CHAPTER V.
PRINCIPLES OF INFANT EDUCATION.
_Moral treatment--Importance of exercise--Play-ground indispensable--The education of nature and human education should be joined--Mental development, children should think for themselves--Intellectual food adapted for children--A spirit of inquiry should be excited--Gradual development of the young mind--Neglect of moral treatment--Inefficacy of maxims learned by wrote--Influence of love--The play-ground a field of observation--The natural propensities there shew themselves--Respect of private property inculcated--Force of conscience on the alert--Anecdote--Advantages of a strict regard for truth--The simple truths of the Bible fit for children_.
* * * * * "The business of education, in respect of knowledge, is not, as I think to perfect a learner in all or any one of the sciences, but to give his mind that disposition, and those habits, that may enable him to attain any part of knowledge he shall stand in need of in the future coarse of his life."-- _Locke_.
"When the obligations of morality are taught, let the sanctions of Christianity, never be forgotten; by which it will be shewn not that they give lustre and strength to each other: religion will appear to be the voice of reason, and morality the will of God."-- _Johnson_.
* * * * * When Agesilaus, king of Sparta, was asked, "What should boys be taught ?" he answered, "What they ought to do when they become men." Such a declaration was worthy of later times, since the most intelligent now admit that the great end of all education is the formation of solid, useful, and virtuous character.

This work should be, doubtless, commenced at the earliest possible period, to it the system explained in this volume is considered to be adapted, and the principles on which it proceeds are now to be illustrated.

And here it ought to be particularly observed that nothing is admissible, except what is appropriate to the state of infancy, calculated to exercise the physical energies, and likely, by their invigoration, to lay the basis of a sound and powerful intellect.

And yet all this is too often forgotten.

Look at the infant, the very embodying of vivacity and activity, and its confinement to a particular posture, or the requirement of a peculiar expression of countenance, is manifestly unnatural.