STACK EXTRACTS EMON ON EDUCATION. REV. EDWARD IRVING, M.A. PREACHED IN 1825. GLASGOW: MAURICE OGLE & SON, IIOYAL EXCHANGE SQUARE. The republication of the following Discourse, at this crisis in the History of Education in Scotland, has been suggested by the powerful and exhaustive reply which it gives to prevailing errors, and is commended to the prayers of all God's people, and to the blessing of the great Head of the Church. 11O449I SERMON ON EDUCATION. THE spread of education is a most penetrating and restless power, which even already hath begun to change the face of many things. It hath brought the minds of thousands, of tens of thousands, yea, of mil- lions, and tens of millions, (for we look also abroad), into communication with one another, who heretofore dwelt widely apart ; and it hath put between men who dwell together, a revealer of thoughts within them, which would have dwelt unperceived for ever : and each man it hath lifted from the condition of an unknown, unfelt individual, to the high and dan- gerous pre-eminence of thinking upon the abstrusest subjects, and judging of the greatest men. It hath multiplied the power of the press to an unlimited extent, and begotten a new power, the power of public opinion, capable of controlling prince and people, governors and governed, and the press itself, (for the press is generally at the beck of public- opinion), to which it seems to me that almost every- thing payeth court and deference. To this new in- fluence 1 attribute the apparently improved policy of states, and character of men, the outward civility of manners, the ostentation of liberal opinions, the prevention of many atrocious actions, and the con- cealment of more ; seeing it is in the power of any one who can indite a letter, or convey a piece of intelligence, to submit the unpopular act in one day to a jury of several thousands ; after which, without any care of his, it will be submitted to a jury of several millions ; an ordeal of censure which no man liketh his best, much less his worst, deeds to undergo. This capacity of reading and writing hath given to common sense a local habitation and a name, a unity and a strength, which hardly any- thing can defy. The common it buildeth up to heaven; the personal it streweth upon the earth. It is the appeal to the multitude, the ostracism of the people. And, if the voice of the people be the voice of God, it is a most godly power ; but if the voice of the people be against the voice of God, then every godly thing should look to it and have a care of itself. It is my duty, and shall be my endeavour, to open before you at this time, what effect that kind of education, now so rapidly diffusing itself through- out the land, may be expected to produce upon the prosperity of vital religion, and what part for or against the interests of Zion it is likely to accom- plish. This I shall do by treating, first, of educa- tion in general, what it should include, and what it should aim at ; secondly, from the idea of education thus obtained, endeavour to form an estimate of that kind of it which is so rapidly diffusing itself; thirdly, inquire with whom this great charge of educating the rising generation should be intrusted. I. In order that we may rightly conduct the education of youth, whether in families or schools, in private or in public ; and that we may become good judges of the way in which it is to be con- ducted, and so fulfil to God, and to our country, and to the rising generation, the great trust from which no man is exempt in one form or another, whether of duty or of charity ; it is most necessary that we should have a just idea of that which is in- cluded under the word Education : to which idea all our plans should be shaped, and all the details of our plans be subservient. Now, it seemeth to me, that the true idea of education is contained in the word itself, which signifies the art of drawing out, or educing; and, being applied in a general sense to man, must signify the drawing forth or bringing out those powers which are implanted in him by the hand of his Maker. This, therefore, we must adopt as the rudimental idea of education; that it aims to do for man that which the agricul- turist does for the fruits of the earth, and the gar- dener for the more choice and beautiful productions thereof; what the forester does for the trees of the forest, and the tamer and breaker in of animals does for the several kinds of wild creatures; this same office in a higher kind, according to the higher dignity of the subject, doth education purpose to do for the offspring of man, who is to be the possessor of the earth, and the enjoy er of its beautiful and fragrant fruits, the monarch of all the creatures, the possessor of knowledge, the subject of laws, and the worshipper of God. And that system of education alone can be regarded as liberal or enlarged, as com- plete and catholic, which takes into the compass of its view all the powers and capacities which are given to man, and capable of being educed or brought forth by good and skilful industry. It is necessary, therefore, to consider and classify those powers which are given to human nature ; those original capacities of the soid of man, which all possess, though in different degrees ; the universal and catholic attributes of humanity, without which 8 men are not to be regarded as men, nor allowed to carry on in the midst of men the vocations of human life. These capacities seem to be threefold, rising in the scale of dignity above one another. The first is, the capacity of knowing and understanding the properties of those things which we see and handle and taste, and in the midst of which we are to pass our life ; that is, the knowledge of nature as it is submitted to our five senses, and can be discovered, examined, and discoursed of by our understanding, which judgeth by the sense, and taketh means to an end. The second is, the capacity of knowing and understanding our own selves, of judging amongst, and rightly regulating, those thoughts and emotions of the soul which command the actions of the body, direct the observations of the senses, instruct the understanding to labour in this or that province of outward nature ; the capacity which unites us in families, in friendships, and in societies, enacts laws and forms of government, submits to them when they are enacted ; and, in short, produces all that inward activity of spirit, and outward condition of life, which distinguishes man from the lower crea- tures. The third is, the power of knowing, and worshipping, and obeying the true God, which, though it be a faculty lost and hidden in man by the fall, is now renewed in him by the Word and Spirit of God, whereof assurance is given to all who believe the gospel, by the blessed sacrament of baptism, which declares not by words but by signs, that from the earliest hour of life, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, implant the lost capa- city of divine and spiritual life, which thenceforth education may consider as the third and noblest province of her kingdom. Now, that education is liberal, catholic, and complete, which embraceth this threefold capacity of human nature, and order- eth itself in such wise as to give to each its proper place in the scale of dignity ; and that again, is narrow