Editorial Notices, &c. PROCEEDINGS OF TOWNSHIP COUNCILS IN COM. SCHOOL MATTERS. In our last number, we adverted to the circumstance of a copy of the Journal of Education having been ordered for each School Section in the several Townships. Since then orders have been received for a copy of the Journal for each School Section of the Townships of Wolf Island, Amherst Island, and Trafalgar. But in no instance have we seen more enlightened views expressed, or a more noble spirit evinced, than in the following resolutions, (model resolutions indeed for every Municipal Council in Upper Canada), which have been communicated to us by SIMON NEWCOMB, Esquire, School Supeintendent for the Township of Bayham, County of Middlesex: At a Meeting of the Municipal Council for the Township of Bayham, held on the 15th instant, the following resolutions were moved and passed unanimously: 1. That this Council, regarding the cause of popular education as one of the deepest interest and importance, feel it their duty to employ all proper means to elevate the character and increase the usefulness of our common schools. 2. That, in their opinion, this great object is to be promoted by the general diffusion of information on educational subjects, and by the introduction of a uniform and approved system of schoolteaching, and of school organization and discipline. 3. That, in accordance with these views, the Superintendent of Schools be authorized to obtain a copy of the Journal of Education for each School Section in the Township; and that he be invited to attend the Teachers' Institute to be held at London on the 14th and 15th June next, with a view to the introduction into our Common Schools of the principles of teaching and system of instruction adopted in the Normal School of Upper Canada. SCHOOL TEACHERS' INSTITUTES.-It is gratifying to observe the judicious and active preparations which are making in the several counties for the Teachers' Institutes, the appointments of which were announced in the last number of this Journal. We hope they will be duly published and numerously attended in every County in Upper Canada. We direct attention to an article on the "Influence of Teachers' Institutes upon Teachers and the Public," extracted from the last Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and of their Secretary, inserted on the 68th page. NEW SCHOOL BILL.-The Honble. the INSPECTOR GENERAL, on Wednesday the 29th inst., introduced into the Legislative Assembly a new School Bill for Upper Canada, according to the provisions of which the School Moneys for the current year will be apportioned to the several counties, townships, cities, and towns as soon as the Bill becomes a law. MUNICIPAL MANUAL OF UPPER CANADA for 1850, with a Map of the Province. 8vo., pp. 132. Price 1s. 101d. Toronto : Scobie and Balfour. We have to express our thanks to the publishers for a copy of this work. Under our present extended municipal system, nothing could be more valuable or opportune than this cheap and convenient Manual. It contains complete lists of the various Municipal Corporations of Townships, Counties, Villages, Towns, and Cities, and their Ward Divisions (including their officers, Superintendents of Schools, &c.); also, the boundaries of the several Division Courts-the times and places of holding them, and the name and address of the Judge and Clerk of each Division; and the Municipal Corporations' Act, Road Act, and various other Acts conferring powers and imposing duties on Municipalities. We cordially recommend the Municipal Manual to all local municipal authorities. METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW, April, 1850. Rev. J. McClintock, D.D., Editor. 8vo., pp. 160. 10s. per annum-New-York, Lane and Scott. We acknowledge with much pleasure the receipt of this valuable periodical. Although the exponent of certain theological views and peculiarities which cannot be either so elaborately or philosophically discussed in a newspaper as in a calm and dignified Quarterly, this publication may be regarded as the literary organ of a very large and influential body of Christians in the United States. The following is the very interesting Table of Contents:-I. Wesley the Catholic.-II. John Quincy Adams.III. Demoniacs of the New Testament.-IV. Ancient Enclosures and Mounds of the West.-V. Inquiry into the meaning of II. Peter iii. 13.—Καινους δε ουρανους και γην καινήν κατα το επαγγελμα αυτού προσδοκωμεν, εν οις δικαιοσυνη κατοικεί.—VI. The meaning of Di (iom) day-VII. Sunday School Literature.-VIII. Ticknor's Spanish Literature.-IX. Life of Rev. John Collins[attributed to the pen of the Hon. Judge McLean of the Supreme Court of the United States.]-X. Short Reviews and Notices, [of the current literature of the day-26 in all.]-XI. Miscellanies[Theological criticisms, 5 in all.]