things to be considered upon this
occasion; the immediate business, is to teach him to read. A new era
in his life now commences. The age of learning begins, and begins in
sorrow. The consequences of a bad beginning, are proverbially ominous;
but no omens can avert his fate, no omens can deter his tutor from the
undertaking; the appointed moment is come; the boy is four years old,
and he must learn to read. Some people, struck with a panic fear, lest
their children should never learn to read and write, think that they
cannot be in too great a hurry to teach them. Spelling-books,
grammars, dictionaries, rods and masters, are collected; nothing is to
be heard of in the house but tasks; nothing is to be seen but tears.

"No tears! no tasks! no masters! nothing upon compulsion!" say the
opposite party in education. "Children must be left entirely at
liberty; they will learn every thing better than you can teach them;
their memory must not be overloaded with trash; their reason must be
left to grow."

Their reason will never grow, unless it be exercised, is the reply;
their memory must be stored whilst they are young, because, in youth,
the memory is most tenacious. If you leave them at liberty for ever,
they will never learn to spell; they will never learn Latin; they will
never learn Latin grammar; yet, they must learn Latin grammar, and a
number of other disagreeable things; therefore, we must give them
tasks and task-masters.

In all these assertions, perhaps, we shall find a mixture of truth
and errour; therefore, we had better be governed by neither party, but
listen to both, and examine arguments unawed by authority. And first,
as to the panic fear, which, though no argument, is a most powerful
motive. We see but few examples of children so extremely stupid as not
to have been able to learn to read and write between the years of
three and thirteen; but we see many whose temper and whose
understanding have been materially injured by premature or injudicious
instruction; we see many who are disgusted, perhaps irrecoverably,
with literature, whilst they are fluently reading books which they
cannot comprehend, or learning words by rote, to which they affix no
ideas. It is scarcely worth while to speak of the vain ambition of
those who long only to have it said, that their children read sooner
than those of their neighbours do; for, supposing their utmost wish to
be gratified, that their son could read before the age wh