cital of horrors exercises Destructiveness, the description of wild and mysterious events arouses Wonder, Cautiousness, and Secretiveness; but these are not the chief faculties by means of which business is transacted. When these faculties become highly active, the transition to sober observation and reflection is painful, and business is disliked. The exclusive study of the Fine Arts, even, is not favourable to the formation of business habits. Painting, poetry, sculpture, and music, exercise Ideality, the moral sentiments, and several of the intellectual powers; and unquestionably communicate to these refinement and susceptibility: but they leave many of the subordinate feelings and some of the reflecting faculties uncultivated; while the objects with which they are chiefly conversant, belong to the world of imagination. The study of the Fine Arts, therefore, when exclusive, both unfits the faculties for practical business, and withholds ideas connected with worldly affairs. Many persons, from observing the injurious effects of an excessive devotion to those pursuits on the mind's aptitude for serious study, have concluded that every species of mental exercise that is not laborious and disagreeable, must have a similar effect, and that therefore science also is apt to obstruct the formation of habits of energetic application. But the cases are widely different. The kind of exercise which the study of the natural sciences gives to the mind, is closely analogous to that which is necessary in the management of practical affairs. Those persons, therefore, who imagine that they have facts in support of the baneful influence of scientific instruction, in unfitting the mind for business, must have in view only the exclusive pursuit of one abstract science, such as mathematics, which is quite different from what is here recommended.

The study of the fine arts, poetry, and works of fiction, however, should not be undervalued. They are sources of great enjoyment, and when kept within due bounds, refine, exalt, and expand the mind, without weakening it. It is only excessive indulgence in the pleasures which they afford, that is practically injurious.

But there is one effect of the study of science, which I am prepared to admit. When the mind has been opened up to the designs of Providence, as displayed in creation, and has learned to draw its best enjoyments from contemplating their excellence and grandeur, and taking a part in their execution, there will be a distaste for excessive and exclusive moneygetting, and for the present long and toilsome hours of attendance at the manufactory, the shop, and the countinghouse. These will be felt to be inimical to man's moral and

intellectual progression, and be restricted. This result I hail as a positive advantage, believing, as I do, that all our wants may be amply supplied, and that time may still be left us to cultivate and enjoy our rational powers. Should this result follow in the course of ages, it will be an example, not of study producing incapacity for business, but of moral and intellectual enlightenment regulating the plan of life, and reducing it into conformity with the constitution of our rational

nature.

The class of persons who would be benefited by the lectures which this Association will bring forward, is one of great importance. They have votes for members of Parliament, and exercise political power. From among them are chosen the managers of many of the Hospitals for educating children, both male and female, in this city. They become commissioners of Police, and in that capacity superintend all public measures for increasing the health and comfort of the citizens. As members of Parochial Boards, they are entrusted with the management of the poor, and the education and training of the pauper children. They are elected members of the Town-Council of Edinburgh, and become the patrons of the City's public schools, of the High School, of most of the Chairs in the University, and of the City Churches.* Society is at present in a state of visible transition. Old ideas, habits, and practices, are fast disappearing, and the public mind is bounding forward eagerly in search of new and untried institutions. Is it not the interest of all, that sound knowledge of physical science and the nature of man, and through them of the laws of God's Secular Providence, should be diffused among all ranks, and particularly among that class which is respectable by its morality, and influential by its property, and which requires only intellectual information to render it at once the ornament and safeguard of the state? Mechanics' Institutions provide instruction in science for operative tradesmen; and the Universities open their gates for the aristocracy; but females of all ranks, and the middle

One of the first consequences of the instruction of this class of the community in science, will probably be the reformation of the primary schools of this City, and the second, if not simultaneous with the other, will be the ventilating of the churches and public rooms; in both of which matters the profound ignorance of the last generation continues to inflict much evil on the present inhabitants of Edinburgh. First Edition.- -Since the foregoing note was written in 1833, a good deal has been done in Edinburgh to remove the evils of defective

ventilation in public rooms. Second Edition, 1837.- -Since 1837, great progress has been made in extending and improving schools, and promoting sanitary measures in Edinburgh, 1848.

classes of citizens, although at least as important and interesting from their numbers, their position, and their wealth, as either of the other two, have hitherto been overlooked. They are now pursuing the only course that can conduct them to an equality in point of knowledge with the classes above and below them in the social scale,-coming forward to provide the means of instruction for themselves. This is precisely what they ought to do. They possess among themselves too many well-informed, able, and active men, to render it necessary for them to go into leading-strings under the great in literature and science; and too much wealth to permit them to solicit pecuniary aid from any individuals out of their own circle. They come forth, therefore, in their own strength and might, conscious that, by union and co-operation, they can accomplish their own intellectual regeneration. Edinburgh stands pre-eminent in literary and philosophical reputation among the cities of the world; but she would place a still more noble crown of glory on her head, could she boast of industrious citizens combining talents for every species of practical usefulness with refined taste and cultivated understandings. She would then become the preceptress of the world; and prove, by her example, that labour, intelligence, morality, and religion, go hand in hand in promoting the highest enjoyments of man.

