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hazard be run of losing what is still more essential. What benefit to society would it be to form excellent scholars, who should become dissipated, unprincipled parsons? It may be said in favour of public schools, that many of those dignitaries of the church, who have done most honour by their conduct, as well as by their learning, to the clerical profession, have been educated at public seminaries. But it may be remarked, that only the brilliant successful experiments are registered, and that notice is not taken of the multitude which fail, and which ought, before a true estimate can be formed, to be recorded on the other side of the question. The learning and merit of the episcopal order are not the only standards, by which a judgment should on this subject be formed. The great body of the clergy is made up of rectors and curates, and amongst each of these classes of clergy are found too many whose conduct does not do any honour to their public education. And even if an appeal were to be made to the dignitaries of the church, many of them would allow, that it required uncommon prudence, to resist temptations, to which they were exposed at public schools.

For these reasons, private education appears to be the best for clergymen. It may not perhaps afford so many opportunities as occur at public seminaries of forming what are called good connexions, who may push or slide them on in the church. It may not so well teach them the arts of rising in the world, or qualify them so thoroughly to be the chosen companions of those, who can immediately advance their fortunes; it will not, perhaps, on the whole, prepare for them so many chances of

preferment, but it offers inestimably greater security, and stronger pledges, for the morals and religion of the pupils: and we presume, that these are the first objects in the minds of pious parents, who devote their sons to the church.

By private education is not meant recluse education. The recluse education of the Roman Catholic clergy, which, from childhood, separates them from the rest of society, tends to make a dangerous division of interests between the clergy and the laity; to excite suspicion and jealousy on the one side, and on the other, a spirit of mystery and priestcraft. Special seminaries for the clergy should not therefore be encouraged; and nothing, that tends towards this secluded system, should be favoured by the friends of our church. But domestic education, as it is managed in these countries, is not liable to any such dangers. A young man bred up in his father's house, probably in the midst of a family intended for different professions, seeing continually friends and acquaintance from various classes of society, and mixing in the general conversation and common business of the world, cannot be said to be brought up in a recluse manner, nor can his notions be confined to those of a particular cast. His preference of his own profession, and his adherence to his own principles, cannot arise from his being kept in ignorance, but from his being thoroughly well informed.

Festina lente, a useful maxim in all education, should be peculiarly attended to by parents and preceptors, who undertake the important task of educating clergymen. Faith should be founded on the broad basis of conviction; unless

this foundation be solidly laid, it is in vain to prop the fabric on this side or on that: when one of these supports fails, the whole is in danger of falling. It is obvious, that children cannot be made to follow a long series of evidence, or to comprehend abstruse metaphysical and theological arguments, till their reason has been exercised, and their judgment cultivated. Parents should therefore refrain from all attempts to inculcate dogmas, which cannot be comprehended by their young pupils.

"The doctrines of religion," says Dr. Beattie, "I wished "to impress on my son's mind, as soon as it might be prepared "to receive them; but I did not see the propriety of making "him commit to memory theological sentences, or any sen"tences, which it was impossible for him to understand: and "I was desirous to make a trial, how far his own reason could "go in tracing out, with a little direction, the great and first principle of all religion, the being of God. The following "fact is mentioned, not as a proof of superior sagacity in him (for I have no doubt that most children would, in like circumstances, think as he did), but merely as a moral or logical experiment.

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"He had reached his fifth (or sixth) year, knew the alphabet, and could read a little; but had received no parti"cular information with respect to the author of his being; "because I thought he could not yet understand such information, and because I had learned, from my own experience, "that to be made to repeat words not understood, is extremely detrimental to a young mind. In a corner of a

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"little garden, without informing any person of the circum“stance, I wrote in the mould with my finger the three initial "letters of his name, and sowing cresses in the furrows, co"vered up the seed, and smoothed the ground. Ten days "after he came running to me, and, with astonishment in his "countenance, told me, that his name was growing in the "garden. I smiled at the report, and seemed inclined to disregard it."

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Why any artifice?

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But," continues the doctor,

"the child insisted on my

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going to see what had happened. Yes,' said I, carelessly upon coming to the place, but there is nothing in this "worth notice; it is mere chance, and I went away.'"

Was a lie becoming in the champion of truth? The experiment might have been tried without any deception.

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"He followed me, and taking hold of my coat, said, with some earnestness, it could not be mere chance, for that somebody must have contrived matters so as to produce it. "I pretend not to give his words or my own, for I have forgotten both; but I give the substance of what passed between us in such language as we both understood.

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you think,' I said, 'that what appears so regular as the "letters of your name cannot be made by chance?' 'Yes,' "said he, with firmness, I think so.' • Look at yourself,' I replied, and consider your hands and fingers, your legs "" and feet, and other limbs; are they not regular in their

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appearance, and useful to you?' He said they were. "Come you then hither,' said I, 'by chance?' 'No,' he an"swered, that cannot be something must have made me.' "And who is that something?' I asked. He said, he did not "know. (I took particular notice, that he did not say as "Rousseau fancies a child in like circumstances would say, "that his parents made him). I had now gained the point I "aimed at, and saw, that his reason taught him, though he "could not so express it, that what begins to be must have a cause, and that what is formed with intelligence, must "have an intelligent cause."

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Parents should thus commence a child's education, by making him sensible of his own ignorance; and should then excite his curiosity, and lead him to observe and reflect. The general means of cultivating the judgment, sensibility, and imagination, have been suggested elsewhere*: the same principles may be applied to the present object.

To give a devotional taste or an early prepossession in favour of the clerical profession, we should not begin by teaching a boy to read continually the Bible, or by making him learn the Psalms by rote; nor would we recommend any of that doggerel devotional poetry, which, professedly written for young minds, and said to be suited to the meanest capacities, is, in fact, calculated to bring all to the same level; to load the memory, spoil the taste, and confound the judgment. Instead of employing wretched descriptions of the works of God, begin by letting a child have opportunities of observing the sublime and beautiful appearances of nature, the rising and the setting

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