ence of measurement; 9. Astronomy, the relation of our globe to the other component parts of the vast system of Creation; 10. Anthropology, including Phrenology, or the physical, moral, and intellectual nature of man, with reference to the preservation of health and the attainment of happiness; 11. Political Economy, the production and distribution of national wealth; 12. the history of nations and countries, ancient and modern, especially those in which the pupil is most interested-of their literature, eminent men, resources, &c."*

By means of the Incidental Method, several branches can be taught together, not only without hindering, but aiding each other. Grammar may be taught incidentally with reading, while reading is taught incidentally with realities. Rewards and punishments will be found unnecessary under such a system. These are addressed to the inferior and selfish feelings, and are the greatest possible impediments to moral training. Perhaps the rewards are the worse of the two. The punishment degrades the punished individual, but the reward excites the selfishness of the whole school. In the old system of tasks of useless words, and tedious and repulsive objects of study, these stimulants were indispensable; but when education shall suit and, in suiting, delight every faculty, they will remain a solecism in education, and scarcely be historically believed.

Objections and incredulity may be expected here, as well as on the subject of infant schools. It will be asked, is it intended or expected that the education now described shall ALL be given by fourteen years of age? It is intended and expected, I answer, because it has been accomplished. Much is done, and without overtasking, at the infant school. At six years old the pupils leave a well-conducted infant school much better informed and more accomplished in the instrumentary branch of reading than we find them, under the old system, at ten or even twelve years of age. This is great gain. But the juvenile school endures eight years, and no one accustomed to see the waste of time and, what is more, of mind, under the old errors, is in a condition to estimate the

* To this list, although we are aware that little more than a taste for the fine arts could be attained by the inmates of infant schools, we would add Music, both vocal and instrumental, as tending materially to refine and elevate our nature, and, if properly taught, opening a wide and never-failing source of pleasure to its cultivators. In this department the Singing Master (see Analyst, v., 334) will be the best guide. Nor should Poetry, Painting, and Sculpture, by any means be overlooked, excepting where the talents requisite for such pursuits are decidedly deficient.-EDs.

amount and the quality of training and knowledge which may be given in these precious years. Those who say that to teach science at that early age is to give a mere smattering, judge from what would at present be the result if the listless victims of Latin and Greek were to have science superadded to their other tastes, with the short portion of time which would be spared for it on the one hand, and the superficial attention which school-boys habitually pay to anything that is taught by their present instructors. But when the dead languages, and all other languages but the vernacular, are rigidly excluded from disturbing the important years of elementary education-when study from the infant-school upwards has been made, not irksome, as it now is, but delightful, as it it may be and ought to be, divested of fear of punishment, divested of the distracting selfishness of honours, prizes, and captivating the faculties with the rich food which a wise and benevolent Creator intended for them, and, be it marked, especially suited to them in the natural activity of their energies, we shall hear no more of smattering, but shall see even middling talent master of all the useful knowledge, as concentrated in the prospectus already quoted, by fourteen years of age, and fitted for ulterior education and the business of life-a striking contrast to the Latinists and Grecians at the same age, who, for all useful purposes in life, are like creatures dropped from the moon.

The elements of Chemistry and Mechanics have been practically taught to the youth of both sexes in Edinburgh, by Dr. Boswell Reid. The experiment has been made on boys taken indiscriminately from the different schools, and young ladies from an extensive ladies' seminary; and, although the study was engaged in over and above the ordinary pursuits of the pupils, the results were completely satisfactory, and give promise of still greater success when scientific studies shall have a more important and systematic place in elementary education.

Again, it is asked is this thorough elementary education to be given to ALL, without modification according to different turns of mind and degrees of talent? I answer, TO ALL, because all have the faculties to which it is addressed, and all were intended to use these faculties in gaining an acquaintance with the creation in

* Until views like these be adopted, and, what is more, acted upon by every one engaged in the instruction of youth, we see no reasonable prospect of attaining that success in education which can alone effect a sensible improvement in the human race.-) -EDS.

VOL. VI.-NO. XIX.

which they are placed. An average capacity for this purpose is possessed by all persons who are not mentally defective. No doubt the acquisitions will be made in different degrees, according to aptness to learn and retentive power to remember; but all will gain something, and the general intelligence will be advanced. Ulterior education will take its character from the line in life which it is intended the pupil shall follow. This ought, of course, to be chosen according to the particular bent of mind-in other words, the relative power of particular faculties.

Are FEMALES to be educated to the same extent as males? My answer is by another question-Why not? The faculties must determine the education, and, unless it can be shown that these differ in the male and female human being, the question is answered in the affirmative. Nay, it concerns society even more that those who are the first imparters of knowledge and trainers of faculties should be themselves well-informed and thoroughly trained. But I would go further-I would have the two sexes educated together. While no evil can result from this-for they never can be more safely together-much good in mutual encouragement and refinement will be attained. The female pupils as well as the males will, moreover, have the benefit of the best male instruction, females assisting and communicating to their own sex needle-work and other strictly female branches. This plan has been pursued, in Lancasterian and other large schools of both sexes, with marked

success.

