tie which binds, man to immortality. Every human body is the residence of an immortal spirit, and however diminutive by childhood, or dark by ignorance, or mean by poverty, or filthy by vice, the hovel may appear, a deathless inhabitant will be found within. Every child that passes the threshold of your school on a Sunday morning carries to your care, and confides to your ability "a soul," compared with whose worth the sun is a bauble, and with whose existence time itself is but as the twinkling of an eye."-There is certainly nothing in any respect secular, in the discharge of such duties as these. Various objections have likewise been stated to the manner in which these schools are managed, and to the character of the persons who are some times allowed to preside in them; but as these objections are manifestly levelled not against the proper use or application, but the obvious abuse of the institutions, it is evident that no reply is necessary, further than a counter assertion, that, in as far at least as Scotland is concerned, it is our opinion, that they are generally welland it is consistent, with a pretty extensive personal observation, that they are, in many cases, most admirably and most advantageously conducted. In these times, when Infidelity, the daughter of Ignorance, and Insubor dination, the genuine progeny of Infidel Opinion, have united their virulence, and set God and Man, Country and Heaven at defiance-when the dusky and vice-worn visaged Artizan, has issued forth from his wynd and his alley, breathing intoxication, and ut, tering yells of blasphemous rebellion -when even the more favoured Peasant has, in some instances, been decoyed from his peaceful occupations, to lend a little seeming, and pour a little life-blood into this corrupted and corrupting mass-under these cir-" cumstances in particular, we hail, with sentiments of true joy, and high approbation, those numerous Sunday seminaries, where the future man is early instituted into knowledge that is scriptural, and into opinions and prepossessions that are exceedingly favourable to his after usefulness and comfort. "You may make any thing," said the cynical Johnson, “ of a Scotsman if you catch him early ;" and we have not a doubt that there are many at this moment, thus caught and modelled, who, but for this early discipline, might have proved a curse ra ther than a blessing to society! An idea has often occurred to us in connection with this subject, which, at the risk of incurring reprehension from some we are unwilling to offend, we will venture here to suggest. It is well known by what deadly conse quences, the frequent, and sometimes the early use of spirituous liquors is attended, and how many are precipitated into an early grave, or are worse than lost to their friends and to socie ty by a habit of drinking. Of the truth of this observation, we have a dreadful exemplification in the evidence given before "the Committee of the House of Commons for examining into the Education of the Lower Orders." It is likewise a subject of equal notoriety, that many thousands, both of children and adults amongst the labouring classes of the community, die yearly from the want of any timely medical assistance. There is no Scottish clergyman who has been a twelvemonth settled in his parish, who can possibly be ignorant of this fact. Now, our proposal is this.-By looking into the Almanack, it appears that there are a great many M. D.'s in our church, and we believe the study of medicine, to a certain extent, is, and has for some time past been very general amongst our divinity students; and, at all events, it is a very easy matter for a clergyman, by the help of Dr Hamilton's excellent work on Purgatives, to qualify himself for the object in view. We propose, therefore, to set apart a small proportion of every Sunday evening, or morning, for the purpose of exhortation and admonition upon the subject of Intemperance, and upon the proper and timeous use, in case of disease, of some simple, and in particular, of some laxative medicines. It is true, that the very youngest amongst the children might not be able to profit so much as might be desireable, by these advices, but their elder brothers and sisters, their fathers and mothers, who generally attend the Sabbath school along with their children, might. Were this attempted, even in the most imperfect manner-and were the use, and the application of a very few medicines, the diagnosis of the most frequent and dangerous diseases, together with the habits and regimen, which act as preventiveswere these objects explained, and enforced, the benefit arising from this plan would be incalculably great. How many individuals, whom inexperience is daily plunging into intemperance, and every species of vice-how many, who are suddenly lost in the very bloom of health to their families and to their country, might be preserved by such means from the poisonous draught, and from all the deadly consequence of obstructions in the bowels. Let it not be said, that such an employment of a few minutes of a summer Sabbath would be inconsistent with the spirit of Christ's gospel, or incompatible with the more sacred.duties of the day; for unless it can be shewn, that it is improper to cure a disease on the Sabbath, it will not be easy to shew why it should not likewise be proper to prevent it; and so long as the writings of the four Evangelists are considered as authority, these will not want countenance even in the conduct of "the Great Physician himself," for attend. ing to the interests of the body as well as of the soul on the Lord's day. A more serious objection, we are aware, may be started by professional men, from the consideration of the danger