diligence, will certainly not diminish either his fidelity or his interest.

Is just. Here lies the secret of government, the mystery of exact discipline and of willing deference. If there be a principle instinctive in the mind of the child, if there be one that manifests itself early, and speaks in his words and deeds, through both his serious concerns and his plays, it is the principle of justice. What is the fault which boys are the least willing to overlook in their master? Partiality. Let him be just, and he need not fear to be strict.

The interest in study would be increased, were there more encouragement given in the school to the free action of the faculties of children. But they are made to go in a beaten path. They must parse the word as their grandsires parsed it of old. They must demonstrate the theorem in the way it is demonstrated "in the book." They must say their grammar "as nearly in the words of the author as possible." They must bound their States by beginning always at the north, and going round to the right hand. Why not encourage them to think for themselves ?* Why not indulge them in seeking out what shall seem to them a better way of coming to the result of expressing the sense? Why not urge them to find what errors they can in the book they are studying; to suggest what improvements they choose, in the mode of reciting? Why not let them sometimes leave the main road for the short cut through the wood? Allowing that they can become well-informed by keeping to the letter; why should they not become shrewd, and inquisitive, and bold, by searching for the spirit? Would you feed them, by giving them nuts, and forbidding them to get at the kernels? Would you teach them courage, by confining them ever to the fortress, and forbidding them to skirmish in the field?

The cramping system is the result, in different instances, of two different causes. The teacher sometimes errs from an overscrupulous conscientiousness; he thinks that his duty is not done, unless the task has been performed with the most literal exactness. Let such bethink him whether he may not be even more faithful to the child by being a

*The general principles of education are well enforced and illustrated in "The Teacher, by Jacob Abbott." Were that book used as widely even as it is read, there would be less occasion for the strictures in the text.

little faithless to the book. The teacher is sometimes ignorant; and he fears that his incapacity will be made apparent, if he diverge from the one path which he has conned. He veils his infirmity under a cloak of assumed wisdom.-" You learn your lesson, Sir; do you suppose you know better than the dictionary?"-Let such seriously consider, whether he had not himself better" submit again his hand to the ferule."

The teacher can in no way more fully secure the interest of his pupils in the studies which they are pursuing, than by manifesting sympathy with them. He may even study with his scholars; and they may know that he is doing so. He may let them see that he is accompanying them, pace by pace; that he is meeting, as they are, with difficulties, and surmounting them by study. Let him not be ashamed to show, that he is himself a learner. His boys and girls will respect him the more, for not being afraid of being thought ignorant. And in no branch of study will better instruction be given, than in that which he is thus learning in order to teach. In proportion as his own mind is more warmly interested, in proportion as a community of pursuit with them creates a common sympathy, will their interest warm, and their attention be fixed.

Dugald Stewart, when but a youth, instructed one of his father's mathematical classes, during his illness. He was very successful. This success he most modestly, and at the same time most philosophically accounted for, by observing that he was himself, during the whole time, only three days in advance of his class. The more a teacher can lessen the awful distance between himself and his pupils, the more fully can he effect the great ends of his calling. The youthful worshippers at learning's altar must not have “a high priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of their infirmities.' The teacher is not any the less the strict and faithful master, because he is also the kind and sympathizing monitor. Love, so far from relaxing the law, is its fulfilling.

Let the teacher forget, in company with his scholars, that age has roughened his cheek, or whitened his head. Let him renew his youth, in becoming a child with children. - In Greenough's breathing group, the conducting angel seems but little older than the young immortal whom he is guiding. With the scenes to which he is leading him, he has himself had no long acquaintance. Wonder has but lately

given place, in his heart, to calm interest and confident delight. Heaven has deputed that companion to the new arriver, who can give him the best guidance, because he can accord to him the fullest sympathy.*

As in intellectual discipline the teacher's great end is the cultivation and improvement of mind, so in moral discipline he has in view the formation and improvement of character. The child has moral as well as intellectual powers to be called into action and invigorated. Truth, virtue, duty, are to be words of meaning to his ear, as well as knowledge, science, literature.

The instructer may here command a most important influence. His efforts are to combine with those of the parent and the religious teacher, to inculcate the practice, and cherish the love, of all that is pure and holy in religion, of all that is binding in duty. He must not forget that he is the guardian of immortal beings, and that the influence, direct or indirect, which he exerts upon their characters, is not to be bounded by their present lives.

