society, without something like anxiety and apprehension. The very terms, in which our conceptions of it naturally clothe themselves, bear an aspect as of something portentous and fearful. And that there is actual danger in this revolution of opinions, I am so far from denying, that it is the very purpose of this discourse to discuss the only principles of safety.

But, at the same time, I cannot take my place among the alarmists. I cannot believe that the feeling of apprehension, which is springing up all over the civilized world, is justified in its full extent. There are dangers, doubtless: what season of probation for high ends ever failed to be a season of peril? To warn one another of that peril; to summon brave, honest, and true hearts, to meet it; to stand amidst the people as one of their brethren, and to lift up the voice of friendly admonition, is well. How well it is to stand aloof from them, and to fling down discouragement and scorn upon the popular cause, I must leave others to determine. But this I must say, that if indeed that cause shall fail, if the future historian of this momentous period must write its story in tears and blood, I shall ever believe it will be, in part, because the proper intellectual guides of the world were not true to the solemn trust reposed in them. It is, indeed, an extraordinary fact-a fact reversing, in a striking manner, the usual course of things-that while opinion ordinarily propagates itself from the more educated to the more ignorant classes, the popular cause is now rising and swelling against the loudest remonstrances of so many superior minds, as if it were, indeed, an ocean-tide, against which nothing is destined to prevail.

This remonstrance, this alarm, seems to me, I have ventured to say, to be carried to an unwarrantable extent. Alarm, indeed, appears to be one of the epidemic diseases of the age. Every religious association, every little spiritual coterie, every school of sect, speculation, and philanthropy, is trembling for the fate of the world. Now, the philosophy of the world is going to ruin it; then, its extravagance, intemperance, licentiousness, is to do the work; then popery, heresy, infidelity, is elevated to this bad eminence in mischief. The danger from some of these quarters I freely admit; but, it is really worth while to observe, through how many prophecies of ruin, through how many critical and doomed periods, the world has lived. Truly, one is sometimes tempted to say to these alarmists, "Good sirs, have a little patience; the world is likely to last our time; the purposes of Providence will stand, though you be disappointed in some of your favourite theories or projects."

It is one effect of this alarm, to turn the public attention too much to immediate and palpable resorts for safety, to the readiest instruments that come to hand, rather than to those deep and broad foundations which must be laid in the moral education, the cultivated and spiri tualized mind, of the community. Thus, if some Constitution can be preserved, if some House of Lords can be hedged about with impreg nable defences, it seems to be thought that the world will be saved. Thus almost all the reforms of the day are turning upon some palpable evil; as intemperance, licentiousness, pauperism. But important, or otherwise, as any of these efforts may be, there is a work of redemption that must go deeper, must go down into the heart of the world, or it will not be saved, in the great crisis that is approaching. How easy

were it to show, that there are evils lying beneath, all palpable evils, and which, if the same universal attention were fixed upon them, would appear far greater. Intemperance, licentiousness, pauperism, and with these, popular violence, mobs, and tumults, are all but indexes of deeper evils, symptoms of deeper maladies, that are seated in the very heart of society. Alas! the world is not well, is not happy in itself the infinite wants of humanity are not provided for-else, would not the world break out, on every hand, for relief from those necessities and pains that are preying upon its inmost bosom.

I must add, that even where the real conservative principles, education and religion, are resorted to, they are too often, I fear, but superficially regarded; and are, as they are used, but ready instruments, instead of being considered as deep principles and thorough remedies. If education with us is a mere technical system, a mere teaching of the arts and sciences commonly learned in schools; if religion is a mere state-engine, or only a form or creed, or barely a charity to the poor and vicious, neither will exert the needed influence. It is striking to observe, that the whole strength of the Tory party in England, all its will, wish, and thought about religion, seems to be occupied with the preservation of a visible Establishment. I may do injustice to this aim, but it seems to me that it is, in the hands of many of its most earnest supporters, the mere worldly scheme of worldly men; and certain I am, that no such scheme will answer now. I maintain, on the contrary, that deeper views of education and religion must be added to those which now prevail; that to education must be added a moral influence, and to religion a deeper philosophy and a more thoroughly practical character, in order to make them the guardian powers that the present age requires. And these are the positions of which it is now my further purpose to attempt some illustration.

