveniences to which those are exposed who acquire associated habits of intellectual exertion; who cannot speak, or write, or think, without certain habitual aids to their memory or imagination. We must further observe, that incessant vigilance is necessary in the moral education of children disposed to form strong associations; they are liable to sudden and absurd dislikes or predilections, with respect to persons, as well as things; they are subject to caprice in their affections and temper, and liable to a variety of mental infirmities, which, in different degrees, we call passion or madness. Locke tells us, that he knew a man who, after having been restored to health by a painful operation, had so strongly associated the idea and figure of the operator with the agony he had endured, that though he acknowledged the obligation, and felt gratitude towards this friend who had saved him, he never afterwards could bear to see his benefactor. There are some people who associate so readily and incorrigibly the idea of any pain or insult they have received from another, with his person and character, that they can never afterwards forget or forgive. They are hence disposed to all the intemperance of hatred and revenge; to the chronic malice of a Jago, or the acute pangs of an Achilles. Homer, in his speech of Achilles to Agamemnon's mediating ambassadors, has drawn a strong and natural picture of the progress of anger. It is worth studying as a lesson in metaphysics. Whenever association suggests to the mind of Achilles the injury he has received, he loses his reason, and the orator works himself up from argument to declamation, and from declamation to desperate resolution, through a close linked connection of ideas and sensations.

The insanities of ambition, avarice, and vanity, originate in early mistaken associations. A feather, or a crown, or an alderman's chain, or a cardinal's hat, or a purse of yellow counters, are unluckily associated in the minds of some men with the idea of happiness, and, without staying to deliberate, these unfortunate persons hunt through life the phantasms of a disordered imagination. Whilst we pity, we are amused by the blindness and blunders of those whose mistakes can affect no one's felicity but their own; but any delusions which prompt their victims to actions inimical to their fellow-creatures, are the objects not unusually of pity, but of indignation, of private aversion and public punishment. We smile at the avaricious insanity of the miser, who dresses himself in the cast-off Wig of a beggar, and pulls a crushed pancake from his pocket for his own and for his friend's dinner.[83] We smile at the insane vanity of the pauper, who dressed himself in a many-coloured paper star, assumed the title of Duke of Baubleshire, and as such required homage from every passenger.[84] But are we inclined to smile at the outrageous vanity of the man who styled himself the son of Jupiter, and who murdered his best friend for refusing him divine honours? Are we disposed to pity the slave-merchant, who, urged by the maniacal desire for gold, hears unmoved the groans of his fellow-creatures, the execrations of mankind, and that "small still voice," which haunts those who are stained with blood.

The moral insanities which strike us with horror, compassion, or ridicule, however they may differ in their effects, have frequently one common origin; an early false association of ideas. Persons who mistake in measuring their own feelings, or who neglect to compare their ideas, and to balance contending wishes, scarcely merit the name of rational creatures. The man, who does not deliberate, is lost.

We have endeavoured, though well aware of the difficulty of the subject, to point out some of the precautions that should be used in governing the imagination of young people of different dispositions. We should add, that in all cases the pupils attention to his own mind will be of more consequence, than the utmost vigilance of the most able preceptor; the sooner he is made acquainted with his own character, and the sooner he can be excited to govern himself by reason, or to attempt the cure of his own defects, the better.

There is one habit of the imagination, to which we have not yet adverted, the habit of reverie. In reverie we are so intent upon a particular train of ideas, that we are unconscious of all external objects, and we exert but little voluntary power. It is true that some persons in castle-building both reason and invent, and therefore must exert some degree of volition; even in the wildest reverie, there may be traced some species of consistency, some connection amongst the ideas; but this is simply the result of the association of ideas. Inventive castle-builders are rather nearer the state of insanity than of reverie; they reason well upon false principles; their airy fabrics are often both in good taste and in good proportion; nothing is wanting to them but a foundation. On the contrary, nothing can be more silly than the reveries of silly people; they are not only defective in consistency, but they want all the unities; they are not extravagant, but they are stupid; they consist usually of a listless reiteration of uninteresting ideas; the whole pleasure enjoyed by those addicted to them consists in the facility of repetition.

It is a mistaken notion, that only people of ardent imaginations are disposed to reverie; the most indolent and stupid persons waste their existence in this indulgence; they do not act always in consequence of their dreams, therefore we do not detect their folly. Young people of active minds, when they have not sufficient occupation, necessarily indulge in reverie; and, by degrees, this wild exercise of their invention and imagination becomes so delightful to them, that they prefer it to all sober employments.

Mr. Williams, in his Lectures upon Education, gives an account of a boy singularly addicted to reverie. The desire of invisibility had seized his mind, and for several years he had indulged his fancy with imagining all the pleasures that he should command, and all the feats that he could perform, if he were in possession of Gyges's ring. The reader should, however, be informed, that this castle-builder was not a youth of strict veracity; his confession upon this occasion, as upon others, might not have been sincere. We only state the story from Mr. Williams.

To prevent children from acquiring a taste for reverie, let them have various occupations both of mind and body. Let us not direct their imagination to extraordinary future pleasures, but let us suffer them to enjoy the present. Anticipation is a species of reverie; and children, who have promises of future pleasures frequently made to them, live in a continual state of anticipation.

To cure the habit of reverie when it has once been formed, we must take different methods with different tempers. With those who indulge in the stupid reverie, we should employ strong excitations, and present to the senses a rapid succession of objects, which will completely engage without fatiguing them. This mode must not be followed with children of different dispositions, else we should increase, instead of curing, the disease. The most likely method to break this habit in children of great quickness or sensibility, is to set them to some employment which is wholly new to them, and which will consequently exercise and exhaust all their faculties, so that they shall have no life left for castle-building. Monotonous occupations, such as copying, drawing, or writing, playing on the harpsichord, &c. are not, if habit has made them easy to the pupil, fit for our purpose. We may all perceive, that in such occupations, the powers of the mind are left unexercised. We can frequently read aloud with tolerable emphasis for a considerable time together, and at the same time think upon some subject foreign to the book we hold in our hands.

The most difficult exercises of the mind, such as invention, or strict reasoning, are those alone which are sufficient to subjugate and chain down the imagination of some active spirits. To such laborious exercises they should be excited by the encouraging voice of praise and affection. Imaginative children will be more disposed to invent than to reason, but they cannot perfect any invention without reasoning; there will, therefore, be a mixture of what they like and dislike in the exercise of invention, and the habit of reasoning will, perhaps, gradually become agreeable to them, if it be thus dexterously united with the pleasures of the imagination.

