BAD INFLUENCES UPON THEIR CHILDREN.

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poor. The miserable accommodation which they have, in what we call fixed abodes-most improperly so, because, although the houses remain always on the same spot, their inhabitants are vagrants-render their small property liable to the constant attacks of landlords and bailiffs, taxgatherers, and parish collectors, and the little they can exempt from this despotism, is in constant circulation between themselves and the pawnbrokers; so that if we restrict the ideas of a home, or of possession to the smallest extent possible, viz. to the coat which a man has on his back, our poor cannot be said to be owners or inhabitants even of that, otherwise than in a most temporary way. What, then, must we expect to be the notions, feelings, and habits of children growing up under such circumstances!

Again if we consider, what is in other respects the influence exercised over children out of school-hours, it is evident that the work of their education can make no great progress, as long as they remain exposed to it. If the parents are industrious, their time and attention is so entirely swallowed up by the pursuits of business, that they must abandon their children to such company as they meet with in the streets; and what that is, we all know. If, on the contrary, the parents are idle and vicious, the case is still worse. Hence, even if our school instruction were all that can be desired, the task would almost seem to be a hopeless one; and how much less, then, is success to be anticipated, when the school instruction itself is all that is undesirable! Take any of the commandments, which are inculcated in the school:-" Thou shalt not swear; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not covet; thou shalt not be angry with thy brother; thou shalt not return evil for evil;" is it to be expected, that the spelling over those words, and the repeating of them by rote in one hour of the day, will have the effect of preventing the child from doing any of those things, whilst all the rest of the day he is directly tempted to do them, not by a dead letter,

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CHARITY BOARDING SCHOOLS PROPOSED.

but by life; not by words, but by facts, by the examples of his fellows, perhaps of his parents, by all the influences that work upon him, in-doors, and out of doors? If the evil nature in the child is constantly called into action, and, properly, cultivated, what can it avail against this, that words are inculcated in the name of God, but even those, without faith in his indwelling power?

I think, I need not say more, to convince those who are truly earnest in their wish for the national improvement of education, that nothing effectual can be done, as long as the children are left at the mercy of the corrupt morals of their parents, and of their miserable circumstances. The only remedy, then, is the establishment of charity boardingschools, sufficiently large and numerous to inture education, from the age of one or two to the age of fourteen years, to all those children, whose parents have not the will or the means to co-operate in an efficient manner with the teachers of day-schools, for the proper teaching of their offspring. The project of such establishments may at first sight strike you as something visionary and Utopian; the expense, which they would involve, seems, without further consideration, to put a complete negative upon the hope of ever realizing such a plan.

I confess that I do not, myself, think it possible to raise a fund sufficient, even for the establishment of one such institution, independent of the bias of those false and corrupt principles, on which education is generally conducted. But this is owing to that monied pride, which presides over all the charitable institutions of this country; a man who gives a sovereign annually towards their support, claiming on that ground a right to interfere in their management, nay, and considering his guinea a sufficient evidence, that he is a competent judge of the matter. As long as that principle prevails, that, in proportion as a man is possessed of the mammon of this world, in that proportion his voice is influential, and his will decisive, in the regulation of public affairs, so long, I confess it, I do not think it pos

THE EXPENSE WOULD REPAY ITSELF.

