language will therefore openly attack it, and thus assist the reflections which will be produced by reading the life of our Lord. We shall then point out the parable of the pharisee who came into the Temple to vaunt himself, and despised the humble publican, who dared not so much as to enter it, but stood afar off and smote upon his breast. We shall refer our pupils to what the Gospel teaches on this subject, and we shall tell them

:

"That prayer, to be pleasing to God, must be the language of a child who loves his Heavenly Father above all things, and strives in all things to do His will; that words are nothing in prayer, and the affections of the heart everything; that the service of God consists not in forms of our own choosing, but in observing His commands, which are 'judgment, mercy, and faith;' that we cannot love our Heavenly Father, unless we love His children, and try to do them good; that we cannot be the children of God and heirs of heaven, unless we follow His example, who causes His sun to rise daily on the unthankful and the evil, as well as on the good; that whilst we cherish vice in our hearts, we are like 'whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness,'" &c.

Education, whilst exciting in childhood a proper pride, must combat that self-sufficiency which is so apt to mingle with it, and must strive to substitute in its stead Christian humility. This, which is the offspring of truth and justice, is heartily thankful to God for the capabilities of our nature and its high destinies, as well as for all the gifts of His good Providence; and then turning to the work of man, it grieves over his negligences and ignorances, and numerous faults. In a word, it distinguishes between the work of God and of man, ascribing all the good to Him, and the evil to ourselves. Moralists are right in calling humility the corner-stone of all virtue, for this disposition pays due homage to the Author of Life and all things; and at the same time, from the sense it gives us of our own imperfections, it stimulates us to exertion, that we may approach nearer to the standard which pride in its folly supposes itself to have already reached, or perhaps surpassed.

The work of God has already been alluded to in the preceding articles; so it remains for us to speak of that of man, in order to check self-sufficiency in our pupils. Among the examples admitted in our course of language there will be also simple questions, to which they will have to give their own answers and to assign the reason of them. Example:

"All that is good in me comes from above, and all the evil is my own doing. Conscience is the oracle of God within me; but do I refer to it, and obey its directions as I ought? If I were myself without sin, I might indeed cast the first stone at others; but can I say that I am innocent? Have I not often preferred pleasure to duty? Not only do I know that there is such a thing as base jealousy, but I have often detected it in my own heart. Have I always endeavoured to avoid one day the faults of the preceding day? Glory in what the Creator has done for thee, but beware of glorying in aught that thou thyself hast done. Have I not daily need to say, 'Forgive us our trespasses.' It was the meat and drink of the well-beloved Son to do the will of His Father; but, alas! is it mine? Since all you have comes from above, you have nothing wherein to glory. My motto shall ever be, 'To God the glory; but to me confusion of face,'" &c.

CHAPTER VIII.

Recapitulation of the Chapters of this Book, and Reflections.

MUCH has been said in books about the cultivation of the heart, but it seems to me that we rarely meet with a clear and precise idea on the subject. And how should we, when we are only allowed a faint, shadowy glimpse of the object we should have in view, the point from whence we should start, and the road that we should follow; but I hope I may have thrown some light on these important subjects.

Instead of placing at the end of the career, a mere idea,

which however grand and beautiful, is but a vague abstraction, I have held forth the model whom the Father of Mercies sent down to His family on earth; a living model, which the eye may look upon, the ear may hear; a model taken from among our brethren, and one that is at the same time the image and the pledge of our high destinies; lastly, a model that the child loves as soon as he is acquainted with it. One should think that this model ought from the first to have occurred to teachers born in the bosom of the Christian Church.

Having pointed out the object at which education should aim, it remains to ascertain the point from which it should start. And here the primary and indelible tendencies of human nature present themselves to us; for to them we must appeal if we would form the human heart. Now, these tendencies appear numerous, because they show themselves in all the details of life; but on closer inspection, we find that all may be referred to four, viz., the personal tendency, the social tendency, the moral tendency, and the religious tendency.

