SECT. V. OF PRACTICE IN MORAL EDUCATION.

The qualities which constitute religious, social, and individual morality must be obtained by proper example and exercise. Apprenticeship is as essential for acquiring benevolence, disinterestedness, prudence, and patience, as it is for attaining skill in any gymnastic feat or handicraft trade. The law of exercise is universal in its application. Moral precepts may be brought to the aid of practice; but, to be effective, they must be the generalisation of good and virtuous acts which have previously come under the notice of a child; otherwise they have no meaning. A precept of morality is an abstraction; and it is not by abstractions, by definitions, or by general principles, that virtue can be deeply inculcated in the hearts of children. Good habits, fostered by example, are the foundation of a truly moral education. By dint of doing what is right, we at length find it difficult to do what is wrong. "Make sobriety a habit," says Lord Brougham, in one of his speeches in the House of Lords, “and intemperance will be hateful and hard: make prudence a habit, and reckless profligacy will be as contrary to the nature of the child grown an adult, as the most atrocious crimes are to any of your lordships. Give a child the habit of sacredly regarding the truth-of carefully respecting the property of others-of scrupulously abstaining from all acts of improvidence which can involve him in distress, and he will just as little think of lying, or cheating, or stealing, as of rushing into an element in which he cannot breathe."*

Socrates, according to his own confession, was naturally addicted to violence of temper ;-Demosthenes laboured under natural impediments of speech and extreme nervousness;-the Czar Peter had an instinctive dread of going on the water: yet, by the force of the will and the formation of good habits, the first became the meekest and most virtuous man of his time; the second, the prince of orators; and the third, the best seaman of his empire. But what must be the power of exercise, when we see its influence over maternal love, a sentiment whose natural energy seems incapable of increase? It is an undeniable fact, that a mother's affection for her child is the greater as the act of nursing him, or the feebleness of his constitution demands

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* Sitting of the 21st of May, 1835.

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more care, and offers her more frequent opportunities of exercising her tender solicitude.

Practice, however, has its limits: a blind and excessive indulgence of Self-love would produce egotism; of Sympathy, weakness; of Curiosity, indiscretion; of Conscience, irresolution; and of Will, obstinacy. Excess in the moral acquirements would be equally injurious. Benevolence may instigate to generosity, at the expense of justice; a father may carry firmness to tyranny, and a mother the love of her child to blameable indulgence; blind patriotism may engender aversion for other nations. Whether we aim at the cultivation of faculties, or at the acquisition of moral qualities, excess and exclusiveness must be carefully avoided.

SECT. VI.-DUTIES OF GOVERNMENTS RESPECTING EDUCATION.

It is the sacred duty, as it is the noblest privilege, of parents to secure for their children, and to disseminate through society the benefits of moral education. But, among the numerous portion of the population whose life is consumed in incessant labours, and to whose industry, fatigue, and privations the nation is indebted for its wealth and power, parents are often deprived of sufficient leisure to watch over their offspring, or are destitute of the moral character indispensable for guiding them in the path of duty and of virtue; well informed educators should therefore supply their deficiency. A portion of the revenues of the state could not be better employed than in moralising and improving those who contribute so largely to them. An enlightened government ought to take secular education under its superintendence, and enforce it upon the people by legislative enactment.

Some persons object to this interference with parental authority and private speculation, as an infringement upon the liberties of the people; but they forget three things—first, that the child belongs to the state as well as to the family; secondly, that the great majority of parents are much in need of direction for the proper training of their children; thirdly, that the unavoidable influence for good or evil of the teachers over youth makes it imperative on the part of society to examine their qualifications, and superintend the discharge of their office, in order to secure the community from the dreadful consequences of ignorance or immorality on their part.

It may be inconsistent with liberty to force instruction upon

the people, as is done in some German states; because the kind of instruction best for individuals being a matter of opinion, it is neither just nor proper to impose any in particular, especially as that which is usually given in schools is often far from being the most available for the practical purposes of active life. It is undeniable that a vast amount of useful information, such, at least, as is required by the working classes, can be obtained without resorting to books; and although the state owes secular instruction to all, every one has a right to choose that which he thinks most conducive to his interest. But moral education, exclusive of religious distinctions, does not differ in kind with the social position and the future avocation of children. Morality is one and the same for all, and is imperative upon all: the tranquillity, the prosperity, the very existence of society depend upon it. We do not see how its being made obligatory, or how the right, on the part of the state, to institute, superintend, and inspect educational establishments, could interfere with the liberty of the people, any more than the obligation to pay taxes, refrain from dishonesty, or submit to the intrusion and inquisitiveness of excise and custom-house officers. The compulsory moralisation of the depraved is far more justifiable and more consistent with liberty than the compulsory detention of mendicants and the impressment of seamen.

