if we find a nature thus degenerate, this should be a signal to us to leave all other aims with it, and be content to have little work done until we have developed other and higher principles of action within, by which we can guide it. We are in too much haste to make young minds into swift and docile agents of our plans, and too little careful first to prepare them with the due motives by which we should rule them. How often in the building of the edifice before us have I felt how the elevator of mind has been reproved by the common workman, whose business it is to elevate masses of stone to their places in the building. He, instead of at once rudely seizing the block and endeavouring by main strength to bear it aloft, patiently works for a whole day, forming grooves in the stone to give his hooks their certain grasp, and then applying his powerful crane, swings the heavy weight in a few minutes to its place on high. We have endeavoured to take the hint; and in our school, instead of rushing to results, have been content to spend a considerable portion of the time which is often occupied in attempting to force the mind to do the work of education in simply preparing it for beginning the work. We aim, indeed, to rule the mind by the principle of obedience; but it is by first gaining its confidence in the wisdom and justice of the teacher. We first endeavour to make it feel that what is demanded from it is really the noblest and best thing for it, and is, therefore, demanded from it by right; and then we have the witness of its own conscience when we insist upon compliance."

Elwood." But are you not again really dispensing with obedience to authority, and erecting the child into his own authority, in thus giving no command without stopping to explain its reason?"

Marsden.-" Certainly, that would be the result if we were guilty of so fatal an error. No, sir, we do not stop to explain the reasons of all the commands imposed upon the child, nor even of any, at the time of action. But we endeavour to let him sometimes see, where his understanding can more easily follow our explanations, that our general aims for him are just what his own best feelings and judgment would choose. Thus, awakening confidence, we cause him instinctively to feel that he ought to obey in faith, even when his understanding cannot follow. You must perceive, then, that

in coming with our knowledge, and appealing for it to the noblest feelings of the pupil, we are preparing him to labour at the work of knowledge from the principle of obedience. He will obey, even when he would not choose the work for himself, not from fear, but from faith and trust in superior wisdom and kindness; and if we are then obliged sometimes to quicken obedience by pressing upon lower motives, with severer appliances, still we have secured the confidence of the child. He is forced to do only that which his conscience tells him he ought himself to have taken up.

But in stopping to answer your objections, I left incomplete my account of the manner in which we deal with the interest for knowledge, awakened as I before explained, in the pupil's mind. Going no farther than the point to which I had arrived, I should leave you to imagine, that all that we achieved in this operation was to present the work of knowledge in a pleasing light; but we really present it also in a moral light. We first seek to awaken, as I have shown, the desire for knowledge, and then we lead the mind to feel this desire as a moral principle."

Elwood.

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What do you mean by thus converting feelings into moral feelings? If they are not originally moral, how can they become so?"

Marsden." In our view, the mind is endowed with a moral sense or instinct, which is usually called conscience. The function of this instinct is to arrange the various feelings or principles of action in a scale of relative worth, just as the musical faculty arranges sounds in a scale of higher and lower. Now, as no sound can properly be said to be melodious until the ear (or musical judgment) has compared it with other notes and felt it to be higher or lower, so no feeling can properly be said to be moral, until the conscience or moral sense has compared it with other feelings, and felt it to be more or less worthy or noble. In order to convert the love for the beautiful, the grand, the mysterious, and the true into moral feelings, the mind must be brought to reflect upon them with the moral judgment or conscience, and, to compare them with such feelings as love of ease, appetite, anger, cowardice, vanity, pride-all which may conspire to keep back the soul from serving the loftier feelings."

Elwood." But how can you get the mind of a child to perform such an act of self-consciousness?"

Marsden." Easily. You have only to let him first experience these higher feelings, then draw before his imagination a picture of some noble being-child, or man, serving such feelings. Draw next a picture of some other, of lower order, violating these higher feelings and delivering himself up to such lower ones as indolence and appetite. Ask then the judgment of the child, which is the worthier, the nobler of these two beings. Conscience instinctively performs its function and unerringly places the feelings in the order of their worth. Henceforth the nobler feelings which lead to the pursuit of truth, are not only felt, but felt to be moral superior motives. The mind feels there is an ignobleness, a baseness-in other words, a sin in disobeying them. The work of self-education becomes a moral work. And, this character is continually rendered more intense, by all future enlargement of the mental view. For instance, in our next moral lesson, we aim to touch the feeling of human love or sympathy, and to lead the mind to judge, by comparison, of its worth, and to feel how noble, how worthy, how imperative is the work of serving our fellow men. Then we reveal to the pupil that knowledge is the instrument by which we can most effectually serve our fellows. We present another picture of knowledge and mental power, which are the consequences of study, and show how they enable one being to bless others-how, in the private circle, the intelligent person has a wealth of thoughts which he may bring forth to gladden and to beautify all around him—how he may instruct ignorance, and discern the way to do the good he desires. We show how in public the thinker is he who first creates all the wonders of civilization-invents the railway and the steam-ship, the telegraph and the printing press, as well as originates all the intelligence which inspires society: thus the feelings of sympathy and desire to do good are raised towards knowledge. To gain knowledge is converted into a work of high benevolence. Again, we draw a picture of one being pursuing knowledge for these high motives, and another indifferent to them and obedient only to lower motives, and ask again for the moral judgment.

