Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/91

 and afford respites and turns-off to the brain. Moreover, before that habit of the eye and ear is perfectly formed, which enables an adult to read without a thought of the combination of letters in words, the mind is still occupied with the visible symbols, on the page; nor does the mental operation essentially differ from that which is every hour going on, while the names of familiar objects are becoming associated with them in the memory.

The only inquiry likely to accrue from the mere operation of learning to read, is that which happens when the exercise, each time, is continued a little too long, so as to impair the animal vivacity. But the mental process be-comes altogether of another sort when a good degree of proficiency has been made; for, from that time, and until the connexion between written words and the ideas they stand for has become so familiarly perceived, as that the mind is no longer conscious of any act in passing from the one to the otheruntil that time, there is an ill-adjudged movement going on in the brain, of a kind always more or less hurtful.

This circumstance deserves to be more understood and considered than it usually is. Let it be observed then that the mind, or the brain, and it is of no importance here to inquire which, is, in every instance, perturbed, and ex-posed to injury, when two operations, linked one with the other, are going on, but which do not accurately keep time, or advance precisely at the same rate. It is hence that most cases of confusion of the thoughts arise; and an attention to the simple fact might, in very many instances, greatly aid those who, in the transaction of complicated affairs, are liable to lose the ready command of their faculties.

Instances of this sort are easily named, such as when an unpractised writer is labouring to keep pace with a speaker; or when a clerk, less expert, is collating accounts in