think, however, that the claim of novelty, which he advances for this practice, is unfounded. It has been recommended on the very principle which he proposes, in the cure of consump tion, by Sir George Baker, and by Dr. Darwin; and several cases in which it was successfully exhibited on this principle, in active hæmorrhages and pulmonary consumptions, are mentioned in the first and second volumes of Dr. Ferriar's Medical Histories and Reflections. The cases furnished by Dr. Drake are, however, valuable additions to the imperfect information hitherto afforded on this interesting subject.

Letter from Dr. Fowler, on the Cure of Consumption.

This letter contains a very candid statement of several consumptive cases, in which Dr. Fowler exhibited digitalis, and the general result of which is certainly very favourable to this remedy. We are glad to observe that Dr. F. has not experienced those formidable consequences from the use of foxgiove, which we might be induced to dread from the testimony of the older writers on Materia Medica. The editor adds some farther instances of the power of this medicine, in lowering the velocity of the pulse, and in relieving affections of the lungs The facts are very important, and deserve particular notice from practitioners: we shall not attempt to abridge what ought to be carefully and minutely considered,

It

On the whole, we have found much interesting and not a little instructive matter in this volume. We think, however, that some of the cases will justify a remark which we hazarded in our criticism on the preface; that, where the temptation to publishing is indiscriminately held out, the practice exhibited will not always be the most useful and judicious. would perhaps have done no injury to the public, if Dr. Beddoes had delayed the insertion of some of his materials, till the facts had been more carefully examined, and their merit more precisely ascertained. In actual practice, the bad consequences of a mistaken precept are sometimes irreparable. There is a spirit of investigation excited among the faculty, which promises great improvements in medicine, and which it would be equally odious and criminal to discourage: --but there can be no just reason for hurrying facts into public notice, before they are properly appreciated, or even verified. An editor is expected to separate the chaff from the corn; otherwise his intervention would be futile. A very acute philosopher has characterised a metaphysical writer, as possessed with the evil spirit of saying something new. Without meaning to speak harshly of the present publication, we may observe that the passion for discovery may require occasionally to be

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moderated,

moderated, like other passions. We state our opinion strongly, because we have felt a sincere esteem for the abilities and activity of Dr. Beddoes; and we would suggest to him a saying quoted by Lord Verulam; "stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner."

ART. XIV. Practical Education; by Maria Edgeworth, Author of "Letters for Literary Ladies," and "The Parent's Assistant;"→ and by Richard Lovel Edgeworth, F. R. S. and M.R.I.A. 4to. 11. 10s. Boards. Johnson. 1798.

THEY who are convinced of the extensive influence of education, in forming the individual and national character, will receive every effort to elucidate so important a subject with complacency and attention. The present publication deserves and will reward both. "The parent, whose solicitude is directed to the detail of education, will peruse it with satisfaction and with profit; for he will find in it much sound judgment and rational principle, in all that relates to educating the child, from its first entrance into the nursery, to its emancipation from parental authority.-To those who are aware that education comprehends not only the mere instruction of an art or a science, but that it concerns every thing which can be an object of sense and reflection, from the coral of the infant to the playthings of maturer age, it will not be a matter of surprise that the first chapter of Practical Education should be entitled Toys.' Without ascribing too much to the influence of trifles, we may agree with the authors that

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• Children may learn much from their playthings when they are. judiciously chosen, and when the habit of reflection and observation is associated with the ideas of amusement and happiness. A little boy of nine years old who had had a hoop to play with, asked “why a hoop or a plate, if rolled upon its edge, keeps up as long as it rolls, but falls as soon as it stops, and will not stand, if you try to make it stand still upon its edge." Was not the boy's understanding as well employed whilst he was thinking of this phænomenon, which he observed whilst he was beating his hoop, as it could possibly have been by the most learned preceptor? When a pedantic schoolmaster sees a boy eagerly watching a paper kite, he observes, "What a pity it is that children cannot be made to mind their grammar as well as their kites ;" and he adds perhaps some peevish ejaculation on the natural idleness of boys, and that pernicious love of play against which he is doomed to wage perpetual war. A man of sense will see the same sight with a different eye; in this pernicious love of play he will discern the symptoms of a love of science, and instead of de ring the natural idleness of children, he will admire the activity which they display in the pursuit of knowlege. He will feel that

it is his business to direct this activity, to furnish his pupil with materials for fresh combinations, to put him or to let him put himself, in situations where he can make useful observations, and acquire that experience which cannot be bought, and which no masters can communicate."

This chapter [the first hint of which was given by Dr, Beddoes] commences by an objection to some fashionable toys which from their frailty are useless, or from their being covered with paint are injurious to health. The authors recommend, as first toys for children, pieces of wood, of various shapes and sizes, which they may build up and pull down, and put in a variety of different forms and positions: balls, pulleys, wheels, strings, and strong little carts, proportioned to their age, and to the things which they want to carry in them. They then proceed to enumerate not only such toys as are proper for children, but those amusements and occupations which are adapted to an early age. We shall not attempt to follow this enumeration, especially as it consists, chiefly, of such articles as usually engage the attention and form part of the pursuits of youth; but we shall observe that such only are selected for recommendation, as afford trials of dexterity and activity, furnish opportunities of manual and bodily exercise, and tend to call into action the various faculties of the mind.