In these Lectures, then, I have endeavoured to shew, that man is a progressive and improvable being; that he is permitted to some extent to control the external elements and apply them to his advantage; that where this power is denied, he may, by observing their operation, accommodate his conduct to their influence; that to do either, knowledge of nature and its qualities is indispensable; that a knowledge of nature is a knowledge of the laws of God's Secular Providence; that the command to acquire knowledge is thus written in his constitution; and that discoveries in science and inventions in art are intended to give him leisure for studying nature, and for cultivating his moral and intellectual faculties. This Association is founded in the spirit of these views:let us hold out to it the hand of encouragement, and promote its success.

[The Philosophical Association, after flourishing for some years, became dormant; but it was subsequently revived under the title of the Philosophical Institution, an account of which is given in the Appendix, No. 1.]

(POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION.)

REMARKS ON PRIZES AND PLACE-TAKING IN SCHOOLS.

The question has been much agitated, whether it be expedient to use prizes as a stimulus to exertion in education. I beg leave to offer a few remarks on the subject, leaving the reader to decide for himself.

The natural rewards for exerting each faculty are, first, The pleasure attending the exercise of the faculty itself; secondly, The value of the objects which it desires, when attained; and, thirdly, The consequential advantages which may result from that attainment. Thus, a highly gifted musician derives intense pleasure, directly from exercising his talents; by cultivating them he lays up a store of enjoyment for himself on which he may draw at pleasure; and he may also obtain admiration from the public, and fortune, if he choose to dedicate his abilities to their gratification.

In some children certain faculties enjoy high spontaneous activity, and the pleasure and natural advantages attending the exercise of them, suffice to render them as active as any sensible teacher or parent would desire. If a child, for example, have a great natural talent for languages, he will learn to read with facility, and experience great pleasure in reading. Books and study will be his delight, and in many instances it will be more necessary to offer him a recompense for giving up this pleasure and resorting to play for the benefit of his health, than to stimulate him by honours and prizes to greater mental application. The same remarks apply to children who have great natural talents for drawing, or calculation, or mechanics, or natural history, or any other pursuit. They will study in the direction of these faculties with an ardour and a relish that will render all extrinsic rewards superfluous. For such children, therefore, prizes, as a stimulus, are altogether unnecessary.

There are other children, however, who have very little natural talent for particular branches of education which their parents wish them to learn, such as languages, or arithmetic, or mathematics; and as they do not experience any direct pleasure in such studies, teachers have resorted to punishment for deficiency, and prizes for proficiency, in the prescribed exercises, as motives to exertion. It cannot be denied that these have a certain effect in promoting the attainment of the end in view. A boy with a moderate talent

for languages will not study Greek and Latin for his own gratification; whereas he may be induced to do so by receiving a severe beating if he fail, and a gold medal if he succeed, in learning certain lessons.

Even the advocates of prizes, therefore, should, in consistency, confine the application of them to the object of drawing forth exertion from children in studies which are necessary for their destination in life, but to which they are not naturally inclined. The indiscriminate administration of them is clearly erroneous.

Prizes are of two kinds, either marks of personal distinction, such as high places in a class, or medals worn for a day; -or property, such as books, sums of money, or medals of gold and silver, bestowed on the individual as gifts.

The value of the former, namely places and decorations, consists in the gratification which they afford to the self-love and vanity of the wearer. They mark, not that he is a good scholar, but that he is the best compared with his fellows, all of whom may be only indifferently accomplished.

Two obvious objections present themselves to prizes administered in this form. The gratification consists not in the attainment of an object valuable in itself, but in a feeling of personal superiority over a neighbour. The circumstance which makes a child dux, or brings him the decoration of medal, is not the actual possession of a certain quantity of useful knowledge, or of learning, but the accident of the other children in the class with him being more stupid or less diligent than himself. The mind of the child does not always contemplate the medal as the certificate that he has acquired a certain amount of information, but often as the symbol of a personal triumph over all the other children in his class. It therefore fosters pride and selfish ambition in the successful competitor, and envy and jealousy in the unsuccessful, feelings which are naturally strong, and need to be repressed; while it does not in any appreciable degree cultivate the love of knowledge for its own sake, which is the legitimate object of education. I have known children in whom these passions were strong, bribe their more talented school-fellows, in whom they were less energetic, by giving them money or playthings, to resign high places and medals in their favour. They carried home the trophies thus acquired, and were lauded by their parents for their genius. This was a direct cultivation of falsehood and cunning, in addition to vanity and pride, in the children, and was calculated to exercise a baneful influence over their future lives.

Prizes administered in the form of donations of books,