MEMORY AND INVENTION.

Before we bestow many years of time and pains upon any object, it may be prudent to afford a few minutes previously to ascertain its precise value. Many persons have a vague idea of the great value of memory, and, without analyzing their opinion, they resolve to cultivate the memories of their children as much, and as soon, as possible. So far from having determined the value of this talent, we shall find that it will be difficult to give a popular definition of a good memory. Some people call that a good memory which retains the greatest number of ideas for the longest time. Others prefer a recollective to a retentive memory, and value not so much the number; as the selection, of facts; not so much the mass, or even the antiquity, of accumulated treasure, as the power of producing current specie for immediate use. Memory is sometimes spoken of as if it were a faculty admirable in itself, without any union with the other powers of the mind. Amongst those who allow that memory has no independent claim to regard, there are yet many who believe, that a superior degree of memory is essential to the successful exercise of the higher faculties, such as judgment and invention. The degree in which it is useful to those powers, has not, however, been determined. Those who are governed in their opinions by precedent and authority, can produce many learned names, to prove that memory was held in the highest estimation amongst the great men of antiquity; it was cultivated with much anxiety in their public institutions, and in their private education. But there were many circumstances, which formerly contributed to make a great memory essential to a great man. In civil and military employments, amongst the ancients, it was in a high degree requisite. Generals were expected to know by heart the names of the soldiers in their armies; demagogues, who hoped to please the people, were expected to know the names of all their fellow-citizens.[39] Orators, who did not speak extempore, were obliged to get their long orations by rote. Those who studied science or philosophy, were obliged to cultivate their memory with incessant care, because, if they frequented the schools for instruction, they treasured up the sayings of the masters of different sects, and learned their doctrines only by oral instruction. Manuscripts were frequently got by heart by those who were eager to secure the knowledge they contained, and who had not opportunities of recurring to the originals. It is not surprising, therefore, that memory, to which so much was trusted, should have been held in such high esteem.

At the revival of literature in Europe, before the discovery of the art of printing, it was scarcely possible to make any progress in the literature of the age, without possessing a retentive memory. A man who had read a few manuscripts, and could repeat them, was a wonder, and a treasure: he could travel from place to place, and live by his learning; he was a circulating library to a nation, and the more books he could carry in his head, the better: he was certain of an admiring audience if he could repeat what Aristotle or Saint Jerome had written; and he had far more encouragement to engrave the words of others on his memory, than to invent or judge for himself.

In the twelfth century, above six hundred scholars assembled in the forests of Champagne, to hear the lectures of the learned Abeillard; they made themselves huts of the boughs of trees, and in this new academic grove were satisfied to go almost without the necessaries of life. In the specimens of Abeillard's composition, which are handed down to us, we may discover proofs of his having been vain of a surprising memory; it seems to have been the superior faculty of his mind: his six hundred pupils could carry away with them only so much of his learning as they could get by heart during his course of lectures; and he who had the best memory, must have been best paid for his journey.[40]

The art of printing, by multiplying copies so as to put them within the easy reference of all classes of people, has lowered the value of this species of retentive memory. It is better to refer to the book itself, than to the man who has read the book. Knowledge is now ready classed for use, and it is safely stored up in the great common-place books of public libraries. A man of literature need not incumber his memory with whole passages from the authors he wants to quote; he need only mark down the page, and the words are safe.

Mere erudition does not in these days ensure permanent fame. The names of the AbbÉ de Longuerue, and of the Florentine librarian Magliabechi, excite no vivid emotions in the minds of those who have heard of them before; and there are many, perhaps not illiterate persons, who would not be ashamed to own that they had never heard of them at all. Yet these men were both of them, but a few years ago, remarkable for extraordinary memory and erudition. When M. de Longuerue was a child, he was such a prodigy of memory and knowledge, that Lewis the fourteenth, passing through the abbÉ's province, stopped to see and hear him. When he grew up, Paris consulted him as the oracle of learning. His erudition, says d'Alembert,[41] was not only prodigious, but actually terrible. Greek and Hebrew were more familiar to him than his native tongue. His memory was so well furnished with historic facts, with chronological and topographical knowledge, that upon hearing a person assert in conversation, that it would be a difficult task to write a good historical description of France,[42] he asserted, that he could do it from memory, without consulting any books. All he asked, was, to have some maps of France laid before him: these recalled to his mind the history of each province, of all the fiefs of the crown of each city, and even of each distinguished nobleman's seat in the kingdom. He wrote his folio history in a year. It was admired as a great curiosity in manuscript; but when it came to be printed, sundry gross errours appeared: he was obliged to take out several leaves in correcting the press. The edition was very expensive, and the work, at last, would have been rather more acceptable to the public, if the author had not written it from memory. Love of the wonderful must yield to esteem for the useful.

The effect which all this erudition had upon the AbbÉ de Longuerue's taste, judgment, and imagination, is worth our attention. Some of his opinions speak sufficiently for our purpose. He was of opinion that the English have never done any good,[43] since they renounced the study of Greek and Arabic, for Geometry and Physics. He was of opinion, that two antiquarian books upon Homer, viz. Antiquitates HomericÆ and Homeri Gnomologia, are preferable to Homer himself. He would rather have them, he declared, because with these he had all that was useful in the poet, without being obliged to go through long stories, which put him to sleep. "As for that madman Ariosto," said he, "I sometimes divert myself with him." One odd volume of Racine was the only French book to be found in his library. His erudition died with him, and the world has not profited much by his surprising memory.

The librarian Magliabechi was no less famous than M. de Longuerue for his memory, and he was yet more strongly affected by the mania for books. His appetite for them was so voracious, that he acquired the name of the glutton of literature.[44] Before he died, he had swallowed six large rooms full of books. Whether he had time to digest any of them we do not know, but we are sure that he wished it; for the only line of his own composition which he has left for the instruction of posterity, is round a medal. The medal represents him sitting with a book in his hand, and with a great number of books scattered on the floor round him. The candid inscription signifies, that to become learned it is not sufficient to read much, if we read without reflection. The names of Franklin and of Shakespeare are known wherever literature is cultivated, to all who have any pretensions to science or to genius; yet they were neither of them men of extraordinary erudition, nor from their works should we judge that memory was their predominant faculty. It may be said, that a superior degree of memory was essential to the exercise of their judgment and invention; that without having treasured up in his memory a variety of minute observations upon human nature, Shakespeare could never have painted the passions with so bold and just a hand; that if Franklin had not accurately remembered his own philosophical observations, and those of others, he never would have made those discoveries which have immortalized his name. Admitting the justice of these assertions, we see that memory to great men is but a subordinate servant, a treasurer who receives, and is expected to keep faithfully whatever is committed to his care; and not only to preserve faithfully all deposits, but to produce them at the moment they are wanted. There are substances which are said to imbibe and retain the rays of light, and to emit them only in certain situations. As long as they retain the rays, no eye regards them.