and sectarian, and hurtful, which embraceth only a part, or disordereth the relative dignity and subserviency of the several parts. A matter of such vast practical importance as education should not be allowed to rest upon any individual's notion of the capacities of the human mind, or to be conducted according to any private judgment concerning the ends and objects of human life. - And I reckon that the more novel and original any scheme is, which has education for its object, the less worthy is it of our regard. For, of a thing so common, so ancient, so full of anxiety to every one, men must surely by this time have got to know the first principles, and to practise the best rules. Therefore, I were willing to renounce both the classification which hath been given above, of the capacities of our nature, and the order of their re- spective dignity, if it should be found not to have received the common consent of men, or be not embodied in their practice, and required by their institutions. But, when I see that in every well- ordered family, the first lesson of a mother to her children is of God and of conscience, of religion and of duty, and that almost all schools, academies, and universities of any standing, have heretofore gen- erally arisen out of religion, and been so ordered as to cultivate both the knowledge and the practice of religion; and that in all well-constituted states, re- ligion hath had the first and highest reverence, orders of men being set apart to teach it as the principle of action, the root and stem of manly character ; and that, in the forms of our country, thereon rest the sanction of an oath, the sacredness of a covenant, the forms of law, the very forms of merchandise, the holy bond of matrimony, the quali- fication for an office, and everything in short which constitutes the nerve and sinew of the state ; I must A 2 10 not only keep the place which I have taken for re- ligion above every other capacity of man, but call upon him who disputes it to enter into controversy with the universal judgment of those chosen men who have stamped the image of their mind upon the face of law, and the constitutions of civil life. And that the moral duties of man to man come second in order, and rise far above the knowledge and management of the material world, who will dispute that comprehendeth ought of his own, of his neighbours', or the common weal, which are not built up, as they fondly imagine, by contributions of physical science, and skill in arts, but by domes- tic and honest virtues, by female chastity and grace, by manly wisdom and virtue, by the good and whole- some administration of laws, by moderation and dis- interestedness in those who govern, by industry, free- dom, and loyalty in those who are governed, and by the other forms of loyal character, whereof it would be endless to speak particularly. We live, indeed, in a time when the physical sciences have almost stormed the strongholds of morality and re- ligion ; but I trust in God, though at times I fear, that his blessing upon the ancient bulwarks of our church, and our polity, will preserve them against bravadoes of physical knowledge, and the rude attacks of physical force. But if any one will ascend beyond thirty short years of time, and take the judgment of the centuries and ages which pre- ceded this present generation of man, he will find that by universal consent the studies of nature were far postponed to the studies of man and the study of God, and the command over nature's secrets, rated far beneath the command over self, and obe- dience to the holy, just, and good ordinances of the Most High. We have, therefore, the best right to conclude, that if education fulfil the rudimental idea which it 11 names, and indeed the only catholic idea of it which can be taken up, it must address itself to unfold these three various parts of man's nature, in due subordination to one another, by all the helps and instruments which can be made subservient to that blessed end. Now, all who believe in revealed religion, and have had any experience of its godly truths, know well how utterly ineffectual is every other means to quicken religious life within the soul, save the revelation of His mind and will, which for that end God himself hath given to the children of men. The gospel of Christ, as it is unfolded there, in all its various forms of narration, of doc- trine, of precept, and of example, of promise and reward, and of prophecy and fulfilment, through four thousand years of time, is the only light which availeth to dispel the brooding darkness wherein the spirits of all the young and old are found en- veloped and hidden from all knowledge which con- cerneth God and immortality, the invisible world, and everlasting life. They have written most beautifully concerning the light of nature, and the revelation of God contained in the material universe ; and very pleasant it were to believe all which they have beautifully written; but I have yet to find the man, either in the records of well-authenticated history, or in the circles of living society, who hath derived from that source any abiding consciousness of God's existence, or revelation of his mind, any deliverance from sin, or practical government of life ; any well-grounded hope of immortality, any available consolation against affliction and death. Yet I blot not out of the scheme these the handi- works of God ; but before they can be rightly perused, I exact much previous knowledge concern- ing Him whom they do but dimly represent, and concerning that sad calamity of the world which has shifted every one of them from its centre ; and 12 then with such illumination both human nature and physical nature may be perused with much theolo- gical profit and instruction, which without it are a chaos of confusion, a book of riddles, a chain of paradoxes, and series of contradictions. That seminary of education, therefore, from which the Scriptures are excluded, wherein the doctrines and precepts of the Scriptures are not constantly in- culcated, and in Scripture-wise commended to the heart and conscience of the youth, is to be accounted a place for neglecting man's best and noblest, his everlasting capacity; for crushing to the earth that immortal spirit which should have soared to heaven ; for extinguishing and annihilating that divine spark which the Son of God came to kindle anew in every heart, and which the Spirit of God abideth for ever to watch over, and to nourish and preserve for everlasting. With respect to that second form and degree of our capacities which hath reference to the know- ledge of our own intellectual and moral nature, gives us the command of the various feelings and affections lying in such disarray within our breast, and prepares us for discharging aright the various offices and duties we owe to ourselves, our neigh- bours, our kindred, and our country, and whereon personal happiness and the common weal chiefly de- pend ; this faculty, we Christians are of opinion, is best cultivated by the knowledge of God, whose revelation, by universal consent even of its enemies, contains the best code of moral duties the world hath ever possessed. And we would have the authority of God employed to support that which the wisdom of God hath devised ; and therefore we think, that