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

mental discipline; it does not cultivate the higher faculties any more than manual occupations; it exercises the understanding less even than planing timber, or filing metal to a particular shape. It must not, then, be wondered at, if the children of the poor schools, in which the mechanical parts alone of reading and writing are taught, leave those establishments so deficient in intellectuality.

To the working classes, industrial and moral education would prove far more valuable than exclusive attention to reading and writing. The ultimate benefits expected from these two acquisitions cannot, in the present state of society, be calculated upon, dependent as they are on the accidental circumstances (rare among that portion of the people) of a love of reading and access to books. Besides, nearly all their time being taken up in earning a livelihood, they generally have little leisure to employ these arts to any advantage; so that, with the present system of elementary instruction, although they may acquire at school these instruments of knowledge, they remain all their lives deplorably ignorant of their duties as citizens and as Christians.

What this interesting portion of the community requires, in addition to reading and writing, and far more than these arts, of which they seldom avail themselves,-what they are entitled to, as a right, not as a charity, from the state, not from private benevolence, is to be taught the means of gaining a livelihood, to have their minds unfolded and stored with the elernents of knowledge, to be enlightened respecting their political rights, their duties to God, to society, and to themselves, and, finally, to be inspired with an earnest desire for intellectual and moral improvement. The interest of society and their own happiness require, above all, that they should be impressed with the conviction that virtue is infinitely superior to knowledge, and that piety, justice, goodness, and wisdom are the greatest blessings of education, and the acquirements most worthy of their ambition. (2.)

(2.) See Appendix.

CHAPTER III.

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.

SECT. I.-DEFINITION.

INTELLECTUAL education consists in two distinct objects—the cultivation of the intellectual faculties and the consequent acquiring of knowledge, otherwise called Instruction.

Hence, we see that instruction is only one of the subdivisions of education. The latter has for its object the perfecting of the whole man, considered physically, morally, and intellectually; instruction proposes solely to store his mind with information. Education is a generic, instruction a specific, term. These words, education and instruction, educator and instructor, must not be confounded one with the other.

The highest natural energy which the mental powers can possess, constitutes genius; every species of useful knowledge is a branch of learning. Genius and the whole circle of learning combined constitute Intellectual Perfection.

SECT. II.-INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES.

The intellectual, like the physical and the moral faculties, should be cultivated by exercises calculated to produce their greatest development, and tending to secure intellectual acquirements. It is on the external world, and through the medium of his senses, that the child can most profitably exercise his opening intellect. His sensations and curiosity constantly call his intellectual powers into play, while conscience and will direct their action. On the other hand, physical and moral life require to be guided by the light of intellect. Thus are the operations of the mind intimately connected with those of the body and of the soul. The different orders of faculties assist each other through the whole course of education; but, although the physical and moral development of the first and second periods subserves intellectual