-XII. Literary IntelligenceTheological, [Classical and Miscellaneous-European and American.] We can only notice two articles. The article on Ancient Enclosures, founded on the first volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, entitled, "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," we have read with peculiar interest. It is profusely illustrated with wood cuts from the original work. The mounds exhibit undoubted traces of the once powerful tribes which formerly inhabited the extensive valley of the Mississippi-in the Indian legend, the Father of Waters,—and upon excavation are found to be monuments erected over the remains of mighty chiefs or warriors. Some of the mounds are very singular in shape. One is constructed in the form of a serpent-five feet high and thirty feet wide at the base, its head resting near the top of a natural hill, and its body winding down for nearly 1,000 feet in graceful evolutions, terminating in a triple coil at the tail. The neck of the serpent is stretched out, slightly curved, and with its mouth opened, as if in the act of swallowing an oval figure, which rests partially within its jaws-others are in the form of alligators, crosses, &c., &c. The forms of the ordinary mounds are conical and pyramidal, and their appearance, covered with verdure, is very striking. Though it may appear somewhat anomalous to apply the term ancient, to any structure on the Continent of America, yet it appears from indisputable evidence that these monuments must be many hundred years' old, perhaps "older than the Pyramids:" and while the more imposing structures of civilized man have crumbled into shapeless ruins, these humble mounds of the child of the forest yet remain but slightly unchanged from their original proportions. The paper on Spanish Literature, by a learned Professor of Harvard University, is founded on Ticknor's "History of Spanish Literature," -an exceedingly valuable work on a subject but rarely treated of with the minuteness and research displayed by that author. The review is very favourable. It presents an epitome of Spansh Literature and of English and American writers on Spain down to the present period. The sketch will prove very interesting to students of History. CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER. ............ ..... 1. First Free University--Example for Upper Canada,. II. Great Economy of Free Public Education, III. Importance of the Teacher's Calling, IV. Duties of Cities and Towns, in respect to Common Schools, V. Chemistry, as applied to Agriculture, in Common Schools, VI. Influence of Teachers' Institutes, ........ 65 66-67 67 67 68 68-69 69 69 ................. VII. Advantages of Science and Knowledge, VIII. Conduct of an Enlightened People-(1) in regard to Government-(2) in selection of Representatives, IX. MISCELLANEOUS :--1. Child's Hymn (Poetry). 2. Fact with a Moral. 3. Curious Facts in Early History, Free Schools, Massachusetts. 4. Education and War. 5. Foreign Phrases. 6. Perseverance. 7. Moral Education. 8. Courtesy. 9. Parental Teaching. 10. Double your Money. 11. National Characteristics. 12. Educational Journals in the U.S. 13. Various School Items, X. EDITORIAL:-1. May not all the Youth of Upper Canada be blest with Free Education from the Common School to the University? 2. Normal School Instruction. 3. Secretary, Massachusetts' Board of Education. 4. Free Schools in Toronto, ...... XI. Canadian Press on Free Schools:-1. Toronto Patriot. 2. St. Catherines' Journal. 3. Barrie Magnet, and Montreal Pilot, CXII. 1. New Rules, Massachusetts' Normal Schools. 2 Ingenuity XIII. EDUCATIONAL INTELLIGENCE :-1. Canada. 70-71 72-74 74-75 75 76-78 79 80 Toronto: Printed and Published by THOMAS H. BENTLEY, at 5s per annum, and may be obtained from A. GREEN, SCOBIE & BALFOUR and A. II. ARMOUR & Co., Toranto; R. D. WADSWORTH, General Agent for Canada: J. McCoy, Montreal; and D. M. DEWEY, Arcade Hall, Rochester, N. Y. My object in addressing you, is to call your attention to the subject of Libraries for the use of Common Schools in Upper Canada. I shall merely give you my ideas, with a few statistical facts, and leave you to discuss the subject, if you think proper to do so, in your own usual clear and forcible manner. Every person will admit the advantage, and even the necessity of having good school libraries; but, few people are aware of the scarcity of books, in many of the rural portions of the Province. The little instruction which the children receive in many of the Common Schools, is entirely lost for want of suitable books. They are taught to read as a means of acquiring knowledge, but that knowledge is not put within their reach, and, consequently, their education, so called, ends when they have acquired a tolerable knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic. Many of our young people, after leaving the schools, seldom see a book, unless a pedler happens to drop in their way some of the trash called cheap literature, which, in many cases, is worse than useless. