lives, it matters not though as free from human control as the air of heaven, no man is truly, fully free, unless the truth has made him free. So long as "the bonds of iniquity," the thraldom of selfishness and sin, lie upon the spirit; so long as satan wields an influence over the soul, so long man is a fettered slave, whatever his position or power; and no chains are so grievous as those that bind the soul; no slavery is so terrib.e as the servitude of sin.

Liberty consists not in independence of all restraint. The locomotive is not free, when broken from the track on which alone it can run with ease and safety, it is left to encounter the various obstacles that then oppose its progress. The kite is not free, which wildly snapping its string, thinks now to mount without restraint to sublimer flights, but finds, alas! that the line which held it was the power that sustained it. True liberty, and the only liberty possible for man, consists in the complete conformity of our will and affections with the laws, mental, moral, and physical, of our being. The eye has no liberty of vision in the dark, nor is its want of power to become an ear, a restraint of its proper liberty. So neither has the soul liberty to feed on falsehood, nor to love infinitely anything else than its infinite Maker. He whose heart's choice lies in the very path that Providence has appointed for him, is not only free from all restraint, but the whole power of God aids him in his progress. Choosing, with a lover's ardent choice, whatever God chooses, he can be enslaved only when God loses Omnipotence. There is power as well as peace in his free lom. He is "ree indeed!"

It is this sweet soul-liberty that mankind need, and for this the nations, and we among them, are unconsciously but mightily struggling. Would to Heaven, they knew the meaning of the aspirations within them.

Such is the freedom the truth gives-the sublime truth of a Saviour's death and power. Let the infidel bare his bosom to the full influx of this truth, and the bonds of error and prejudice that bind him will wither as in fire. Mad in the fancied freedom of his mind, he hugs his chains, and sneers with scorn at all who do not wear them; like the insane prisoner who looks out from his grated window, and scornfully dreams that the pitying crowd and not himself are behind the bars. Poor slave! the Ithuriel touch of the Cross alone can disenchant and make him free. The sceptic cannot study faithfully and honestly the gospel of Christ, and retain a doubt. Let man, whatever chains bind him, whether of false love or coward fear, believe the whole truth concerning the Cross, and the love and fear of God will break them all. His soul, freed from the distracting and tyranic power of passion and remorse-from selfishness which oppresses rather than occupies the heart, will soar into the region of the infinite and divine, and expatiate in love and liberty in the very hore of freedom.

Go on, then, Teachers, in your holy task. Press the truth in its naked beauty and living power upon the souls of your pupils. There is a spark of Omnipotence in it that cannot be lost. See to it, that it touches the warm heart, and mixes with the living thoughts, and eternity will tell the glorious result. You are training Bible freemen for our country. They will be better than walls and towers to it. They can never be enslaved.

And there is a future coming. A shadow is already falling upon the gov ernments of Earth, and thrones and sceptres are shaking in amazement. That shadow foretokens the approach of the kingdom of Christ—the coming reign of righteousness. The Cross is in motion. The truth of God and the soul of

man are meeting and embracing-and Freedom, long a mere name on Earth, is unfurling its banner of purity, peace and power.

Be strong, then, Teachers of the Truth. The world has deep need of you, and though unnoticed and unapplauded in your humble and holy work, there is a record kept on high, and when Angels shout the jubilee over a redeemed world, your names shall not be forgotten. When God makes up his jewels "they that turn many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars, for ever and ever!"

AN EXTRACT

FROM AN ADDRESS BY T. H. BURROWES, EDITOR OF THE PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL JOURNAL.

THERE are those-and they are by no means confined to the teachers and advocates of the common system, whose sentiments and modes of instruction fully justify the supposition that they believe in and hope to effect that perfect state of society, never yet chronicled, except in the history of Utopia. The extremes at which they aim are now to be considered.

Prominent among their practices are those of presenting nothing to the mind of the child beyond his immediate power of comprehension; of asking his faith in nothing that he does not know; and of requiring obedience to nothing which has not received his own full assent. Now, to say nothing of the obvious absurdity, that such training and treatment, if applied to the infant, would leave it in hopeless fatuity, this system is essentially, though not avowedly, based on the assumptions that that the human mind is capable of comprehending everything in the whole nature, creation and providence of the Deity; that belief is never given by the adult without positive knowledge; and that obedience may rightfully only accompany full consent.

