some ostentatious, and some half intelligible observations occur. We were pleased with her sentiments on the impropriety of making the mathematics the basis of study, and think with her that the acquisition of languages is better calculated to unfold the early capacities. Her reasonings seem to bottom in this very substantial ground, that the mathematics have a necessary tendency to circumscribe the operations of the mind at a period when growth and expansion, rather than precision, are agreeable to the process of nature. "This study in early life," says Madame de Staël, "exercises only the mechanism of the understanding; children who are employed so early in calculating, lose all that seed of the imagination which is then so fine and so fertile, and do not acquire in its room any transcendant correctness of mind. The problems of life are complicated; none are positive, none are absolute; we must guess, we must choose by the help of perceptions and suppositions, which have no relation to the infallible progress of calculation." Business, morals, and the interests of the understanding itself, require a more general, more applicable, and less meagre employment of the faculties. And we entirely subscribe to the opinion of the author that, "the sense of an expression in a foreign language is at once a grammatical and an intellectual problem; that the spontaneous activity of the young mind, which alone truly develops the faculty of thought, is in a lively manner excited by this study; and that the number of faculties which it awakens at the same time, gives it the advantage over every other species of labour."

The foregoing observations are evidently more applicable to a foreign university than our own. The youth of our own univer sities are usually arrived at that period of their lives when the mathematics are a very becoming and essential part of their system of study. The remarks, too, which occur in this place on the contrivances so much in use for turning study into an amusement by means of philosophical playthings, cannot be very applicable to the season of life at which instruction is received even at foreign universities; they can carry reform only into the institutions of the nursery. But the reader by the time he has arrived at this part of the work will probably have become reconciled to the desultory manner of the author, who, after yielding herself up to a vague and undisciplined course of reflection, seems to have laboured in vain to superinduce method upon what had been executed without a plan, by a mere mechanical process of division. Fantastic, however, and pedantic as are most of these divisions, each section and fracture displays a shining surface, which shews the intrinsic excellence of the ore thus extracted from the mine of her understanding. The passage which contains reflections on the favourite

method of teaching science by toys and playthings is one of those perfect pieces which may be taken as a good specimen of the quality of the mass.

"Parmi les systèmes d'éducation, il en est aussi qui conseillent de commencer l'enseignement par les sciences naturelles; elles ne sont dans l'enfance qu'un simple divertissement; ce sont des hochets savants qui accoutument à s'amuser avec méthode et à étudier superficiellement. On s'est imaginé qu'il falloit, autant qu'on le pouvoit, éviter de la peine aux enfants, changer en délassement toutes leurs études, leur donner de bonne heure des collections d'histoire, naturelle pour jouets, des expériences de physique pour spectacle. Il me semble que cela aussi est un système erroné. S'il étoit possible qu'un enfant apprît bien quelque chose en s'amusant, je regretterois encore pour lui le développement d'une faculté, l'attention, faculté qui est beaucoup plus essentielle qu'une connoissance de plus. Je sais qu'on me dira que les mathématiques rendent particulièrement appliqué; mais elles n'habituent pas à rassembler, apprécier, concentrer: l'attention qu'elles exigent est, pour ainsi dire, en ligne droite: l'esprit humain agit en mathématiques comme un ressort qui suit une direction toujours la même.

"L'éducation faite en s'amusant disperse la pensée; la peine en tout genre est un des grands secrets de la nature: l'esprit de l'enfant doit s'accoutumer aux efforts de l'étude, comme notre ame à la souffrance. Le perfectionnement du premier âge tient au travail, comme le perfectionnement du second à la douleur: il est à souhaiter sans doute que les parents et la destinée n'abusent pas trop de ce double secret; mais il n'y a d'important à toutes les époques de la vie que ce qui agit sur le centre même de l'existence, et l'on considère trop souvent l'être moral en détail. Vous enseignerez avec des tableaux, avec des cartes, une quantité de choses à votre enfant, mais vous ne lui apprendrez pas à apprendre; et l'habitude de s'amuser, que vous dirigez sur les sciences, suivra bientôt un autre cours quand l'enfant ne sera plus dans votre dépendance." (Vol. I. p. 166, 167.)

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In an equally admirable manner Mr. Burke has observed, that difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. Pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial."

To pass without notice the observations of this eminent lady upon the duties of moral instruction, especially in relation to the poorer classes, would be to do her an act of great injustice, and to

forget the duty which we have imposed upon ourselves of placing in a prominent view whatever we find in the passing literature of the day, which brings strength and lustre to virtuous sentiment.