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, as commonly taught in the country schools, is no more education, than the scaffolding, set up by the mason or the carpenter, is the superstructure, when he is about to build a house. What would we think of the mechanic, who should so put up his scaffold, and there stop, under the impression that his house was finished? Are we much wiser, in the course we follow with respect to common schools? For want of libraries, do we not stop when the foundation is scarcely laid? My remarks, of course, apply more particularly to settlements cut off by distance, bad roads and other causes, from towns or markets where a good supply of books might be obtained. The next point to which I wish to call your attention, is the scheme, by which I propose to furnish at least one good library to each Township in the Province. To do this, a very large sum of money, would, of course, be required; and in the present state of our financial affairs, it is scarcely reasonable to expect that the Government would recommend so large a grant. Then turn to the Corporations in the several Counties and Townships, and we are told that they "have no funds "; that their expenditure is equal to, and in many cases exceeds their receipts. We are also told that if an attempt were made to put on an additional assessment for this purpose, the people would resist it. The plan I propose is this: To take the money arising from Tavern Licences, which, for several years past, has been used to liquidate a debt incurred for the payment of losses in U. C. in 1837 and 1838, and which, in future, is intended to be paid over to the several County or Township Municipal Corporations in the Province, and apply it in each County or Township to the purchase of School Libraries. If it were applied in this way for even one year, a very good beginning would be made; but set it apart for this purpose, permanently, and in a few years, we would have the most magnificent School Libraries to be found in any part of the world. But I It is pretty generally admitted, that the sale of spirituous liquors is productive of much evil to the community; then why not allow the tax on the traffic to be applied to so good a purpose as that proposed? It would, to some extent, counteract the evil. must not, at present, give you my views on the licensing system. Then with respect to the amount of this fund. By an official return before me, I find it averaged each year, during the three years ending the 1st Feb., 1849, about £10,500. For the future, say £10,000; and the population is in round numbers 750,000. This would give 20s. for every seventy-five inhabitants, and each Township of two thousand inhabitants, which is very nearly the average, (there being nearly four hundred Townships in U. Canada,) would have £26 13 4, a sum sufficient to purchase the first year, at least Two hundred and Fifty volumes. I assume that expensive works, would not, in the first instance be required: indeed, it would be imprudent, at any time, to put expensive books into such libraries. Volumes about the size of those in Harper's Family Library, or the Library sanctioned by the Massachusetts' Board of Education, would be furnished at a price rather under what I have allowed; and if a large number were selected and ordered at once, by the Superintendent of Education, a liberal discount on the usual prices would probably be allowed. Can the money be spared for this purpose? In reply, I say yes! This is an entirely new source of revenue to the municipalities. It is like so much money found. There will be no necessity for retrenchment in the ordinary expenditure of the municipalities; no withdrawal of funds from specific purposes to which they have hitherto been applied. The money for this year is already paid over to the respective bodies entitled to receive it, and perhaps, in many cases disposed of; but I would suggest that an Act should be passed, declaring that for the future, it should be set apart for Common School Libraries; or, if it is considered to be beyond the control of the Legislature, I would like to see the County Councils taking up the matter, and disposing of it in the way I suggest. This year the money was paid over to the several Townships, according to the number of taverns, within their limits. This is unfair, inasmuch as some Townships get more than their share, and other equally well settled Townships, get nothing. In proportion to population, would be the better way. SCHOOL LIBRARIES-THEIR SOCIAL TENDENCIES. Be The Library Fund for the State, consists of $55,000 appropriated from the income of the United States' Deposit Fund, and an equal fund raised by tax. The object of the Legislature was to furnish every district in the State, with a library of good books for the instruction of adults, as well as infants. Out of the same, $110,000 were annually appropriated for the payment of teachers' wages. A sum was, therefore, devoted to the tuition of children, equal to twice the sum set apart for the purchase of books. sides this, the whole income of the Common School Fund, a like amount raised by tax, all sums raised by towns for School purposes, and all local funds are expended in the payment of teachers' wages. To us, it appears clear, that the amount expended for books, which are the silent teachers of all those who have advanced to a certain degree in knowledge, is quite small enough in comparison with the sum expended in the wages of Teachers, whose business it is to guide the toddling steps of infancy in the paths of science. The common School is only the threshold of the temple of knowledge. Books are its corridors, entrances, and aisles, which lead to its inner apartments and higher seats. A child goes to the Common School, not merely to learn to read, write, and cypher, but having learned reading, writing, and arithmetic, that he apply his knowledge to the business of life. We are impressed, deeply, and unalterably, with the conviction that the policy which founded, and has built up the School Libraries, is the wisest policy which any human government ever adopted. If this policy be adhered to, and goes hand in hand with the common school system, it will be the means of enlightening and enfranchising all the inhabitants of the earth. We should look upon the abandonment of this policy as the triumph of ignorance and parsimony. 