It has often been observed, that a recollective and retentive memory are seldom found united. If this were true, and that we had our choice of either, which should we prefer? For the purposes of ostentation, perhaps the one; for utility, the other. A person who could repeat from beginning to end the whole Economy of Human Life, which he had learned in his childhood, might, if we had time to sit still and listen to him, obtain our admiration for his extraordinary retentive memory; but the person who, in daily occurrences, or interesting affairs, recollects at the proper time what is useful to us, obtains from our gratitude something more than vain admiration. To speak accurately, we must remark, that retentive and recollective memories are but relative terms: the recollective memory must be retentive of all that it recollects; the retentive memory cannot show itself till the moment it becomes recollective. But we value either precisely in proportion as they are useful and agreeable.

Just at the time when philosophers were intent upon trying experiments in electricity, Dr. Heberden recollected to have seen, many years before, a small electrical stone, called tourmalin,[45] in the possession of Dr. Sharpe at Cambridge. It was the only one known in England at that time. Dr. Heberden procured it; and several curious experiments were made and verified with it. In this instance, it is obvious that we admire the retentive, local memory of Dr. Heberden, merely because it became recollective and useful. Had the tourmalin never been wanted, it would have been a matter of indifference, whether the direction for it at Dr. Sharpe's at Cambridge, had been remembered or forgotten. There was a man[46] who undertook, in going from Temple Bar to the furthest part of Cheapside and back again, to enumerate at his return every sign on each side of the way in its order, and to repeat them, if it should be required, either backwards or forwards. This he exactly accomplished. As a playful trial of memory, this affords us a moments entertainment; but if we were to be serious upon the subject, we should say it was a pity that the man did not use his extraordinary memory for some better purpose. The late king of Prussia, when he intended to advance Trenck in the army, upon his first introduction, gave him a list of the strangest names which could be picked out, to learn by rote. Trenck learned them quickly, and the king was much pleased with this instance of his memory; but Frederick would certainly never have made such a trial of the abilities of Voltaire.

We cannot always foresee what facts may be useful, and what may be useless to us, otherwise the cultivation of the memory might be conducted by unerring rules. In the common business of life, people regulate their memories by the circumstances in which they happen to be placed. A clerk in a counting-house, by practice, learns to remember the circumstances, affairs, and names of numerous merchants, of his master's customers, the places of their abode, and, perhaps, something of their peculiar humours and manners. A fine lady remembers her visiting list, and, perhaps, the dresses and partners of every couple at a crowded ball; she finds all these particulars a useful supply for daily conversation, she therefore remembers them with care. An amateur, who is ambitious to shine in the society of literary men, collects literary anecdotes, and retails them whenever occasion permits. Men of sense, who cultivate their memories for useful purposes, are not obliged to treasure up heterogeneous facts: by reducing particulars to general principles, and by connecting them with proper associations, they enjoy all the real advantages, whilst they are exempt from the labour of accumulation.

Mr. Stewart has, with so much ability, pointed out the effects of systematic arrangement of writing, reading, and the use of technical contrivances in the cultivation of the memory, that it would be a presumptuous and unnecessary attempt to expatiate in other words upon the same subject. It may not be useless, however, to repeat a few of his observations, because, in considering what further improvement may be made, it is always essential to have fully in our view what is already known.

"Philosophic arrangement assists the memory, by classing under a few principles, a number of apparently dissimilar and unconnected particulars. The habit, for instance, of attending to the connection of cause and effect, presents a multitude of interesting analogies to the minds of men of science, which escape other persons; the vulgar feel no pleasure in contemplating objects that appear remote from common life; and they find it extremely difficult to remember observations and reasonings which are foreign to their customary course of associated ideas. Even literary and ingenious people, when they begin to learn any art or science, usually complain that their memory is not able to retain all the terms and ideas which pour in upon them with perplexing rapidity. In time, this difficulty is conquered, not so much by the strength of the memory, as by the exercise of judgment: they learn to distinguish, and select the material terms, facts and arguments, from those that are subordinate, and they class them under general heads, to relieve the memory from all superfluous labour.

"In all studies, there is some prevalent associating principle, which gradually becomes familiar to our minds, but which we do not immediately discover in our first attempts. In poetry, resemblance; in philosophy, cause and effect; in mathematics, demonstrations continually recur; and, therefore, each is expected by persons who have been used to these respective studies.

"The habit of committing our knowledge to writing, assists the memory, because, in writing, we detain certain ideas long enough in our view to perceive all their relations; we use fixed and abbreviated signs for all our thoughts; with the assistance of these, we can prevent confusion in our reasonings. We can, without fatigue, by the help of words, letters, figures, or algebraic signs, go through a variety of mental processes, and solve many difficult problems, which, without such assistance, must have been too extensive for our capacities.

"If our books be well chosen, and if we read with discrimination and attention, reading will improve the memory, because, as it increases our knowledge, it increases our interest in every new discovery, and in every new combination of ideas."

We agree entirely with Mr. Stewart in his observations upon technical helps to the memory; they are hurtful to the understanding, because they break the general habits of philosophic order in the mind. There is no connection of ideas between the memorial lines, for instance, in Grey's Memoria Technica, the history of the Kings or Emperors, and the dates that we wish to remember. However, it may be advantageous in education to use such contrivances, to assist our pupils in remembering those technical parts of knowledge, which are sometimes valued above their worth in society.

The facts upon which the principles of any science are founded, should never be learnt by rote in a technical manner. But the names and the dates of the reigns of a number of kings and emperors, if they must be remembered by children, should be learnt in the manner which may give them the least trouble.[47]

It is commonly asserted, that our memory is to be improved by exercise: exercise may be of different kinds, and we must determine what sort is best. Repetition is found to fix words, and sometimes ideas, strongly in the mind; the words of the burden of a song, which we have frequently heard, are easily and long remembered. When we want to get any thing by rote, we repeat it over and over again, till the sounds seem to follow one another habitually, and then we say we have them perfectly by rote.[48] The regular recurrence of sounds, at stated intervals, much assists us. In poetry, the rhymes, the cadence, the alliteration, the peculiar structure of the poet's lines, aids us. All these are mechanical helps to the memory. Repetition seems much more agreeable to some people than to others; but it may be doubted whether a facility and propensity to repetition be favourable to rational memory. Whilst we repeat, we exclude all thought from the mind; we form a habit of saying certain sounds in a certain order; but if this habit be afterwards broken by any trifling external circumstances, we lose all our labour. We have no means of recollecting what we have learned in this manner. Once gone, it is gone for ever. It depends but upon one principle of association. Those who exert ingenuity as well as memory in learning by heart, may not, perhaps, associate sounds with so much expedition, but they will have the power of recollection in a greater degree. They will have more chances in their favour, besides the great power of voluntary exertion: a power which few passive repeaters ever possess. The following lines are easily learned:

To a person who merely learned the sounds in these lines by rote, without knowing the sense of the words, all the advantage of the appropriated names and offices of the sylphs would be lost. No one, who has any sense of propriety, can call these sylphs by wrong names, or put them out of their places. Momentilla and the watch, Zephyretta and the fan, Crispissa and the lock of hair, Brillante and the diamond drops, are so intimately associated, that they necessarily recur together in the memory. The following celebrated lines on envy, some people will find easy, and others difficult, to learn by heart:

The flow of these lines is not particularly easy; those who trust merely to the power of reiteration in getting them by rote, will find the task difficult; those who seize the ideas, will necessarily recollect their order, and the sense will conduct them to their proper places with certainty: they cannot, for instance, make the clouds adorn the sun's rays before the sun's powerful beams have drawn up the vapours. This fixes the place of the four last lines. The simile of merit and the sun, and envy and the clouds, keeps each idea in its order; if any one escapes, it is easily missed, and easily recalled.

