en that which has been the future, has in its turn
become present, children begin to have some idea of the nature of
time, and they can then form some comparisons between the value of
present and future pleasures. This is a very slow process; old people
calculate and depend upon the distant future more than the young, not
always from their increased wisdom or prudence, but merely from their
increased experience, and consequent belief that the future will in
time arrive. It is imprudent in old people to depend upon the future;
if they were to reason upon the chance of their lives, they ought not
to be secure of its arrival; yet habit in this instance, as in many
others, is more powerful than reason: in all the plans of elderly
people, there is seldom any errour from impatience as to the future;
there often appear gross errours in their security as to its arrival.
If these opposite habits could be mixed in the minds of the old and of
the young, it would be for their mutual advantage.

It is not possible to _infuse_ experience into the mind; our pupils
must feel for themselves: but, by teaching them to observe their own
feelings, we may abridge their labour; a few lessons will teach a
great deal when they are properly applied. To teach children to
calculate and compare their present and future pleasures, we may begin
by fixing short intervals of time for our experiments; an hour, a day,
a week, perhaps, are periods of time to which their imagination will
easily extend; they can measure and compare their feelings within
these spaces of time, and we may lead them to observe their own
errours in not providing for the future. "Now Friday is come; last
Monday you thought Friday would never come. If you had not cut away
all your pencil last week, you would have had some left to draw with
to-day. Another time you will manage better."

We should also lead them to compare their ideas of any given pleasure,
before and after the period of its arrival. "You thought last summer
that you should like making snow balls in winter, better than making
hay in summer. Now you have made snow-balls to-day; and you remember
what you felt when you were making hay last summer; do you like the
snow-ball pleasure, or the hay-making pleasure the best?" V. Berquin's
Quatre saisons.

If our pupils, when they have any choice to make, prefer a small
present gratification to a great future pleasure, we should not, at
the moment of their decision, reproa