Part 9 (1/2)

But the reader may inquire, what is the use of the holes and the pins?

By pinning two rules together, one resting upon the other, and then turning one of theain a correct idea of the use of the terle, and obtuse angle By pinning three of these rules together at their ends, the children not only _see_, but can _handle_ the siure is _defined_, they are enabled per of the word _triangle_, by the si rules of the saths, they becoht, and obtuse angled triangles By co, in this way, such a set of rules as I have described, the child readily becomes familiar with the naeoures, with less effort on the part of the teacher than would be required to teach the child the names of the same number of letters These exercises, then,of the alphabet, or, at least, proceed simultaneously with it By this means the child's interest in the school is increased; his senses are cultivated; he is enabled better to fix his attention; he progresses hly in his juvenile studies, and at the same time lays the foundation for future excellence in pen, and other useful arts

The child reen in leaves and other things; of yellow, red, and blue, in flowers and paints; and to distinguish not only the shades of all the colors, but their respective proportions in mixtures of two or rown to years without the ability of distinguishi+ng between colors, as others have who have neglected the culture of the ear without the ability of distinguishi+ng between tunes

Drawing, whether of maps, the shape of objects, or of landscapes, is adht Children should be encouraged carefully to survey and accurately to describe the prominent points of a landscape, both in nature and in picture Let the, the pasture, the wood, and the tillage land; the trees, the houses, and the streams Listen to their accounts of their plays, walks, and journeys, and of any events of which they have been witnesses In these and all other exercises of the sight, children should be encouraged to be strictly accurate; and whenever it is practicable, the judgive should, if erroneous, be corrected by the truth Children can not fail to be interested in such exercises; and even where they have been careless and inaccurate observers, they will soon becon influences of education only that the senses can be ilected by perhaps the majority of parents and teachers, who in other respects have ree of interest in this subject That by judicious culture the senses may be educated to activity and accuracy, and be e to the soul, has been unanswerably proved by an accumulation of unquestionable testimony Most persons, however, allow the senses to remain uneducated, except as they may be cultivated by fortuitous circumstances Eyes have they, but they see not; ears have they, but they hear not; neither do they understand It is not impossible, nor perhaps improbable, that he who has these two senses properly cultivated will deriveupon a beautiful landscape, in exath of ti to the sweetof praise, than those who have neglected the cultivation of the senses experience during their whole lives!

This subject coard their individual happiness, or who desire to render their usefulness as extensive as possible Upon parents, teachers, and clergymen, who are more ieneration, its claims are imperative Let them be met, in connection with other appropriate means now in use and hereafter to be put in requisition, and our schools can not fail to becoly attractive; truancy, hence, will be less frequent, and the benign influences resulting from the correct education of the _whole man_ will inspire the benevolent and philanthropic to renewed and increased efforts to secure the right education of _all men_, a condition upon which the maximum of human happiness depends

CHAPTER VII

THE NECESSITY OF MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

The exaltation of talent, as it is called, above virtue and religion, is the curse of the age Education is now chiefly a sti, and thus men acquire poithout the principles which alone ood Talent is worshi+ped; but if divorced from rectitude, it will prove ht to be the basis of education, according to often-repeated writings and declamations The assertion is true

Christianity furnishes the true basis for raising up character; but the foundation must be laid in a very different manner from that which is commonly practicedWe can, indeed, scarcely conceive of the purity, the self-denial, and the power that iven to human character by systematic development--LALOR

We have now reached a depart importance, for however judiciously physical and intellectual cultivation may have been conducted, if we e is _power_, it is true; but we should bear in ood; and that, whether its effects be good or ill, depends entirely upon the dispositions and sentiuided Numerous have been the instances illustrative of the fact that the greatest scourges of our race are e but qualifies its possessor for inflicting norance would indeed be bliss

I find my views on this is of soe, that I feel it both a privilege and a duty to enforce the sentiments I would inculcate by the introduction of their testimony

Dr Humphrey observes,[25] that ”ita just and coood education--of such an education as every child in the state ought to receive--is exceedingly narrow and defective Most ard as of very little iet that the child has a _conscience_ and a _heart_ to be educated as well as an _intellect_ If they do not lay too much stress on mental culture, which, indeed, is hardly possible, they lay by far too little upon that which is ious They expect to elevate the child to his proper station in society, to make hiood patriot, by furnishi+ng him with a comfortable school-house, suitable class-books, co his quarter bills, while they greatly underrate, if they do not entirely overlook, that highevil rather than good It iants, but, like the sons of Anak, they will be far readier to trae than to protect and cultivate it

