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that man should be the master of an articulate language, and that this should be the great instrument, not only of communicating ideas, but of unfolding and amplifying the intellectual powers.

Thus, while the animal tribes have their language by intuition, man must acquire his through the process of education. The tongue, the ear, the lungs, all the oral mechanisin, consisting of a thousand nerves, muscles, and fibres, must each and all be instructed; each and all must be taught by experience; each and all must receive line upon line, and precept upon precept. The first articulate syllable of an infant is a gigantic effort. The acquisition of a language, simple as it may seem, is the result of innumerable efforts of a similar kind.

Thus far, our remarks have been chiefly confined to the physical powers of man and animals. While the latter come to their perfection in a few hours or a few months after their birth, and reach the full development of their faculties without instruction, the former advances only as led forth by the hand of education. The fish glances through the water; the quadruped roams over the land; the birds put forth their varied melody; and all this with no other tuition than that of instinct. God is their schoolmaster, and his lessons are perfect. But man is subject to a different design. He cannot perform the simple act of walking; he cannot utter an articulate sound he cannot even pick up a pin, but through a process of teaching and training. If, then, instinct be the law of the animal creation, education is the law of man. It is the law of his physical nature, for by its instrumentality alone can his simplest and commonest faculties be unfolded.

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Let us now consider the mental powers of man, as compared with the higher animal instincts. We begin by repeating the remark, that while man has every thing to learn, the animal tribes need no instruction. The duck that is hatched in the barnyard by the hen, and associates only with companions that shun the water, marches off to the pool, and, in spite of warning and remonstance from its guardian, plunges into the wave. Here it rides at ease, and manifests a perfect knowledge of the element, which it has never seen before. It puts forth its paddles, and manages them with all the dexterity of an experienced oarsman.

The waterfowl that comes into existence on the reedy margin of some northern lake, stays for a time around its birth-place; but the brief summer is soon passed, and the monitory voice of

winter comes upon the breezc. The bird listens to the warning and springing high in air, departs for another clime. It needs no chart; it asks no compass. It mistakes not its course; it deviates not from its track.

There is a power whose care

Teaches its way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air,
Lone wandering, yet not lost.

How different is it with man! How slow is the process by which he acquires a knowledge of objects around him! He can only judge of distances after being taught by experience. He has no knowledge of places except so far as he acquires it. Every inch of his progress depends upon instruction; every idea is to be acquired; all knowledge comes by tuition. The various powers of the mind, like those of the body, must be unfolded, trained, and enlarged by education.

How long and patient then must be the study and toil of man before he can acquire that stretch of geographical knowledge, which would seem to be the free gift of Heaven to the migratory bird! That feathered voyager, untaught and often alone, performs a journey of a thousand or two thousand miles, and that in the space of a single week. It goes to a country where it has never been before; it pursues a track which is totally new. It flies from a winter which it has never tried, and, as if led by the gift of prophecy, proceeds with the speed and directness of an arrow, to find shelter in a region of perpetual summer. There are persons who will not believe in miracles; but what miracle is equal to this? And yet we know its reality. We cannot explain the process, but we see the fact. We see that instinct is a power which supersedes the necessity of instruction to the animal creation; and that, while they are made to be guided by this mysterious gift, man is left to the guidance of experience and education.

In human society, it is found alike convenient and necessary that men should be distributed into various occupations. Some must be farmers, some carpenters, some hunters, and some fishermen. Amongst animals, we observe a similar diversity of pursuits. Bnt it is to be remarked, that, while the latter are instructed by nature in their various trades, and supplied by nature with the tools necessary to carry them on, mankind are obliged to serve a toilsome apprenticeship of many years, in

order to acquire a competent knowledge of the several arts and professions to which they devote themselves.

Thus, we observe that the woodpecker, who is a natural carpenter, supplied with a tool that serves both as chisel and mallet, goes untaught to the forest, selects his piece of timber, and forms his abode; and all this without instruction. The beaver, who is both carpenter and mason, architect and house-builder, furnished with teeth that perform the work of the axe and saw, and a tail which discharges the office of a trowel he too performs his work, not by the plummet and the rule, not after the plans of a draughtsman, but, from the simple lessons of instinct. The bittern that wades along the pool is a fisherman that seldom fails to secure his prize, when he thrusts his spear into the water. The hawk is a sportsman that rarely stoops in vain upon his prey. The pensive heron, that stands while the tide is out in the briny mud, is an oyster-catcher by profession. And all these, as soon as they are hatched and have taken to their wings, go straight to their several vocations, without a single lesson, and yet with a perfect understanding of them. How different is the lot of man! How many are the trials, how long the practice, before he can become instructed in even the commonest pursuit by which a mere livelihood is to be obtained.

