title: Christian education,
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" ^ Cd cc  d ^^ Cc.d H ^"^^^^ c^ #^^-?<^ : :<< ' ^ cc >Vc%\Vc ^ cr cc ^^^ /^^^ -d-. c ■ c. :CC _c__<Txc d c: c ^ cc -^ *^^ ^:_j!Crcc'.d"d. c -^ ^ ^ ^^< c <:::< d: c c ~^^ c <-ic:<r d c :r d c pd c , -z"^ ^^^ -^^^ /d' d'c d>: ?! ^J 1^^ " - '" d ' c ^ "C ^ ^ -^^ ^^ dC c d ' dec <.. dec .<r -d c c ^ dec < ^c c ^ dec <!C <: <: d c d d^ d c d d c d c c: ecc d < d cjx^dc c: - ccc <^ < d - d^^ d c < ^. dd c <: - d( d d d -CC^'dd^ d d dd\ m^ De. TIBER'S LECTURESJ ON EDUCATION. I 7s. 6d. CHRISTIAN EDUCATION, IN A COURSE OF LECTURES, DELIVERED IN LONDON, IN SPRING 1829. By E .' BIBER, Ph.Di jQ " O, they have lived long in the alms baslcet of words !" \n* / fft/ Shakspeark. "":5»' \ LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE. 1830. It LONDON: SHACKELL AND BAYLIS, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET-STREET, ADVERTISEMENT. The following Lectures having been delivered ex tem- pore, and written out afterwards from a few notes, taken by a friend at the time, it will not be expected, that this volume should contain anything like an exact report of what was then said. The leading ideas, however, have been pre- served, and no topic of importance has been omitted. The writer, though an alien by birth and by law, belongs more to this nation than any other, by his sentiments and his aftections, which may serve as his apology for speaking of this country as if it were his own ; and for censuring, without reserve, what he has found in it worthy of blame ; a freedom which, had his feelings been those of a foreigner, he would have avoided, as unbecoming and invidious. In vindication of his principles, he has notliing to say ; hoping that the Spirit of Truth will vindicate them in every candid mind ; in which hope, if he should be de- ceived, he is willing that his views should stand con- demned. IV He has but one request to make ; which is, that those who find these pages worthy of their attention, will not judge of the contents upon a partial perusal. Man's mind and his language, like the prism, divides the light on its passage, and reflects it, not in one splendid ray, but in a succession of shades and colours, none of which deserves, for itself, to be called light, though, when reunited, they reconstitute the ray, from which they received their birth. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. WHAT ARE THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE FAMILY, AND OF SOCIETY AT LARGE, RESPECTING THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN BELONGING TO THEM ? Page Intr3(luction. Unpopularity of the Subject 1 Different grounds on which the Subject may be viewed 3 The Social Ground examined 4 History of Education. The Oriental Nations 5 Ancient Greece 7 Ancient Rome 10 The Jewish Theocracy 12 The Primitive Christian Church 13 Church and State 14 Church and Priesthood 15 Monachism and Chivalry 16 The Reformation 17. The Improvements of the present Age. Germany , ib. France .. 18 England 19 Advanced Civilization of England 20 The Duty of Society to Educate its Children demonstrated. The Claims of Society 21 The Duties of Society 22 Consequences of neglecting them ib. Facts proving the neglect 23 LECTURE II. CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT. Christian View of the Subject 25 Modem Improvements 27 VI CONTENTS. 1 ■ Page Assumed Rights of Society 28 All Rights derived from Duties 29 False View of Education 20 Error in Divinity 31 Institution of the Parental State 32 Its Merciful Purpose i^- Our Father in Heaven 34 Education made a Curse ib. How to be made a Blessing 36 The respective Duties of the Family and of Society determined. Duties of the Family 37 Who are the Fatherless ? c 38 Selfishness of Parents 39 Children left to Servants , 40 Domestic Slavery • • 41 National Spread of the Evil 43 The Cause of Education hopeless 44 Pecuniary Means ib. Pauperism • 45 Police. Prisons 46 Every Man must subsist 47 Our Laws Anti-Christian ib. What Education Society gives, at present, to the Children of the Lowest Classes. Case of a Destitute Child 49 His first Crime 51 His first Experience of Human Justice 52 Efl:ect which it has upon his Mind 53 Continuance of his Career 54 His Repentance unavailing .,. , 55 Influence of Prisons . 