a_) ON THE EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG: LETTER TO A FRIEND, 1806.

(_b_) OF THE PEOPLE, THEIR WAYS AND NEEDS: LETTER TO ARCHDEACON
WRANGHAM, 1808.

(_c_) EDUCATION: TWO LETTERS TO THE REV. H.J. ROSE, 1828.

(_d_) EDUCATION OF DUTY: LETTER TO REV. DR. WORDSWORTH, 1830.

(_e_) SPEECH ON LAYING THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF THE NEW SCHOOL IN THE
VILLAGE OF BOWNESS, WINDERMERE, 1836.

(_a_) ON THE EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG.

_Letter to a Friend_ [1806].

MY DEAR SIR,

I am happy to hear of the instructions which you are preparing for
parents, and feel honoured by your having offered to me such an
opportunity of conveying to the public any information I may possess
upon the subject; but, in truth, I am so little competent in the present
unarranged state of my ideas to write any thing of value, that it would
be the highest presumption in me to attempt it. This is not mock
modesty, but rigorous and sober truth. As to the case of your own child,
I will set down a few thoughts, which I do not hope will throw much
light on your mind, but they will show my willingness to do the little
that is in my power.

The child being the child of a man like you, what I have to say will lie
in small compass.

I consider the facts which you mention as indicative of what is commonly
called sensibility, and of quickness and talent, and shall take for
granted that they are so; you add that the child is too much noticed by
grown people, and apprehend selfishness.

Such a child will almost always be too much noticed; and it is scarcely
possible entirely to guard against the evil: hence vanity, and under bad
management selfishness of the worst kind. And true it is, that under
better and even the best management, such constitutions are liable to
selfishness; not showing itself in the shape of tyranny, caprice,
avarice, meanness, envy, skulking, and base self-reference; but
selfishness of a worthier kind, yet still rightly called by that name.
What I mean I shall explain afterwards.

Vanity is not the necessary or even natural growth of such a
temperament; quite the contrary. Such a child, if neglected and suffered
to run wild, would probably be entirely free from vanity, owing to the
liveliness of its feelings, and the number of its resources. It would be
by nature independent and sufficient for itself. But as such children,
in these times in particular, are rarely if ever neglected, or rather
rarely if ever not far too much noticed, it is a hundred