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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film4s en commenfant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la derni^re page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaftra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols — ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmfo d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est film6 A partir de I'angle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droits, et de haut en has, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants ii'ustrent la m6thode. errata to pelure, >n d □ 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 MORAL CULTURE — AN — ESSENTIAL FACTOR IN PUBLIC EDUCATION. An Address delivered before the Ontario Teachers' Assitciation, Toronto, AwfUfft 14th, 1879. By the REV. D. H. MACVICAR, LL.D., S.T.P., Principal Presbyterian College, Montreal. MORAL CULTURE AN ESSENTIAL FACTOR IN PUBLIC EDUCATION. An Address delivered before the Ontario Teachers' Association, Toronto, Aug-tist 14th, 1879. BY THE REV. D. H. MACVIOAR, LL.D., 8.T.P., PRINCIPAL PRESBYTERIAN COLLEOEj MONTREAL. Great moral principles are freely discussed everywhere — in our nurseries and primary schools, in our parlours and social gather- ings, in our warehouses and workshops, as well as in our courts of law, colleges, and legislative assemblies. Subtle points of casuistry and questions of light and wrong, of duty, what ought and what ought not to be are constantly canvassed ; and unfortunately very many persons dogmatise and pronounce upon them blindly without having received any system&tic or scientific instruction. Surely this natural and universal disposition to deal with ethical subjects fihould not be ignored by the educator, or treated as a secondary and unimportant matter. I propose, therefore, to urge certain reasons in this paper why a knowledge of the fundamental facts and principles of ethical science, and of their practical application in every-day life, should be made an essential factor in public education. I do not say the sum, or chief part of education, but only an essential factor in it. This appears to me to be demanded : I. In order to secure a fair and symmetrical development of man's entire nature, and to avoid a one-sided and pernicious education. To make this fully apparent, it is necessary to indicate in outline what should be aimed at in education. I do not mean by this, however, a discussion of details as to methods of instruction, branches of study, the age at which certain of these should be taken up, the extent to which they should be prosecuted in our Public or High Schools, and the measure of information to be imparted to pupils at various stages regarding the multitude of subjects which now claim attention. It is sufficient for the purpose of my argiiinent to point out generally the sort of training which is required, or the directions onr educational efforts should take in order to secure the well-balanced and harmonious growth of man. I take it that no one can doubt that this should be the practical issue of our work. The common sense of mankind demands this. The broad test which it applies to any system, whatever amount of machinery and show and red-tape it may possess, is, what sort of men and women does it produce ? And, in the long run, it treats with ^ ell-merited contempt and scorn all fine theories which fail in this respect. In order to secure the highest style of man, there- fore, — the man who is not weak, or capricious, or unreliable, who is not an incubus or a firebrand in society, but is fit to take his place and discharge his dut es in relation to God and his fellow-creatures^ it is self-evident that we cannot neglect the training of any part af his nature — we require to draw out in a legitimate manner all the grand possibilities of that nature. Hence we must provide for the culture of the senses, the culture of the physical organs as mechanical instruments of the mind, the culture of the mental powers, and the culture of the moral nature — the last accompany- ing and interpenetrating all that is done in the other directions. Let us look at these separately. (a) Tli£ culture of the senses. — It is onl} recently that attention has been given to this as specially vital to education. A quarter of a century ago physiologists and metaphysicians generally treated with scorn what they denominated t^e ravings of phrenology. In their opinion it was the she irest nonsense to attempt to explain mental pheuomena and to guide the work of education by reference to the brain. A distinguished man who now holds a position of high trust and responsibility in this city was then my fellow-stu- dent, and used to tell me with great glee and triumph that phre- nologists were ignorant fools because they placed bumps, upon the brain as organs of mentality where there are actually depressions and empty cavities in the skull. My metaphysical friends of that period, whether as books or as living oracles, were not much more respectful to this line of investigation. But the educational world moves. Now, you can hardly take up any school manual which is not decorated with pictures of the brain ; and the learned authors, from Dr. Carpenter downwards^ tell you all about the weight, and shape,, and size ; and density of the brain — its convolutions, ganglipnic centres, and the rest. They trace it from its first stages of development through infancy, child- hood, manhood and old age — they even venture, with surprising minuteness of detail, to connect with its different stages of growth 8 the appropriate parts of the great programme of modern studies, and to indicate how it is to be treated, fed and disciplined, from its early pulpy plastic state until it becomes the shrivelled occu- pant of a hard and barren old skull. Well, there is truth in all this, although we may, in the meantime, take some of it cum grano aalia — as not altogether infallible gospel. At any rate I have no time or need to argue with these enthusiasts. For my present pur- pose a general statement made by Tyndall is sufficient, as bringing out the fact that each of the sensen has its own specific function which cannot be transferred to another, and should therefore re- ceive appropriate culture. He says : " Different nerves are appro- priated to the transmission of diflferent kinds of molecular motion. The nerves of taste, for example, are not competent to transmit sonorous vibrations. For this latter a special nerve is necessary, which passes from the brain into one of the cavities of the ear, and there spreads out into a multitude of tilaments. It is the motion imparted to this, the auditory nerve, which in the brain is trans- lated into sound." This statement contains enough — perhaps a little too much. ' It seems to accord one function to the brain which certainly does not belong to it. If it ascribes the mental act of . translation to the brain it is a mistake. It is not the brain which translates the mo- tion into sound, but the tnind, to which the brain and the nerves are ancillary. The senses give no knowledge any more than the living tissues of a plant possess that function. They are merely servants, reporters, to the mind, without which th^y are useless and destitute of all intelligence. They are related at the one end to the outer world, and at the other to the mind ; and it makes all the difference imaginable what sort of mind is placed at the inner end of these nerves, and what sort of treatment or culture they have received. The brain of an ox or an ass may, and does, translate motion into sound in Tyndall's sense. The ear of the rabbit or the stag is far quicker than the ear of man ; but it needs the mind of a man and of an accomplished musician related to the auditory ntrve to translate the vibrations of a grand orchestra into all the thrilling effects of melody and harmony. Hence the ne- cessity of training, of educating, this sense. And what is true of this is true of all the rest. It may seem strange to some — even after all that has been 'vritten in this direction — but it is neverthe- less true, that boys and girls, men and women, literally require t(> be taught to see, and hear, and feel, and taste, and smell correctly. According to the Kindergarten system of education, founded by Frederick Froebel, this sort of culture of the senses is made to pre- cede all other elementary training so as to prepare the child for higher forms of instruction. This is so far well. But I see no valid reason for limiting such culture to childhood. On the con- trary, it should be extended by appropriate methods over the stu- dent's entire career, and beyond the tiuie when ho takes leave of his alma mater — to the end of his life. Many weighty reasons might be urged in faror of this course. Suffice it to say that the manipu- lations of the natural sciences as well as the refinements of litera- ture and art demand this delicate and accurate culture of the senses. How otherwise, for example, can the beneficent marvels and triumphs of surgery be acci mplished ? It is only the man whose eye, and hand, and sense of touch have been most carefully and minutely educated for years that can be entrusted with opera- tions involving the life or the life-long happiness or misery of his fellow-creatures. And it seems superfluous to say that such train- ing is fundamental to the fine arts, — that Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music and Poetry are impossible upon any other condi- tion. It is vain to dream of genius taking its place. Men of the highest talent and genius cannot dispense with it. Their euccess is dependent upon it. Every observant student of Tennyson, for example, must have noticed to what an exquisite degree he has cultivated his ear. Hence the music of his lines from first to last — those that mean little and those that mean much — is perfect. This ear-culture has not made him a poet. Poeta nascitur, non Jit ; but his case shows with superlative force that the training of the senses, ihe teaching of the ear to hear and the eye to see, is funda- mental — stands at the very threshold of the highest educa- tion ; and that, as one of Tennyson's admirers has well remark- ed, " the intensest sense of natural beauty — whether of color, or form, or sound, or imagery, or thought — needs culture, and the poet who neglects thus to train his ear is as unfair to his irenius as a painter would be who did not study drawing and the harmony of colors." (6) The cnlture