450 Morality taught in this way. 6 any other hill, except that it is high? I do not know.' Elizabeth, what do you think about a mountain? Is it just like a common hill? I think not, sir.' And why not? A mountain I suppose has high steep rocks in it, or on its sides, so that we cannot get up it, but a hill does not.' Are there any others, in the class who think so? Those who do may raise their hands. I know this is a very common notion among the young, in regard to a mountain; but it is a mistaken one. Some mountains contain perpendicular or craggy rocks, and some do not; and the same is true of hills. In short a mountain is nothing but a large hill; and a hill is in reality a small mountain, only we do not usually call it so. Just as a lake is a large pond of water; and a pond of water is also a small lake, only we do not usually call it so. Now how many of you have ever seen a mountain? What mountains have you read of? What is the highest mountain you have heard of? Do you know in what part of the world the mountain was which Christ went up into? Which way from us? About how far? There is indeed no end to the questions which might be elicited. One would suggest another; then the second would suggest a third; and so on. But we hasten to speak of the explanation of a few words of the short paragraph which we have selected. ' And when he was set, his disciples came unto him?' What is a disciple? Did you ever see one? Who else is a disciple? Whose disciples were here spoken of? Do you know how many disciples the Saviour had? Do you know the names of any of them? Blessed are the poor in spirit.' Now what is the meaning of the word blessed? Children's ideas are usually exceedingly vague in regard to the meaning of such a word as this. The teacher may ask, What good men and women mentioned in the Bible are now blessed? Were any of them blessed while they lived? Are Christians nowadays ever blessed? What is it to be poor? Did you ever see a poor person? If a man was worth a thousand dollars, do you think he would be rich? If worth ten thousand, what then? And if a hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand? You say that you think a person who has ten thousand dollars is rich; now if we were to ask a person who has five hundred thousand dollars, if he thinks the man who is worth ten thousand was rich, what do you think he would say ?—The teacher will here show what is being really rich. First School of the Human Race. 451 Blessed are the poor in spirit.' What is spirit? There is something in certain drinks which is called drunkenness; can this be meant? Why not? Did you ever see a spirit? Did you ever feel one? Then what makes you think there is any such thing as a spirit? Who has a spirit? Who else has? Is there any body without a spirit? Are there any spirits without bodies? Which is of the most consequence, body or spirit ? What does the spirit do while we are asleep? What while we are sick? What when we die? Who do you think had the best spirit? Who the worst? For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' What is a kingdom? What kingdoms did you ever hear of? Is the State you live in a kingdom? Why not? Why is heaven called a kingdom? Who is the king there? What is heaven? Where is it? What class of people will find it? What class of people will not find it? Of whom is it said in this verse that theirs shall be this kingdom? Do people ever enter this kingdom before they die? Do they enter it with their bodies and spirits both? With which, then, the body or the spirit? It may be said that questions like the foregoing are too grave, if not too religious for children. But this point is best determined by trial. Children are not so often averse to religious instruction itself, as to our manner of presenting it. Besides, it is not necessary to dwell on the religious ideas which might be suggested. In the foregoing case, it is by no means necesessary to spend a great deal of time on such words as heaven, blessed, &c. The words mountain, disciples, poor, &c., afford a clue to ideas enough to last a class as long as it is proper to continue one exercise, even if we always make it a point of duty as well as of economy, to leave off before their hunger and thirst is fully satiated. 6 FIRESIDE EDUCATION. THOSE who have had the patience to follow us through the pages of the Annals' for the last year or two, especially those of the current volume, need not be told that we have repeatedly insisted on the superlative importance of Fireside Education. They need not be told that we have all along considered the family school as not only the first school, but as emphatically the school of the human race; and that whatever else is called by the name of school, whether it be in one form or another, is 452 This School is at the Fireside. only worthy of the name in proportion as it sustains, carries out, and perfects the school of the family. Much is said in our days of systems of education; but however valuable any or all of these may be, in their place, we cannot bring ourselves to sympathise with those who are perpetually dwelling on them, while the family is overlooked or forgotten. What is proper for New England, as was intimated in a former number, will never do for the Southern States. Still less is it applicable to the state of society in Mexico. And in China it would be laughed at. But the divine system-the fireside system-is applicable to every nation and tribe under the whole heaven. Go where you will, where there is a family, and you find a system of education, indicated by Heaven itself. The school-the great and universal model school-is every where similarly constructed. It is an infant school, for the child is submitted to the mother as the principal teacher, at a very early period, and here lessons are unspeakably important, as well as exceedingly permanent. It is a common school, for here all the pupils meet upon the same level, and enjoy equal rights and privileges, with a male and female together at their head. It is a school of mutual instruction, and the elder children are