So much has already been written by various authors upon the pleasures and the dangers of imagination, that we could scarcely hope to add any thing new to what they have produced: but we have endeavoured to arrange the observations which appeared most applicable to practical education; we have pointed out how the principles of taste may be early taught without injury to the general understanding, and how the imagination should be prepared for the higher pleasures of eloquence and poetry. We have attempted to define the boundaries between the enthusiasm of genius, and its extravagance; and to show some of the precautions which may be used, to prevent the moral defects to which persons of ardent imagination are usually subject. The degree in which the imagination should be cultivated must, we have observed, be determined by the views which parents may have for their children, by their situations in society, and by the professions for which they are destined. Under the government of a sober judgment, the powers of the imagination must be advantageous in every situation; but their value to society, and to the individuals by whom they are possessed, depends ultimately upon the manner in which they are managed. A magician, under the control of a philosopher, would perform not only great, but useful, wonders. The homely proverb, which has been applied to fire, may with equal truth be applied to imagination: "It is a good servant, but a bad master."

FOOTNOTES:

[58] Priestley has ably given the desiderata of electricity, vision, &c.

[59] Wharton's Ode to Fancy.

[60] Gerard.

[61] Lord Kames.

[62] Professor Stewart.

[63] V. An excellent essay of Mr. Barnes's on Imagination. Manchester Society, vol. i.

[64] It is to be hoped that the foreign philosophers, who, it is said, are now employed in drawing up a new metaphysical nomenclature, will avail themselves of the extensive knowledge, and original genius of the author of Zoonomia.

[65] Akenside.

[66]

"Know there are words and spells which can control, Between the fits, the fever of the soul."

Pope.



[67] Peter of Cortona.

[68] V. Epea Pteroenta, p. 88.

[69] Chapter on Grammar.

[70] V. Camper's Works, p. 126.

[71] V. Chapter on Books.

[72] Lord Mansfield, Hussey Burgh, &c.

[73] Theon.

[74] "But, Sir, I shall be taken for one possessed!"

"Well, Ma'am, you must be like one possessed, if you would succeed in any art."

[75] Dr. Darwin.

[76] "I am the god of dancing!"

[77] V. Smith's Moral Theory.

[78] Temperament of increased association. Zoonomia.

[79] V. Zoonomia. Temperament of increased sensibility and association joined.

[80] Zoonomia, vol. ii.

[81] Monthly Review of Zimmermann on Experience in Physic. March 1783, p. 211.

[82] V. Chapter on Attention.

[83] Elwes. See his Life.

[84] There is an account of this poor man's death in the Star, 1796.



CHAPTER XXIII.

ON WIT AND JUDGMENT.

It has been shown, that the powers of memory, invention and imagination, ought to be rendered subservient to judgment: it has been shown, that reasoning and judgment abridge the labours of memory, and are necessary to regulate the highest flights of imagination. We shall consider the power of reasoning in another point of view, as being essential to our conduct in life. The object of reasoning is to adapt means to an end, to attain the command of effects by the discovery of the causes on which they depend.

Until children have acquired some knowledge of effects, they cannot inquire into causes. Observation must precede reasoning; and as judgment is nothing more than the perception of the result of comparison, we should never urge our pupils to judge, until they have acquired some portion of experience.

To teach children to compare objects exactly, we should place the things to be examined distinctly before them. Every thing that is superfluous, should be taken away, and a sufficient motive should be given to excite the pupil's attention. We need not here repeat the advice that has formerly been given[85] respecting the choice of proper motives to excite and fix attention; or the precautions necessary to prevent the pain of fatigue, and of unsuccessful application. If comparison be early rendered a task to children, they will dislike and avoid this exercise of the mind, and they will consequently show an inaptitude to reason: if comparing objects be made interesting and amusing to our pupils, they will soon become expert in discovering resemblances and differences; and thus they will be prepared for reasoning.

Rousseau has judiciously advised, that the senses of children should be cultivated with the utmost care. In proportion to the distinctness of their perceptions, will be the accuracy of their memory, and, probably, also the precision of their judgment. A child, who sees imperfectly, cannot reason justly about the objects of sight, because he has not sufficient data. A child, who does not hear distinctly, cannot judge well of sounds; and, if we could suppose the sense of touch to be twice as accurate in one child as in another, we might conclude, that the judgment of these children must differ in a similar proportion. The defects in organization are not within the power of the preceptor; but we may observe, that inattention, and want of exercise, are frequently the causes of what appear to be natural defects; and, on the contrary, increased attention and cultivation sometimes produce that quickness of eye and ear, and that consequent readiness of judgment, which we are apt to attribute to natural superiority of organization or capacity. Even amongst children, we may early observe a considerable difference between the quickness of their senses and of their reasoning upon subjects where they have had experience, and upon those on which they have not been exercised.

The first exercises for the judgment of children should, as Rousseau recommends, relate to visible and tangible substances. Let them compare the size and shape of different objects; let them frequently try what they can lift; what they can reach; at what distance they can see objects; at what distance they can hear sounds: by these exercises they will learn to judge of distances and weight; and they may learn to judge of the solid contents of bodies of different shapes, by comparing the observations of their sense of feeling and of sight. The measure of hollow bodies can be easily taken by pouring liquids into them, and then comparing the quantities of the liquids that fill vessels of different shapes. This is a very simple method of exercising the judgment of children; and, if they are allowed to try these little experiments for themselves, the amusement will fix the facts in their memory, and will associate pleasure with the habits of comparison. Rousseau rewards Emilius with cakes when he judges rightly; success, we think, is a better reward. Rousseau was himself childishly fond of cakes and cream.

The step which immediately follows comparison, is deduction. The cat is larger than the kitten; then a hole through which the cat can go, must be larger than a hole through which the kitten can go. Long before a child can put this reasoning into words, he is capable of forming the conclusion, and we need not be in haste to make him announce it in mode and figure. We may see by the various methods which young children employ to reach what is above them, to drag, to push, to lift different bodies, that they reason; that is to say, that they adapt means to an end, before they can explain their own designs in words. Look at a child building a house of cards; he dexterously balances every card as he floors the edifice; he raises story over story, and shows us that he has some design in view, though he would be utterly incapable of describing his intentions previously in words. We have formerly[86] endeavoured to show how the vocabulary of our pupils may be gradually enlarged, exactly in proportion to their real knowledge. A great deal depends upon our attention to this proportion; if children have not a sufficient number of words to make their thoughts intelligible, we cannot assist them to reason by our conversation, we cannot communicate to them the result of our experience; they will have a great deal of useless labour in comparing objects, because they will not be able to understand the evidence of others, as they do not understand their language; and at last, the reasonings which they carry on in their own minds will be confused for want of signs to keep them distinct. On the contrary, if their vocabulary exceed their ideas, if they are taught a variety of words to which they connect no accurate meaning, it is impossible that they should express their thoughts with precision. As this is one of the most common errours in education, we shall dwell upon it more particularly.

