A benevolent man, living, as we read of Robinson Crusoe, among his goats, ceases to be an object of apprehension to the animals around him; even birds, habituated to his kindness and protection, would become divested of the dread of man; and each successive generation of those familiarized birds would probably become more and more disposed to associate with him, if he were systematically kind and encouraging in his manner. Such experiments with the brute kind, it is true, can be but extremely partial, and are unattended with any very practically useful results in _themselves_; but, as respects _the education of children_, they are of extreme utility in exciting tender and benevolent feelings, and awakening the intellectual faculties from subjects merely sensual or idly amusing; they teach us "to look from Nature up to Nature's God." There never was a better founded observation than that of the late Mr Cobbett, that no one should be entrusted with the care of the nobler animals who had not been habituated to treat the lesser ones with kindness. I love to see a child feeding his rabbits or pigeons, and familiarly playing with them, consulting their tastes, and contributing to their comforts by every means within his power. Surely such a pursuit should not be rudely discouraged; how much more humanizing than the desire to possess "whips for a penny," to which I have recently adverted! It tends to render a child compassionate in his disposition to all God's creatures, and unwilling to hurt, for the sake of inflicting pain, or from thoughtless mischief. And I am just enough of phrenologist to be of opinion that, if there be any remarkable developement of the organ of destructiveness, this may be sufficiently counteracted by the exercise of feelings which have connection with the faculty of benevolence, and so modified, by avoiding all pursuits of a cruel nature, as to constitute, with God's blessing, a benevolent character, which, by the indulgence of the inherent inclination to cruel sports, would become of the opposite nature; for there is unquestionably an adaptation of the mind, as well as the body, to the circumstances under which individuals are placed. It is with the faculties of the human mind as with the habits of brutes; when exercised, they acquire strength, and gradually become more developed and confirmed; ay, and become hereditary too in proportion to their original or gradually progressing degree of developement. How important, then, that the higher faculties, on which depends the elevation of the moral character, should be strengthened by use and exercise! But I have digressed far from the illustration which I was about to give at the beginning, of a practically benevolent system of brute education.