false thoughts and seeings come mainly of cur thinking of what we have no business with, and looking for things we want to see, instead of things that ought to be seen.

"Do not talk but of what you know; do not think but of what you have materials to think justly upon; and do not look for things only that you like, when there are others to be seen "-this is the lesson to be taught to our youth, and inbred in them; and that mainly by our own example and continence. Never teach a child any thing of which you are not yourself sure; and, above all,

if

you feel anxious to force anything into its mind in tender years, that the virtue of youth and early associa

tion may fasten it there, be sure it is no lie which you thus sanctify. There is always more to be taught of absolute, incontrovertible knowledge, open to its capacity, than any child can learn; there is no need to teach it anything doubtful. Better that it should be ignorant of a thousand truths, than have consecrated in its heart a single lie.

And for this, as well as for many other reasons, the principal subjects of education, after history, ought to be natural science and mathematics; but with respect to these studies, your schools will require to be divided into three groups; one for children who will probably have to üve in cities, one for those who will live in the country,

and one for those who will live at sea; the schools for these last, of course, being always placed on the coast. And for children whose life is to be in cities, the subjects of study should be, as far as their disposition will allow of it, mathematics and the arts; for children who are to live in the country, natural history of birds, insects, and plants, together with agriculture taught practically; and for children who are to be seamen, physical geography, astronomy, and the natural history of sea fish and sea birds.

This, then, being the general course and material of education for all children, observe farther that in the preface to Unto this Last I said that every child, besides passing through this course, was at school to learn "the calling by which it was to live." And it may perhaps appear to you that after, or even in the early stages of education such as this above described, there are many callings which, however much called to them, the chil dren might not willingly determine to learn or live by. "Probably," you may say, "after they have learned to ride, and fence, and sing, and know birds and flowers, it will be little to their liking to make themselves into tailors, carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths, and the like." And I cannot but agree with you as to the exceeding probability of some such reluctance on their part, which

will be a very awkward state of things indeed (since we no means get on without tailoring and shoemaking), and one to be meditated upon very seriously in next letter.

P.S.-Thank you for sending me your friend's letter about Gustave Doré; he is wrong, however, in thinking there is any good in those illustrations of Elaine. I had intended to speak of them afterwards, for it is to my mind quite as significant—almost as awful-a sign of what is going on in the midst of us, that our great English poet should have suffered his work to be thus contaminated, as that the lower Evangelicals, never notable for sense in the arts, should have got their Bibles dishonoured. Those Elaine illustrations are just as impure as anything else that Doré has done; but they are also vapid, and without any one merit whatever in point of art. The illustrations to the Contes Drolatiques are full

of

power and invention; but those to Elaine are merely and simply stupid; theatrical bêtises, with the taint of the charnel-house on them besides.

Letter 17.

The Relations of Education to Position in Life.

Арій 3, 1807. I AM not quite sure that you will feel the awkwardness of the dilemma I got into at the end of last letter, as much as I do myself. You working men have been crowing and peacocking at such a rate lately; and setting yourselves forth so confidently for the cream of society, and the top of the world, that perhaps you will not anticipate any of the difficulties which suggest themselves to a thorough-bred Tory and Conservative, like me. Perhaps you will expect a youth properly educated- a good rider-musician-and well-grounded scholar in natural philosophy, to think it a step of promotion when he has to go and be made a tailor of, or a coalheaver? If you do, I should very willingly admit that you might be right, and go on to the farther development of my notions without pausing at this stumbling-block, were it not that, unluckily, all the wisest men whose sayings I ever heard or read, agree in expressing (one way or another) just

such contempt, for those useful occupations, as I dread on the part of my foolishly refined scholars. Shakspeare and Chaucer, Dante and Virgil,—Horace and Pindar,— Homer, Eschylus, and Plato,-all the men of any age or country who seem to have had Heaven's music on their lips, agree in their scorn of mechanic life. And I imagine that the feeling of prudent Englishmen, and sensible as well as sensitive English women, on reading my last letter -would mostly be-" Is the man mad, or laughing at us, to propose educating the working classes this way? He could not, if his wild scheme were possible, find a better method of making them acutely wretched."

It may be so, my sensible and polite friends; and I am heartily willing, as well as curious, to hear you develope your own scheme of operative education, so only that it be universal, orderly, and careful. I do not say that I shall be prepared to advocate my athletics and philosophies instead. Only, observe what you admit, or imply, in bringing forward your possibly wiser system. You imply that a certain portion of mankind must be employed in degrading work; and that, to fit them for this work, it is necessary to limit their knowledge, their active powers, and their enjoyments, from childhood upwards, so that they may not be able to conceive of any state better than the one they were born in, nor possess an