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EXAMINATION OF THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS.

I have the greatest hope. "If the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted ?" I was, I own it, grieved to hear, on that occasion, what I did hear; and still more was I grieved, that I did not hear any thing respecting the true principles, or the real objects of education. All that was said, on this latter point, was a recommendation of the cause to the public, on the ground of the advantages, which society derived from a better education of its members;* a point on which I have sufficiently enlarged, in a former lecture, to pass it over without any farther remark on this occasion. Enough, I trust, has been said here, to show the dearth of real information, there is on the subject, even among those, whose active exertions prove them to be by no means indifferent to it. This will, however, appear in a still more striking light, if we proceed to a review of those systems of education, which are now the order of the day, and which we must consider as the cream of what the public zeal and intelligence can produce in matters of education, seeing that they are every where praised up as the improvements of this enlightened age upon the darkness and silliness of our ancestors. gards those ancient charities, which, every one takes for granted, are ill conducted, I may for this very reason be brief: nor am I, I confess, very conversant with the details of their systems, my knowledge of them being confined to what I have occasionally picked up. A visit which I once paid with a friend to a large charity school, down in

As re

* On another occasion, when the effect of education upon the diminution of crime was under discussion, I heard a noble lord, who cuts a conspicuous figure in the religious world, and, of course, at the May meetings too, express his decided approbation of the efforts made for the education of the poorer classes of this country, " because, if the actual diminution of crime were a matter of doubt, it was, at least, beyond all question, that the behaviour of those unhappy individuals, upon whom the sentence of the law was carried into effect, was greatly improved; a fact which he would hail as a consequence of the more general spread of religious education!" Who would ever have imagined that one of the objects of Christian education could be, to prepare a man to be hanged with better grace?

OLD-FASHIONED CHARITY SCHOOLS.

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the country, was not calculated to give me much information; although I shall never forget the impression made on my mind, by several rows of boys, in blue coats and yellow trowsers, standing, all the time that we were in the room, with their copybooks held up with both hands towards us for inspection, after the manner of soldiers presenting arms, and with faces behind them as dead as sign posts, mechanically bowing by rows as we passed them, in going up and down the room, just as if it was the effect of some machinery, with springs concealed under the floor, over which we walked. I know that I felt, in that room, as if the air was too close for me to breathe in, and this feeling probably prevented me from entering into any conversation, either with the boys, or even with the master himself, whose countenance, full of benevolent monotony, expressed the greatest willingness to answer those questions which, from the physiognomical evidences of his intelligence, no one could be tempted to ask. More information, than from this visit, did I derive from a little boy, of about eleven years old, who is a scholar in an old established charity school in London, and who called one Sunday morning on a visit to his mother, then engaged in my family as a nurse. "Well, my boy," said I, "do you go Yes, Sir," to school any where ?" was his answer, 66 at such and such a place," naming the school. "How many boys are there in your school?" "Between sixty and seventy." "And how many good you ?" "Not above a dozen, Sir !" among the good ones, or among the I am among the good ones, Sir."

66

ones are there among " And what are you? bad ones ?" "Oh, "And how do you know that you are a good boy, and that all those other boys are bad ones ?" "Oh, because they can't read and write, and I can." In the course of some further conversation, which I do not recollect verbatim, I ascertained that this extraordinary criterion of moral value was closely connected, in the boy's mind, with the change of places introduced in the school, as it appeared from the boy's

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146 THE NATIONAL AND THE BRITISH SYSTEMS.

description of the ring in which they stood when reading, by the way of keeping pace with the improvements of the

age.

To these improvements it is due that we should now turn our attention, and I hope, we shall be able to take a tolerably complete review of them, by taking up, one after the other, the three leading systems, which divide among themselves the dominion over the rising intelligence of the plebeians of Great Britain, viz. 1. The BELL, alias MADRAS, alias NATIONAL system, which, if there were lack of names, might also very appropriately be called the square system;* 2. The LANCASTERIAN, alias BOROUGH-ROAD, alias BRITISH system, which, in contra-distinction to the former, might also be termed the semicircular system; and, 3. of less name than the two preceding ones, the INFANT system.