Let it not be supposed that in denouncing this course of training, any design is entertained of advocating mere authoritative instruction, without explanation by the teacher and as much of comprehension as is possible by the pupil; or, to enforce the propriety of exacting obedience and belief without assent, except in cases admitting of no other course, consistently with order and progress. But it is distinctly asserted that the system which recognizes the capacity of the pupil to comprehend everything, and his right in all cases to consent before he obeys, and have full positive evidence before he believes, is equally injurious to the parental and filial relations, dangerous to the peace of society, and destructive of all religious faith.

Daily does the parent find himself unable to answer satisfactorily the puzzling questions of the child for want of power on the child's part to comprehend the answers to his own questions; and almost hourly do the circumstances of the family and the necessities of domestic affairs force him to exact obedience, contrary not merely to the desires, but often to the views of propriety, of the child. Yet these constraints are amonst the best portions of the child's education. They teach him that degree of distrust in himself, and confer that habit of self-control, which are so valuable and protective in life; -while the contrary course not only forms him into the impertinent and disobedient child, but in after life, makes him the unhappy and fretful slave of all

those little circumstances, to which he has thus lost the desirable power of cheerful submission.

But it is to the citizen of a free land that confidence in others, and obedience against consent or desire, are, more than under any other form of Government, indispensably requisite. Under a despotism, where force is the governing power, it may be a merit, at least in the eyes of patriotism, to foster the habit of investigating and comprehending every act of authority, coupled with the spirit of resistance. Here, it is altogether different The right to comprehend fully and to investigate publicly is, of course, no where else more necessary or more fully exercised. But, it is a right to comprehen. for the purpose of obedience, and to investigate not for resistance but for future peaceful improvement. The supremacy of the law and the submission of the minority to the majority, even though the law be for the present distasteful, and the acts of the majority unpleasant, are the very sheet anchors of our policical safety. We have no standing armies to enforce obedience; and when the laws lose the unhesitating confidence and support of the people, our free institutions will have nearly reached their termination. Yet, no course could have a more effectual tendency to produce this lamentable result, than that which would lead the youth of the land to contemn all authoritative teaching, and to do only that which seemeth good in their own eyes.

In his relation to Eternity, will the youth thus trained be especially found to occupy a most lamentable condition. Where the power of belief, without actual and positive knowledge, does not exist, and where the wholesome habit of self-control is absent, how can there be that faith, which is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen;"—or whence can proceed that ready unhesitating obedience which is among its best fruits! Nothing short of the unlimited power of God could save a people thus generally educated from general infidelity.

In these respects, the true course for the teacher, is, while he never unnecessarily taxes the child's credulity with assertions beyond its comprehension, nor requires obedience to unreasonable rules, always, when the occasion fairly presents itself, either to state the pupil's inability to comprehend or to admit his own to explain; and, in the case of proper authority, to exact implicit obedience whether palatable to the pupil or not. No other system can maintain the usefulness of the school, sustain the true character of the teacher, or send forth pu ils fitted to perform their social, their public, or their religious duties. While, upon a foundation thus laid, others, whose duty it is, may complete the glorious superstructure of a God-fearing nation,-diversified, it is true, by a variety of forms, but a diversity, which, since God permits, man may not prohibit.

Another practice, scarcely less injurious, is that of attempting to render all the exercises of the school-room delightful to the pupil, and of avoiding every thing that savors of the irksomeness of labor. This is the system which is mighty in reasons against memorizing tasks, committing definitions, and being cramped by the arbitrary words of the rule, as it is found in the text-book. In their stead it only requires, what is called, the substance of the lesson to be studied; forgetful that while the youthful memory of words is the earliest matured and the most powerful faculty of the youthful mind, and the one apparently designed to garner up its first stock of knowledge, the powers of discrim ination and generalization-of analysis and synthesis-are the weakest, and