We have pointed out the mischief which is done to the understanding of children by the nonsensical conversation of common acquaintance.[87] "Should you like to be a king? What are you to be? Are you to be a bishop, or a judge? Had you rather be a general, or an admiral, my little dear?" are some of the questions which every one has probably heard proposed to children of five or six years old. Children who have not learned by rote the expected answers to such interrogatories, stand in amazed silence upon these occasions; or else answer at random, having no possible means of forming any judgment upon such subjects. We have often thought, in listening to the conversations of grown up people with children, that the children reasoned infinitely better than their opponents. People, who are not interested in the education of children, do not care what arguments they use, what absurdities they utter in talking to them; they usually talk to them of things which are totally above their comprehension; and they instil errour and prejudice, without the smallest degree of compunction; indeed, without in the least knowing what they are about. We earnestly repeat our advice to parents, to keep their children as much as possible from such conversation: children will never reason, if they are allowed to hear or to talk nonsense.

When we say, that children should not be suffered to talk nonsense, we should observe, that unless they have been in the habit of hearing foolish conversation, they very seldom talk nonsense. They may express themselves in a manner which we do not understand, or they may make mistakes from not accurately comprehending the words of others; but in these cases, we should not reprove or silence them; we should patiently endeavour to find out their hidden meaning. If we rebuke or ridicule them, we shall intimidate them, and either lessen their confidence in themselves or in us. In the one case, we prevent them from thinking; in the other, we deter them from communicating their thoughts; and thus we preclude ourselves from the possibility of assisting them in reasoning. To show parents the nature of the mistakes which children make from their imperfect knowledge of words, we shall give a few examples from real life.

S——, at five years old, when he heard some one speak of bay horses, said, he supposed that the bay horses must be the best horses. Upon cross-questioning him, it appeared that he was led to this conclusion by the analogy between the sound of the words bay and obey. A few days previous to this, his father had told him that spirited horses were always the most ready to obey.

These erroneous analogies between the sound of words and their sense, frequently mislead children in reasoning; we should, therefore, encourage children to explain themselves fully, that we may rectify their errours.

When S—— was between four and five years old, a lady who had taken him upon her lap playfully, put her hands before his eyes, and (we believe) asked if he liked to be blinded. S—— said no; and he looked very thoughtful. After a pause, he added, "Smellie says, that children like better to be blinded than to have their legs tied." (S—— had read this in Smellie two or three days before.)

Father. "Are you of Smellie's opinion?"

S—— hesitated.

Father. "Would you rather be blinded, or have your legs tied?"

S——. "I would rather have my legs tied not quite tight."

Father. "Do you know what is meant by blinded?"

S——. "Having their eyes put out."

Father. "How do you mean?"

S——. "To put something into the eye to make the blood burst out; and then the blood would come all over it, and cover it, and stick to it, and hinder them from seeing—I don't know how."

It is obvious, that whilst this boy's imagination pictured to him a bloody orb when he heard the word blinded, he was perfectly right in his reasoning in preferring to have his legs tied; but he did not judge of the proposition meant to be laid before him; he judged of another which he had formed for himself. His father explained to him, that Smellie meant blindfolded, instead of blinded; a handkerchief was then tied round the boy's head, so as to hinder him from seeing, and he was made perfectly to understand the meaning of the word blindfolded.

In such trifles as these, it may appear of little consequence to rectify the verbal errours of children; but exactly the same species of mistake, will prevent them from reasoning accurately in matters of consequence. It will not cost us much more trouble to detect these mistakes when the causes of them are yet recent; but it will give us infinite trouble to retrace thoughts which have passed in infancy. When prejudices, or the habits of reasoning inaccurately, have been formed, we cannot easily discover or remedy the remote trifling origin of the evil.

When children begin to inquire about causes, they are not able to distinguish between coincidence and causation: we formerly observed the effect which this ignorance produces upon their temper; we must now observe its effect upon their understanding. A little reflection upon our own minds, will prevent us from feeling that stupid amazement, or from expressing that insulting contempt which the natural thoughts of children sometimes excite in persons who have frequently less understanding than their pupils. What account can we give of the connection between cause and effect? How is the idea, that one thing is the cause of another, first produced in our minds? All that we know is, that amongst human events, those which precede, are, in some cases, supposed to produce what follow. When we have observed, in several instances, that one event constantly precedes another, we believe, and expect, that these events will in future recur together. Before children have had experience, it is scarcely possible that they should distinguish between fortuitous circumstances and causation; accidental coincidences of time, and juxta-position, continually lead them into errour. We should not accuse children of reasoning ill; we should not imagine that they are defective in judgment, when they make mistakes from deficient experience; we should only endeavour to make them delay to decide until they have repeated their experiments; and, at all events, we should encourage them to lay open their minds to us, that we may assist them by our superior knowledge.

This spring, little W—— (three years old) was looking at a man who was mowing the grass before the door. It had been raining, and when the sun shone, the vapour began to rise from the grass. "Does the man mowing make the smoke rise from the grass?" said the little boy. He was not laughed at for this simple question. The man's mowing immediately preceded the rising of the vapour; the child had never observed a man mowing before, and it was absolutely impossible that he could tell what effects might be produced by it; he very naturally imagined, that the event which immediately preceded the rising of the vapour, was the cause of its rise; the sun was at a distance; the scythe was near the grass. The little boy showed by the tone of his inquiry, that he was in the philosophic state of doubt; had he been ridiculed for his question; had he been told that he talked nonsense, he would not, upon another occasion, have told us his thoughts, and he certainly could not have improved in reasoning.

The way to improve children in their judgment with respect to causation, is to increase their knowledge, and to lead them to try experiments by which they may discover what circumstances are essential to the production of any given effect; and what are merely accessory, unimportant concomitants of the event.[88]

A child who, for the first time, sees blue and red paints mixed together to produce purple, could not be certain that the pallet on which these colours were mixed, the spatula with which they were tempered, were not necessary circumstances. In many cases, the vessels in which things are mixed are essential; therefore, a sensible child would repeat the experiment exactly in the same manner in which he had seen it succeed. This exactness should not be suffered to become indolent imitation, or superstitious adherence to particular forms. Children should be excited to add or deduct particulars in trying experiments, and to observe the effects of these changes. In "Chemistry," and "Mechanics," we have pointed out a variety of occupations, in which the judgment of children may be exercised upon the immediate objects of their senses.