of the physical organs as mechanical instmments of the mhid — only a few words on this point. It is now well under- stood that in order to secure tb.e health and growth and beauty of the human frame — and these are grand ?nd8 to aim at — we must supply the right sort and right measure of food and rest and exer- cise It is not possible here to prescribe the form or manner in which this is to be done, or to lay out the work to be accomplished in this respect in our homes and school-rooms andthops. I merely affirm in a general way that just as each one of the senses requires separate culture, so the hand, the foot, and every organ of the body should bo trainod for its proper functions, and that physical exercises and activities in the school-room, the gymnasium, the play-ground, and workshop should be made to contribute to tho attainment of firmness and strength and skill in the use of our organs, and this skill should be treasured up and rendered perma- nent as well as available Rt any moment in the form of settled mechanical habits. Our system of education recognizes this doctrine and provides some facilities for carrying it out. Hence w« ly understand the evils at which I have hinted. We all know how thesuffers — what weakness and unutterable agonies it passes through by naving several sorts of indigestible food crammed into the stomach ; and this is only a feeble type, a shadow, of the irrepar- able mischief done to the mind by persistent cramming. It is aside from my purpose to indicate the forms in which this vice is active, and the extent to which it frustrates the work of schools and college ; but I may say in passing that as things are, pretty strong temptations present themselves to yield to its power. The haste to be rich, and hence the feverish wish of parents and senior pupils to abbreviate the period of school attendance and to enter business — the haste to rush and crowd into the learned professions — our pompous courses of study with thousands of pages in several languages to be read, a multitude of subjects to be mastered and aca^ demic degrees and honours to be gained all in five or six years — the- fact that public sentiment offers a sort of premium in the form of special laudations to institutions which turn out in the shortest time the greatest amount of work thus done to order — all these things are so many potent temptations to indulge in cramming, to- set aside the true philosophy of education and to ignore the sym- metrical development of the senses the physical frame and the mental powers upon which 1 insist. {d) The culture of the moral nature. A few sentences on this point will complete my brief outline of what is to be aimed at by the educator. It may be granted without discussion that there is an immutable and eternal distinction between right and wrong ;. that the basis or standard of right is to be found, not in the feeling of self-love, the sense of utility, the impulse of benevolence, or in any of the changing phenomena of the human mind but only in the divine nature — and that nature revealed in the record of crea- tion and the written word. It may be further conceded that there is an innate faculty or power in man which recognizes the distinction between right and wrong and discerns the moral quality of actions. This is the pro- oise function of conscience. As a recent writer expresses it t ** Conscience is the innate moral sensorium of the personality for differentiating right and wrong, good and evil." Furthermore, all creatures endowed with the faculty of moral discernment are, by the very condition of their being, under law to the Creator as their Moral Governor ; it is inconceivable that creatures should b» brought into existence under any other condition than that of loving^ subjection to the Creator ; and they are also related to one another by an infinite variety of moral obligations in the great fabric of society and capable of forming an indefinite number of moral habits both vicious and virtuous. No\v then, without extending these statements, or anticipating what is to be advanced in another connection, enough has been said to make it apparent that a fair treatment of man's nature, an honest endeavour to develop all his powers, demands no small amount of moral culture. Educate man up to the proper point, make him what he should be, give all the powers and functions of his nature fair play, and his conscience and moral sentiments can- not be overlooked. This is the precise point of my argument ; and I believe that sound philosophy and history may be confidently appealed to in support of this position. I know that history is not an Infallible guide in the definition of education because civilized races are constantly outgrowing the highest attainments of the past* and therefore it is unwise to bind us simply to what has been- What a few centuries ago was a crime to predict as scientifically probable or possible it is now insanity to deny. And so the curric- ulum of study in coming centuries will discard, I have no doubt, a good deal upon which we expend our energies and include not a little of which we have scarcely dreamed. Still, making these allowances, history teaches, with an emphasis and a force which we cannot disregard this lesson, viz., the absolute