subject, and will need assistance. But this will readily be found, for we shall have books in our school; and, fortunately, there are now many which have brought the knowledge of nature down to the level of children, with the view of raising their minds to its Author.

For such reading, like all other which we shall introduce into our school, to attain its object, it will be necessary to divide the text into small sections, and to compel the pupils to give an abstract of each. Without this precaution, many would content themselves with merely reading the passage correctly without considering the meaning of it; for, alas! do we not see many grown up people who read without thinking, and therefore retain nothing of what they read? The first attempts at making an abstract will be very meagre; but they will improve by

exercise.

I now come to another deficiency in maternal instruction, which our course of language, fettered as it is by its peculiar task, cannot supply alone. I allude to the Bible history, which forms an essential part of Christian education.

Unquestionably, a course of language which professes to "form Christ in the hearts" of its pupils, will not neglect to place so perfect a model before their eyes and their minds; but it cannot recount His life as it ought to be related, in order to produce its due effect on hearts which have not yet been sufficiently corrupted to be insensible to all that is great, and good, and beautiful, and divine. It is said in the Gospel that the sick pressed upon our Lord, because there came virtue out of Him to heal them. And we may say also of His life, that when it is duly apprehended, a moral force emanates from it, which penetrates and elevates the mind. We are therefore anxious that our pupils should experience this influence in all its fulness, and, together with our exercises in language, we would have them read constantly the life of our Lord, and give an account of what they read.

As to the history of the Old Testament, I cannot but disapprove, on all accounts, of the custom in Lancasterian

schools, of putting the whole Bible into the hands of children; for setting aside many historical circumstances which are likely to mislead young minds, there are also many abstruse passages which commentators, after centuries of research, have not been able to clear up: and education cannot work profitably in the dark. The full light shines in the Gospel; the Old Testament has but the twilight, which gradually yields to the dawn of day. And why should we make our children retrograde, when the object is to bring them to the living light of the Gospel? The law from Mount Sinai was the law of the Israelites; it is not ours, and we must beware of exposing ignorant childhood to the danger of confounding the covenant of works with that of grace. Moreover, in the Old Testament God is the Creator, the Sovereign Lord, the inexorable Judge, who visits the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations. In the New Testament, He is the Father of all men; and as the result produced by the Gospel on the young mind, is "the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba Father*," so that of the Old Testament is "the spirit of bondage unto fear." How unwise, then, would it be in education to confound things so dissimilar!

Nevertheless, we would not wholly banish the Old Testament. We would select what may be brought down to the level of childhood; and what may at the same time lead them on towards the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Besides the account of the Creation, we may also point out the course adopted by Divine Providence in the government of the whole human race, as well as many edifying particulars in the history of the ancient people of God; such, for instance, as the exemplary conduct of Joseph, the saviour of Egypt and his own family.

I am far from wishing to base the whole moral and religious education of childhood on our course of language; for, on one hand, I do ample justice to the mother and to her assistants, and, on the other, I require consecutive reading at school on vast and important subjects, whilst I

* Rom. viii. 15.

also reserve for the ministry the duty of completing what the mother and the school will have commenced."

But still the success of our combined efforts must depend on a higher intervention, which we cannot command. We daily see in the same family, children who turn out very differently in a moral point of view; all have, nevertheless, received the same instruction, the same care, the same kindness, and yet the results are often very dissimilar. The educator will remember what the Apostle of the Gentiles says to his disciples at Corinth, "I planted, and Apollos watered; but it is God that giveth the increase. For neither is he that planteth any thing, nor he that watereth; but God, that giveth the increase*." How He causes the seed to grow which we have sown in the mind, is known to Him alone; and this invisible influence of the Creator on the creature is denominated grace, without which our efforts are vain. In order to obtain we must ask it, for it is granted only to prayer, which opens an access for it to the heart.

And as for us, the instructors of youth, we should imitate the pious labourer, who, when he has sown his field, pauses, after tackling his harrow, uncovers his head, raises his eyes to heaven, and commends to the Author of all good the seeds which he has just committed to the earth. We also will ask of God to give that increase which depends not on man, and we will induce our pupils to pray with us.

The details into which we have now entered with regard to the helps required by our course of language, will prove to the reader that we do not deceive ourselves as to the advantages which it can and certainly will afford, if conducted in accordance with the principles which we have laid down. The services it will render to education are as great as they are incontrovertible; and they are such as can be obtained by no other means.

To depreciate its services because, unaided, it cannot accomplish its lofty object, would be the most flagrant injustice. You might as reasonably brand as useless the

* I. Cor. iii. 6, 7.

instruction of the mother, and the preaching of the Gospel. Is it not indeed true that the mother, when she endues her child's lips with speech, developes in him all the noble qualities of his nature? and yet her labour is not always equally successful. Is it not true that the preaching of the Gospel has banished idols from a large portion of the earth, with their impure and savage worship, and all the barbarous practices connected with it? And yet evangelical preaching has not yet gained universal access to the hearts of men; it has not planted in all the seeds of faith, hope, and charity; it has not brought all within the borders of that kingdom which our Lord came to establish upon earth, when He laid down His life for our salvation. The good seed often falls among thorns, or in stony ground. Nevertheless, the preaching of the Gospel, general and public as it is, restrains even those who do not attend to it, because it preserves among us a standard of public opinion, which unbelievers themselves are constrained to observe and respect.

To return to our educative course of language, I shall conclude by saying, that it will afford a double advantage. In the first place, it will realize the wish of the Abbé Sicard, by substituting a grammar of ideas for one of words, and will be from first to last a progressive course of mental gymnastics for young minds; and, in the next place, it will endeavour, by a suitable choice of the subjects to which it will direct the attention of youth, it will endeavour, I say, to form their hearts after the most perfect and attractive of models. In these two points of view it will be a first attempt, and one which will be capable of indefinite improvement; but also an attempt which, in spite of its imperfections, will deserve to be substituted in the stead of that instruction in language which does noting for the cultivation of the heart, nor indeed for that of the head, if properly understood.

I know that I am now proposing a great innovation in the system generally adopted, both in schools and families; but I shall reply in the words of Rollin: "Custom often exercises over our minds a sort of tyranny which keeps them in bondage, and prevents them from making use of

their reason, which is a much surer guide on such subjects than example alone, however sanctioned by time."

We have given a short summary of what our educative course of language will do towards the cultivation of the heart; but we will now go more into detail, and consider the natural tendencies one by one, in order to show the manner in which it will turn each of them to account in the noble task we have undertaken. And we will begin first with the moral tendency, as that which the Creator has given to us to regulate and harmonize all the others.

CHAPTER IV.

Cultivation of the Moral Tendency by means of our Course of Instruction in the Mother-Tongue.

THERE is a remarkable passage respecting conscience, in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapter ii. 14-16. These are his words :

"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves :

"Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another;

"In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel."

The Gospel has not come to efface this law which the finger of God has written in the hearts of men. On the contrary, it pre-supposes it in its hearers: it addresses their consciences: it seeks to awaken, to enlighten them, and to give due authority to its voice. The Apostle, in summing up the substance of Gospel-preaching, declares its object to be, "Love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, with faith unfeigned."

* I. Timothy i. 5.