few sublime precepts of Christianity first communicated to the world became so obscured by the mists of error, prejudice, and superstition, as to be comparatively powerless as a means of moralizing the people. Yet, in proportion as they became inefficacious for this end, did they become serviceable in promoting the political and ambitious purposes of those in power. A false light was thus afforded to the venerative faculties, guiding them to the performance of actions directly opposed to the spirit of the Gospel.

By training these into excess, therefore, the priests of Catholic Rome had, in the people, the most willing and ready instruments for executing their selfish and brutal desires. Religion became an engine of temporal power and a means of gratifying the sordid passions of those in authority; and again were renewed, but under darker colours, the scenes of ancient Rome in the long war of the crusades, in which Palestine, where the blood of Christ was shed to give peace on earth and good-will to men, became one vast reservoir for the blood of those who fought under the influence of the most malignant passions and fiendish hatred.

Such, then, are some of the effects of a partial and misdirected education, both in a national and universal point. of view. In all these cases the animal and mental desires operating under different circumstances were alone the ruling motives; while the moral feelings, that ought ever to have the ascendency, were kept in abeyance or entirely perverted. No correct system of guidance was ever applied to these in training them into ruling habits. They were ever left to the chance education of circumstances, or merely enlightened by the teaching of moral precepts. Thus in ancient Rome and Sparta the animal propensities were educated to excess, and became pre

dominant. The habits of those nations were such as in general to repress all the finer feelings by rendering them callous both to their own individual sufferings and to those of others. They were buried under an adamantine soil, above the surface of which they were never permitted to appear; and whatever rays of intellect were emitted merely illumined the soil without warming and calling them forth into life and energy. In Athens an intellectual education was unsustained by a sound practical morality. Taste and refinement were there the master virtues, the cultivation of which was certainly much nearer the objects of a humane and civilizing education; and when we add the gymnasium of physical training so perfect among the Athenians, we have among that people › many models after which we ourselves ought to copy. But still these were only a partial education, a polishing of the external man, to the neglect of his higher powers; while the morality that was inculcated was the mere preceptive instructions of Socrates, and the passive virtues, not the diffusive benevolence of the Gospel. In Egypt, the first dawning of literature, the arts and sciences, elicited feelings of wonder, devotion, and superstition; the demoralizing effects of which were only counteracted by an almost equal devotion to mechanical industry and mental improvement. But while the head and the hands were thus engaged, the feelings of the heart were left unregulated. In Carthage, all the powers of body and soul were engrossed in one pursuit, and that the most selfish in which man can be engaged, the acquisition of riches; and it needs not, therefore, be told what were >the lamentable results of such an avaricious spirit. In papal Rome the religious feelings were called forth into unnatural excitement, and a fanatical zeal for propagating the mere dogmas of Christianity, lighted up in the

hearts of men the worst passions of which human nature is susceptible.

Thus, in all these different features of character stamped upon man, either by a system of under or over education, may visibly be traced the origin of nearly all the various forms of human misery under which the world has yet suffered. His whole powers have never, in any instance, had a simultaneous development. The balance has ever been disturbed from one cause or another, and strange it is, that the grossest and most earthly parts of his nature have hitherto been always in the ascendant: like the natural chaos of Ovid, the heavenly fires have never emerged from the confused and superincumbent elements, and chosen a place for themselves in the highest citadel. In some of the instances adduced we see the bodily and mental powers trained almost to the height of perfection, but in no one instance any system in operation for moralizing the habits. All the assistance that art and science could lend were applied in perfecting the former, and if the science of moral training was not altogether unknown, it was never reduced to practice on any extended basis. There has ever been a vast hiatus. between a knowledge of its principles and their application as an art, and from a want. of which connexion the fruits of virtue have never yet ripened to maturity in any land. The seeds may have been sown, but due cultivation has never been afforded.

Similar effects are also produced upon individuals by a course of misdirected education, to those which result to communities. In this country, other influences were at work to counteract the bad effects of the evils enumerated, in a national point of view; but upon individual character they have had no less fatal an influence. stop not at present to inquire how, as in the sequel I shall have abundant reason to show. The only inference intended to be drawn from the instances already adduced

I

is, the paramount necessity of having education reduced to the tangible form of a science, studying it as such, and deducing some systematic mode of procedure in conducting the education of a human being.

Each one of the faculties must be educated, but it must be by different and peculiar means, and each faculty must be exercised upon proper and legitimate objects, before the whole man can be said to have received an education. And that a knowledge of an "art," of such importance in the moral economy of nature, should itself be carefully studied and practised by all who would undertake such a responsible duty, is, I think, no less clear a deduction.

Like every other art, however, skill or proficiency in it can only be attained by practice. An easy matter it is for any writer on education to prescribe rules for a teacher to follow, but it is a far different and a much more difficult thing to follow them. The surgeon has a much more difficult task to perform when he comes to investigate the nature of diseases and wounds, and apply suitable remedies, than in the calm retirement of his study or the class room, in acquiring a speculative knowledge of anatomy. His head may be filled with correct principles, which a want of manual dexterity may render practically useless. He must both study and practise before he acquire a sufficiency of skill. And so must the teacher before he get acquainted with the art of communicating instruction. Nor can he attain to proficiency in the art by a process of self-instruction any more than the surgeon. It is necessary that he undergo a course of practical discipline founded upon correct philosophical principles. In his own person he must form a connecting link between the art and the science of education. Enlightened by the principles of the latter eh will understand how he ought to instruct, and prac

tising after some model, he will at length become trained to the mechanical art.

An obvious inference hence arises that as an instrument for training others, he must first be trained himself. An apparatus and materials of a different kind are, therefore, necessary to prepare such instruments from those required in a juvenile education. They must be moulded after a certain form, and properly tempered, burnished, and sharpened for the work they have to perform. They must be correct models to others, and therefore modelled upon correct principles themselves. Any school where these principles are in operation is a normal. school, that is, an institution for exhibiting the rules. according to which teachers ought to practise the art of education; but it will not be complete without materials for practising with, and a visible pattern to copy after, namely, a model school.

Such an apparatus is a phenomenon of modern days, and supplies a desideratum which every candid teacher must acknowledge he has felt on entering upon his duties. Hitherto most writers have merely regarded education as a convenient theme for speculation, and most teachers have entered upon the practice of it trusting to their own resources in arriving at a correct system. But it is of no more avail for a teacher, when he comes to the practice of his art, to have merely read an able treatise on education, than for a surgeon to be only speculatively informed regarding the bodily functions. Indeed, in proportion as the science of mind and morals is more abstruse than that of animal physiology, and its principles established upon a more shifting basis owing to the numberless external causes which affect human character, both knowledge and experience are infinitely more necessary to con stitute a teacher than a surgeon. But any general system