The first subject to be considered is education. From the earliest settlement of the country, this has engaged the earnest attention of our communities. We have set the first example in the world, of the instruction of the whole mass of the people. Education has ever been our watch-word, and our boast. No celebration of any public festival, no grave dissertation of the closet upon our institutions, ever omits the recognition of its importance. On every side, it is constantly represented as the sheet-anchor of our liberty.

Well is it that we pay this homage to education; but have we sufficiently considered what it must be, to answer the end proposed? Have we not made it a mere watchword? Have we not regarded it as a mere talisman, and expected some magical effects from it, rather than entered into a deep consideration of its nature; of the qualities which adapt it in the preservation of the national order and security?

I beg attention to this inquiry. And for the purpose of awakening that attention, I wish to present to you one or two extraordinary facts bearing on this point, from the history of education in Europe. In Prussia, where, so far as mechanism is concerned, the most perfect system of public instruction ever known has recently been adopted-in that kingdom, I say, education is considered as nothing without religion. "The first vocation of every school," says one of its ordinances, is to train up the young in such a manner as to implant in their minds a knowledge of the relation of man to God, and, at the same

time to excite both the will and the strength to govern their lives after the spirit and precepts of Christianity. Schools must early train children to piety, and, therefore, must strive to second and complete the early instructions of parents." Again, in France, which some while since sent one of her most distinguished philosophers to inquire into the Prussian system of education, and where that system, but without its religious influence, has been partially adopted, we are presented with this extraordinary and astounding statement,-viz. that in the best educated departments, the greatest amount of crime has been found to exist. This is not an observation made at hazard; it is absolutely a matter of statistics. Nakedly stated, the fact is this; that education in France has produced crime. This, at least, is what is admitted by the friends of education in France, and insisted upon by its enemies in England; † and with my views of the subject, I have no difficulty in admitting that it is true.

For this is the view which I take that education, considered simply as instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, &c.; education, separate from any moral influence, does not necessarily tend to make any people better, and may be easily perverted, so as to make them worse. "Knowledge," it is often said, "is power;" but it is power as capable of bad as of good uses. Thus, the knowledge of reading and writing communicated to a people, may only increase the number of forgers and counterfeiters: the knowledge of arithmetic may only multiply the chances of knavery in accounts. Thus, also, an acquaintance through newspapers with the conduct of government, or of obnoxious individuals, may urge a simple people to disaffection and treason, or hurry a quiet people into mobs and tumults. And, in the same way, general knowledge, into which no moral principles are infused, may lead men to ambition, discontent, envy, and unhappiness, and by these means, to excess, extravagance, and vice. But I am speaking mainly of that particular knowledge which is commonly gained in schools. There is, indeed, a higher intelligence which is favourable to virtue, inasmuch as it sees all else but virtue to be utter folly and mistake: but of knowledge considered as a mere technical acquisition, I say, that it is a mere instrument, whose use and utility will depend on its moral direction.

It is upon these clear and indisputable grounds, that I maintain the necessity of adding to our knowledge, virtue: to our system of education, a moral and spiritual influence. Other things must be taught in our schools, besides the elements usually considered as belonging to them. Good morals and pious sentiments should be as anxiously and earnestly taught, as reading and writing.

But I must not be content on this vital point with a general statement. Education, in the largest sense, is the preparation of the mind for the scene in which it is to act. What, then, should be the education of a free people; and, indeed, of human beings as such? I answer: that our youth should be taught, at some period before they leave the common schools, that they are to be electors, jurors, magistrates, and, perhaps, legislators; and thus, virtually, rulers of the country. They should be made to feel something of the weighty charge that is

* Cousin. See his Report on the Prussian System.

See an article on Democracy, in Blackwood's Magazine, No. 225.

