REMARKS ON EDUCATION. IN every age, and in every country, men have evinced their sense of the importance of education, by bestowing upon it such attention, as the circumstances in which they have been placed, and the degree of civilization which they have attained, have enabled them to bestow. Education is, indeed, the grand engine, on which, as it is well or ill conducted, the prosperity or ruin of empires ultimately depends. The subject has been ably and variously treated, and cannot, perhaps, admit of much that is new, even in the mode of illustration; but though new objects may not be introduced, those that have been already seen may probably be placed in new attitudes, or exhibited from different points of view. Should a man, for more than twenty years, have had his attention directed to one object, he must have B beheld it with great indifference, if he has discovered nothing that has escaped the notice of other observers. A few remarks on education may not then be improper, and I trust will not be unacceptable; and as that philosophy, which is built on the firm basis of inductive reasoning, is found to stand fast, when the fabric of the theorist lies a scattered ruin, I may venture the more boldly to offer observations, which are the result, not of speculation, but of experience. Education, in the most extensive sense of the term, includes whatever has a tendency to bring to the greatest perfection, of which they are susceptible in the present state, those bodily and mental powers which nature has conferred on man. Considering it in this view, we should probably find, that no people, whether barbarous or polished, were ever known entirely to neglect it. But what is, or has been termed education, must ever vary with the state of society. Whilst men are in a rude state, their attention is chiefly directed to improve themselves in such exercises of the body, as may render them most eminent in the chase or in the fight; but when they have attained a higher degree of refinement, education consists more particularly in the cultivation of the mind. It is the dictate of common sense, confirmed by the testimony of the voyager and traveller, that even savages, who have scarcely sufficient skill to erect themselves a hut, as a protection from the inclemency of the weather, soon discover the importance of communicating to their offspring a knowledge of those practices which necessity teaches them to adopt, and which experience convinces them are advantageous. The son, thus profiting by the experience of the sire, uses it as the foundation of farther experiment; and, as facts and observations gradually accumulate, arts are formed. The practice of every art must precede the learning of it by rules, or even the existence of those rules by which it is afterwards taught; and though, in an advanced state of society, rules facilitate the progress of a learner, it is probably owing to their number, and the too great reliance which is frequently placed on them, that, especially in the imitative arts, we then perceive so little originality. Of the antediluvian world little is known; the only narrative of their existence, and their deeds, is contained in the Volume of Inspiration, and that narrative is extremely brief. There, however, we learn that the Supreme Being, to a certain extent, made himself known to men; that he gave them precepts for the regulation of their conduct to himself, and to one another; and enjoined the duty of teaching these to their children. We perceive, too, that, whether in consequence of supernatural assistance, or of that necessity which has been justly styled the parent of invention, some arts were known, the existence of |