ment, and, by a natural desire for perfection, to the love of Him who is the source of all perfection.

Sympathy and conscience should be particularly exercised with a view to education; for they are the faculties which enable us to act from virtuous motives. It is their combined impulse which prompts us to imitate the good actions we witness, and to bestow affection and esteem on their authors. Let appeals be frequently made to the child's conscience, and he will soon form the habit of acting on this moral principle. Such appeals would be motives of action far preferable to those which are usually made to self-love through emulation, praise, reward, or bodily fear. The more frequently we appeal to conscience as a guide, the more easily shall we distinguish good from evil, the more inclined shall we be to adopt what is right, and avoid what is wrong, the more successfully shall we also regulate our inclinations, and moderate our passions. The self-examination prescribed by the Christian religion is founded on this truth, as was also Benjamin Franklin's journal of morality; and few men ever reached a higher degree of moral perfection than he did.

This voice speaking within us becomes the true guide which may lead Christians in the path of righteousness, when it takes for its rule the will of God. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the understanding of the young be made acquainted with the natural laws and the Divine commands, in order to render the verdict of conscience a source of real satisfaction. God, in His infinite mercy, has proclaimed our rule of conduct in the most manifest and the most unerring manner : revelation, His divine word, is not only a safe guide through this short life, but it alone can lead us to life eternal.

5, Will.

Will, or volition, is influenced in its determinations by selflove, which seeks enjoyment and shuns pain; by sympathy, which begets sentiments and affections more or less estimable; by curiosity, which may pursue laudable or blameable objects of inquiry; and by conscience, which prefers good to evil: but these determinations demand the light of reason to be properly directed; that is, to incline to virtue in preference to vice, and to truth in preference to error. Thus is the union, which we have already found to exist between our moral and our intellectual nature, rendered closer by the action of the will.

Man becomes, by the right of this faculty, the arbiter of his

actions he is a free, rational, and self-governing agent. As self-love is the principle of his individuality, sympathy of his sociability, curiosity of his perfectibility, and conscience of his morality; so is will the principle of his native liberty, and the harbinger of immortality.

It is especially towards a judicious direction of the will, that all the efforts of the educator should tend; for this faculty exercises a powerful control over almost all the others: it is the soul of all the exercises to which education subjects man; and it alone can secure success. Will is the fulcrum of Archimedes ; with it all is possible: "Peut qui veut," Napoleon often said. It gives an impulse to the whole system; but it presides more particularly over the operations of the intellectual powers. Education, properly speaking, is only the direction of the will and the formation of its habits::-an occasional act of virtue does not make the virtuous man; the perfection of the moral character consists in an habitual disposition to do what is useful and good.

Children should early be made to feel all the importance of a faculty on which their future self-control and self-government depend. Their improvement is not in proportion to the number of teachers and external assistance which the opulence of their parents may provide for them, but to the energy of their own will, to the earnest attention and perseverance with which they apply themselves to the various objects of study. Innumerable examples, taken from all ages and countries, might be adduced, of men who have, by the force of their will, without the assistance of teachers and, under the most adverse circumstances, raised themselves from the lowest condition to the highest eminence in the moral and intellectual world. For some of those examples we refer the reader to that excellent work, "Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties," which fully illustrates what can be accomplished by the energy of the will.

The most effective education is that which we give to ourselves; because, proceeding from the will, it has at its disposal all the faculties of the body, all the energy of the soul, and all the powers of the mind. Man is born for self-improvement, which is the essence of human perfectibility. This truth is sufficiently proved by the extensive range of physical and intellectual acquirements which he makes in childhood of his own accord, and by his unaided efforts. We have already adverted to these early manifestations of self-education as prompted by the innate powers of imitation and curiosity. But voluntary attention to

the systematic departments of knowledge, which constitute literary or scientific instruction, can take place only when reason is sufficiently developed to enable the learner to appreciate the importance of these departments of instruction, and to feel the necessity of system in the pursuit. It is only in the third period that it can be commenced methodically. In the first two periods, the principal object of education should be to give to the child physical, moral, and intellectual habits, as a preparation for the time when self-education shall begin. We must then early accustom him to rely little on the assistance of others, and to seek in himself the sources of his own improvement. The conviction once acquired that progress depends on self-exertion, will be the starting-point in self-education.

it

Spontaneousness should be encouraged in childhood; self-will, so common among young people, should be regulated, not broken: may become, if properly directed, noble firmness in manhood. Every tendency to a vice might, by judicious management, be turned to account for the acquisition of a virtue. By suitable training of the will, a child may be made to pursue virtue and knowledge for their own sakes, and be stimulated to accomplish, each day, something more than on the preceding. This continual endeavour to surpass oneself is a motive to improvement much purer and nobler than the desire of surpassing others, which springs from pride and vanity. The secret satisfaction attached to success in the performance of any action, or in the acquisition of any information, is one of the most powerful incentives to mental exertion in every pursuit. It is thus that will engenders patience and perseverance, the two great instruments of genius.