66 Our friendship for the School Libraries is based chiefly upon their political tendencies. Magna est veritas et prævalebit,” is an old Latin proverb, which a modern political philosopher has translated into, "Error is not to be feared when truth is left free to combat it." But before the invention of printing, and the publication of books, truth was never left free to combat error. Forms of government, institutions, laws, religion, were imposed upon the masses of the people, and upheld by brute force. All the so-called republics of antiquity were in fact oligarchies, in which a few men, styling themselves citizens, assumed all political power. The tillers of the soil in Sparta, Athens and Rome, were, with rare exceptions, slaves. Nine-tenths of all the cultivated land on the surface of the earth is now tilled by serfs, or slaves. Why so? Because truth is not left free to combat error. Books would teach serfs and slaves to know how base a thing it is to be a slave. In books, all forms and systems of government and religion, all theories, opinions, acts and motives of men, are discussed, attacked, defended, praised or ridiculed; and the people sit in judgment to weigh and deliberate, to approve or condemn. Before the invention of printing, there could be no tribunal of such universal jurisdiction, possessing also such irresistible power to enforce its decrees. "Before the diffusion of knowledge and inquiry," says Hazlitt, "governments were for the most part the growth of brute force, or of barbarous superstition. Power was in the hands of a few, who used it only to gratify their own pride, cruelty, or avarice, and who took every means to cement it by fear and favor. The lords of the earth disdained to rule by the choice or for the benefit of the mass of the community, whom they regarded and treated as no better than a herd of cattle, derived their title from the skies, pretending to be accountable for the exercise or abuse of their authority, to God only-the throne rested on the altar, and every species of atrocity or wanton insult, having power on its side, received the sanction of religion, which it was, thenceforth, impiety and rebellion against the will of Heaven to impugn. This state of things continued and grew worse and worse, while knowledge and power were confined within more local and private limits. Each petty sovereign shut himself up in his castle or fortress, and scattered havoc and dismay over the unresisting country around him. In an age of ignorance and barbarism, when force and interest decided every thing, and reason had no means of making itself heard, what was to prevent this, or act as a check upon it? The lord himself had no other measure of right than his own will; his pride and passions would blind him to any consideration of conscience or humanity: he would regard every act of disobedience as a crime of the deepest dye, and to give unbridled sway to his lawless humors would become the ruling passion and sole study of his life. How would it stand with those within the immediate circle of his influence,or his arrogance? Fear would make them cringe, and lick the feet of their haughty and capricious oppressor; the hope of reward, or the dread of punishment, would stifle the sense of justice, or pity; despair of success would make them cowards, habit would confirm them into slaves, and they would look up with bigoted devotion (the boasted loyalty of the good old times) to the right of the strongest as the only law. A king would only be the head of a confederation of such haughty despots, and the happiness, or rights of the people, would be equally disregarded by them both. Religion, instead of curbing this state of rapine and licentiousness, became an accomplice and party in the crime; gave absolution and indulgence for all sorts of enormities; granting the forgiveness of Heaven in return for a rich jewel or fat abbey lands, and setting up a regular (and what in the end proved an intolerable) traffic in violence, cruelty and lust. As to the restraints of law, there were none but what resided in the breast of the Grand Seigneur, who hung up in his court-yard, without judge or jury, any one who dared to utter the slightest murmur against the most flagrant wrong. Such must be the consequence, as long as there was no common standard or judge to appeal to; and this could only be found in public opinion, the offspring of books. As long as any unjust claim or transaction was confined to the knowlege of the parties concerned, the tyrant and the slave, which is the case in all unlettered states of society, might must prevail over right; for the strongest would bully, and the weakest must submit, even in his own defence, and persuade himself that he was in the wrong, even in his own dispute: but the instant the world, that dread jury, are impannelled, and called to look on