106. What methods of instruction are adopted in the different parts of study, separately, in detail, and in succession?-In some branches are particular methods, combining simplicity and perfection, followed? What are these methods? 107. Is care taken to adapt the methods of education and instruction to the character of youth in general, and to the capacities or dispositions of the pupils in particular? 108. Is regard paid in instruction to these essential data? 1. What appertains to a natural developement, and to the particular dispositions of individuals: 2. What relates to the modifications which may be determined by the influence of external circumstances. 109. What are, in every course, the classic or standard books consulted or applied to by the instructers, and put into the hands of their pupils? 110. Are the same lessons given in course, to all the pupils collectively; or are the pupils sub-divided into small sections, according to their ability and their progress; so as the better to adapt instruction to the case of each pupil? 111. Are the pupils examined, with care, and individually, at certain seasons of the year? How are these examinations conducted? May not discouragement and disgust be sometimes produced in industrious and diligent pupils-less favored by nature-who see themselves often surpassed by others less studious, but better endowed? 112. Is the memory much exercised; and in what consists the kind of exercise?—Is a rational, rather than a mechanical memory, formed? 113. Is the understanding much exercised, and by what means? 114. How is the imagination cultivated?-Are pains taken to excite it in children, who have but little of it, and to regulate it with those in whom it is too lively and ardent? 117. For how many years does the complete course of study in the secondary schools last; and, generally, from what age to what age? 118. Do all the parents of the vicinity send their children to the given school; or do some prefer to have them educated abroad, or to employ private tutors in their own houses?-Which usage, in these respects, is most prevalent ? 119. What difference may be remarked between the secondary schools which exist in the different parts of the district?-Between those of the capital, and those of the smaller towns, and also of the villages? 121. Are pains taken to make study agreeable and interesting to children, and by what means?-(We should not limit our efforts to giving instruction under the form of amusement. For children would contract the habit and feel the need of always amusing themselves: they would neglect, or contract an aversion to serious occupation or studies.) 122. Are reflections cherished on the use which children shall be able to make of the knowledge imparted to them; and are they made to appreciate the usefulness for which they shall thus become qualified? 123. Is the first place assigned to the knowledge which is most important for practical life? (May not the sciences which ought to have a real use in the social relations be disignated somewhat as follows?) 1. Reading, writing, and the fundamental rules of grammar: 3. Arithmetic and book-keeping: 4. Geometry, and the elements of mathematics, some notions of mechanics applied, and of technology: 5. Drawing the true universal language: 6. Mathematical, physical, civil, and political geography, particularly applied to one's own country: 7. The elements of physics and chemistry, sciences which are inseparably connected with all the useful arts: 8. The elements of natural history, and especially of mineral- 9. Some notions of practical hygiene, to govern health: 11. The fundamental principles of political economy, and do- acts: 12. Singing, and music, generally, which give mildness to the manners and the character. (Is it not just to say that common education, in which may generally be observed many deficiencies and contradictions, cultivates solely a mechanical memory,--neglects the judgement and reason,-gives a false and dangerous direction to the imagination,-causes the loss of precious time, for the study of Latin and Greek, taught too exclusively, and by a method too slow,-treats drawing as a mere matter of choice, instead of regarding it as an object of the first necessity, applicable to all the mechanic arts, to all occupations, to all conditions of life,-gives only superficial views in geog raphy, and in the natural sciences disdains hygiene, and the study of the physical frame, political economy, and the study of social relations, the knowledge of the rules and forms of civil contracts, so necessary in every condition? Is not historical instruction superficial and barren, in as much as it inculcates epochs, and dates of insignificant facts, mostly relating to ancient nations, without appreciating the train and connexion of events, the moral qualities and the conduct of the principal personages, the distinctive characteristics of true and of false glory, the duties and the rights of man, considered by turns in the family, and in the state, as individuals, as subjects, as citizens, as public functionaries: in fine the causes of the rise or of the fall of states, of the happiness or of the misfortunes of individuals and of nations?-Is not common education defective and incomplete in these different points of view?) 124. Has there been any attempt to reduce the time assigned to the study of Latin and Greek, or even to retrench entirely that part of purely civil education, to replace it, by studies better adapted to the wants of every individual, as destined for public, commercial, military, or other pursuits?-In this case, what inconveniencies, or what advantages, have resulted from such attempts? 125. Are children exercised in writing to their parents, or their young friends-are they made to feel the utility of forming an epistolary style? 126. Are they taught book-keeping, by single and by double entry? 