like misapprehension will occasion mistakes almost equally lamentable. An excellent education is commonly supposed to consist in the acquisition, by memory, of a certain number of facts, and of words descriptive of the ideas or opinions of the wise and learned; and of a facility in the performance of certain external acts, and in the pronunciation of certain sounds. Now, though there can be no doubt that in the course of these various exercises of the memory, a number of ideas must necessarily have been conveyed to the mind, it is by no means clear that the instruction given has any tendency either to cultivate the affections or control the passions.

Let not the above comments be misconceived as undervaluing any of the acquirements or accomplishments alluded to. All contended for is, that they should be regarded as adjuncts, instead of being made primary objects of attention.

A good education most asssuredly is that which tends to develope and bring into action those faculties which are most requisite in conducting the ordinary affairs of life, and at the same time gives such a direction to, and exercises such a control over the inherent principles of our nature as is essential to the happiness of the individual and of society. A good education may, according to this definition, be the privilege of the peasant as well as of the prince; is equally indispensible to both, and must be attained by means essentially the same, the disciplining of the heart. So true is

it that there is no royal road to virtue any more than to geometry.

In mistaken notions on these important points have originated, no doubt, all the prejudices, all the objections that have been made to the education of the lower classes. The poor have been taught to read and write; indeed, to these two acquirements their instruction has generally been limited; and as the habits of industry and sobriety so necessary to the well-being of their order, do not, as a matter of course, result from the capability of reading and writing, it is inferred that the lower classes receive no essential benefit from education.

Was it possible that any benefit should accrue from the parrot-like tuition to which the children of the poor, during a very long series of years, were subjected, that is to say, any benefit beyond that of exercising the memory, and keeping them out of mischief during school hours? Theirs might truly be called an education of sounds without ideas. It would be idle and absurd to expect that either mental enlightenment or moral principles should have resulted from their acquaintance with the Scriptures. The astounding facts, astounding even to the learned, the precepts and promises of the Gospel could not fail to fall dull and unprofitable upon such unprepared soil. Learnt by rote, a weary task, too often inflicted as a punishment, the Word of God became not only distasteful, but disgusting to their minds; likely to

be remembered afterwards as one of the troubles of childhood. Yet it has not been unusual to say, when, in after years, the children thus instructed, displayed the fruits of such a defective system, when they grew up Sabbath-breakers, intemperate, unchaste, little scrupulous in their dealings, idle and dissolute, that it was a shame and a scandal that they should have turned out so ill, since they had enjoyed in their youth, in schools appointed for them, every opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of their duties; in short, that such conduct must be regarded as a proof of the little good resulting from the education of the lower classes.

We forget that the precepts of Christianity to produce practical results must be taught practically; that they require explaining and illustrating to the young and the ignorant in such a manner as to strike their senses with the force of truth; and that the faculties of the mind ought, from a very early period of childhood, to be exercised and awakened to a clear perception of more familiar things, before they can be in a state fit to receive Gospel revelation. It is but justice to admit, that in many of those admirable institutions, the Infant Schools, the plan acted upon is such as to give promise of the happiest results. The education of the heart is attended to; and keeping pace with it, accelerates the development of the intellect. Exactly in proportion to the degree in which this important object is kept in

view, will be the advantage of education to the children of the poor; and this observation is applicable, not only to them, but to the children of the wealthy, who in very many cases, although heirs to affluence, are less favourably circumstanced in regard to early mental and moral training than the indigent little ones who frequent Infant Schools; the government of the Infant school-room being better than that exercised in the nurseries of a large majority of private families.

The most inseparable of all connexions is that between happiness and virtue. National happiness and prosperity will, I trust, one day be considered to depend on national morals. To guard these morals from corruption by removing those enticements to evil which the government, more intent in watching over the sources of a nation's wealth, may inadvertently have sanctioned, will then become an object of attention to the statesman. But it is to education, early commenced, and properly conducted-not that sort of education which aims only at increasing the intellectual power of the community for the purposes of money-getting-but education, as a source whence emanates all moral improvement, as a means of subjugating the selfishness inherent in human nature, and of quickening the operation of the benevolent affections, that he will chiefly direct his views.

If the increased attention that has of late years been paid to the subject of education, had been really productive of the desired end, what age

could have stood in comparison with the present for wisdom and virtue? But that it has not been productive of the end desired, except in a very limited degree in this country, not only in regard to the suppression of crime, but in the expansion of the benevolent affections, the present social condition of England too fully proves. Let us take a glance at it, however cursory that glance must of necessity be.

Instead of the bonds of sympathy and brotherly love, which ought to bind a social community together, being drawn closer and closer as civilization advances, they are every year more widely dissevered. Society is broken into cliques and circles, which appear to have no feeling in common, save the universally prevailing one of a restless, an insatiable straining after wealth and worldly honours, and a proportionate degree of contempt entertained by each circle for that which it holds to be beneath it. Such a state of things is actually imitating, in a country calling itself Christian, and boasting of its enlightenment, the monstrous system of caste, for ages the curse of pagan India, the bane of human happiness, the insuperable bar to both its physical and moral improvement.

An able writer and acute observer has lately drawn a forcible picture of the present social condition of England, particularly as it displays itself in the rural districts. "It would," says he, "be giving a most one-sided view of the rural life of the rich, if we left it to be inferred, that 'the trail of the