thinker. The reader is not compelled to think the writer of the simplest epistle must. The bonds of an intellectual and holy fellowship thus unite the ends of the earth. Distance is annihilated, separation obviated, by this invention. No one can employ it but to be raised in the scale of social and reflective being. Education of the lowest sense is belied when this is neglected.

Arithmetic is not only of the greatest advantage as a technical calculation,-a check on fraud, a guide to providence, an exercise of mind, -it is the science of number. While it is probable that the larger class of these humble pupils will advance no further than the simpler elements of what is denominated ciphering, the mathematical mind of the amplest powers must begin here, and may find in the easiest figures of the slate or sand, the rough draught and rude germ of its future severest analyses and noblest diagrams.

But we fear that the spirit of the age tends almost wholly to a sordid, utilitarian, usufruct, discipline of the youthful mind. Our ambition is to base all upon Grammar learning. It is easy to raise the laugh against the shepherd-boy and the plough-boy versed in classical studies. Yet such are found on Scotia's plains and hills, sometimes reading their former lessons still. In many of the Foreign Schools those noble languages are taught. The design of our Native Foundations,— shamelessly perverted by a grasping aristocracy! was

obviously to train the poor in such literature. It is impossible to extol its advantages in too earnest terms. No education so opens the mind. None so quickens the understanding. None so prepares for every other species of knowledge. None so refines the taste. None so creates the inner world of lofty images and variegated thoughts. Such a seasoning of the people's mind would be of incomparable value. The whole social edifice would be raised. Its universality would prevent any of those ill consequences which are often feared. Those who towered into superior stations would require just as much preeminence and originality to claim them, as they do now. There would be an equal level for them to spurn. There would be as large a crowd for them to surpass.

There is one Means which possesses vast capabilities, and which might be tried with great power on our population. Hitherto it has been considered the pastime, an infant holiday. Yet the school which receives all but the babe, is a mighty power. It draws out the full mimetic tendency of infancy, fills not only the memory with results, but with the rules of working them; gives to the earliest childhood the handle of the profoundest calculations and reasonings; crowns the little elfin with the honours which many a brow, time-worn and pensive, lacks. It has been truly said, nothing is so beautiful as the mind of a child. It is contrary to all evidence, that this indoctrination is superficial, or its impression fugitive.

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 formatve 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 objec

tions 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.