manage every child, would be like a person undertaking to describe a voyage to the moon.  Every person’s own good sense must decide for them according to character and circumstances; and as to rewards, the same discrimination must be used.  One child will set much value on a little book, whilst another will destroy it in a day; and though the book might be worth the sixpence, a half-penny worth of what they call good stuff would be much more valuable.  I have had more business done sometimes for a plum than for a sixpenny book.  It is never necessary to give the child badges of distinction, and to allow it as many orders and degrees as an Austrian field-marshal.  Crosses at the button holes, and bits of ribbon on the shoulders are unnecessary; they throw an apple of discord between the young creatures, who have sense enough to see that these things are frequently given away with a wonderous lack of discrimination, and sometimes to please parents more than reward merit.  A carraway comfit put into the mouth of an infant will do more good than all the badges of distinction that I have mentioned, as a reward; but with respect to punishment, more will be said on it in my larger work, when we come to treat of National Education.  Each creation of the most High is truly wonderful, and worthy of our constant study.  We may learn lessons of the truest wisdom from the meanest leaf or insect, if we would regard it as one of His works.  But how much more may be learnt, and what an amount of useful instruction may be gained, by a study of the finite mind, the highest work in creation.  Many have turned their attention to minerals, plants, and animals, and thus added to our stores of knowledge.  If equal attention had been paid to the young mind, to mark the gradual germination of its intellectual and moral powers, how much more accurate would our knowledge be of the proper methods of dealing with it both in instruction, direction, and punishment.  Thus to study it has been the aim of my life, and I have made observations on thousands of children.  When this great and living book is more constantly read, the contents of this humble volume may have a better chance of being appreciated; and the utter absurdity of many things palmed upon the public for the education of infants made glaringly manifest.

CHAPTER XI.

LANGUAGE.

Means for conveying instruction—­Method of teaching the alphabet in connection with objects—­Spelling—­Reading—­Developing lessons—­Reading lessons in Natural History—­The Arithmeticon—­Brass letters—­Their uses.

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“Without things, words, accumulated by misery in the memory, had far better die than drag out a miserable existence in the dark.  Without words, theirs stay and support, things unaccountably disappear out of the storehouse, and may be lost for ever; but bind a thing with a word, a strong link, stronger than any steel, and softer than any silk, and the captive remains for ever happy in its bright prison-house.”—­Wilson.