56 Mmrder in Legal Forms • 57 Unlawfulness of Capital Punishment 58 Humanity of the Jewish Law ib. Severity of the English Law 59 LECTURE III. TO WHAT SORT AND DEGREE OF EDUCATION CAN EVERY HUMAN INDIVIDUAL, AS SUCH, LAY CLAIM, INDEPENDENTLY OF RANK, FORTUNE, OR ANY OTHER DISTINCTION? The great Principle of Christian Education. Doctrinal Obstruction of the Truth 61 Compromise Unlawful G2 CONTENTS. Vll Compromise no Charity 63 Tlie Light that lighteth every Man 65 To be understood literally 66 No Education without this Principle 67 God's Purpose universal ■ 68 The Means to it universally granted 69 Rule of Education, laid down by Christ 70 What it is to receive a Child in his Name 71 Education a Service of Christ 72 The true Object of Christian Education. Consequences of the above Principle 73 The end of Education not Temporal 74 AU Things to be referred to one Purpose 75 Every finite Purpose to be abandoned 76 The present Tendency of Society 77 Reaction which it must produce 78 The Child to be fitted for a better Age ib. Psychology, or the Science of the Human Soul 80 Present State of this Science 81 H)rpothesis and Truth ib. Opposite Extremes of Error 83 Revelation and Human Science 84 History of the Human Soul ib. Present State of the Human Soul 86 The Principles of Psychology revealed 87 The Faculties and the Moving Powers 88 Central Point of all the Faculties 89 Departure of Man firom that Centre 90 Man not made for the Earth 91 The Earth made for Man 92 In this all Men equal , 93 LECTURE IV. HOW FAR IS THE EDUCATION OF A CHILD TO BE REGULATED AC- CORDING TO HIS NATURAL CAPACITIES, AND HOW FAR MUST EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES BE PERMITTED TO AFFECT IT ? Premises on which the Question is to be answered. Prevailing Views of this Subject 94 Man has no Right to Knowledge 96 Duty of Man to acquire Knowledge ib. Genius an Election 97 Regard to Circumstances in Education 99 Man has no absolute Right to Possess 100 National Tendency for Wealth 102 Regard to the Mental Faculties 103 Vlll CONTENTS. Regard to the future Sphere of Action 104 What Distinctions ought to obtain 105 Some of the Phenomena of the Human Mind examined. Classification of the Faculties 106 Physical and Moral Education connected 1 07 Feeling and Intellect 108 Importance of the First Development 109 Second Stage of Education 110 Mental and Moral Freedom Ill Logic not a Guide to Truth 112 Delusive Tendency of its Formalism 113 Metaphysical Inquiries unpopular , 114 Their Vagueness accounted for 115 Dualism in our Feelings and Ideas 116 Their Inconsistency and Uncertainty 117 Examination of our Faculties resumed 118 Divine Presence in the Soul 119 Made manifest through Jesus Christ 1 20 The Mind considered in its Relation to the World. The Faculties and their Objects 121 Their Relation to each other 122 Not to be understood without Faith '. ib. Faith the Expositor of Facts 124 Corresponding Elements of Things 125 How to be discovered 126 Their Simplicity 127 Exemplified in the Nature of Number ib. Elements of all Number 129 Analysis of Human Nature 130 Its Correspondence with the Universe 131 LECTURE V. WHAT ARE THE CHIEF OBSTACLES TO A MORE GENERAL EDUCATION OF THE POOR, AND WHAT ARE THE LEADING ERRORS COMMITTED IN THIS GREATEST OF ALL CHARITIES AS FAR AS IT EXTENDS AT PRESENT. Deplorable State of Education of the Poorer Classes. Obstacles to Improvement 132 Immorality of the Lower Orders 133 Caused by that of the Higher Classes 134 Wandering Life of our Poor 136 Bad Influences upon their Children 137 Charity Boarding Schools proposed 138 The Expense would repay itself 139 Moral Difficulties of the Plan 140 CONTE^TTS. IX Page Public Ignorance on Education 141 Proved by Facts , ib. Necessity of exposing it 143 Examination of the different Systems. Old-fashioned Charity Schools 144 The National and the British Systems 146 Their Desecration of the Scriptures 147 Particularly dangerous in our Age 148 Pious Simplicity of former Ages ib. The Forms of Religion changeable 1 49 The Attachment to Forms carnal 151 Sectarian Instruction ib. Human Summaries of Religion 152 Revelation essentially Unsystematic 154 The Catechism in National Schools 155 DiiSculty of Church Education 156 Servile Manners in National Schools 157 Enforced by fllercenary Motives 158 A National School visited ib. They have tlieir Reward 1 60 The Knowledge of God for Mammon's sake 161 Intelligence in National Schools 1 62 Public Examination before the Bishops 163 Another National School visited . . 164 A Lancasterian School visited 165 The Levers of the British System = 166 Emulation aided by Rewards 167 Lancasterian Popery - 168 Obvious Effects of the System 169 A few Queries to the Candid 170 Common Pleas for bad Systems ib. The Infant System 172 Its Original Purpose 173 Almost universally lost sight of ib. Systematic Nonsense 175 Getting up an Infant School ib. Catching the System 177 LECTURE VI. WHAT ARE THK CHIEF ERRORS COMMITTED IN THE EDUCATION OF THE WEALTHIER CLASSES, AND BT WHAT MEANS CAN THE EDUCA- TION OF BOTH POOR AND RICH BE MADE TO PRODUCE, IN THE COURSE OF TIME, A MORE HARMONIOUS STATE OF SOCIETY ? The Education of the Wealthier Classes more attended to, but not less corrupt, than that of the Poor 179 X CONTENTS, Page Money rules over Principle 180 Schoolmasters the Slaves of Parents • 181 Ambition a Sanctioned Principle 182 Its true Nature examined 183 The Career of Honour , 184 The Nature and Consequences of Party Spirit. British Freedom of Opinion' ] 85 The true Standard