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method only can the fatal evils of excessive close application be avoided, and the due alternation of intervals of entire rest and of renovating recreation afford opportunity of restoring and maintaining the energies of life and mind. He who does not bring to his work the powers of a whole man, is incompetent even to the task of the moment, and, in the long run, his exertions prove but a succession of failures. The jaded student or teacher, and the harassed man of business, are alike unfitted for the nobler moral purposes of their being. Habits of early-formed obedience to the Creator's laws which regulate the whole nature of man, are the only sure reliance for the possession of permanent vigor of body and mind, or the soundness. of moral health in the dispositions and affections of the heart. Nothing short of this personal morality in planning and conducting the business of life, can secure the unity of life in the whole man, as an intelligent, efficient, responsible moral agent.

The hygiene of man's moral being demands the most faithful attention even to the minor details of corporal well-being; and in no respect can education more effectually subserve man's best interests, than by an enlightened and constant attention to these requisites of mental health, through the whole decisive period of childhood and youth, which so effectually determines the character of subsequent life.

The lengthened catalogue of virtues and of duties, which a distinct enumeration of the moral capabilities, of human nature, as the subject of educational culture, required, will not discourage the faithful teacher, in view of the manifold duties devolving on him as the guardian of the young mind; if, as we hope he does, he regards moral culture as the chief part of his work, and values intellectual attainment in his pupils only as it conduces to the higher ends of being and of character. Nor will the extent of detail in our suggestions be objected to by those who feel, from the daily experience of the teacher's life, how close must be the watchful observation of disposition and habit, and how thoroughly practical must be the meliorating methods of influence, in the management of the schoolroom as a scene of moral development.

If the preceding outline of classification serve no higher purpose than that of a convenient list for reference to prompt the memory of the teacher, in his endeavors to do some measure of justice to the numerous sources of moral influence on life and character, the purpose of the writer will have been effectually accomplished.

THOUGHTS ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

BY RT. REV. GEORGE BURGESS, D. D.

If the Christian 'religion be from God, it ought to influence every thought and act of man, and to control every department of human life. If education be the school of character, it is least of all to be excepted from the sovereignty of that religion.

That Christian men, therefore, should view with indifference any attempt to establish an absolute separation between education and religion, is not to be expected from them till they renounce their faith. They can have no more idea that a child can be rightly educated without instruction in the laws of God and in the Gospel, than that a man can live without the same knowledge, and yet duly serve his Maker, and be prepared for the life to come.

Education, therefore, must be religious, and must include instruction in all necessary knowledge of the truths of divine revelation. In proportion as the dignity, the importance, and the efficacy of education are magnified, this necessity becomes but the more impressive and undeniable. If the educator could be content with defining his task as that of teaching to read and to write, or even to measure the earth and to number the stars, it might be allowed that this, like any other specific skill, could be imparted without saying a word concerning duty, or sin, or salvation. But we are accustomed to hear far higher praises of the work and of the men that are to form the youthful mind, and so to shape the character and the destinies of a people. Either undue and exaggerating honor is paid to the office of the teacher, or he must teach the most sacred truths, as well as those of inferior majesty and of only earthly interest.

The honest Christian must bid him take his choice. Be the teacher, he will say, of an art or any number of arts, if you will, and touch not moral things; or be a teacher of all which makes the man, and then you must teach the knowledge of God.

The honest teacher will answer, either that he is a Christian, and is ready, according to his ability, to teach religiously and to teach religion; or that he is content to leave to others the higher task.

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and to teach only the elements of secular science and art. In either event, there is no longer any confusion; and the question, whether there shall be a course of secular instruction, and a separate course of religious instruction, or whether one course shall mingle both, becomes a question of possibility or of expediency, and is transferred from the sphere of abstract principle and imperative conscience.

The clergy of most countries have adhered to the wider view of education in schools, and have insisted, as long as they could, that it should be distinctly Christian, and should even form a part of the ecclesiastical system. They are not to be blamed; and had union in religious belief been preserved, it is hard to prove that their plan would not have been altogether the best. But for this it is now too late. In all free nations the freedom of discussion, doubt, and denial has been practically asserted; and, for all purposes of religious education, the body of Christians is one no longer.

In education, viewed as a whole, the place to be occupied by religious truth has not lost, for this cause the smallest measure of its importance. Religion is still as sovereign there as ever. Somewhere in all true and sufficient education it must have its throne; and from that throne it must sway all the rest.

same.

