delusion, and whether, in spite of contrary appearances, they are not a species of prisoners, upon whom their keepers have formed some malignant design, which has never yet been properly brought to light. The line which is ordinarily drawn between men and children is so forcible, that they seem to themselves more like birds kept in a cage, or sheep in a pen, than like beings of the same nature. They see what is at present going on respecting them; but they cannot see what it means, or in what it is intended to terminate.

Rousseau, to whom the world is so deeply indebted for the irresistible energy of his writings, and the magnitude and originality of his speculations, has fallen into the common error in the point we are considering. His whole system of education is a series of tricks, a puppet-show exhibition, of which the master holds the wires, and the scholar is never to suspect in what manner they are moved. The scholar is never to imagine that his instructor is wiser than himself.

They

are to be companions; they are to enter upon their studies together; they are to make a similar progress; if the instructor drop a remark which facilitates their progress, it is to seem the pure effect of accident. While he is conducting a process of the most uncommon philosophical research, and is watching every change and motion of the

machine, he is to seem in the utmost degree frank, simple, ignorant and undesigning.

The treatise of Rousseau upon education is a work of the highest value. It contains a series of most important speculations upon the history and structure of the human mind; and many of his hints and remarks upon the direct topic of education, will be found of inestimable value. But in the article here referred to, whatever may be its merit as a vehicle of fundamental truths, as a guide of practice it will be found of the most pernicious tendency. The deception he prescribes would be in hourly danger of discovery, and could not fail of being in a confused and indistinct manner suspected by the pupil; and in all cases of this sort a plot discovered would be of incalculable mischief, while a plot rejected could have little tendency to harm.

If we would have our children frank and sincere in their behaviour, we must take care' that frankness and sincerity shall not be a source of evil to them. If there be any justice in the reasonings of a preceding essay*, punishment would find no share in a truly excellent system of education; even angry looks and words of rebuke would be wholly excluded. But upon every system it cannot fail to appear in the highest degree impolitic and mischievous, that young persons * Essay X.

should have reason given them to repent of their sincerity.

There can be no one thing of higher importance in the education of youth, than the inspiring them with frankness. What sort of an idea must we form to ourselves of a young person, who regards his parent or instructor as a secret enemy or as an austere censor, and who is solicitous, as much as possible, to withdraw all his actions and thoughts from his observation? What sort of education must that be, where the thing pressed by the youth upon his confident with the most earnest importunity is, Do not let my father know. any thing about it? It is worthy of observation, how early some children contract a cunning eye, a look of care and reserve, and all the hollow and hypocritical tricks and gestures, by which the persons who have the care of them are to be deceived and put upon a wrong scent.

The child that any reasonable person would wish to call his own or choose for the object of his attachment, is a child whose countenance is open and erect. Upon his front sit fearless confidence and unbroken hilarity. There are no wrinkles in his visage and no untimely cares. His limbs, free and unfettered, move as his heart prompts him, and with a grace and agility infinitely more winning than those of the most skilful dancer. Upon the slightest encouragement, he

leaps into the arms of every thing that bears a human form. He welcomes his parent returning from a short absence, with a bounding heart. He is eager to tell the little story of his joys and adventures. There is something in the very sound of his voice, full, firm, mellow, fraught with life and sensibility; at the hearing of which my bosom rises, and my eyes are lighted up. He sympathises with sickness and sorrow, not in a jargon purposely contrived to cajole the sufferer, but in a vein of unaffected tenderness. When he addresses me, it is not with infantine airs and in an undecided style, but in a manner that shews him fearless and collected, full of good sense, of prompt judgment, and appropriate phraseology. All his actions have a meaning; he combines the guilelessness of undesigning innocence with the manliness of maturer years.

It is not necessary to contrast this character with that of a child of an opposite description, to demonstrate its excellence. With how ill a grace do cares and policy sit upon the countenance of an infant? How mortifying a spectacle, to observe his coldness, his timidity, the falseness of his eye and the perfidy of his wiles! It is too much, to drive the newly arrived stranger from human society, to inspire him with a solitary and self-centred spirit, and to teach him to fear an enemy, before he has known a friend!

ESSAY XIII.

OF MANLY TREATMENT AND BEHAVIOUR.

IT has sometimes been a question among those who are accustomed to speculate upon the subject of education, whether we should endeavour to diminish or increase the distinction between youth and manhood, whether children should be trained to behave like men, or should be encouraged to the exercise of manners peculiar to themselves.

Pertness and primness are always in some degree ridiculous or disgusting in persons of infant years. There is a kind of premature manhood which we have sometimes occasion to observe in young persons, that is destructive of all honest and spontaneous emotion in its subjects. They seem as if they were robbed of the chief blessing of youth, the foremost consolation of its crosses and mortifications-a thoughtless, bounding gaiety. Their behaviour is forced and artificial. Their temper is unanimating and frigid. They discuss and assert, but it is with a borrowed judgment. They pride themselves in what is eminently their shame; that they are mere parrots or echoes to repeat the sounds formed by another. They are impertinent, positive and self-sufficient. Without any pretensions to an extraordinary maturity of intellect, they are destitute of the mo