As regards the two first named, the National and the British system, it would appear from these appellations, that they are aiming at the same thing, under different names; at all events, it is a delicate matter to introduce them both at the same time, and, as it were, in a parallel, considering that they have been rivals from the beginning; and that the national system, as the younger of the two, has, to obviate, I suppose, any confusion, which might arise from the striking similarity of their means and methods, always been careful to evince a proper spirit of alienation towards the other. Nevertheless, as my business

* From the squares, drawn with chalk on the floor, to serve as a line of demarcation for the toes of the boys. It is, however, but fair to mention, that, in some of the schools, a very near approach has been made to the circle; still, it is supposed, without any departure from orthodox principles, and without danger of assimilation with nonconformist schools, whose distinctive feature is a semicircle by the wall side. This, and the circumstance that in the latter schools the seats are fixed, whereas they are moveable in the former, will, it is hoped, for ever effectually prevent any improper approximation of the schools patronized by the establishment, to the usages of "schismatics," and the latter will have the great comfort of a visible distinction between their own institutions, and those which are the offspring of “one of the daughters of the mother of abominations."

THEIR DESECRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES.

147

is not with the National, nor the British system, nor with the managers or patrons of either, but with the mode of education adopted in their schools, I shall, at the risk of affronting both parties by so doing, take the liberty of associating them together, on those points, on which I cannot discover any difference between them; and mention them separately, only, with reference to such particulars, as I have actually observed them to differ in.

The great matter which I have against them both, and in which I am afraid they are equally guilty, is the desecration of the Holy Scriptures, by making their contents subservient to the instruction in spelling and reading. Whether this be done by giving the Bible itself into the hands of the children as a spelling book, or by hanging scripture extracts round the walls, matters, of course, very little. The blame attaches to the want of a due regard for that book, which contains the records of the revelations of God to man, composed, by their various authors, under the immediate influence and direct inspiration of God's Holy Spirit. On this ground, and on this ground only— setting aside all the deplorable consequences resulting from such a system—I would reprobate, in the strongest terms, the profane practice of those schools, by which that, which was given with a view, to inform us concerning the highest purpose of our whole existence, is 'degraded into means for the accomplishment of the most trivial purpose under the sun, the mechanical attainment of reading. Is it consistent, I will not say with religious feeling, but merely with common sense and propriety, that that book, which, of all books, requires the deepest thought, and the most perfect collectedness of soul, to be read to any advantage, should, of all other books, be selected for that thoughtless exercise of sounding letters and syllables together; that that book, which, of all others, it is most important for man, that he should learn to love and to esteem, should be made an object of dislike and disgust to him, from his very childhood, by making it the object of laborious and unpleasing

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PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS IN OUR AGE.

tasks, and associating with it every recollection of what is disagreeable and contemptible? What should we say, if we entered a school room, and we found the children spelling, day by day, and word by word, over the finest passages of Milton, or Shakspeare, extracted, and pasted on lesson boards, for that express purpose? Should we not all cry shame upon such bad taste? But the very men, who would consider this a piece of unpardonable vandalism, sanction, without any hesitation, the practice of using the Bible for that same purpose; and, although they are professors and teachers of Christianity, and, as such, pretend to hold the Scriptures in the highest estimation, yet they thus show, by their own doings, that they have more real veneration for the works of human genius, and more taste for classical beauties, than for the inspiration and the simplicity of the sacred writings. Have they ever considered that the practice sanctioned, nay enforced by them, involves a direct violation of the third commandment, the guilt of which will fall upon them? For I put it to the whole Bench of Bishops, and to every divine in the kingdom, whether the name of the Lord can be taken more in vain, than if it be taken for a spelling or a reading exercise? Let this question be answered; or, if it must be admitted that the Lord's name is thus taken in vain, then let the impious practice be abolished, and let Scripture be used in schools, as elsewhere, for the purposes for which it is given, viz. " for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

But the impiety of the practice is not the only ground on which it deserves to be condemned. The consequences which it has, and must have, in days like these, upon the religious state of the population at large, are too serious to be passed over in silence. It may be, that a century or two ago, when the social ties were less loosened and less desecrated than they now are, when the minister was the priest of his congregation, not merely by law, or by contract, but in the feelings of every one, and when the school-master