There is nothing which so abides as the memory of this period. And could the whole infant race of our country be thus initiated, we cannot doubt to what a climax education might be conducted. We should lay up for our country the treasures of a well-trained youth. And when it is remembered that the children of the poor must be very soon required to earn their bread, how inestimable is this prime! How much useful information may be secured! What a formative influence may be exercised! "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right."* This season lost, there is none other which may be substituted for it. Every following one must be interrupted, broken, mixed with uncongenial instructions and pursuits. To accomplish any general, wholesome, availing, education of the people, this is a most essential instrument. It is the gentle turning of the nascent spring into its proper river-course. It is the first shoot of the fibre which grows up into the massive trunk. It is the rich vermilion of the orient blushing into the golden light of day.

In contrast to the Infant school, and as embracing the period when attendance at every school has ceased, the Mechanics' Institute cannot be too greatly praised, nor too strongly recommended. The objections raised to it are those of fear and not of fact. The libraries of these establishments are not intended to be religious; but are they open to infidelity? You

* Prov. xx. 11.

will find in them Ray, Derham, Paley; perhaps Whewell, Pritchard, Abercrombie; much that bears on the evidences of Christianity as well as on the laws of nature. The system of lectures is only one of its methods, but even this is very stirring to attention, inquisitiveness, and emulation.* In the department of the classes there is real labour, and only diligence can keep its place. An intercommunity of mind is constituted by association and occasional debate. Some external supervision and support are proper, but two things can alone give these institutions an extended vitality and efficiency, the enforcement of contribution from all their attendants, and the surrender to their members of the chief administration. The habit of enquiry and research, the taste for literature and science, which the young man forms under this direction and example, in their utility to society and benefit to himself, are beyond the reach of calculation. Four hundred of these societies exist in Great Britain. It is calculated that they contain 80,000 members, possess 400,000 volumes, raise £30,000. a-year, and in the same time originate 400 lectures.

We scruple not to say, that the more assured the people are in physical truth, the more happy and the

* "It is a solemn custom there, to have lectures daily, whereto they be constrained to be present that be chosen and appointed to learning. Howbeit, a great multitude of every sort of people, both men and women, go to hear lectures, some one, some another, as every one's nature is inclined."-More's Utopia.

more moral they are likely to become. If this be not the proper tendency, the converse must be allowed. Then, in proportion as things are misapprehended, will human happiness and morality advance! Error will be the parent of virtue! A peasantry shall be orderly, industrious, content, religious, just as they are found to conceive of every fact of nature in a false light! It requires, indeed, no ordinary acuteness to determine how this incessant misapprehension can operate to these favourable results. So long as it shall be believed that this earth is one extended plane, that the sun courses around it, that it is larger than all the constellations, it is hoped that the million will be peaceable and obedient! Should they ever suspect that they were in the wrong, should they ever make an approach to the true laws and motions of the universe, the ploughman, it is feared, will desert his furrow, and the shepherd his flock! The connection of these causes and effects, we have not divined. Could every man read the works of nature as Newton, and analyse the human mind as Locke, we should only be confident of the increase of so much good, because this would be only the proper understanding of so much truth. He who is most enlightened will be the better able to exclaim, "Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands."* If these be "works sought out of all them who have pleasure therein," this taste and

* Psa. xcii. 4.

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contemplation cannot be dishonouring to the Creator nor unworthy of us. Vacant apathy and dull conceit are sufficiently evinced towards the tokens of the Deity around us : a brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this:" but we cannot perceive how there is in this state of mind and form of character, any security for social well being.

Mechanical knowledge would be an appropriate addition to this training in physics; for it is melancholy when the machine which man attends for some minor office, seems more intelligent than himself. Powers are employed in wondrous forms and combinations, but those powers are very simple. It is in this simplicity that they are great. Let them be scanned, explored. No rude curiosity, no superstitious dread, will then be left to prey upon the mind. Even the overweening pride of human achievement will be humbled. It will be seen that, in the most complicated engine, there is no power created, that the power had always existed, that its more laborious operation is only redeemed or its collision prevented, that there have been but discovery and adaptation of it, that it has no inbeing in the human mind, that it subsisted in the works which were from the foundation of the world. The ingenuity of man in the invention is not denied, but "his God doth teach him to discretion ;" and it is only ingenuity in collecting gifts, and following laws, which He has bountifully and wisely provided.

4

Refinement of taste may be fostered among the classes addicted to the extremest labour. Wherever the arts abound, this refinement descends to the humblest ranks of life. In Athens the common people acquired such an accurate ear from the models of eloquence among them, that the slightest offence of tone and pronunciation was immediately detected. The love of music, painting, sculpture, grows upon the most unsusceptible minds when the noblest specimens are familiarised to them,—and would not this elegance be a happy exchange for coarse sentiment and manner? Would it be in any danger of sinking into effeminacy? We should like to see our people in the Botanical Garden, in the Picture Gallery, in the Musical Academy, in the Philosophical Museum. We should rejoice if such were their recreations and amusements. We would that they were embued with the true sense of beauty. The poor on the Continent mingle with the rich in public places, and there is no rudeness: they walk in the same arcades and parterres, and there is no spoliation. Our countrymen have been distrusted, and, therefore, have been debarred from these higher advantages. Surely it is time that a new trial should be given them. They have already proved themselves worthy of the privilege. Let them have access to the trophies of nature and the wonders of composition, and there will be witnessed a taste,- a most worthless substitute for a deeper education as many a country shows, but which