e
most vehement utterance, and a thousand constrained cadences, without
its being possible that he should see in them, either reasonableness or
propriety.

I would not have a child required to commit any thing to memory more
than is absolutely necessary. If, however, he be a youth of spirit, he
will probably learn some things in this manner, and the sooner because
it is not expected of him. It will be of use for him to repeat these
with a grave and distinct voice, accommodated to those cadences, which
the commas, the periods, and the notes of interrogation, marked in his
author, may require, but without the smallest instruction to humour the
gay, or to sadden the plaintive.

Another article, that makes a conspicuous figure in the education of our
youth, is composition. Before they are acquainted with the true
difference between verse and prose, before they are prepared to decide
upon the poetical merit of Lily and Virgil, they are called upon to
write Latin verse themselves. In the same manner some of their first
prose compositions are in a dead language. An uniform, petty, ridiculous
scheme is laid down, and within that scheme all their thoughts are to be
circumscribed.

Composition is certainly a desirable art, and I think can scarcely be
entered upon too soon. It should be one end after which I would
endeavour, and the mode of effecting it will be farther illustrated in
the sequel, to solicit a pupil to familiarity, and to induce him to
disclose his thoughts upon such subjects as were competent to his
capacity, in an honest and simple manner. After having thus warmed him
by degrees, it might be proper to direct him to write down his thoughts,
without any prescribed method, in the natural and spontaneous manner, in
which they flowed from his mind. Thus the talk of throwing his
reflections upon paper would be facilitated to him, and his style
gradually formed, without teaching him any kind of restraint and
affectation. To the reader who enters at all into my ideas upon the
subject, it were needless to subjoin, that I should never think of
putting a youth upon the composition of verse.

From all I have said it will be sufficiently evident, that it would be a
constant object with me to model my instructions to the capacity of my
pupil. They are books, that beyond all things teach us to talk without
thinking, and use words without meaning. To this evil there can be no
complete remedy. But shall we abolish literature,