Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/150

 As to boys, if agricultural affairs, larger or smaller, are an appendage of the establishment—if there be commercial interests to be looked to—if out-of-door works are carrying on, and accounts are to be kept, great benefits will be secured by entrusting certain well defined duties—certain regularly returning and real engagements, to a youth, from the earliest time at which he appears, as to body and mind, capable of sustaining any such responsibility. Occupations of this sort are intended to give employment to that higher degree of thoughtfulness and discretion which is likely to belong to a boy who is his father's companion. At the same time the alternation of these employments with intellectual pursuits has the most favourable influence upon the mind in preserving its elasticity, and in increasing its free force.

I think too, and speak not without a regard to facts, that great advantages, advantages of more kinds than one, accrue from that knowledge of his father's affairs which a son, so employed in managing the details of them, is likely to obtain. An ingenuous and well-principled youth—confided in by his father, acquires steadiness of purpose and discretion, together with moderated views, which will be highly conducive to his future welfare.

It has been remarked by Rousseau that the period between the twelfth and the seventeenth years is the only time when man is absolutely happy; inasmuch as it is then only that his forces of body and mind much exceed his desires. At least it is certain that during this period there is a surplus force available, greater in proportion to the calls made upon it, than at any other season of life. In large schools, where severe mental exercises are exacted, and where the most vivid excitements are afforded out of class, the superfluous energy of body and mind is pretty well occupied; but at home, provision must be made for giving scope to the same superabundant power, which else, either