We seldom meet with those who can give us an accurate account of their own thoughts; it is, therefore, difficult to tell the different ways in which different people manage their memory. We judge by the effects frequently, that causes are the same, which sometimes are entirely different. Thus we, in common conversation, should say, that two people had an equally good memory, who could repeat with equal exactness any thing which they had heard or read. But in their methods of remembering, these persons might differ essentially; the one might have exerted much more judgment and ingenuity in the conduct of his memory than the other, and might thus have not only fatigued himself less, but might have improved his understanding, whilst the other learned merely by rote. When Dr. Johnson reported the parliamentary debates for the gentleman's Magazine, his judgment, his habit of attending to the order in which ideas follow one another in reasoning, his previous knowledge of the characters and style of the different speakers, must considerably have assisted his memory. His taste for literary composition must have shown him instantly where any argument or allusion was misplaced. A connecting phrase, or a link in a chain of reasoning, is missed as readily by a person used to writing and argument, as a word in a line of poetry is missed by a poetic ear. If any thing has escaped the memory of persons who remember by general classification, they are not only by their art able to discover that something is missing, but they have a general direction where to find it; they know to what class of ideas it must belong; they can hunt from generals to particulars, till they are sure at last of tracing and detecting the deserter; they have certain signs by which they know the object of which they are in search, and they trust with more certainty to these characteristics, than to the mere vague recollection of having seen it before. We feel disposed to trust the memory of those who can give us some reason for what they remember. If they can prove to us that their assertion could not, consistently with other facts, be false, we admit the assertion into the rank of facts, and their judgment thus goes surety for their memory.

The following advertisement (taken from the star of the 21st September, 1796) may show that experience justifies these theoretic notions:

In the common mode of education, great exactness of repetition is required from pupils. This seems to be made a matter of too much importance. There are circumstances in life, in which this talent is useful, but its utility, perhaps, we shall find, upon examination, is over-rated.

In giving evidence of words, dates, and facts, in a court of justice, the utmost precision is requisite. The property, lives, and characters of individuals depend upon this precision.

But we must observe, that after long detailed evidence has been given by a number of witnesses, an advocate separates the material from the immaterial circumstances, and the judge in his charge again compresses the arguments of the counsel, so that much of what has been said during the trial, might as well have been omitted. All these superfluous ideas were remembered to no purpose. An evidence sometimes, if he be permitted, would tell not only all that he remembers of the circumstances about which he is examined, but also a number of other circumstances, which are casually associated with these in his memory. An able advocate rejects, by a quickness of judgment which appears like intuition, all that is irrelevant to his argument and his cause; and it is by this selection that his memory, in the evidence, perhaps, of twenty different people, is able to retain all that is useful. When this heterogeneous mass of evidence is classed by his perspicuous arrangement, his audience feel no difficulty either in understanding or recollecting all which had before appeared confused. Thus the exercise of the judgment saves much of the labour of memory; labour which is not merely unnecessary, but hurtful, to our understanding.

In making observations upon subjects which are new to us, we must be content to use our memory unassisted at first by our reason; we must treasure up the ore and rubbish together, because we cannot immediately distinguish them from each other. But the sooner we can separate them, the better. In the beginning of all experimental sciences, a number of useless particulars are recorded, because they are not known to be useless; when, from comparing these, a few general principles are discovered, the memory is immediately relieved, the judgment and inventive faculty have power and liberty to work, and then a rapid progress and great discoveries are made. It is the misfortune of those who first cultivate new sciences, that their memory is overloaded; but if those who succeed to them, submit to the same senseless drudgery, it is not their misfortune, but their fault. Let us look over the history of those who have made discoveries and inventions, we shall perceive, that it has been by rejecting useless ideas that they have first cleared their way to truth. Dr. Priestley's Histories of Vision and of Electricity, are as useful when we consider them as histories of the human mind, as when we read them as histories of science. Dr. Priestley has published a catalogue of books,[49] from which he gathered his materials. The pains, he tells us, that it cost him to compress and abridge the accounts which ingenious men have given of their own experiments, teach us how much our progress in real knowledge depends upon rejecting all that is superfluous. When Simonides offered to teach Themistocles the art of memory, Themistocles answered, "Rather teach me the art of forgetting; for I find that I remember much that I had better forget, and forget" (consequently) "some things which I wish to remember."

When any discovery or invention is completed, we are frequently astonished at its obvious simplicity. The ideas necessary to the discovery, are seldom so numerous as to fatigue our memory. Memory seems to have been useful to inventors only as it presented a few ideas in a certain happy connection, as it presented them faithfully and distinctly to view in the proper moment. If we wish for examples of the conduct of the understanding, we need only look into Dr. Franklin's works. He is so free from all affectation, he lays his mind so fairly before us, that he is, perhaps, the best example we can select. Those who are used to look at objects in a microscope, say, that full as much depends upon the object's being well prepared for inspection, as upon the attention of the observer, or the excellence of the glass.

The first thing that strikes us, in looking over Doctor Franklin's works, is the variety of his observations upon different subjects. We might imagine, that a very tenacious and powerful memory was necessary to register all these; but Dr. Franklin informs us, that it was his constant practice to note down every hint as it occurred to him: he urges his friends to do the same; he observes, that there is scarcely a day passes without our hearing or seeing something which, if properly attended to, might lead to useful discoveries. By thus committing his ideas to writing, his mind was left at liberty to think. No extraordinary effort of memory was, even upon the greatest occasions, requisite. A friend wrote to him to inquire how he was led to his great discovery of the identity of lightning and electricity; and how he first came to think of drawing down lightning from the clouds. Dr. Franklin replies, that he could not answer better than by giving an extract from the minutes he used to keep of the experiments he made, with memorandums of such as he purposed to make, the reasons for making them, and the observations that rose upon them. By this extract, says Dr. Franklin, you will see that the thought was not so much an out of the way one, but that it might have occurred to any electrician.[50]

When the ideas are arranged in clear order, as we see them in this note, the analogy or induction to which Dr. Franklin was led, appears easy. Why, then, had it never been made by any other person? Numbers of ingenious men were at this time intent upon electricity. The ideas which were necessary to this discovery, were not numerous or complicated. We may remark, that one analogy connecting these observations together, they are more easily recollected; and their being written down for a particular purpose, on which Dr. Franklin's mind was intent, must have made it still easier to him to retain them.