obliterated 186 Traditions of the Elders _ ib. Cant-toleration ,.,.. c 187 Pqlitical Intolerance Anti-christian 189 Error not to be Tolerated : 190 The Erring not to be Persecuted ib. Concessions of genuine Charity 191 Intolerance should begin at Home 192 ReUgion swallowed up by Sectarianism 194 The Want of Reform universally felt 1 95 Retrospect of past Reforms ib. Education the Forerunner of a New Day , 196 The impending Reform an universal one 197 Unfitness of the present Generation 199 Other corrupt Social Principles influencing the Education of the Wealthier Classes. The Hazelwood Religion 200 Manufactured to Order 201 A mere Phylactery 202 The London University 203 "What it ought not to have left undone 204 Has Man a Right to Legislate ? 205 No Christian State in all Christendom 206 Schoolboy Parliaments and Law Courts 207 Judge not, that ye be not Judged 208 The Duty of Society towards Offenders 209 Legal Falsehood 210 Prevalence of an Hireling Spirit 211 The Power of Knowledge not believed in 212 DifSculties of a Practical Experiment ib. The Means of producing, by Education, a more harmonious State of Society ; ivith particular reference to the Subject of Instruction . 213 Classification of Knowledge - , , 214 Number and Music 215 Form and Drawing 216 Purpose of this Instructioh ib. Parental Short-sightedness 218 Outward Nature 219 Astronomy ib. CONTENTS. XI Geography ; 220 Anthropology 221 Zoology ib. Botany , 222 Mineralogy ib. Art and Industry 223 Moral Science ib. Language and History 224 Their Universal Importance 225 Religion 226 LECTURE VII. HOW FAR HAS CHRISTIANITY HITHERTO BEEN ALLOWED TO INFLU- ENCE EDUCATION, AND BY WHAT 3IEANS ARE THE DIFFICULTIES, ARISING FR03I OUTWARD DISTINCTIONS ASIONG CHRISTIANS, TO BE OBVIATED IN IT ? Present Unchristian State of Education. Distinctions of Rank in Education 227 Partiality of our Feelings 229 Spirit of Castes 230 Industry Schools , ib. Causes of the Separation of Classes 233 Mixture of Classes abroad 234 The Moral Feelings 235 Intellectual Religion ib. Fashion in Low Life 236 Unchristian Character of Religious Instruction. Religious Delusion of our Age 238 Real and Imaginary Regeneration 239 Selfish Godliness 240 False Sanctification ib. True Regeneration 242 Modern Pharisaism a National Evil 243 Mythology and Religion 244 Our Christianity yet Carnal 245 The Divine Pattern of Education , 246 Earliest Dispensations 247 The Law 248 The Prophets 249 Jesus Christ and his Apostles 250 The Divine Plan of Education Practical 251 How to be Imitated 252 Internal Evidences brought to Light 253 Xn CONTENTS. Page Scripture to be explained by Life 254 Christ within, the true Foundation 255 Christian Tahnud 256 Lack of HumiUty 257 Mr. GaWs Sabbath School System ib. Doctrines in Rhyme 258 The Assembly's Catechism 260 Compendious Systems of Divinity 261 Infinite Truth and Human Narrowness 262 The Scriptures not the End but a Means 263 " Ye Search the Scriptures" ib. God not the Originator of Evil , 265 " God made the Wicked for the Day of Evil." 266 The Man of Dust and the Breath of Life 267 Natural and Spiritual Death 268 Doctrine-mongers 269 What is Martyrdom now ? > 270 Understanding Doctrines 271 Goldfinch Divinity 272 The Child's Heart the true Catechism , 273 Words for Words, but no Meaning 274 Questions for Deadening the Mind ib. Conversion Healthy or Sickly • • • • 276 The Child never without God 277 Profaneness of Unmeaning Prayer 278 Prayer by Compulsion 279 Secret and Social Prayer 280 Religious Opportunities ib. Praying made easy 281 Complete Doctrinal Prayers 283 Contrition and Dogmatism 284 GaU «. GaU 285 Conclusion. Educate in Spirit and in Truth 286 Prepare the Way of the Lord 287 LECTURE I. WHAT ARE THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE FAMILY AND OF SOCIETY AT LARGE, RESPECTING THE EDUCA- TION OF CHILDREN BELONGING TO THEM ? It is now more than two thousand years since Plato, the profoundest of all the philosophers of the pagan world, when propounding, in his Work on the Republic, the ideas which he entertained concerning education, ex- pressed at the same time his apprehension lest his views might be considered as a mere theory, without practical usefulness, and therefore of questionable value. The mode of education, he observes, which he had to pro- pose, would clash too much with the prevailing prejudices of his fellow citizens, for him to expect that they could impartially examine his principles, or consider the results he anticipated from them as any thing but pious wishes. The same difficulties under which Plato found himself then labouring, are, I apprehend, still remaining in the way of those who have to propose a mode of education different from that which the opinion of the age has sanctioned. The natural antipathy of human nature against principles is undiminished, and mankind at large are still as blind as they ever were, to all but visible facts displayed