in a well-conducted education the know- ledge of ourselves should come out of the know- ledge of God, which is set forth, not in the abstract, but in relation to human nature and morals, grows 13 out of religion, as the branches, and leaves, and flowers, and fruits grow from the root and trunk of the tree. And I see not, indeed, how, in a Chris- tian state like Britain, where every moral and poli- tical duty is entwined with religion in the very texture of society ; where our poetry, and our literature, and our philosophy heretofore delighted to graft themselves upon the same venerable stem, and since they separated have produced nothing but sour, bitter, and poisonous grapes ; and where, Sabbath after Sabbath, moral duties are inculcated on religious principles in our churches, and in our universities, and in our chief schools, and in the great body of our common schools ; I see not how in this land, morals can be taught apart from Chris- tianity, founded upon classical traditions, or modern infidel doctrines, without distracting the very vitals of the land, and tearing to pieces that constitution of society which hath shown its soundness by weathering the storms which have strewed the world with the wrecks of other states. But on whatever founded, a system of moral duties of some kind ought to be exhibited and enforced in every school, else will that second part of human nature, which is the bond and blessing of society, be left dormant as well as the first, and nothing be culti- vated of the noble being of man save those lowest and meanest powers whereby he converseth with the properties of matter, or with the brutes that perish. The common answer which is given to such an analysis of the powers of man as is given above, and to our definition of education thence derived, is an impatient and violent assertion that knowledge can, at all events, do a man no hurt, and will only bring him so much the nearer to morals and to re- ligion : whence they blindly conclude, that, give the people knowledge of any kind whatever, you - 14 may leave the issue to God and a good conscience. To this fallacy it seemeth to me, that our intellec- tual divines have given great encouragement by talking as if religion would come of course from the knowledge of the Bible. " Give us the Bible, and it will do its own work," is the watchword of the religious, as if the book were God, and that to read were the whole function of the soul ; as if God had concentrated himself in a book, and left the field of operation wholly in its hand. This gross error on the part of the religious, hath given such encourage- ment to the liberal part of the nation, that they speak of it as a thing never to be doubted, that knowledge of any kind must be favourable to reli- gion, must bring the people a step nearer to God, and make them a degree more apt to the operation of the Holy Spirit, so much the more trustworthy, so much the more obedient to law and government. And if you begin to interpose any conditions con- cerning the subject of the instruction, and the mate- rials of the knowledge, they snuff at it as the most intolerable bigotry, or the most unaccountable blind- ness, against which I solemnly protest as a most gross error and dangerous fallacy, and take leave to state my broad and firm conviction, that the na- tural mind, in a state of grossest darkness, and the natural mind in a state of greatest illumina- tion, and in all and every state between these two extremes, is enmity, bitter enmity, to God's mind and will, and utterly unable of itself to receive God's Word ; that there doth most frequently attend upon the acquisition of knowledge, as upon the acquisition of anything else, a proud consciousness of power, a selfish feeling of distinction, and the vulgar avarice of possessing more, with vanity, jealousy, and pre- sumption, and other vicious feelings, holding of pride and avarice, which cause it to be experienced that the steps and degrees in the invisible kingdom 15 of mind, like the steps and degrees in the invisible kingdom of rank and worldly state, are often so many removes away from the humility, sincerity, and childlike simplicity of the spiritual temple ; into which you enter neither through the stately porch of the academy, nor through the unfolded portals of the palace, but by the narrow way and strait gate of repentance and self-abasement, which there be few of any rank that find, but certainly fewest of those who are wise after the wisdom of the pre- sent world. So that if a palace, the high place of visible power, be generally the stronghold of false- hood, intrigue, and sensuality, then a university, the high place of invisible power, is generally the stronghold of indifference, hatred, and contempt towards the humbling truths of the Gospel and all well-grounded morals ; either a focus of most hot and violent rage against spiritual religion, or an iceberg of cold indifference, concentrating death within itself, and radiating chilling cold to the re- gion round about. Having uttered this our convic- tion with respect to knowledge of the nature of things, taken separately from the law of conscience, which is morality, and the obligation of God's revealed will; namely, that the carnal mind, with all its works, is enmity against God, and that knowledge of itself puffeth up, and cannot build up, but by the addition of the strong band of charity or Christian love, when the cold moonbeam of knowledge is converted into the cherishing sunbeam of wisdom ; I were content to rest here, but that there hath started up in this unprincipled and changeable generation, a class of objectors of a very peculiar kind ; who, with much affectation of good nature, allow all that hath been said, yea, become all at once very puritanical, and with an earnest countenance ex- claim, " Oh, yes, there can be no doubt religion is a most necessary part of instruction ; but it is too important. 16 too sacred, to be left in the hands of any teacher, and must be remitted to the parents ; for it is so sa- cred, that people are jealous of it, and cannot agree to confide it to any single man or body of men. The best way, therefore, you can take, and the most respectful, is to exclude it from the public schools altogether." But a great inheritance is not to be lost because the two sharers of it cannot agree upon the division; no more are our children to be es- cheated to the Prince of Darkness because we are not agreed upon the best way of investing the Prince of Light in their possession ; at least I, for one, will lift up my protest against so gross a fraud committed upon God's right in them, and their right in them, and their right in the Gospel, as this false principle involves, and that for the gravest reasons. Nay, but that his right in the souls of children might be established beyond all question and dis- pute, He hath established the sacrament of baptism, whereby, at any, the most tender age, might be so- lemnly signified his redemption of them from the natural inheritance of death, into the inheritance of life spiritual and eternal, by the power of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So that I do understand, and most surely believe, that every parent doth, in the mystery of baptism, as it were, forestal the death and burial of his child, signifying