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LECTURE I.

WHAT ARE THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE FAMILY AND OF SOCIETY AT LARGE, RESPECTING THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN BELONGING TO THEM?

It is now more than two thousand years since Plato, the profoundest of all the philosophers of the pagan world, when propounding, in his Work on the Republic, the ideas which he entertained concerning education, expressed at the same time his apprehension lest his views might be considered as a mere theory, without practical usefulness, and therefore of questionable value. The mode of education, he observes, which he had to propose, would clash too much with the prevailing prejudices of his fellow citizens, for him to expect that they could impartially examine his principles, or consider the results he anticipated from them as any thing but pious wishes. The same difficulties under which Plato found himself then labouring, are, I apprehend, still remaining in the way of those who have to propose a mode of education different from that which the opinion of the age has sanctioned. The natural antipathy of human nature against principles is undiminished, and mankind at large are still as blind as they ever were, to all but visible facts displayed before their eyes. Of this I am perfectly aware; but, so far from deterring me, it operates rather

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UNPOPULARITY OF THE SUBJECT.

as an additional reason for me to persist in advocating those principles, however abstract, the application of which to the education of the rising generation I conceive to be the only remedy for those evils under which we are Iabouring. Not that I expect that those principles will rapidly gain ground with the public at large, or be carried generally into effect; I freely own, that I do not hope myself, to see them applied to the education of the mass of the people, or even partially, to any considerable extent, in my life time. But this does not form an objection to those principles in themselves; for the slightest glance over the history of mankind will convince us, that none of those ideas by which our species has been essentially and lastingly benefitted, were ever reduced to practice, or even acknowledged as practicable, at the time when they were proclaimed. Nor do I perceive in this any inducement to desist from advocating such principles, or urging them upon the public. The task may be an ungrateful one, but it is no less binding, no less sacred. No generation of men ever knew, or were able to understand, their own wants; they pined under the evils which their own folly, or that, perhaps, of their forefathers, had entailed upon them; but to the cure they were always blind; so much so, that the greater the evil, the greater has invariably their blindness been. If these remarks hold good concerning the history of past ages, certainly they are still more applicable to the state of things in our own time. Never, perhaps, at any former period of the history of mankind was the want of improvement, and the wish for it, more generally felt and expressed; and never perhaps was the darkness so great respecting the principles, from the active operation of which that improvement was to be expected. And never was it more necessary that those principles should be loudly and boldly proclaimed; for, in addition to all the other evils, under which we are suffering, a spirit of compromise has gone abroad, which bids fair to mar the

ON WHAT GROUNDS IT MAY BE VIEWED.

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exertions, even of those whose hearts and minds are not shut to the claims which the state of the mass at large, makes upon the energies of the more enlightened. The evils, of which we complain, are such as require a radical cure,-I do not use the word radical here in its obnoxious sense-and a radical cure is of all things that which human nature most dreads and resists. Hence it is that, in our days, many of those whose attention and endeavours are directed towards the means of ameliorating the condition of their fellow creatures, allow themselves to be betrayed, by a well meant but mistaken anxiety to gain the concurrence of the public in the measures proposed by them, into a compromise of the very principles which they advocate, and upon which they pretend to act. They clog their own power by an alliance, both unlawful and impolitic, with the very prejudices against which they are making war, and thus of necessity defeat their own end. Deeply impressed as I am with the baneful consequences of that mistake, I feel it my duty, more than ever, to state, without any disguise, and without any attempt at conformity with the leading opinions of the day, those principles, however unpopular, by which the education of our youth ought to be guided and regulated This I shall do on the present occasion; and I thought it right openly to avow this my intention, in order that you may not feel disappointed if you find me, as you certainly will do, now and then, travelling far away-not I trust from the nature of things, but from the state of things as it is at present.

After this short introduction, I shall at once proceed to the first of the questions proposed, vix. “What are the "rights and duties of the family, and of society at "large, respecting the education of children belonging to "them." This question can be answered on two grounds: first, as a matter of mere policy, according to the dictates, as it is called, of human reason; and, secondly, in a religious point of view. For the present, I shall confine

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