The Improvement of the Mind

THE

IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED

A DISCOURSE

ON THE

EDUCATION OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH;

AND

SHORT ESSAYS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

ISAAC WATTS, D.D.

STEREOTYPED BY REES, REDFIELD, AND RIPLEY.

NEW-YORK:

BETTS & ANSTICE,

214 BROADWAY.

"FEW books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his Improvement of the Mind; of which the radical principles may indeed be found in Locke's Conduct of the Understanding; but they are so expanded and ramified by Watts, as to confer on him the merit of a work in the highest degree useful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing others may be charged with deficiency in his duty if this book is not recommended."

Dr. Johnson.

WM. VAN NORDEN, PRINT.

Chap. I. General rules for the improvement of know-

II. Five methods of improving, described and com-

pared, viz. Observation, reading, instruction by

lectures, conversation, and study, with their seve-

ral advantages and defects

III. Of observation, either by the senses or the mind 34

IV. Of reading and books, with directions relating

VI. Of living instructions and lectures, of teachers

and learners.

VII. Of learning a language, particularly the Latin 64

VIII. Of inquiring into the sense and meaning of

any writer or speaker, whether human or divine. 72

IX. Of conversation and profiting by it, and of per-

sons fit or unfit for free converse .

X. Of disputes, and general rules relating to them. 89

XI. Of Socratical disputation, by question and an-

swer

100

XII. Of forensic disputes, in courts of justice or

public assemblies

102

XIII. Of academic or scholastic disputes, and the
rules of them, and how far they may be useful
XIV. Of study or meditation, and the final deter-
mination of things by our own judgment

XV. Of fixing the attention

105