moral habits, without the sustaining and controlling aid and support of principles are insecure, and, therefore, the habits of children and youth should early be confirmed by imbuing them with sound moral and religious principles. Moreover, in an uncultivated state of society, almost every thing esteemed desirable is obtained by physical strength; while, in enlightened times, and among cultivated nations, almost every thing valuable is the fruit of knowledge. Hence, at the present day, even in the humblest walks of life, considerable literary education is indispensable to success. Indeed, the term education, when used without qualification, is understood to mean (par excellence) literary education. On the importance attached to education in this most usual sense of the term, it would be entirely superfluous to enlarge. Its value is universally acknowledged; there is no subject on which coincidence among men is more perfect and complete. Our schools, academies, colleges, and universities; our libraries, public and private, are the best proof of this universal conviction. Every degree of education is valuable, and it is not necessary to say, that no child can be too well educated. Still, from the necessity of the case, the education of most children must be comparatively limited. And to aid parents in deciding what branches of knowledge shall be taught their children, it may be well to quote the saying of a distinguished ancient, who being asked what he had directed his children to be taught, replied, "Those things of which they will have need when they become men ;" * a text, containing much within a small compass, and on which a fruitful commentary might be written. Estimated by this standard, parents, even in the humblest spheres of life, ought not to be satisfied with themselves, without having their children taught the reading, writing, and grammar of their native language, arithmetic, some knowledge of the earth on which, and of the heavens beneath which they live, the elements of history in general, and of their own country in particular, the fundamental truths of Christian doctrine and morals, and the political constitution of their country. Boys * Plutarch, Apoth. Lacon., quoted in Taylor's Civil Law, Preface, p.iii. destined for any of the trades, should be taught, besides the branches just mentioned, the elements of mechanics, natural philosophy, and chemistry. Girls are to be taught the useful branches, and ornamental accomplishments, which befit their sex, circumstances, and expectations in life. Mathematics and the classical languages must be the pillars of the education of youths designed for the three great learned professions; and those who make general literature and the sciences their profession, must swell their treasures with the contributions of every age, country, and nation. The parents' duty of teaching their children, is usually delegated to private or public professional instructers, under the general superintendence of the parents themselves. When invested with this responsible trust, instructers are in loco parentis (in the place of the parent) so far as the special object of the trust is concerned; the parental duty becomes the just measure of their duty, and they ought to assume as much of the parental feeling and interest as possible. The standard of good conduct in a teacher, is the same by which a good, wise, and judicious parent is guided in the management and instruction of his children. With this duty, too, the rights of the parents over their children, so far as is necessary to the discharge of the duty, are transferred to the instructer. The relation of guardian and ward is another substitute for the parental relation, instituted to supply its place, however imperfectly, in case of the death, insanity, or other disability of one or both parents. In assuming the relation, the guardian undertakes to perform the parental duties, and becomes invested with the rights of the parents. It is equally the right and the duty of parents, during the earlier years of their children, to control them, and to subject them to discipline within the bounds of a reasonable discretion. The sacred writers consider government among the most indispensable duties of parents, and more than one of them has noticed the want of it as among the most common causes of the ruin of children and the overthrow of families. The wisest of men says, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that * 1 Samuel iii. 13; Proverbs xix. 18; xxix. 15. loveth him chasteneth him betimes."* Again, "Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul." See especially Hebrews, xii. 6-11, where St. Paul concludes thus, "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."‡ In the present relaxed state of domestic discipline, I can only cite these precepts on the ground of their being divinely sanctioned. They must wear an air of strictness and severity, to which, in these days, we are not accustomed. As a writer on morals, however, I have no choice. My duty is, to make truth the burthen of my instructions; these precepts are not mine, they are a part of the oracles of divine truth.§ Even the precept, * Prov. xiii. 24. + Prov. xxix. 17. See also Rev. iii. 19., § The following extract from a very valuable work, with which the author was not until lately acquainted, contains sentiments so well calculated, in his judgment, to be useful at the present time, that he has determined to subjoin it. "That good sense," says the writer," which forms the sole basis of a system of education composed for the age of Locke," (he had been speaking of Locke's writings on education,)" is a material of too common and too coarse a nature for the fabric of those refined and subtile theories, which are fitted to engage the attention of an age, where the new, the striking, and the brilliant are alone admired and sought after. Rousseau, in an evil hour, vented his paradoxes on education; the man who sent his own children to the foundling hospital, and who failed, as he owns himself, in the only trial he made to educate the child of another. But he knew that a singularity of opinion was the sure road to distinction as an author; and he determined to frame a theory, which should in every thing be opposite to the common notions of mankind. His organs, as he tells us, were so formed, and his mind so constituted, as to render him incapable of thinking and judging like other people: Je ne vois point comme les autres hommes; il y a long temps qu'on me l'a reproché; mais depend-il de moi de me donner d'autres yeux, et de m'affecter d'autres idées?' (Préface d'Emile.) And feeling and reasoning, as he acknowledges, like no other man, he has the modesty to presume, that he alone is right, and all the rest of the world in an error. The ordinary methods of education (according to him) are all completely wrong; the very opposite course to the common is almost always the right one. 