It is natural, perhaps, that we should expect our pupils to show surprise at those things which excite surprise in our minds; but we should consider that almost every thing is new to children; and, therefore, there is scarcely any gradation in their astonishment. A child of three or four years old, would be as much amused, and, probably, as much surprised, by seeing a paper kite fly, as he could by beholding the ascent of a balloon. We should not attribute this to stupidity, or want of judgment, but simply to ignorance.

A few days ago, W—— (three years old) who was learning his letters, was let sow an o in the garden with mustard seed. W—— was much pleased with the operation. When the green plants appeared above ground, it was expected that W—— would be much surprised at seeing the exact shape of his o. He was taken to look at it; but he showed no surprise, no sort of emotion.

We have advised that the judgment of children should be exercised upon the objects of their senses. It is scarcely possible that they should reason upon the subjects which are sometimes proposed to them: with respect to manners and society, they have had no experience, consequently they can form no judgments. By imprudently endeavouring to turn the attention of children to conversation that is unsuited to them, people may give the appearance of early intelligence, and a certain readiness of repartee and fluency of expression; but these are transient advantages. Smart, witty children, amuse the circle for a few hours, and are forgotten: and we may observe, that almost all children who are praised and admired for sprightliness and wit, reason absurdly, and continue ignorant. Wit and judgment depend upon different opposite habits of the mind. Wit searches for remote resemblances between objects or thoughts apparently dissimilar. Judgment compares the objects placed before it, in order to find out their differences, rather than their resemblances. The comparisons of judgment may be slow: those of wit must be rapid. The same power of attention in children, may produce either wit or judgment. Parents must decide in which faculty, or rather, in which of these habits of the mind, they wish their pupils to excel; and they must conduct their education accordingly. Those who are desirous to make their pupils witty, must sacrifice some portion of their judgment to the acquisition of the talent for wit; they must allow their children to talk frequently at random. Amongst a multitude of hazarded observations, a happy hit is now and then made: for these happy hits, children who are to be made wits should be praised; and they must acquire sufficient courage to speak from a cursory view of things; therefore the mistakes they make from superficial examination must not be pointed out to them; their attention must be turned to the comic, rather than to the serious side of objects; they must study the different meanings and powers of words; they should hear witty conversation, read epigrams, and comedies; and in all company they should be exercised before numbers in smart dialogue and repartee.

When we mention the methods of educating a child to be witty, we at the same time point out the dangers of this education; and it is but just to warn parents against expecting inconsistent qualities from their pupils. Those who steadily prefer the solid advantages of judgment, to the transient brilliancy of wit, should not be mortified when they see their children, perhaps, deficient at nine or ten years old in the showy talents for general conversation; they must bear to see their pupils appear slow; they must bear the contrast of flippant gayety and sober simplicity; they must pursue exactly an opposite course to that which has been recommended for the education of wits; they must never praise their pupils for hazarding observations; they must cautiously point out any mistakes that are made from a precipitate survey of objects; they should not harden their pupils against that feeling of shame, which arises in the mind from the perception of having uttered an absurdity; they should never encourage their pupils to play upon words; and their admiration of wit should never be vehemently or enthusiastically expressed.

We shall give a few examples to convince parents, that children, whose reasoning powers have been cultivated, are rather slow in comprehending and in admiring wit. They require to have it explained, they want to settle the exact justice and morality of the repartee, before they will admire it.

(November 20th, 1796.) To day at dinner the conversation happened to turn upon wit. Somebody mentioned the well known reply of the hackney coachman to Pope. S——, a boy of nine years old, listened attentively, but did not seem to understand it; his father endeavoured to explain it to him. "Pope was a little ill made man; his favourite exclamation was, 'God mend me!' Now, when he was in a passion with the hackney coachman, he cried as usual, 'God mend me!' 'Mend you, sir?' said the coachman; 'it would be easier to make a new one.' Do you understand this now, S——?"

S—— looked dull upon it, and, after some minutes consideration, said, "Yes, Pope was ill made; the man meant it would be better to make a new one than to mend him." S—— did not yet seem to taste the wit; he took the answer literally, and understood it soberly.

Immediately afterwards, the officer's famous reply to Pope was told to S——. About ten days after this conversation, S—— said to his sister, "I wonder, M——, that people don't oftener laugh at crooked people; like the officer who called Pope a note of interrogation."

M——. "It would be ill natured to laugh at them."

S——. "But you all praised that man for saying that about Pope. You did not think him ill natured."

Mr. ——. "No, because Pope had been impertinent to him."

S——. "How?"

M——. "Don't you remember, that when the officer said that a note of interrogation would make the passage clear, Pope turned round, and looking at him with great contempt, asked if he knew what a note of interrogation was?"

S——. "Yes, I remember that; but I do not think that was very impertinent, because Pope might not know whether the man knew it or not."

Mr. ——. "Very true: but then you see, that Pope took it for granted that the officer was extremely ignorant; a boy who is just learning to read knows what a note of interrogation is."

S—— (thoughtfully.) "Yes, it was rude of Pope; but then the man was an officer, and therefore, it was very likely that he might be ignorant; you know you said that officers were often very ignorant."

Mr. ——. "I said often; but not always. Young men, I told you, who are tired of books, and ambitious of a red coat, often go into the army to save themselves the trouble of acquiring the knowledge necessary for other professions. A man cannot be a good lawyer, or a good physician, without having acquired a great deal of knowledge; but an officer need have little knowledge to know how to stand to be shot at. But though it may be true in general, that officers are often ignorant, it is not necessary that they should be so; a man in a red coat may have as much knowledge as a man in a black, or a blue one; therefore no sensible person should decide that a man is ignorant merely because he is an officer, as Pope did."

S——. "No, to be sure. I understand now."

M——. "But I thought, S——, you understood this before."

Mr. ——. "He is very right not to let it pass without understanding it thoroughly. You are very right, S——, not to swallow things whole; chew them well."

S—— looked as if he was still chewing.

M——. "What are you thinking of S——?"

S——. "Of the man's laughing at Pope for being crooked."