and be umpires in the scene, so that nothing is done by connivance or in a corner, then reason mounts the judgment-seat in lieu of passion or interest, and opinion becomes law instead of arbitrary will." From the moment that the press opens the eyes of the community beyond the active sphere in which each moves, there is from that time inevitably formed the germ of a body of opinion directly at variance with the selfish and servile code that before reigned paramount, and approximating more and more to the manly and disinterested standard of truth and justice. Hitherto, force, fraud and fear decided any question of individual right or general reasoning; the possessor of rank and influence, in answer to any censure or objection to his conduct, appealed to God and to his word; now a new principle is brought into play, which had never been so much as dreamt of, and before which he must make good his pretensions, or it will shatter his strong holds of pride and prejudice to atoms, as the pent up air shatters whatever resists its expansive force. This power is public opinion, exercised upon men, things, and general principles, and to which man's physical power must conform, or it will crumble it to powder. Books alone teach us to judge of truth and good in the abstract: without a knowledge of things at a distance from us, we judge like savages or animals from our senses and appetites only: but by the aid of books and of an intercourse with the world of ideas, we are purified, raised, ennobled from savages into intellectual and rational beings. Our impressions of what is near to us are false, of what is distant, feeble; but these last gaining strength from being united in public opinion, and expressed by the public voice, are like the congregated roar of many waters, and quail the hearts of princes. Who but the tyrant does not hate the tyrant? Who but the slave does not despise the slave? The first of these looks upon himself as a God, upon his vassal as a clod of the earth, and forces him to be of the same opinion; the philosopher looks upon them both as men, and instructs the world to do so. While they had to settle their pretensions by themselves, and in the night of ignorance, it is no wonder no good was done; while pride intoxicated the one, and fear stupified the other. But let them be brought out of that dark cave of despotism and superstition, and let a thousand other persons, who have no interest but that of truth and justice, be called on to determine between them, and the plea of the lordly oppressor to make a beast of burden of his fellow man becomes as ridiculous as it is odious. All that the light of philosophy, the glow of patriotism, all that the brain wasted in midnight study, the blood poured out upon the scaffold or in the field of battle can do or have done, is to take this question, in all cases, from before the first gross, blind and ini quitous tribunal, where power insults our weakness, and place it before the last more just, disinterested, and in the end more formidable one, where each individual is tried by his peers, and according to the rules and principles which have received the common examination and the common consent. A public sense is thus formed, free from slavish and other traditional assumption of insolent superiority, which the more it is exercised becomes the more enlightened and enlarged, and more and more requires equal rights and equal laws. This new sense acquired by the people, this new organ of opinion and feeling, is like bringing a battering train to bear upon some old Gothic castle, long the den of rapine and crime, and must finally prevail against all absurd and antiquated institutions, unless it is violently suppressed, and this engine of political reform turned by bribery and terror against itself. Who in reading history, when the characters are laid open, and the circumstances fairly stated, and when he himself has no false lies to mislead him, does not take part with the oppressed against the oppressor? But books anticipate and conform the decision of the public, of individuals, and even of the actors in such scenes, to that lofty and irrevocable standard, mould and fashion the heart and inmost thoughts upon it, so that something manly, liberal, and generous grows out of the fever of passion and the palsy of law; and this is what is meant by the progress of modern civilization and modern philosophy. As knowledge and civilization advance, the influence and advantages of the privileged few necessarily decrease. These two present an everlasting counterpoise to each other, which is as true as that if you enlarge one half of a right angle you diminish the other half. Soldiers, prints, books, in turn govern the world; and the last do it best, because they have no pretence to do it at all, but by making the public good their law and rule.