In modern times, the art of committing ideas to paper has been extended and perfected by the art of printing. This has widened the field of knowledge, and offered facilities for education unknown to former ages. In our day, a man cannot rise to a level with his fellow-men without being able to read. But how slow and tedious is the process by which the child is taught the alphabet, and then taught to combine syllables into words and words into sentences! How many months of toil are required to compass this common, but necessary branch of education! It is not so with the brute creation. All the knowledge necessary to their existence, all that is required for the fulfilment of their duty and their destiny, is the gift of God. They need to learn no alphabet at the point of the penknife; they need no admonition from the birch or the ferule!

We have spoken of man's physical nature, and his intellectual powers. But there is another important point of consideration. Of all the various sentient beings which people this vast world, man is the only one that has been permitted to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He is the only being that has a moral nature; the only being that is ca

pable of perceiving beauty in virtue and deformity in vice; the only being that has a capacity to distinguish between truth and falsehood, between equity and injustice, between right and wrong, the only being in whose breast Heaven has established the holy tribunal of conscience. Man then alone, of all this earth's creation, has moral faculties.

It would be easy to illustrate this position, and show the dif ference between man and animals in respect to moral perceptions. Let us take the golden rule, laid down by our Saviour, which is the basis of justice between man and man "do to another as you would have another do to you." This is no sooner presented to the human mind than its force is perceived and the obligation to obey it felt. But animals are utterly destitute of a capacity for such perceptions. Might, with them, is the universal rule of right. The dog snatches the bone from the cat by the prescriptive privilege of mastery. The raven yields the carcass to the vulture, the vulture retires and waits till the feast of the sea-eagle is done. The hungry jackal surrenders his prey to the wolf; the wolf gives up his to the hyThus, throughout the brute creation, there is no recognition of any principle of justice; no judge or jury but force; no other rule of right than that the weak must yield to the strong.

ena.

And man in his moral, as well as his other faculties, is also the subject of education. The inspired proverbialist, affirms that the child trained up in the way in which he should go, will not depart from it in after years. And let it be remarked that he attaches no conditions; he adds no qualifications. The maxim is positive, and involves the doctrine that the moral nature of man may be formed and moulded by education. And this, though uttered three thousand years ago, corresponds with every-day observation. "Just as the twig is bent the tree 's inclined," is a passage which illustrates the power of cultivation over the soul as well as the mind. The heart has often been compared, and with apt propriety, to a field, which may be cultivated like a garden, and, divested of noxious weeds, made redolent of flowers and fruit; or, left to the wild luxuriance of passion, it may resemble the overgrown forest, whose thickets are infested by the adder and the scorpion.

All this is well understood. It is also admitted that man's moral nature is the most exalted portion of his being. Virtue is superior to knowledge; the good man is ranked as superior

to the great man. "An honest man's the noblest work of God." The Scriptures ever give the first place to the righteous man, the man of high moral character; not to the man of genius or talent. The highest exercise of reason is in the discovery of moral truth. The intellect is thus made to be the pioneer, the servant of the soul.

Yet the high gift of moral faculties is not bestowed without conditions. If a man use them wisely they will ensure happiness; if otherwise, they will work out his ruin. With the power to perceive the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice, he must follow the one if he would be happy and shun the other at his peril. This is the weighty condition, and it cannot be resisted or evaded. The law is coiled around the soul of man, and while that soul endures it cannot be shaken off. It is the law of the moral universe, and is as pervading and inflexible as the principle of gravitation, which draws back to the earth a stone hurled into the air, while, at the same time it reaches to the planets, and sustains the balance of the heaIt is a law ordained by Omnipotence and administered

vens.

by Omniscience.

If, then, man has moral faculties; if these are the highest portion of his nature; if upon their right exercise his happiness depends; and if these are subject to the great law of education, how important, how supremely important, is that education! I shall not here attempt to explain why there is no systematic provision in our schools for moral culture, and why this most essential branch of education is too often neglected altogether, or left to the uncertain and capricious management of parents. I content myself with a few illustrations of the force of moral culture, with a view to impress upon the mind the fact that the heart is subject to the law of education; that as the body may be trained to health, grace, and vigor; as the intellect may be stored like a granary with the varied harvest of knowledge, so the soul may be imbued with the love of truth, justice, and charity; that by proper culture the noxious weeds of passion may be checked or eradicated, and the fragrant flowers of virtue made to spread their immortal bloom over the spirit.

Whoever has watched children with care has noticed that any passion or feeling becomes stronger by repetition. In the first instance, it is dim and feeble; in the second, it is more vivid and vigorous. By degrees it grows stronger; and when,

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