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CATCHING THE SYSTEM.

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place is he to be sent? The expense of sending him up to London, or to some other place of note, is found too great, particularly for so short a time, and it seems, therefore, better that he should be sent the least distance possible, to the nearest Infant School, to "catch" the system. But suppose even he come to London, or to Exeter, or Bristol, to one of the best schools that are, what can he learn in so short a time? What strikes him chiefly, is the singing of the tables, the distribution in classes, the marching round the room, the clapping of hands, and all the other machinery. This he catches as well as he can, and back he goes, and opens his school, and his chief endeavour is to follow the system which he has caught, as closely as he can. And what can be expected after this? What else, but that the Infant School should become a treadmill for the minds of the poor children!

Such has been the history of the Infant system; it has been misapprehended by prejudice and narrow-mindedness, and perverted by bigotry and false zeal, so much so, that those who were its warmest advocates, are tempted to wish that never so much as one Infant School had been established in the country.

I have had a sad picture to lay before you, when speaking of the neglect of education, and of the numbers of children who are left without any instruction at all; but no less sad is the picture of the present state of our Charity Schools. All the evils under which society at large labours, are, as it were, concentrated upon this point,—as if to destroy the very vitals of the nation. The universal motive is money-getting; the means are all devised upon the analogy of large manufactures, carried on by mechanical power; and, to make the measure of evil full, the cloak of it all is a dead profession of the gospel. The principle of mammon is recognized as the life of education; the existence of mental and moral powers is set aside; and the spirit of religion is supplanted by the letter. Such is the

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general character of the education which is imparted to the poorer classes of this country, whatever may be the name of the system, under which it is done. I leave you to judge, what must become of the nation!

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LECTURE VI.

WHAT ARE THE CHIEF ERRORS COMMITTED IN THE EDUCATION OF THE WEALTHIER CLASSES, AND BY WHAT MEANS CAN THE EDUCATION OF BOTH POOR AND RICH

BE MADE TO PRODUCE, IN THE COURSE OF TIME, A

MORE HARMONIOUS STATE OF SOCIETY.

THERE is, as we have seen, much narrowmindedness, and much false principle, prevailing in the education of the poor; but I fear that the children of the rich fare no better; that, on the contrary, their education is more perverse in proportion to the greater affluence of means, means which, as the parents look upon them as their own, so they employ them for the accomplishment of their own purposes. They consider even the children themselves as their property, and with this inveterate view of their rights, and the little clearness they have on the subject of their duties, it is not at all to be wondered at, that they sin continually against nature, that is to say, against the will of God concerning the child. The vices and prejudices of the wealthier classes are, though outwardly less apparent, yet on that account neither less deeply rooted, nor less

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MONEY RULES OVER PRINCIPLE.

numerous, and, as regards education, they bear upon it with much greater force than is the case with the poor. The poor child is exposed to much bad example, and accustomed to many evil practices and bad feelings, in the company of his parents; but many of them, so far from being sanctioned by the schoolmaster, are, on the contrary, objects of his reproof, whilst the teacher of rich children, from obvious reasons, vies with the father in all the false tastes, the prejudiced notions, the refined vices, of the respectable part of the community. For I beg it to be recollected that, by vice, we are not to understand merely the habitual gratification of some sensual appetite, but, in general, all the habits of self-gratification, mental and moral as well as sensual, by which we are enslaved. And how many are they !

But, many as they are, there is not one of them which is not admitted, nay, called in, purposely, to a large share of influence in education, according to the degree of its prominence in those classes of society to which the children belong. Hence there are not, in the education of the rich, as in that of the poor, a few leading systems; but as many as there are shades of character in different parties, in different ranks, and different avocations, so many are there different systems of education for the children of those who can, by virtue of their purse, command the principles, on which their children are to be brought up. The only schools for the wealthier classes in this country, which are independent of the control of the parents, are those immediately governed by the Establishment, that is to say, the Universities, and Collegiate Schools. Their subalterns, the grammar schools, are already obliged to be obedient to the word of a father, and to gain credit and support by eyeservice to the parents. The same is the case with the few public institutions, founded by various dissenting denominations, either in a body, or by subscription among their members. On the approbation of the public, whose opinion is materially influenced by that of the parents, the

SCHOOLMASTERS THE SLAVES OF PARENTS. 181

very existence of those schools depends; and it is, therefore, not to be expected of them, that they will make a stand against public prejudices. And as regards, lastly, the common run of day and boarding-schools, it is well known that they are as much, as any shopkeepers, obliged to gratify the tastes, and satisfy the wishes, of their customers; and that, even if some establishments have risen into such popularity, as to render it truly difficult to insure places in them, this enables them no more to resist and combat the prevailing prejudices, than the most fashionable shop in the metropolis has it in its power, to abolish all the fanciful fashions, and to introduce a plain and simple dress. Their high popularity is founded upon the opinion, that by them the public taste will be gratified more than anywhere else; but let it, for a moment, be suspected that there is a design radically to reform that taste, or merely to correct and purify it, and all the popularity will be gone in an instant. Nowhere is there a more extensive application made of the maxim, "Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur;" that is to say, in education: The vanity and folly of the parents will be flattered, therefore let us flatter them. And although the weakness of the parents, and the servility of schoolmasters, has been fully explored, and although they heartily despise one another, yet the practical language of a father, when putting his child to school, is still: "I want to be deceived,-I want to be flattered;" and the schoolmaster's answer is no less, "You may rely upon it, it shall be done, in general matters, on the usual terms, and in special matters, at so much

extra.

But although there are great differences in the position, in which the various institutions stand to the parents, yet, as regards the children, it is to be feared, that the leading features of their education are much the same everywhere. I say, the leading features; there are abuses in one place, which do not exist in another; one is more accessible than the other to the so styled improvements of the age; but

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