ratii and the Curiatii-Captain Bobadil's method of defeating an army-Clarence's dream-Norval and Glenalvon's revengeful encounter-Lord and Lady Randolph, Sir Charles and Lady Racket-Sempronius' speech for war-Description of Queen Mab -Ossian's address to the Sun-Soliloquy of Dick the apothecary's apprentice-Alexander's Feast-Blair's Grave-Young's Life, Death, and Immortality-Queen of the Fairies-the Wolf and the Crane-the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse-the Tailor and the Conjurer-the Old Man and his Ass-with a multifarious medley of pieces of a similar description.

These comprehend a fair specimen of the prominent subjects selected, in our common school-books, for the purpose of training the youthful mind in knowledge and virtue. I have no hesitation in asserting, that more unsuitable subjects, consistent with common decency, could scarcely have been selected, and that they are little short of a direct insult offered to the youthful under.. standing. The compilers of such collections, either suppose, that the juvenile mind, at the age of eight or nine years, when such selections are put into their hands, has embraced a range of thought and contemplation far beyond what it is capable of, in ordinary cases, or they wish to insult their imbecile minds, by offering them stones instead of bread, or they rake together their extracts at random, without considering whether they are at all suited to the class of persons to whom they are addressed. For there is not one lesson out of twenty which is level to the range of thought, and to the capacity of the youthful mind, in its first outset in the path of science, even although parents and teachers were to attempt an explanation of the passages which are read: as they embody descriptions and allusions respecting objects, events, and circumstances, which cannot be duly appreciated without a previous course of study; and they abound with a multitude of abstract speculations which can never convey well-defined ideas to the understandings of the young. What ideas can

a boy of seven or eight years' old form of the Parliamentary debates of Mr. Pulteney, Mr. Pitt, or Sir Robert Walpole; of the speech of Marcus Valerius on a dispute between the Patricians and Plebeians concerning the form of government; of dissertations on the art of Criticism; of Belial's speech to Moloch; or even of Blair's Grave, or Young's Life, Death, and Immortality ;-or what interest can he be supposed to feel in such themes and discussions? I appeal to every one of my readers, if, at the age now specified, they ever understood such selections, or felt gratified and improved by perusing them. It is an absurdity, at once perceptible, that the beauties of sentiment and composition

which are appreciated and relished by persons of refined taste, at the age of twenty or thirty, will be equally relished and admired by children of eight or ten years of age; and yet, from an examination of our initiatory school-books, it is undeniable, that, on a false principle of this kind, almost all our elementary works have been constructed.

But, it is farther to be regretted, that this is not the only fault that can be charged upon these productions. They exhibit scenes and sentiments which ought not to be familiarized to the minds of children, and which are repugnant to the spirit and practice of genuine Christianity. In almost every page, both of the prosaic and poetic extracts, the war gong is ever and anon resounding in our ears, and "the confused noise of the warrior, with garments rolled in blood." The Cæsars, the Alexanders, and the Buonapartes, of ancient and modern times, instead of being held up to execration as the ravagers and destroyers of mankind, are set forth to view as glorious conquerers and illustrious heroes, whose characters and exploits demand our admiration and applause. And if, at any time, the minds of the young imbibe the sentiments which pervade their lessons, it is generally when they breathe a warlike spirit, and exhibit those desolations and ravages which ambition and revenge have produced in the world,—and when they themselves are trained to spout at an examination, and, arrayed in warlike habiliments, with guns, or spears, or darts, to ape the revengeful exploits of a Norval and a Glenalvon. I have beheld the young, when engaged in such exhibitions, eulogized and applauded by their examinators, and surrounding spectators, more than on account of all the other scholastic improvements they had acquired. To this cause, doubtless, as well as to others, is to be attributed the spirit of warfare and contention which still reigns on the theatre of the political world, and which has desolated, and disgraced, and demoralized, every nation under heaven. I have known a teacher who has turned over page after page, in some of the works now referred to, in search of a passage worthy of being committed to memory by his pupils, and who could not in conscience fix upon any one, in a long series of extracts, on account of its being imbued with this antichristian spirit. In addition to this striking characteristic of our school-collections, and in perfect accordance with it-it may also be stated, that Pride, Ambition, Revenge, and other Pagan virtues, are sometimes held up to view as the characteristics of a noble and heroic mind; and swearing, lying, brawing, and deceit, are frequently exhibited in so ludicrous a manner, as almost to win the affections, and to excite approbation.

But, in fine, although the selections to which I allude were level to the comprehensions of the young, and untinged with antichristian sentiments-what is the amount of all the knowledge and instruction they contain? They embrace no perspicuous system of interesting and useful information,-scarcely any thing that bears on the cultivation of Christian dispositions,-no exhibitions of the scenes of Nature and Art in which the young may afterwards be placed, little information respecting the works of God, the revelations of his word, or the useful inventions of men. The beauties which adorn the scenery of nature, the wonders of Creating Power, as displayed in the earth, the air, the ocean, and the heavens; the displays of Divine Wisdom and Goodness, which everywhere surround us; the mild and pacific virtues of Christianity, which ought equally to adorn the prince and the peasant; the avocations and amusements of domestic life; the scenery of the country, the city, and the village, or the important facts contained in the Sacred history,-are seldom or never detailed, with interesting simplicity, in this class of publications. And, are a few extracts from old plays and novels, romances and fables, Pagan mythology and Parliamentary debates-from the speeches of Roman orators and the epilogues of stage-players, to be considered as the most agreeable and substantial food for the youthful intellect, and as the most judicious process for imbuing it with useful knowledge, and preparing it for the employments of an immortal existence? Are the absurd opinions of Roman and Grecian poets and warriors, respecting their gods, their heroes, and their religion, and the polluted streams of heathen morality, to be substituted in the room of the simple and sublime delineations of revelation, the pure principles of the gospel, and the noble discoveries of modern science? If so, then let us not boast of imparting to our children a rational and a Christian education.