that to be the end of all he can give it ; while Christ doth foreshow the birth of the child into an eternal life, which shall come in course of faith ; so that there is a virtual transfer of the little one from a natural birthright of death into a spiritual birthright of life, and a willing dedication of it to Christ, from whom it hath this infinite bequest, together with the re- nunciation of any further right in it save as Christ's steward for the due rearing up of the nonage and incompetency of the spirit, which is thus signified 17 to be born. Such are the parents of children in the eye of Christ and his church, constituted in solemn trust over the spirits for which Christ died, and which he hath claimed as his own, to save and en- dow them with everlasting life. And what, again, is the teacher of children ? a sub-agent, if I may so speak, upon this most excellent trust ; one who is fitted and prepared, and selected for doing that office which parents, by their much occupation and business do oft disqualify themselves from doing. Not that I think that any parent can deliver himself from his Christian obligations, by rolling them upon one or upon many teachers, but that it is lawful to take help in that which they themselves are not qualified to perform. But still, a school under a schoolmaster, and pupils under a preceptor, are, in the eye of God and of the church, which is the proper guardian of God's children, nothing different from a help and supplement to the families from whom the children are drawn. The pupils are still immortal spirits, as children of Christ, to be trained for his kingdom. The father cannot undo the surrender which he made of his child at baptism, or annul the obligation which he took upon himself to fulfil the stewardship of its immortality. The teacher cannot step between the father and God, to take upon himself a part, or in any way to counter- act the tenor thereof. He can only offer himself to help in the fulfilment of the covenant ; and in all his actings must conform to the spirit and inten- tion of the baptismal covenant. He is not a third party, but called in by one of the two parties, to help him in his onerous charge ; and this I conceive to be the true doctrine of the preceptor's office. Hence it is, that in the primitive church this office was given in charge to catechists, who were approved of by the church, and acted under the careful superintendence of the bishops and elders B 2 18 of the church. And hence, also, in the parish schools of Scotland the teacher is also looked upon as an ecclesiastical person, being judged of by the Pres- bytery, and visited by the Presbytery, generally also precentor and session-clerk, and often, when of sufficient experience, an elder likewise. Hence, moreover, in all the parish schools, the Scriptures were made the means and the end of instruction, and catechisms introduced only for teaching, in the best way suited to the young, the principles of re- ligious knowledge. Hence, also, all universities in Europe were likewise ecclesiastical foundations, con- ducted for the most part by the doctors of the church, according to the principle that the education of Christian children was to be undertaken and carried on in the spirit of the baptismal covenant, for the end of training up the spirit to that immortal inheritance which Christ declared himself to have purchased for it in the sacrament of baptism. Now, either you must annul me the baptismal covenant, and destroy the fundamental principle of the gospel, that our life, and all we fondly call our own, are purchased by Christ's death, and restored to us not in full possession, but in stewardship ; or you must yield to me from the above premises, that everything in the school, as everything in the family which is done and taught to the children, should be taught and done under the authority of Christ, and the allspices of his church, and with a view to im- mortality. Is it the art of reading? then, for the end of knowing God's will, as it is written in his Word, and in the writings of his wise and worthy servants. Is it the art of writing? then, for the end of record- ing and communicating whatever may be for our greater weal, or the greater weal of others his crea- tures. Is it the art and mystery of any profession ? then, for the end of filling to God's contentment the duties of the same. Is it the mechanical handicrafts ? 19 then, for the end of winning honest bread, and being burdensome to none, but helpful to all. And for whatever other attainment or accomplishment of body and of mind it is that we go to school, then, for the end of occupying that endowment of God the better in his service, and the more profitably to his creatures. Now, it is manifest that in thus fulfilling the particulars of Christian education, you proceed at every step in the distinct recognition of God's propriety in the youth, of his glory as the chief end of his life, and eternity as the landing- place of the voyage ; for which voyage into the haven of eternity, all the education whether of the family or of the school, is but, as it were, the rig- ging and the outfit of the vessel, and the consign- ment of her treasure unto the rightful owner, the Father of the spirits of all flesh. Be it observed, therefore, that the point for which we argue, is not, whether religion should be taught in the school or in the family ; but, whether in a land professing to be governed on Christian prin- ciples, and to establish the Christian religion amongst its people, it be not a glaring inconsistency, a gross solecism in law, and so far forth the entire rejection of religion, that the schools where the youth are taught, should not recognize the authority of God, and advancement of Christ's kingdom, as constantly and unequivocally as the churches, chapels, or con- venticles where the men are taught. I am not dividing the matter of religious education between the home and the school, between the parents and the teachers, but showing that it is beyond the power of a Christian parent to intrust the training of the spirit intrusted to him, to any one who is unprin- cipled in Christ's gospel, and uncareful of its obli- gations : even as it is likewise beyond the power of a Christian government to constitute schools which shall not acknowledge, in the ordering of knowledge 20 and the instructing of mind, the same authority of Christ, the universal Governor, which every Chris- tian polity should acknowledge in all its acts and ordinances. When I say beyond the power of the - Christian parent, I mean inconsistent with the bap- tismal covenant, by which he bound himself; and when I say beyond the power of a Christian go- vernment, I mean inconsistent with the covenant which it enters into with Christ, when, for the benefits of his laws and ordinances, and Word and Spirit, it doth acknowledge him as Lord of all, and expect the blessings of his good providence, which are on this condition bestowed upon every state. They may, both parents and governors, violate the one covenant and the other, yea, and do so continually ; but they do it at the risk of offending God, to whom they have devoted their children and their people, of calling down his judgments in due time, and, if they repent not, of being finally cast off as apostates, and long