necessity for a symmetrical and harmonious development of man's nature such as we have indicated under the four points just mentioned, and at the same time the danger and folly of a narrow and one-sided educa- tion. Almost innumerable examples of such folly might be cited from the historic past. Take only two or three well-known instances. And these instances, I ask you to observe, bring out the fact that most pernicious one-sidedness has occurred by one thought, and then another, — one ruling principle, and then another, — one view of man's nature, relations, and destiny, and then another being made unduly prominent or supreme, to the exclusion of all other considerations. Thus, in ancient Egypt all culture was carefully and strongly stamped with a religious character almost to the exclusion of everything else. Educational efforts were limited and controlled by the mythological ceremonies and absurdities of a swarming priesthood. The Chinese have moved in a single groove for centuries. In- tellectual activity has been made to flow almost entirely in one nar- row channel. They have been ruled and trained by the single ;l h ! Si 10 principle of veneration for anceatry. Children have been taught little else than unquestioning submission to parents, and citizens servile subjection to the head of the Empire. This has been the alpha and omega of their education. In India the tyrannical law of caste has from the very earliest antiquity rendered education limited, partial, one-sided. Without multiplying examples from the distant past, let me ask for what are these nations distinguished ? Or what is the outcome of their education ? Do they now, after centuries and centuries of such training, lead the van of invention and discovery, and stand fore- most as founding and fostering institutions for the amelioration of man's misery and the elevation of his entire nature ? Do we look up to them as having achieved true freedom, and as enduring ex- amples of social, political, commercial and scientific progress 1 Have they risen to the same lofty plane of thought and purity as the Anglo-Saxon nations with their broad and symmetrical cul- ture ? Assuredly not. They are appalling monuments of intellectual and moral stagnation. They could not escape being so, because the unavoidable limitations of a partial and one-sided training veto and crush out of existence all true progress. And it matters not that the ruling thought in such training may be counted harmless, or even good and devout ; if allowed to become unduly dominant, to usurp the place of other essential modes of thought, to close the door of truth on any side, to suspend or paralyze any of the func- tions of man - nature, it is dangerous and injurious. We have a striking and incontrovertible example of this in our own day and in our own country. Here it is, expressed in the words of the dis- tinguished Joseph Cook. In a recent lecture on Canada he says: "On the fertile banks of the lower St. Lawrence we have a French population living in a state of prolonged childhood under Roman- ism — ignorant, industrious, social, but not progressive. Lower Canada is a part of France unreformed by the revolution of 1792. The Romish Church of Louis XIV. yet collects its tithes on the eastern St. Lawrence." And Joseph Cook significantly adds as explaining this state of things — this intellectual stagnation for centuries — ** the Jesuit is active there." Yes, and his system of education is one-sided, unsymmetrical, and unnatural in the last ■degree, and hence its outcome. But the history of this same French people in their own country furnishes a far more startling and unique example of the ruin that may be brought about by a one-sided education whose ruling prin- ciple or dominant aim is thoroughly bad — in which, not an igno- 11 rant or pious superstition, not a good thought misplaced, but a false and immoral principle is made supreme. When the proper equilibrium, the symmetrical unity of man's constitution, and the co-ordination of hia faculties, of his beliefs and opinions, are over- thrown by such a dominant principle the results are most disastrous. You recollect what happened in France when the sensualistic philosophy, with its denial of the existence of spirit and perversion of all pure morality, was fully developed from germs furnished by two eminent Luglishmen — Hobbes and Locke. The dominant materialist principle of the system was readily favored by Voltaire, who, though no philosopher, was prophetic enough in spirit to see how it would serve his own purposes, and hence he used his satir- ical pen to promote its success as against the antagonistic philoso- phy of DesCartes and Leibnitz. Condillac, with unlimited dog- matism and exquisite beauty of style, lent his powerful support to the same principle. Helvetiua developed it with a will, and, with an outspokenness which far surpassed that of his predecessors, promulgated views the gtv lisness of which it is almost impossible to exaggerate. His literary executor, 8t. Lambert, tried to cover the hideousness of his doctrines with the garb of decency, but this orily intensified the evil. The sensualistic principle prevailed. The doctrine of no spirit, and hence no God, no hereafter, and man nothing more than a bundle