I have alluded more particularly to the works above mentioned, because they are most frequently used in our borough and parochial schools; but I know no works of this kind, published in this country, with the exception of two or three volumes, to which the above strictures will not, in a greater or less degree, apply. I do not, however, condemn such books, in so far as they contain sentimental extracts, for the use of adpanced students of elocution, -or considered as miscellanies for the amusement of persons advanced in life, (though even in this last point of view they can not be held in high estimation,)—my main objection rests on the ground of their being unfitted to interest the minds of the young, and to convey to them the outlines of knowledge and virtue,

unmingled with the rubbish of false maxims and antichristian sentiments.*

III. Another error which runs through our scholastic instruc tion is, that, while the cultivation of the judgment is neglected, the memory is injudiciously, and often too severely exercised. The efforts of memory, in most cases, especially when exercised in the retention of mere sounds and terms, are generally attended with painful sensations; and, when these sensations are long continued, they frequently produce a disgust at the objects and employments of education. Long passages from Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, or Pope, are given out for recitation to the young, while they are still incapable of appreciating the meaning of a single sentiment in the task prescribed; and the facility with which they can recollect and vociferate a number of jingling sounds is considered by many as the best evidence of their progress in the paths of instruction. The period has not long gone

*The above remarks were written in the year 1821, and published in the "Christian Instructor." Since that period several school-books have appeared, compiled on more rational and Christian principles than most of their predecessors,-particularly, M'Culloch's "Course of Elementary Reading in Science and Literature," ""The National School Collection," "The American Reader," by Merriam, and several others; but they are chiefly adapted for the higher classes in schools, and for young people who have nearly finished their course of instruction in reading, and they have been introduced into comparatively few of our schools, and in many parts of the country are altogether unknown. Several useful compilations have likewise of late been published in England and America, but they are more adapted to the use of families and domestic instruction than to public seminaries. I am acquainted with no book for the Juvenile classes, comprising useful information, and compiled in such a manner as to render knowledge and morality perspicuous, fascinating, and interesting to the young, and calculated to give full scope to their rational and active powers. About a year after the publication of these remarks in the "Christian Instructor," its Editor, the late Rev. Dr. A. Thomson, compiled a school collection, and sent me a copy of it, for my inspection. My opinion of this compilation having been requested, at the next personal interview I had with the Doc. tor, I told him, that I considered the book free of any antichristian senti ments, calculated to make a good impression on the minds of the young, and that it contained a considerable number of instructive and entertaining selections; but that a number of the selections, however good in them selves, were too didactic and sombre to engage the attention of the juvenile mind. The Doctor admitted the justice of the last remark, and said, that, in another edition, he intended to throw out the pieces alluded to, and substitute, in their place, more entertaining selections. Dr. Thomson's collection is, on the whole, a good one; but, like the others mentioned above, is chiefly adapted to the higher classes. The plan of all the school collections hitherto published is susceptible of much improvement; and I shall afterwards take an opportunity of adverting to this subject in a subsequent part of this volume.

by (if it have yet passed) when the repetition of the first chapter of the first book of Chronicles, of the tenth chapter of Nehemiah, of the hundred-and-nineteenth Psalm, or of half a dozen chapters in the New Testament, by a schoolboy,-with a disgusting vociferation, and a uniform velocity, like water dashing over a precipice, was regarded, both by parents and teachers, as an evidence of extraordinary genius, and as an achievement in education of far greater importance than if he had drawn an outline of universal history, or sketched the geography of the globe. Of all the exercises of memory to which the young tyro is accustomed, there is none more injudicious and more painful to the pupil, than that by which he is constrained to get by rote the Shorter Catechism, at the early age at which it is generally prescribed. At the age of five or six, before he is capable of understanding a single sentiment of the system of Divinity, and even before he can read with ease any one of its questions and answers-he is set to the ungracious task of committing its vocables to memory, as if he were a mere machine, formed solely for mechanical movements and the emission of sounds. The reluctance with which this task is generally engaged in; the painful sensations which accompany it; the correction which follows its neglect; the ludicrous blundering; and the complete destitution of ideas with which it is generally attended-all conspire to show the absurdity of the practice. I am fully persuaded, that the unpleasant associations connected with this task, have, in many instances, produced a lasting disgust, both at the pursuits of learning, and the instructions of religion. Yet, there are few school-exercises to which parents in general attach a greater degree of importance. To omit the teaching of this catechism by rote, even although other and more perspicuous instructions were given on divine subjects, would be considered as arguing a certain degree of irreligion on the part of the teacher; and even respectable clergymen and others consider this exercise as a sine qua non in religious instruction-just as if the mere terms and definitions of this excellent summary were to produce a magical effect on the moral and intellectual faculties. The common argument in favour of this practice, "that it is laying in a store of religious vocables for after reflection, and that the answers will be perfectly understood in riper years," when considered in connection with what has been now said, is extremely futile and inconclusive. The blundering manner in which persons advanced in life frequently repeat this catechism-mistaking, for example, the answer to "What is Justification?" for that which relates to "sanctification," or what is forbidden for what is required in any of the commandments,