Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/129

 vigorous exercise of the mind, when it reaches the latest season of its natural perfection.

And it should moreover now be said that, in laying down a plan of regular instruction, as commencing about the eighth year, regard must be had at once to a child’s rate of natural capacity (so far as it can be surmised) and to his probable destination in life. Education is, in fact, of two kinds, broadly distinguishable the one from the other: the first being that method, and that amount of instruction which is practicable in the case of those whose intellectual culture must be concluded in their fourteenth or fifteenth year, and who, thenceforward, are to be occupied with the engagements of common life: the other kind of training is that which is designed to extend a full seven years further; and which includes whatever can serve to give the highest possible advantage to such endowments as nature may have conferred on the individual.

If the former sort of culture be all that can be aimed at, there is then assuredly not much time to be lost within the six or seven years we have in prospect; and the several processes of instruction ought to be advanced at as quick a pace as will consist with a child’s health and cheerfulness.

But in the latter case, the period from the eighth to the twelfth year may be regarded as a second infancy, during which there is still to be a leaning to the side of repression, rather than to that of excitement.

Now inasmuch as it would be a cumbrous method, involving repetitions, to exhibit these two species of mental discipline separately, it must be understood that, in the course of instruction recommended, it is mainly the second, or more perfect scheme which I have in view, and which will require to be so far lowered or abated as may be found in practice necessary, when the shorter term of education is to be calculated upon.