[25] In a lecture before the Aious Training of Children

”Education is not a talismanic word, but an _art_, or rather a _science_; and, I ht, the proper training of the _whole h and symmetrical cultivation of all his noble faculties If he were endoith a mere physical nature, he would need, he would _receive_ none but a physical training On the other hand, if he were a purely intellectual being, intellectual culture would comprehend all that could be included in a perfect education And were it possible for ato exist without either body or intellect, there would be nothing but the heart or affections to educate But

He is neither all body, nor all e, he has three natures, a corporeal, a rational, and a moral

These three, mysteriously united, are essential to constitute a perfect in to expand in very early childhood, the province of education is to watch, and assist, and shape the developthen, and discipline neither of the to its intrinsic and relative iious being,' we should carefully inquire in what respects he is so In a guarded and limited sense the proposition is undoubtedly true Terrible as was the shock which his moral nature received by 'the fall,' it was not wholly buried in the ruins Though blackened and crushed to the effacing of that glorious ie in which he was created, his moral susceptibilities were not destroyed The capacity of being restored, and of infinite ie and virtue, was left In the lowest depths of ignorance and debaseion, soe 'when flesh and heart fail' There is a natural dread of annihilation, a longing after i back froion, will cling to the greatest absurdities as substitutes Hence the pagan world is full of idols Tribes and nations seely destitute of all moral sense, nevertheless have 'Gods ible atheists in the world, you o where the altars of the true God have been thron In this view, __ He has a ious impressions He can, at a very early period of life, be --between good and evil He can, while yet a child, be influenced by hope and by fear--by reason, by persuasion, and by the word of God; and all this shows that religion was intended to be a prominent part of his education There can be no mistake in this It is plainly the will of God that the moral as well as the intellectual faculties should be cultivated Every child, whether in the family or the school, is to be treated by those who have the care of hiious susceptibilities invite to the ent culture, and virtually enjoin it upon every teacher The simple study of man's moral nature, before we open the Bible, unavoidably leads to the conclusion that any system of popular education must be extremely defective which does not make special prevision for this branch of public instruction

”Even if there had been no fatal lapse of our race--if our children were not naturally depraved, nor inclined to evil in the slightest degree, still they would need religious as well as physical and intellectual guidance and discipline It is true, the educator's task would be infinitely easier and pleasanter than it now is, but they would need instruction They would enter the world just as ignorant of their i to learn about the being and perfections of God; every thing about his rightful claims as their Creator, Preserver, andtheir duties and relations to their fellow-men Moreover, there is every reason to believe that then the principle of virtue_ in the rising generation, and confirm the their bodies are perfect bodies, and their minds perfect , still they need all the helps of education; so, if they had a perfectly upright moral nature, they would need the same helps There is no more reason to think, had sin never entered into the world, every child would have grown up to the 'fullness of the stature of a perfect ious sense, without an appropriate education, than that he would have becos that are all the while springing into life around us to be educated are the sinful offspring of apostate parents How deeply depraved, how strongly inclined to sin froree that they show an early bias in the wrong direction; and that, left to groithout o far astray, and become bad ument The evil bias must be counteracted

For the safety of the state, as well as for their own sakes, all its childrenand sanative influence of religious education No adequate substitute was ever devised, or ever can be 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it' This is divine; and the opposite is equally true Train up a child in the way he should _not_ go, or--which co way of his own accord, and when he is old he will not depart from that His tread will be heavier and heavier upon the broad and beaten track 'Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles' 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then ood who are accustoht, undoubtedly, to be commenced in every family much earlier than children are sent to school, and no parent can throw off upon the school them up in the 'nurture and adood way, and lead the in it by his own example But few parents, however, have the leisure and ability to do all that is demanded in this vitally essential branch of education All are entitled to the aid of their pastors and religious teachers; and every good shepherd will feel a tender concern for the lambs of his flock, and will feed them with the sincere milk of the word both in the sanctuary and at the fireside But the work should not stop here There ought to be a co-operation of good influences in all the se, and especially in the primary schools This co-operation would be necessary if iven, and if all the children of the state regularly attended public worshi+p, and enjoyed the benefits of catechetical and Sabbath-school teaching But those ould banish religion from our admirable systes exclusively to the faht to remember what multitudes of children this exclusion would deprive of their birth-right as members of a Christian community There are tens of thousands in our own heaven-blessed New England, and hundreds of thousands in these United States, who receive no religious instruction whatever at hoious denonorant and graceless fathers and mothers to teach their children the fear of the Lord, nor to send theain, what is to be done? These neglected children are in the midst of us Our cities sith them They are scattered every where over our beautiful hills and valleys Grow up they will a our own children, without principle and withoutvirtues which we have sown in our families, and to prey upon the dearest interests of society, unless soious education And where shall they receive this education, if not in the school-house? You will find them there, if in any place of instruction, and multitudes of them you can reach nowhere else