the monitors. It is a manual labor school, of which the parents are the superintendents; a college, of which the grandparents are or should be the professors and other officers. We do most heartily wish the world would stop its busy wheels, especially in those lands where the sun of civil and religious liberty has shone, long enough to see this matter as it is. There is, every where, a propensity to throw our responsibility upon the shoulders of others. There is every where a propensity to leave things to teachers; or at least to suppose that education is a sort of grafting scions upon an old stock; a foreign process, the implantation of a few ideas in the mind, with which the parent may or may not have much to do. To break in upon this opinion every where prevalent-time immemorial-and to throw the responsibility of education where it ought to be thrown, that is on parents; and to make parents feel their responsibility, has long seemed to us a desideratum. We have labored with this end in view-how successfully does not belong to us to determine; nor is it in our power to do so if it did. There is still a great work to do, ere the mass of parents will receive the one single, simple idea that the fireside is the primary and principal school room; and that themselves are the primary and principal teachers and educators. We have been led to this train of thought, by the appearance of a new volume of about 400 pages, whose pithy but appropriate title stands at the head of this article. It is from the press of F. J. Huntington, New York, and is edited-we should perhaps say written-by S. G. Goodrich, the author of Peter Parley's Tales. The exceeding great popularity of Mr G.'s writings for children and youth, will secure to the work before us, we have no doubt, a favorable reception. Indeed, it deserves such a reception; for though some portions of it are very far from satisfying us, the work contains enough which is excellent, to render it richly worthy of perusal; and much which we do not remember to have seen expressed so well any where else. The writer sets out with the following theory, viz., That man comes into existence marked by his Creator as the subject of a peculiar design, which is that he shall reach the perfection of his being through education. This point he illustrates by comparisons showing that while all the animal races are incapable of being benefited by instruction, and attain to their measure of perfection without it, man can only receive the full development of his physical, intellectual and moral faculties, through a process of teaching and training.-But let us quote a part of one of the paragraphs of his preface. 'The controlling lessons of life-those which last the longest, those which result in fixed habits and permanent tastes, and usually determine the character for good or ill-are given in early life; they are given at the fireside seminary; and here the parent, as well by the ordinance of God, as the institutions of society, is the teacher. 'The responsibility of the parent is inferred from these premises. If they are founded in truth, it would seem that every reflecting father and mother must feel that after a provision for the comforts of life, education in its true and full sense-the developing and perfecting the various physical, moral and intellectual faculties of their children-is the first and strongest duty; and that to sacrifice this, or any part of this, for the purpose of acquiring wealth, or station, or honor, or any other worldly interest, whether designed for parent or child, is but a surrender to an inferior good and a lesser obligation of the greatest benefit and the highest trust.-The great lawgiver has no where said to parents, bestow wealth, honor, or power on your children; but he has said to them, by the very constitution of human nature, educate your children wisely, if you would train them up to fulfil their duty and their destiny-if you would ensure their escape from misery, or promote their chance of happiness.' He maintains that the parents' influence is as great as Solomon maintained it to be in his days; that the child trained up 454 The Fireside Seminary. in the way he should go, will not, in after years, depart from it. But he also addresses himself to the community at large; and 'Is there a member of society who can look on the rising generation, and say that he has no interest in this matter? If so, then he is self-exiled from his race, cut off from all sympathy with his kindred and his kind. The man who is thus cold and thus indifferent, must be wrapped in the gloom of miserable ignorance, or encased in the triple mail of selfishness. Like ice in a refrigerator, surrounded by a non-conducting layer of charcoal, to shut out the chance of being influenced by the breath of summer, he is bound in the chill security of that philosophy which lays down its code of life in a single dogma-TAKE CARE OF No. I! There let him rest. To such I speak not. I speak to those who acknowledge and feel the obligation to promote the best interests of the whole community, as far as they are able.' But although Mr G. regards the fireside seminary as the principal one, he does not either contemn or overlook other seminaries, especially the common or district school. The latter, he insists, should be universal-thrown open to all, though not gratuitously-a small tax should be paid by the parent. It should be sustained by rich and poor, and both classes should concur in sending their children to it instead of sending them away to private schools; and should unite their endeavors to make it as good as possible. He regards it, moreover, as the auxiliary of the fireside, and says that the parent and the schoolmaster, in their every movement should go hand in hand. Let us make a single extract-though rather a long onefrom his thoughts on the means and necessity of improving our common schools. 'Is it not the current notion of society, that of the intelligent and talented we must make lawyers, physicians and clergymen, and to re OCCU us? of a to e be t tead eve app CO D |