of those demoralizing causes were then coming into operation, which, with all the counteractions since supplied by the church, and the different religious sects, by schools, and by bibles, have produced very injurious effects upon the morals and principles of the nation; that the tide of an unprecedented commercial prosperity began then to flow into the country, and continued, for a long succession of years, to render the means of sensual indulgence more ample, and to corrupt more deeply all ranks of society; that in consequence of the independence thus given to the lower orders in many of the most populous districts, the moral controul and influence of the higher became gradually weaker; that the agitation of political subjects, during the American quarrel, and the French revolution, with the part which even the operative classes were able to take in such discussions by means of an extended education, (5)

(5) The effects above referred to education generally have been by some placed to the account of those efforts to promote the instruction of the poor, which have sprung from the zeal of religious societies, They forget that the growing wages of mechanics and manufacturers in the periods referred to, supplied the means of mere education to their children, without at all connecting it with the principles of religion, Education would, therefore, have been sufficiently extended to produce mischievous effects, and that without any counteraction, had those religious bodies never instituted Sunday and other Schools. We neither have it now, nor have ever had it in our power to choose whether knowledge shall be diffused among the labouring classes, or not. This is too frequently lost sight of, and a whole train of ingenious reasoning has been vitiated, in consequence of so obvious a fact not having been adverted to. Some have discussed the subject, as though the education of the lower classes was entirely dependent upon provisions of government, and the efforts of the charitable. On the contrary, in consequence of the progress of commerce in this country, and the improvement which it has made in the condition of the

produced, as will always be the case among the half informed, a strong tendency to republicanism, a

poor generally, immense numbers who still remain in the labouring classes, have been taught the arts of reading and writing at the expense of their parents. Had there then been no charitable schools for the education of the poor, a sufficient number of persons would have been mixed with them in every shop and factory, and in the daily avocations of life, and the places of vicious resort, who, themselves being able to read pernicious publications, both as to religion and politics, would have conveyed their poison as widely as it could be transmitted by that general education which most enlightened persons have advocated, but from which some have feared the perversion of the principles of the populace. The infection would not, it is true, have had so many channels for its conveyance, but it would have found that mass of ignorance and vice to which it had access, much better prepared to receive it; and it would have spread without any controul, either from awakened intelligence, or from just opinions early deposited in the mind.

Those who urge the crimes of society, and the late perturbed state of the populace in many parts of the country, as presumptions, at least, that the education of the poor has not produced the effects. hoped for, seem also to assume that the friends of universal education have promised the public more than has been realized. There may have been strong and incautious things said on the subject, both in sermons, and in speeches, and in the reports of school-societies, by minds of sanguine temperament; but surely they never meant that we should overlook the counteractions which the corrupt nature of man, and the seductions offered by vice to a feebly-resisting nature, bring into operation against all institutions which aim at the moral improvement of mankind. Higher institutions than those of education are subject to the same kind of opposition; and, with all the general benefit they produce, have their disappointments and reverses. The circulation of the Scriptures, and the exercise of the Christian ministry, may be given as instances in point; and the same objections, drawn from partial failures, might be as reasonably turned against them. The Bible does not sanctify all who read it; the most faithful pulpit, hung round as it may be with trophies of moral victories, cannot boast universal conquest over the ignorance and vices of those who habitually surround it. Even the most careful education of a family, by the wisest, the most tender, and the most competent parents, will often be found unable to accomplish its designs; but

restless desire of political change on every pinching of the times, and its constant concomitant, an aver

who concludes any thing against parental care on this account? The operation of the great institutions for the education of the poor,-the National Schools, those of the British and Foreign School Society,→ the Sunday Schools of the kingdom, and other similar educational charities, are not to be judged by too severe a rule. Let it be con sidered, that the moral effect of the school upon the child, is often counteracted by the example of parents; and that the immoral habits, and too often the total irreligion and profanity at home, fall upon children, thus circumstanced, with an influence derived from the double source of natural authority, and the pre-disposition to evil in their own hearts..

