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1818.]

New Systems of Education.

and how improperly he conducted himself is not to the present purpose. It is clear he had nothing to do with the invention of the Madras, or new system of education; for even the practices which he adopted as improvements upon it being founded in the ignorance of its true spirit, and of the nature of learning, and of children, tended rather to impede its production of useful ends, than to accelerate its success. It is highly improper, therefore, and unjust to call the new system of education, indefinitely that of "Lancaster and Bell," or in the words of your correspondent to say ;

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"The new school system of Lancaster and Bell will soon remove every hope of improving the old schools, by rendering them incapable of supporting respectable schoolmasters."

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In 1811 The National Society for the Education of the poor in the principles of the established church was instituted, and in 1817 it was incorporated. This society resolved to adopt the system into their schools, and Dr. Bell being requested to act as superintendent, without receiving any remuneration, the Institution immediately commenced its labours. Having investigated the state of education amongst the poor, and determined as the best means to restore virtue and contentment, to erect and enlarge schools for the proper training of poor children; multitudes of infants were found destitute, uncultivated and irreligious, and though there were schools on the old plan, they were totally inefficient to afford instruction to those who were in need of it. Thousands of families were found, who, struggling with the greatest difficulty to obtain a scanty pittance, were still desirous that their children, though meanly clothed, should be taught to read. These were the objects of the society: and Schools were not built, until they were, too truly, found necessary. If the establishment of a school, in a populous neighbourhood, has the effect of depriving respectable men of their subsistence, I can only regret that those schoolmasters should so long continue in prejudice, and not adopt that method of teaching, which, by drawing the children from their own schools, proves its excellence. For let it not be thought that parents who can pay for education are not practical judges of their children's progress at school: and if they take them from other seminaries and apply for admission into charity schools, I should think it no recommendation of the NEW NONTHLY MAG.-No. 55.

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conductors of the former. Parents who cannot pay for their children's schooling enjoy the benefits of the same instruction gratuitously. I really do not perceive how the new system can render old schools incapable of improvement, unless, by exhibiting its matchless superiority, instead of emulation it produces despair; nor how it renders then unable to support respectable masters, unless those masters possess other qualities of a less commendable nature. As to the petty nurseries of filth and vice, those night schools, and winter meetings, their annihilation would be highly conducive to the preservation of good morals. Yet after all, if masters of new schools, and private respectable teachers were to do their duty, they would have no reason to complain. It is not the capaciousness of the new school-rooms, nor the novelty of the plan, nor the distress of parents, but the want of arrangement, the deficiency of progress, the comparative unhappiness of the old schools, which render them incapable of supporting respectable masters. If those masters cannot in old schools, for which they have so much attachment, procure, in a populous neighbourhood, a sufficient maintenance, it is to be feared they would not be more successful in retaining their scholars even on the new plan. With respect to masters of the national schools, though there are many who are comparatively illiterate, and of no strength of mind, yet I am far from yielding that they, in general, are inferior either in moral conduct, or acquirements, to those who have been accustomed to teach the children of the poor. Many of them are far superior in ability, activity, and integrity. But your correspondent observes that,

"Under the plausible pretext of teaching all, all are reduced to the same state of ignorance." Having explained the sort of children it was the primary object of the National Society gratuitously to instruct, and feeling how comparatively restricted the adoption of the system is in schools for the higher orders, I understand "teaching all," to mean all the children of those parents who are of themselves unable to give them a proper education. By "a pretext of teaching," your correspondent must mean a profession, an appearance of teaching, but in reality no teaching. This profession of teaching may again be resolved into the communication of knowledge considered abstractedly; and the erection of schools, appointment of VOL, X.

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New Systems of Education.

masters and exercise of children. Now,
if there have been no schools erected, no
children trained, no instruction commu-
nicated, then it is proper to call vain
professions" a plausible pretext." But
the National Society only, for I speak
hot of those societies who have not
adopted the pure system of Dr. Bell, has
officially announced, that there are now
reported as directly united to the society
and instructed in conformity to its princi-
ples, one hundred and sixty-five thousand
children. The education those children
receive is not pretended to be either
classical or mathematical, and therefore
if those branches of instruction be ex-
cluded in the profession as well as in the
performance, it is not just to denominate
the exertions of the pious and loyal,
"a plausible pretext." They do perform
what they profess. Their great object
is "education in the principles of the
established church;" and the principles
of that church are taught. In con-
nection with that object there are many
points which have engaged the anxious
attention of the visitors; with reading,
writing, religious knowledge, and arith-
metic, the habits of industry, activity,
subordination, regularity, cleanliness,
and value of time, are most carefully
instilled. These effects on the children
and their parents are most gratifying;
real poverty and meanness of situation,
though once in rags and squalidness, and
ignorance and wickedness, may, by the
method pursued in those schools, be con-
verted into cleanliness, order, neatness,
sobriety, obedience, decorum. This is
learning consummated. A little ob-
servation on the children of the lowest
order, in the streets and at home, may
frequently discover the effect of the
Madras discipline. The principle is in-
visible, in the mind, but it has evident
demonstration in the conduct. Enjoy-
ing a pedestrian excursion, a few days
ago, through the wild and mountainous
tracts of North Wales, I could not but
lament the general deficiency of edu-
cation. Walking early in the morning
however from Caernarvon to Bangor I
was much pleased with the behaviour of
some children on the road. About a
mile further, I was still more delighted,
when I read over the door of a neat cot-
tage, "National School," to which
these children were repairing. Another
instance of the improvement making in
the state and disposition of the children
may be mentioned; one evening I found
myself at the juncture of two roads,
without having any idea which I should

