of action, without which he could not cultivate and completely unfold all his faculties. So deeply implanted is the innate sense of this right, that ages of oppression and slavery have been unable to root it out of the human heart. Consistently with his original freedom, he has been endowed with the privilege of exerting over his faculties a voluntary control, by which he can modify, regulate, and perfect them: thus he becomes the subject of culture and discipline. Different from the animal tribes, which reach the perfection of their being, not by gradual development, but at once and without the aid of education, he is a progressive creature; his powers are unfolded, and his acquisitions made only through a process of slow and careful training. He has to learn everything, while they instinctively possess all the knowledge which they want. Education is the law of his nature, as uncontrollable and limited instinct is that of the brute.

Some animals, it is true, are found susceptible of a certain degree of education; but this exception, limited as it is, does not invalidate the general law of the immutability of the brute creation. Besides, the education which these animals receive from man is not required by them; it does not add to their well-being; it does not enable them to provide for their own wants better than other animals of their own species; it begins and ends with the individuals, without being in the least profitable to them or to their offspring.

All the acquirements which contribute towards human perfection, arise from a proper cultivation of the faculties. Exercise is the source of that cultivation; it is the vital principle of education. Exercise affects the original powers of man's constitution in two ways: it imparts to them energy in proportion to its quantity, and generates peculiar qualities, aptitudes, or capacities, consistently with its particular nature. But, in the application of this great principle, excess and exclusiveness must be avoided. An excessive or exclusive exercise of any faculty would be as prejudicial as its utter neglect. It is the preponderating activity of some one faculty to the exclusion of the others, or the overindulgence in one particular mode of its action, which produces those inconsistencies of character, those aberrations of mind, often observed in men. Although the innate powers are few in number, the qualities, aptitudes, and capacities to which their varied exercise and their different degrees of native activity give rise, are so numerous, so diversified, and so opposite in their kind, that man may be the noblest, or the most contemptible being of the creation, according as they are properly or improperly directed

and exercised. Hence, although his organisation is universal and invariable, his physical, moral, and intellectual character, which depends on the qualities acquired, varies with time, place, and the progress of civilisation.

The faculties have all their legitimate spheres of usefulness, and the benefits to be derived from each depend on their harmonious development. They are, in fact, different instruments, all of which are indispensable for attaining man's possible perfection; and, as such, they require to be duly improved and properly applied, to secure the ends for which he was placed on this earth. Although connected by secret ties, the faculties are yet so independent of each other, that each demands special and distinct exercises for its due cultivation. It is the noble office of education to direct their natural activity, to extend and multiply their various energies, as also to indicate the means by which they may best perform their work, and by which they are made subservient to happiness. Education may, in fact, be said to have for its object the securing of happiness through the perfection of all the faculties. The study of the three species of faculties—the physical, the moral, and the intellectual-and the investigation of their relations to external nature, have given rise to the three systems of philosophy which are respectively based on sensation, sentiment, and reason, and which, under the name of Eclectic Philosophy, M. Cousin has combined in so admirable a manner.

If our pursuit after happiness always proves vain, it is because the innate powers on the harmonious development and good direction of which it depends, have, many of them, opposite tendencies; and, consequently, their collective perfection can never be accomplished, even with our best endeavours. The highest state of happiness is reserved for a better world-for a world in which perfection does exist.

SECT. III.-SUCCESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FACULTIES.

In order to advance towards the three-fold perfection, education should take under her guidance the faculties of man, as they gradually dawn, with a view to aid their spontaneous action, and improve them by proper cultivation. At the moment of birth, the faculties are in complete torpor. The physical faculties are the first which manifest themselves, because they are indispensable to our existence; next appear the moral faculties to direct the organs of sensation, and to secure the well-being of the individual. The intellectual powers are usually the last to be in full

activity. Thus, nature indicates the order to be followed in the successive cultivation of these different classes of faculties, until the general manifestation of them all permits their simultaneous training. The principle of slow progression runs through all that is created to grow and improve. Gradation is an invariable law of nature; and it is in conforming to that law that the great art of education consists.

