repel the industrious who are anxious to raise themselves in the world. One of the most important things in securing a good body of teachers is, to draw them, as far as possible, from a class already possessed of industrious and moral habits; and, as the teacher is destined to operate on the condition of the poorest classes, it is proper that he should be from a class near enough to the poorest to know their condition, and yet so far above it as to have been exempt in his youth from the contamination, in this country, almost inseparable from the lowest states of society.

The objects which Mr. Morgan proposes to accomplish by the establishment of a Professorship of Education are explained more particularly in his pamphlet, to which we refer the reader. However opinions may differ, either as to the practicability or usefulness of what he recommends, there can be but one opinion on the benevolent views of the author. The only way, as it appears to us, in which his views could be carried into effect, as things now are, would be to attach a normal school to the London University School for the training of teachers of the higher class. Such an establishment would of course require a head, who might be styled, if desirable, the Professor of Education. If the London University could train teachers well, and qualify them to be good instructors for the middle classes of society, it would be extending widely the sphere of its usefulness, and, perhaps, it might thus ultimately add some small amount to its income.

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

Moral Education (Practical.)

THE education which an enlightened father and a good and tender mother give to their children is, no doubt, the most simple, the most natural, and the most conformable to reaAll the elements, all the principles of the first, and, at the same time, best possible education, are, and ought to be, given in the bosom of the family, by a father and mother capable of undertaking the duty.

son.

The judicious love of the father and mother will always be the best formative principle of infancy, boyhood, and youth. If this pure and primitive affection be wanting to a young man, his moral education will be deficient, and his whole life be embittered by the consequences which will ensue.

It is in the family that man receives life, and it is there that he should be taught how to preserve it healthily and

employ it usefully. This primitive society ought to fit him to play his part in one more enlarged, when he will meet with other individuals circumstanced like himself.

Domestic life and education are introductory to social. From this source, more or less pure, spring the principles and maxims which govern the conduct of men in society.

It is in the family circle that a man receives those early and ineffaceable impressions which colour the sentiments, thoughts, ideas, and conceptions of his whole after-life, and, by an influence, indirect and imperceptible, give a bias to his inclinations, his actions, and his moral conduct.

The influence of the family on the education of the youth is the same as that of the mother on the education of the child: it has like power and means, and ought to produce similar results.

For example:-the impressions of virtue, the sensations proper to elevation of soul and generosity of heart, to nobleness of sentiment and expansion of thought, to purity of view and integrity of intention, to propriety of speech and uprightness of action, can be familiar to that man alone who has, as it were, imbibed them with his nurse's milk, drawn them from the heart of his mother and the understanding of his father, and renewed them in his daily communication with parents, brothers, sisters, friends, till, from time and habit, they have become a constituent part, an inherent element of his nature and moral being.

It is the duty of both parents to stamp these happy impressions on their family, to cultivate those dispositions of their children which will facilitate the attainment of the moral and virtuous habits which they must one day practise in society.

The first principle, the primary law of private education, is, that the father and mother-those natural legislators-instruct the children as to the preservation, improvement, and prosperity of that society which is the family. The knowledge and application of this principle to that condition of life constitute the spirit of private education. This spirit will be enlightened if the father and mother are so themselves. A most important and essential condition, therefore, is, that the parents possess sufficient moral intelligence to bring up their children properly.

There are very few parents who are ignorant that the principal object in education is to exercise the body, to cultivate the mind and heart, to induce the practice of good habits, to call forth the powers of reason, and to give employment to the faculties.

Private education has more to do with action than meditation, with labour than study, with deeds than words; in fact, more with examples than precepts. It is in activity, in the daily practice of the duties of social life, that it finds the means of improvement.

The first education of the child is peculiarly instinctive. Through its senses, and from the objects which surround it, the child receives, like all of us, impressions and ideas by which it is attracted and repulsed; its senses are exercised, its mind developed, independently of our influence. It was necessary that this should be so; for if, during its early years, the child did not learn by its own activity and curiosity more things than during all the rest of its life, there can be little doubt that the world's stock of prejudice and error would continually increase. In the same way that the stomach elaborates our food, the lungs purify our blood, and the heart distributes it independently of our will, so the child observes, compares, judges, and gathers information by a sort of internal and instinctive impulse. Nature, apprehensive that we might err, has done nearly all the work; to us is left the secondary, yet noble, task of following her tracings, of filling in her outlines, of completing what she has commenced.

