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individual to self-knowledge, self-estimation, and to a relish for those simple, but yet mighty and all-powerful pleasures, which are afforded by a thorough comprehension of the principles and practices of religion, by an improved taste and an enlightened understanding. To do this generally, will require more than another generation; but the sent one may be benefited in a most extraordinary degree by the attempt. It is every man's duty, who loves his God, and his country, and the world at large, to leave that world better than he found itto go on with improvement (for man himself is a progressive being); and to do that highest of all good, "giving light to them that sit in darkness," with a fearless determination and undaunted spirit. For the purpose, therefore, of generalizing plans for improving the condition of the people, we would suggest the formation, in every country town, of a society, which might be called—

66 THE SOCIETY OF PUBLIC UTILITY,"

The object of which should be the popular improvement of the poor on Christian principles.

1. The Society should comprise persons of every religious denomination, who should pledge themselves not to endeavour to proselyte the community. 2. The most influential persons in the town and neighbourhood should be its patrons and supporters.

3. The clergy, in particular, and the most active and zealous of the townspeople, should be its committee; and the parish authorities should also cooperate.

4. The Society should take cognizance of all plans for the moral, physical, and and mental improvement of society, and report upon their value and expediency. 5. Branch Societies should be formed in the villages.

6. The town or village should be divided into districts of not more than 50 families each, which should be placed under the guardianship of one or more persons.

7. The visitors should be empowered to make themselves acquainted with the physical and religious and moral state of each family, to administer to both their spiritual and bodily wants, to keep an account of all relief granted, and a record of every circumstance connected with peculiar cases of distress, and more particularly to make diligent inquiry into the moral and physical circumstances which influence the individuals, with a view to their permanent improvement, and to furnish data of the real state and wants of society.

8. The Society should endeavour to promote the removal of the poor to healthy habitations, where practicable; and to induce builders and others to erect convenient dwellings in airy situations, with gardens attached, for the sake of the public health, as well as for the comfort of the tenants.

9. To have at least one school-room for boys, one for girls, and one for infants, capable of containing 150 each, for every 2000 of the population; where the principles of religion, and all other branches of Education fit for their station, should be taught in the most comprehensive manner. To attach a garden to the boys' school, of not less than one acre for every 100 children, to be cultivated by them in their leisure hours.

10. To form, in connection with the school, a lending library, a museum of Natural History of objects collected by the children, and the friends of the school, from the surrounding country; a reading and lecture-room, to be open every evening for the labouring classes, during the six winter months, from six till nine o'clock, furnished with prints, books, maps, and specimens of simple

scientific apparatus; and at which a member of the Society should preside every night.

11. In the reading or lecture-room it will be necessary to give a series of rational entertainments of some kind or other-a magic lanthorn, a microscope, a galvanic battery, an electrifying machine, might be occasionally introduced; making of models, stuffing of birds, and the preparation of fish, and reptiles, for the museum, would also be advantageous. Sacred music and singing might be taught to a great number at once, by a proper method. Drawing, mensuration, the principles of mechanics, and the elements of natural philosophy and of natural history, should also be taught and illustrated by experiments. Lectures should be delivered once a week on sacred and profane history, or any other moral subjects, by the minister and others; in short, a constant succession of new and diverting matter should be introduced in the simplest, but at the same time in the most attractive form, with a view to keep up the interest, and make those who attend feel a pleasure in being there; while at the same time the influence of the committee and subscribers should be used without to draw as many as possible to attend, and their presence given on the nights of meeting; while a circulating library, consisting of works of an inciting kind, such as histories, voyages and travels, moral tales, &c., should be added, to be lent to the members, under certain regulations.

12. To form a Temperance Society in connection, and to distribute every kind of information on the baneful effects of intemperance.

13. The visitors should be careful not to address those whom they visit on controverted doctrinal points; and in cases where persons may be quite destitute of religious impressions, they should send for the minister of that Christian denomination in which it may appear the parties were born, to explain to him the mysteries of religion, that the practical duties may be afterwards more powerfully enforced.

14. To form, in connection, a Self-supporting Dispensary, such as has been already recommended in the first number of our Magazine; and also make provision for the children who may leave the Schools to lay by certain weekly sums, bearing a premium, and returnable at the end of seven years, as recommended in the Juvenile Guardian Society.

