should follow Tyre and Sidon into the shades, and her now rising temples should become, like Palmyra in the desert, a heap of ruins, the habitations only of the hooting owl; unless some fresh effort of education, should tame the destructive passions of man and give a new stability to the fabric of society. I believe however this to be possible; and to be capable of accomplishment by early education. And while I view, in the recognition of the na tural rights of animals, the means of securing those of man; while I perceive the immense good that our benevolent Society has already done and the still greater benefit that must accrue from the spread of its principles; I feel that to point out the particular nature of its advantages, and to contrast its successful efforts with the failure of past schemes of improvement, is not only due to M. Gompertz and the humane members of the committee, who have done me the honour to elect me, however unworthy, their foreign correspondent; but is a paramount duty which I owe to society itself. In conclusion let me remark that ease and idleness are incompatable with long life; If we refuse to perform the functions of our lot, Ilove xai Kiduvɛuen, we shall be hewn down as a fruitless tree. Let each member therefore fill up every passing interval of his otherwise unemployed time, in advancing the great cause to which I have made allusion; and recollect the admonition of S. Bernard : Scienti enim bonum facere et non facienti peccatum est illi: which sentiment shall furnish me with an excuse for this humble endeavour to call more able champions of humanity into the field. And permit me to suggest that the task is lighter and the success greater in proportion as we begin early. It is easy to bend young twigs, or to trail the tendrils of the vine before the wood be hard; and when the tree begrown, it will bear its fruits in profusion: we may therefore say with the Mantuan bard: In tenui labor, at tenuis non gloria, si quem Numina laeva sinunt auditque vocatus Apollo. BRUGGE, SEPT. 26, 1844. LETTER V. Instances of extraordinary ferocity and tyrany, LETTER VII. Views of Nature. Duties to the Animal Kingdom. 49. LETTER XIV. Analogy of Religion and Nature. SUPPLIMENTARY LETTER on the Education of Animals; their con- DUM LOQUIMUR, FUGIT. The author has to apologize for several errata which were committed in the hasty composition of a language foreign to the printer and carelessly overlooked by ON EDUCATI O N. Introductory Remarks. The importance of Early Education in general considered. Anecdote of Sir Joseph Banks. ALTHOUGH LTHOUGH Education be one of the most important functions of society, and the very foundation of civil perfection, yet it is of all other duties the least generally understood. Legislation, the administration of justice, ecclesiastical discipline, and even punishment, are all better performed than that which is really the most important namely the Early Education of Children. When it was first proposed to offer the following observations to public notice, I hesitated; thinking that, after all that had been written on the subject, it would be almost like sending coals to Newcastle; but a little subsequent reflection convinced me that, notwithstanding the improvements in this branch of science which have taken place in the advancing age in which our lot is thrown, the true principle on which the character of social man is founded, had been lamentably over looked. Without therefore attempting to write a distinct treatise on the subject, a task for which I have neither time |