We are, however, willing to allow, that if those who seem disposed to question the benefit of general education, ask, as the proof of its salutary effect, more than is reasonable, the friends of education have given some cause for so high a demand, by an occasional extravagance of sentiment on their part; and we make this concession the more willingly, because the inordinate opinions to which we allude, have led, in some cases, to errors in the conduct of charity schools, which must be remedied, or a greater disappointment will ensue.

Many of the zealous advocates of education seem to have conceived of instruction as a kind of moral magic, which was at once to charm society into industry, sobriety, and virtue, rather than as a discipline, diligently implanting good principles, and maintaining a firm but patient struggle with the evil tendencies of the human mind. The worst part of this folly has been the too frequent separation of religion from education, and the confining of this hope of magical effect to the mere arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic. To construct the moral man, it has been too often thought sufficient to give energy to the intellectual man; and thus those means which Divine Providence has put within our power, to use for our own improvement, and for the improvement of each other, and from which alone moral influence can flow, have been neglected, or being regarded only as secondary, have been very partially, or feebly applied. The efforts made for several years past to instruct the poor, have done much good; but they have done good only as they have been connected with religion. The history of man, at home and abroad, in modern and in ancient times, sufficiently proves that it is not in the nature of mere human science to produce moral regulation and restraint. For this reason also, the education spread among the people

sion to the national establishment, partly as the result of ill-digested theories, partly as controlling the favourite notions of the disaffected, and partly because this feeling was encouraged by the negligent habits of many of the clergy, and the absence of that influence they might have acquired in their parishes by careful pastoral attentions. To all this is to be added the diffusion of infidel principles, both of foreign and home growth, which, from the studies of the learned, descended into the shop of the mechanic, and, embodied in cheap and popular works, found their way into every part of the empire. To

of this country would have been more efficient, had it been more studiously connected with religion; had the principles of Christianity been more carefully implanted in the memory; had a regular attendance on the public worship of Almighty God been more punctually observed, and more rigidly enjoined; had the due place been given in every school to the word of God; and had the full tone of the youthful mind, so to speak, been wound up to a consenting sympathy with the supreme importance of spiritual and eternal things. The hoped-for effect will often fail; but it ought to be the concern of all who are engaged in the education of the poor, that it should not fail for want of the exact and serious application of all the means of moral improvement in our power.

The whole question is reduced to this; not whether knowledge shall circulate among the poor, (for that cannot be prevented,) but, whether it shall be communicated by the charitable and influential ranks of society, accompanied by those principles of religion which alone can afford the hope of rendering it a moral corrective. We may suffer a vast number of the lower orders to remain illiterate; but they will not be excluded on that account from the opinions of the day. They will learn them from those of their own class who have got their learning independently of charities; and, should these opinions be pernicious, it is easy to see how much more injuriously they must generally operate upon the unprepared, than upon the guarded mind. The Christian public has it in its power to confer the most substantial benefit upon the country, by a general system of education, connected with religion.

counteract agencies and principles so active and so pernicious, it is granted, that no means have yet been applied of complete adequacy. This is the reason why their effects are so rife in the present day, and that we are now in the midst of a state of things. which no considerate man can contemplate without some anxiety. These circumstances, so devastating to morals and good principles, could only have been fully neutralized by the ardent exertions of every clergyman in his parish, of every dissenting minister in his congregation, of every Methodist preacher in his circuit, of every private Christian in his own circle, or in the place which useful and pious institutions of various kinds would have assigned him; and even then the special blessing of God, that influence upon men's minds, and that efficient co-operation with human means, which Mr. Southey treats so lightly, would have been necessary to give effect to the whole. But had no correctives been applied, what had been the present state of the nation and of the Church? The labours of the founders of Methodism were directly counteractive of the evils just mentioned from the beginning; and those have little reason to stigmatise them, who deplore such evils most, and yet have done least for their correction and restraint. Wherever these men went, they planted the principles of religion in the minds of the multitudes who heard them; they acted on the offensive against immorality, infidelity, and error; the Societies they raised were employed in doing good to all; the persons they associated with them in the work of national reformation were always engaged in spreading good principles; and though great