enduring his wrath and indignation in every form ; as at this day you see in the case of the apostate Jews, the apostate Mahommedans, and the apostate Papacy, which are every one of them blighted with the stern and constant east wind of the wrath of God. Whereas, we who do, amidst our manifold errors and contradictions daily increas- ing, maintain the national and parental covenant in a certain measure of force, have been preserved and blessed in a wonderful manner, yet nothing to what we would have been, had we kept the covenant of our fathers, and not worshipped the gods of silver and gold, adored the gods of our own reason, and paid a certain respect to the gods of the nations ; from whence have come corrosion in the strong and lusty limbs of the body politic, corruption near the heart, confusion in the head, and alarm and dismay throughout the whole, though no man can tell his neighbour why or wherefore. Oh, that my country 21 would fear God ! oh, that all the people would agree to praise him ! then would the earth yield her in- crease, and God, even our God, would bless us. II. These observations which we have made in general upon the scope and end of education, do open the way to a practical judgment concerning that kind of education which now engageth the universal attention of the people. In handling this, the second head of our discourse, I have an eye chiefly to those inventions and practices of education which have grown up within the last half century, and which profess to follow knowledge on its own account, without respect to any particular creed of religion or system of morals. At the head of which I may place our mechanical schools, and the university which it is proposed to found in the metropolis. I confess, however illiberal and irreligious I may be thought, my observations will apply very largely to those systems of education which admit the Bible, but exclude every creed, and prevent any effective exposition or application of the truths of the Bible : which build chiefly upon the acquisitions of reading, writing, and accounts ; and adopt the Bible, and lessons from the Bible, as the least exceptionable class-book for learning to read upon. And while I include these modern institutions, of which the basis is knowledge and arts on their own account, I ex- clude all the ancient institutions, from the parish schools of Scotland up to the universities of Eng- land, which have religion for their foundation, and are as it were a porch to the church. Our notion of human nature, as explained above, is, that it is fashioned and furnished for more excel- lent purposes than to turn the clod, or handle machines, to transport the produce of the earth from place to place, or work in mines of gold and silver ; or to eat, drink, and make merry, over the indulgences which are by these means procured. 22 And, therefore, those systems of education whose chief aim it is to teach the nature of the physical productions of the earth, and the mechanical arts by which they are to be transported from place to place, and the chemical arts by which their forms and properties are changed, and the science of eco- nomy, or of turning our handiwork to the most account, are to me no systems of education what- ever, unless I could persuade myself that man was merely king of the animals, head labourer and mas- ter workman of the earth. I can see a great use and value in these physical sciences to enable a man to maintain himself with less brutal labour, to the end he may have more leisure upon his hands, for higher and nobler occupations ; and in this re- spect I greatly admire them, as having bowed the stubborn neck of the elements to the spirit of man, and restored him that power over creation with which he was endowed at first. But if he is to be taught in his youth no higher occupation than this, no godlike recreation of his soul, no spiritual sciences ; and, if what he is taught of in- tellect be thus bound down, like Prometheus, to the barren earth, then have we an education which, however splendid in its apparatus, however imposing in its experiments, however fruitful in riches, and all which riches can command, is poor and meagre, low, mean, and earthly, altogether in- sufficient to satisfy man's estate, which doth but harness him for his work, which doth but enslave and enserf him to the soil, but giveth to him no tokens, no hint nor intimation, of his reasonable being ; for I call not that reason which labours in the clay, it is but the instinct of the noble animal, and not the reason of the spiritual being. Such edu- cation will depress a people out of manliness, out of liberty, out of poetry and religion, and whatever else hath been the crown around the brows of mankind. 23 Yet mark, that even to this the lowest form in the school, the education of the instincts of man, which teacheth him to till, and sow, and reap, and gather into barns ; to exchange, and truck, and traffic, and make gain, I yield its proper value when I say, it is to the end of making less bodily bondage and earthly calculation necessary to win our bread, and leave the better part of our being disengaged for other employments. But for what employments disengaged? This is the question you answer not in your mechanical schools, which is their poverty and barrenness. You did not surely mean that your men should always labour, and sleep and labour. That is not your consummation of humanity, is it ? If it be, you are fit to be the instructors of Russian serfs or West Indian slaves, but not of men who know of old, and have it writ- ten in the chronicles of their fathers, that they were born for the highest functions of free-born men ; yea, and to aspire unto the similitude of God, and live with God and Christ upon the earth, and live with them for ever in the world to come. But the school of education is for a higher and more liberal tuition, not to educate the craftsman, but to educate the man ; not to train for this or that office in the commonwealth, but for all offices ; not to be taken up with that which is peculiar, but with that which is universal. This is its first care, which having well discharged, if there be time and leisure for par- ticular and individual things, then there can be no harm in attending to these also ; but not by any means at the expense and to the sacrifice of the common and catholic. Now, forasmuch as letters are the great con- trivance by which men have chosen to express their thoughts and feelings, and by which God hath made to man the revelation of His being and will, it is surely, first of all, necessary that reading should be 24 given to all, as the key by which they are to open to themselves the knowledge of that which is re- corded concerning the past, and revealed concern- ing the future. The poor who are bound to place, and ensphered in the narrow prejudices of place ; who have no story, but a few traditions ; no wis- dom, but a few proverbs ; no hope higher than a poor-house in their old age ; no ambition beyond a cottage ; these, I say, so far from being excluded, have the best right to, by having the greatest need of, reading and writing ; those two wittiest inven- tions, and greatest helps of man's condition, whereby the past may be made to pass over again before them, and the future to rise up in its glory under their