The degree of memory he was forced to employ, is thus reduced to a portion in which few people are defective. Now, let us suppose, that Dr. Franklin, at the time he wrote his memorandum, had fully in his recollection every previous experiment that had ever been tried on electricity; and not only these, but the theories, names, ages, and private history, of all the men who had tried these experiments; of what advantage would this have been to him? He must have excluded all these impertinent ideas successively as they rose before him, and he must have selected the fifteen useful observations, which we have mentioned, from this troublesome multitude. The chance in such a selection would have been against him; the time employed in the examination and rejection of all the unnecessary recollections, would have been absolutely wasted.

We must wish that it were in our power, when we make observations upon nature, or when we read the reflections of others, to arrange our thoughts so as to be ready when we want to reason or invent. When cards are dealt to us, we can sort our hand according to the known probabilities of the game, and a new arrangement is easily made when we hear what is trumps.

In collecting and sorting observations, Dr. Franklin particularly excelled; therefore we may safely continue to take him for our example. Wherever he happened to be, in a boat, in a mine, in a printer's shop, in a crowded city, or in the country, in Europe or America, he displays the same activity of observation. When any thing, however trifling, struck him which he could not account for, he never rested till he had traced the effect to its cause. Thus, after having made one remark, he had fresh motive to collect facts, either to confirm or refute an hypothesis; his observations tending consequently to some determinate purpose, they were arranged in the moment they were made, in the most commodious manner, both for his memory and invention; they were arranged either according to their obvious analogies, or their relation to each other as cause and effect. He had two useful methods of judging of the value of his own ideas; he either considered how they could be immediately applied to practical improvements in the arts, or how they could lead to the solution of any of the great problems in science. Here we must again observe, that judgment saved the labour of memory. A person, who sets about to collect facts at random, is little better than a magpie, who picks up and lays by any odd bits of money he can light upon, without knowing their use.

Miscellaneous observations, which are made by those who have no philosophy, may accidentally lead to something useful; but here we admire the good fortune, and not the genius, of the individuals who make such discoveries: these are prizes drawn from the lottery of science, which ought not to seduce us from the paths of sober industry. How long may an observation, fortunately made, continue to be useless to mankind, merely because it has not been reasoned upon! The trifling observation, that a straight stick appears bent in water, was made many hundred years before the reason of that appearance was discovered! The invention of the telescope might have been made by any person who could have pursued this slight observation through all its consequences.

Having now defined, or rather described, what we mean by a good memory, we may consider how the memory should be cultivated. In children, as well as in men, the strength of that habit, or perhaps of that power of the mind which associates ideas together, varies considerably. It is probable, that this difference may depend sometimes upon organization. A child who is born with any defect in his eyes, cannot possibly have the same pleasure in objects of sight, which those enjoy who have strong eyes: ideas associated with these external objects, are, therefore, not associated with pleasure, and, consequently, they are not recollected with any sensations of pleasure. An ingenious writer[51] supposes, that all the difference of capacity amongst men ultimately depends on their original power of feeling pleasure or pain, and their consequent different habits of attention.

When there is any defect in a child's organization, we must have recourse to physics, and not to metaphysics; but even among children, who are apparently in the full possession of all their senses, we see very different degrees of vivacity: those who have most vivacity, seldom take delight in repeating their ideas; they are more pleased with novelty than prone to habit. Those children who are deficient in vivacity, are much disposed to the easy indolent pleasure of repetition; it costs them less exertion to say or do the same thing over again, than to attempt any thing new; they are uniformly good subjects to habit, because novelty has no charms to seduce their attention.

The education of the memory in these two classes of children, ought not to be the same. Those who are disposed to repetition, should not be indulged in it, because it will increase their indolence; they should be excited by praise, by example, by sympathy, and by all the strongest motives that we can employ. Their interest in every thing around them must by all means be increased: when they show eagerness about any thing, no matter what it is, we may then exercise their memory upon that subject with some hopes of success. It is of importance that they should succeed in their first trials, otherwise they will be discouraged from repeating their attempts, and they will distrust their own memory in future. The fear of not remembering, will occupy, and agitate, and weaken their minds; they should, therefore, be animated by hope. If they fail, at all events let them not be reproached; the mortification they naturally feel, is sufficient: nor should they be left to dwell upon their disappointment; they should have a fresh and easier trial given to them, that they may recover their own self-complacency as expeditiously as possible. It may be said, that there are children of such a sluggish temperament, that they feel no pleasure in success, and no mortification in perceiving their own mental deficiencies. There are few children of this description; scarcely any, perhaps, whose defects have not been increased by education. Exertion has been made so painful to them, that at length they have sunk into apathy, or submitted in despair to the eternal punishment of shame.

The mistaken notion, that the memory must be exercised only in books, has been often fatal to the pupils of literary people. We remember best those things which interest us most; which are useful to us in conversation; in our daily business or amusement. So do children. On these things we should exercise their memory. Tell a boy who has lost his top, to remember at such a particular time to put you in mind of it, and if he does, that you will give him another, he will probably remember your requests after this, better than you will yourself. Affectionate children will easily extend their recollective memories in the service of their friends and companions. "Put me in mind to give your friend what he asked for, and I will give it to him if you remember it at the right time." It will be best to manage these affairs so that convenience, and not caprice, shall appear to be your motive for the requests. The time and place should be precisely fixed, and something should be chosen which is likely to recall your request at the appointed time. If you say, put me in mind of such a thing the moment the cloth is taken away after dinner; or as soon as candles are brought into the room; or when I go by such a shop in our walk this evening; here are things mentioned which will much assist the young remembrancer: the moment the cloth is taken away, or the candles come, he will recollect, from association, that something is to be done, that he has something to do; and presently he will make out what that something is.

A good memory for business depends upon local, well arranged associations. The man of business makes an artificial memory for himself out of the trivial occurrences of the day, and the hours as they pass recall their respective occupations. Children can acquire these habits very early in their education; they are eager to give their companions an account of any thing they have seen or heard; their tutors should become their companions, and encourage them by sympathy to address these narrations to them. Children who forget their lessons in chronology, and their pence tables, can relate with perfect accuracy any circumstances which have interested themselves. This shows that there is no deficiency in their capacity. Every one, who has had any experience of the pleasure of talking, knows how intimately it is connected with the pleasure of being listened to. The auditors, consequently, possess supreme power over narrative childhood, without using any artifice, by simply showing attention to well arranged, and well recollected narratives, and ceasing to attend when the young orator's memory and story become confused, he will naturally be excited to arrange his ideas. The order of time is the first and easiest principle of association to help the memory. This, till young people acquire the ideas of cause and effect, will be their favourite mode of arrangement. Things that happen at the same time; things that are said, thoughts that have occurred, at the same time, will recur to the mind together. We may observe, that ill educated people continue through life to remember things by this single association; and, consequently, there is a heterogeneous collection of ideas in their mind, which have no rational connection with each other; crowds which have accidentally met, and are forced to live for ever together.

