playthings,
when they are judiciously chosen, and when the habit of reflection and
observation is associated with the ideas of amusement and happiness. A
little boy of nine years old, who had had a hoop to play with, asked
"why a hoop, or a plate, if rolled upon its edge, keeps up as long as
it rolls, but falls as soon as it stops, and will not stand if you try
to make it stand still upon its edge?" Was not the boy's understanding
as well employed whilst he was thinking of this phenomenon, which he
observed whilst he was beating his hoop, as it could possibly have
been by the most learned preceptor?

When a pedantic schoolmaster sees a boy eagerly watching a paper kite,
he observes, "What a pity it is that children cannot be made to mind
their grammar as well as their kites!" And he adds, perhaps, some
peevish ejaculation on the natural idleness of boys, and that
pernicious love of play against which he is doomed to wage perpetual
war. A man of sense will see the same thing with a different eye; in
this pernicious love of play he will discern the symptoms of a love of
science, and, instead of deploring the natural idleness of children,
he will admire the activity which they display in the pursuit of
knowledge. He will feel that it is his business to direct this
activity, to furnish his pupil with materials for fresh combinations,
to put him or to let him put himself, in situations where he can make
useful observations, and acquire that experience which cannot be
bought, and which no masters can communicate.

It will not be beneath the dignity of a philosophic tutor to consider
the different effects, which the most common plays of children have
upon the habits of the understanding and temper. Whoever has watched
children putting together a dissected map, must have been amused with
the trial between Wit and Judgment. The child, who quickly perceives
resemblances, catches instantly at the first bit of the wooden map,
that has a single hook or hollow that seems likely to answer his
purpose; he makes, perhaps, twenty different trials before he hits
upon the right; whilst the wary youth, who has been accustomed to
observe differences, cautiously examines with his eye the whole
outline before his hand begins to move; and, having exactly compared
the two indentures, he joins them with sober confidence, more proud of
never disgracing his judgment by a fruitless attempt, than ambitious
of rapid success. He is slow, but sure, an