In the subsequent chapter, entitled TASKS,' the authors propose a new method of teaching to read. Without expe rience, it is impossible for us to pronounce decisively on this plan: but, from the consideration which we have been able! to give to it, we cannot but deem it sensible and rational.' Seven children in the authors' family were taught to read in the same mode, and three in the common method; and from the difference of time, labor, and sorrow, apparent between the two modes, they think that they can speak with confidence upon the subject, and that nine tenths of the labor and disgust of learning to read may be saved by this method; and that, instead of frowns and tears, the usual harbingers of learning, cheerfulness and smiles may initiate willing pupils in the most difficult of human attainments.'

Children are usually first taught the names of the letters. This method is here condemned; and, we think, with some reason; for, if the ability to read consists in knowing and. being able to pronounce, not the name of the letter, but the sound of which it is the sign when in combination with other letters, the being taught that a certain sign is called by a certain name advances us but a little way in the art of reading for how few are the instances in which the name of the letter resembles the sound for which it stands? When a child, therefore, has

acquired

acquired the names of the letters, and begins to learn to read words, he feels himself encumbered with the knowlege which he has gained for, if he calls the letters, now combined into a word, by their names, he will produce a sound no more like that for which those letters in combination stand, than if he had repeated his alphabet. The great difficulty in learning to read, however, proceeds from the circumstance of the same letter standing not only for a sound which has no resemblance to its name, but for a variety of sounds. To obviate this and other difficulties, the authors propose a different method of teaching. In page 43. they say,

In teaching a child to read, every letter should have a precise or single sound annexed to its figure; this should never vary. Where two consonants are joined together, so as to have but one sourd, as ph, sh, &c. the two letters should be coupled together by a distinct invariable mark. Letters that are silent should be marked in such a manner as to point out to the child that they are not to be sounded. Upon these simple rules our method of teaching to read has been founded. The signs or marks by which these distinctions are to be effected, are arbitrary, and may be varied as the teacher chooses: the addition of a single point above or below the common letters is employed to distinguish the different sounds that are given to the same letter, and a mark underneath such letters as are to be omitted is the only apparatus necessary. These marks were employed by the author in 1776, before he had seen Sheridan's or any similar dictionary; he has found that they do not confuse children as much as figures, because when dots are used to distinguish sounds, there is only a change of place and no change of form: but any person that chooses it may substitute figures instead of dots. It should however be remembered, that children must learn to distinguish the figures before they can be useful in discriminating the words. All these sounds, and each of the characters which denote them, should be distinctly known by a child before we begin to teach him to read.

The three sounds of the letter (a) should be first taught. As soon as he is acquainted with these and with their distinguishing marks, each of these sounds should be formed into syllables, with each of the consonants; but we should never name the consonants by their usual names; if it be required to point them out by sounds, let them resemble the real sounds or powers of the consonants, but in fact it will never be necessary to name the consonants separately, til their powers in combination with the different vowels be distinctly acquired. It will then be time enough to teach the common names of the letters. To a person unacquainted with the principles upon which this mode of teaching is founded, it must appear strange that a child should be able to read before he knows the names of his letters; but it has been ascertained, that the names of the letters are an incumbrance in teaching a child to read.'—

As soon as our pupil knows the different sounds of (a) combined in succession with all the consonants, we may teach him the rest of the

yowels joined with all the consonants, which will be a short and casy work. Our readers need not be alarmed at the apparent slowness of this method; six months, at the rate of four or five minutes each day, will render all these combinations perfectly familiar. One of Mrs. Barbauld's lessons for young children, carefully marked in the same manner as the alphabet, should, when they are well acquainted with the sounds of each of the vowels with each of the consonants, be put into our pupil's hands. The sound of three or four letters together will immediately become familiar to him, and when any of the less common sounds of the vowels and the terminating sounds, tion, ly, &c. occur, they should be read to the child, and should be added to what he has got by rote from time to time. When all these marks and their corresponding sounds are learnt, the primer should be abandoned; and from that time the child will be able to read slowly the most difficult words in the language. We must observe, that the mark of obliteration is of the greatest service; it is a clue to the whole labyrinth of intricate and uncouth orthography. The word through, by the obliteration of three letters, may be as easily read as the or that,'

To this account of their method of teaching, the authors have subjoined a table explanatory of the use of the marks. The remainder of the chapter is occupied with animadversions. on the mode of teaching children to spell, by making them get by rote a long vocabulary of words, which occur neither in their reading nor conversation, and of which they cannot possibly know the meaning. We have also some sensible remarks on the prevailing fashion of teaching children every thing in play; and on the propriety of strictly attending to the language which children acquire, in order to see that they annex certain ideas to the words which they use.

Chap. 3. On ATTENTION.' Having, in the course of the foregoing chapter, observed that the first object in the early cultivation of the understanding was to fix the attention of children, or in other words to interest them in those subjects to which we wish them to apply, the writers proceed, in the present chapter, to point out the general excitements and general precautions which are to be used in cultivating the power of attention. We select the following passages, as illustrative of the principles inculcated on this subject. P. 85.

Whatever is connected with pain or pleasure commands our attention; but to make this general observation useful in education, we must examine what degrees of stimulus are necessary for different pupils and in different circumstances. We have formerly observed, that it is not prudent early to use violent or continual stimulus either of a painful or a pleasurable nature, to excite children to application; because we should by an intemperate use of these weaken the mind, and because we may with a little patience obtain all we wish without these expedients. Besides these reasons, there is another potent argument