one phrase or proposition into
another.

Children, if they are not overawed by authority, if they are
encouraged in the habit of observing their own sensations, and if they
are taught precision in the use of the words by which they describe
them, will probably reason accurately where their own feelings are
concerned.

In appreciating the testimony of others, and in judging of chances and
probability, we must not expect our pupils to proceed very rapidly.
There is more danger that they should overrate, than that they should
undervalue, the evidence of others; because, as we formerly stated, we
take it for granted, that they have had little experience of
falsehood. We should, to preserve them from credulity, excite them in
all cases where it can be obtained, never to rest satisfied without
the strongest species of evidence, that of their own senses. If a
child says, "I am sure of such a thing," we should immediately examine
into his reasons for believing it. "Mr. A. or Mr. B. told me so," is
not a sufficient cause of belief, unless the child has had long
experience of A. and B.'s truth and accuracy; and, at all events, the
indolent habit of relying upon the assertions of others, instead of
verifying them, should not be indulged.

It would be waste of time to repeat those experiments, of the truth of
which the uniform experience of our lives has convinced us: we run no
hazard, for instance, in believing any one who simply asserts, that
they have seen an apple fall from a tree; this assertion agrees with
the great natural _law of gravity_, or, in other words, with the
uniform experience of mankind: but if any body told us, that they had
seen an apple hanging self-poised in the air, we should reasonably
suspect the truth of their observation, or of their evidence. This is
the first rule which we can most readily teach our pupils in judging
of evidence. We are not speaking of children from four to six years
old, for every thing is almost equally extraordinary to them; but,
when children are about ten or eleven, they have acquired a sufficient
variety of facts to form comparisons, and to judge to a certain degree
of the probability of any new fact that is related. In reading and in
conversation we should now exercise them in forming judgments, where
we know that they have the means of comparison. "Do you believe such a
thing to be true? and why do you believe it? Can you account for such
a thing?" are questions we should