A vulgar evidence, when he is examined about his memory of a particular fact, gives as a reason for his remembering it, a relation of a number of other circumstances, which he tells you happened at the same time; or he calls to witness any animate or inanimate objects, which he happened to see at the same time. All these things are so joined with the principal fact in his mind, that his remembering them distinctly, seems to him, and he expects will seem to others, demonstration of the truth and accuracy of his principal assertion. When a lawyer tells him he has nothing to do with these ideas, he is immediately at a stand in his narrative; he can recollect nothing, he is sure of nothing; he has no reason to give for his belief, unless he may say that it was Michaelmas-day when such a thing happened, that he had a goose for dinner that day, or that he had a new wig. Those who have more enlarged minds, seldom produce these strange reasons for remembering facts. Indeed, no one can reason clearly, whose memory has these foolish habits; the ill matched ideas are inseparably joined, and hence they imagine there is some natural connection between them. Hence arise those obstinate prejudices which no arguments can vanquish.

To prevent children from arguing ill, we must, therefore, take care, in exercising their memory, to discourage them in this method of proving that they remember one thing by telling us a number of others which happened at the same time; rather let them be excited to bring their reasoning faculty into play in support of their memory. Suppose, for instance, that a child had mislaid his hat, and was trying to recollect where he had put it. He first may recollect, from the association of time, that he had the hat the last time he went out; but when he wants to recollect when that time was, he had better go back, if he can, to his motive for going out; this one idea will bring a number of others in right order into his mind. He went out, suppose, to fetch his kite, which he was afraid would be wet by a shower of rain; then the boy recollects that his hat must have been wet by the same rain, and that when he came in, instead of hanging it up in its usual place, it was put before the fire to be dried. What fire, is the next question, &c.

Such an instance as this may appear very trivial; but children whose minds are well managed about trifles, will retain good habits when they are to think about matters of consequence. By exercising the memory in this manner about things, instead of about books and lessons, we shall not disgust and tire our pupils, nor shall we give the false notion, that all knowledge is acquired by reading.

Long before children read fluently for their own amusement, they like to hear others read aloud to them, because they have then the entertainment without the labour. We may exercise their memory by asking for an account of what they have heard. But let them never be required to repeat in the words of the book, or even to preserve the same arrangement; let them speak in words of their own, and arrange their ideas to their own plan; this will exercise at once their judgment, invention, and memory.

"Try if you can explain to me what I have just been explaining to you," a sensible tutor will frequently say to his pupils; and he will suffer them to explain in a different manner from himself; he will only require them to remember what is essential to the explanation. In such repetitions as these, the mind is active, therefore it will strengthen and improve.

Children are all, more or less, pleased with the perception of resemblances and of analogy. This propensity assists us much in the cultivation of the memory; but it must be managed with discretion, or it will injure the other powers of the understanding. There is, in some minds, a futile love of tracing analogies, which leads to superstition, to false reasoning, and false taste. The quick perception of resemblances is, in other minds, productive of wit, poetic genius, and scientific invention. The difference between these two classes, depends upon this—the one has more judgment, and more the habit of using it, than the other. Children who are pleased by trifling coincidences, by allusions, and similitudes, should be taught with great care to reason: when once they perceive the pleasure of demonstration, they will not be contented with the inaccuracy of common analogies. A tutor is often tempted to teach pupils, who are fond of allusions, by means of them, because he finds that they remember well whatever suits their taste for resemblances. By following the real analogies between different arts and sciences, and making use of the knowledge children have on one subject to illustrate another, we may at once amuse their fancy, and cultivate their memory with advantage. Ideas laid up in this manner, will recur in the same order, and will be ready for further use. When two ideas are remembered by their mutual connection, surely it is best that they should both of them be substantially useful; and not that one should attend merely to answer for the appearance of the other.

As men readily remember those things which are every day useful to them in business, what relates to their amusements, or to their favourite tastes in arts, sciences, or in literature; so children find no difficulty in remembering every thing which mixes daily with their little pleasures. They value knowledge, which is useful and agreeable to them, as highly as we do; but they consider only the present, and we take the future into our estimate. Children feel no interest in half the things that are committed, with the most solemn recommendations, to the care of their memory. It is in vain to tell them, "You must remember such a thing, because it will be useful to you when you grow up to be a man." The child feels like a child, and has no idea of what he may feel when he grows up to be a man. He tries to remember what he is desired, perhaps, because he wishes to please his wiser friends; but if the ideas are remote from his every day business, if nothing recall them but voluntary exertion, and if he be obliged to abstract his little soul from every thing it holds dear, before he can recollect his lessons, they will have no hold upon his memory; he will feel that recollection is too operose, and he will enjoy none of the "pleasures of memory."

To induce children to exercise their memory, we must put them in situations where they may be immediately rewarded for their exertion. We must create an interest in their minds—nothing uninteresting is long remembered. In a large and literary family, it will not be difficult to invent occupations for children which may exercise all their faculties. Even the conversation of such a family, will create in their minds a desire for knowledge; what they hear, will recall to their memory what they read; and if they are encouraged to take a reasonable share in conversation, they will acquire the habit of listening to every thing that others say. By permitting children to talk freely of what they read, we are more likely to improve their memory for books, than by exacting from them formal repetitions of lessons.

Dr. Johnson, who is said to have had an uncommonly good memory, tells us, that when he was a boy, he used, after he had acquired any fresh knowledge from his books, to run and tell it to an old woman, of whom he was very fond. This exercise was so agreeable to him, that it imprinted what he read upon his memory.

La Gaucherie, one of the preceptors of Henry IV. having found that he had to do with a young prince of an impatient mind, and active genius, little suited to sedentary studies, instead of compelling his pupil to read, taught him by means of conversation: anecdotes of heroes, and the wise sayings of ancient philosophers, were thus imprinted upon the mind of this prince. It is said, that Henry IV. applied, in his subsequent life, all the knowledge he had acquired in this manner so happily, that learned men were surprised at his memory.[52]

By these observations, we by no means would insinuate, that application to books is unnecessary. We are sensible that accurate knowledge upon any subject, cannot be acquired by superficial conversation; that it can be obtained only by patient application. But we mean to point out, that an early taste for literature may be excited in children by conversation; and that their memory should be first cultivated in the manner which will give them the least pain. When there is motive for application, and when habits of industry have been gradually acquired, we may securely trust, that our pupils will complete their own education. Nor should we have reason to fear, that those who have a good memory for all other things, should not be able to retain all that is worth remembering in books. Children should never be praised for merely remembering exactly what they read, they should be praised for selecting with good sense what is best worth their attention, and for applying what they remember to useful purposes.

We have observed how much the habit of inventing increases the wish for knowledge, and increases the interest men take in a number of ideas, which are indifferent to uncultivated and indolent people. It is the same with children. Children who invent, exercise their memory with pleasure, from the immediate sense of utility and success. A piece of knowledge, which they lay by in their minds, with the hopes of making use of it in some future invention, they have more motives for remembering, than what they merely learn by rote, because they are commanded to do so by the voice of authority.