A whole chapter is dedicated to the praise of the plan of instruction practised in the school of Mr. Pestalozzi, whose principal object, however, being the cultivation of the mathematics, some difficulty is felt by his lively eulogist in reconciling her profound admiration of his scheme with her own previous decision in favour of languages as the preferable basis of education. This incongruity she endeavours to explain away in a manner which shews that her best excuse is the too common inconsistency of friendship. His attention to the principles of honesty, morals, and religion, cannot but be highly commendable; and we did not read the testimony of Madame de Staël without pleasure, from which we learn, that "in so large and popular an establishment every thing is transacted in the name of the Deity, in the name of that sentiment, noble, elevated, and pure, which is the habitual religion of the heart." We take to ourselves credit, however, for being " sagacious from afar" of that " quarry' from which a mortal smell is diffused through the atmosphere of religion. Nothing announces itself by more special indications than German philosophy. We are told that the forms of worship are not followed in this school with more exactness than elsewhere. It is to be the religion of the heart, a religion of sentiment, a holy love of truth for its own sake. It does not appear that this religion is to be superinduced, or to be derived from any thing external. No: this religion of the heart is a native of the heart; there it is to be born, bred, and matriculated. It is curious, and would be ridiculous, but for the solemn aspect of every thing that touches the soul, to observe the sorry subterfuges by which a sentimental religionist keeps off the interference of revelation. If we were to tell our readers that there was something which, in the words of Madame de Staël, "sheds a noble calm over the sentiments of the heart," and which Mr. Pestalozzi "judged necessary in the operations of the mind;" they would probably, after hearing so much about religion, at once conclude, that such a result could be brought about only by such an agent. But philosophy knows her business better; she never assigns more force than is necessary to produce a given result. This grand agent is "openness of character." So that openness of character, which a person not bred in the German schools might have considered only as a consequence, is elevated into a cause, and 66 produces a noble calm over the affections of the heart," which is as much as to say, that this noble calm is self-produced. It is wonderful to hear what a deal is done in

this establishment of Mr. Pestalozzi by the automata of the mind. The great motive to virtuous conduct is "the love of virtue," which Madame de Staël assures us "is the spring which sets the establishment in motion." And in another place we are informed, that the "principal merit of the school" is the "open honesty of Mr. Pestalozzi, an honesty carried into the sphere of the understanding, and which deals with ideas as scrupulously as with men."

The notable discovery, however, of this prince of schoolmasters appears, according to Madame de Staël, to be this: "That punishments and rewards are never necessary to excite children to industry. It is, perhaps, the first time (continues Madame de Staël) that a school of a hundred and fifty children has been conducted without the stimulus of emulation and fear. How many evil sentiments are spared to the heart of man when we drive from him jealousy and humiliation, when he sees no rivals in his comrades, no judges in his masters. Rousseau wished to subject the child to the laws of destiny. Pestalozzi himself creates that destiny during the course of the child's education, and directs its decrees towards his happiness and improvement. The child feels himself free, because he enjoys himself amidst the general order which surrounds him, the perfect equality of which is not deranged even by the talents of the children whether more or less distinguished. Success is not the object of pursuit, but merely progress towards a certain point which all endeavour to reach with the same sincerity."

In the course of our perusal of these volumes, we have sometimes been irreverent enough to smile at Madame de Staël's philosophical enthusiasm; but at this singular development of the plan of this school for children, after some struggle to be de corous, we have at length given ourselves up to a hearty laugh. To educate a child without the help of a passion, an affection, or a motive, by means of a destiny created by the master, and a mere progress towards a point, was to accomplish something in moral and intellectual discipline, which we did not imagine to be within the compass of all the self-motive philosophies of Germany toge ther, supposing them to accumulate their powers. For Mr. Pestalozzi's plan to be properly tried, the subject should be placed in vacuo; nothing should press, or resist, or impel, so that the action may be wholly from within, and that action nothing but a pure enlargement of dimension, a gigantic growth of mind, derived alone from an internal principle without a name. Who is there that does not understand at once this simple and beautiful contrivance, which produces such wonderful results in éducation without the machinery of hopes or fears, of rewards or

punishments, of humiliation or emulation, or even of wish or motive, save what may peradventure be included in the idea of destiny or progress towards a point? The end being once proposed and established, must furnish its own motive; it must borrow nothing from the natural impressions either of awe, affection, or ambition; no, not even from desire of success: it must be destiny, and destiny created by the master whom the child is not to consider even as his judge, his rewarder, or his punisher. Poor little things we cannot help suspecting that the "expression of reflection" which Madame de Staël has observed their round and delicate features to assume, under this culture means nothing more than sad hearts and sour faces. What would one not give to release from this thraldom these innocent sufferers; to teach them their catechism and the ten commandments, and to give them an hour or two every day for puss in the corner!

Germany was full grown in philosophy before she could be said to walk alone in a literature properly German. Forty or fifty years is the utmost period that can be assigned to the existence of this home cultivation of polite letters. Of scholars and critics in classic learning, of philosophers, of statesmen, and of military leaders, Germany has for centuries back produced her proportion; but the German language pretended to no treasures of its own till in a very advanced stage in the intellectual progress of the nation. A settled habit of mind, a strong determination of intellect was already formed in the country, when a taste for general literature began eagerly to be cultivated; and it could not but happen that among a people so circumstanced, poetry and eloquence would be characteristically affected by the refinements of a philosophy which had become the mistress both of their language and imagination. An infant literature is always in a state of extreme sensibility to impressions. And in that wilderness of thought, that boundless region of abstraction "which philosophy had disclosed, every thing was calculated to produce those of wonder and terror. Extravagant conception, mystical propensity, the wildest conflicts of passion, and the most diversified operations of sentiment, becanie the distinguishing marks of German poetry. The same character of independence, the same disdain of precedent, have extended themselves to every province of literature; and the man of letters, as well as the philosopher, has aimed only at gathering round himself a circle of admirers, without the sinallest reverence for existing -standards of composition. A literature so constituted would find its most suitable materials in the numerous legends of chivalry and romance with which the north of Europe, and Germany more ST DI OD 34

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