of organised sensibilities, compelled by the fatality of his constitution to shun pain and seek pleasure in every form, was fully accepted. With man's moral nature thus thoroughly perverted and depraved by a persistent course of one- sided and pernicious training, it was easy, under the guidance of St. Lambert and kindred spirits, to bring in all the horrors of the reign of terror, when by public enactment God was proclaimed a non- entity, and hence Divine worship and the Sabbath were abolished — the goddess of reason was openly enthroned and adored — the marriage law was annulled and multitudes of bastards were born annually, and the prisons were thronged by innocent men and women who fell victims to the remorseless periodical slaughters of the guillotine ; all this, and much more, as the undeniable issue of a one-sided education which systematically and persistently ignored the spiritual and moral functions and relations of man. It seems to me, therefore, that the analysis of man's constitution as indicating the training it requires, and the testimony of history as recording' the experience of the past, make it abundantly evident that moral culture should be an essential and prominent factor in public education. I argue this : II. Frt)m the fact that it is clear, even from the most cursory 12 view, that the science of ethics embraces the discussion of great and vital questions which affect the weal of society and the pro- gress of man. You may convince yourselves of this by the study of almost any of the ethical systems of antiquity or of modern times. [ do not mean, of course, that you may accapt these indiscriminately as equ- ally safe and true, but only thatanv one of them, however faulty, may serve by the very statement of the subjects it touches to show the truth of the proposition just enunciated. Here, for example, is the wide rani>;e of topics embraced under the title of " Christian Ethics," in a work just issued at Heidelberg by the well-known Dr. Lange. I use a condensed vidimus, of it prepared by Professor Lacroix. The Dr. begins with a critical introduction in which he gives the " History of Ethics " — both Protestant and Catholic — from the revival of learning to the present time. Then follows : *' Part First. — Principles: (1) Ontological Principles : (o) Of Per- sonality ; (6) Of Spirit ; (<;) Of Nature ; (2) Soteriological Princi- ples : (3) Organic Principles. Part Second. — Duties : (1) Duty in general ; (2) The moral law ; (3) The moral purpose ; (4) The moral action. Part Third. — The virtues : (1) Vice ; (2) Virtue in process of genesis ; (3) Christian virtue realized. Part Fourth. —Goods: (1) The moral good; (2) Evil ; (3) The hierarchy of goods ; (4) The goods in their historic development." Now, whatever you may think of this distribution of the subjects included in Christian ethics, whether you approve or condemn it, you cannot deny that it furnishes a vast array of questions which cannot be ignored or even lightly treated in our national system of education, because they lie at the very foundations of society ; and our citizens, if left ignorant of them, cannot rightly fill their places in the great social compact. Society, let us remember, is not founded upon mathe- matics — pure or applied — or upon geology, or chemistry, or astron- omy, or upon any of the sciences which bulk so largely in our programme of modern learning, and which I have no wish to depreciate but upon grand moral principles. The framework of society is neither set up nor held together by brute force, nor solely by the products of the intellect. Steam and electricity, the outcome of all the sciences, intellectual achievements of every sort, have their own rightful place, but let us understand distinctly that we are drawn together and aggregated as families, cities, com- munities, nations, through our moral natures, and that we can be- come pure and great only by the proper recognition of our rela- tions to God and to cno another. 18 1 know th it these views may be felt to involve the acceptance of the Bible by the nation. Be it so. That is precisely my intention ; and I am not afraid or ashamed to acknowledge before the wisest philosophers on earth that I decline to accept as a fountain of instruction and the ultimatum in morals, pagan guesses and rubbish, while I have access to the Word of the Maker of our bodies and the Father of our spirits. It cannot be denied that the Bible contains the highest philosophy and the purest morals — that the life and lessons of Jesus are the clearest exhibition, the very ii)oarnation, of the morality we • need in our schools and in the whole community. And I have yet to learn that our civil and educational institutions can exist without the Bible. Our civil law, our criminal law, our Sabbath law, our marriage law — the great bulwark of domestic and social purity and happiness — our laws against blasphemy and perjury, are all drawn fr(>m the Bible ; and we u.se an act of religious worship — would that it were devoutly used — in the form of an oath, as the very bond of society and the means of ascertaining truth and enacting justice in' all our courts of law. Why should it be thought surprising then by any one, and why should any intelligent citizen be found to