There is another consideration which though, by the way, seems to us important enough to warrant this allusion to the ancient education. We believe that in a character thus formed the deepest principles will have place, and exert an habitual influence. If we would have a powerful and useful mind we must make for it a fitting dwelling place, a sound body. Of how little worth comparatively is true moral courage, if the body, which it might make subservient to some of its purposes, and of good too, be infirm and decayed. Our scholars, at least in this part of the country, have been almost proverbially shortlived. An early grave covers some of our most gifted men, and this mortality in many, if not all these instances, has been traced to a sacrifice of the body to intellectual labour. And how are we to prevent such evil, or rather how may the whole purposes of the gymnasium, of education itself, be obtained here. We must appeal to the same principle which the Greeks addressed with so much success. The appeal will be an enlightened one, and should be carried no farther than to give the young a deep and lasting interest in the system. Discipline should be as exact in its requirements in one department of the gymnasium as in the other. We have no doubt that a school which combined all the means of physical and intellectual health and progress, would very soon become the most crowded, and at the same time beyond all comparison the most useful.

Had we not already devoted so much of this article to a general view of the purposes of instruction, we should willingly enter into a more detailed investigation of the subject. We should have insisted on the importance of laying deeply in the character by early discipline, the principle of enlightened, rational, obedience. If we would teach self control, its first lesson must be found in a wise discipline. The whole experience of life is one vast system of influences. Much of all this is beyond our control at any and every period of life. In youth it is more direct, and if we may so say, more artificial than at any other time. It must have an agency in the formation of the future character. It should be wise, then, such as the mind may usefully yield too, though it may not be able to understand it. And to this it must yield. If it be trusted to its own imperfect views, to its own uncontrolled passions, there is ruin in its path, and unutterable misery for all connected with it. Again, we would have asked if the present age be not wanting in that respect for superiors, for parents, and instructers,

which prevailed in the preceding. We do not allude to domestic tyranny, which has been as destructive, or more so than the opposite error of overweaning indulgence. But we would have asked if the sentiment of respect, of deference to those above us, has not been impaired by our system of domestic and school discipline, and that at least one form of benevolence, courtesy, with its kindred in the young, modesty, is less valued and called forth than formerly. Is not the age trifling and superficial; and if so, is not much of this character to be ascribed to the early manhood of our children, and the unwise importance that is given to the least valuable of their earlier attainments? We think these questions are pertinent. A country's history is to be looked for in that of its children. If these are wronged by our systems the evil will be alike upon us and upon them. No system can be perfect which has not within it the means of calling forth and nourishing the affections. Let a child feel that you are the direct agent of good to him, and that your whole discipline of him is for good, and his obedience and gratitude, or love, are almost necessary results. In the progress of his mind, the true nature of this agency will be taught and learnt. The transition from gratitude and submission to a father or friend, to the supreme parent, will be easy and direct, and we may have almost without an effort planted deeply in the mind and heart, the sure means of a present and a future felicity.

It remains to speak of the means of education. We have said that no subject is more interesting than education in the extent in which we have used this term. We can hardly make it too comprehensive. In its means, we have said, are embraced all the direct, and all the indirect influences which communities with all their institutions, and individuals with all that may be personal to them, can exert on the mind. It begins with the first consciousness of the infant of the things and beings around him, and it goes on without a moment's interruption till that consciousness ceases in death. Whatever affects the mind, however remote, or however near, is contributing to that result which we term education. It is now public opinion, when it prescribes its plans for the multitude, and without adverting to such a result, produces a common level in moral and intellectual attainments; and it is now the dogmatism of the individual, which provides for a success of which it may comprehend the amount, but considers a provision for a greater, a matter of very questionable experiment.

Some very interesting views have been recently taken of the subject, and which it cannot be too ardently hoped will at length come universally to prevail. Education has been considered in regard to the state of the mind, the capacities it may give it of remoter and greater acquisitions; and has been less valued for the amount of particular knowledge it may yield, -a store of what, if we so express it, is external to itself, and much or the whole of which, may be lost in new acquisitions, or retained without contributing any absolute strength to the intellect which it burdens.

The modes of communicating knowledge to the young, (and here we include the means), or of meeting in the best manner the increasing vigour of the intellect at this age, are receiving a portion of the regard which the subject demands; and the question is gradually becoming the main one, how shall we meet the demand in such a manner as will most surely secure a continuous and perpetual progress of the mind? This inquiry with different men has ended differently. With some it is believed that a perpetual demand, should be made upon the mind, or that most of the working hours of early life should be spent in a school, or in a preparation for one. Upon some children. the experiment is successful; the native elasticity of childhood overcoming the tendency of long continued pressure to depress the powers of both body and mind, and rapid progress is made. With others, and it is believed with many, the effect of this system is different from all this. Listlessness becomes a habit of the individual, much indifference about success or failure; or a disposition to be satisfied with the mere accomplishment of the prescribed task, and for the sake of finishing it, rather than to find in the success an incitement for fresh and more vigorous effort.