SECT. III.-MORAL ACQUIREMENTS.

The moral faculties are the instruments by which are acquired the qualities which constitute moral perfection. It is especially on their proper cultivation during the first three periods that the success of education depends; for the early practice of duties, virtues, affections, and inclinations which proceed from them, having once rendered them habitual, the object will be attained: morality will then be a second nature to the individual. Virtuous habits being once formed, there is little danger that he will afterwards turn to a bad purpose the power which physical and intellectual cultivation confers on him. This moral training, the surest preservative against evil tendencies, is now the more

necessary as the progress of the arts and sciences daily increases the power of man.

The moral faculties to which we have now adverted are often erroneously included in the class of moral acquirements, and the latter in that of innate powers; the virtues, duties, affections, and inclinations which constitute the moral acquirements, and which are the object of moral education, are not either, in general, clearly defined, or sufficiently distinguished the one from the other. This confusion has not a little contributed to retard the progress of educational science.

Obedience to parents, veracity, sincerity, probity, gratitude, discretion, loyalty, patriotism, are not virtues, but social duties, or obligatory acts of Justice towards others; the neglect of them is a transgression which calls for punishment. The fulfilment of duty, which it is the office of conscience to secure, merits no acknowledgment; whereas social virtues, based on self-denial, are self-imposed sacrifices which claim gratitude: the absence of a virtue, although blameable, is not, according to human justice, liable to penalty. Modesty, charity, generosity, hospitality, forgiveness, are the virtues which, with filial love, benevolence, humanity, affability, and other affections, constitute so many species of Goodness, and which spring from sympathy, as we showed in treating of that moral faculty.

These duties, virtues, and affections belong to social morality, and are practised with a view to the well-being of others; but there exists another class of moral qualities which have for their object the well-being of their possessors: these are the acquirements which form the elements of Wisdom or individual morality. They arise chiefly from well-directed self-love, as do the social qualities from sympathy. In this class may be mentioned1. Duties, such as temperance, frugality, moderation in desires, resignation, industry, self-respect, consistency. 2. Virtues, as meekness, equanimity, patience, prudence, perseverance, courage, fortitude. 3. Inclinations, as love of cleanliness, of simplicity, of order, of occupation, desire of improvement, and of esteem. All the moral qualities which constitute Justice will gain for us the esteem of our fellow-creatures; those which constitute Goodness will secure their affection, and those which constitute Wisdom will command their admiration.

It is time that a system of moral education based on the constitution of man, his duties to God, to his fellow-creatures, and to himself, be formed, whereby he may fulfil the designs for

which he was created. He who shall give a clear and complete nomenclature of the moral faculties and acquirements, will lay the first stone of this system, and will thus confer a boon on society. With regard to the numerous faculties and organs with which phrenological educationists have enriched their catalogue, we doubt whether sound philosophy will ever recognise them.

Nature is always sparing of causes, and prodigal of effects: with a few elements variously distributed and combined, she produces in the physical world an endless variety of organic and inorganic matter; so, in the moral and mental constitution of man, a few innate principles suffice to produce innumerable dispositions and characters. All human beings, with the exception of those whose cases are anomalous, are born with the same faculties, as all the lower animals of the same species, are endowed with the same instincts, and as all plants and minerals of the same kind, are formed of the same elements, and possess the same specific properties. It is contrary to the simplicity, uniformity, and universality of nature's laws to consider the numberless dispositions of men as so many primitive principles, and to suppose that faculties, the essential characteristics of the human species, would remain unmanifested in a great number of individuals, owing to supposed depressions of the cranium.

Consistency and analogy incline us to recognise only a very limited number of innate powers, physical, moral, and intellectual, as common to all individuals, but varying in quality and activity in each. With regard to the infinite diversity of human character, it is only the effect of the relative proportion of energy of these powers which, differing in all individuals, produces different combinations, that are again modified by the ever-varying circumstances under which they act. The climate, the laws, the form of government, the degree of civilisation, the social relations, the mode of life, and the kind of education, exert all a direct influence over the human character.

That which phrenologists, for example, call the faculty of tune, does not appear to us to be a simple primitive power, but the result of an exquisite delicacy of hearing and of a peculiar sensibility of the nervous system, joined to that kind of sympathy which prompts to the imitation of modulations. What they call the faculty of language seems to be a compound power resulting from an active disposition to communication and imitation-the offspring of sympathy-combined with correct hearing, flexible vocal organs, clear conception, ready recollection, and quick