Mr. ——. "If Pope had not said any thing rude to that man, the man would have done very wrong to have laughed at him. If the officer had walked into a coffee-house, and pointing at Pope, had said, 'there's a little crooked thing like a note of interrogation,' people might have been pleased with his wit in seeing that resemblance, but they would have disliked his ill nature; and those who knew Mr. Pope, would probably have answered, 'Yes Sir, but that crooked little man is one of the most witty men in England; he is the great poet, Mr. Pope.' But when Mr. Pope had insulted the officer, the case was altered. Now, if the officer had simply answered, when he was asked what a note of interrogation was, 'a little crooked thing;' and if he had looked at Pope from head to foot as he spoke these words, every body's attention would have been turned upon Pope's figure; but then the officer would have reproached him only for his personal defects: by saying, 'a little crooked thing that asks questions,' the officer reproved Pope for his impertinence. Pope had just asked him a question, and every body perceived the double application of the answer. It was an exact description of a note of interrogation, and of Mr. Pope. It is this sort of partial resemblance quickly pointed out between things, which at first appear very unlike, that surprises and pleases people, and they call it wit."

How difficult it is to explain wit to a child! and how much more difficult to fix its value and morality! About a month after this conversation had passed, S—— returned to the charge: his mind had not been completely settled about wit.

(January 9th, 1796.) "So, S——, you don't yet understand wit, I see," said M—— to him, when he looked very grave at something that was said to him in jest. S—— immediately asked, "What is wit?"

M—— answered (laughing) "Wit is the folly of grown up people."

Mr. ——. "How can you give the boy such an answer? Come to me, my dear, and I'll try if I can give you a better. There are two kinds of wit, one which depends upon words, and another which depends upon thoughts. I will give you an instance of wit depending upon words:

"Hear yonder beggar, how he cries, I am so lame I cannot rise! If he tells truth, he lies."

"Do you understand that?"

S——. "No! If he tells truth, he lies! No, he can't both tell truth and tell a lie at the same time; that's impossible."

Mr. ——. "Then there is something in the words which you don't understand: in the common sense of the words, they contradict each other; but try if you can find out any uncommon sense—any word which can be understood in two senses."

S—— muttered the words, "If he tells truth, he lies," and looked indignant, but presently said, "Oh, now I understand; the beggar was lying down; he lies, means he lies down, not he tells a lie."

The perception of the double meaning of the words, did not seem to please this boy; on the contrary, it seemed to provoke him; and he appeared to think that he had wasted his time upon the discovery.

Mr. ——. "Now I will give you an instance of wit that depends upon the ideas, rather than on the words. A man of very bad character had told falsehoods of another, who then made these two lines;

"Lie on, whilst my revenge shall be, To tell the very truth of thee."

S—— approved of this immediately, and heartily, and recollected the only epigram he knew by rote, one which he had heard in conversation two or three months before this time. It was made upon a tall, stupid man, who had challenged another to make an epigram extempore upon him.

Unlike to Robinson shall be my song; It shall be witty, and it shan't be long.

At the time S—— first heard this epigram, he had been as slow in comprehending it as possible; but after it had been thoroughly explained, it pleased him, and remained fixed in his memory.

Mr. —— observed, that this epigram contained wit both in words and in ideas: and he gave S——one other example. "There were two contractors; I mean people who make a bargain with government, or with those who govern the country, to supply them with certain things at a certain price; there were two contractors, one of whom was employed to supply government with corn; the other agreed to supply government with rum. Now, you know, corn may be called grain, and rum may be called spirit. Both these contractors cheated in their bargain; both their names were the same; and the following epigram was made on them:

"Both of a name, lo! two contractors come; One cheats in corn, and t'other cheats in rum. Which is the greater, if you can, explain, A rogue in spirit, or a rogue in grain?"

"Spirit," continued Mr. ——, "has another sense, you know—will, intention, soul; he has the spirit of a rogue; she has the spirit of contradiction. And grain has also another meaning; the grain of this table, the grain of your coat. Dyed in grain, means dyed into the substance of the material, so that the dye can't be washed out. A rogue in grain, means a man whose habit of cheating is fixed in his mind: and it is difficult to determine which is the worst, a man who has the wish, or a man who has the habit, of doing wrong. At first it seems as if you were only asked which was the worst, to cheat in selling grain, or in selling spirit; but the concealed meaning, makes the question both sense and wit."

These detailed examples, we fear, may appear tiresome; but we knew not how, without them, to explain ourselves fully. We should add, for the consolation of those who admire wit, and we are amongst the number ourselves, that it is much more likely that wit should be engrafted upon judgment, than that judgment should be engrafted upon wit. The boy whom we have just mentioned, who was so slow in comprehending the nature of wit, was asked whether he could think of any answer that Pope might have made to the officer who called him a note of interrogation.

S——. "Is there any note which means answer?"

Mr. ——. "I don't know what you mean."

S——. "Any note which means answer, as - - - - like the note of interrogation, which shows that a question is asked?"

Mr. ——. "No; but if there were, what then?"

S——. "Pope might have called the man that note."

S—— could not exactly explain his idea; somebody who was present said, that if he had been in Pope's place, he would have called the officer a note of admiration. S—— would have made this answer, if he had been familiarly acquainted with the name of the note of admiration. His judgment taught him how to set about looking for a proper answer; but it could not lead him to the exact place for want of experience.

We hope that we have, in the chapter on books, fully explained the danger of accustoming children to read what they do not understand. Poetry, they cannot early comprehend; and even if they do understand it, they cannot improve their reasoning faculty by poetic studies. The analogies of poetry, and of reasoning, are very different. "The muse," says an excellent judge upon this subject, "would make but an indifferent school-mistress." We include under the head poetry, all books in which declamation and eloquence are substituted for reasoning. We should accustom our pupils to judge strictly of the reasoning which they meet with in books; no names of high authority should ever preclude an author's arguments from examination.

The following passage from St. Pierre's Etudes de la Nature, was read to two boys: H——, 14 years old; S——, 10 years old.

"Hurtful insects, present (the same) oppositions and signs of destruction; the gnat, thirsty of human blood, announces himself to our sight by the white spots with which his brown body is speckled; and by the shrill sound of his wings, which interrupts the calm of the groves, he announces himself to our ear as well as to our eye. The carnivorous wasp is streaked like the tiger, with bands of black over a yellow ground."

H—— and S—— both at once exclaimed, that these spots in the gnat, and streaks in the wasp, had nothing to do with their stinging us. "The buzzing of the gnat," said S——, "would, I think, be a very agreeable sound to us, if we did not know that the gnat would sting, and that it was coming near us; and, as to the wasp, I remember stopping one day upon the stairs to look at the beautiful black and yellow body of a wasp. I did not think of danger, nor of its stinging me then, and I did not know that it was like the tiger. After I had been stung by a wasp, I did not think a wasp such a beautiful animal. I think it is very often from our knowing that animals can hurt us, that we think them ugly. We might as well say," continued S——, pointing to a crocus which was near him, "we might as well say, that a man who has a yellow face has the same disposition as that crocus, or that the crocus is in every thing like the man, because it is yellow."

