The unexampled success of the mechanical arts, would, upon the above principles, naturally lead us to conclude, that the sciences, from which they have derived all that they possess, must have been cultivated with corresponding energy. And such is the fact. Since the adoption of the inductive method of philosophizing, nearly all the sciences have been advancing rapidly and steadily; and the cause of this is to be found in adhering to the rules of induction. No science has been allowed to rest its claims upon mere theory, or authority of any kind, but upon evidence derived from facts. Mere opinions and suppositions have been rigidly excluded; and that alone which was acquired by accurate investigation, has been acknowledged in science as having the stamp of truth. The inductive philosophy takes nothing for granted. Every conclusion must be legitimately drawn from ascertained facts, or from principles established by experiment; and the consequence has been, not only that what has been attained is permanent, and will benefit all future generations, but the amount of that attainment, in the short time that has already elapsed, is actually greater than all that had been previously gained during centuries. In this general improvement, however, the science of Education has till lately formed an exception. The principles of true philosophy do not appear to have been brought to bear upon it, as they have upon the other sciences; and the consequences of this neglect have been lamentable. In every branch of natural philosophy, there are great leading principles already established. But where were there any such principles established by the philosopher for the guidance of the teacher? By what, except their own experience, and conjectures, were teachers directed in the training of the young?--Thirty or forty years ago, what was called "education" in our ordinary week-day schools, was little more than a mechanical round of barren exercises. The excitement of religious persecution, which had been the means of disciplining the intellectual and moral powers of Scotsmen for several previous generations, had by that time gradually subsided, and had left education to do its own work, by the use of its own resources. But these were perfectly inadequate to the task. The exercises almost universally employed in the education of the young, had neither been derived from science, nor from experience of their own inherent power; and they would, from the beginning, have been found perfectly inefficient, had they not been aided, as before noticed, by the stimulant of religious persecution.--The state of education, at the time we speak of, is still fresh on the memory of living witnesses who were its victims; and some of the absurdities which were then universal, are not even yet altogether extinct.