before their eyes. Of this I am perfectly aware; but, so far from deterring me, it operates rather a UNPOPULAllITY OF THE SUBJECT. as an additional reason for me to persist in advocating those principles, however abstract, the application of which to the education of the rising generation I conceive to be the only remedy for those evils under which we are labouring. Not t^at I expect that those principles will rapidly gain groupd with the public at large, or be car- ried generally int0 effect ; I freely own, that I do not hope myself, to see them applied to the education of the mass of the people, or even partially, to any considerable extent, in my life time. But this does not form an ob- jection to those principles in themselves ; for the slightest glance over the history of mankind will convince us, that none of those ideas by which pur species has been essentially and lastingly benefitted, were ever reduced to practice, or even acknowledged as practicable, at the time when they were proclaimed. Nor do I perceive in this any inducement to desist from advocating such principles, or urging them upon the public. The task may be an ungrateful one, but it is no less binding, no less sacred. No generation of men ever knew, or were able to under- stand, their own wants ; they pined under the evils which their own folly, or that, perhaps, of their fore- fathers, had entailed upon them; but to the cure they were always blind; so much so, that the greater the evil, the greater has invariably their blindness been. If these remarks hold good concerning the history of past ages, certainly they are still more applicable to the state of things in our own time. Never, perhaps, at any for- mer period of the history of mankind was the want of improvement, and the wish for it, more generally felt and expressed ; and never perhaps was the darkness so great respecting the principles, from the active operation of which that improvement was to be expected. And never was it more necessary that those principles should be loudly and boldly proclaimed ; for, in addition to all the other evils, under which we are suffering, a spirit of compromise has gone abroad, which bids fair to mar the ox WHAT GROUNDS IT MAY BE VIEWED, «5 exertions, even of those whose hearts and minds are not shut to the claims which the state of the mass at large, makes upon the energies of the more enlightened. The evils, of which we complain, are such as require a radi- cal cure, — I do not use the word radical here in its obnoxious sense — and a radical cure is of all things that which human nature most dreads and resists. Hence it is that, in our days, many of those whose attention and endeavours are directed towards the means of amelio- rating the condition of their fellow creatures, allow them- selves to be betrayed, by a well meant but mistaken anxiety to gain the concurrence of the public in the mea- sures proposed by them, into a compromise of the very principles which they advocate, and upon which they pretend to act. They clog their own power by an al- liance, both unlawful and impolitic, with the very pre- judices against which they are making war, and thus of necessity defeat their own end. After this short introduction, I shall at once proceed to the first of the questions proposed, viz. " What are the " rights and duties of the family, and of society at " large, respecting the education of children belonging to " them." This question can be answered on two grounds : first, as a matter of mere policy, according to the dictates, as it is called, of human reason ; and, secondly, in a religious point of view. For the present, I shall confine B 2 4 THE SOCIAL GROUND EXAMINED. myself to the former inquiry, reserving the latter for another opportunity. The premises which we have to go upon, when endea- vouring to determine, on social grounds, the respective rights and duties of the community, and of the family, concerning the education of their children, are simply the two facts, that society exists, and that children are bom and must necessarily grow up in it. From these premises, which men have endeavoured to modify, but which they could never entirely do away with, all the inquiries made into this subject have begun, and a variety of theoretical schemes and practical systems have successively been built upon them. In two opposite 'directions the very extremes have been reached, the one at the earliest, the other at the latest period of philosophy ; and I do not think that there is any intermediate shade between those ex- tremes which has not been propounded in theory, or attempted in practice, at some time and in some nation. The maxim, that the child belonged to society, and was to be educated for it, was carried to such an extent by Plato, that, in entire disregard of the strongest and the most sacred feelings of the human bosom, he proposed the separation of the infant from the mother