Cicero's "curious consolation for deafness" is properly noticed by Mr. Hume. It was read to S—— a few days ago, to try whether he could detect the sophistry: he was not previously told what was thought of it by others.

"How many languages are there," says Cicero, "which you do not understand! The Punic, Spanish, Gallic, Egyptian, &c. With regard to all these, you are as if you were deaf, and yet you are indifferent about the matter. Is it then so great a misfortune to be deaf to one language more?"

"I don't think," said S——, "that was at all a good way to console the man, because it was putting him in mind that he was more deaf than he thought he was. He did not think of those languages, perhaps, till he was put in mind that he could not hear them."

In stating any question to a child, we should avoid letting our own opinion be known, lest we lead or intimidate his mind. We should also avoid all appearance of anxiety, all impatience for the answer; our pupil's mind should be in a calm state when he is to judge: if we turn his sympathetic attention to our hopes and fears, we agitate him, and he will judge by our countenances rather than by comparing the objects or propositions which are laid before him. Some people, in arguing with children, teach them to be disingenuous by the uncandid manner in which they proceed; they show a desire for victory, rather than for truth; they state the arguments only on their own side of the question, and they will not allow the force of those which are brought against them. Children are thus piqued, instead of being convinced, and in their turn they become zealots in support of their own opinions; they hunt only for arguments in their own favour, and they are mortified when a good reason is brought on the opposite side of the question to that on which they happen to have enlisted. To prevent this, we should never argue, or suffer others to argue for victory with our pupils; we should not praise them for their cleverness in finding out arguments in support of their own opinion; but we should praise their candour and good sense when they perceive and acknowledge the force of their opponent's arguments. They should not be exercised as advocates, but as judges; they should be encouraged to keep their minds impartial, to sum up the reasons which they have heard, and to form their opinion from these without regard to what they may have originally asserted. We should never triumph over children for changing their opinion. "I thought you were on my side of the question; or, I thought you were on the other side of the question just now!" is sometimes tauntingly said to an ingenuous child, who changes his opinion when he hears a new argument. You think it a proof of his want of judgment, that he changes his opinion in this manner; that he vibrates continually from side to side: let him vibrate, presently he will be fixed. Do you think it a proof that your scales are bad, because they vibrate with every additional weight that is added to either side?

Idle people sometimes amuse themselves with trying the judgment of children, by telling them improbable, extravagant stories, and then ask the simple listeners whether they believe what has been told them. The readiness of belief in children will always be proportioned to their experience of the veracity of those with whom they converse; consequently children, who live with those who speak truth to them, will scarcely ever be inclined to doubt the veracity of strangers. Such trials of the judgment of our pupils should never be permitted. Why should the example of lying be set before the honest minds of children, who are far from silly when they show simplicity? They guide themselves by the best rules, by which even a philosopher in similar circumstances could guide himself. The things asserted are extraordinary, but the children believe them, because they have never had any experience of the falsehood of human testimony.

The Socratic mode of reasoning is frequently practised upon children. People arrange questions artfully, so as to bring them to whatever conclusion they please. In this mode of reasoning, much depends upon getting the first move; the child has very little chance of having it, his preceptor usually begins first with a peremptory voice, "Now answer me this question!" The pupil, who knows that the interrogatories are put with a design to entrap him, is immediately alarmed, and instead of giving a direct, candid answer to the question, is always looking forward to the possible consequences of his reply; or he is considering how he may evade the snare that is laid for him. Under these circumstances he is in imminent danger of learning the shuffling habits of cunning; he has little chance of learning the nature of open, manly investigation.

Preceptors, who imagine that it is necessary to put on very grave faces, and to use much learned apparatus in teaching the art of reasoning, are not nearly so likely to succeed as those who have the happy art of encouraging children to lay open their minds freely, and who can make every pleasing trifle an exercise for the understanding. If it be playfully pointed out to a child that he reasons ill, he smiles and corrects himself; but you run the hazard of making him positive in errour, if you reprove or ridicule him with severity. It is better to seize the subjects that accidentally arise in conversation, than formally to prepare subjects for discussion.

"The king's stag hounds," (says Mr. White of Selborne, in his entertaining observations on quadrupeds,[89]) "the king's stag hounds came down to Alton, attended by a huntsman and six yeoman prickers with horns, to try for the stag that has haunted Hartley-wood and its environs for so long a time. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended the dogs to see the deer unharboured; but though the huntsman drew Hartley-wood, and Long-coppice, and Shrub-wood, and Temple-hangers, and in their way back, Hartley, and Wardleham-hangers, yet no stag could be found.

"The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned out before them, never drew the coverts with any address and spirit," &c.

Children, who are accustomed to have the game started and turned out before them by their preceptors, may, perhaps, like the royal pack, lose their wonted address and spirit, and may be disgracefully at a fault in the public chase. Preceptors should not help their pupils out in argument, they should excite them to explain and support their own observations.

Many ladies show in general conversation the powers of easy raillery joined to reasoning, unincumbered with pedantry. If they would employ these talents in the education of their children, they would probably be as well repaid for their exertions, as they can possibly be by the polite, but transient applause of the visiters to whom they usually devote their powers of entertaining. A little praise or blame, a smile from a mother, or a frown, a moments attention, or a look of cold neglect, have the happy, or the fatal power of repressing or of exciting the energy of a child, of directing his understanding to useful or pernicious purposes. Scarcely a day passes in which children do not make some attempt to reason about the little events which interest them, and, upon these occasions, a mother, who joins in conversation with her children, may instruct them in the art of reasoning without the parade of logical disquisitions.

Mr. Locke has done mankind an essential service, by the candid manner in which he has spoken of some of the learned forms of argumentation. A great proportion of society, he observes, are unacquainted with these forms, and have not heard the name of Aristotle; yet, without the aid of syllogisms, they can reason sufficiently well for all the useful purposes of life, often much better than those who have been disciplined in the schools. It would indeed "be putting one man sadly over the head of another," to confine the reasoning faculty to the disciples of Aristotle, to any sect or system, or to any forms of disputation. Mr. Locke has very clearly shown, that syllogisms do not assist the mind in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas; but, on the contrary, that they invert the natural order in which the thoughts should be placed, and in which they must be placed, before we can draw a just conclusion. To children who are not familiarized with scholastic terms, the sound of harsh words, and quaint language, unlike any thing that they hear in common conversation, is alone sufficient to alarm their imagination with some confused apprehension of difficulty. In this state of alarm they are seldom sufficiently masters of themselves, either to deny or to acknowledge an adept's major, minor, or conclusion. Even those who are most expert in syllogistical reasoning, do not often apply it to the common affairs of life, in which reasoning is just as much wanted as it is in the abstract questions of philosophy; and many argue, and conduct themselves with great prudence and precision, who might, perhaps, be caught on the horns of a dilemma; or who would infallibly fall victims to the crocodile.