arising from ignorance on the part of the teacher, as well us from imperfect apprehension on the part of the taught; and in mitigation, though by no means in complete refutation, of this objection, we have only to add, that after such laxative medicines have been made use of as cannot possibly do hurt, in case of the symptoms of indisposition still remaining, we would undoubtedly instruct an immediate application, in all instances where it can be made, to professional skill and experience. But we maintain still, that in nine instances out of ten, no such application would be necessary. The comparative facility with which even the very poorest parents in Scotland may obtain in most cases a classical education for their sons, and the consequent ambition of seeing their offspring advanced in their cast in society, which these facilities gene rate-together with that love of herself, which classical learning in particular is sure to excite in the most generous minds-all these causes cooperate in producing a large supply of peasant-scholarship, which, amongst various channels into which it is impelled by necessity, or conducted by choice, is found to flow with a pretty steady stream into the mansions of the richer inhabitants-and is employed in irrigating and fructifying those ten Vide Hamilton, a book every father of a family should be possessed of. der shoots of nobility and station, which are destined to future import ance and distinction in society. There is in fact nothing like this in either of the sister kingdoms. Travelling Tutors, and a very Few retained by the home demand, are indeed to be found, but these are not unfrequently Scotch, and the proportion which, after all, they bear to those who act as domestic tutors in Scotland is very trifling indeed. There cannot be a doubt respecting the entire usefulness of this arrangement, not only in regard to the support and promotion of obscure, and even indigent Individuals, of ta lent and of acquirement; but still more immediately and directly perhaps, in regard to that class which has been represented as the bones and the nerves of society,-in regard to those noblemen, Scotch lairds, merchants, and even wealthy farmers, around whom, in a nearer or more remote connection, is collected, and by whom is fashioned and consolidated the whole mass of a national population. It is perhaps owing to this, amongst other causes to the facility, namely, in Scotland, of obtaining excellent domestic tutorage, that so large a proportion of our Scotch nobility and gentry prefer living upon their estates in the country, and leave at all times with reluctance their family mansions for a city residence. A boy brought up in a public academy, such as obtain in England, and permitted to revisit his paternal roof only at long and stated intervals, gradually transfers all that is transferable of his sympathy to the sene of his school amusements;-and, after having had every lingering attachment to home, and to the hall of his ancestors, and to the friends of his childhood, finally effaced,-after having lost more in a moral, than he can ever acquire in an intellectual point of view, after having become a young citizen of the world, a Lord Byron in all, but his talents; he fixes finally upon that plan of residence, and upon that method of life, which is most congenial to his former habits; and if, from the total absence of what in these large and corrupting seminaries is termed spirit, he do not fall back into the arms of his easy-chair, and of his gamekeeper, and thus become a true "English squire,”—if he have any thing at all of the active or pervertible about him-he is almost sure to travel through a corresponding university education, to a large town, where his liberal propensities may be gratified with most ease and least notoriety-where he may spend in vicious, orat least pernicious indulgences, those means which would have encompassed his native residence with the blessing of the labourer, and spread an aspect of happiness and activity over the lawns and the fields around it. On the other hand, a Scotch tutor, of all descriptions of teachers, has perhaps the most urgent and honourable motives to guide his conduct. To the parents, or other relatives of his pupil or pupils, he looks for patronage, and will willingly make any reasonable sacrifice of his ease and comfort, when necessary to secure the good opinion and support of his patron; at the same time that the liberality of his education, and the ulterior object he has in view, preserve him in general from meanness and servility. His own pupils, too, are fast advancing to the years of maturity, and will soon come to regard the conduct of their tutor in a proper light, as it tended to promote their progress in knowledge and virtue; and let any one endeavour to calculate the advantages resulting to society from labours thus regulated. In all cases early impressions are decisive of character, and should therefore be made under the most cautious vigilance; but in the higher walks of life, in men of property, political influence, and rank, these impressions do not only determine the fortune, and the happiness of the individuals, but, to a certain extent, of the public. Vices gravitate through the gradations of society with increasing velocity, till the follies and the foibles of the rich and the great, become the boast and the ruin of humble industry. It is not easy to calculate that aggregate mass of misery, which may be produced in society by the neglected or misguided education of a young nobleman, in whose hands the virtues, or the fortunes, of his ancestors have left the comfort of his dependants, and, to a certain extent, the most sacred rights of his