Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

MEMORY. 321
interest about the common and proper objects of human curiosity.
hz education, the study of the mind should come last. - Tc
prevent any danger from this quarter, I apprehend that the
study of the mind should form the last branch of the education
of youth; an order which nature herself seems to point out, by
what I have already remarked, with respect to the development
of our faculties. After the understanding is well stored with
particular fitcts, and has been conversant with particular scientific
pursuits, it will be enabled to speculate concerning its own
powers with additional advantage, and will run no hazard of
indulging too far in such inquiries. Nothing can be more absurd, on this as well as on many other accounts, than the common practice which is followed in our universities, of beginning
a course of philosophical education with the study of logic. If
this order were completely reversed; and if the study of logic
were delayed till after the mind of the student was well stored
with particular facts in physics, in chemistry, in natural and
civil history; his attention might be led with the most important
advantage, and without any danger to his power of observation,
to an examination of his own faculties; which, besides opening
to him a new and pleasing field of speculation, would enable him
to form an estimate of his own powers, of the acquisitions he
has made, of the habits he has formed, and of the further improvements of which his mind is susceptible.
In general, wherever habits of' inattention, and an incapacity
of observation, are very remarkable, they will be found to have
arisen from some defect in early education. I already remarked,
that, when nature is allowed free scope, the curiosity, during
early youth, is alive to every external object, and to every external occurrence, while the powers of imagination and reflection
do not display themselves till a much later period; the former
till about the age of puberty, and the latter till we approach to
manhood. It sometimes, however, happens that, in consequence
of a peculiar disposition of mind, or of an infirm bodily constitution, a child is led to seek amusement from books, and to lose
a relish for those recreations which are suited to his age. In