THE true object of education, like that of

every other moral procefs, is the generation of happiness.

Happiness to the individual in the first place. If individuals were univerfally happy, the species would be happy.

Man is a focial being. In fociety the interests of individuals are intertwifted with each other, and cannot be separated. Men fhould be taught to affift each other. The first object should be to train a man to be happy; the second to train him to be useful, that is, to be virtuous. B

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There is a further reafon for this. Virtue is effential to individual happiness. There is no transport equal to that of the performance of virtue. All other happiness, which is not connected with felf-approbation and fympathy, is unfatisfactory and frigid.

To make a man virtuous we must make him wife. All virtue is a compromife between oppofite motives and inducements. The man of genuine virtue, is a man of vigorous comprehenfion and long views. He who would be eminently useful, must be eminently inftructed. He muft be. endowed with a fagacious judgment and an ardent zeal.

The argument in favour of wifdom or a cultivated intellect, like the argument in favour of virtue, when clofely confidered, fhows itself to be twofold. Wifdom is not only directly a means to virtue; it is alfo directly a means to happiness. The man of enlightened understanding and perfevering ardour, has many fources of enjoyment which the ignorant man cannot reach; and it may at leaft be fufpected that thefe fources are more exquifite, more folid, more durable and more conftantly acceffible, than which the wife man and the ignorant any

man poffefs in common.

Thus it appears that there are three leading

objects

objects of a juft education, happiness, virtue, wifdom, including under the term wisdom both extent of information and energy of purfuit.

When a child is born, one of the earliest purpofes of his inftitutor ought to be, to awaken his mind, to breathe a foul into the, as yet, unformed mafs.

What may be the precife degree of difference with refpect to capacity that children generally bring into the world with them, is a problem that it is perhaps impoffible completely to folve.

But, if education cannot do every thing, it can do much. To the attainment of any accomplifhment what is principally neceffary, is that the accomplishment should be ardently defired. How many inftances is it reasonable to suppose there are, where this ardent defire exifts, and the means of attainment are clearly and fkilfully pointed out, where yet the accomplishment remains finally unattained? Give but fufficient motive, and you have given every thing Whether the object be to fhoot at a mark, or to mafter a fcience, this obfervation is equally applicable.

The means of exciting defire are obvious. Has the propofed object defirable qualities? Exhibit them. Delineate them with perfpicuity, and delineate them with ardour. Show your B 2 object

object from time to time under every point of view which is calculated to demonftrate its lovelinefs. Criticife, commend, exemplify. Nothing is more common than for a mafter to fail in infufing the paffions into his pupil that he purpofes to infufe; but who is there that refufes to confefs, that the failure is to be afcribed to the indolence or unfkilfulness of the mafter, not to the impoffibility of fuccefs?

The more inexperienced and immature is the mind of the infant, the greater is its pliability. It is not to be told how early, habits, pernicious or otherwife, are acquired. Children bring fome qualities, favourable or adverfe to cultivation, into the world with them. But they speedily acquire other qualities in addition to these, and which are probably of more moment than they. Thus a difeafed ftate of body, and still more an improper treatment, the rendering the child, in any confiderable degree, either the tyrant or the flave of thofe around him, may in the first twelve months implant feeds of an ill teinper, which in fome inftances may accompany him through

life.

Reafoning from the principles already delivered, it would be a grofs mistake to suppose, that the fole object to be attended to in the first part of education, is to provide for the present

eafe and happiness of the individual. An awakened mind is one of the most important purposes of education, and it is a purpose that cannot too foon enter into the views of the preceptor.

It seems probable that early instruction is a thing, in itself confidered, of very inferior value. Many of those things which we learn in our youth, it is neceffary, if we would well understand, that we fhould learn over again in our riper years. Many things that, in the dark and unapprehensive period of youth, are attained with infinite labour, may, by a ripe and judicious understanding, be acquired with an effort inexpreffibly inferior. He who fhould affirm, that the true object of juvenile education was to teach no one thing in particular, but to provide against the age of five and twenty a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn, would certainly not obtrude upon us the abfurdeft of paradoxes.

The purpose therefore of early inftruction is not abfolute. It is of lefs importance, generally speaking, that a child fhould acquire this or that fpecies of knowledge, than that, through the medium of inftruction, he should acquire habits of intellectual activity. It is not fo much for the direct confideration of what he learns, that his mind must not be fuffered to le idle.

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