country. The Peasant, as he shares with a cheerful family the regular and well-earned meal-as he cheapens at the annual market the winter's apparel for his wife and children-as he lifts up his eyes on that verdure and promise, which the breath of benevolence has fostered even in the waste -this man will bless the hand which plucked the first shoots of lordly pride and ungoverned passion from the breast of his landlord, and planted in their place a sacred and enlightened regard to the interests of humanity. We do not, however, assert, that in no instance our Scotch system of private Tutorage can be productive of mischief. In the case of foolish and indulgent Parents, and Mothers in particular, many a fine boy has been injured materially through life, by being kept constantly at home, under a false appreciation of himself, and with no more knowledge of the world than the experience of, perhaps, a very inperienced tutor could afford him. But we are still of opinion, that such mistakes and errors are more easily remedied, have less of inveterate viciousness about them, and are at the same time of far more rare occurrence, than those by which a public education is almost inevitably accompanied. The truth is, that pure and unmixed domestic tutorage is now of very rare occurrence. In a very great proportion ofinstances, Scotch Families spend their winters in Edinburgh, by which method their children enjoy all the advantages resulting from private, with an admixture of those which result from public instruction. Amongst all the plans which have yet been devised for the education of youth, this appears to us to be the safest and the most effectual; and we congratulate our native land on a system of educa tion, which, arising naturally out of her legal establishment, tends so manifestly to the preservation of patriotic and home attachment amongst the great-and presents at the same time an honourable path, by which the son of the poorest labourer or mechanic may travel to future usefulness in the church or in the state. There is still another class of teachers to be found in our university, and in many of our larger academy, towns, but principally in Edinburgh, which are denominated "Private Teachers;" under which character they officiate by the hour, in preparing Students for the Professor, or School-boys for the Master. In some cases where the talents of the pupil are such as to render self-reliance not only safe, but desireable, private tui tion, instead of being beneficial, may tend to encourage indolence-but in by far the greater number of instances, it has become absolutely necessary. The time which in Scottish seminaries is allotted to the study of the Latin and Greek classics is so limited, and so inadequate to any thing like a complete mastery of these artificial, but taste-imbued languages, that the daily tasks of the Master and Professor are in general beyond the unaided powers of at least two-thirds in each class to overtake. Many schoolboys, and students, in the classical, and even in the mathematical stages of their college-education in particular, would be completely lost, were it not for the stated visits of a Private Teacher, by whom difficulties are solved, and their attention and diligence are excited. This profession of " Private Tuition" presents likewise a respectable and highly useful independence to many a deserving young man, and promising scholar, who, without some such advantages, could never have accomplished his own university education. It offers too a city of refuge to "Family Tutors," whom the insolence of rank, the petulance of wealth, or the downright absurdity of mothers, may have compelled, from a feeling of honest pride, and of unappreciated labour, to fly to it. A private is more independent than a family teacher, in as much as the patronage of several individuals, unknown in many instances to, and consequently uninfluenced by each other, is less exposed to prejudice and caprice, than is that of one. "The “Private Teacher" walks the wintry street With hurried step, and door-directed eye; Sharp is the blast, and damp and cold his feet, And scarce the toss'd umbrella keepeth dry His head and shoulders.-Think, Mammas! that ly On warm and cushioned sofa-think of him Whom neither toothach, nor inclement sky, One little hour of home repose may win, How wet soe'er the night, how sad soe'er the trim. The four Universities of Scotland, conveniently situated as they are for the accommodation of almost every corner of the kingdom, by holding out an object of honourable ambition and of possible attainment to every scholar, have contributed directly to the formation and support of our national character. At an early period of our history, when learning was by no means so generally diffused amongst the lower orders as at present, the universities of Scotland, and that of St Andrew's in particular, were very respectably attended; whilst, on the other hand, an "Oxford scholar" was so rare, and so incomprehensible a character even in England, that the popular belief ran in those times very generally in favour of his supernatural acquirements;-and even at this hour, the proportion of students who attend our Scottish Universities, considered, in reference to the relative population of the sister kingdoms, is, beyond all comparison, in favour of Scotland. The two English universities are chiefly attended by the sons of noblemen, and of the richer coun try gentlemen, together with a few "The Dialectic Society," one of the most ancient, and of the most respectable of those "Student Institutions," which, in the absence of party spirit, and "members skilled in singing," are useful both in an intellectual and oratorial point of view! |