In all public institutions there exists, and it is happy
that there does exist, a sort of vis inertia which habit-
ually 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 endeavored 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 per-
manently stand against the distinct opinion of a people.
This opinion is likely to be universal, and to be intelli-
gent 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 alter-
ation;
and in its mode, because alterations which result
from such a cause, are likely to be temperately made.
It may be feared that some persons object to an ex-
tended education of the people on these very grounds
which we propose as recommendations; that they
regard the tendency of education to produce examina-
tion, and, if need be, alteration of established institu-
tions, 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

量

usually attended with depravation of principle, and that in proportion as the judgment is exercised it decides amiss.

Generally, that intellectual education is good for a poor man which is good for his richer neighbors: 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 laborer, and the laborer must select from the rich man's system a part only for his own child. But this does not affect the general conclusion. The parts which he ought to select are precisely those parts which are most necessary and beneficial to the rich.

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 enquiry. If education be so conducted that it is a positive pleasure to a boy to learn, there is little 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 laboring 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.

Of moral education we say nothing here, except that the principles which are applicable to other classes of mankind are obviously applicable to the poor. With respect to the inculcation of peculiar religious opinions on the children who attend 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 neighbors because he cannot, at the same time, teach them his own creed.

CHAPTER XII.

AMUSEMENTS.

The Stage-Religious Amusements-Masquerades-Field Sports -The Turf-Boxing-Wrestling-Opinions of PosterityPopular Amusements needless.

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.

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 importance than his diversion, is sufficiently plain. In estimating the propriety or rather the lawfulness of a given amusement, it may safely be laid down, That none is lawful of which the aggregate consequences are injurious to morals:-nor, if its effects upon the immediate agents are, in general, morally bad :-nor if it occasions needless pain and misery to

men or to animals :--nor, lastly, if it occupies much time or is attended with much expense.-Respecting all amusements, the question is not whether in their simple or theoretical character, they are defensible, but whether they are defensible in their actually existing state.

THE DRAMA.-So that if a person, by way of showing the propriety of theatrical exhibitions, should ask whether there was any harm in a man's repeating a composition before others and accompanying it with appropriate gestures-he would ask a very foolish question because he would ask a question that possesses little or no relevancy to the subject.-What are the ordinary effects of the stage upon those who act on it? One and one only answer can be given-that whatever happy exceptions there may be, the effect is bad,

that the moral and religious character of actors is lower than that of persons in other professions. is an undeniable fact, for the truth of which we may safely appeal to every age and nation, that the situation of the performers, particularly of those of the female sex, is remarkably unfavorable to the maintenance and growth of the religious and moral principle, and of course highly dangerous to their eternal interests.''*

Therefore, if I take my seat in the theatre, I have paid three or five shillings as an inducement to a number of persons to subject their principles to extreme danger; and the defence which I make is, that I am amused by it. Now, we affirm that this defence is invalid; that it is a defence which reason pronounces to be absurd, and morality to be vicious. Yet I have no other to make; it is the sum total of my justification.

But this, which is sufficient to decide the morality of * Wilberforce: Practical View, c. 4, s. 5.