their pitch and their timbre.  How fully this a priori conclusion is confirmed by infantile instincts, all will see on being reminded of the delight which every young child has in biting its toys, in feeling its brother’s bright jacket-buttons, and pulling papa’s whiskers—­how absorbed it becomes in gazing at any gaudily-painted object, to which it applies the word “pretty,” when it can pronounce it, wholly because of the bright colours—­and how its face broadens into a laugh at the tattlings of its nurse, the snapping of a visitor’s fingers, or any sound which it has not before heard.  Fortunately, the ordinary practices of the nursery fulfil these early requirements of education to a considerable degree.  Much, however, remains to be done; and it is of more importance that it should be done than at first appears.  Every faculty during that spontaneous activity which accompanies its evolution is capable of receiving more vivid impressions than at any other period.  Moreover, as these simplest elements have to be mastered, and as the mastery of them whenever achieved must take time, it becomes an economy of time to occupy this first stage of childhood, during which no other intellectual action is possible, in gaining a complete familiarity with them in all their modifications.  Nor let us omit the fact, that both temper and health will be improved by the continual gratification resulting from a due supply of these impressions which every child so greedily assimilates.  Space, could it be spared, might here be well filled by some suggestions towards a more systematic ministration to these simplest of the perceptions.  But it must suffice to point out that any such ministration, recognising the general law of evolution from the indefinite to the definite, should proceed upon the corollary that in the development of every faculty, markedly contrasted impressions are the first to be distinguished; that hence sounds greatly differing in loudness and pitch, colours very remote from each other, and substances widely unlike in hardness or texture, should be the first supplied; and that in each case the progression must be by slow degrees to impressions more nearly allied.

Passing on to object-lessons, which manifestly form a natural continuation of this primary culture of the senses, it is to be remarked, that the system commonly pursued is wholly at variance with the method of Nature, as exhibited alike in infancy, in adult life, and in the course of civilisation.  “The child,” says M. Marcel, “must be shown how all the parts of an object are connected, etc.;” and the various manuals of these object-lessons severally contain lists of the facts which the child is to be told respecting each of the things put before it.  Now it needs but a glance at the daily life of the infant to see that all the knowledge of things which is gained before the acquirement of speech, is self-gained—­that the qualities of hardness