those on which least reliance can be placed in early youth. Hence, it so often happens that the pupil who has read, and, with the readiness of his young powers, comprehended, as he thought, the substance of the lesson, does not, when he comes to recite, retain even the shadow; while the plodding memorizer at least possesses the words, into which the explanations of the judicious teacher may readily infuse the life of comprehension and thought So, on the same principle, it may be well questioned, whether the mere guessing definer or the fabricator of his own rule to do that which he can hardly accomplish with the aid of both teacher and text-book, will ever make an exact reasoner or a reliable man of business. There has been heretofore, it is admitted, too much stress placed on the memorizing system of instruction, by which the mind was cramped and all self-reliance destroyed. But surely there must be a safe medium between this and the opposite extreme, which, while it will sufficiently accustom the mind to needful labor, will also permit full scope to all its analytical and constructive powers; and thus send forth the scholar, not only inured to that labor which is the lot of all, but capable of rendering his labor effective and productive, by the guidance of a well disciplined intellect. To use the words of one who, though but a novelist, was a master in the science of human nature: "The opportunity of acquiring habits of firm and incumbent application, of gaining the art of controlling, directing and concentrating the powers of mind for earnest investigation-is an art far more essential than even that learning which is the primary object of study." And, it may be added, disastrous would be the fruit of any system of instruction which excludes or even undervalues this chief object of youthful training. No thinking person needs to have portrayed to him the condition or fate of a nation thus taught. Far different was the rugged schooling of the great men of our own country, and of the great nations of other times.-Pa. School Journal.

Parental.

For the Journal of Education.

TO THE PATRONS, OFFICERS, AND TEACHERS

OF THE SCHOOLS OF MICHIGAN.

1.

TO THE PATRONS.

DURING the coming three months, at least nine-tenths of the primary schools of Michigan will go into operation for the winter. The teachers, one moiety of whom, probably, has had some experience in teaching, and the other all ready and anxious to assume the birchen scepter, will soon be graduated from the potatoes and cornfields. That these schools must all go on is a "fixed fact," but that they will all go on well, is somewhat problematical What can you do to render them more efficient? We answer:

1.-You can repair your school-house. It is both inconvenient and un

profitable to ventilate your school-rooms by means of broken window panes. It is prejudicial to the physical well-being of your children to perch them upon some high bench, whose long legs would effectually carry even a Patago nian's feet beyond all soundings. The moral welfare of your children will be but little regarded, if you oblige them, day after day, to lean over rough desks, mutilated by all sorts of obscene figures. It is highly injudicious to sow the seeds of moral and physical disease in your innocent offspring at pres ent, for from them, hereafter, shall spring up poisonous plants, whose blighting shade shall cause you to drop many a penitential tear. Put your school-room in order. Employ a mason to plaster up all the small holes which mischiev ous little fingers may bave bored through the walls, tor through these chinks colds and coughs enter, finally to terminate in consumption. Before the enBuing winter shall have passed away, we fear that many a young head and older heart will ache on account of inattention to these matters. A few hours' labor, properly applied, will greatly increase the comfort and advancement of your children, and enable your teacher to direct his whole attention to the superior interests of his young charge.

2. You can procure proper fuel. Do not wait till after the commencement of your schools, before you give your attention to this important matter. Wat and rotten limbs just pulled out of the water of some swamp, branches of green beech or elm, or decayed stumps, are not very good kindling wood; neither are huge logs or long poles, barely hauled to the school-house door, there to be buried in the mud and snow, in a suitable condition to make a very comfortable fire. In some school-houses we have known half of the forenoon to pass away before the scholars could become sufficiently comfortable to study. This source of vexation to the teacher, and loss to the pupil, can be avoided by timely foresight, and it comes most clearly within the province of the patrons of the school, to see that the proper preventives are applied. Be not, wa beseech you, "penny wise and pound foolish" in a matter in which your children's health and usefulness through life are concerned.

3. You can get your children ready to commence school with the term. It is customary with some parents, and we are sorry to say not a few, to keep their children at home for a month or more after the term commences, on some plea so utterly childish as to be beneath the dignity of a reasonable man's contempt. If proper exertions are made, this difficulty need no occur. How can a child be expected to take that interest in his studies which is so essential to his advancement, when his class has been going forward for weeks before he enters it? Every person knows with how much more zest we labor, when we start on equal terms with our competitors, than when subject to the continual discouragement of being behind. Not only should you commence sending your children at the beginning of the term, but you should send them regularly and punctually. Some children are detained at home through some foolish or thoughtless indulgence, at least one-half of their time. It were far better for the child, if he can be spared but half of the winter, to send him regularly while he does go, than to render him irregular during the whole term. Did you ever go into a school where the teacher did not complain, and justly too, of the want of punctuality on the part of his pupils? This difficulty can be avoided, in a great measure, by proper parental attention. See that your children are not kept at home till "after the last bell rings," and then huddled off to school unprepared, and unfit to perform the day's duties.