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    neither Furnished with wood , bricks , or mortar ; and if we had them , we should not know how to put them together . " Good seldom comes of giving good advice ; " every one is ready to pour forth an ample store of this commodity , but hosv few there are who will undertake to show us how we are to carry their advice into execution .

    The best practical works on Infant Education that have come under our observation , are a few treatises by Pestalozzi and his disciples , two small works on Infant Schools , by Mr . Wilderspin , and the work under review . But these books are defective , and do not altogether form anything like a complete system . It cannot be denied , however , that great advances have been made in infant education within the last thirty years , and that

    the newest description of schools which have been established in this country , namely , Infant Schools , have ( in some instances at least ) proved far superior to anything we have hitherto seen . They have marked out an entirely new province for cultivation , that of the affections and moral feelings , which was previously utterly unknown to scholastic instruction , and v / hich with these few exceptions still continues unknown .

    One grand secret in infant education , ( which , we may observe , has only recently been discovered ) is , that little children are not men and women ; they cannot be set down to a long day ' s work on one thing , they must be kept in almost constant motion , they must have an almost incessant change of occupations , and a very great variety of actual and interesting external objects must be presented to their attention . The

    various bodily and mental powers , the affections and emotions must all be exercised very frequently , but very briefly ; intellectual and moral habits must be firmly implanted by practice and trials , not merely by words and precepts . Instead of being treated like the young of the lowest animals whose faculties have not yet come forth , they must be accustomed to think and act in their small way as rational beings , ( of which

    they are the young ) and to observe the effects of their thoughts and actions . They must not be crammed with instruction ; indeed , they should not be instructed at all , they should be led on to instruct themselves , they should not be made learned , they should not be made learned children , they should not become infant prodigies , but should be placed in situations favourable to the improvement of the whole of their bodily and mental faculties .

    The little volume now before us , and the two small works by Mr . Wilderspin , entitled " Infant Education , " and " Early Discipline Illustrated , " are the best works we have seen on the management of Infant Schools ; and the first is preferable for its brevity and cheapness , though on the score of amusement Mr . Wildernpiii ' s are the most interesting , as bearing

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    142 Infant Education .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1836, page 142, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2655/page/14/