at the very instant of birth ; and although he claimed the services of the mother in nursing, yet his arrangements were such as to prevent, as far as possible, her discerning her own offspring, in the number of children, amongst which it was placed : so that if perchance she should happen to nurse her own infant, she should do so without knowing it to be hers. Whilst in this manner Plato claimed the child entirely and exclusively for society, Rousseau fell into the other extreme, to educate man entirely and exclusively for himself. The endless variety of systems, holding the middle between those two extremes, that have either been practically tried, or at least set forth in theory, I shall not undertake to enumerate ; but I think it will not be incon- gruous with our present purpose, to take a short review HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 5 of the state of education, as it was at different periods among the principal nations of the civilized world; in order to see, what share society has in every instance taken in the accomplishment of so important a task. If we go to the cradle of pagan civilization, and to the first establishment of social institutions, to the oriental states of Hindostan, China, Persia, and their less con- spicuous neighbours, including all the nations celebrated in antiquity, which had their abode to the East of the Tigris, as well as Egypt, which, previously to the Greek influence upon it, belonged to the same class, — we find that educa- tion, like every thing else, bore there not a progressive, but a stationary character. Their religious systems were a sort of petrifaction of those spiritual truths, of which mankind have been put in possession by a primitive revelation, but the nature of which was greatly perverted in the course of tradition. Incapable of seeing them in spirit and in truth, the inhabitants of the South of Asia incorporated them, as it were, in their view of visible nature, by whose grandeur and beauty, as displayed in those countries, not their senses only, but their minds also had been led captive. Having thus fallen under the bondage of the earth, the genius of those nations became essentially earthy ; their social institutions accordingly were entirely modelled upon the distinctions produced between different classes of men in consequence of the peculiar manner in which every one of them was brought in contact with that outward world, which, to them, was the comprehension of the universe. The cha- racter of man and his social existence depended not upon the intellectual and moral elements of his being, but upon the sort of intercourse, as it were, which existed between him and nature, of whom all were equally the slaves. Hence the division in castes, according to the different employments and trades which the imperious call of ne- cessity created at the first origin of society ; and hence an education, which had no other object than to make 6 THE ORIEXTAL NATIONS. man, whatever the constitution of his inward nature might be, outwardly a fit member of that caste in which he was bom,— an education, which employed for the attainment of that object, no other means but those which that same caste afforded. To this national and individual thraldom, we must attribute the moral barrenness of the long aged records of those superannuated states of the eastern world, and the never ceasing circle of sameness, in which their national life has been revolving, wherever it was not interrupted by foreign invasions, from the earliest dawn of civilization, down to the present day, without any other change than the inevitable one of slow decrepitude. Of the genius of those mercantile tribes, which extended themselves from the shores of the Persian Gulf over the plains of the Euphrates, and froro thence to the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, and the north-west border of Africa, but little is known. The philosopher can no more trace the effects of their civilization in the moral history of mankind, than the traveller can discover the remains of their splendid structures in the sands which have covered their dwelling-places ; and from this fact, as well as from the mean and short-sighted spirit of their nobility, so often exhibited in the records of their political history, the inference is, I think, neither rash nor pre- sumptuous, that their education, calculated only for the temporary purposes of gain, though it may have rendered subservient to those purposes some of the mental powers of man, yet had never a direct bearing upon the develop- ment and cultivation of his immortal nature ; nor, on the other hand, any public tendency, but inasmuch as ambi- tion, and the love of admiration may have given an addi- tional stimulus to the spirit of trade, in communities in which wealth was the chief qualification for the posses- sion of power. A brighter prospect, however, opens before