eyes ; the distant may be brought near, the learned made level to their capacities, the good introduced to their cottage firesides, the godly made accessible to their souls, and every admirable and heavenly quality which hath rooted and seeded on the earth, made as free and blessed to the cottage, as it is to the palace, the senate, and the university. But let it be recognized and fairly stated out, lest our enthusiasm carry us too far, that the inter- change of mind with mind which these inventions enable us to carry on, may be productive of evil as readily as of good, unless there be given therewith some criterion to know the good from the evil. Whatever hath been felt of good and ill hath been written, and the evil hath its blazoning to the eyes as well as the good, its rich garnish and savoury odour to the base appetites of the mind, and needeth not to be sought, but is presented before the face of all the people, cheapened down to their poverty and pressed upon them with all assiduity. Wherefore, like putting a blind man into a wood where poisons grow as plentifully as fruits, and leaving him there to feed his body, is it to introduce our people to this chaos of right and wrong, of truth 25 and falsehood, of religion and irreligion, of blessed- ness and misery, of heaven and hell, without having cultivated in them any principles by which to know the evil from the good, and to distinguish the wholesome from the unwholesome. For, let men talk of liberty as they please, no one is so wildly liberal as to say that everything which is written is right, and everything which is circulated amongst the people is good. If any man had the folly to say so, I would go to the place where his children were educated, and see whether indiscriminateness were the order of his nursery : I would sit down at his table and hear whether indiscriminateness were the order of his discourse. It is absurd. Why are these men so fierce for liberality, why so illiberally liberal, so passionately tolerant, so sarcastically con- tented with everything? We must, therefore, now attend to the goodly fabric of character which is to be built up by this faculty of which you have given him the ready hold. All men have common func- tions to discharge to one another, even as members of the same society, to obey the laws, to reverence the authorities, to be courteous to one another, and humane to the lower creatures. As members of a family they have still more important offices to discharge, to be dutiful and obedient children, affectionate kinsmen, faithful spouses, tender and watchful parents ; as joined to one another in the relationships of life, they have other duties to dis- charge, of honest traders, good and faithful ser- vants, kind masters, confidential friends, wise gover- nors, and good subjects. Towards ourselves we have a high duty to discharge, which lies at the root of all the others, namely, to separate the good from the evil within our own souls, to cherish the most excellent, and to foster the most kindly part of our nature, to fight against cruelty and malice, and to subdue anger and impatience, and to watch 26 over the inward and hidden man of the heart, out of which are the issues of life. And towards God we have to fulfil the duties of responsible creatures ; nay more, of men taught from above, of men re- deemed from iniquity by the blood of His only begotten Son, and regenerated by the Holy Ghost in the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. These are not particulars but universals, pertaining to us as men, and not as craftsmen, growing out of the root and stem of human nature, and necessary to its well-being, yea, necessary to its very being. And, therefore, if they be not taught in the school which is the nursery of the seedlings, where shall they be taught? In the church r The church has enough to do with men, though it should not neglect children. In the house and family ? If it were done there I were contented, and would concede the matter. But rest assured that, if it were attempted at home or in the church, it would be so imperfectly done that it would be insisted for in the school also. And when it is best done in any one place, I have found it best done in them all. But I say, done it must be ; and if any one say it need not be, I arrest that man of high treason against the royal function of education, which is to draw out the powers and faculties that are in man, and fit him for the duties of the life that now is, and of the life that is to come. If the faculties of human nature consisted only of five senses, four lusty limbs, and a voracious body; and if the wealth of man consisted only in houses and lands and visible goods ; and if the whole functions of men be accomplished in the writing office, behind the counter, or in the work- shop, or in the field, or in the manufactory then I give in, and say, Let no principles be taught in a school but the principles of Coker to number, and the elements of Euclid to measure withal; but 27 while the old notion lives upon the earth that tnere is a spirit in man, and that the breath of the Al- mighty hath given him life, that there is a world of faith beyond the world of sight, wherein are things honest and true, pure and lovely, and of good re- port ; and while these old English notions live that every man's house is his castle, which he hath to keep with all wisdom, and purify with all his reli- gion, and that his children are his quiver of arrows with which he is strong, and can face his enemy in the gate, and that he is a free man to meddle and intermeddle with the governors of the state, and call them to an account according to the laws ; and that he is a judge of law and fact, to whom the twelve judges, clothed in ermine, are but servants, to set the case out in fair array ; while these notions live here in the south, and with us in the north, while the still higher notions live the bulwark of the land, that every peasant is a brother of Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth, and every father a priest of Christ over his household, and every head of a family an elder over the house of Israel ; our sons born not to vegetate upon the spot of soil which bore them, but to go up and down the earth and open it with their wisdom, and instruct it in their holier discipline, and come home to their mother laden with its treasures, and with what is dearer still to our mother, the report of a good name, and the glory of an upright and righteous man ; while these ideas live amongst our people, and in these our people live, shall a few faithless, witless sectarian speculators in education philan- thropists, not knowing what man is, that they might love him talk of educating, our people without respect to these the high functions of our people, educate them merely in truth mechanical and things visible ; then, I say, let these speculators go to the people to be a little instructed, before they pretend 28 to instruct the people, who are more wise and noble- minded than they. Therefore, seeing our people are not regarded as mere serfs of the soil, or adjuncts of the machinery, but men who are the nerves and sinews of the state, who choose lawgivers, and judge causes between man and man, between the king and the subjects ; spiritual men, who have a priesthood