Those who say that the right of interference would give the state the monopoly of public instruction, might as reasonably complain that tribunals have a monopoly of justice; magistrates, of the preservation of the peace; and licensed apothecaries, a monopoly of medicine. They should bear in mind that education is a social, not a parental question.

The competition in the supply of education bears no analogy to free competition in the supply of food and articles of dress: there is a greater demand for the latter two than for the former, because people have a more definite notion of what they want in the one case than of what is required in the other; and they can appreciate the qualities and value of material objects far better than they can those of moral and intellectual acquirements. Such competition, the source of progress in manufacture and commerce, is, in education, as in medicine, only the essence of charlatanism. It is the business of the state to create the demand for education, which the people could not of themselves make, and to see that those who speculate on that demand do not impose upon parents.

That legislative interference with national education is consistent with the respect due to parental authority and to private industry, is so manifest that the principle is carried out with general satisfaction in the United States, a country in which the rights of individuals and the liberty of conscience are more largely recognised than anywhere else. Plato and Aristotle, Washington and Jefferson, all staunch republicans, are among its warmest advocates.

The most eminent statesmen and philanthropists of Great Britain, struck with the fatal consequences they have under their eyes, arising from unprotected education, are now anxious to follow the general progress of modern nations towards moral elevation and intellectual advancement. "The voluntary principle has failed," said Sir Robert Peel, in supporting Lord John Russell's measure in favour of national education. "I believe if we could know the real extent of this evil; if we could have presented to us a full account of all the crime that has been generated by ignorance; if we could know what has really taken place within the last fifty years; if we could know how much the evil example of the parent has introduced infection into the character and disposition of the child; if we could know how much of violence and of rapine, how much of crime against both life and property has been caused by the neglect of education; if we could know how many immortal souls have, during that period, been ushered into the presence of their Creator and their Judge, ignorant of the great truths and principles of Christianity; I think, if we could know all this, we should be disposed to shudder at our own neglect, and to endeavour without delay to remedy the evils of the past."

It is an abuse of terms to call the constraint which has for its object to secure to the people the blessings of moral and intellectual worth, an infringement on liberty. The declamation against the interference of the state in the education of youth is inconsistent and irrational, since the state has, within our own times, interposed its authority in the case of children employed in manufactories, and has, in many Chancery cases, claimed and asserted the right of removing the child wholly out of the power of the parent. Nay, it is absurd to object to legislative control, or even to compulsory education, under a pretence of liberty in a country in which distinctions of birth and religion create

* House of Commons, sitting of the 22nd of April, 1847.

privileges and exclusions so contrary to Christian fraternity and political equality, the essentials of social freedom.

The legislature of a free and civilised country is not only entitled, but is bound to adopt the most efficient means of preventing immorality from entailing degradation and barbarism on the nation. A Government which does not give moral education to the people has no right to expect from them order and support; nor can the law, consistently with justice, punish faults which have been committed in the absence of the moral consciousness which it is the object of good education to impart. In fact, the nearer to perfection and the more general education is, the less will the laws need to punish.

The venerable Von Tück, the present Head of the Orphan House in Potsdam, acting under the influence of this truth, has set to the world an illustrious example of self-denial and Christian charity. A nobleman by birth, and for fourteen years a judge in one of the courts of Prussia, he had, during his practice in this high office, to try so many criminal cases arising solely from the early neglect of the education of the culprits, that he at last felt reluctant to pronounce sentence of condemnation upon them; and, impressed with the sublime truth that the teacher who saves his fellow-creatures from committing crimes, does more good than the magistrate who waits for their perpetration to inflict punishment, he resigned his office, with all its honours and emoluments, to become an educator.

It is especially among that numerous portion of the people, the labourers and operatives, that moral principles should be early imbibed and virtuous habits formed. Their education should be sedulously attended to, with a view to their eternal salvation, to their worldly prosperity, to the security of person and property, and even to the advantages which the other classes of society will derive from it; because nursery-maids and all servants are recruited from among them, and on their morality, as well as intelligence, often depends the formation of the character and habits of children.

Reading and writing, now so generally and almost exclusively taught to the poorer class, are of themselves insufficient and ineffectual. They are, indeed, productive of infinite benefit to those who have time to turn them to use; but these arts are altogether unprofitable to those who, after the period of school, have no leisure to devote to them: because, differently from most other studies, the act of learning them is not even subservient to