127. Are they made to begin the study of the laws of their country, in the secondary schools, or at home, before the age of sixteen or seventeen years? Secondary education in its connection with the preceding and subsequent stages. 139. Is secondary education actually treated as connected with superior (or university) education, so as to furnish an adequate preparation for the youth who are to advance to that stage. 140. Is the actual organisation of secondary instruction established on a basis sufficiently broad, solid and complete, to provide the children of the middle classes with all the knowledge, which is indispensable to them, and to the exercise and developement of all their faculties? 141. What usually becomes of the young persons of the different classes of society, on their leaving the secondary schools; and what means have they to indulge a disposition to cultivate and mature the instruction they have received? General considerations and miscellaneous questions. 142. Is the method still the same for training children at the age of from nine or ten to sixteen or seventeen? Or rather in what con sists the difference which may be found between the old and the new method of education? 143. What are the improvements or the changes introduced, within ten years, in secondary education? 144. What are the inconveniencies which may be pointed out in the system actually followed; or what are the essential advantages which appear to result from it? 145. Of what reformation and improvement does it seem susceptible? 146. What are the most approved works on secondary education; or rather what are those which parents, teachers, and professors, are most in the habit of consulting? SUGGESTIONS TO PARENTS. Moral and Religious Education. [These suggestions have hitherto embraced an article in each of the leading departments of education. Physical training, therefore would naturally be the subject of remark in our present number; if physical, moral, and intellectual culture, were to be attended to in rotation. This order, however, is not indispensable; and the vast importance of moral cultivation, would, at all events, justify us in postponing an article on any other branch. Instead of a regular essay on our present subject, we would offer to the attention of parents, and of mothers especially, the following important queries from the valuable pamphlet of Jullien, from which the preceding article is translated. They will be found, we think, better adapted to excite direct and deep attention, than the most laborious or elegant composition of a more formal and didactic character. These paragraphs will be read with much greater interest, after reperusing pages 481 and 482,-No 8, of this Journal.] 67. WHAT is there deserving of notice in the moral and religious instruction given, whether in school or at home, to children at the age of from nine or ten to sixteen? In what does this instruction consist? 68. What pains are taken to give children just ideas of their duties towards their equals, of their obligations to society, of the opinion which man may form of the deity, of the manner in which we may and ought to honor him? 69. Are children accustomed to say their morning and evening? prayers, regularly, 密 70. Are prayers said by the father of the family, by the head of the school, by one of the children, or by each in turn? Are these prayers always the same; and, in this case, do they not degenerate into forms, (so to speak,) worthless,-which produce but a feeble impression on the heart? Or do they convey familiar instruction adapted to children, embracing the circumstances of their daily life, a knowledge of their character, their conduct, their wants? 71. Are children's feelings excited against certain nations, against persons of different religious belief or opinions, against certain professions?-Or is there inculcated on them a universal benevolence towards men, and even towards animals; and what means are used for this purpose? 72. Since courage is necessary in all circumstances of life,-in misfortune, in sickness, &c. as much as in battle,-how are children inspired with courage, without teaching them to hurt? How are they taught to suffer patiently? 73. Is death presented to them under a frightful aspect, or as an inevitable passage from this life to another more happy? (Are the two fundamental points of the existence of God, and of a life to come, considered as salutary and necessary stays for human weakness, and as the indipensable bases of morality?) 74. Are pains taken to keep away from children books which might awaken in their minds dangerous doubts, before reason and conscience can be sufficiently fortified to resist doctrines immoral and irreligious? 75, How are just ideas of true honor engraven on the minds of children? How are they made to cherish a good reputation? 76. Does each one receive a little book of conduct, in which are inscribed good or bad marks, which are taken up at the end of the week or the month? 77. Are they made to keep a little journal, in which they write, themselves, every evening or every morning the principal results of their employment for the preceding twenty-four hours? What advantages arise from such or similar methods of giving children habits of order, tending to fortify their morals? 78. What ideas about money, are commonly given to children? Are they made to consider it as the chief object of the desires of man, or as a means to assuage misfortune and exercise beneficence, as a kind of equivalent for the services which are rendered us,— or under any similar aspect? 79. What habits of economy are inculcated on children, to induce them to account for the little sums given them for voluntary expenditures? 80. What particular pains do parents and teachers take to develope moral sensibility in children; so as, at the same time, to keep |