of the Will of God; and we have seen that, even although the conscience may not always be adequately enlightened, it nevertheless constitutes to the individual an authoritative law. It is to the conscientious internal apprehension of rectitude that we should conform our conduct. Such appears to be the Will of God.

The world is so abundantly supplied with the means of knowledge-there are so many paths to the desired temple, that we may choose our own and yet arrive at it. He that thinks he cannot possess sufficient knowledge without plucking fruit of unhallowed trees, surely does not know how boundless is the variety and number of those which bear wholesome fruit. He cannot indeed know everything without studying the bad; which, however, is no more to be recom-cated, that the dictate of conscience is never mended in literature than in life. A man cannot know all the varieties of human society without taking up his abode with felons and cannibals.

44. II. But, in reality, the second division of Moral Education is the more important of the two-the supply of motives to adhere to what is right. Our great deficiency is not in knowledge but in obedience. Of the offences which an individual commits against the Moral Law, the great majority are committed in the consciousness that he is doing wrong. Moral Education therefore should be directed, not so much to informing the young what they ought to do, as to inducing those moral dispositions and principles which will make them adhere to what they know to be right.

45. The human mind, of itself, is in a state something like that of men in a state of nature, where separate and conflicting desires and motives are not restrained by any acknowledged head. Government, as it is necessary to society, is necessary in the individual mind. To the internal community of the heart the great question is, Who shall be the legislator? Who shall regulate and restrain the passions and affections? Who shall command and direct the conduct?-To these questions the breast of every man supplies him with an answer. He knows, because he feels, that there is a rightful legislator in his own heart: he knows, because he feels, that he ought to obey it.

46. By whatever designation the reader may think it fit to indicate this legislator, whether he calls it the law written in the heart, or moral sense, or moral instinct, or conscience, we arrive at one practical truth at last; that to the moral legislation which does actually subsist in the human mind, it is right that

the individual should conform his conduct.

The great point then is, to induce him to do this-to induce him, when inclination and this law are at variance, to sacrifice the inclination to the law and for this purpose it appears proper, first to impress him with a high, that is, with an accurate estimate of the authority of the law itself. We have seen that this law embraces an actual expression

47. It should therefore be especially incul

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to be sacrificed; that whatever may be the consequences of conforming to it, they are to be ventured. Obedience is to be unconditional-no questions about the utility of the law-no computations of the consequences of obedience-no presuming upon the lenity of the divine government. It is important so to regulate the understanding and imagination of the young, that they may be prepared to obey, even where they do not see the reasons of the commands of God." We should certainly endeavour, where we can, to show them the reasons of the divine commands, and this more and more as their understandings gain strength; but let it be obvious to them that we do ourselves consider it as quite sufficient if God has commanded us to do or to avoid anything."1

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Obedience

48. Obedience to this internal legislator is not, like obedience to civil government, enforced. The law is promulgated, but the passions and inclinations can refuse obedience if they will. Penalties and rewards are indeed annexed; but he who braves the penalty, and disregards the reward, may continue to violate the law. therefore must be voluntary, and hence the paramount importance, in moral Education, 66 Parents," of habitually subjecting the will. says Hartley, should “labour from the earliest dawnings of understanding and desire, to check the growing obstinacy of the will, curb all sallies of passion, impress the deepest, most amiable, reverential, and awful impressions of God, a future state, and all sacred things."- 'Religious persons in all periods, have in a particular manner been sensible that who have possessed the light of revelation, the habit of self-control lies at the foundation of moral worth." 2 There is nothing mean in philosophy as it is right in morals. It is or mean-spirited in this. It is magnanimous the subjugation of the lower qualities of our nature to wisdom and to goodness.

education. They insist upon the probability of abuse. It was said, They who can write may forge; they who can read may read what is pernicious. The answer was, or it might have been-They who can hear, may hear profaneness and learn it; they who can see, may see bad examples and follow them —but are we therefore to stop our ears and put out our eyes ?—It is now said, that if you give extended education to the poor, you will elevate them above their stations; that a critic would not drive a wheelbarrow, and that a philosopher would not shoe horses or weave cloth. But these consequences are without the limits of possibility; because the question for a poor man is, whether he shall perform such offices or starve: and surely it will not be pretended that hungry men would rather criticise than eat. Science and literature would not solicit a poor man from his labour more irresistibly than ease and pleasure do now; yet in spite of these solicitations what is the fact? That the poor man works for his bread. This is the inevitable result.

61. It is not the positive but the relative amount of knowledge that elevates a man above his station in society. It is not because he knows much, but because he knows more than his fellows. Educate all, and none will fancy that he is superior to his neighbours. Besides, we assign to the possession of knowledge, effects which are produced rather by habits of life. Ease and comparative leisure are commonly attendant upon extensive knowledge, and leisure and ease disqualify men for the laborious occupations much more than the knowledge itself.

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tutions and public measures which is inseparable from an educated population, is a great good. We all know that the human heart is such, that the possession of power is commonly attended with a desire to increase it, even in opposition to the general weal. It is acknowledged that a check is needed, and no check is either so efficient or so safe as that of a watchful and intelligent public mind: so watchful that it is prompt to discover and to expose what is amiss; so intelligent, that it is able to form rational judgments respecting the nature and the means of amendment. In all public institutions there exists, and it is happy that there does exist, a sort of vis inertia which habitually resists change. This, which is beneficial as a general tendency, is often injurious from its excess: the state of public institutions almost throughout the world, bears sufficient testimony to the truth that they need alteration and amendment faster than they receive it that the internal resistance of change is greater than is good for man. Unhappily, the ordinary way in which a people have endeavoured to amend their institutions_has been by some mode of violence. If you ask when a nation acquired a greater degree of freedom, you are referred to some era of revolution and probably of blood. These are not proper, certainly they are not Christian, remedies for the disease. It is becoming an undisputed proposition, that no bad institution can permanently stand against the distinct Opinion of a People. This opinion is likely to be universal, and to be intelligent only amongst an enlightened community. Now that reformation of public institutions which results from public opinion is the very best in kind, and is likely to be the best in its mode :-in its kind, because public opinion is the proper measure of the needed alteration; and in its mode, because alterations which result from such a cause, are likely to be temperately made.