appointed over them, to teach them from Sabbath to Sabbath the principles of the doctrines of Christ, and the obligations which, as Christians, they are under ; seeing we are a nation of Christians, a be- lieving nation, who, for the sake of God, and God's righteous cause, have mustered in the field of battle, and triumphed over the upholders of des- potism and superstition, shall the children of our people be trained in the ignorance of those prin- ciples which their fathers wrote upon the tablets of their hearts, and placed as a frontlet before their eyes ; and in which they became a separate people from the rest of the nations, and have not been made partakers of their plagues? No ! this must not be. or else the Lord hath utterly forsaken us. If we have a Christian priesthood, and a Christian framework cf society, and a Christian statute book, then must we also have a Christian education, else our children will grow up, not to improve and perfect the works of their fathers, but to fight against and overthrow them ; to root out, not to prune the vine and the fig-tree, under the shade of which we have so long sitten without any one to make us afraid. When we become an infidel and parricidal people like France, we may bethink us of more scientific education ; but while we are a believing people, we must have an education of principles first, along with our education of know- ledge : and if both cannot go together, as heretofore, then I say, let the education of principles stand 29 first, as the palladium of the land, and the educa- tion of knowlege learn to bow and reverence that which was before it, and which we prize above it. They have got the idea into their heads, that if you do but exclude all creeds and peculiarities of religion from our schools, you deliver them from being sectarian; and that it is the acme of liberality to have no religion taught whatever ; as if there was no sectarianism anywhere but in religion, and as if religion consisted only of disputes. The fools, the ignorant fools ! Religion is the science of obli- gations ; and an education which should exclude obligations is certainly worse than none ; inasmuch as an untamed savage creature who is strong, is worse than one who is weaker. Exclude religion from the schools ! then must you exclude celestial aspirations from the soul, and heaven-born principles from the life of man. I do admire, and am amazed of what sires we of this age are begotten, and what mothers nursed us upon their knees, that we should have lost the ancient temper of those islanders who, from the first insight they got into the Christian faith, have held it dear, and always bore it before them in the government and legislation of the land ; to adhere to which was regarded as the mark of a liberal mind, and to deliver it from thraldom the highest achievement of a gallant soul. I do admire that a people whose chief statesmen, as Burleigh and Bacon, whose chief lawyers, as Sir Matthew Hale, whose chief patriots, as Hampden, and Pym, and Harvey Vane, whose chosen spirits, as Milton, and Newton, and Boyle, and Locke, did all count it most worthy of them, to rest their improvements upon the .purification and enlargement of religion, and never sought in any way its overthrow ; well knowing, being master spirits of the mind, not money changers, that Christian religion is reason 30 perfected, and liberty secured, that such a people, who by these principles, have been made steadfast as old Rome itself, and now wield an empire wider than that of Rome, should have come to this pass of darkness and delusion, that its high-spirited and liberal men, with one voice, should shove religion to a side, and hold her in abeyance, and taunt her with scorn, and distinguish not between her form and beauty, as upheld in those establishments which our fathers set up, and the grossest super- stition which they fought against, as the very incarnation of the devil's falsehood and murder, that instead of crying for reform of abuses here, as they do in the state, they should rather court an overthrow ; " Raze it, raze it !" God, why hast thou blinded us ? our God, why hast thou for- saken us ? Why standest thou afar off from the voice of our weeping ? Return unto us, God ! Return unto us, thou who hast been the strength of our fathers ! Deliver us, Lord ! for there is none that fighteth for us but thou alone. I thank my God that there is still a remnant amongst us, in whom is the old leaven of this reformed nation, and who know better things than are taught by late sprung liberality ; to whom I now earnestly call, as to the saviours of their coun- try, against the invading deluge of unprincipled knowledge ; and strictly charge them, by the au- thority given to me in the church of Christ, that they adopt none of those notions of our modern politicians and philosophers, but labour in the old way of instructing the people in the book of God, and training the children in the book of God, and training the children of the people to love and reverence the rod of their fathers : and if men cast upon you the charge of illiberality, retort upon them the charge, who are illiberal to the memory of their fathers, to the hopes of their children. 31 If they cast upon you the charge of sectarianism, retort upon them the charge ; for it is they who make division between the world that is, and the world that is to come, between religion and mo- rals, between morals and knowledge, between principles and ends. They will call this bigotry in me to set forth; and in you they will call it bigotry to carry it into effect : therefore, I go on to justify the doctrine, by examining the third question pro- posed : In what hands the superintendence of education might best be left, so as to protect it the most effectually from becoming sectarian. III. Now, as we taught in the opening of the subject, that there are three distinct capacities in man, which it is the object of education to unfold ; ascending one above another in the dignity of their object, in their profitableness to the subject, and in their advantage to the common weal ; namely, the knowlege of nature, and its various forms of science and art; the knowlege of our own selves, or various powers and relations to one another; and the know- ledge of our Creator and his revelation, so now it is to be observed that there are in a community three several powers, which are, as it were, the con- secrated guardians of these three great interests ; and whose chief office it is to watch over them ; namely, private interest, of which each man is the guardian ; the public good, of which our governors and lawgivers are the guardians; and religion, of which the clergy are the guardians. And I will now show you a little how insufficient any one of these is by itself, to take upon itself the high trust of superintending the schools, and saving them from be- coming narrow and sectarian. The experiment of leaving it to private interest to attend to the education of the youth, and giving it no patronage or superin tendance of church or state, hath been tried among the peasantry of England for three 32 centuries ; and such is the apathy of an uneducated people, that, till others interfered, they continued as ignorant as they were at the Reformation. And for the last half century it hath been tried