, as it tends to
double all the advantages of the exercise, both to the teacher and the
pupil. It will be found in general, especially in morals, that every
practical lesson that is drawn from a truth or passage, actually
embodies two,--both of which are equally legitimate and connected with
the subject. There is always a _negative_ lesson implied, when the
_positive_ lesson is expressed; and there is in like manner a _positive_
implied, whenever it is the _negative_ that is expressed. As for
example, when the child, from the history of Cain and Abel, draws the
negative lesson that he should _not hate_ his brother; the opposite of
that lesson is equally binding in the positive form, that he should
_love_ his brother. And when, from the history of Job, the positive
lesson is drawn that we ought to be patient; the negative of that lesson
becomes equally binding, and the child may, by the very same fact, be
taught and enjoined not to be fretful, discontented, or impatient,
during sickness or trouble. Of this method of multiplying the practical
uses of knowledge, we have a most appropriate example in the Assembly's
Larger and Shorter Catechisms, where the illustrations given of the
decalogue are conducted upon this important principle, and in a similar
way.

CHAP. VIII.

_On the Imitation of Nature in Teaching the Use of Knowledge by means of
the Animal or Common Sense._

A large portion of what has been advanced in the foregoing chapter, has
reference to the practical application of all kinds of knowledge,
whether by the Animal or Moral sense; and we shall here offer a few
additional remarks on the teaching of those branches which are more
immediately connected with the former.

When a person is sent to learn an art or trade, such as a carpenter, he
is not sent to hear lectures, or to get merely an abstract knowledge of
the several truths connected with it; but he is sent to practise the
little knowledge that he is able of himself to pick up. His is a
practical learning; ninety-nine parts in every hundred being employed in
the practice, for one that is employed in acquiring the abstract
principles of his occupation. When, on the contrary, a child is sent to
school, to prepare him for this practical application of his knowledge,
the former proportions are generally reversed, and ninety-nine parts of
his time and labour are taken up in attaining abstract knowledge, for
one that is occupied in assisting him to re