-N. Y. Dist. School Journal. CHILDREN SHOULD BE TAUGHT TO EXPRESS Children should be educated in good habits of Expression. They must not only know how a problem is solved, but must be able to state the method clearly and fully. Quite as much is gained by endeavors to communicate knowledge as by solitary study. This habit gives a command of language, which the scholar will hardly otherwise acquire. It shows him the extent of his resources, and where he needs fresh application. It gives him fluency of utterance, and at the same time grammatical propriety. In some schools the teacher is content with guessing out the ideas and meaning of the scholars. They speak by hints, in half-formed sentences, and with a tone and manner so loose, disjointed and slovenly, as to savor of any place rather than a school-room. It is quite as important for the education of a child that we should understand him, as he Thus only can we determine, whether he is really acquainted with the subject before him, whether he has just ideas, or is only giving us mouthfuls of words.-Mr. Muzzey's Lecture before the American Institute of Instruction. Us. TEACHER'S SELF-HEED ESSENTIAL TO HIS SUCCESS. But the most infallible means of success in teaching is, that the teacher add to all other helps that of taking constant heed to Himself. Of all the streams he would send forth, he must be the upper spring. It is not by set speeches, that he can convey all knowledge to his scholars. Unless he possess the personal power to excite a thirst for learning, his efforts may only tend to their intellectual poverty. He must gain and secure their affections. Love is the silken chord, stronger than cables of coercion, by which he must draw them to the fountains of wisdom. It will be his countenance, his manner, his tones, and not his cold words alone, that will interest their young hearts in him, and through him, in the studies they pursue. Let him not hope to affect anything, however, by mere appearances. Children pierce every covering and sce the naked heart. We must, therefore, subdue all unkind and unjust feelings, and cherish a parental regard for our pupils. The teacher should watch daily the occurrences of the school room, and draw thence materials to mould their characters. If the plant be watered at the right hour, when the calm evening of reflection has come, its root will be nourished, and vigor, and beauty, and life will be shed through its foilage and flowers. The same service performed in the heat of mid day, when the sun of passion is high, would but waste the waters of wisdom, and leave the stock parched with all evil. Has the teacher any trouble with his scholars, let him always recollect the advice of Salzman, and "look first for the cause of it in himself." Let him regard his own practice as a model for theirs. Must they be accurate, so let him be. Does he expect them to be diligent, just, patient, benevolent, pure, he should ask if these traits will spring naturally from sympathy with his spirit? This nation needs shining lights at the teacher's desk. Each who now fills that high station should count himself called to be a reforAs Fellenberg, when looking on Switzerland, said of the three hundred pupils training for its teachers, so let this people say of you: "These instructors are the great engine to regenerate the land." So estimate your office and you will each be a living code, enlightening the minds, purifying the hearts, and, under God, redeeming the souls of the precious band, given by parental solicitude and in patriotic faith to your charge, to be prepared by you for the solemn and illimitable future.-Ibid. mer. THOROUGH TEACHING THE TRUE SYSTEM. "Few branches, and well," should be the teacher's motto. I know one who requires his scholars to read a sentence three or four times over, if a single error be committed in the repetition. This practice will not make rail-road readers, those who are praised according to their speed; but, I am confident, it will make correct readers, though they should advance only at the humble rate of a man's unaided walking. Scholars, to be accurate, must review their lessons often and thoroughly. Each exercise should be bound by bands of steel to all that precede it. Be not ambitious to carry a pupil over many authors or many pages, but be perfectly certain that there is no line or word he has passed over, which he does not now understand. The crate is to be filled with precious wares. Let each piece be wrapt right, packed securely for itself and in relation to all the others. If one be placed wrong, in the journey of life, it may jar and crack its neighbors, and spread devastation through the whole.-Ibid. EVERY THING SHOULD BE TAUGHT WITH ACCURACY. Aim in all things to secure the utmost Accuracy. Do you teach writing, be not satisfied with a scholar's marking over the destined page, or half page, but see that every letter is correctly formed, if but ten be written for an exercise. Are they spelling? Do not judge of their proficiency by the number of columns they can falter through. If each pupil can spell but a single word, let that word be first pronounced, and that distinctly, and then let cach syllable bo given separately, and each letter with its exact sound. We are a nation of mis-spellers. It is not three years since I knew a graduate of a college commit such atrocities in spelling the words of his performance at commencement, as ought to have put a child of eight to the blush. To the teachers of our primary schools I would say, humanity forbid that you ever send such pupils to our colleges. And of this be sure, that if you neglect their spelling, no high school, academy, nor professor will supply the deficiency. Spelling seems a small thing, a matter that comes of course, but it is not so. If the little gems is not set round the leaf in its morning tenderness, no mid-day sun will ever shed the early dew.