”A more Utopian dream never visited the brain of a sensible e by the diffusion and thoroughness of what is commonly understood by popular education With all its funds, and irammars, and maps, and black-boards, such an education is essentially defective Without ies, education is a sharp sword in the hands of a practiced and reckless fencer I have no hesitation in saying, that if we could have but one, ious culture is even e of letters; and that the former can not be excluded from any system of popular education without infinite hazard Happily, the two are so far fro hostile powers in the co on har each other The more virtue you can infuse into the hearts of your pupils, the better they will improve their time, and the more rapid will be their proficiency in their common studies The most successful teachers have found the half hour devoted to ious instruction more profitable to the scholar than any other half hour in the day; and there are no teachers who govern their schools with so h punishment is sometimes necessary where moral influence has done its utmost, the conscience is, in all ordinary cases, an infinitely better disciplinarian than the rod When you can get a school to obey and to study because it is right, and froained a victory which is worth more than all the penal statutes in the world; but you can never gain such a victory without laying great stress upon religious principle in your daily instructions

”There is, I am aware, in the minds of some warm and respectable friends of popular education, an objection against incorporating religious instruction into the system as one of its essential ele in along with it the evils of sectarianism If this objection could not be obviated, it would, I confess, have great weight in ious instruction is given, the distinctive tenets of some particular denomination must be inculcated But is this at all necessary? Must we either exclude religion altogether from our common schools, or teach some one of the many creeds which are embraced by as many different sects in the ecclesiastical calendar? Surely not There are certain great ious principles in which all denoreed; such as the ten co, in short, which lies within the whole range of duty to God and duty to our fellow-lad to knohat sectarianis my children the first and second tables of the moral law; to 'love the Lord their God with all their heart, and their neighbor as the them to keep the Sabbath holy, to honor their parents, not to swear, nor drink, nor lie, nor cheat, nor steal, nor covet Verily, if this is what any mean by sectarianism, then the more we have of it in our common schools the better 'It is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation,' that there is so little of it I have not the least hesitation in saying, that no instructor, whether ht ever to be e to teach ion in the manner which I have just alluded to Were this faithfully done in all the priious liberties, and all our blessed institutions, would be incomparably safer than they are now The parent who says, I do not send , and writing, and grammar, knows not 'what manner of spirit he is of' It is very certain, that such a father will teach his children any thing but religion at horow up as heathens in a Christian land? If he says to the schoolmaster, I do not wish you to make my son an Episcopalian, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, or a Methodist, very well That is not the schoolmaster's business He was not hired to teach sectarianism But if the parent means to say, I do not send my child to school to have you teach him to fear God and keep his coood son and a goodsuch a father; and with good reason ht we tremble for all that we hold most dear, if such remonstrances were to be multiplied and to prevail

”In this connection I can not refrain fro of the Scriptures, and prayer,[26] in all our schools, as eminently calculated to exert a powerful moral influence upon the scholars It isup even in Massachusetts--and what multitudes of them in every one of these United States--ill seldom, if ever, hear the voice of prayer if they do not hear it in the schools, and to whom the Bible will remain a sealed book if it be not opened there I would not insist that _every_ primary teacher should be absolutely required to open or close the school daily with prayer Great and good as I think the influence of such an arrangeht be impossible, at present, to find a sufficient number of instructors otherell qualified who are fitted to lead in this exercise The nu It is probably too late for entlemen, may live to see the time when the voice of prayer, and of praise too, will be heard in every school-house of the land Could I know that this would be the case, it would give ious liberties which I should exceedingly rejoice to cherish as I pass off froe”