In aiming at the complete development of all the primitive powers of the child, the educator should observe, as nearly as he can, the order of nature. However, it is difficult to determine in a definite manner the order in which all the faculties should be brought under the control of discipline; for, our constitutions and characters being infinitely diversified, as are also the circumstances in which we are placed, the same means and principles of action cannot always be used with the same effect. But, whatever be the order followed in the cultivation of the faculties, the important point is gradually to bring the cultivation of each in unison with that of the others. In endeavouring to attain this harmonious development, the educator should avail himself of the intimate connexion and mutual relation which exist between them all, and which render the exercise of each subservient to the cultivation of all. The affinity which thus brings the three classes of faculties into immediate contact is one of the many manifestations of that admirable unity which marks all the works of the Almighty. *

Precedence, however, should be given to physical and moral training over intellectual pursuits, because the physical and the moral faculties provide for our first wants as living beings and as members of society. Their proper direction is useful under any circumstances, should even mental culture be entirely neglected. The latter, on the contrary, would be useless in the absence of health, and might be pernicious in the absence of morality. The worth of man is in proportion to his morality rather than to his intellectuality.

The proper development of the moral faculties is the safest foundation for the most extensive state of liberty in man; for their general activity and their good direction give him the right to gratify all his desires, which, under their benign influence, can only be virtuous and rational.

These three classes of faculties are considered by German philosophers as the three branches of one science, and are treated as such, under the name of Anthropology (science of man).

SECT. IV. OF HABIT.

No time will be lost, no effort will be fruitless, if each step is made sure as the child advances through the educational course. This can be effected only by the continual repetition of the exercises on which depend the energy of the faculties and the acquirements proposed by education. The more frequently any action is repeated the more easily and rapidly is it executed; on the other hand, ease and rapidity of execution tend to make it less perceived, more independent of the will, and, thereby, longer persevered in. Such an action is said to be a habit. All physical, moral, and intellectual operations are liable to become habits.

These habits produce in us permanent and, as it were, instinctive dispositions which constitute a new mode of existence; hence they have been called "second nature." The acquisitions made through any of the faculties being rendered habitual by repeated exercise, adhere so tenaciously to our individuality, and are, in every respect, so closely assimilated with the elements of our native constitutions, that it is, in many instances, impossible to distinguish the acquired from the innate dispositions.

Habits promote or impede our progress, according as they are good or bad. Good habits extend the power of our faculties and facilitate our improvement, because the readiness and spontaneity with which habitual ideas are recalled and habitual actions are performed, permit these faculties to apply their activity to new acquisitions, and these ideas or actions to be brought in aid of further improvement. Bad habits are obstacles to improvement, because, escaping attention as they do, the will has little control over them: it must therefore be difficult to guard against their intrusion, or avoid their evil influence. Habit changes good actions into virtues and faults into vices; it enables us to add new to old acquisitions, and gives stability to all physical, moral, and intellectual acquirements. The chief business of education may be said to consist in forming good habits and preventing bad ones. Solomon declared the power of habit when he said, "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." It is by the admirable law of habit that man, although possessing very limited powers, can indefinitely extend his acquisitions and advance towards perfection.

Dr. A. Combe has so clearly shown the effects of repetition

and the advantage of habit as applied to study, that we cannot forbear quoting him at some length.

"If we repeat," he says, "any kind of mental effort, every day at the same hour, we, at last, find ourselves entering upon it without premeditation, when the time approaches; and, in like manner, if we arrange our studies in accordance with this law, and take up each regularly in the same order, a natural aptitude is soon produced, which renders application more easy than by taking up the subjects as accident may direct. Nay, the tendency to periodical and associated activity occasionally becomes so great in the course of time, that the faculties seem to go through their operations almost without being conscious of effort, while their facility of action becomes so prodigiously increased, as to give unerring certainty where, at first, great difficulty was experienced.

"The necessity of judicious repetition in mental and moral education is, in fact, too little adverted to, because the principle on which it is effectual has not been understood. To induce facility of action in the organs of the mind, practice is as essential as it is in the organs of motion. Repetition is necessary to make a durable impression on the brain; and, according to this principle, it follows, that in learning a language, or science, six successive months of application will be more effectual in fixing it in the mind and making it a part of its furniture, than double or triple the time, if the lessons are interrupted by long intervals. Hence, it is a great error to begin any study and then break off to finish at a later period. The ennui is thus doubled, and the success greatly diminished. The best way is to begin at the proper age, and to persevere till the end is attained. This accustoms the mind to sound exertion and not to fits of attention. Hence, the mischief of long vacations, and hence the evil of beginning studies before the age at which they can be understood, as in teaching the abstract rules of grammar to children, to succeed in which implies in them a power of thinking and an amount of general knowledge, which they cannot possess."

* Elements of Physiology.