-Ibid. THE MORAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. In the Halifax (N. S.) Presbyterian Guardian of the 1st instant, in a lengthened editorial article on the Value of a good Education, the following affecting and forcible remarks are made : "The blighted reputation and untimely end of the sons of some of our wealthiest merchants and most industrious citizens, ought to teach others that it is education and virtue, and not wealth or family influence that make the good man and useful member of society. A young man may be full of learning, able to spout passages of Shakespeare, of Byron, of Virgil, and Horace, to solve all the problems of Euclid, and understand the Principia of Newton, and yet be a profligate and an infidel. But if a pious youth know and love his Bible, and make it his daily companion and constant guide and counsellor, then we shall have no fears for the consequences. Such an one will be an honor to his age and to his country, a comort to his parents in their declining years and an ornament to the hureb to which he belongs." THE PROSPERITY OF A STATE DETERMINED BY THE EDUCATION OF ITS YOUTH. By Science, a nation is enabled to profit by the advantages of its natural situation. It avails little that the soil of a country is rich, if the art of cultivation is unknown to the inhabitauts. It avails nothing, that her shores are capable of being connected with every climate, through the medium of intervening seas or oceans, while science has never taught the construction of vessels, nor the art of directing them. Without this knowledge, there is comparatively little use in the rivers, by which a country is intersected; nor can the advantages of them be fully realized, till all vincible obstacles to navigation are actually overcome, and neighboring streams are made to unite their waters. The sciences of chemistry and mineralogy, lately introduced into our country, and now cultivated with so much ardor and success, cannot fail, by their influence on medicine, agriculture and the arts, to produce consequences of great national importance. The nature of man on the one side, and of soils and climates on the other, remains the same in every age. It is knowledge-it is cultivation that produces the change. To this are we to ascribe it, that in our own country, where, two centuries ago, wild beasts and savages were contending for the empire of an unmeasured desert, there are now civil institutions, commerce, cities, arts, letters, religion, and all the charities of social and domestic life. Whatever civil compact they may seem fit to adopt, an enlightened people will not trust themselves to calculate, with minuteness and confidence, the greatest degree of political prosperity that may be enjoyed, nor the least degree of restraint that may be necessary. It will not escape them, that no human foresight can extend to all emergencies, which a series of years may produce: and that time may develop, in any political constitution, traits, either more or less valuable, than were apparent to its original authors. It is a well known truth in mechanics, that the actual and theoretical powers of a machine will never coincide. Through the flexibility of one part, the rigidity of another, and the roughness of a third, the result may disappoint those fond hopes, which seemed to rest on the firm ground of mathematical calculation. The judicious artist will not, however, on this account, be willing to reject, as worthless, a structure of splendid and complicated mechanism, of solid materials, in the formation of which, much labor, experience and ingenuity have been employed. It is a remark, not less important because frequently made, that an indifferent constitution may be so administered, as to render a nation happy, and that, without a good administration, the best political institutions will fail of accomplishing that purpose. Now, as the manner in which government will be administered in any nation, can never be foreseen, a discerning people will not confidently anticipate, as their perpetual portion, the highest degree of prosperity which their form of government seems calculated to secure. Nor will they fix their eyes so intensely on the evils which may be felt at any period, as to forget the imperfection of all human establishments, and that, under a new form of government, may be concealed important disadvantages, which experience alone can bring to light. Rejecting alike the character of inconstancy, turbulence, and despondency, they will neither tamely yield to abuses, nor subvert their political institutions on account of them. As an enlightened people will know how to value their rights, they will place those in office, who, by their ability, knowledge and integrity, are entitled to such distinction. To obtain their suffrages, it will not be enough, that a man professes his attachment to order, religion, or liberty. He must have more solid ground, on which to establish his claims to public favor. In knowledge and wisdom is doubtless implied a spirit of discernment. To enjoy the confidence of a wise