[Aug. 1,

take; no house was hear, but I heard voices; I waited; a group of boys and girls, with dinner baskets under their arms, approached; I had little hopes that they would understand me, as I had frequently before been disappointed. "Which is my road, said I to the first, to M-?" "That way," said he, pointing to the right. I was proceeding in his direction, "Where do you want to go?" suddenly cried a round faced, chubby cheeked boy from the crowd. "To M-" I again replied, pleased with the lively bluntness of the lad. "That's the nearest way (pointing straight for. ward) through Broughton." I recollected the name, and by this lucky instance of acuteness my whole route was decided. These children were coming from a national school; they were clean, neat, cheerful, and happy; and, what is so seldom the case, could speak a little English. These instances deserve no more notice than as tending to shew the superiority of children, who are in the way of being instructed above those who, though there may be respectable masters in the parish, with few scholars, are suffered to wander in negligence and unlawfulness, without conduct, and without knowledge. To examine, in such a country as Wales, the interior of a national school, if tolerably governed, as I had the pleasure of seeing some, and then to compare the scene with the rude, half civilized beings, who are under no regular discipline, would indeed be a sufficient answer to the charge of using "a plausible pretext of teaching."-If "the state of ignorance" here expressed mean an absence of all classical and mathematical knowledge, I concede that they are not taught in national schools:* not because the system is, in any respect, disqualified to teach them; but they are omitted in a poor man's education, on account of their comparative inapplicability to the common purposes of life. What the National Society professes to teach, "is taught, and taught in such a way as was never taught before," not reducing all to ignorance, but advancing all to useful knowledge.

The next assertion is one of more importance, and by the generality and latitude of expression more indeterminate in its application-"The vicious

Many superior schools, both public and private, have adopted the national system, the Charter House, the Newark free grammar school, Clergy Orphan school, &c. &c.

1818.]

New Systems of Education.

and the idle are put on the same level with the honest and industrious." The whole strength of the passage lies in that indefinite phrase, "put on a level." It clearly contains a charge incompatible with justice, and prudence, and common sense. But what is that charge? If it be meant that a good boy is placed in the same class with a bad one, it may be just. This, however, can be no more reprehensible in national schools, than in any other. There always will be different characters in every school, and they must of necessity be, as to place, near one another. But does it mean that the treatment of both is the same? On comparing the general arrangements of the new and old schools, the probable result may be gained. The classes of the old schools, I would speak of those for the lower orders, seldom contain more than two or three scholars each, all upon an equality as to rank. They are companions in study, and generally in playimbibing the same principles, and nursing the same habits. Now, if one of those be an idle boy, is there not danger that he will delay his companion? If he be addicted to lying, will he not corrupt him? If he be otherwise vicious is there not danger that his partner will be affected? If they are both idle and wicked, as there is no immediate and inseparable connection between them and the master, what an encouragement to licentiousness does it afford! As boys, when there are few of them, are more intimately acquainted one with another, is not more evil likely, if there are bad characters among them, to be produced, than where from the numbers and fluctuation of a large school a continual diversity and variety of school-fellows is taking place? Here, in the old school, the good and the bad are "put on the same level" with regard to classification, and treatment, and station, and opportunity of instruction. Consider now the arrangement of the new school. 1st, into classes of thirty or forty children: 2d, over each class an assistant teacher, who superintends the order, regularity, and behaviour of his class: d, the teacher who instructs his class, and is responsible for its discipline and improvement: 4th, ushers of different parts of the school inspecting the conduct and preserving the diligence of the teachers: 5th, the master and superintendent. Thus there is a regular gradation of office, and a regular connection between every individual; for in almost every exercise each class is again divided into

