them in their early years will they be for "the child is father of the man."

in their maturity, This is the reason

why it is indeed of the greatest importance to have the first teaching of a child; and the Jesuits have often shown great shrewdness in securing this vantage for themselves. Early impressions are the elementary tissue, out of which mature life is organized. Hence the extreme difficulty of eliminating first prejudices. Every one knows this, especially Christian ministers, who seldom succeed in converting adult sceptics, Jews or others, who have taken in and assimilated wrong ideas at a very early age.

It would take too long here to discuss the respective advantages of private and public education, but one remark may be made. Boys who are kept secluded at home and know nothing of the world, are but ill-prepared, when they are sent forth all at once, as young men, to battle with the temptations, and ridicule, and insincerity of the world. The general opinion is, that they are thus placed at a disadvantage and quickly fall. Considering the question of education in the most general way, let us first discuss the

I. Principles of Training.—All education ought to be interpenetrated with religion. Some one put up an inscription" Utrecht planted; Louvaine watered; the Emperor gave the increase." Another wrote underneath, God did nothing here. In training children the influence of the Divine Spirit must not be overlooked. Often education is a failure because God is not honoured; and the best teachers will be the readiest to admit, that after they have done all, they are as incompetent to impart

vitality as was Prometheus of old, unless it can be procured from Heaven.

All education ought to have reference to the physical constitution, and therefore every teacher ought to know physiology well. It is for want of this knowledge that Locke's "Thoughts concerning Education" are now so depreciated in value. He recommends children to "be inured to cold and wet ;" to regard them as all face;" "to wear no cap;" and "to have shoes so thin, that they might leak and let in water whenever they come near it ;" and to put the feet of tender babes in ice and cold water, in frost and snow.* Now what does an intelligent physician say on the same subject? "The attempt to harden children by exposure to too great a degree of cold is of the most injurious nature; it either produces acute disease of the lungs, which are then very sensitive of external impressions, or disease of the digestive organs leading to disease of the mesenteric glands, scrofula, water in the brain, or, if they survive a few years, to early consumption." At the same time, it is a great misfortune for children to be brought up in luxury, for it is manifestly demoralising; it does for morals what antimony does for metals-it readily combines with them, but makes them frail and brittle.t

Our public schools put a premium upon precocity and

* Pages 7-10.

+ Locke regarded dancing as an indispensable part of early education. He said: "I think children should be taught to dance as soon as they are capable of learning it. For though this consist only in outward gracefulness of motion, yet I know not how, it gives children manly thoughts and carriage more than anything.”

overwork the tender brain, injure the health, and destroy the temper. Teachers more skilful in the classics than in the knowledge of their own structure, or the observation of nature, ruin many a growing youth. Is it not true in more cases than one, that a late spring makes a fruitful year? Does nature convey no lesson in the fact, that the seed of the rose requires two years to germinate ? Drop upon drop, that is how the beautiful stalactites are formed. We should never forget degree and quantity; much depends upon the how much. The gases which form the air we breathe, in different proportions form a deadly poison. History, science, language, religion given in fair proportions, create delight and give an appetite for more; but when given in excess, the most delightful studies become nauseous. Precocity, which is the boast of the shallow, is the dread of the wise. The knowledge that percolates gently into youth, will well up in a spring in after-life, when the precocious vessel is water-logged.

Harsh teaching may be set down as one of the causes of disappointment in education. "There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is health." * "The sweetness of the lips increaseth learning." Gentle discipline is a mixture of summer and winter. Children should have little indulgences, just because they are children. That preacher understood infantile nature who, in his travels, always carried a silk bag of comfits for the restless little ones.‡

*Proverbs xii, 18.

+ Ibid. xvi. 21.

This will remind the scholar of Horace's "blandi doctores "

and their "crustula."-Sat. i. 1. 25.

A judicious indulgence moderates the intensity of desire; but when children are thwarted and denied in everything they fret the more against restraint, and when the barriers are removed they rush headlong into the forbidden gratification.

Encouragement is an excellent stimulus for the young; but the teacher must be careful as to the motives which he employs. It is hurtful to familiarise children with ambitious and mercenary motives, and to employ the idea of getting on as a daily spur. Qualified praise and gentle blame, and the idea of duty, are among the best stimulants. Sometimes a teacher may not know the power of a word of praise, especially on a modest and retiring disposition. Bishop Hampden, in his later days, used to relate, laughing at himself as he said it, that at school he was commended for a Latin theme, and his delight at this praise was such that he went into the fields alone and there read the theme aloud, to hear how it sounded.*

The superiority of present times over the past is seen as clearly in education as in any department of life. Luther's schoolmaster flogged him fifteen times in one day. The only religious feeling of the child was fear. Every time that he heard Christ spoken of he turned pale with terror.t

Severe disciplinarians have often been mere thrashing machines, and have injured the germinating powers of the seed. They have crushed instead of invigorating,

*

"Memorials of Bishop Hampden," p. 4.

† D'Aubigné's "History of the Reformation," i. 146.

destroyed instead of developing. While therefore they have fancied that they were stimulating and quickening the young, they have in reality been deafening* and stupefying their minds. If there is any corporal punishment at all, an occasional diminution of food might be justified on physiological principles.t

Discipline is a thing so flexible that it is always apt to pass into extremes; and it is easier to be too severe or too lax than it is to hold the just mean. A good and wise man will abhor tyranny and laxity; but certainly one ought to insist upon obedience, and that without giving reasons; for a parent may give orders rightly, and yet give reasons wrongly, and, therefore, if he allows discussion, his authority is gone. Burns gives an amusing account of a debate between a schoolmaster and himself before the whole school. Of course, the teacher was discomfited, and the scholar triumphant in the judgment of a sympathizing audience.

The insane used to be treated brutally. At Hanwell there were found six hundred instruments of restraint, half of them being handcuffs and leglocks. There were also whirling chairs,‡ in which the lunatic was whirled round at the rate of a hundred gyrations a minute. In an age of such impatient management, unruly children would fare ill. It does not seem to have occurred to the authorities of those times that violent treatment injured while it subdued. They believed in physical force, and would scarcely have appreciated the wise advice of a

"Timor animi auribus officit.”—Sallust. Catil., 58.

+ Tŷ yaorρi koλao@ɛíç.-Aristoph. Eccles., 666.

"Life of Dr. Conolly," pp. 20, 47.