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LECTURE VII.

HOW FAR HAS CHRISTIANITY HITHERTO BEEN ALLOWED TO INFLUENCE EDUCATION, AND BY WHAT MEANS ARE THE DIFFICULTIES, ARISING FROM OUTWARD DISTINCTIONS AMONG CHRISTIANS, TO BE OBVIATED IN IT?

RELIGION is not only that which ought to crown the work of education, but it ought to be the basis, the life, and the end of the whole. Until this principle be acknowledged, in its full import, and in its universal application to all classes, and all individuals, we cannot speak of Christian education being established among us. There may be attempts, here and there, in a single instance, and in a certain manner, to Christianize education, or, rather, to superinduce some of the things belonging to Christianity, upon a system which has for its object, to divide man between the world and his self. But, with all this, our education still remains essentially unchristian, both as regards its general character, and, in particular, the manner in which religious instruction is conveyed.

Let us take, as an instance, one of the prominent features of the Christian code concerning the economy of human life, I mean the brotherly equality of the members of Christ's church, and ask, what deference is paid in educa

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DISTINCTIONS OF RANK IN EDUCATION.

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tion to the injunction of the apostle James, who admonishes us "not to have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, "the Lord of glory, with respect of persons ;" and warns us against that proud and ungodly practice, to say to the man in gay clothing, "Sit thou here in a good place;' and to the poor, "Stand thou there, or sit here, under "my footstool." If it be contrary to the spirit of christianity, to make an humiliating distinction, and an intentional outward separation of rank, among adults, among whom the difference of pursuits, and, consequently, of habits, of feelings and of modes of thinking, naturally gives rise to a variety of distinctions, even independently of any vain or conceited motives, how much more sinful must it be, to introduce such distinctions and separations, artificially, among children, where those causes do not exist? Who gives us a right to say to the child of the rich father, "Come and live thou here, where every thing is "abundantly provided for thy comfort, and thy instruc❝tion ;" and to the child of a poor man, Go, and get thyself taught there, where thou mayest get as much "information, as we think it right for the poor to have ?” Will any candid man stand up and say, that this is not in direct opposition to the Apostle's precept? Shall it be argued, that he merely refers to the separation of sittings in places of worship? Are not your schools to be temples of the living God, in which children are to be brought up as his children? If they are not, nor even pretend to be such, verily, you had better shut them up, than bring upon yourselves two-fold condemnation. And, if we are not to make invidious distinctions with regard to the sittings, which is the lesser thing, how much more unchristian is it, to make them with reference to the greater thing, viz., the opportunity of cultivating and instructing the immortal soul? So far, however, are we from valuing the injunctions of the Gospel, that we have not only separate sittings, but often separate buildings, for the worship of the poor, and of the rich; and, in education, there is as

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PARTIALITY OF OUR FEELINGS.

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great a gulf fixed between them, as it is in the power of man to interpose.

I am fully aware of the difficulties attending this point, particularly in a state of society so far distant from primitive simplicity, as that in which we live. I know that a father could not, without an unwarrantable risk to the moral and spiritual welfare of his son,-not to speak of temporal disadvantages,-allow him to be educated with children of the lower classes. The corruption there is so great, that the least contact will inevitably produce infection, and of the very worst kind. And what does this prove, but that the poor children are neglected in a most inhuman and most unchristian manner? A man is perfectly right in refusing to put his child into a situation, in which it has a greater chance of being lost than of being saved; but he has no right to consider his neighbour's child as a more proper object of ruin and perdition than his own; for so in fact he does, if he remains indifferent to the moral corruption of the children of the lower orders, which he sets up as a plea for the separation of classes in education; and he who, having means in his power, does not employ them in rescuing the rising generation of the poor from the infection under which, at present, the generality of them are perishing, is guilty of as great a sin as he, who would indolently expose his own child to such contamination. For if we are to love our neighbour as ourselves, surely we are to love our neighbour's child also, as our own. How much do we betray our unspiritual condition, our worldly-mindedness, by this fearful contrast between the indifference, with which we treat the claims of immortality, concerning which all children are equal, and the importance which we attach to those adventitious things, concerning which, their lot is, by birth, different. What an outcry of commiseration is there, if a young man of family and fortune ruins himself by a criminal course of life, and thereby comes to an ignominious end! And with what cool indifference, at the same time, do we wit

ness the same corruption, and the same fate, taking hold of hundreds and thousands of our poorer and less "well connected" fellow-creatures, who, in the sight of God, are quite as valuable as the other. Verily, we are "partial in "ourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts."

One of the consequences of this our corrupted and unbrotherly feeling is, that when we provide for the children of the poor, we always exercise a presumptuous power of cutting out their intellectual and spiritual portion as scantily as suits our perverse views, or our interested motives. Nay, in many instances, we educate the poor in a manner more analogous to the Indian spirit of castes, than to the brotherly spirit of the Gospel. I know a school somewhere down in the country, established by a rich 'squire, in a village belonging to his estate. If you go to that school, all looks exceedingly nice and well; the school is conducted on one of "the approved systems," in rather a superior manner, and the patron and his lady take a personal interest in its progress; so that you leave it with a high degree of admiration for the benevolence of the founders, if you do not happen to know the secret, that the chief object of its establishment is, to provide the rising generation of the manor-house with a stock of well-trained servants. this purpose, of course, the instruction must become subservient, as much as the training of the hounds in the kennel to their future calling in the field. Of a piece with this manufacture of servants, is the plan of forming schools of industry, which has been started, and, on a small scale, realized, in different parts of the country. Not that the founders of these schools are actuated by interested motives ; some of them, I know, are far above any such imputation; but the principle itself, of making a child, because he is born of poor parents, work for his bread, before the powers of the mind have attained sufficient maturity, is, in itself, one which deserves to be condemned. A simple appeal to parental feelings will decide the matter. Let any father, or mother, in easy circumstances, be told,

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that, from the age of ten years, or even earlier, their child should be made to work a certain number of hours every day, for his own support-would they not think it an uncommon hardship? Would they not plead his tender age, and beg, that he may be permitted to grow up, free from the cares and toils of this earthly doom, until his mind have acquired sufficient strength to bear the burden, without breaking under it? But why should they not think a hardship for other children, what they consider so for their own? It is, however, not a matter of feeling only; though this feeling, in itself, is an evidence of the divine will in this respect. God has appointed to man, as well as to animals, a time, during which each is to take care of his offspring; that time is marked in the feeling of every creature, by an instinctive impulse of nature, not to forsake the helpless being, but to provide for its subsistence. The slightest acquaintance with the constitution of nature, moreover, teaches us, that every being has, at the beginning of its existence, a period, during which all its energies are employed in its own internal development, and cannot, without injury, be devoted to any external end; and that this period is of longer duration, in proportion to the more perfect organization of the being itself. Hence it is, that man is physically of the slowest growth, among the animals of his class; and it is obvious, both from the general analogy of things, and from experience, that the additional consumption of energy, in the unfolding of the mind, tends to protract, rather than to accelerate, the epoch of his maturity. But the most important consideration of all is, that man, having a destination beyond the present life, and his existence on this earth being merely a transitory state, the prospect of life should be opened to him in such a manner, as to permit his view to extend themselves, beyond the necessities of a finite condition, to the ultimate end of his being. Now, it is well known, that even minds, matured in themselves, and strengthened by a quickening influence from on high, find it often difficult to