hesi- tate about the fact that true moral culture — the culture that has contributed so largely to make our empire what it is — demands the free use of the Bible ? Has it not already woven itself into every line of our purest literature, and every principle of our science, and every fibre of our national life and history ? So that it is only by being untrue to ourselves, to our history, and to our God that we can deny it this place in future. But having said this much, I refuse to be branded on this account as a narrow bigot and the enemy of science and progress. I am the humble friend and advocate of all true sciences — anxious to see the door of truth thrown wide open on every side — willing for the freest, fullest, and m«ist profound investigation into God's works without the slightest shadow OT fear of his being thereby convicted of error, ignorance, or fraud — willing, as one has well expressed it, *' to have all men doubt the false, if the doubt bo pursued to the overthrow of the false — and to have them even doubt the true that has come to them through tradition or bad education, if the doubt be pursued to the establishment of the true." But I am unwilling to accept a pagan, inaccurate, unreliable guide in morals when I have a perfect one at hand — tin willing to have the nation in any measure let go its firm hold upon the living Word, or renounce its public confidence in the great bulwark of its life and liberty and glory. In the words of an English writer : "I look upon the present age as rich in the •elements of a glorious future ; but every one of these elements 14 may Bubserve an overwhelming catastrophe. The groat need of our age is steerage power. The traditional respect for superiors was a superstition ; it is right that it should have passed away. But in its place we must have a true respect for real superiors, or the nation must come to shipwreck. The fading faith in religion was, in a large measure, a superstitious belief in a corrupt Christ- ianity ; it is right that it should have passed away. But in its place we must have a real belief in a pure Christianity, or every man in the nation must come to shipwreck. Faith in men, love to men, respect for men — faith in God, love to God, reverence for God — who will supply these to the world ? Let these abound, and then " Make knowledge circle with the winds ; But let her herald, Reverence, fly Before ber to whatever sky Bear sped of men and growth of minds." Let us now take anotlier step in this argument. I press for a proper recognition of ethical training in our public education — III. Because this is specially needed to meet the present wanta of our country. What are these ? It cannot be denied that we have abundant material resources. Our country is broad and rich enough in this respect. We have also a goodly modicum of talent — of mental outfit — whatever our cousins across the line or our grandfathers across the Atlantic may think about us. The ranks of the learned professions are well filled, and we are never lacking in young recruits aspiring for distinction and power. In theology, law and medicine we make a respectable appearance, and the dif- ferent sciences find among us earnest votaries and a few names of world-wide reputation. And if we do not stand in the first rank in literature, we have at least shown some skill and enterprise in it, and even the fine arts begin to show signs of growth and pro- gress on our soil. Our schools, especially in this great Province of Ontario, are well organized and equipped on the whole, and carried on by a band of earnest and enthusiastic workers. We OTe slowly rising to till no unimportant place in the great family of civilized nations ; and what we need now for still greater national strength and progress are certain things in the moral category. Shall I say a higher sense of honour among all classes, including our public men, and a supreme regard for truthfulness ? It is easily seen that shortcomings in these respects must touch and deteriorate our na- tional life at every point — they will influence our domestic relations and public transactions — aifect our buying and selling, the entire trade and traflic of the country —they must appear in the witness box tainting our judicial processes and perverting the decisions of 15 oiir courts — they will pervade our daily literature and render almost worthless, and even pernicious in many instances, the utter- ances of the press. And is it not a lamentable fact, as recently declared by a leading statesman of Ontario, that in order to get an approximately correct view of the doings and utterances of any public maiii you must read the accounts given by the papers which favour him and the papers which oppose him ? And even then you may fail to reach the truth. Now, it is in the power of our schools and institutions of learning,, as well as of our teachers of all sorts, to brand with deserved infamy this detestable vice of lying, and to stamp it out of fashion, if not out of existence, by calling it by its right name and making it bear its proper burden of dishonour and disgrace, and by holding up constantly before our youth a pure standard of truthfulness and integrity. This is what is needed to bring back business to a safe and healthy state, and