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tutors and pupils. The tutor becomes answerable for his pupils' progress and behaviour to the assistant, he to the teacher, the teacher to the usher, the usher to the master, and he to the superintendent. Need I say fewer faults, fewer crimes, less idleness, less insubordination, and more of every excellence must be produced by this plan, particularly, when the mode of communicating knowledge is so accordant. Constant employment prevents, at least while in school, a wicked boy corrupting his companions. The numbers in schoot prevent close combinations, the vigilance of every officer ensures diligence. In each class, and in each division of the school are distinctions of rank. The head of a class is a place of honour, an inferior place a station of dishonour. All is justice even a vicious boy, when he behaves himself properly in school enjoys the reward of his diligence, by being removed to the place his abilities and exertions have procured. But he retains it no longer than his good conduct prevails. Should any signs of idleness or unsteadiness appear, he is instantly reminded, loses his place of honour, and is vigilantly watched. - But" by a more daring and successful attempt atlevelling" does your correspondent mean that the religious principles of the children, who attend national schools, are all reduced to a particular standard? If so, as no religious tenets are, I understand, exclusively taught in those schools which style themselves Lancasterian, it shews the impropriety of D-t uniting, so indiscriminately, the names "of Lancaster and Bell," who differ so materially in their principles and actions. And it also contradicts his second assertion; for if no system has ever been so successful in levelling, that is, in inculcating the principles of the established church, how are the conductors of those schools guilty of "a plausible pretext of teaching? First it is said, the system "reduces all to a state of ignorance,' then, if I have rightly understood the term, it is more successful than any ever was, in preserving uniformity of faith and worship. It is, undoubtedly true, that in national schools, both good children and bad are allowed the opportunity of gaining religious instruction, and that no other tenets than those of the established church are taught. I deem it a great excellence that we should have it in our power to preserve pure and unpolluted, the doctrines, and at the same time, retain the rising congregations of

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our church in infant uniformity. All parents know what principles are taught in our schools; and though no parent is asked, what faith, what doctrine he professes, it is always understood that the child, by partaking of the benefits, should also conform to the appointed rules of the institution. In this there is no illiberality. All are admitted on voluntary application, without questions as to their belief. I wish this to be more generally known; for when the Dissenters establish a school they raise a flame about liberality of opinion and religious freedom, and boast of their educating children of all religious denominations without teaching the peculiarities of sects; at the same time implying, if not expressing, the tyranny and bigotry of the church of England schools, which, say they, receive none, educate none, but those of its own profession. That all are taught her principles is true; but that all are of her communion is false. If applicants yield to the economy of the school, to whatever church or faith they belong, they are admitted. Two-thirds of the children are frequently Dissenters.

If I have misunderstood the assertions of D-t, and have reasoned on false constructions, I beg that he will state more plainly what his objections to the new system are; and then my answers may be more intelligible. I desire not to pursue any idle controversy. If D-t will tell me, and I earnestly request he will, how the operations of the National Society deprive respectable masters of their subsistence; how its exertions by a plausible pretext of teaching all reduce all to the same state of ignorance; how in the new school the honest and industrious are put on the same level with the idle and vicious, then shall I have reason to think his charges are the result of observation or examination, or experience, and not what those assertions at present appear, the general and indeterminate censures of a prejudiced mind.

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With many thanks for your kind attention to the subject of education, remain, Mr. Editor, sincerely yours, June 23, 1818. PHILACKIBOS.

A SONG FROM THE GAELIC.

THE bard who composed the song of which the following is a defective translation, was a musician, hunter, fisher, and boatman, highly gifted by nature in person and mind; but in his fortieth

[Aug. I,

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year he lost his sight by the small pox. His wife died of the same distemper, and the following year our poet married a young woman who supplied to him the visual faculty by unremitting, tender attentions. He met with her in a parish he never had visited, till as an itinerant musician he travelled thither. The melody of her voice, and the sprightly manners and good sense of her conversation charmed him, and she was fascinated by his poesy and his bag-pipe. She preferred him to junior admirers, though her tocher in cattle, sheep, and goats was so ample that the bard settled at home upon a croft allotted for the laird's piper. His first wife had no children. The next brought him a son, and he bemoaned, in many pathetic lays, the calamity which deprived him of the joy of beholding the boy. He often passed his hands over the child's face, and pronounced he would be very beautiful; nor was the augury erroneous. He was about five years old, when having led his father to a wooded hillock, near a small river, he laid himself down and fell asleep. The father sat ruminating on past times, till tears overflowed his cheeks; and absorbed in his thoughts, he did not perceive a neighbour until spoken to by him. The bard reproached this intruder for coming upon him like the slow creeping deer stulker, and the intruder apologised, by assuring him, he had no intention of approaching as a spy; but he had lost his only pair of shoes, and had nearly lost his life at sea. He came to relate his adventure, and to intrcat the bard to clothe it with the ever-enduring drapery of song. This man maintained a large family by fishing with a small boat, and by brewing whiskey, which he conveyed to other districts in his little bark. He was the most daring seaman on the coast, passing from the main land to the Isles, with no help but his son, a lad not fourteen years old, though they must sometines sail or row very near the vortex of Corryvekan. This late voyage was interrupted by descrying at a distance a ship which he took for a king's cutter. He hastily put in to an uninhabited islet, and landed his kegs of whiskey. In this precipitate work he neglected to fasten his boat securely; she slipped from the stones where he had tied the rope, and in desperation he threw off his cloaths and swam after her. A violent gale arose, and he would have been drowned but for the presence of mind of his son, who had

