s should become too intellectual, but, on the contrary,
they will soon find that their own welfare, security, and happiness
will not only be insured, but will increase in proportion as the
poorer classes gain knowledge; for by the method of instruction
pursued in the _Infant Schools_, the knowledge there acquired is
necessarily accompanied by the practice of industry, sobriety,
honesty, benevolence, and mutual kindness; in fine, by all the moral
and religious virtues.

That the system of instruction recommended in the foregoing pages is
equally applicable to the children of the rich as to those of the
poor, there can be no doubt; and it might be adopted either in schools
established on its principles or in the nursery. It is, indeed,
obvious that it might be carried to a much greater extent, where the
means of so doing would not be wanting. Many things might be taught,
which it is neither advisable nor practicable to teach in the schools
established for the instruction of poor children.

Whilst the elements of number, form, and language, may be taught by
the means and after the manner recommended in the preceding chapters
on the respective subjects, there are other branches of knowledge
which might enter into the scope of nursery instruction with great
advantage to the children.

As an introduction to _botany_, I would make the children acquainted
with the progress of vegetation, _not from words, but from
observation_. I would have three or four garden-pots filled with
mould, introduced into the nursery at a proper season of the year; the
children should be asked, what is in the pots.--"Dirt," or "mould,"
will of course be the reply. They should then be shewn the seeds which
are to be deposited in the mould, and assuming in the eyes of the
children a prophetic character, the mother or governess should inform
them of the process of vegetation, and that about a certain time a
pretty flower will make its appearance in the pots: the seeds should
then be deposited in the mould, and the pots placed in a proper
situation. It would not be improper to let the children themselves sow
the seed; thus convincing them of their power of being useful, and
becoming the instrument of so great a wonder, as the transformation of
a seed into a flower. During the time the seed is lying unperceived
beneath the mould, the children should frequently be sent to look "if
the pretty flower has come up," or questioned as to what they
were told