These tendencies are as it were the soil which education must cultivate, in order to obtain the desired result; but how shall it set to work, since it cannot act directly on the heart, as the artificer does on the wood, or stone, or metal? The science of the mind points out the means: it tells us that man acts as he loves, and he loves as he thinks. Therefore, in order to inspire our pupils with the principles of their great model, we shall familiarize them. with the pure and heavenly thoughts which animate Him: and this done, kind Nature, aided by the grace of God, will, we trust, accomplish the rest; will form their affections upon Christian thoughts, and their affections will display themselves in their lives and conversation.

Our treatises of education recommend to us to harmonize all the inclinations of our pupils, and they are right; for discordance is vice, and vice banishes peace and virtue from the heart. The rule is unquestionably good, but how to apply it is not so easy. We, however, according to the principle which we have laid down, feel no difficulty. We answer in two words, "Bring the light of Gospel truth

to bear upon the minds of your pupils, and order will pervade all their inclinations; they will become the children of God, and they will enjoy the peace and the freedom which our Saviour promised to His disciples."

We should ill have performed our task, if we had merely pointed out the general means of cultivating the heart by means of our course of language. In a matter of such importance, and which has never hitherto been contemplated in education, it was necessary to go into particulars, both in order to show the possibility of the scheme, and the most likely way to make it succeed.

We have, therefore, considered one by one the four primary tendencies of the human heart, the existence and nature of which we had previously pointed out. In this review of them we have noticed the principal truths which will assist their developement, and give to each the direction and the degree of strength which is required for the general harmony of the whole. It was also necessary to prevent or correct the deviations to which they are liable, and to combat certain errors; otherwise the work of education would be incomplete.

In my first enumeration of the natural tendencies, I followed the order of their developement in the child; but in their recapitulation, I ranged them according to their rank, and to the subordination which should be established among them, in order to obtain in our pupils, however faint, a transcript of the perfect model which we set before them. And here the cultivation of the moral tendency occupies the first place, as that which must regulate all the others. The cultivation of the religious tendency only fills the second place, because the religion of the Gospel is entirely moral, and addresses itself to the Heavenly Father, who is the just and holy God. Next comes the social tendency, which, when left to itself, is often no more than a blind sympathy, or a gratitude just as blind, and is always very circumscribed and defective. Morality must, therefore, enlarge and discipline it, with the aid of religion, which will teach it, after the example of our Saviour, to love all the whole human family in spite of their faults, and for the sake of our Heavenly Father.

The personal tendency now comes last, because education must cultivate it by means of the three others. It is by nature egotistical; it only seeks to promote the selfish interests of the one individual that it loves, and it sees in all others but the means of avoiding the evils it dreads, or obtaining the enjoyments it covets. To prevent or repress the bad passions resulting from it, education must employ two means: one consists in counteracting them by the nobler tendencies of our nature, that they may overpower the one that is least; the other is to be found in the personal tendency itself, which must be enlightened in order that it may discover its true interests and its errors; for it is very certain that it injures, instead of benefitting itself, whenever it yields to vice. The same light of truth, which will excite and sustain Christian affections in the child, will also be an antidote to vice, by displaying it in its true colours.

The four chapters which treat of the cultivation of the primary tendencies of the human heart, will have shown that the work contemplated, in regard to each of them, by our course of language, rests upon a pretty extensive analysis, and one which is in union with the general object that every teacher ought to keep in view. Each primary tendency is, as we have seen, an aggregate of several of the same kind, each of which requires its peculiar treatment, and has its peculiar irregularities which must be guarded against. It is with the education of the heart, as with the health of the body: medicine knows of no universal panacea, nor does education either. It is one thing to excite and sustain right affections, and another to prevent and cure wrong ones.

We have pointed out the means which education should adopt, as well as the objects it should have in view; viz., to familiarize the pupils with the truths which bear upon those objects. But we are far from having quoted all that might be said for this purpose. To do this, we must have embodied in this sketch all the developements of our elementary books; whereas our intention was merely to show that an educative course of language, such as we propose, is practicable. Every competent judge will