fick, it fuffers in filence, and keeps itself ftill: and yet we do not fee that brutes are more fickly than men. perfons have impatience, difquietude, apprehenfion, and parHow many ticularly medicines, deftroyed, whom their difeafes would have fpared, and whom time alone would have cured? Will it be objected, that brute animals, living in a manner conformable to nature, ought to be lefs fubject to diseases? This is the very point I aim at. I would bring up my Pupil precifely in the fame manner; from which he would doubtless deduce the fame advantages.

"The only useful part of Medicine is the Hygeine. This, however, is rather a virtue than a science. Temperance and exercise are the two best Phyficians in the world. Exercife whets the appetite, and temperance prevents the abuse of it.

"To know what kind of regimen is the most falutary, we need only enquire, what is that of thofe people who enjoy the greateft fhare of health, are the most robuft, and live the longeft? If the arts of Medicine are found, from general obfervation, not to confer better health, or longer life, the very proof of their being ufelefs fhews them to be hurtful; as fo much time, fo many perfons and things are taken up thereby to no purpofe. Not only the time, mifpent in the prefervation of life, is loft from its enjoyment, it should be deducted alfo from its duration: but when that time is employed in tormenting us, it is ftill worse than the mere annihilation of it; it gives a negative quantity, and if we calculate juftly, fhould be taken from the future duration of our lives. A man who lives fix years without Phyficians, lives more for himself and others, than he who furvives, as their Patient, for thirty. Having experienced both, I conceive myfelf peculiarly authorised to determine this point."

The Gentlemen of the Faculty will probably think themfelves little obliged to our Author, for the freedom he hath here taken with their characters and profeffion; we leave them, therefore, if they think it neceffary, to ftand on their own defence. At the fame time, we cannot help fuípecting, nevertheless, that the circumftances on which Mr. Rouffeau founds his right to treat them fo cavalierly, may have had some influence on his impartiality.

Singular, however, as our Tutor's opinion may be thought on this head, as well as on fome few others, his obfervations and reflections both on the moral and phyfical management

of

of infants, are, in general, extremely proper and judicious. It is too common, not to be a juft, obfervation, that both the temper and conftitution of children are, too often, fpoiled by exceffive tenderness and indulgence: at the fame time, therefore, that Mr. Rouffeau exclaims against the brutality of thofe parents, who give up the care of their offspring to mercenary hirelings, he pertinently obferves, that "the obvious paths of nature are alfo forfaken, in a different manner, when, instead of neglecting the duties of a mother, a woman carries them to excefs; when the makes an idol of her child, increases its weakness, by preventing its fenfe of it, and as if fhe could emancipate him from the laws of nature, prevents every approach of pain or diftrefs; without thinking that, for the fake of preferving him at present from a few trifling inconveniencies, fhe is accumulating on his head a diftant load of anxieties and misfortunes; without thinking that it is a barbarous precaution to enervate and indulge the child at the expence of the man. Thetis, fays the fable, in order to render her fon invulnerable, plunged him into the waters of Styx. This is an expreffive and beautiful allegory. The cruel mothers I am speaking of, act directly contrary; by plunging their children in foftnefs and effeminacy, they render them more tender and vulnerable; they lay open, as it were, their nerves to every fpecies of afflicting fenfations, to which they will certainly fall a prey as they grow up.

"Obferve nature, and follow the track fhe has delineated. She continually exercises her children, and fortifies their conftitution by experiments of every kind; inuring them by times to grief and pain. In cutting their teeth, they experience the fever; griping cholics throw them into convulfions; the hooping-cough fuffocates, and worms torment, them; furfeits corrupt their blood; and the various fermentations their humours are fubject to, cover them with dangerous eruptions: Almoft the whole period of childhood is fickness. and danger; half the children that are born, dying before they are eight years old. In paffing thro' this course of experiments, the child gathers ftrength and fortitude, and, as foon as he is capable of living, the principles of life become less precarious.

"This is the rule of nature. Why should you act contrary to it? Don't you fee, that by endeavouring to correct her work, you fpoil it, and prevent the execution of her defigns? Act you from without as fhe does within: this, according to you, would increase the danger; on the contrary,

it will create a diverfion, and leffen it. Experience fhews, that children delicately educated, die in a greater proportion than others. Provided you do not make them exert themselves beyond their powers, lefs rifk is run by exercifing, than indulging them in eafe. Inure them, therefore, by degrees, to thofe inconveniencies they muft one day fuffer. Harden their bodies to the intemperance of the feafons, climates, and elements; to hunger, thirft, and fatigue; in a word, dip them in the waters of Styx. Before the body hath acquired a fettled habit, we may give it any we pleafe, without danger: but when it is once arrived to its full growth and confiftence, every alteration is hazardous. A child will bear thofe viciffitudes which to a man would be infupportable: the foft and pliant fibres of the former, readily yield to impreffion; those of the latter are more rigid, and are reduced only by violence to recede from the forms they have affumed. We may, therefore, bring up a child robuft and hearty, without endangering either its life or health; and tho' even some risk were run in this refpect, it would not afford fufficient cause of hesitation. Since they are rifks infeparable from human life, can we do better than to run them during that period of it, wherein we take them at the leaft disadvantage?

