much the easier way, barely to give the child a lesson to learn by heart, and whip him if his memory fail, than to aid in enlightening and enlarging the infantile faculties of his understanding. And so, we generally take this easier way. We stop their little mouths, when they presume to interrupt, or puzzle us, with their questions, and instead of encouraging them to start subjects of themselves, we confine them to our own prescriptions. pinion the young mind, and then bid it soar.

We

Some parents, observing carefully the old proverb, to " nip in the bud," indignantly rebuke the inquisitiveness of their children, as insufferable impertinence. And sure enough, such children are effectually nipt in the bud; for it is ten to one that they will never become men and women of inquiring minds. Others, again, turn off the questions of their children with false answers, and thereby directly lead them to the practice of lying. I have seen fathers so stately and stern, that their children scarcely durst speak to them, and much less familiarly question them. And I have seen schoolmasters, who would requite the familiar questions of a little pupil with a frightening frown, if not with a hard blow.

NUMBER LXXII.

OF THE INFLUENCE OF EARLY IMPRESSIONS UPON ALL THE FOLLOWING PERIODS OF LIFE.

MR. Locke, in his invaluable treatise concerning Education, relates the story which here follows.

This

"There was in a town in the West, a man of disturbed brain, whom the boys used to teaze, when he came in their way. fellow, one day seeing in the streets one of those lads that used to vex him, stepped into a cutler's shop he was near, and there seizing on a naked sword, made after the boy, who, seeing him coming so armed, betook himself to his feet, and ran for his life, and, by good luck, had strength and heels enough to reach his father's house before the madman could get up to him. The door was only latched; and when he had the latch in his hand, he turned about his head to see how near his pursuer was, who was in the entrance of the porch, with his sword up, ready to strike, and he had just time to get in and clap to the door, to avoid the blow, which, though his body escaped, his mind did not. This frightening idea made so deep an impression there, that it lasted many years, if not all his life after; for, telling this story

when he was a man, he said, that after that time till then, he never went in at that door (that he could remember) at any time, without looking back, whatever business he had in his head, or how little soever, before he came thither, he thought of this madman."

This instance, though a most extraordinary one, is rather so in degree than in kind; for thousands have been haunted, all their lifetime, with frightening ideas received in childhood.

I will venture to lay it down as a position at least probable, that the children of Adam's race are born into the world very much alike, excepting the rare instances of idiotism. Their faculties and inclinations are nearly the same, and the differences which appear in after-times, are owing, in a great measure, to the instruction they receive, the company they keep, and the manner in which they are managed. This assumption is, I humbly conceive, fully defensible on the broad ground of reason and experience, and too obvious to escape general observation. But it is far less obvious, though equally true, that early impressions contribute very materially to make the difference in human characters --relative to their tastes, their dispositions, and the bent of their faculties.

Whilst the infant is yet cradled in the mother's arms, long ere it can articulate words, it is beginning to receive impressions, which will influence, more or less, the future periods of life. And though we know not in what precise degrees such early impressions operate; how far their opposites render some irascible, revengeful, or sullen, and others mild, well-tempered, and social; how far they contribute to the firmness of the future character on the one hand, and to a cowardly timidity on the other; yet it is

beyoud all reasonable doubt, that their influence is great and durable. The Arabs of the Great Desert, have all a sameness of character among themselves, together with striking points of difference from every other class of mankind; and their character has been all along the same, from the time of the patriarch Jacob to the present day. Nor is it altogether unaccountable, though truly wonderful. For they have all, always, been used to the same scenery, and derived their earliest, as well as their later impressions from the same objects and sources. Now, were it possible to reverse the conditions of two newly born infants-the one an Arab, and the other of good Christian parentage-by placing each in the family of the other; it is full likely that the latter, when come to years, would be altogether an Ishmaelite in feeling and manners, and the former considerably assimilated to the family that adopted him. Nay, there will be no great hazard in saying farther-It is full likely that this assimilation would begin to be visible in each, antecedently to any direct and positive education; that the one would take the stamp of the fierce and furious-looking mother, while at her breast; and that the other, at the same early period, would begin to be oppositely moulded from impressions occasioned by the mildness and sweetness of maternal care.

A simple metrical verse learnt in infancy, is clearly remembered for scores of years. And much more; early incidents occasioning horror, terror, distressing shame, or violent indignation, leave such deep and distinct impressions upon the memory as are seldom, or never, effaced entirely. I am told by a respectable, pious woman, advanced very far in age, that even now as all along heretofore, she seldom shuts her eyes for sleep but

she is haunted with the horrible spectres, as it were, of the savage Indians, who murdered her father and mother before her face when she was a little child. How great must have been the whole amount of her sufferings from that circumstance, during the long space of upwards of sixty years!

And neither few nor small, throughout the whole course of their lives, must have been their sufferings, whose infantile minds had been accustomed to the frightening bugbears of superstition. For even though, in riper years, their reason should convince them never so clearly of the absurdity of such fears, yet the impress upon the imagination is indelible. Times have been, when stories of witchcraft, of spectres in the dark, and especially about the sepulchres of the dead, were commonly reported and fully believed; when a candle burning blue was the sign of a spirit in the house; when the tallow rising up against the wick of the candle, was styled a winding-sheet, and reckoned an omen of death in the family; and when a coal in the shape of a coffin, flying out of the fire toward any particular person, betokened that the death of that person was near.-With what labor and pains did they weave for themselves, and for their children, the web of misery! In those ages of gloomy superstition, which even now are but recently past away, the real ills of life were far exceeded by the imaginary ones.

But to return from this digression: children possessed of a more than common susceptibility of shame, may be injured for life by putting that distressful feeling to a too severe trial; and others may be made shameless by shaming them too often; while a temper naturally stiff and unyielding, may be made re