in the manu- facturing towns, amongst a people commonly well supplied not only with the necessaries but with the comforts of life. But such is the power of present gain, that they rather choose to convert their chil- dren into ministers to their extravagance, than part with any of their superfluities to have them in- structed. What education does spring up in a country from this spontaneous principle, must always be of a very inferior kind, just enough to compass the interests which an unenlightened people can discern. And the teachers will also be of an inferior kind, such as will qualify them most readily and most cheaply for those short-sighted and narrow interests. Being wholly dependent upon the people, they cannot be ex- pected to face out any popular prejudice, which they will be the rather disposed to minister to and perpetuate. But as for sound principles, enlarged views of duty, true manliness of character, reverence for the laws, and the king, and the authorities under him ; piety to God, faithfulness to Christ, and re- generation by the Holy Spirit, and all the other principles and effects of spiritual life ; these would remain unregarded in the choice of schoolmasters, untaught in the schools, and consequently unprac- tised in the world, and would be reputed so many vulgar errors, which every liberal man must re- nounce in private, and in public respect only so long as the public mind is not sufficiently enlight- ened to despise them. Let us next see how this important matter of superintending the schools might be intrusted to the representatives of law and government. In an- cient times, when the governors of the state and 33 the legislators were also the moralists and philoso- phers, who consulted for the well-being of the people, in the largest sense in which they could conceive it, the care and superintendence of the youth might well be intrusted to them. But, in these times, when statesmanship applies itself exclusively to public concerns, and it is considered an infringe- ment on the part of law to meddle with our familiar affairs, which are held sacred to every man, it were totally inconsistent with the division of power that they should take vipon them the superintendence of the schools. Law should, therefore, stand to the schools in the same relation in which it doth to other parts of the common good, ready to see that every man fulfilleth his covenant and discharged! his office. But neither of these two powers in a community are sufficiently enlightened in the cha- racter and working of the human spirit, in the fields which it hath for culture, and the chambers which it hath for containing stores, to undertake to super- intend the operation of cultivating and storing it. This can pertain only to religion, which is wide and extensive as the human spirit, and carries its views of human well-being into the eternal as well as the temporal estate ; which is soft, and applieth to itself no outward terrors, nor coarse and outward gains, but with the soft appliances of love and affec- tion to every soul, and seeketh to nourish and cherish therein a spirit of holiness, and of wisdom, and of the fear of God, and of the love of men. When any mother shows a care of her children, and acquires a power over them, you shall always find that religion is the instrument by which she is working upon them. Indeed, I see not how any education, properly so called, can proceed without religion : because, though you may teach the les- son, how are you to enforce the lesson ? Religion is, therefore, by its very nature, the mistress and 34 superintendent of education. A knowledge dis- severed from religion, and serving no ends of reli- gion, will serve no ends of social nor private well- being; and though it may increase individual power, and bring a short-lived harvest of individual and national vanity, and obtain command over the visible universe, and accumulate riches thence, it worketh not in the spirit, nor upon the spirit; brings it no redemption, affords to it no consola- tion, lays it over no sweet restraints of love, nor strong obligations of duty ; makes no provision for the sorrows, and troubles, and adversities of the soul, and hath no tendency to dignify and ennoble the mind in its high places, nor build up society in any of its strongholds. It is education resting upon religion, and superintended by religion, which hath made us what we are ; and let us beware of di- vorcing these two helps meet for one another, lest we become like other nations where they are divorced. If a case were wanted to confirm the doctrine of this discourse in all its parts, that case would be found in Scotland, where for three centuries there has been a religious, and nothing but a religious education of the people ; for our universities were but a part of our religious establishments, where the schools have been wholly under the superintendence of the clergy, and the result hath been, not only to educate, but to unite the country as one great family. Take away the religious superintendence of our parish schools, and you take away the grave paro- chial importance of our schoolmasters, whose dig- nity before the people is not from their own wealth, for they are generally very poor, but from their station, their trust, their sacred and religious trust, of the education of the children. The schoolmaster is a parish dignitary, not a money-making craftsman. He is looked up to with respect by the highest in 000 087 204 the parishes ; and by the people he is treated with a reverence second only to that with which they treat their minister. Take from him this hold which he hath upon the spiritual and religious feelings of this people, and you will not restore him to the same place, though you should give him thousands by the year ; money is a corrupter ; it is principle that ennobles. Money rusts and tarnishes the pre- sent lustre of a character, but religion makes it shine resplendent. I am surrounded with many ministers of the everlasting gospel, who watch over the flock of Christ, both young and old, whom I do entreat, and those of them specially who are constituted and established over local boundaries, to watch over the souls of the children, and to be at charges that they be instructed as the children of Christ, and the heirs of immortal glory. It is a horrid sin that in a land like ours, so well furnished with ministers of reli- gion, and men of godliness, any of the people should grow up in ignorance of the legacy bequeathed unto them by Christ Jesus, or of the offices which God requireth at their hand. Therefore, let all ministers of Christ, take heed to the instruction and warning which I have this day lifted up among you. Oh, I do affectionately entreat my brethren of the ministry, whether established by law or not established, con- forming or not conforming, all who love the Lord Jesus and wait for his appearing, all who recognize the immortal above the mortal, the invisible above the visible, the eternal above the temporal, that you would wait upon the ministry of all souls, and not less upon the ministry of children than of men ; and in all your ministrations, minister as the ministers, not to the earthly, but to the heavenly part, which God quickeneth in all who believe ! Amen, and Amen! BELL AND BA1X, PRCiTF.KS, GLASGOW.