"Now, the pupil can understand why parents and teachers are so anxious for his improvement in knowledge, and is prepared for another picture, showing what happiness this improvement must necessarily communicate to his anxious

friends; what sadness the spectacle of wasting years, and ruining mind must give. Thus the natural affection and sympathy with friends are drawn forth toward the work of knowledge; and the contrast of a being true to these, and, therefore, earnest in study, calls forth a stronger approval of the work of knowledge as a moral work. Further on, the pupil learns how solemn and sacred are the feelings which bid us look up with unbounded reverence to the greatest and best of beings; and it is disclosed to him then, that knowledge is also the wing "wherewith we fly to heaven." To gain knowledge, therefore, becomes a sacred work of piety.

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“We commence each day with lessons like these, refreshing the mind by presenting again to it in various forms the motives for its work; and, it is seldom, that throughout the day, we do not find the power of love and conscience thus awakened sufficient to rule the child. Usually, when we see inattention or indolence, we have only to say, What, will you permit yourself to be like and be conquered by the baser feelings of love of ease and play, when so many noble feelings call you to work? Remember what great things you can do by study, and what loss will be yours and that of others if you neglect it." And the mind is quickened again to its nobler task. But if, indeed, we find the will so slothful and abandoned that it will not move itself for these appeals, then we add, "but if you will give yourself up to the meaner feelings, I must try to save you from yourself, and drive you by the fear of penalty;" and this penalty is then accepted, not as the arbitrary and tyrannical exercise of a stronger force, but as a right and even benevolent use thereof as a means of saving the mind from its own baseness. I really think I have noticed sometimes in children a kind of gratitude towards the fear of the penalty, for the sake of the power it has added to their higher motives, and the saving them from themselves it has effected. They have seemed to regard it as they would some sharp medicine which should have saved them from the power of a threatening fever. Thus you observe our plan is exactly that adopted by the master of a steamer: when it is practicable he spreads his white sails to the pure winds of heaven, and his vessel is thus carried along by power from above; but when the winds begin to fail, he then rouses up the power in the lower regions of his vessel, and impels his charge with stern iron mechanism and with fire."

Ellwood.- "But when the time comes for inflicting the penalty how do you proceed?"

Marsden." We take care to recall the motives which the criminal ought to have obeyed, and contrast them with those which he has actually obeyed, and lead him to pass inward judgment on himself. Thus he feels that his punishment is merited as to himself and due from us, as the expression of our moral indignation, and of our duty and determination to maintain the right and the good."

Ellwood." I begin now to comprehend what you mean by asserting that the whole of education may be moral and religious. It is in the same sense in which the whole work of life may be moral and religious-namely, when it is work dictated by and done for the moral and religious feelings, as sweet George Herbert sings :

All may of thee partake:
Nothing so small can be,

But draws, when acted for thy sake,
Greatness and worth from thee.

If done beneath thy laws,

E'en servile labours shine;
Hallowed is toil, if this the cause;
The meanest work divine.'

But I remember you said something about education being moral and religious, not only by building its work on moral and religious motives, but by showing that its very facts had their bases in religious facts. I think you have not yet explained this idea. I must still confess I cannot see how grammar and geography can become religious in this sense."

In

Marsden." And yet you will find this to be true. showing that the facts of knowledge have their basis in religious facts, we are only carrying out the idea of appealing, in favour of the work of study, to religious feelings. From an early period, then, for this reason, we are careful to teach the phenomena of nature and of mind-not as the workings of the great world machine, but as the acts-guided indeed by self-imposed and general laws, of the great loving Will. You can foresee what immense difference of conception this one idea must make, pervading and giving a poetical life to every scientific truth as fast as it is acquired. Too often, scientific teaching establishes a perfectly material habit of thought. Then the phenomena of creation seem to have no affinity for