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sible to raise even one institution of the kind I have described; but, let it be remembered, it is not from want of means, but from want of an humble, world-forgetting, and God-seeking spirit. The means are ample enough; even the actual expenses of society would, if properly administered, be sufficient, without any additional sacrifice, to carry the project into effect. I have, in a former lecture, adverted to the different heads of public expenditure, which might, with advantage, be converted to the purposes of education; if to this were added, the whole amount of what is taken out of the pockets of society, by thieves, pickpockets, and house-breakers, by fraudulent dealers, and others, whose existence is a mere tax upon the commonwealth, what an enormous sum would this make! It would be interesting to ascertain its amount, in order to see, what expense society incurs, willingly, or unwillingly, for the maintenance of a bad system, and what resources, therefore, might be relied on, if society were inclined to change the system. It is true, that not all this could be saved in the first year, but an extra expense would cover itself soon enough. What should we say, if a man had a pair of vicious horses, kicking his carriage to pieces every day, so as to cause a constant expense for the mending of the carriage and harness, and occasionally for the medicating of the horses themselves; should not we advise him to get a pair of young horses properly trained, and to employ the vicious horses in some way, in which they could not do any, or at least not so much mischief; considering that the expense for the training of the young horses would soon be re-imbursed, by the saving of so much carriage mending? And if the man answered that he was already at great expense for his horses, and that he did not intend going to any greater expense for horses, that his young horses will grow up without training, and that if they turn out vicious, he shall always have a whip to give them a cut; should we not think that man a fool ?

But supposing society to have wisdom enough for in

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MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE PLAN.

curring the expense of training the rising generation, or supposing that some individuals had public spirit enough to try the experiment, at least, as far as their means would permit the practicability of the plan, for the nation at large, would yet be subject to a difficulty, which I myself must admit to be much greater, than even the opponents of the plan would probably be aware of. The question, namely, arises; where are we to find teachers for such establishments, who will not undertake the office for hire's sake, but from a real interest in the cause itself, in a truly benevolent, and truly Christian spirit? and at the same time, men sufficiently enlightened, respecting the constitution of human nature, and the treatment which it requires, so that their zeal may not be without knowledge? And to this I would add another question: where shall we find managers and committees, entertaining sufficiently moderate notions of their directorial capacities, and of their corporate wisdom, men who would shew a noble confidence in the zeal, the conscience, the experience, and intelligence of an humble schoolmaster, who rather than check him by outward rules and precepts, would in brotherly love encourage him to do the best in his power?

There is reason, indeed, to ask these questions, if we consider the general ignorance, nay, the positive blindness which prevails on the subject of education. Every one agrees, that shoe-making is a trade which must be learned, and that a man who has not had much to do with horses, so far from being able to break in a young horse, will probably spoil one already broken in every one claims for himself a degree of superiority of judgment in those matters, with which he is daily conversant, and allows the same to others-except on the business of education, on which every man thinks himself sufficiently well informed, and competent to judge for himself, and to which, as a sort of universal quackery, every man turns his hand, who has failed in every other trade. This abuse would be contemptible only, if it was confined to quacks, but when

PUBLIC IGNORANCE ON EDUCATION.

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it is countenanced by respectable bodies of men, it becomes intolerable. Not to mention those parties, of whom nothing but what is dark and ignorant, is ever expected, I have been present lately at the public meeting of the British and Foreign School Society, which, professedly, is the most liberal, and the most enlightened of all the public bodies, engaged in promoting the cause of education-and what did I hear during the course of several hours in a meeting, expressly called for that specific object? What did the report begin and end with? What all May reports begin and end with: self-congratulation on the great success of the institution. What was the main import of the speeches? What all May speeches are pregnant with: strains of mutual flattery, and clever sentences neatly twisted to a point, for the rousing of a clap in the hall. There was but one man, who knew what he spoke about, and spoke about what he knew, and he was the only one, too, who shook his venerable grey locks with disapprobation and disgust, when the balmy oil of flattest flattery was poured out upon him. Concerning the object itself, for which professedly the meeting was assembled, but little was said, and of that little, there was but little to the purpose. Among the great truths which were there revealed with so much bombast, and received with so much applause, one which I noted down among others, as a curiosity, was, that "attention is the first principle of civilization." For the credit of the man who said it, I will suppose, that he really meant nothing when he said it, except that he meant to make a May speech about civilization, for which purpose he thought one sentence as good as another; and that which came first into his mouth, the best of all. For how is it otherwise to be accounted for, that "attention," which is neither a power, nor a life, nor a truth, but a mere habit, should be honoured with the name "principle,”—and that it should be called "the first principle of human civilization," by a man, who must be presumed to know, that there is a living principle, the source of life