It will be seen, from the foregoing burst of enthusiasm, that our excellent schoolmaster not only

cil on Education, 1840-41," from which the following is an extract:

"To estimate rightly the state of our elementary schools, it is necessary to bear in mind some of the chief objects of the education of the people. These are, to make them, under the blessing of God, happier and better; or, in other words, to make them well-informed, intelligent, industrious, moral, and religious. It would be a great mistake to point out to children instances of persons raised by successful industry, or by remarkable talent, to dignity and wealth, as illustrating what education may do for them. This, with respect to the greater number, who can never so rise, would form in them expectations which must be disappointed. What is worse, it would give them false views of a life of labour. Our Lord, by becoming a poor man, has taught us that lowly stations are honourable when connected with wisdom and piety; and every day's observation may shew us how much of genuine happiness may be found in them. We have, then, to teach children, not that they should seek to raise themselves above the necessity of labour, which is the appointment of God; and, while it secures the health, also strengthens the understanding, and is consistent with the greatest enjoyment of life. But while education is not meant to raise the working-classes above their condition, it may greatly multiply the comforts which they enjoy in it. It may preserve them from exchanging light, clean, and cheerful cottages for comfortless cellars; it may give them better clothes, better food, better health; it may deck their windows with fairer flowers, spread cleaner linen on their tables, and adorn their dwellings with more convenient furniture. While it may enable a few, by superior attainments, to fill higher situations with credit to themselves and with advantage to their employers, it may enable many to turn to account the advantages of their

considered the wants of his own particular school, and was anxious to do his duty to his pupils, but also

humbler situations. It may teach them how to gain and how to spend; it may secure to them employment, and save them from waste; it may hinder them from sinking into abject poverty. By increasing and elevating their domestic affections, it may invest their homes with an undecaying charm; by inspiring them with a thirst for knowledge it may provide rational and ennobling amusements for their hours of leisure; and, by both these additions to their spiritual existence, may rescue some from spending their evenings idly in their chimney-corner in mere vacuity of thought, and others from resorting to the public-house for the pleasure of talking obscenity and scandal, if not sedition, amidst the fumes of gin and the roar of drunken associates. Good principles, good sense, and good manners, the fruits of education, may give them the honest satisfaction derived from the respect of their neighbours. By its aid they may learn to think so soundly, and to weigh evidence with so much acuteness, that the wild doctrines of a licentious infidelity may shock their understanding as well as revolt their hearts. And thus, placed beyond the reach both of superstition and profanity, they may be led to seek and enjoy, through faith in Christ, the favour and blessing of God. Education may thus raise the character of their enjoyments through life, and teach them, on well-founded hopes of happiness beyond the grave, to meet death with tranquillity.

"If in this way education may make the working classes happier, it is equally certain that it may make them better; it may teach them to shew civility to passing strangers, instead of treating them with rudeness; it may accustom them to respect females, and to resent any affront put upon them, instead of making them, as is now often the case, the object of their coarse and insulting merriment; and it may lead them to protect the innocent animals who may labour for the service of

had an eye to the political state of the country, as regarded the question of education. And perhaps we

man, instead of shewing, as the ignorant often do, a fiendish exultation in inflicting pain upon them; it may teach them to master their appetites, to contend with their passions, to resist temptation, and to seek through all their lives the improvement of mind and heart which may only end in the moral and intellectual perfection of a better state. By it they may be taught to obey their parents with cheerfulness, honour them in their words and conduct, and repay their kindness with gratitude; to behave with kindness, courtesy, and justice to each other; to be just to their employers, careful of their property, and anxious to promote their interests, and sympathising with the trials of the afflicted, to be ready to do for them all the little service in their power. It may further inspire them with loyalty to the queen, and with love to their country; raise them above the temptation of a bribe in the exercise of any political rights which they may possess, and separate them from those who would seek any supposed amelioration of the laws by the methods of violence and injustice. Under its influence they may become upright, generous, disinterested, affectionate, and benevolent in all their intercourse with their fellow-creatures; and, as our greatest debt is due to the greatest and best of beings, our Maker, Preserver, and Redeemer, it may lead them to love and serve Him, to obey His precepts, to trust Him in their trials, to praise Him for every blessing they enjoy, and generally to glorify Him with all their faculties and in all their habits."

There are many other valuable observations and suggestions in Mr. Baptist Noel's report; but it may be questioned whether he has exercised a sound discretion in publishing a long list of laughable answers, many of them on religious subjects, which were made to him by children at the schools which he visited; especially as it appears that many of the children had been for a very short time under instruction.

may, at some future time, be able to avail ourselves of his experience and discernment, when we come to extend our inquiries over a wider range than we have hitherto ventured on.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE INSTRUMENT OF MORAL TRAINING.

In early years oft Satan steals within,

On soft and yielding hearts to drop the seed,
Till all unseen will spread the tree of sin;

Its leaves are evil thoughts which thence proceed.

And in soft childhood's heart will virtue spring
Unheeded, there to drink celestial air,
And all the thoughts to her obedience bring,
Nourish'd day after day with dews of prayer.
The Baptistery.

THE formation of moral habits in youth consists of two parts-the repression or eradication of evil tendencies, and the promotion of good. At baptism a new nature is given to each infant-the germ of divine grace is implanted, the guilt of original sin is washed away, and the regenerated infant is placed in a state of holiness,-fitted for the kingdom of heaven. But this blest condition lasts only for a short time: as soon as consciousness awakens, sin revives; Satan attempts to recover his lost dominion. For, as our Church declares in the ninth Article, "the infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated." Hence the contradictory character which a child exhibits. You will see the loveliest affection for its parents, especially its mother, with whom it is