Young people should not be ignorant, however, of these boasted forms of argumentation; and it may, as they advance in the knowledge of words, be a useful exercise to resist the attacks of sophistry. No ingenious person would wish to teach a child to employ them. As defensive weapons, it is necessary, that young people should have the command of logical terms; as offensive weapons, these should never be used. They should know the evolutions, and be able to perform the exercise of a logician, according to the custom of the times, according to the usage of different nations; but they should not attach any undue importance to this technical art: they should not trust to it in the day of battle.

We have seen syllogisms, crocodiles, enthymemas, sorites, &c. explained and tried upon a boy of nine or ten years old in playful conversation, so that he became accustomed to the terms without learning to be pedantic in the abuse of them; and his quickness in reasoning was increased by exercise in detecting puerile sophisms; such as that of the Cretans—Gorgias and his bargain about the winning of his first cause. In the following sorites[90] of Themistocles—"My son commands his mother; his mother commands me; I command the Athenians; the Athenians command Greece; Greece commands Europe; Europe commands the whole earth; therefore my son commands the whole earth"—the sophism depends upon the inaccurate use of the commands, which is employed in different senses in the different propositions. This errour was without difficulty detected by S—— at ten years old; and we make no doubt that any unprejudiced boy of the same age, would immediately point out the fallacy without hesitation; but we do not feel quite sure that a boy exercised in logic, who had been taught to admire and reverence the ancient figures of rhetoric, would with equal readiness detect the sophism. Perhaps it may seem surprising, that the same boy, who judged so well of this sorites of Themistocles, should a few months before have been easily entrapped by the following simple dilemma.

M——. "We should avoid what gives us pain."

S——. "Yes, to be sure."

M——. "Whatever burns us, gives us pain."

S——. "Yes, that it does!"

M——. "We should then avoid whatever burns us."

To this conclusion S—— heartily assented, for he had but just recovered from the pain of a burn.

M——. "Fire burns us."

S——. "Yes, I know that."

M——. "We should then avoid fire."

S——. "Yes."

This hasty yes was extorted from the boy by the mode of interrogatory; but he soon perceived his mistake.

M——. "We should avoid fire. What when we are very cold?"

S——. "Oh, no: I meant to say, that we should avoid a certain degree of fire. We should not go too near the fire. We should not go so near as to burn ourselves."

Children who have but little experience, frequently admit assertions to be true in general, which are only true in particular instances; and this is often attributed to their want of judgment: it should be attributed to their want of experience. Experience, and nothing else, can rectify these mistakes: if we attempt to correct them by words, we shall merely teach our pupils to argue about terms, not to reason. Some of the questions and themes which are given to boys may afford us instances of this injudicious education. "Is eloquence advantageous, or hurtful to a state?" What a vast range of ideas, what variety of experience in men and things should a person possess, who is to discuss this question! Yet it is often discussed by unfortunate scholars of eleven or twelve years old. "What is the greatest good?" The answer expected by a preceptor to this question, obviously is, virtue; and, if a boy can, in decent language, write a page or two about pleasure's being a transient, and virtue a permanent good, his master flatters himself that he has early taught him to reason philosophically. But what ideas does the youth annex to the words pleasure and virtue? Or does he annex any? If he annex no idea to the words, he is merely talking about sounds.

All reasoning ultimately refers to matters of fact: to judge whether any piece of reasoning is within the comprehension of a child, we must consider whether the facts to which it refers are within his experience. The more we increase his knowledge of facts, the more we should exercise him in reasoning upon them; but we should teach him to examine carefully before he admits any thing to be a fact, or any assertion to be true. Experiment, as to substances, is the test of truth; and attention to his own feelings, as to matters of feeling. Comparison of the evidence of others with the general laws of nature, which he has learned from his own observation, is another mode of obtaining an accurate knowledge of facts. M. Condillac, in his Art of Reasoning, maintains, that the evidence of reason depends solely upon our perception of the identity, or, to use a less formidable word, sameness, of one proposition with another. "A demonstration," he says, "is only a chain of propositions, in which the same ideas, passing from one to the other, differ only because they are differently expressed; the evidence of any reasoning consists solely in its identity."

M. Condillac[91] exemplifies this doctrine by translating this proposition, "The measure of every triangle is the product of its height by half its base," into self-evident, or, as he calls them, identical propositions. The whole ultimately referring to the ideas which we have obtained by our senses of a triangle; of its base, of measure, height, and number. If a child had not previously acquired any one of these ideas, it would be in vain to explain one term by another, or to translate one phrase or proposition into another; they might be identical, but they would not be self-evident propositions to the pupil; and no conclusion, except what relates merely to words, could be formed from such reasoning. The moral which we should draw from Condillac's observations for Practical Education must be, that clear ideas should first be acquired by the exercise of the senses, and that afterwards, when we reason about things in words, we should use few and accurate terms, that we may have as little trouble as possible in changing or translating one phrase or proposition into another.

Children, if they are not overawed by authority, if they are encouraged in the habit of observing their own sensations, and if they are taught precision in the use of the words by which they describe them, will probably reason accurately where their own feelings are concerned.

In appreciating the testimony of others, and in judging of chances and probability, we must not expect our pupils to proceed very rapidly. There is more danger that they should overrate, than that they should undervalue, the evidence of others; because, as we formerly stated, we take it for granted, that they have had little experience of falsehood. We should, to preserve them from credulity, excite them in all cases where it can be obtained, never to rest satisfied without the strongest species of evidence, that of their own senses. If a child says, "I am sure of such a thing," we should immediately examine into his reasons for believing it. "Mr. A. or Mr. B. told me so," is not a sufficient cause of belief, unless the child has had long experience of A. and B.'s truth and accuracy; and, at all events, the indolent habit of relying upon the assertions of others, instead of verifying them, should not be indulged.

