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guish diseases, to become attentive to modifications according to age, temperament, climate, season, and manner of living, and to learn the mode of treatment. Being instructed in this practical way, they will feel an interest in studying the Materia Medica, or the substances used out of the three kingdoms of nature, and also the chemical preparations and doses.

When human nature shall be better understood, and the primitive faculties of the mind, and the conditions of their manifestations, more perfectly known, professional education will be better regulated, and we shall then no longer be obliged to learn merely for the school, or, as we commonly say, for the examinations. We shall then acquire only practical knowledge, and no one will find it necessary to begin his own plan of useful learning when he has finished his studies at the university. Indeed, nothing can be more tedious for students, than to attend er officio lectures of mere theoretical schoolmen.

Here the qualifications of teachers might be considered with propriety; they are certainly of great importance, but it is not my intention to speak of them. Pupils are well aware, that great abuses are committed in this respect; that it is'

not always the most worthy who fills the chair. I merely notice, that there is a difference between the possessing of knowledge and the capacity of communicating it to others, and that some persons of more knowledge are sometimes less skilful in teaching, than others of less information, in the same way as the best students of theoretical knowledge have not always the most practical skill.

The common method of teaching arts is not better than that of cultivating sciences. Let us suppose, for the sake of example, that those only who have natural talents apply themselves to drawing, painting, and the arts of imitation,-but we may ask, how are they generally taught? They are too frequently confined to copying the antiques as the only models of beauty and perfection, instead of representing and imitating nature. In this way artists will be only copyists, and never can acquire any claim to originality. On the other hand, the ancients had no exclusive privilege of genius, nor did they necessarily exhaust all the sources of excellence, so as to leave to posterity no resource but to copy them. On the contrary, there are many antiques that have no merit but their age. The only criterion, then, of greater or less perfection in works of art, is

their resemblance to nature. Now, if the ancients have brought forth masterpieces in imitating nature, why should not modern artists do the same, since nature, though infinite in her modifications, is constant in her laws? Let us imitate the method of the ancient artists, but not copy their productions. They represented nature, and imitated her varieties; they gave to each strong hero, strong muscles, yet different in proportion and size, just as we find in nature; why should our artists copy only the statue of HERCULES, in order to indicate bodily strength? Why should they in general confine themselves only to one and the same configuration and attitude for particular personages? All musicians might be equally, and, with the same right, requested to follow only the productions of one or several great composers; and all music which is not like that of HANDEL, MOZART OF HAYDN, be declared to be good for nothing.

Even on the supposition that education, in all its details, is well understood, and its principles practised, still there will be but a few individuals, who will unite all the faculties necessary to such or such a situation. The individual painters will be rare, who possess in a high degree the faculties of Constructiveness, Configuration, Size, Co

louring, Imitation, Individuality, Comparison, and Causality. The same difficulty of uniting the necessary fundamental faculties together prevails in all arts, sciences and professions. In every one there are and will be individuals endowed with one or several of the necessary gifts; but it seldom happens that all the faculties are united in an eminent degree in one person. The combinations of the primitive powers are innumerable, and form the proper subject of a particular treatise on talents and characters.

The reader will keep in mind, that in this volume, I intend merely to expose the fundamental principles according to which education is to be regulated, and the human race perfected. The peculiar applications are without end. The two following chapters, however, one on the education of both sexes, and the other on that of nations, seem to me particularly interesting. Yet there too the general principles remain the same, but their application is to be modified, and adapted to the peculiarities of sexes and nations.

CHAPTER V.

EDUCATION OF THE SEXES.

THE question, whether both sexes are to be educated differently, or in the same manner, and placed in different or in the same situations in practical life, has been, and is still differently answered. Women call men usurpers and tyrants; and these, on the contrary, boast of natural and positive rights of superiority. I shall consider, in the first place, in a general way, the condition of women as it was, and as it is, and then examine what natural claims they have to equality. Their education is to be regulated according to the determination of the latter point.

The condition of women is very miserable among barbarous nations; they are slaves. Wherever bodily strength and animal feelings predominate, They are purchased, and divorce is permitted. The Jews were privileged to divorce their wives. (Deut. xxiv.)

they are sadly off.

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