15. To establish a Loan Fund,* for the encouragement of the poor and industrious.

A series of tracts† should be distributed, on household economy, on the management of a family, on the cultivation of small allotments of ground, on the management of bees, pigs, and poultry, on the government of the temper and of domestic broils, on the rearing and management of children, of the importance of education, on the spirit and practice of the gospel, on the history of the Old and New Testament, with others, containing interesting poetry, short tales, exhibitory of different virtues and vices and their consequence, instances of successful industry, Franklin's Way to Wealth, lively anecdotes of persons remarkable for their virtues in humble conditions of life, and such like matters; but it is of no use to distribute, what, from its being beyond their comprehension, they think dull, and scarcely ever read: when the intellect is obtuse the stimulant might be powerful, and it must be gradually led to abstruse points. A great error has been committed in distributing books among the poor, which are and must be, from the very nature of their education, quite uninteresting to them. Such is a slight hint of the exertions necessary

* See p. 109, No. II. Educational Mag. † These Tracts will have to be written.

to be made to raise the character, improve the taste, and alter the habits of the lower classes; to lift them out of that degradation of intellect and feeling, which renders it disgusting to come in contact with them; to draw them from low and vulgar pursuits, from the contaminating influence of the beer shop or public house, and to imbue them at once with a care of themselves and of their offspring, to inspire them with the value of education, and to give them proper ideas regarding their relative position in society. Some will say, perhaps, that by doing thus much with the lower classes, it will raise them above their station in society, and give them high notions of themselves; we think exactly the contrary will be the case-as the field of knowledge and science is laid open to them they will at once see the vast quantity of means, of time, of study, and of talent, necessary to raise themselves on a level with their superiors, and they will, in consequence, feel not only their inferiority, but also the improbability of their ever being able to reach that cultivation of mind which would give them the remotest claim to equality. The ignorant, or slightly informed man is very likely to have high ideas concerning himself, from not being able to appreciate the acquirements of others; but if you bring him to the museum of their acquirements, and point out to him the vast field over which the human intellect walks, under the favourable circumstances of leisure, wealth, and of rank, he becomes convinced of the immense disparity between the intellect of others and his own, and feels his incapacity and his consequent inferiority.

But, even if this argument did not hold, we should say, that any hazard of such a kind ought to be run, and joyfully, for the laudable purpose of drawing the mass of the people from the vice, and wretchedness, which result much more from ignorance and want of providence, than from want of means, and which threatens the country far more than any political disaster that can possibly result from the spread of knowledge. Did the strength, the energy, and prosperity of a state depend upon ignorance and vice, all the by-gone states which have fallen into wreck and ruin, and the dynasties which have been overthrown, would have flourished until now; but history does not furnish one instance of an intelligent people ever becoming a ruined people. The grandeur of the Persian or the Roman empires was founded on the barbarism of the lower classes, and it fell. Had it been built upon high intelligence, and that public principle among rulers that results more from the honest, though, may be, stern virtues of the governed, it would have survived all the mutations of time, and have thrown a splendour upon the age in which we live. But no! bright as were the glories of Babylon and Rome-brilliant as were the military achievements of their sons-proud as were their cities-extensive as were their conquests-and universal as was their sway— they fell like bubbles in the mighty ocean flowing onwards from eternity, leaving behind them the records of the intelligence only of the few; which few alone keep them from the perfect oblivion into which, they would otherwise have sunk; and the unqualified contempt of a world growing now too wise to be dazzled bythe splendour of conquest or the glory of war.

