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ENGLISH EDUCATION

BEING AN ATTEMPT TO PLACE THE TEACHING AND STUDY OF

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ON A TRUER AND BROADER

BASIS THAN IS AT PRESENT RECOGNISED.

AN ESSAY

BY

ANGUS MACPHERSON,.

FORMERLY HEAD-MASTER OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT IN THE

.66 GLASGOW COLLEGIATE ACADEMY,"

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"A system in which religion and science, like twin beauteous sisters, moving
together through the country hand in hand, shall extend to a nation ripe, ready,
and anxious to receive them, the blessed fruits of the tree of knowledge-a
knowledge which shall qualify men to discharge their duties as citizens here-
a knowledge which shall qualify them hereafter to be members of that far more
enduring, far more desirable city, whose builder and whose maker is God."

LORD PANMURE.

SECOND EDITION.

GLASGOW: DAVID ROBERTSON.

EDINBURGH: OLIVER & BOYD.

LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.

MDCCCLIV.

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ΤΟ

MY BROTHER,

THROUGH

WHOSE COUNTENANCE AND SUPPORT

I HAVE BEEN ENABLED REDUCE TO PRACTICE

THE PRINCIPLES THEREIN EXHIBITED,

THE FOLLOWING ESSAY

IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.

ESSAY.

IF MAN consists of a material body, and an immaterial soul, the former connecting him with the creatures of the material world, the latter linking him to those of the spiritual, it follows, that while his material being is impelled by physical necessities, his soul as naturally soars heavenward, in obedience to laws as necessary.

This theory of the natural necessity of spiritual aspiration is deeply qualified, we all know, by the free-will of man being perverted to unnatural issues. "What man has made of man," is recorded in the annals of the past. What man still makes of man, is stamped upon the consciousness of the present.

This being admitted, we have here, then, we may almost say, a being of two natures, one the given condition and basis of the other, placed in a sphere consisting of material and spiritual reactive agents, for the developing of its inborn capacities into efficient powers.

Doubtless this being has been created for some high and noble purpose, for it possesses energies adequate thereto, and has been placed in a situation eminently fitted to develope and strengthen these. Moreover it has been gifted beyond any other creature with reason and religion.

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