us, when we come farther west and north, to the shores of Greece, ANCIKKT GRliECE. ' whose cheerful and lively population, immortalized in the annals of human history, forms the connecting link between oriental and occidental civilization. The views which the Greeks took of education, the systems which they intro- duced in their diiferent republics, although inapplicable to a state of society formed under the influence of divine revelation, nevertheless still possess a high interest for us, inasmuch as they exhibit the most perfect patterns of education, which the pagan world has ever produced, and probably could ever produce, destitute as it was of the light of religion. The principle on which Greek educa- tion was founded, was that of the most absolute freedom of individual development, which the community pro- moted by affording ample opportunities and encourage- ment, rather than by making any authoritative provisions. It is true, that by the institutions of Sparta, that free- dom was greatly limited, if not entirely annihilated ; the child being at an early period of life separated from those to whom he was attached by natural ties, and brought under a system of discipline, calculated to render him both an obedient instrument and a faithful represen- tative, of that proud and independent spirit, which Ly- curgus designed should be the Spartan character. But it must not be forgotten, that Sparta forms rather an exception to the general character of the Greek republics ; and that Athens, as it gave, intellectually and morally, the tone to all Greece, so it is likewise the best in- stance to be adduced for exemplifying the spirit of Greek education. In the investigation of this subject, I am aware that a distinction ought to be made between the education of those who were destined for the service of the oracles and other temples, and the preparation which the greater number of the free-born youths underwent to be fitted for the pursuits of public life. The former deserves but little consideration, as it was confined to very partial and limited objects ; for al- 8 ANCIENT GREECE. though a superstitious deference was generally paid to some of the religious observances, and particularly to the decisions of oracles, yet this deference was not what can be properly called religious feeling ; it seems rather to have been analogous to the superstitious credulity which we often met with, even in enlightened persons, concerning matters in which they would scorn to profess a serious belief. It admits of great doubt, whether at any period of Greek history, the tales of mythology were considered by the enlightened part of the nation any better than as pleasing fictions ; indeed it is hardly to be conceived that a system of religion, in which all the supposed deities were purely the creatures of man's imagination, should ever have been more than a matter of poetical taste. This view of the subject is confirmed by the fact, that public educa- tion Avas carried on in Greece, quite independently of the priesthood. In consistency with the principles on which the whole frame of society was constituted in Greece, we find the education of their youths, as I ob- served before, founded on the basis of perfect individual liberty. A free career was opened to every child for the unfolding of his powers in such a direction, and to such an extent, as was most agreeable to the peculiar organization of his mind. To render those powers independent of the leading-strings of the pedagogue was the first object which the Greek teacher aimed at ; instead of endeavouring to keep his pupils under a pedantic bondage, as is the case among us, he exerted himself to emancipate them as early as possible. This was the object of the mathematical in- struction of the Greek schools, which, very different from that of our colleges and schools, consisted not in learning by rote a prescribed set of problems and solutions, but in an independent solution on the part of the pupil of such problems as the teacher conceived to be most adapted to his capacities, and the peculiar turn of his mind. To this instruction is that acuteness and penetration to be attri- ANCIENT GREECE. While such judicious care was bestowed upon the de- velopment of the intellect, still more powerful levers were applied to the moral feelings. The study of the fine arfs, and especially of poetry, whose harmonious notes re- echoed from shore to shore, and from island to island, formed the other and more important part of that almost irresistible combination of intellectual and moral influences, designated by the comprehensive name of /^ovo-ixn'. Thus inspired with a high poetic enthusiasm, and armed with the weapon of acute penetration, the Greek youth approached the study of philosophy, the investigation of the most abstruse as well as the most practical sub- jects, of the inner nature of man, as well as of his out- ward relations