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doctrine and vital piety. It would remain for the friends of gospel principles, stripped of the means provided by their pious predecessors to weep and pray in secret. They must again retreat to the mountains and retired vallies, recruit and discipline their forces, and again come forth and meet an enemy formidable in numbers, insolent with victory, and clad in burnished armor recently seized by stratagem.

For reasons similar to these stated, there are many intelligent and influential men belonging to the Presbyterian Church, who cannot connect themselves with the fortunes of the A. E. Society. They see and feel the importance of the general object, but they dread the dangers to which they conceive this institution is exposed. They dislike also, the negligence and want of energy which have hitherto characterized the proceedings of the General Assembly's Board of Education, and they are now waiting with anxious and prayerful interest the result of the new organization. It is believed the Churches are ready to sustain the exertions of the Board, if an active, intelligent, and faithful agent would lay before them the want of able and well furnished minsiters in the Presbyterian Church. And if there be evils and dangers connected with the operations of the A. E. Society, (as we verily believe there are,) they are not to be corrected and averted by finding fault and complaining, but by immediate and spirited exertion. The work to be done is important and urgent. Those who love our Lord Jesus Christ, will not listen with indifference to the calls for ministers of the Gospel, by whatever agent they are communicated. And if a channel for their liberality, such as they would prefer, be not speedily opened, it will flow in some other way.

Perhaps it may be asked, whether funds in the hands of the Board of Education will not be liable to the same abuse dreaded in the hands of the A. E. Society. We answer, No. First, because if young men be educated by

the Presbyterian Church, they will not be under the influence of a foreign institution, and in the deliberations of her judicatories, they will be at liberty in all matters to decide according to the dictates of their own judgment and conscience, unawed by the frowns of a displeased creditor. In the next place the General Assembly which appoints the Board of Education is not a permanent and fixed body. It does not elect its own members. It is annually dissolved, and a new Assembly is chosen by the Presbyteries in various parts of the United States, each member expressing the views and wishes of the Churches he represents, and accountable for every vote he gives. For this reason it is impossible that funds deposited in the hands of the Assembly for a sacred purpose, can be perverted from their original object, until the whole Church, or at least a large majority of the Presbyteries become corrupt. And if permanent funds for religious purposes be secure from perversion any where, it is under the management of a body thus constituted. And further, business is not conducted in the General Assembly in the same manner as in the annual meetings of voluntary associations. Here the reports of different Boards are read, and submitted to a rigid examination. All their plans and acts are canvassed, and if any thing be radically wrong, it is competent to the Assembly to change the members of the Board. In the annual meetings of the other, there is, strictly speaking, no deliberation or examination of the measures pursued. The report of the Directors is read, eulogies prepared for the occasion, are pronounced, and a vote of approbation passed by acclamation. There is, in reality, no meeting of the contributors, nor of their representatives, but only of the voting members chosen by those who had the previous management of the concern, drilled to respond Aye or No, as they may have been previously instructed. We do not say any thing like this has taken place. Our perfect confidence inthe integrity of the Directors, forbids the slightest sus

picion. Our meaning is, that there is nothing in the constitution, or in the manner of conducting the annual meetings calculated to prevent it. We have discharged an important, and in some respects an unpleasant duty. We had long noticed things in the arrangements of the American Education Society which seemed strange and novel; but so full was our persuasion of the importance of the sacred cause, in which it was laboring, that we did not dare permit ourselves to think there was any error. A closer examination of the constitution and rules, has convinced us that so imminent are the dangers connected with the operations of that Society, it would be treason to the cause of piety, any longer to be silent. We have not designedly distorted a single feature of the great Society whose claims to universal patronage we have canvassed. And we most devoutly pray God, that none of the evils anticipated may ever happen, that the exertions of the Society, in a cause so noble and sacred may be a rich and lasting blessing to the Church and to the world.

PUBLIC EDUCATION.

Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of Boys in large numbers; as practised at Hazelwood School. Second edition. London, 1827.

THEORIES Of Education are of all theories the most useless; nay, sometimes positively pernicious. The general principles of the science, if science it may be called, are, in fact, the principles of the science of the human mind, with which, not only every pedagogue, (whether schoolmaster, tutor, or professor,) but every man whose business brings him into collision with his fellow minds should be well acquainted.

Notwithstanding all the plans, and systems, and discoveries in this department, which have been ushered into the world, within the last fifty years, with so much pomp and assurance, we are still of opinion that much fewer substantial improvements have been made than is generally supposed. The solid glories of the more antiquated, "monastic," and labor-imposing methods, under which the gigantic minds of the last century were formed, are not entirely eclipsed by the more modern, " cheerful," "practical," and labor-saving methods which would clamourously oust their predecessors from their long undisputed possessions.

We are thus sceptical, because we are tolerably well acquainted with the difficulties of education. These difficulties, which we cannot now stop to enumerate, spring from the character of the pupil, from the parent or guardian, from the

public sentiment, and especially from the character and qualifications of the teachers and governers.

In regard to the pupils, no two can be found to whom precisely the same system is adapted. Every parent knows this even in a small family. If fifty, eighty, one hundred, or two hundred pupils are congregated together, the difficulties of successful government are greatly increased, and, we might add, in a geometrical, rather than in an arithmetical ratio.

In regard to parents, every one who begins to look around him for a suitable school for his boys, has his own crude views of education, to which no school in existence is sufficiently conformed. One school is too near, another is too remote; one is too rigid, another is too lax; one teaches every thing, another teaches nothing; one is too cheap, another is too dear; one is too republican, another is too aristocratical; one has too many pupils, another has too few; one is too formal and ostentatious, another is too simple and unassuming. There are some parents whose expectations in regard to their children, never will be realized, because it is impossible, in the nature of things, that they ever should be. The teacher has a hard task of it, if he attempts to please all; a painful one, if he succeeds in pleasing a few ; and a most servile one, if he is able, by means which a man of sterling dignity and independence would scorn to use, to call forth the praises of the majority.

Public sentiment, in our land at least, sways the sceptre. It is not only difficult, but, in many cases, impossible for a teacher to array himself against this hydra. Or, if he has the hardihood to attempt it, he retires from the contest with a good conscience and a prospect of starvation.

The excitement on the subject of education, which pervades, at present, the civilized world, will, if it receive a right direction, undoubtedly exert a favourable influence upon the public sentiment. Already the standard of intel

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