est histories that a young man of fifteen or sixteen can read.

It is scarcely possible to conceive, that several treatises on
grammar, the art of reasoning, thinking, and writing, which are
contained in M. Condillac's course of study, were designed by him for
elementary books, for the instruction of a child from seven to ten
years old. It appears the more surprising that the abbe should have
so far mistaken the capacity of childhood, because, in his judicious
preface, he seems fully sensible of the danger of premature
cultivation, and of the absurdity of substituting a knowledge of words
for a knowledge of things. As M. Condillac's is a work of high
reputation, we may be allowed to make a few remarks on its practical
utility, and this may, perhaps, afford us an opportunity of explaining
our ideas upon the use of metaphysical, poetical, and critical works,
in early education. We do not mean any invidious criticism upon
Condillac, but in "Practical Education" we wish to take our examples
and illustrations from real life. The abbe's course of study, for a
boy of seven years old, begins with metaphysics. In his preface he
asserts, that the arts of speaking, reasoning, and writing, differ
from one another only in degrees of accuracy, and in the more or less
perfect connection of ideas. He observes, that attention to the manner
in which we acquire, and in which we arrange our knowledge, is
necessary equally to those who would learn, and to those who would
teach, with success. These remarks are just; but does not he draw an
erroneous conclusion from his own principles, when he infers, that the
first lessons which we should teach a child, ought to be metaphysical?
He has given us an abstract of those which he calls preliminary
lessons, on the operations of the soul, on attention, judgment,
imagination, &c.--he adds, that he thought it useless to give to the
public the conversations and explanations which he had with his pupil
on these subjects. Both parents and children must regret the
suppression of these explanatory notes; as the lessons appear at
present, no child of seven years old can understand, and few
preceptors can or will make them what they ought to be. In the first
lesson on the different species of ideas, the abbe says,

"The idea, for instance, which I have of Peter, is singular, or
individual; and as the idea of man is general relatively to the ideas
of a nobleman and a citizen, it is particular as it relates t