about to be devolved upon them. They should be made to understand the duties to their country and to their God, which are implied in the trust they are about to assume. Were this faithfully taught in all our schools, we might hope, ere long, to see a time when the whole political action of the country should not run to passion, and caprice, and judice, and a mere contest for the mastery. Were this done, we might hope to see, ere long, an end of that pernicious distinction which is now made between individual and party morality, between personal and official conscience; and political confidence and public honour would no longer be heaped upon men whose lives are stained with private vices. Again, an education of youth for the part they have to act in our communities, should enter deeply into their social relations; should imbue their minds with independence, magnanimity, candour, and courtesy; should put them on their guard against ambitious aspirings and preying discontents; should moderate the strife for social precedence; should teach respect for the laws; should clothe the constitution of the country with an inviolable panoply; should arm the majesty of legal justice with the authority of conscience. In fine, an education for life essentially involves the deepest principles of religion; and though the family is the great school for this kind of education, yet no school should fail of recognising it as a part of the nurture and discipline of youth. The weariness and ennui that are commonly witnessed in our schools, the indocility and insubordination of which there is so much complaint, arise, in a considerable measure, from the want of any perceived connexion between them and the practical objects of life. The child does not well understand what all this study is for. Place, then, before him the scene of life, make it a part of the regular business of instruction to speak to him of the situations in which he will be placed, and of what will be a just and noble conduct in them; and then, as surely as human nature has any principles to be relied on, their attention and interest will be aroused. The ends of life, the principles of happiness, the art of living-physically, mentally, and morally considered the morals of business and pleasure, the occupations and callings of men, carried into detail-what they are, what are the instruments they work with, what is their utility, what are their duties-all these subjects, not in dry and abstract terms, such as I now use, but with vivid, and almost dramatic representation, might be presented to our youth, and contribute to that intelligence and virtue, which are the basis of our national well-being and safety.

Education must rise among us, or the nation must sink. That it will advance, I cannot doubt, when I see the spirit that is manifested in various parts of the country. But there is one alarming fact, that ought to fix the attention of the country till it is aroused to greater exertions than it has yet put forth. The progress of population, in some of the States, is, at this moment, outstripping the progress of education. There was a time, when scarcely a youth could be found in the whole nation, who was not taught the elements of learning. The number of the uninstructed is now some hundreds of thousands, if it must not, indeed, be stated to be more than a million! I know not in what terms to dwell upon this fact, that shall present its full claims upon the public attention. If nations, as such, have ever any vocation, ours is to educate the people. If Providence ever laid a weight of obligation, like

the weight of destiny, upon any people, it has laid that obligation upon us. If it ever spread before the eyes of any people the yawning gulf of destruction, and distinctly warned them to beware of it, it has spread before us, in that character, the dark gulf of popular ignorance. Into it the nation will inevitably descend, unless it is closed up. No single sacrifice, like the fabled sacrifice of the Roman Curtius, can avert the danger. The fearful chasm in our popular education can be closed only by the united efforts of the whole people. A representative government represents the character of the people: and that government which represents prevailing ignorance, degradation, brutality, and passion, has its fate as certainly sealed, as if, from the cloud that envelopes the future, a hand came forth and wrote upon your mountain walls, the doom of utter perdition!

To avert such a doom, the next great power to which we appeal, is religion. Intelligence and religion are the two grand conservative principles of all society; and neither of them can be relied on, to the exclusion of the other. Religion is wanted to give to intelligence a right direction; and intelligence is equally wanted to make religion rational, sober, and wise; to preserve it from superstition and fanaticism; from that fatal substitution, so common, of forms, and fancies, and articles of faith, for practical virtue. I say, that neither of these great conservative principles can be dispensed with. Many political economists have insisted on the necessity of education, without seeming to be sensible of the necessity of religion: but I cannot understand upon what ground a man can believe in one, without believing in the other. Nay, if I believed in neither, if I looked upon the frame of society only with the eye of an artist, if I cared not what became of human governments, or the human character, or anything else human, I should still be compelled to see and admit, that there is no basis for human welfare, individual, social, or national, none conceivable or possible, none provided by the great framer of the world, but intelligence and virtue.

But it is not my purpose, in this discourse, to defend so large, and, I hope, so evident a proposition. It is my design rather, as I have stated it, to point out an extension of the great conservative principles, which, I apprehend, is not equally admitted, or, at least, not equally considered. This design, so far as it relates to religion, contemplates that subject in two relations to the general welfare; first to the poor and distressed classes of society, and secondly, to the whole body.

With regard to pauperism, and its consequent miseries and vices, the religious action of society has hitherto mostly contented itself with charities; with means and efforts directed to the relief of its palpable evils. I trust the time has now arrived, when a new principle is to be adopted. This principle is, to do the least possible for the body, and the utmost possible for the mind; to apply ourselves directly to the root of all evil, the soul's ignorance and debasement; to elevate the physical condition, through the improvement of the moral condition.

It has at length been found out, that general and indiscriminate charities only multiply the evils which they propose to relieve; that pauperism grows by what it thus feeds on. The history of English charities has shown this on a large scale, and our own experience, so far as we have followed that example, has brought out the same result. This treatment of pauperism constantly produces a twofold effect: physical