rely voluntary; they will
have no tutor to excite them to exertion, no nice habitual
arrangements to assist them in their daily occupations. It is of
consequence, therefore, that we should substitute the power of
voluntary, for the habit of associated, attention. With young children
we depend upon particular associations of place, time, and manner,
upon different sorts of excitement, to produce habits of employment:
but as our pupils advance in their education, all these temporary
excitements should be withdrawn. Some large, but distant object, some
pursuit which is not to be rewarded with immediate praise, but rather
with permanent advantage and esteem, should be held out to the
ambition of youth. All the arrangements should be left to the pupil
himself, all the difficulties should be surmounted by his own
industry, and the interest he takes in his own success and
improvement, will now probably be a sufficient stimulus; his
preceptor will now rather be his partner than his master, he should
rather share the labour than attempt to direct it: this species of
sympathy in study, diminishes the pain of attention, and gives an
agreeable interest even in the most tiresome researches. When a young
man perceives that his preceptor becomes in this manner the companion
of his exertions, he loses all suspicion that he is compelled to
mental labour; it is improper to say _loses_, for in a good education
this suspicion need not ever be created: he discovers, we should
rather say, that all the habits of attention which he has acquired,
are those which are useful to men as well as to children, and he feels
the advantage of his cultivated powers on every fresh occasion. He
will perceive, that young men who have been ill educated, cannot, by
any motive, command their vigorous attention, and he will feel the
cause of his own superiority, when he comes to any trial of skill with
inattentive _men of genius_.

One of the arguments which Bayle uses, to prove that fortune has a
greater influence than prudence in the affairs of men, is founded upon
the common observation, that men of the best abilities cannot
frequently recollect, in urgent circumstances, what they have said or
done; the things occur to them perhaps a moment after they are past.
The fact seems to be, that they could not, in the proper moment,
command their attention; but this we should attribute to the want of
prudence in their early education. Thus, Bayle's argument does not