(June 19th, 1796.) S——, a boy of nine years old, of good abilities, was translating Ovid's description of envy. When he came to the Latin word suffusa, he pronounced it as if it had been spelled with a single f and a double s, sufussa; he made the same mistake several times: at last his father, to try whether it would make him remember the right pronunciation, desired him to repeat suffusa forty times. The boy did so. About three hours afterwards, the boy was asked whether he recollected the word which he had repeated forty times. No, he said, he did not; but he remembered that it meant diffused. His father recalled the word to his mind, by asking him what letter it was that he had sounded as if it had been a double letter; he said s. And what double letter did you sound as if it had been single? f, said the boy. Then, said his father, you have found out that it was a word in which there was a double ff and a single s, and that it is the Latin for diffused. Oh, suffusa, said the boy.

This boy, who had such difficulty in learning a single Latin word, by repeating it forty times, showed in other instances, that he was by no means deficient in recollective memory. On the contrary, though he read very little, and seldom learned any thing by rote, he applied happily any thing that he read or heard in conversation.

(March 31st, 1796.) His father told him, that he had this morning seen a large horn at a gentleman's in the neighbourhood. It was found thirty spades depth below the surface of the earth, in a bog. With the horn was found a carpet, and wrapped up in the carpet a lump of tallow. "Now," said his father, "how could that lump of tallow come there? Or was it tallow, do you think? Or what could it be?"

H—— (a boy of 14, brother to S——) said, he thought it might have been buried by some robbers, after they had committed some robbery; he thought the lump was tallow.

S—— said, "Perhaps some dead body might have been wrapped up in the carpet and buried; and the dead body might have turned into tallow."[53]

"How came you," said his father, "to think of a dead body's turning into tallow?"

"You told me," said the boy, "You read to me, I mean, an account of some dead bodies that had been buried a great many years, which had turned into tallow."

"Spermaceti," you mean? "Yes."

S—— had heard the account he alluded to above two months before this time. No one in company recollected it except himself, though several had heard it.

Amongst the few things which S—— had learnt by heart, was the Hymn to Adversity. A very slight circumstance may show, that he did not get this poem merely as a tiresome lesson, as children sometimes learn by rote what they do not understand, and which they never recollect except in the arduous moments of formal repetition.

A few days after S—— had learned the Hymn to Adversity, he happened to hear his sister say to a lady, "I observed you pitied me for having had a whitlow on my finger, more than any body else did, because you have had one yourself." S——'s father asked him why he smiled. "Because," said S——, "I was thinking of the song,[54] the hymn to adversity;

A recollective memory of books appears early in children who are not overwhelmed with them; if the impressions made upon their minds be distinct, they will recur with pleasure to the memory when similar ideas are presented.

July 1796. S—— heard his father read Sir Brook Boothby's excellent epitaph upon Algernon Sidney; the following lines pleased the boy particularly:

S——'s father asked him why he liked these lines, and whether they put him in mind of any thing that he had heard before. S—— said, "It puts me in mind of Hamilcar's making his son Hannibal swear to hate the Romans, and love his countrymen eternally. But I like this much better. I think it was exceedingly foolish and wrong of Hamilcar to make his son swear always to hate the Romans."

Latin lessons are usually so very disagreeable to boys, that they seldom are pleased with any allusions to them; but by a good management in a tutor, even these lessons may be associated with agreeable ideas. Boys should be encouraged to talk and think about what they learn in Latin, as well as what they read in English; they should be allowed to judge of the characters described in ancient authors, to compare them with our present ideas of excellence, and thus to make some use of their learning. It will then be not merely engraved upon their memory in the form of lessons, it will be mingled with their notions of life and manners; it will occur to them when they converse, and when they act; they will possess the admired talent for classical allusion, as well as all the solid advantages of an unprejudiced judgment. It is not enough that gentlemen should be masters of the learned languages, they must know how to produce their knowledge without pedantry or affectation. The memory may in vain be stored with classical precedents, unless these can be brought into use in speaking or writing without the parade of dull citation, or formal introduction. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, to some prosing tormentor, "I would rather a man would knock me down, than to begin to talk to me of the Punic wars." A public speaker, who rises in the House of Commons, with pedantry prepense to quote Latin or Greek, is coughed or laughed down; but the beautiful unpremeditated classical allusions of Burke or Sheridan, sometimes conveyed in a single word, seize the imagination irresistibly.

Since we perceive, that memory is chiefly useful as it furnishes materials for invention, and that invention can greatly abridge the mere labour of accumulation, we must examine how the inventive faculty can be properly exercised. The vague precept of, cultivate the memory and invention of young people at the same time, will not inform parents how this is to be accomplished; we trust, therefore, that we may be permitted, contrary to the custom of didactic writers, to illustrate a general precept by a few examples; and we take these examples from real life, because we apprehend, that fictions, however ingenious, will never advance the science of education so much as simple experiments.

No elaborate theory of invention shall here alarm parents. It is a mistake, to suppose that the inventive faculty can be employed only on important subjects; it can be exercised in the most trifling circumstances of domestic life. Scarcely any family can be so unfortunately situated, that they may not employ the ingenuity of their children without violent exertion, or any grand apparatus. Let us only make use of the circumstances which happen every hour. Children are interested in every thing that is going forward. Building, or planting, or conversation, or reading; they attend to every thing, and from every thing might they with a little assistance obtain instruction. Let their useful curiosity be encouraged; let them make a part of the general society of the family, instead of being treated as if they had neither senses nor understanding. When any thing is to be done, let them be asked to invent the best way of doing it. When they see that their invention becomes immediately useful, they will take pleasure in exerting themselves.

June 4th, 1796. A lady, who had been ruling pencil lines for a considerable time, complained of its being a tiresome operation; and she wished that a quick and easy way of doing it could be invented. Somebody present said they had seen pens for ruling music books, which ruled four lines at a time; and it was asked, whether a leaden rake could not be made to rule a sheet of paper at once.

Mr. —— said, that he thought such a pencil would not rule well; and he called to S——, (the same boy we mentioned before) and asked him if he could invent any method of doing the business better. S—— took about a quarter of an hour to consider; and he then described a little machine for ruling a sheet of paper at a single stroke, which his father had executed for him. It succeeded well, and this success was the best reward he could have.

Another day Mr. —— observed, that the maid, whose business it was to empty a bucket of ashes into an ash-hole, never could be persuaded to do it, because the ashes were blown against her face by the wind; and he determined to invent a method which should make it convenient to her to do as she was desired. The maid usually threw the ashes into a heap on the sheltered side of a wall; the thing to be done was, to make her put the bucket through a hole in this wall, and empty the ashes on the other side. This problem was given to all the children and grown up persons in the family. One of the children invented the shelf, which, they said, should be like part of the vane of a winnowing machine which they had lately seen; the manner of placing this vane, another of the children suggested: both these ideas joined together, produced the contrivance which was wanted.

A little model was made in wood of this bucket, which was a pretty toy. The thing itself was executed, and was found useful.

June 8th, 1796. Mr. —— was balancing a pair of scales very exactly, in which he was going to weigh some opium; this led to a conversation upon scales and weighing. Some one said that the dealers in diamonds must have very exact scales, as the difference of a grain makes such a great difference in their value. S—— was very attentive to this conversation. M——told him, that jewellers always, if they can, buy diamonds when the air is light, and sell them when it is heavy. S—— did not understand the reason of this, till his father explained to him the general principles of hydrostatics, and showed him a few experiments with bodies of different specific gravity: these experiments were distinctly understood by every body present. The boy then observed, that it was not fair of the jewellers to buy and sell in this manner; they should not, said he, use these weights. Diamonds should be the weights. Diamonds should be weighed against diamonds.