1818]

Moral Deficiency of Methodism.

observed pasturing in the island a horse, which only in the beginning of spring had been sold by a man who lived near his father's dwelling. The animal had often been fed with grains from his father's small brewery. The lad called to him, as he was wont, to intimate that a mess awaited him. He galloped to the spot. The boy mounted him, and rode through the billows till the horse must betake himself to swimming. The youth continued shouting till his father attended to the sound. He understood the intention; repeated this call to the horse. The animal swam to him, and suffered him to seize his mane. The lad by dint of swimming regained the shore, and invited the horse in his usual strain. He and the boatman got to land in safety-but the shoes were washed away by a flowing tide.

Thus sang the sightless bard:-The sweet breath of summer comes wafted on morning gales; while, resting upon a sunny knoll, the sightless bard retraces days of other times, gone by, never to return. Then his eyes were fountains of delight. He could rejoice in the rising sun, or gaze on many tinted clouds, till the spirit of song kindled in his breast. Now he rises in darkness from his heathy couch. The bright beaming noon-day is to him a moonless might, and even the lovely face of his son is a stranger to his view. More sad than all-manhood wrapped in gloom, like the dark fogs of cheerless winter, sinks in showers of grief. The tears he hoped to shed unknown to all have been observed by a fearless rider of the waves. He comes as the slow creeping stalker of mottled deer, and the welling tide of woe is no longer poured out in deep secresy. But he came not as the base spy of hidden cares; he came to tell his tale of dangers. He intreats the record of deathless song, and a glorious sun strikes his light through the soul of the bard. Rider of the waves! thou couldst guide the prow-thou couldst defy the baffetting surge-thou hast braved the tumbling, foaming, howling Corryvekan, and the yelling blasts of the hills-the hurried leaping of the heart; the wild bitterness of despair, when death, in the ghastliest form, assailed thy strangling, gasping, stifling breath-these and all the hollow roarings of contending currents thou hast overcome-but it is not, given thee to describe thy mighty strug gles, thy sufferings, or thy triumph over fear and jeopardy. There the blind bard, in the light of his soul, must give thee

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aid. It is the gift of song to preserve for unborn generations the deeds of their fathers. The flashings of renown for the hero-the boast of the hunter for the ranger of rustling woods, or the bounding traverser of the hills-the patient fisher of gliding waters, or through the heaving sea- all, all borrow their fame from the bard, without him they are remembered no more.

The bold rider of the waves plunges to the briny waste, to snatch his bark from the pointed rocks, and from the overwhelming billowy gulf. Iey chillness rushes over his manly frame, but the heat of a dauntless spirit glows in every vein. Round and round he swims, and tries to ascend to the floating habitation of safety. He repeats and repeats on all sides the daring strife against a sweeping tide, that bears away the last hope of escape from a grave among the caverns of the deep. Hail to the youth of the ready thought! it shall be his to conquer in the hour of peril. This voice invites the neighing steed; the steed well broke to cross from shore to shore, by the efforts of his own sinewy limbs. Steed of the high heart! green be thy pasture on the plain. Full be thy manger beneath the sheltering roof; and may the daughters of beauty caress thee and say, Thou hast gained the prize of swimmers-thou hast saved the husband and the father in the moment of extremity-thou hast granted his dearest wish to the son of sons; and when mirth and jollity sparkle at the bridal feast, the joy of clans, or the friendly cup refreshes the strangerwe drink to the rider of the deep, to the son of sons, and to the mighty steed. G.

MORAL DEFICIENCY OF METHODISM.
MR. EDITOR,

We are much disposed to assume credit to ourselves as a nation for the numerous institutions which prevail in this land, having the moral and religious improvement of the lower classes for their direct object. I have sometimes indeed heard grave divines in the midst of their lamentations over the prevalence of immorality, derive consolation from the reflection that though our enormities may be of a portentous magnitude, the public charities which abound and the zeal of religious societies are of a nature to cover a multitude of sins. Far be it from me to undervalue any thing which contributes to the glory of my country, yet when I look around and see that crimes and wretchedness

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