It would be waste of time to repeat those experiments, of the truth of which the uniform experience of our lives has convinced us: we run no hazard, for instance, in believing any one who simply asserts, that they have seen an apple fall from a tree; this assertion agrees with the great natural law of gravity, or, in other words, with the uniform experience of mankind: but if any body told us, that they had seen an apple hanging self-poised in the air, we should reasonably suspect the truth of their observation, or of their evidence. This is the first rule which we can most readily teach our pupils in judging of evidence. We are not speaking of children from four to six years old, for every thing is almost equally extraordinary to them; but, when children are about ten or eleven, they have acquired a sufficient variety of facts to form comparisons, and to judge to a certain degree of the probability of any new fact that is related. In reading and in conversation we should now exercise them in forming judgments, where we know that they have the means of comparison. "Do you believe such a thing to be true? and why do you believe it? Can you account for such a thing?" are questions we should often ask at this period of their education. On hearing extraordinary facts, some children will not be satisfied with vague assertions; others content themselves with saying, "It is so, I read it in a book." We should have little hopes of those who swallow every thing they read in a book; we are always pleased to see a child hesitate and doubt, and require positive proof before he believes. The taste for the marvellous, is strong in ignorant minds; the wish to account for every new appearance, characterizes the cultivated pupil.

A lady told a boy of nine years old (S——) the following story, which she had just met with in "The Curiosities of Literature." An officer, who was confined in the Bastille, used to amuse himself by playing on the flute: one day he observed, that a number of spiders came down from their webs, and hung round him as if listening to his music; a number of mice also came from their holes, and retired as soon as he stopped. The officer had a great dislike to mice; he procured a cat from the keeper of the prison, and when the mice were entranced by his music, he let the cat out amongst them.

S—— was much displeased by this man's treacherous conduct towards the poor mice, and his indignation for some moments suspended his reasoning faculty; but, when S—— had sufficiently expressed his indignation against the officer in the affair of the mice, he began to question the truth of the story; and he said, that he did not think it was certain, that the mice and spiders came to listen to the music. "I do not know about the mice," said he, "but I think, perhaps, when the officer played upon the flute, he set the air in motion, and shook the cobwebs, so as to disturb the spiders." We do not, nor did the child think, that this was a satisfactory account of the matter; but we mention it as an instance of the love of investigation, which we wish to encourage.

The difficulty of judging concerning the truth of evidence increases, when we take moral causes into the account. If we had any suspicion, that a man who told us that he had seen an apple fall from a tree, had himself pulled the apple down and stolen it, we should set the probability of his telling a falsehood, and his motive for doing so, against his evidence; and though according to the natural physical course of things, there would be no improbability in his story, yet there might arise improbability from his character for dishonesty; and thus we should feel ourselves in doubt concerning the fact. But if two people agreed in the same testimony, our doubt would vanish; the dishonest man's doubtful evidence would be corroborated, and we should believe, notwithstanding his general character, in the truth of his assertion in this instance. We could make the matter infinitely more complicated, but what has been said will be sufficient to suggest to preceptors the difficulty which their young and inexperienced pupils must feel, in forming judgments of facts where physical and moral probabilities are in direct opposition to each other.

We wish that a writer equal to such a task would write trials for children as exercises for their judgment; beginning with the simplest, and proceeding gradually to the more complicated cases in which moral reasonings can be used. We do not mean, that it would be advisable to initiate young readers in the technical forms of law; but the general principles of justice, upon which all law is founded, might, we think, be advantageously exemplified. Such trials would entertain children extremely. There is a slight attempt at this kind of composition, we mean in a little trial in Evenings at Home; and we have seen children read it with great avidity. Cyrus's judgment about the two coats, and the ingenious story of the olive merchant's cause, rejudged by the sensible child in the Arabian Tales, have been found highly interesting to a young audience.

We should prefer truth to fiction: if we could select any instances from real life, any trials suited to the capacity of young people, they would be preferable to any which the most ingenious writer could invent for our purpose. A gentleman who has taken his two sons, one of them ten, and the other fifteen years old, to hear trials at his county assizes, found by the account which the boys gave of what they had heard, that they had been interested, and that they were capable of understanding the business.

Allowance must be made at first for the bustle and noise of a public place, and for the variety of objects which distract the attention.

Much of the readiness of forming judgments depends upon the power of discarding and obliterating from our mind all the superfluous circumstances; it may be useful to exercise our pupils, by telling them now and then stories in the confused manner in which they are sometimes related by puzzled witnesses; let them reduce the heterogeneous circumstances to order, make a clear statement of the case for themselves, and try if they can point out the facts on which the decision principally rests. This is not merely education for a lawyer; the powers of reasoning and judgment, when we have been exercised in this manner, may be turned to any art or profession. We should, if we were to try the judgment of children, observe, whether in unusual circumstances they can apply their former principles, and compare the new objects that are placed before them without perplexity. We have sometimes found, that on subjects entirely new to them, children, who have been used to reason, can lay aside the circumstances that are not essential, and form a distinct judgment for themselves, independently of the opinion of others.

Last winter the entertaining life of the celebrated miser Mr. Elwes was read aloud in a family, in which there were a number of children. Mr. Elwes, once, as he was walking home on a dark night, in London, ran against a chair pole and bruised both his shins. His friends sent for a surgeon. Elwes was alarmed at the idea of expense, and he laid the surgeon the amount of his bill, that the leg which he took under his own protection would get well sooner than that which was put under the surgeon's care; at the same time Mr. Elwes promised to put nothing to the leg of which he took charge. Mr. Elwes favourite leg got well sooner than that which the surgeon had undertaken to cure, and Mr. Elwes won his wager. In a note upon this transaction his biographer says, "This wager would have been a bubble bet if it had been brought before the Jockey-club, because Mr. Elwes, though he promised to put nothing to the leg under his own protection, took Velnos' vegetable sirup during the time of its cure."

C—— (a girl of twelve years old) observed when this anecdote was read, that "still the wager was a fair wager, because the medicine which Mr. Elwes took, if it was of any use, must have been of use to both legs; therefore the surgeon and Mr. Elwes had equal advantage from it." C—— had never heard of the Jockey-club, or of bubble bets before, and she used the word medicine, because she forgot the name of Velnos' vegetable sirup.

We have observed,[92] that works of criticism are unfit for children, and teach them rather to remember what others say of authors, than to judge of the books themselves impartially: but, when we object to works of criticism, we do not mean to object to criticism; we think it an excellent exercise for the judgment, and we have ourselves been so well corrected, and so kindly assisted by the observations of young critics, that we cannot doubt their capacity. This book has been read to a jury of young critics, who gave their utmost attention to it for about half an hour at a sitting, and many amendments have been made from their suggestions. In the chapter on obstinacy, for instance, when we were asserting, that children sometimes forget their old bad habits, and do not consider these as a part of themselves, there was this allusion.