We have a hope that the observations here thrown out, somewhat at random we confess, will not be lost upon that portion of the public who are already giving evidence that an extending wish exists for the amelioration of human condition, and the improvement of the people. Various societies, of the highest usefulness, are throwing their benign influence both into the heart of society and the home of families; but these, in too many instances, are adopted singly, where they ought to go hand in hand with others; it is not enough to provide for one species of want; there is a circle of human necessities, all flowing in upon each other, and it requires a united effort, and the establishment of institutions, that shall have a direct and powerful action upon the mind, the circumstances, and the prospects of the people. It is necessary that a general object, and a particular aim should be kept in view; at the same time economy seems to suggest that a union of those different modes of Christian benevolence should be formed; the subcriptions to various philanthropic objects now extant being felt in many cases to amount to an almost insupportable tax, calculated to defeat its own ends. Independently of this, such a society as the one we have recommended, having the advantage of unity of action, would be direct, powerful, and effective in its operations; and from the concentration of the most practical views on all subjects relating to society at large, would tend to elicit many very valuable truths on the science of political and moral government, and afford a record of the features of the times, and furnish data for the statesman and legislator, on which he might advance the real and lasting interests of his country.

We shall, therefore, be exceedingly happy to obtain from our friends such observations on the practicability of the plan in question, as may be the result of their experience with the poor. We are aware that

there are many as deeply interested as ourselves in the cause of their improvement, and who would sink low and inferior motives in the great cause of the civilization of man. To those who are wrapped up in the cloak of expediency only, who merely look upon the question of human generation through the spectacles of self-interest, and stop to enquire how will this effect us or our "caste," we hold no parley, except to throw down to them the gauntlet of Christianity, and dare them to the encounter; but to those whose bosoms are yearning with love to man, who weep when they see him immersed in ignorance, clothed in rags, or reeling in drunkenness,- -or what is more awful, bound with chains and trembling beneath the gallows, we would appeal; and we do it with a holy hope and confidence, that they will direct all their energies and powers to some grand scheme for the improvement of the people, based on Christian principles, and on that comprehensive liberality which includes within its sphere, "all sorts and conditions of men," and, like the beneficent Father of all, would send light on the evil and on the good, and rain on the just and on the unjust."

66

ON THE USE AND INFLUENCE OF POETRY

IN EDUCATION.

POETRY has always kept a high station, and held an important influence upon mankind, both in the rudest and most civilized states. The literary annals of all nations afford vestiges of poetry from the remotest ages; they are found among the most destitute of the ancient barbarians, and the most desolate of the Americans. Nature asserts her rights in every country and every age. Tacitus mentions the verses and hymns of the Germans, at the time when that rough people yet inhabited the woods, and while their manners were still savage. The first inhabitants of Russia and the other northern countriesthose of Gaul, Albion, Iberia, Ausonia, and other nations of Europe, had their poetry, as well as the ancient people of Asia and of the known borders of Africa. It is also, as worthy of remark, that almost every great mind commenced its career by "poetic effusion." This may be accounted for, by making an analysis of the nature of poetry; for by doing so, we find that poetry has to do more with those instincts, propensities, and faculties that are born with us, and which are common to the whole family of man, and upon which human laws, human customs, and human creeds, exercise, after all, no more than a mere regulating influence. In the same manner, before the mind is enlarged by study, or its faculties of expression are brought near perfection, the primitive feelings, the passions, the simple and common instincts of our nature, including that Divine one which makes us sensible of a God and an hereafter, are found to manifest themselves in those terse forms of expression which rhythm and verse are found to supply.

Having thus to do with one common nature, it necessarily follows that poetry must be, of all kinds of composition, the most congenial to the development of our faculties as they present themselves; and the more when we consider that poetry has not only to do with the inborn feelings, but also with the outward sphere of our intuition, from which the mind, through the media of the senses, receives a counterbalancing variety of infinite impressions. Thus, the first impulses of the moral sense, and the more striking objects of the natural world, administer largely to each other, and from this reciprocal action of both, the intelligence and reason are developed.

True poetry deals with realities and never with abstractions-its very essence is either feeling or fact-it is built upon nature, upon evidence, and upon truth, although it may and often does expand itself over fable and romance; but it is not the bare fable or the romance that constitutes the poetry; it is the recognition of those undeviating principles of human nature, or those unalterable operations and modes of action found in the material universe; these it identifies with its subject, and it is only by this identification that true poetry can be known and relished. For instance, take the "Paradise Lost," which is looked upon as an ideality above all other poems. It is, indeed, a splendid effort of the imagination; but it has a life, a reality, a flesh and blood about it, which alone give the reader a pleasure in VOL. I.-April, 1835.

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