'Prenez le contrepied de l'usage, et vous ferez presque toujours bien.' (Emile, Tom. I. p. 130.) Thus, because the influence of habit, one of the most powerful principles of our nature, is universally resorted to in the ordinary systems of education, this is sufficient reason with Rousseau for utterly exploding its application; 'Habits,' says he, ought not to be impressed on children; for they restrain the natural freedom of the mind; - La seule habitude qu'on doit laisser prendre à l'enfant, est de n'en contracter aucune.' "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," * implies both the right and the duty of parents to train him up in the right way. In truth, the father of a family is made responsible for all the sin, which it is in his power to prevent, within his domestic circle. Abraham is commended for "commanding his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.”† Joshua resolved, both for himself and his house, to serve the Lord; and the house of Eli was destroyed with an overwhelming destruction, "for the iniquity which he knew," says the sacred historian, "because his sons made themselves vile, and (Idem, Tom. I. p. 62.) The enforcement of the parent's or the tutor's authority, and the obedience of the child, is generally supposed the most essential and primary step to be gained. 'No,' says Rousseau; 'authority and obedience are servile principles, fitted only to make slaves and tyrants. Never cross your pupil in any thing, and then you will be sure to see him such as he is; when you suffer children to act as they please, their own mistakes will sufficiently correct them; Sans lui defendre de mal faire, n'offrez jamais à ses volontés indiscrettes que des obstacles physiques, ou des punitions qui naissent des actions mêmes, et qu'il se rapelle dans l'occasion.' (Idem, Tom. I. p. 110.) It has been generally supposed, that the surest hold of the mind of a child is gained, by persuading him, that your precepts are reasonable. Never reason at all with a child,' says Rousseau; he cannot understand you; if he were capable of reasoning, he would have no need of education; by using argument, you only teach him to be satisfied with words instead of ideas, and make him disputatious and self-sufficient; - C'est commencer par la fin. Si les enfans entendoient raison, ils n'auroient pas besoin d'être élevés. C'est les accoutumer à se payer de mots, à contrôler tout ce qu'on leur dit, à se croire aussi sages que leurs maîtres.' (Idem, Tom. I. p. 120.) As our early impressions are the most lasting, it has been usually thought of consequence to instil into the infant mind the first great principles of religion;— ' What,' says Rousseau,' would you make your son the creature of prejudice? Leave his mind to its own operations; and, when he is capable of distinguishing between truth and error, he will choose a religion for himself. At fifteen, my pupil does not know that he has a soul; and perhaps it is early enough, if he gains that piece of knowledge at eighteen.' (Idem, Tom. II. p. 215.) It might naturally be supposed, that the bare statement of such paradoxes were sufficient to expose their absurdity; if experience did not prove, that there is no doctrine too wild and extravagant for the caprices of the human intellect; and the opinions of Rousseau, defended with the most ingenious sophistry, and varnished with the most fascinating eloquence, have had an extensive and pernicious influence on vain and superficial minds. "But to the public in general, Rousseau had shown, that the subject of edu* Prov. xxii. 6. † Genesis xviii. 19. Joshua xxiv. 15. he restrained them not." * St. Paul says, moreover, that "a bishop must be one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; for," he subjoins, “if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God." At the same time, parents are to govern their children equitably, wisely, kindly, and affectionately. "Fathers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."‡ As children approach the age of discretion, this parental right of control and discipline is softened down into a right of advising and counselling them. The wisest of men held this right of parental counsel and advice in the highest estimation, as is manifest from the frequency with which he adverts to it.§ Indeed, no small part of the Proverbs of Solomon is in the form of parental advice and counsel, given to the young on the chief dangers, which beset their way, and against which they need to be guarded, by reason of the strength of their passions and their want of experience. The author The author is not satisfied with commending wisdom in the abstract to the young, in the most persuasive and moving terms, he does much more; the blandishments of "the strange cation admitted of much variety of sentiment; that it was a rich field for novelty and ingenuity of thought; and that, with these recommendations, the importance of the object would insure attention to whatever was plausibly and ingeniously written in that department. New systems of education, controversial treatises in support and refutation of these systems, and books for the instruction of children, framed on all their opposite principles, now issued from the press in endless succession. The infant man seemed to be regarded as a subject of perpetual experiment, on which every daring empiric was at liberty to try the effect of his alterative processes, his stimulant or his sedative medicines, as his fancy prompted. In some of these systems, the primary engine with the parent or preceptor is deceit. A child is to be cheated into every thing; he is to be wheedled into learning under the mask of play; into obedience, under the appearance of following his own inclination; and, by a variety of artful contrivances and well-laid plots, he is to be slily trepanned into virtue and good morals. According to an opposite theory, nature is to be the sole guide, and the province of the parent or tutor is, not to give impressions, but to guard against them," &c. (Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Kames, by Alexander Fraser Tytler (Lord Woodhouselee), Vol. II. pp. 286292.) I might quote several pages more from this writer, equally interesting, if my limits permitted. * 1 Samuel iii. 13. 1 Timothy iii. 4, 5. § See Proverbs, passim. Eph. vi. 4; Col. iii. 21. |