as a social being. The latitude which was in all their studies afforded to every individual, to in- vent, to think, to feel, and to apprehend for himself, was the life of their education, which became dead from the moment when the sophists began to reduce it into the forms of system and pedantry. To nothing else than this latitude, this individual liberty, is it to be attributed, that, within comparatively so short a period, and within so small an extent of territory, so many men rose up of eminent character, all strongly marked with the features of distinct originality, the powerful influence of which was so great, that whilst in other nations, and among the Greeks themselves in Sparta, the character of emi- nent men was determined by that of the nation : in Athens, on the contrary, and in other Greek states, the commu- nity assumed successively the different characters, how- 10 ANCIENT ROME. ever contradictory with eaich other, of those privileged individuals, whom natural endowments and a high degree of cultivation rendered, not by legal enactment, but by the universal consent of admiration, the rulers of their fellow citizens, and the tone-givers of their age. Very different from this picture is that which Rome presents. Rome's social constitution was, from its very beginning, nothing more nor less than a highly refined and highly consistent system of social selfishness. Much has been said of the disinterestedness of the Roman cha- racter, of that spirit of self-denial, and devotcdness to the universal welfare, which are praised up as the definitive virtue of that celebrated city ; but it has been forgotten that the very reverse of all this was the character which the Romans as a body displayed towards a world trodden in the dust by their unquenchable thirst of conquest. It has been forgotten that, if examples of self-sacrifice occur in Roman history, which are unparalleled in the records of any other Pagan nation, they were only the price paid for those phantoms of glory, by which the Republic re- warded the suppression of every independent thought, and of every free feeling of the human bosom. The self-de- nial was but an illusory one ; for every Roman looked with an eye of insatiable greediness to the commonwealth for his share of the national grandeur and glory, as a com- pensation, which he considered himself entitled to for the absolute sacrifice of his individual selfishness ; so that when the state was no longer able to satisf}'^ the progres- sively increasing demands of those impetuous creditors, the Roman threw off the ill-endured mask, and, in the entire dissolution of all social order, displayed individually that same character, which, as his national feature, had ren- dered him long before the execration of the world. It seems somewhat inconsistent with this absolute claim to the whole existence of every individual, which the Roman community preferred, and for a time enforced, that edu- ANCIEXT ROME. 11 cation should have been allowed to remain in the hands of the family. But the paradox is easily solved if we consider that the mother was no less a Roman than the father, and that the pride and ambition of the family was an atmosphere so favourable to the growth of those much lauded virtues of the Roman character, that the state, in leaving the child in the hands of the parent, so far from hazarding the public object of education, on the contrary secured it much more effectually than could have been done by any other means. A splendid political and military career was in Rome the straight road to church preferment. How little Roman education had to do with science, with art and philosophy, is notorious enough. Down to the period of the conquest of Greece, those fruits of the Greek soil were entirely unknown in the invincible city ; and what estimation they were held in afterwards, is sufficiently evident from the fact, that the task of teaching them devolved exclusively upon slaves. There is, however, one school, and that a public one, in which the Roman youth received part of his education — I mean the camp. To make him a good soldier, and, if descended from an aristocratic family, a good general, the boy was domesticated in the tent as early as possible, there to be rendered familiar with the revolting scenes of the field of battle, and to be inured to 12 THE JEWISH THEOCRACY. that callousness of feeling, to that contempt of suffering and death, which was an essential ingredient in the cha- racter of a Roman. This was the education by which Rome insured victory and triumph to its rapacious eagles ! Having thus taken a short glance of the state of educa- tion as it was in the pagan world, it will be more easy for us to understand the change which was operated upon it by the introduction of Christianity. But before I proceed to this, it will be necessary that I should notice the cha- racter which education assumed under the