education has been the lack of moral and religious instruction. But yet the very attempt to give education a moral and religious basis has made a great deal of dispute and drawn forth much opposition. In great Britain, it is well known, two great attempts to provide a system of national instruction have been foiled in a great degree by the jealousies of party religion. And in this country much trouble has sprung from the same source. There is a jealousy between different denominations as to the religious instruction of the young, and there prevails among the people considerable jealousy of the influence of all the religious denominations. A Protestant clergyman, as Dr. Wilson before the College of Teachers, recommends that the Bible should be made a text book in schools, and the One Christianity taught; whereupon up rises a Catholic, like Bishop Purcell, and demands which Bible, the Catholic or Protestant one, should be introduced into schools, and which religion he means by "One Christianity."

Now if the difficulty were only among these different Christian denominations, it might be removed in the Prussian way, by allowing separate schools for Catholic and Protestant, and in cases where Catholics and Protestants are brought together, allowing the majority to have the principal teacher to be of the religion of the majority, and the inferior master of the religion of the minority. But the denominations of Christians in our country are two numerous to admit of such an arrangement, and a large part of the people are averse to all sectarian influence. Moreover, if such an arrangement could be made, and the pupils of schools separated into clans and taught each in the dogmatics of their parents' faith, the effect would be deplorable in begetting bigotry, and adding to the sectarian exclusiveness that already too much abounds.

But our people will relieve dogmatic divines of all trouble on this score, if these gentlemen will only listen to the firm popular voice. Our nation will never allow dogmatic theology to be taught by law in schools. Sectarian champions of education may as well see this fact at once, and be content to teach their dogmas in Sunday Schools, or in academies of their own faith.

The great difficulties in deciding the question of moral and religious education would be in the main obviated, if people would only consider what the great essentials of moral and religious education are, or what the great principles and senti

ments of the soul are, which are the basis of sound morality and pure religion. If we but feel that the great thing needed is to kindle the religious sentiment and quicken the moral principles, we shall soon cease to quarrel as to what books shall be used or what dogmas taught. If we would be persuaded by the host of orthodox declaimers, who have spoken upon the subject, we should believe, that every defect in education would be supplied by making the Bible a text book in common schools. But the Bible has been full enough used in common schools, but not enough in the right way; enough, yes, too much, as a dull task book, but too little as the Book of Life. The Bible has been read daily in many a school where moral and religious ideas have had no place, and where the conduct of the teacher, and the system of rewards and punishments practised, have been such as to be far from ministering to the wants of the moral and spiritual nature. The great thing needed is the introduction and living illustration of moral and spiritual ideas in schools. And this end can, we think, be best attained by a proper use of the Bible, especially the New Testament, and by a suitable book of Ethics, in some respect like that which Mr. Abbot has prepared for primary schools. As to tasking the scholars with the forced study of the Old Testament, and the Epistles of Paul, we are disposed to agree with what Mr. Montgomery, a Catholic priest, told the College of Teachers in regard to making the Scriptures a text book in schools.

"They are a sacred deposit, a legacy left by heaven to earth, to enlighten the minds of men, and to conduct them in the way of true wisdom and virtue. Let us not then depreciate their inestimable value, by rendering them too common. I mean, let us not abuse them. Throw not pearls to swine. Suffer not that sacred divine volume, that pledge of God's love to man, to be kicked about by hundreds and thousands of children, in our common schools, who will, most likely, become disgusted with it, from the fact of being compelled to prepare in it daily lessons to recite to their masters, and to be flogged perhaps, for not knowing them. This sort of use of the Bible takes from it its charm, diminishes that profound respect and esteem in which it should ever be held. Need I inquire if they understand it? No! Older persons and maturer heads are not always capable of fathoming its vast and mighty depths. Some things, says St. Peter, speaking of the Epistles of St. Paul, are hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest to their own de

struction, as they do also the other Scriptures." - Vol. for 1836, pp. 157, 158.

The sayings and doings of the associations, that we have been considering, warrant happy hopes for the advance of education in our land. They show, that there are many devoted men among us, who are willing to see the defects of our people, and to strive to remedy them. We trust that it

will not be long, before education in its best sense, both moral and intellectual, will find able champions in all parts of our country and in all spheres of life. We shall think, that this time is at hand, whenever public opinion upon this subject shall be strong enough to induce our public men to give up their too common practice of flattering national vanity at the expense of truth, and to make them tell the people boldly, that notwithstanding our great national privileges, we are far from being perfect, and that, even in that most important of all concerns, public education, there are nations in the old world, whose institutions should put ours to shame.