people, there must therefore be a consistency of character, a uniform regard to moral principle and the public good. They will clearly perceive, that the civil interests of millions cannot be secure in the hands of men, who, in the more confined circle of common intercourse, are selfish, rapacious, or aspiring. An enlightened regard to self-interest and a religious sense of responsibility, will, in this case, lead to the same practical result. In exercising the right of freemen, the man of religion experiences no conflict between his duty and his inclination. Towards the dishonest, profane, ambitious and profligate, he feels- "The strong antipathy of good to bad.” He has no wish to behold, arrayed in robes of office, men, whose largest views do not extend beyond the limits of mortal life, and whose deportment and conversation indicate neither love nor reverence for the Author of their being. In very popular governments, where the elective franchise is widely extended, it is, doubtless, impossible that candidates for public office should be personally known to all, whose suffrages they receive. How generally seever knowledge is diffused, all the members of a large State cannot be brought within the sphere of mutual observation. In this case, resort must be had to the best sources of information. But it should not be forgotten, that a portion of the same intelligence and virtue, required in rulers, is necessary in giving information concerning candidates. An honest and well informed freeman will rely on none but well-informed witnesses. A nation distinguished by a union of wisdom, knowledge, and the fear of God, is morally certain of having its government well administered, not only for the reason just assigned, but because the tone of morals, existing in such a nation, will operate as a powerful restraint, if, by any casualty or deep dissimulation, persons of yielding virtue should be placed in office. Public opinion constitutes a tribunal, which few men, and least of all, those who are in pursuit of popular favor, will dare to set at defiance. It is scarcely possible, that a people, truly wise and virtuous, should have a government badly administered. Whenever the majority of a community complain of their rulers, they implicitly utter reproaches against themselves, for having placed their destiny in the hands of men, with whom it is insecure. If their reproaches are long continued, it is good proof that their own morals exhibit no very striking contrast with the morals of those whose profligacy they condemn. In popular governments, the vir tues and vices of rulers must flourish or wither with those of the people. Those intellectual and moral qualities, so essential to the permanent prosperity of a State, can be promoted extensively in no other way than by education, early begun and judiciously prosecuted. The youth in a community have, long since, been compared to the spring. The loss of these would be like striking out from the year, the vernal months. If there be no vegetation in the opening year, what shall support life during the time of autumn and winter? Or what, if there be a luxuriant vegetation, but no saiutary or nourishing plant? What if "thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockles instead of barley ?" That education may do much, both for the intellectual and moral improvement of a nation, cannot be called in question. If the Spartan disciple was found adequate to its object, during many centuries, though it counteracted some of the strongest affections of our natures; if parental, filial, and even conjugal tenderness could be extinguished or smothered under a political constitution, which formed but one family, of a whole State, what might not be done by pursuing, with perseverance, a plan of education, concerted with just views of the human character, and under the influence of that glorious light, which Christianity has shed on the destiny of man! The active powers of the soul must either be suppressed or directed. If they are suppressed, their possessor loses, in a considerable degree, his rank in the moral world. If they are not suppressed, they must be directed by knowledge and moral principle. The importance of early instruction was felt by the wisest nations of antiquity: "What," says an author, speaking in the name of the Grecian sages, and profoundly versed in their writings, “What are the solid foundations of the tranquillity and happiness of States? Not the laws which dispense the rewards and punishments; but the public voice, when it makes an exact retribution of contempt and esteem. The laws, in themselves impotent, borrow their power solely from manners. Hence results, in every government, the indispensable necessity of attending to the education of children, as an essential object of training them up in the spirit and love of the constitution, in the simplicity of ancient times; in a word, in the principles which ought ever after to regulate their virtues, their opinions, their sentiments, and their behaviour. All who have meditated on the art of government, have been convinced that the fate of empires, depended on the education given to youth." This subject did not escape the notice of the Athenian legislator. * Abbe Barthelemi. Travels of Anacharsis III, 329. |