el
themselves roused agreeably from their habitual state of apathy, or
because they perceive, that at these contests, without any mental
exertion, they are equal, perhaps superior, to their competitors.

Happy they, who have early been inspired with a taste for science and
literature! They will have a constant succession of agreeable ideas;
they will find endless variety in the commonest objects which surround
them; and feeling that every day of their lives they have sufficient
amusement, they will require no extraordinary excitations, no holyday
pleasures. They who have learnt, from their own experience, a just
confidence in their own powers; they who have tasted the delights of
well-earned praise, will not lightly trust to _chance_, for the
increase of self-approbation; nor will those pursue, with too much
eagerness, the precarious triumphs of fortune, who know, that in their
usual pursuits, it is in their own power to command success
proportioned to their exertions. Perhaps it may be thought, that we
should have deferred our eulogium upon literature till we came to
speak of Tasks; but if there usually appears but little connection in
a child's mind, between books and toys, this must be attributed to his
having had bad books and bad toys. In the hands of a judicious
instructer, no means are too small to be useful; every thing is made
conducive to his purposes, and instead of useless baubles, his pupils
will be provided with play things which may instruct, and with
occupations which may at once amuse and improve the understanding.

It would be superfluous to give a greater variety of instances of the
sorts of amusements which are advantageous; we fear that we have
already given too many, and that we have hazarded some observations,
which will be thought too pompous for a chapter upon Toys. We intended
to have added to this chapter an inventory of the present most
fashionable articles in our toy-shops, and _a list of the new
assortment_, to speak in the true style of an advertisement; but we
are obliged to defer this for the present; upon a future occasion we
shall submit it to the judgment of the public. A revolution, _even in
toy-shops_, should not be attempted, unless there appear a moral
certainty that we both may, and can, change for the better. The danger
of doing too much in education, is greater even than the danger of
doing too little. As the merchants in France answered to Colbert, when
he desired to know "h