both were actually engaged, -the emulation between them cannot be denied, the disparity of means was speedily manifested. The buildings, the equipments, the revenues, of the Episcopalian schools were displayed in a proud preeminence. That Church took up its measures with a unity, a vigour, a success, which outstripped its forerunners and competitors. Its establishment gave those measures strength, its wealth facility, its discipline compactness. That which others were compelled to struggle in order to effect, it accomplished with a giant's ease. It still has the advantage of power and riches. None of those who may deny its right to be the instructress of the people, will complain of the influence which it has morally acquired, or grudge the ascendancy which it has by its voluntary efforts won. Time was, when it was provoked to jealousy: it now quickens those who gave it the first impulse. We deem it, in the working of its schools, too exclusive in its terms of reception, too intolerant in its imposition of doctrine. But its system must be of certain benefit. It extends to spots which more detached exertions cannot reach. The Dissenters, confident in the rights and blessings of knowledge, have fallen behind their avowals. In the Sabbath Schools they are, indeed, among the foremost. In the Weekly Schools they are grievously defaulting. It is conceded, that much of their doings is concealed within the British and Foreign School Society, of which they have no recognised honour

but are still the main support. But were they all in it, were it all theirs, it is not enough. They ought to contribute more than all its funds: they ought to centuple all its schools.

There is a spirit, however, arising, which, from whatever quarter it may show itself, we are ready always to condemn. It is an affected ignorance of

the labours of others. It is the utter evasion of them. Does any man sincerely hope that the whole youthful generation can be brought into his church or community? Can he be bigoted enough to dream of such an absorption and comprehension? Has he any right, in fact or in equity, to speak of all besides as destitute of Christian education? No station, no talent, of such men, can make us believe this their oversight to be sincere, or this their zeal to be honest.

Better will it be that the contest of all parties should exist alone in a generous strife of out-doing each other. There is a scope for all. There is little occasion of self-exultation to any. When the country is subdued to knowledge and religion, it will be sufficient time to adjust our respective deserts and to grasp our proper honours.

"But rise, let us no more contend, nor blame

Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive

In offices of love how we may lighten

Each other's burden in our share of woe." "7%

Milton's Paradise Lost, Book x.

CHAPTER IX.

ON THE PARTIES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE.

IT

It may be felt not a little mortifying, that a question like that which concerns the proper agency in popular education, should, in this period of the world, be open to discussion. It might have been expected, that the men of light and benevolence would have long since agreed. The truth, we should have thought, must, ere now, be ultimately fixed. It surely is capable of easy determination. Can our country be divided in opinion, after its frequent boasts of knowledge and freedom? Can it hesitate, when it affects a tender guardianship of all its natives, and sets its Penitentiaries in the ends of the earth? Can it speak of it as an unsettled point, standing as it does in a position so distinctly to be observed, arrayed as it is with an influence to be so powerfully felt, displaying, as it imagines, a pattern to be so worthily followed?

Great principles are not hastily approached. They require long probation and experiment, before they settle down into proof and experience. They are often left in doubt, because they are not wanted in

application. New circumstances arise, which direct men's attention to them. A crisis comes, and they can no longer remain in abeyance. At once they must be exposed and decided. The delay was not lost the exigence was not precipitate. This is the common history of all important conclusions gained by the public mind. They drag along with scarcely any perceptible progress, through events which seem to have no affinity with them, and through ages which seem to have no care for them,-until they are established as under a flash of light, and with a directness of intuition. We are slow in mooting what has hitherto been assumed, and love not to disturb what has almost universally been granted.

Though the science of legislation was cultivated from the earliest ages, how little are its precise functions cleared and established! Few minds are settled, still fewer coincide. That which the interests of social man might have been expected to establish at once, still wavers in indetermination. Some would constitute it as a Ceremonial, to impose and to awe. Others would render it an Agency, to absorb all the business of life into itself. It is principally viewed by one party as a rule over mind and conscience: mainly is it regarded by a second, as a contrivance to release man from his wants, and from his exertions to supply them. The former hails the Monarch as the Vicegerent of heaven, as the Roman Emperors were the Pontifices Maximi: the latter vociferates, as did the

mob of Paris, while they bore Louis the 16th from Versailles to his capital, Boulanger, Boulanger! gracing his office with a procession of loaves.

The time has arrived when we must needs ask, To whom is the education of the people committed? This question has been adjudicated, in the estimate of many, beyond any righteous reversal: others think that, until now, the evidence was never completely sifted, nor the understandings of men prepared to pronounce upon it That there is difficulty in it, might be suspected, from the confident tone in which the contending parties speak: neither will allow the possibility of each other's conclusion. But difficulty of this kind has often been overcome, and the clear accents of truth have presently been heard overpowering the controversy.

There is one constitution of responsibility which is original. It must plead precedence to every other. It is a law the most fixed and certain. He who decreed that the species should spring constantly from itself, has ordained the parental authority as primary and invariable. To honour father and mother is the first commandment of the second table, first with promise, first in morality, first in influence. It cannot be abrogated nor superseded nor transferred. It is the root of all duties, and the pledge of all virtues. This is the true school. The parent's knee is the proper place of moral training. How beautiful is the sentence which Cicero indites

concerning the