"The life of a child becomes the more valuable as he, advances in years. To the value of his perfon must be added, the coft and pains attending his education: to the loss of life, alfo, may be annexed his own fenfe and apprehenfions of death. We fhould, therefore, particularly direct our views to the future in his prefent prefervation; we ought to arm him against the evils of youth, before he arrives at that period: for if the value of his life increases till he attain the age in which it is ufeful, what a folly is it to protect him from a few evils in his infancy, to multiply his fufferings when he comes to years of difcretion!"

With respect to the temper and difpofition of children, our Author very juftly obferves, that the common methods of capriciously humouring or contradicting them, are, to the highest degree, deftructive and abfurd. We always, fays he, either do that which is pleafing to the child, or exact of it what pleafes ourselves; either fubmitting to its humours, or obliging it to fubmit to ours. There is no medium, it muft either command or obey. Hence the firft ideas it acquires, are thofe of tyranny and fervitude. Before it can fpeak, it learns to command; and before it can act, it is taught obedience; nay, fometimes it is punished before it be

confcious

conscious of a fault, at least before it can commit one.

Thus

it is we early inftil into their tender minds thofe paffions which we afterwards impute to nature; and, after having taken the pains to make them vicious, complain that we found them fo.

"In this manner, a child paffes fix or feven years, under the care of the women; the constant victim of their caprices and his own. After he has learnt of them what they usually teach, that is, after they have burthened his memory with words without meaning, and things of no confequence; after they have corrupted his natural difpofition, by the paffions they have implanted, this factitious Being is turned over to the care of a Preceptor, who proceeds in the developement of those artificial buds already formed; teaching him every thing except the knowlege of himself, the bufineis of human life, and the attainment of happiness. So that when this flavish and tyrannical infant, replete with fcience, and deprived of fenfe, equally debilitated both in body and mind, comes at length to enter on the world, it is no wonder that the dif play he makes of his folly, vanity, and vice, fhould cause us to lament the mifery and perverfenefs of human nature.”

Mr. Rouffeau very prudently advifes, that the paffions in young children fhould be neither fomented by needlefs contradiction; nor capricious habits inftilled, by fruitless endeavours to footh them under their unavoidable fufferings. "Be careful, fays he, therefore, to keep them from fervants, who are continually teizing, and provoking them; fuch servants are infinitely more fatal to children than the intemperature of the air or the feafons. While infants are croffed only by the refiftance of things, and not by perfons, they will never grow fractious nor paffionate. This is one reafon why the children of common people, being more free and independent, are, for the most part, lefs infirm and delicate in their conftitutions, and more robuft than thofe of others, who, by pretending to educate them better, are perpetually contradicting them. It must, however, be remembered, that there is a very wide difference between acting always in obedience to, or humouring, a child, and not contradicting it.

"Tears are the petitions of young children; if they be not looked on as fuch, they will foon become commands: infants would begin by praying our affiftance, and go on to command our fervice. Thus from their own weakness, whence at first arifes the fenfe of their dependence, follows

the

the notion of domineering and command. This idea, however, is lefs excited by their wants than by our affiduities; and here we begin to perceive thofe moral effects, whose immediate caufe doth not exist in nature. At the fame time, we fee how neceffary it is, to difcover the fecret motives of the cries of children, even in their earlicft infancy.

"When a child fometimes holds out its hand, without any other emotion, it thinks to reach the object, because it cannot estimate the distance of it: it is here only mistaken : but when in reaching out its hand, it cries, or manifefts other figns of impatience, it is not deceived in the distance of the object, but is either commanding it to approach, or you to fetch it. In the firft cafe, therefore, it is proper to undeceive the child, by carrying it gently toward the object; and in the laft, not to appear to mind it; but the louder it cries, the lefs notice to take of it. It is of confequence to check children betimes, in ufurping the command over persons who are not in their power; or over things which they are not fufficiently acquainted with.

"For the latter reafon, it is better when a child defires any thing that may be proper to give him, to carry him to the object, than to bring the object to the child: as, by this means, he deduces a conclufion adapted to his tender years, and which there is no other way of fuggefting to him."

"The child, fays our Author, who is liable to fuffer none but natural inconveniencies, will cry only when it feels pain; which is a great advantage in its Education; for then we are certain to know when it stands in real want of affiftance, and this fhould be afforded it, if poffible, immediately. But if it be out of our power to relieve it, we should take no notice, nor make any fruitless attempts to quiet it. Kifles and carefles will not cure its cholic; yet it will remember the methods taken to footh it; and when it once knows how to employ you at its pleafure, it is become your mafter, and all is over. Being lefs reftrained in their efforts to move, children would cry lefs; if we were lefs importuned with their tears, it would require lefs trouble to quiet them; threatned and foothed more feldom, they would become lefs timid and obtinate, and would retain more of their natural temper and difpofition. It is lefs from letting children cry unnoticed, than from ftriving to appeafe them, that they get falls; my proof of this is, that thofe which are moft neglected, are the leaft fubject to thofe accidents. I am far, however from re

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