Our people need more light and a better will in this matter light as to what constitutes a nation's strength and the individual's happiness-the will to aim at their highest good and to spend their time and money in its attainment. As to this last point money it has often occurred to us, that if vested with plenipotentiary power, to raise funds for Western education, we should not be long in deciding upon the method. Voyaging on the Western rivers, one sees, that apparently the greatest article of export consists of certain barrels, whose heads are painted red and branded, "Old Rectified Whiskey." Let the heads of these red crested ravagers, that crowd every steamboat, be knocked in, and the money, yearly spent in this beverage of the devil, be devoted to the support of education, and ere long, every village and hamlet would be blessed with a good school, and the fabled paradise of the Vale of Arcady might have more than a rival in the great Valley of the Mississippi.

S. o.

ART. IV. - Miscellaneous Thoughts on Men, Manners, and Things. By ANTHONY GRUMBLER, of Grumbleton Hall, Esquire. Baltimore Coale and Co. 1837. 12mo. pp. 374.

ALTHOUGH the writer of this book nominates himself Grumbler, and hails from Grumbleton Hall, he is nevertheless a sensible, goodnatured companion, abounding in pleasant conversation and remark, and quite as ready to see the bright as the dark side of a picture. If all grumblers were as judicious and liberal as our friend Anthony, and had the same happy faculty of smiling with one eye while they frowned with the other, we should say the more the better, and the merrier also. But the fact is, that your real bilious grumblers are singularly unconscious of the family name, and go on grumbling against every thing and every body, while they deem themselves to be the only perfect members of society, speaking the truth in love. In great pride and bitterness of heart they subscribe themselves Reformers and Philanthropists; but that they are even distantly related to the Grumblers does not enter their heads. When they are honest, and profess to grumble, we will hear them; but we desire none of their reform, and as little as they please of their philanthropy.

The volume of Anthony Grumbler, Esq., is of the tabletalk description, comprising one hundred and fifty-nine subjects, regularly numbered, which subjects are of all characters and complexions, grave and gay, light and heavy, fashionable, literary, political, and theological, from Churches and Charity, down to Visiting Cards and Fancy Balls, and from the Art of Puffing, up to the True Idea of Prayer. The greater portion of his remarks will be found suited to any American latitude or meridian, though he writes specially as a citizen of Eromitlab; which cacophonous word is formed, as most eyes will perceive, by spelling Baltimore backward, and the formation of which word we are disposed to regard as somewhat of an affectation. And now that we ourselves are in the grumbling vein, we are tempted to charge upon Squire Grumbler, as an affectation also, the habit in which he indulges of sprinkling his paragraphs here and there with sundry atoms of Latin, French, and Italian, such as uno flatu, en mauvais goût, and

credo di si, which are rather troublesome to the eyes, and of no great help to the understanding. But as they are in, he should have taken care to have had them correctly spelt, and have seen that his printer did not, as on page 212, make him say, Ansi soit-il.

And now we will permit our readers to judge for themselves what kind of a book this is, by placing before them a few extracts from it. Owing to its form and composition, an opinion may be formed of it from extracts more fairly than can usually be done in the same way.

The article which follows is characteristic of the author's manner. It is numbered LII. and entitled "Favors received and conferred."

"The graceful conferring of favors, and the receiving them in like manner, are among the strongest criterions of a polished mind, and of a good heart. The savoir faire, in such matters, is every thing; and if either be ill done, it is sure to cause unamiable feelings, where, possibly, the best ought to have obtained. Tacitus thinks that benefits are so far acceptable, and gratefully received, as those obliged are in a capacity to return them, and that if this be exceeded, hatred is apt to be returned instead of thanks. This seems to us philosophically correct, only under certain circumstances; for if the benefit be generously and gracefully conferred, the result is gratitude; and hatred can scarce arise from the mere inability to disburthen ourself of the obligation imposed.

SERAPION is generous in lending you his purse, and doing you many other kindnesses; but it is always attended with a scrupulous expression of his full sense of the obligation he is creating, which from time to time he reminds you of, lest you should forget it; but by no means with the desire that you should cancel the obligation, or reciprocate it in any other form, but merely that he may gratify his own love of power, and repose with calmness on the influence of its exercise.

"PHORMIO also, is not without generosity, of a peculiar kind; but he never fails to give pain from the total want of a suaviter in modo in such cases. He does the act, but is silent, grave, and grum, if not at heart, quite so in appearance. Every interview with him on the subject is a large draft upon your feelings, even if you know there is kindness at the bottom. Oh that benevolence had none of this alloy, what a sweetner would it be in those reciprocal interchanges of kind offices, which the varied concerns of life so imperiously require!

"SULPITIUS will receive the kindness, most generously and VOL. XXIII. -3D S. VOL. V. NO. II.

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