With others, the amount learnt is a matter of comparatively slight moment. A few hours only are devoted to school, and the intervals are in no measure occupied by study. The mind at these intervals is entirely relieved from an artificial and prescribed use of its powers. The body is now active, ministering in its ceaseless motion to the happiness of the individual, and securing perfect development, and all desirable vigour. The mind is not inactive in such moments as these. The play of a child is an intellectual occupation. All its powers, or all which have come into activity, are concerned in this bright and joyous occupation. A perpetual succession of what will for its hour satisfy goes on, and we feel assured that in such a system,

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where the apparatus of motion, and the spring and principle of its movements are equally active, and equally perfect, that the progress and changes of time will be approximations to the perfection of the compound being we contemplate. It is foreign to our purpose to indicate any precise course of study for the young, but there would seem to be good reason to have some regard to the individual as far as the circumstances of the case will allow. There are intellectual as well as moral propensities, and where any one is sufficiently prominent to be distinguished among all others, some special regard may be very usefully had to this in the course to which the individual may be submitted. If phrenology, the science from which Mr. Combe looks for so much in ascertaining particular biasses, come to be applied and acted upon as he believes it will, much may be discovered to aid in this very difficult task of adapting individual discipline to individual peculiarities. In the mean time, the fact that they exist, and may be discovered, should not be lost sight of, and a wise instructer may do much with the knowledge he may acquire concerning them.

Beside the age and individual propensities, some regard should perhaps be had to the situation of individuals in the direction to be given to their minds and studies. In this country, where distinctions are more nominal, at least than in Europe, it is not strange that it has received so little attention. There is a natural adjustment here of means of instruction to situation in places remote from capitals, and he who wants more than what the average local provision supplies, and has sufficient means, may find it elsewhere. In cities, in many at least, the various classes have a common property in the means of education, for they are defrayed by a public or general assessment, and all equally enjoy them. No practical inconvenience, we believe, has yet resulted from this arrangement, in this country. Remarkable endowment attracts attention to its possessor, and if he want the means of wider intellectual advantage these may not be denied him. The practical disadvantage of our system can only be found in its rendering the labouring classes less able or willing to discharge the relative duties of life, and which duties it is the chief business of education to teach and prepare for. We are not disposed to think that this has been to any important degree its effect. In Europe, at least in England, this topic has excited some discussion. In this connexion the Quarterly Review has the following. It will, in all likelihood, become manifest ere long, that the labouring classes,

will not permanently devote a large proportion of their leisure time to the acquisition of knowledge, either by means of reading or any other sort of application. Novelty and variety give a temporary impulse, and the curiosity which is natural to man may prolong the exertion; but in no age or country can a large proportion of those whose lot it is to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, be prevailed upon regularly to begin intellectual exertion when their daily task is ended. The body then requires repose; and domestic concerns demand attention; and if the few hours which remain are applied to that which with all men ought to be the chief concern, the improvement of the heart, it would probably be found the surest means of advancing the improvement of the head also. If mechanics and labourers could be persuaded to make a study of the Bible, it would be found to convey more useful knowledge, for this world as well as the next, than all the volumes and lectures which are likely to be prepared for their edification.* These remarks are not made from any hostility in the reviewer to the instruction of any order in society. We have not introduced them for application here, but because they bring so distinctly into view the paramount importance of religious instruction; such let it be observed as the study of the Bible may afford. We would not confine the commendation of this study to any one class of It belongs equally and alike to all. Its faithful study has a claim upon us as intellectual and moral beings. It reveals the internal, the spiritual nature of man, we had almost said, with the distinctness of vision. It teaches what are its powers, and what are the purposes in its creation. It reveals immortality and the bliss which belongs to it. It addresses itself especially to that sublime principle within us, faith; and shows how appropriate are its objects to the principle itself. It finally, in its instructions, meets the great purposes of all education, and to which we have given a distinct place in our remarks, the establishment of the surest principles for the whole conduct of life.

men.

We have been led into these remarks from an examination of Mr. Combe's work. We have placed it at the head of this article not to analyze, but to recommend it. It treats of the constitution of man in its relation to external things. He first shows what the constitution of things is, and the laws of their being and action. These are shown in a great variety of

April, 1829. pp. 494--495.