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    ESSAY ON THE APPRECIATION OF MENTAL PURSUITS . [ Concluded from p . 293 . 3 Perhaps it may be desirable to add a few examples of the mode of applying these principles . In doing this I shall confine myself to the tendency of knowledge to improve the mind . Where the objects specified form part of the general course of education , I must presume that they are taught in a manner best adapted to answer the end .

    Take first the acquisition of the foreign and the dead languages * The advantages are , the production of the habits of patience , of attention , qf discrimination , of accuracy , and of

    ingenuity ; the possession of a key to the ideas contained in those languages ; greater power in the use of our own ; and those numerous data for that branch of mental philosophy which regards language .

    The study of composition derives its value , partly from faci-r litatmg our own practice , and partly from putting it in our x > wer rnore fully to fee ) , and to appreciate , the beauties of the > est authors . The practice of composition is highly valuable , because it enables us to benefit others by our mental attain * -

    Itients ; to judge of the extent and solidity of those attainments ; to command our knowledge ; and to make that knowledge clear and substantial * Habits of correct composition are almost

    necessarily productive , of precision in our ideas , " of perspicuity in our reasonings ; they prevent their possessors from resting Satisfied with superficial notions ; and they force them to tfcink closely .

    Geography exercises the memory , and , were it only for its Subserviency to history , would be highly valuable : but it has other advantages . It may be made the vehicle for various to « r pics of information , and from these adjuncts it acquires a rani ? : in the scale of utility , to which , separately considered , it would

    not be entitled . Independently of this , the habit of associating names with things , and of arrangement , which seem likely tQ be formed by learning geography , entitle it to a place in the early part of education , I use the term in its exact though coiifined sense ; consider it as comprehending its adjuncts , and the study of it is very important . It leads the mind beyond

    the narrow sphere of its own observation , enlarges its compre ^ hension , and weakens its prejudices ; it forms an interesting link between mere sensation and abstract speculation : it raises the mind above the former , and cultivates and stores it for the letter . Here , however , it obviousl y borrow * its principal titi *

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1806, page 354, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1726/page/18/