November, 1795. One day after dinner, the candles had been left for some time without being snuffed; and Mr. —— said he wished candles could be made which would not require snuffing.

Mrs. ******** thought of cutting the wick into several pieces before it was put into the candle, that so, when it burned down to the divisions, the wick might fall off. M—— thought that the wick might be tied tight round at intervals, before it was put into the candle; that when it burned down to the places where it was tied, it would snap off: but Mr. —— objected, that the candle would most likely go out when it had burned down to her knots. It was then proposed to send a stream of oxygene through the candle, instead of a wick. M—— asked if some substance might not be used for wicks which should burn into powder, and fly off or sublime. Mr. —— smiled at this, and said, "Some substance; some kind of air; some chemical mixture! A person ignorant of chemistry always talks of, as an ignorant person in mechanics always says, "Oh, you can do it somehow with a spring."

As the company could not immediately discover any way of making candles which should not require to be snuffed, they proceeded to invent ways of putting out a candle at a certain time without hands. The younger part of the company had hopes of solving this problem, and every eye was attentively fixed upon the candle.

"How would you put it out, S——?" said Mr. ——. S—— said, that if a weight, a very little lighter than the extinguisher, were tied to a string, and if the string were put over a pulley, and if the extinguisher were tied to the other end of the string, and the candle put exactly under the extinguisher; the extinguisher would move very, very gently down, and at last put out the candle.

Mr. —— observed, that whilst it was putting out the candle, there would be a disagreeable smell, because the extinguisher would be a considerable time moving very, very gently down, over the candle after the candle had begun to go out.

C—— (a girl of twelve years old) spoke next. "I would tie an extinguisher to one end of a thread. I would put this string through a pulley fastened to the ceiling; the other end of this string should be fastened to the middle of another thread, which should be strained between two posts set upright on each side of the candle, so as that the latter string might lean against the candle at any distance you want below the flame. When the candle burns down to this string, it will burn it in two, and the extinguisher will drop upon the candle."

This is the exact description of the weaver's alarm, mentioned in the Philosophical Transactions which C—— had never seen or heard of.

Mr. —— now showed us the patent extinguisher, which was much approved of by all the rival inventors.

It is very useful to give children problems which have already been solved, because they can immediately compare their own imperfect ideas with successful inventions, which have actually been brought into real use. We know beforehand what ideas are necessary to complete the invention, and whether the pupil has all the necessary knowledge. Though by the courtesy of poetry, a creative power is ascribed to inventive genius, yet we must be convinced that no genius can invent without materials. Nothing can come of nothing. Invention is nothing more than the new combination of materials. We must judge in general of the ease or difficulty of any invention, either by the number of ideas necessary to be combined, or by the dissimilarity or analogy of those ideas. In giving any problem to children, we should not only consider whether they know all that is necessary upon the subject, but also, whether that knowledge is sufficiently familiar to their minds, whether circumstances are likely to recall it, and whether they have a perfectly Clear idea of the thing to be done. By considering all these particulars, we may pretty nearly proportion our questions to the capacity of the pupil; and we may lead his mind on step by step from obvious to intricate inventions.

July 30th, 1796. L——, who had just returned from Edinburgh, and had taken down in two large volumes, Dr. Black's Lectures, used to read to us part of them, for about a quarter of an hour, every morning after breakfast. He was frequently interrupted (which interruptions he bore with heroic patience) by Mr. ——'s explanations and comments. When he came to the expansive power of steam, and to the description of the different steam engines which have been invented, Mr. —— stopped to ask B——, C——, and S——, to describe the steam engine in their own words. They all described it in such a manner as to show that they clearly understood the principle of the machine. Only the general principle had been explained to them. L——, after having read the description of Savary's and Newcomen's steam engines, was beginning to read the description of that invented by Mr. Watt; but Mr. —— stopped him, that he might try whether any person present could invent it. Mr. E—— thus stated the difficulty: "In the old steam engine, cold water, you know, is thrown into the cylinder to condense the steam; but in condensing the steam, the cold water at the same time cools the cylinder. Now the cylinder must be heated again, before it can be filled with steam; for till it is heated, it will condense the steam. There is, consequently, a great waste of heat and fuel in the great cylinder. How can you condense the steam without cooling the cylinder?"

S——. "Let down a cold tin tube into the cylinder when you want to condense the steam, and draw it up again as soon as the steam is condensed; or, if you could put a cylinder of ice up the great tube."

Some of the company next asked, if an horizontal plate of cold metal, made to slide up the inside of the cylinder, would condense the steam. The edges of the plate only would touch the cylinder; the surface of the plate might condense the steam.

"But," said Mr. ——"how can you introduce and withdraw it?"

C—— (a girl of 12) then said, "I would put a cold vessel to condense the steam at the top of the cylinder."

Mr. ——. "So as to touch the cylinder, do you mean?"

C——. "No, not so as to touch the cylinder, but at some distance from it."

Mr. ——. "Then the cold air would rush into the cylinder whilst the steam was passing from the cylinder to your condenser."

C——. "But I would cover in the cold vessel, and I would cover in the passage to it."

Mr. ——. "I have the pleasure of informing you, that you have invented part of the great Mr. Watt's improvement on the steam engine. You see how it facilitates invention, to begin by stating the difficulty clearly to the mind. This is what every practical inventor does when he invents in mechanics."

L—— (smiling.) "And what I always do in inventing a mathematical demonstration."

To the good natured reader we need offer no apology; to the ill natured we dare attempt none, for introducing these detailed views of the first attempts of young invention. They are not exhibited as models, either to do honour to the tutor or his pupils; but simply to show, how the mind may be led from the easiest steps, to what are supposed to be difficult in education. By imagining ourselves to be in the same situation with children, we may guess what things are difficult to them; and if we can recollect the course of our own minds in acquiring knowledge, or in inventing, we may by retracing the same steps instruct others. The order that is frequently followed by authors, in the division and subdivision of their elementary treatises, is not always the best for those who are to learn. Such authors are usually more intent upon proving to the learned that they understand their subject, than upon communicating their knowledge to the ignorant. Parents and tutors must, therefore, supply familiar oral instruction, and those simple, but essential explanations, which books disdain, or neglect to give. And there is this advantage in all instruction given in conversation, that it can be made interesting by a thousand little circumstances, which are below the dignity of didactic writers. Gradually we may proceed from simple to more complicated contrivances. The invention of experiments to determine a theory, or to ascertain the truth of an assertion, must be particularly useful to the understanding. Any person, who has attended to experiments in chemistry and natural philosophy, must know, that invention can be as fully and elegantly displayed upon these subjects as upon any in the fine arts or literature. There is one great advantage in scientific invention; it is not dependent upon capricious taste for its reward. The beauty and elegance of a poem may be disputed by a thousand amateurs; there can be but one opinion about the truth of a discovery in science.