influence of that theocratic principle upon which the social constitution of the Jewish nation was founded ; as it forms a most striking contrast with those schemes of human policy wliich I have before mentioned. Among the Jews, education was, as we might expect from the peculiar and eminent station assigned to that people in the history of the ancient world, Essentially religious. From the moment of birth the child was made subject to the ordinances of religion ; its earliest impressions must have been those of indispensable religious duty. Every occurrence of daily life was a means of bringing to the recollection of the youths of Israel, the God of their fathers, by whose will the whole of their lives was to be regulated ; and the visits which they paid, from the age of twelve years, three times every year, at the temple of Jerusalem, where the whole nation was on those solemn occasions assembled, gave to those religious feelings which domestic life had awakened, a national character. Then it was, that the idea of the invisible God ruling over his people Israel, and directing them in all their ways, received its full value, and its full force. Their priests and rulers were not men commanding in their own name ; they were the witnesses of the Most High, — his standard- bearers, — the messengers of his will and word among his people ; and every individual felt, that the direction of his heart, and the conduct of his life, belonged not to himself, but to the Lord. It was this absolute submission of the soul to the ruling power of the invisible Jehovah, — the THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 13 effect of a purely theocratic education, in those periods of the Jewish history, in which the people lived in the spirit, not after the letter of their dispensation, — that filled the whole nation with that high enthusiasm, with which they boldly held up the banners of the Lord of Hosts in the midst of an idolatrous world, and gained the most glo- rious triumphs over enemies, which, in a merely human point of view, must have overwhelmed them by the supe- riority of their power, as, in fact, they actually did, when- ever the spirit of the Lord was departed from the elected nation. Of great and lasting importance is, in this, as in so many other respects, the great example which God has set up in Israel; for in spite of the abundant profession which there is among us, of religious education, I have no hesitation in saying, that if it was not for the picture ex- hibited in the better times of the Jewish history, the world would not yet have had, down to the present day, a prac- tical illustration of the effect which the theocratic principle, the principle of the power and Spirit of God ruling over the heart of man, applied to education, has upon the cha- racter of individuals, and of nations. But I resume now the history of education in the Gen- tile world, considering the changes which the introduction of Christianity produced. We have not, that I afti awdre, any direct information respecting this subject, as it stood in the primitive Christian Church ; but, from what we know of its character in other respects, it will not be difficult to infer, with a high degree of certainty, what may have been the leading features of education among the early Christians. From the simple application, which was, at the very earliest period, made of the principles of brotherly love, upon the adminis- tration of the temporal concerns of believers, inducing them to establish among themselves community of goods, if not always in form, at least in spirit, and to unite in a sort of sacred household, — I should apprehend that the education of the first Christians was essentially domestic. From the meek and lovely character of the Christian dispensation 14 CHURCH a:nd state. itself, and from the heartfelt simplicity with which charity was received, in those times, as its leading feature, I should further infer, that the moving principle in education also was love rather than fear. The strict discipline which obtained in the early churches, for the sake of consistency between doctrine and pi'actice, as well as for the purpose of rigorous distinction from the pagan world, leads me to think, that attention to a proper conduct of life was a very essential point, also, in the domestic discipline ; and lastly, I should conclude from the social position in which the first Christian communities were placed, and the persecutions under which they were labouring, on one hand, that their virtues were more of a passive and negative, than of an active and positive nature : and, on the other, that the whole tendency of their education was not to direct the child's attention to the goods and enjoyments, the honours and preferments, of this world, but to render him conscious of those eternal treasures, which no human exertion can pro- cure, and no human persecution can take away. 