Our first teacher therefore is nature; upon her lessons ours should be based. The father and mother ought to study the earliest manifestations of infancy; and, in the absence of other instructors, endeavour to judge, from the external signs, the inward condition of the organs of life and thought. One of the most efficacious means, in our opinion, for exciting the interest of a child, and stimulating it to accomplish what it undertakes, is to allow it to believe (provided it in truth be so) that the object it aims at is useful; for all instruction ought to have for principle and end the supply of individual and social wants.

If the child then be your companion, you will observe how it performs its task; but in this case it will be necessary to change the work often, to settle with the little labourer the value of his exertions, to allow for them a price based on previous agreement. Observe what is done by a number of unrestrained children. They play at commerce, at business, at war; they imitate our occupations, our enterprises, our negotiations, our follies. They themselves indicate and clearly point out the way by which you should conduct them; but you wilfully, ignorantly, or conceitedly turn them back from it they wish to produce useful things, and to profit by them you either employ them not at all, or on things of

neither actual nor apparent utility. They seek to know all the objects which surround them: on these you say not a word; but you force them to pore with pale and anxious faces for many a long year over dry and uninteresting books. In short, they wish to live socially, to exchange words and ideas; but, instead of this, their circle of communication and intelligence is narrowed and confined: they exist without action, without spontaneity.

Companionship in toil lightens labour, and this is a truth recognized by all the human race. The advantage of associated labour is so evident and so considerable, so stimulating and so agreeable, that after the first or private parental education, we cannot too strongly recommend the education which is acquired by the child in fellowship with other children.

Parents will have attained the end of private education if they have taught their children to labour by example, without having told them to labour; if by doing good, they have taught them to do good; if by cherishing affection towards each other, they have taught them to be loving; if by practising themselves good habits, they have thus said to them, learn to conduct yourselves after this or that manner. Example is the best teacher.

The life of a child in the family ought to be a kind of apprenticeship to the life which it will afterwards lead in the school, and one day in the world. It should be simple, frugal, laborious, masculine, and vigorous, in order that the future man may become strong, robust, courageous, and capable of acting in all the scenes of life with energy of mind and firmness of character.

Children should be accustomed in the family to a regular life, to pure manners, to habits of integrity, and to act on principles drawn from practical experience. The life of the parents should be the model of that of the child to inspire good habits it is necessary to practise them; in the same way, as to acquire or give strength, it is necessary to take exercise.

If a father wishes to strengthen the bodies of his children, he exercises them every day by a course of gymnastics which they create for themselves in the plays and games which they invent, and carry on about the paternal house. He teaches them to swim; he directs their attention to the cultivation of the ground, and of plants; to the rearing of domestic animals, to rural economy, to agriculture, and to the arts and handicrafts which belong to them. He takes them walks across fields and woods, holding by the way instructive conversation. An intelligent father mingles in the labours and pursuits

of his children; he conducts them into the finest scenes of nature, selects for them the most delightful spots, and teaches them to contemplate their beauty; he leads them to examine the productions of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, and to mark the variety of beings and objects which present themselves to their view, together with the disposition and due proportioning of things: at the same time he gives them healthy ideas, and just notions, of each object, by speaking of them while under their observation.

While training their bodies he cultivates their minds, and, according to the measure of their strength, apportions the extent and importance of their tasks, their games and their exercises. As the mind unfolds, the intellectual power will predominate over and direct the physical; and these two powers, well applied, will become the instruments of the moral power for the production of good.

The father will teach, or rather unceasingly repeat to his children, that real virtue is the practice of what is good and useful; that evil is what is obnoxious, that truth is fulness of right knowledge, falsehood the blindness of ignorance; that virtue, goodness, and truth are the perfection of happiness.

It is in the family that maxims of practical use in society ought to be engraved on the minds and hearts of children. Their tender understanding easily receives the impressions of virtue, when they are led by pleasant paths to practise the lessons which they are taught by example.

Children have a judge of their actions in the father or the mother, whose better information ought to rectify any tendency to vice or error in those actions. They ought also to possess a judge in their own hearts, of which they should acquire a knowledge by a daily examination of their conscience. Every morning on rising they ought thus to question it in presence of their parents or instructors.

What ought I to do during this day? What should be my conduct? What good is it in my power to accomplish? And in the evening, What have I done in the course of the day? What has been my conduct? What purposes have I effected? Why did I do this or that? Am I content with myself?

To teach the child to bring to this examination sincerity and uprightness of heart, to carry the love of truth even into the scrutiny of its own defects, its evil inclinations and propensities, by inducing it to censure them, and to promise daily amendment with a recurrence to the advice and counsel of the parent in doubtful and embarrassing cases, is to lay the practical foundation of all morality and all moral education. Leibnitz, whose authority is always entitled to respect,