the only sort of National Policy that can ensure permanent proi^perity. We hear much of the hard times through which we are passing, but we are slow to take in the thought that hard dealings must bring on hard times in the most productive and highly favoured countries under heaven. If men will have double prices for their goods, and oblige their clerks to lie in selling them — if they will force on trade far beyond the wants of the country by unlawful competition and an unhealthy system of commercial travellers — if they will buy and sell on credit with no rational prospects of meeting their obligations — if young men will rush into business without capital and float it upon accommodation paper, and set up domestic establishments the very first year sur- passing, or at least equalling in grandeur and extravagance those of persons who have made their fortunes — if wealthy men, eager to become more so, will found superfluous banks and then press hard upon one another while encouraging reckless commercial adventurers- — if men will make up their minds to overreach, and cheat and lie in business, there is no ditticulty in seeing how hard times must inevitably overtake them. And the remedy is to be sought in persibtent, universal, thorough moral culture. The vices hinted at are not to be cured in a few months or years. They grow slowly aud they die hard. Great tall rank plauts of iniquity do not grow up like Jonah's gourd in a single night. Giant swindlers undergo a long and hard process of education in secret and public which is not easily undone ; and when a multitude of them infest a country it may require a generation or even more to drive them out, and there must be many a crash and painful exposure in business and in public life before they disappear. It is manifest that the true I 16 way of dealing with these evils, in so far as they affect us, is to teach and preach and speak and work against them. They will not disappear by being left alone. Silence respecting them is criminal. The feeble compromising policy which finds it conveni- ent and easy to do nothing, or to wink at moral delinquency, is both unsafe and unmanly. And I am not sure that those specially entrusted on one day out of seven with the work of public instruc- tion in religion and morals are in this respect entirely blameless. Froude, the historian, justly complains that he has not been well treated in this respect during a long period of devout church-going. His words are : " Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England; many a dissertation on the mysteries of faith, on the Divine mis- sion of the clergy, on apostolic succession, on bishops and justifica- tion, and the theory ot good works and verbal inspiration, and the efficacy of the sacraments ; but never, during these thirty wonder- ful years, uover one, that I can recollect, on common honesty — on those primitive commandments, " Tliou shalt not lie," and "Thou shalt not steal." Probably his experience is not unique. It cannot be so if we may judge from the number of rogues still at large in spite of the business carried on by our police and onr prisons. The pulpit is doubtless to blame ; but we need far mora than sermons on these questions. We need to go down to the roots of the evil, and to permeate our whole educational system with ethical training. We need ten thousand daily lessons in our school-rooms and in our homes on the elements of morals, on the principles of truth, and right, and law, and purity, and frugality, and uelf-control, and general government ; and we need to have these lessons not only formulated and printed in a manual authorized by the Minister of Education, but also taugnt by men and women who liave their hearts in the work, and whose lives are illustrations of what they teach living epistles known and read of all men. This is what is needed in order to preserve untarnished the national honor and glory which we have received as a rich heritage from the past, and in order to make strong and lasting the foundations of the mighty empire of teeming millions destined to extend northward from our grand St. Lawrence. And as we try to consolidate more and more our wide spread provinces, and to fuse into strong and loving unity our heterogeneous populations, and to bind all in undying loyalty to the best of sovereigns, a^ we plant our institutions over the enormous territories of the North-west, and alonsr the valley of the Saskatchewan, and are not ashamed to call Canada our country and our home, let us see to it that reverence for truth and right reign supreme ; then " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three a'one lead life tn sovereign power. Yet not for power (power of herself Would come uncalled for), but to live by law, Acting the law we live by without fear ; And because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in scorn of oonseqaenoes." 8, is to ay will hem is unveni- mcy, is pecially instruo- uneless. sen well [i-going. Ingland; ne mia- ustiBca- and the wonder- isty — on "Thou JO if we te of the ml pit is DU these I, and to ng. We i in our nth, and rol, and not only iiister of ive their hat they 1 what is :)n()r and )ast, and B mighty from our I ore and id loving undying ona over tie valley lada our [or truth