The common discipline of the school, according to the principles upon which it rests, and the motives which it addresses, may be, or may fail of being, moral discipline. It will make much difference, whether the pupil be obedient and well behaved compulsorily, from fear of punishment, or voluntarily, from the desire to do that which is right and becoming; whether he study from the wish to improve, or for the gratification of his vanity.

The scholar is to receive moral instruction. Of this, in a complete course, a part should undoubtedly be direct.

"Oh, how fair,

How beautiful the thoughts that meet me there,

Visions of Love, and Purity, and Truth.

Though form distinct had each, they seemed, as 't were,

Embodied all of one celestial air

To beam together in coequal youth.

"And thus I learned as in the mind they moved
These stranger thoughts the one the other loved.
That Purity loved Truth, because 't was true,
And Truth, because 't was pure, the first did woo;
While Love, as pure and true, did love the twain.
Then Love was loved of them, for that sweet chain

That bound them all. Thus sure, as passionless,
Their love did grow.'

WA. ALLSTON. Verses on Greenough's Group of the Angel and Child.

The evidences of natural and revealed religion, the science, also, which teaches human duty, and the reasons of it, are most important and most attractive studies. But it is not always remembered how large a proportion of indirect moral and religious instruction may be blended with other exercises. All the philosophy of natural history may be made,— nay, it is, natural theology. The child or the adult, who is led to observe the wonderful adaptation of means to ends in any part of the economy of nature, is learning a lesson concerning the wisdom and goodness of nature's author. History, when it is anything more than chronology, becomes an associate with, a part of, moral philosophy. A view of the actions of the men of past times, and an insight into their motives, may suggest discussions of the most practical kind concerning the true standard of man's duty. Hardly a literary performance of the school which may not afford nourishment for the soul, as well as for the mind. The effect may not be immediate may not be calculated upon. The poem was analyzed as an exercise for the taste, and learned as an exercise for the memory; it may some time be repeated as an exercise of devotion.

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But it is not only by moral instruction that the teacher will aim to form good characters, to instil right principles; he may acquire a moral influence, the stronger that it is noiseless and unobtrusive. I have spoken before of the manner in which intellectual cultivation, conducted upon. right principles, tends to refine and strengthen the moral powers. The teacher's example is also a most effective means of indirect moral control. The influence which he may derive from manifesting his own recognition of the principles upon which he is teaching his scholars to act, is incalculable. Can he give a better lesson against prejudice, than by showing that he always aims to form impartial judgments?-against pride, than by his own humility? against passion, than by his own self-command?

In his direct moral instruction, in reproving a fault, in enforcing a virtue, the instructer should be distinct and simple, and he should be brief. A word to the point is worth an hour's prosing. If he punish, let him not reason with the child at the same time, but reserve his argument and his advice to a time when they may be calmly spoken and patiently heard. If there be a rule of his school, with

a penalty attached to its violation, let him never allow a first transgression to pass unpunished. If he do, the sin of the second lies at his door. Let him be prompt, resolute, cheerful in his discipline. Peevish complainings about an infringement of the school-laws, will give rise to ridicule among the scholars, when a decided punishment would awaken respect, and secure obedience. The stream of discipline should flow gently but constantly; if indolence or indecision throw barriers in its way, it becomes irregular and capricious; sleeps for a while in a deceitful calm, and when it must flow on, is as likely to burst upon the head of the innocent as of the guilty.

The teacher is to avail himself of every opportunity of indirect religious instruction. To what extent direct religious instruction should be given in the school, is a question which every competent instructer will prefer to decide for himself. But in all the religious instruction, direct and indirect, which comes from the teacher, there must be nothing narrow, nothing sectarian. To him, if to any one, it is appropriate to show how wide the common ground, upon which all the pure worshippers of a common Father, the firm believers in an immortal life, may meet, and sympathize, and hold communion. Enough, happily, of places, in which children may be taught the peculiar characteristics of the form of faith, in which their parents are educating them; too many, unhappily, are the opportunities of impressing them with exclusive and uncharitable views. May not the teacher, at least, so far lay aside his own peculiarities of religious opinion, as to meet his scholars upon the common ground? I would not have him speak disparagingly, or slightingly, of differences in religious belief; but he cannot teach a higher or a truer lesson, than that they are comparatively unimportant, when contrasted with the great truths which the religious of all sects unite in recognizing. To the child, certainly, Christ need not be "divided." Let the grown people be Trinitarians and Unitarians, Catholics and Protestants: be content to let the children be Christians. Must they be forbidden, and suffered not to come unto the Son of the Eternal Father, unless led by the hand of Calvin, or Wesley, or Swedenborg or Socinus? They will, when they grow up, see