words, when they come to reason, especially in moral matters, is the cause of very obscure and uncertain notions. They use these undetermined words confidently, without much troubling their heads about a certain fixed meaning; whereby besides the ease of it, they obtain this advantage -that, as in such discourse, they are seldom in the right, so they are as seldom to be convinced that they are in the wrong; it being just the same, to go about to draw these persons out of their mistakes, who have no settled notions, as to dispossess a vagrant of his habitation, who has no settled abode. The chief end of language being to be understood, words serve not for that end, when they do not excite in the hearer, the same idea which they stand for in the mind of the speaker. LOCKE.

In our vain attempts to overturn the order of nature, by presenting objects and pursuits to the mind, which demand the exertion of faculties of which it is not yet in possession, we are guilty of a double species of imposition. We impose upon our pupils, by making them conceive, that they get ideas of things, on which in reality they have no ideas; and we impose upon ourselves, by their seeming progress—an imposition which is greatly aided, by the facility with which the sound of words is committed to memory in early life.

Thus, without paying any attention to the cultivation of the first and fundamental faculties, we flatter ourselves, that we have abridged the path to wisdom and knowledge; while, in reality, we have been leading them from it, in the direct road to conceit and ignorance. HAMILTON.

THAT it is by means of the senses, that ideas are first acquired, is a fact which I apprehend to be now established, beyond the reach of controversy. It has for more than half a century, been generally admitted by philosophers: but the belief of it has, as far as I know, induced little additional attention, towards that period of life, when the knowledge acquired by the senses, first begins to be communicated to the mind. The reason of this neglect is obvious. Memory extends not to those years of childhood, when our first ideas are acquired. We can recollect the period, when knowledge was first communicated by others; but of our previous conceptions we have no remembrance. We therefore look upon those first years as a sort of blank in our existence; and naturally consider them the same, with regard to our children. All our pains, all our attention with respect to their minds, is therefore reserved for that period, when we think it proper, that according to custom, they should begin to receive instruction.

It is no uncommon thing to see a mother, who has never assisted her child in the acquirement of a single idea during infancy, expressing the utmost anxiety for its learning to read. As soon as the age for tasks arrives, tasks must be given, or the child is lost. Thus is an invincible aversion to learning often inspired; while, if the tenth part of the pains then bestowed, had been given at a more early period, curiosity would have been awakened, and the mind would have been prepared for the reception of farther instruction.The seed that is to bring forth an hundred fold, must be sown in good and prepared ground.

IBID.

ON CATECHISMS.

COMMITTING to memory the words of a Catechism, may indeed improve that faculty, as every other exercise of it will do; but no more knowledge is imparted, than if the words of the answer, had no connection with one another.

Many can recollect in early life, thus labouring to commit a number of words to memory as a task, to which they did not attach the smallest idea. It is on this principle, I conceive, that if you teach children to answer a question in their own lan

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guage, you in the most effectual manner ascertain the state of their knowledge, on the subject to which the question relates. In conversing with the young, I should always consider such an answer, even where there was a considerable mixture of inaccuracy in it, more satisfactory than merely being able to repeat, even most correctly, the language of the most perfect formula. The one necessarily requires the exercise of the judgment, the other does not; nay, it is most commonly, quite an exclusive exercise of the memory.

But a farther advantage of the former mode is, that the parent not only ascertains the knowledge of the child, but he can see where that knowledge is most defective, and apply himself to remedy the defect; while, as the mere repetition of the words of a Catechism does not enable him to ascertain whether or not there is any real knowledge at all, he must of course be completely prevented from discovering where any deficiency lies, which needs to be supplied by further instruction.

INNES.

WHOEVER Wishes that religious principles should influence the heart, and govern the conduct in future life, must early influence the heart and affections in its favour. This, from all that we know of the human mind, can only be effected by

means of agreeable associations; and seldom, I fear, are these attached to a Catechism, in the way in which Catechisms are usually taught.— Still, if religious principle were to be instilled by such means, it might be proper to force perseverance, in spite of aversion. But what principle can an infant acquire from sounds to which he can attach no sense? Before we have been at any pains to inspire him with the love of God, can we imagine, that principles which ought to be rooted and grounded in love, may be forced upon the mind, in the form of dry and didactic compositions, or of elaborate metaphysical speculations, deduced through such a chain of argument, as we ourselves can scarcely trace? And is it before the mind is able to compare and to combine; before the powers of reflection have begun to operate, and while the ideas received by means of the senses, are yet few and confused, that we can expect an infant to comprehend them?

If a father intend that his son should be a mathematician, he will not begin at four or five years old to make him get by heart the problems of Euclid; but following nature in the gradual developement of the faculties, he will begin by the simplest propositions of arithmetic, and not vainly expect, that by a jingle of words he is to teach his child the nature of a cycloid, or parabola, before he has been taught by his senses, that two and two make four. HAMILTON.