But the State can support no such throne; because the State is composed of an immense mass of men whose religion is not the When education becomes a matter of public provision, the very highest part of education is excepted. The public school, even if under that name we should embrace any more elevated institutions which the public funds might sustain, is not the seat of that portion of this moral work which has to do, most directly and most mightily, with the heart. That, however, it must forego, and be content with its own appropriate task and praise.

The higher task must be performed elsewhere; and the consecrated precincts of the church, and the equally hallowed walls of home, must be the scene of religious instruction. It has there, too, a fitter and a happier sphere than the State, with all its wealth or its universal care, can attempt to furnish.

All this is perfectly consistent with the undoubted fact that religion is the prompting motive from which public education has had its origin, and must have its best support. It sustains that education as it sustains every good design. It desires that all men should be trained in useful knowledge of every kind, because it desires their improvement and happiness. Ignorance, in its view, is weak

ness, is poverty, is exposure to moral disease, is the absence of many of the highest enjoyments, is the obstruction of the purposes for which the beneficent Creator made man in His own image. Therefore, ignorance is an enemy to godliness, and a hinderance of salvation, as well as, in itself, a positive and mighty evil; and religion must long and labor to remove it from the path of society. To suppose that a Christian can be indifferent to the intellectual cultivation of his fellow-men would simply imply that he had no appre ciation of its value for himself; for he must wish to communicate all which he prizes.

It is perfectly true, also, that even in the teachers of all secular knowledge, religious men will desire and prefer a spirit and principles like their own. A father who merely commits his son to the instructions of a writing-master, would rejoice to find in him a man of Christian worth, and would feel that the boy was somewhat safer. It is not possible, in any department of life, to exclude or neutralize the beneficial influence of the steadfast fear of God and the sincere love of mankind. The religious man or woman will always be, all other things being equal, unspeakably the better teacher, even of arithmetic or of needlework. Under any system of public education, however remote from a sectarian or exclusive character, this preference will be felt, and cannot be changed into indifference.

Under these systems the introduction of religious instruction, in combination with secular instruction, is relinquished, not upon grounds of abstract excellence, but upon those of convenience or necessity. Accordingly, either the system is not extended over the youngest or the oldest of those who are to be educated; or if it be, it does not command a general acceptance. The public school offers no urgent invitation to the child just rising from infancy; it leaves him, not unwillingly, to the gentle hands of his mother or of some maternal preceptress. At the other end of the course, colleges and universities are commonly allied to the Church rather than to the State. From the latter they accept aid; to the former they accord welcome intervention and an active control. Not merely financial or political considerations fix the limits of public education on this side of the highest institutions of learning. For it is felt that all education must begin and end in religion; that the infant must learn the names of God and of the crucified Redeemer with his first accents; and that the young man should not go forth

into the world of professional study, action, and influence, without a settled faith. But between these two periods lies the time which public education appropriates; appropriates, simply because the interests of the commonwealth require the instruction of all in useful knowledge, and because no other power can furnish the means of such instruction for all alike.

If the task of religious education be then declined by the public teacher, it is left in hands which certainly are better fitted to execute it with dignity, with diligence, with fidelity, and with tenderness. It is in the hands of special teachers, whose labors are voluntary; of pastors; and of parents.

The Sunday School has become one of the institutions of society, wherever the English tongue is spoken. It enlists a body of teachers whose intelligence is animated by no other impulse than that of Christian love. They receive no hire, and they wield no instruments of discipline. They come to their pupils on they day which is consecrated to all holy works of piety and charity. There is nothing to disturb the pure influence of their instruction; no other studies crowding in; no intermixture of heathen mythology or abstract science; no hurry to the playground; no dread of the rod or superadded task; and none of those hereditary associations, which, absurd, unjust, and pernicious as they are, yet do still, more or less, connect themselves with the relation between the boy and the professional teacher. Love is the bond between those who teach and those who learn on the Sabbath.

When the pastor is the teacher, love is united with reverence. His office inspires that reverence, and his intelligence in sacred things merits a confidence which might elsewhere be less readily bestowed. The duties of pastors to the young may be but imperfectly undertaken, especially where the ancient and most useful custom of catechising has fallen into neglect. But it would still be great injustice to compare their influence with that of teachers who sustain no sanctity of office, have devoted no special study to sacred letters, and are not, in virtue of their office, supposed to be persons of piety.

But no teachers have an appointment more holy or divine than fathers and mothers. The cannot but educate their children religiously or irreligiously. No separation can take place in the training of home; for that is purely for the heart and soul; and its first and supreme end is the goodness of the child. He learns his

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