Independent of all ambition, there is considerable pleasure in the pursuit of experimental knowledge. Children especially, before they are yet fools to fame, enjoy this substantial pleasure. Nor are we to suppose that children have not capacities for such pursuits; they are peculiarly suited to their capacity. They love to see experiments tried, and to try them. They show this disposition not only wherever they are encouraged, but wherever they are permitted to show it; and if we compare their method of reasoning with the reasonings of the learned, we shall sometimes be surprised. They have no prejudices, therefore they have the complete use of all their senses; they have few ideas, but those few are distinct; they can be analyzed and compared with ease; children, therefore, judge and invent better, in proportion to their knowledge, than most grown up people.

Dr. Hooke observes, that a sensible man, in solving any philosophical problem, should always lean to that side which is opposite to his favourite taste. A chemist is disposed to account for every thing by chemical means; a geometrician is inclined to solve every problem geometrically; and a mechanic accounts for all the phenomena of nature by the laws of mechanism. This undue bias upon the minds of ingenious people, has frequently rendered their talents less useful to mankind. It is the duty of those who educate ingenious children, to guard against this species of scientific insanity.

There are prejudices of another description, which are fatal to inventive genius; some of these are usually found to attend ignorance, and others sometimes adhere to the learned. Ignorant people, if they possess any degree of invention, are so confident in their own abilities, that they will not take the pains to inquire what others have thought or done; they disdain all general principles, and will rather scramble through some by-path of their own striking out, than condescend to be shown the best road by the most enlightened guide. For this reason, self-taught geniuses, as they are called, seldom go beyond a certain point in their own education, and the praise we bestow upon their ingenuity is always accompanied with expressions of regret: "It is a pity that such a genius had not the advantages of a good education."

The learned, on the contrary, who have been bred up in reverence for established opinions, and who have felt in many instances the advantage of general principles, are apt to adhere too pertinaciously to their theories, and hence they neglect or despise new observations. How long did the maxim, that nature abhors a vacuum, content the learned! And how many discoveries were retarded by this single false principle! For a great number of years it was affirmed and believed, that all objects were seen by the intervention of visual rays, proceeding from the eye much in the same manner as we feel any object at a distance from us by the help of a stick.[55] Whilst this absurd analogy satisfied the mind, no discoveries were made in vision, none were attempted. A prepossession often misleads the industry of active genius. Dr. Hooke, in spite of the ridicule which he met with, was firm in his belief, that mankind would discover some method of sailing in the air. Balloons have justified his prediction; but all his own industry in trying experiments upon flying was wasted, because he persisted in following a false analogy to the wings of birds. He made wings of various sorts; till he took it for granted that he must learn to fly by mechanical means: had he applied to chemistry, he might have succeeded. It is curious to observe, how nearly he once touched upon the discovery, and yet, misled by his prepossessions, quitted his hold. He observed, that the air cells[56] of fishes are filled with air, which buoys them up in the water; and he supposes that this air is lighter than common air. Had he pursued this idea, he might have invented balloons; but he returned with fatal perseverance to his old theory of wings. From such facts, we may learn the power and danger of prejudice in the most ingenious minds; and we shall be careful to preserve our pupils early from its blind dominion.

The best preservation against the presumption to which ignorance is liable, and the best preservative against the self sufficiency to which the learned are subject, is the habit of varying our studies and occupations. Those who have a general view of the whole map of human knowledge, perceive how many unexplored regions are yet to be cultivated by future industry; nor will they implicitly submit to the reports of ignorant voyagers. No imaginary pillars of Hercules, will bound their enterprises. There is no presumption in believing, that much more is possible to science than ever human ingenuity has executed; therefore, young people should not be ridiculed for that sanguine temper which excites to great inventions. They should be ridiculed only when they imagine that they possess the means of doing things to which they are unequal. The fear of this deserved ridicule, will stimulate them to acquire knowledge, and will induce them to estimate cautiously their own powers before they hazard their reputation. We need not fear that this caution should repress their activity of mind; ambition will secure their perseverance, if they are taught that every acquisition is within the reach of unremitting industry. This is not an opinion to be artfully inculcated to serve a particular purpose, but it is an opinion drawn from experience; an opinion which men of the highest abilities and integrity, of talents and habits the most dissimilar, have confirmed by their united testimony. Helvetius maintained, that no great man ever formed a great design which he was not also capable of executing.

Even where great perseverance is exercised, the choice of the subjects on which the inventive powers are employed determines, in a great measure, their value: therefore, in the education of ingenious children, we should gradually turn their attention from curious trifles to important objects. Boverick,[57] who made chains "to yoke a flea," must have possessed exquisite patience; besides his chain of two hundred links, with its padlock and key, all weighing together less than the third part of a grain, this indefatigable minute artificer was the maker of a landau, which opened and shut by springs: this equipage, with six horses harnessed to it, a coachman sitting on the box, with a dog between his legs, four inside and two outside passengers, besides a postilion riding one of the fore horses, was drawn with all the ease and safety imaginable by a well trained flea! The inventor and executor of this puerile machine, bestowed on it, probably, as much time as would have sufficed to produce Watt's fire engine, or Montgolfier's balloon. It did not, perhaps, cost the Marquis of Worcester more exertion to draw out his celebrated century of inventions; it did not, perhaps, cost Newton more to write those queries which Maclaurin said he could never read without feeling his hair stand on end with admiration.

Brebeuf, a French wit, wrote a hundred and fifty epigrams upon a painted lady; a brother wit, fired with emulation, wrote upon the same subject three hundred more, making in all four hundred and fifty epigrams, each with appropriate turns of their own. Probably, Pope and Parnell did not rack their invention so much, or exercise more industry in completing "The Rape of the Lock," or "The Rise of Woman." These will live for ever; who will read the four hundred and fifty epigrams?

The most effectual methods to discourage in young people the taste for frivolous ingenuity, will be, never to admire these "laborious nothings," to compare them with useful and elegant inventions, and to show that vain curiosities can be but the wonder and amusement of a moment. Children who begin with trifling inventions, may be led from these to general principles; and with their knowledge, their ambition will necessarily increase. It cannot be expected that the most enlarged plan of education could early give an intimate acquaintance with all the sciences; but with their leading principles, their general history, their present state, and their immediate desiderata,[58] young people may, and ought to be, made acquainted. Their own industry will afterwards collect more precise information, and they will never waste their time in vain studies and fruitless inventions. Even if the cultivation of the memory were our grand object, this plan of education will succeed. When the AbbÉ de Longuerue, whose prodigious memory we have formerly mentioned, was asked by the Marquis d'Argenson, how he managed to arrange and retain in his head every thing that entered it, and to recollect every thing when wanted? The AbbÉ answered:

"Sir, the elements of every science must be learned whilst we are very young; the first principles of every language; the a b c, as I may say, of every kind of knowledge: this is not difficult in youth, especially as it is not necessary to penetrate far; simple notions are sufficient; when once these are acquired, every thing we read afterwards, finds its proper place."