It is also here worthy of remark, that the cultivation of the powers of her pupil's mind, as a preliminary to their acquiring and applying of knowledge, appears to be a settled arrangement of Nature, and one which must be rigidly followed by the teacher, wherever success is to be hoped for. Analogy, in other departments of Nature's operations, proves its necessity, and points out its wisdom; for she is never premature, and never stimulates her pupils to any work, till they have been properly prepared for accomplishing it. Hence the consistency and importance of commencing the process of education, by expanding and cultivating the powers of the mind, preparatory to the future exertions of the pupil; and hence also the wisdom of requiring no more from the child, than the state of his mental powers at the time are capable of performing. Our object, at present, is to discover the means employed by Nature for accomplishing this preliminary object, that we may, by imitating her plans, obtain the greatest amount of benefit. In infancy, and during the early part of a child's life, each of the thousands of objects and actions which are presented to its observation, falls equally on the organs of sense, and each of them _might_, if the child had pleased, have become objects of perception, as well as objects of sensation. But it is evident, that till the mind occupy itself upon one or more of these objects, there can be no mental exercise, and, of course, no mental culture. On the contrary, if the mind shall single out any one object from the mass that surrounds it,--shall entertain the idea suggested by its impression on the organs of sense, and think of it--that is, review it on the mind--there is then mental exercise, and, in consequence, mental cultivation. From this obvious truth it necessarily follows, that the cultivation of the mind does not depend upon the multitude of objects presented to the observation of a child, but only on those which it really does observe,--which it looks at, and thinks upon, by an active voluntary exercise of its own powers. The child, no doubt, _might_ have smelt every odour; it _might_ have listened to every sound that entered the ear; and it _might_ have looked upon every image that entered the eye; but we know that it did not. A few of them only were thought of,--the ideas which they suggested were alone "reiterated" by the mind,--and therefore they, and they alone, tended to its cultivation. As this act of the mind lies at the root of all mental improvement, during every stage of the pupil's education, it becomes a matter of considerable importance, that its nature, and mode of operation, should be thoroughly understood.