Last of all, it will be asked, is it intended that a complete elementary education shall be given to all classes, including the WORKING CLASSES ?—It is so intended. An elementary education, equally extensive in its quantity and excellent in its quality, should be given to the child of the day-labourer as to that of the peer; and till the time shall come that this is realized, the condition of the working classes will not be improved, for this alone will enable them to improve their own condition. But, it will be replied, how can the working classes continue their children at school till they are fourteen ?—They need, and will have, their labour earlier. In the unfrugal and intemperate habits which want of education renders so prevalent among that class, every aid to the scanty means is laid hold of eagerly by the half-starving families, and the labour of the very infant is put in requisition. This is a most injurious course, arising from a deep-seated social vice. The young should not be engaged in regular labour till fourteen: neither their muscular frame nor nervous energy is in the required condition. The

parents ought, by their own exertions-so far assisted by their children as in no respect to interfere with their school hours, by far the most important to them, and the best preparative for future prosperity and happiness-to be perfectly competent to support the whole family; if they are not, by all their exertions, and by the utmost frugality and temperance, there is social disease somewhere, but there is none that may not be discovered and removed. I am merely pointing out the best course, not modifying my views to meet prejudices, or giving way to prevailing errors. No child, till fourteen, ought to be for a less period in school every day than four hours; and there would remain sufficient time for that degree of moderate and wholesome labour which the parents ought reasonably to demand.

The silly objections to over-educating the working classes, as it is called, are now only urged by the uneducated. Instead of indisposing them to labour, the great lesson which a knowledge of man and his relation to Creation will teach them, that labour is no evil and no degradation, and, above all, that it is called for by Nature and necessity, will render them more willing as well as more intelligent labourers, will induce them to abridge their own hours of labour, and employ their leisure in the enjoyment of the superior faculties, intellectual and moral, which would not have been given them if they had not been intended for human happiness.* Some vital changes in social institutions are called for to allow an improved education to produce all its beneficial effects; but these are changes from ignorant and, therefore, hurtful errors to cover truth, and truth is ever attended with blessings in its practical application. Education will facilitate those changes even by that partial diffusion which, in spite of vicious institutions, will follow from a natural over the established system. There will long be a force disturbing the progression, drawing back the machine, but there will be two steps onward for one retrograde; gain will be made on the whole, and in a future and more favoured generation it will be all gain together.

I must reserve the vital subject of the TRAINING OF TEACHERS -of proper normal establishments-for another number of the

ance.

* This is precisely the state to which we should like to see the labouring classes brought, namely, to a proper sense of their own rights and importTo such a condition they will assuredly come, and the arrival of it will be materially hastened by the spread of knowledge amongst all classes, despite the narrow-minded opposition which vainly endeavours to maintain arbitrary superiority.-EDS.

Analyst. I would only here remark that the immensely improved elementary education advocated in the foregoing pages will call teachers of very superior qualifications into that field of labour, and elevate the character of that most useful class of men to the rank it ought to hold, namely, that of a fourth learned profession. It is despised now, because, from its intellectual poverty, it is not worthy of a higher estimation.

I have thus sketched, much more briefly than the important subject merits, a SYSTEM OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. A plan for its realization—in the establishment of a minister of public instruction, a board of commissioners, subordinate boards, normal schools, and an infant and juvenile school in every parish of the empiremay yet afford matter for much future discussion.

[Our thanks are due to our talented correspondent for the able and impartial manner in which he has treated the important subject of the above paper. Were views such as these generally admitted, and universally practised, the benefit to future ages would be incalculable. We feel convinced, with Mr. Simpson, that schools, on however good a general plan, must fail in their objects unless the teacher has a thorough knowledge of human nature-in other words, unless he be a good phrenologist. His learning may be great, his intentions good, but still he may fail as an instructor; and we hold that schools and instructors will be alike useless and pernicious as long as any one set of faculties is cultivated to the partial or entire exclusion of all others. In fine, to be aware what are the primitive faculties that belong to man, and hence to know what studies are fitted for him, РHRENOLOGY must be our guide, our sure and never-failing instructor.—EDs.]

REMARKABLE PLANTS FOUND GROWING IN THE VICINITY OF BIRMINGHAM IN THE YEAR 1836.

"Qualis apes æstate novâ per florea rura

Exercet sub sole labor."-VIRG., Æneid, lib. i., 430.

As one of the objects of the Analyst is to register and make known to the public the personal observations of individuals in the various branches of Natural History, perhaps a few notices of the habitats of some of the less common of our native plants found growing, during the year 1836, in the neighbourhood of Birming