62. There are some collateral advantages of an extended education of the people, which are of much importance. It has been observed that if the French had been an educated people, many of the atrocities of their Revolution would never have happened, and I believe it. Furious mobs are composed, not of enlightened but of unenlightened men-of men in whom the passions are dominant over the judgment, because the judgment has not been exercised, and informed, aud habituated to direct the conduct. A factious declaimer can much less easily influence a number of men who quired at school the rudiments of knowledge, and who have subsequently devoted their leisure to a Mechanics' Institute, than a multitude who cannot write or read, and who have never practised reasoning and considerate thought. And as the Education of a People prevents political evil, it effects political good. Despotic rulers well know that knowledge is inimical to their power. This simple fact is a sufficient reason, to a good and wise man, to approve knowledge and extend it. The attention to public insti- 64. Generally, that intellectual education

63. It may be feared that some persons object to an extended education of the people on these very grounds which we propose as recommendations; that they regard the tendency of education to produce examination, and, if need be, alteration of established inac-stitutions, as a reason for withholding it from the poor. To these, it is a sufficient answer, that if increase of knowledge and habits of investigation tend to alter any established institution, it is fit that it should be altered. There appears no means of avoiding this conclusion, unless it can be shown that increase of knowledge is usually attended with depravation of principle, and that in proportion as the judgment is exercised it decides amiss.

is good for a poor man which is good for his richer neighbours in other words, that is good for the poor which is good for man. There may be exceptions to the general rule; but he who is disposed to doubt the fitness of a rich man's education for the poor, will do well to consider first whether the rich man's education is fit for himself. The children of persons of property can undoubtedly learn much more than those of a labourer, and the labourer must select from the rich man's system a part only for his own child. But this does not effect the general conclusion. The parts which he ought to select are precisely those parts which are most necessary and beneficial to the rich.

65. Great as have been the improvements in the methods of conveying knowledge to the poor, there is reason to think that they will be yet greater. Some useful suggestions for the instruction of older children may I think be obtained from the systems in Infant Schools. In a well-conducted infant school, children acquire much knowledge, and they acquire it with delight. This delight is of extreme importance: perhaps it may safely be concluded, respecting all innocent knowledge, that if a child acquired it with pleasure he is well taught. It is worthy observation, that in the infant system, lesson-learning is nearly or wholly excluded. It is not to be expected that in the time which is devoted professedly to education by the children of the poor, much extent of knowledge can be acquired; but something may be acquired which is of much more consequence than mere school-learning the love and the habits of inquiry. If education be so conducted that it is a positive pleasure to a boy to learn, there is litttle doubt that this love and habit will be induced. Here is the great advantage of early intellectual culture. The busiest have some leisure, leisure which they may employ ill or well; and that they will employ it well may reasonably be expected when knowledge is thus attractive for its own sake. That this effect is in a considerable degree actually produced, is indicated by the improved character of the books which poor men read, and in the prodigious increase in the number of those books. The supply and demand are correspondent. Almost every year produces books for the labouring classes of a higher intellectual order than the last. A journeyman in our days can understand and relish a work which would have been like Arabic to his grandfather.

schools voluntarily supported, there is manifestly the same reason for inculcating them in this case as for teaching them at all. This supposes that the supporters of the school are not themselves divided in their religious opinions. If they are, and if the adherents to no one creed are able to support a school of their own, there appears no ground upon which they can rightly refuse to support a school in which no religious peculiarities are taught. It is better that intellectual knowledge, together with imperfect religious principles, should be communicated, than that children should remain in darkness. There is indeed some reason to suspect the genuineness of that man's philanthropy, who refuses to impart any knowledge to his neighbours because he cannot, at the same time, teach them his own creed.

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amusements

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67. It is a remarkable circumstance, that in almost all Christian countries many of the public and popular Amusements have been regarded as objectionable by the more sober and conscientious part of the community. This opinion could scarcely have been general unless it had been just yet why should a people prefer amusements of which good men feel themselves compelled to disapprove? Is it because no public recreation can be devised of which the evil is not greater than the good? or because the inclinations of most men are such, that if it were devised, they would not enjoy it? It may be feared that the desires which are seeking for gratification are not themselves pure; and pure pleasures are not congenial to impure minds. The real cause of the objectionable nature of many popular diversions is to be sought in the want of virtue in the people.

68. Amusement is confessedly a subordinate concern in life. It is neither the principal nor amongst the principal objects of proper solicitude. No reasonable man sacrifices the more important thing to the less, and that a man's religious and moral condition is of incomparably greater impor66. Of moral education we say nothing tance than his diversion, is sufficiently plain. here, except that the principles which are In estimating the propriety or rather the applicable to other classes of mankind are lawfulness of a given amusement, it may obviously applicable to the poor. With safely be laid down, That none is lawful of respect to the inculcation of peculiar re- which the aggregate consequences are inligious opinions on the children who attend | jurious to morals:-nor, if its effects upon