NATIONAL AND DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 267 



infant beings, and the story of the cannibal giant, whose table was 

 furnished by babes, ceases to be a fable, and with this additional 

 horror, that the parents of the little victims are the servitors. 



How unfair it would be deemed if money did not produce to every 

 holder its due value ; what an outcry would be raised if one might 

 receive but one penny, where another received twelve pence for his 

 shilling. Is it more fair that the real wealth of the world mind, 

 should want this protecting standard. We watch representative 

 value inform ourselves eagerly on the subjects of capital and cur- 

 rency ; but of young humanity, every mind of which may be instinct 

 with the power of good to existing and succeeding millions, little or 

 no account is taken. The best wealth of a country is its youth ; the 

 true mint, a general system of education, by which every individual 

 may receive the impress of superior character, and carry into society 

 a moral currency of superior value. 



How wonderful then it is that education has hitherto been pro- 

 moted only in the most desultory manner. Accidental, not determi- 

 nate, instruction is the lot of most. Moral education is almost uni- 

 versally the growth of example, little guarded, and quite indifferent 

 to the important point of presenting a fit model for imitation ; while 

 mental education still remains a business of theory rather than prac- 

 tice, and, as if we proffered going forward by the labour of the oar, 

 rather than the impulse of the wind, we substitute hope, fear, and 

 emulation, as stimulants or rather goads, thus superseding the natural 

 effects of the allurements of knowledge, the sympathy of studious 

 association, and the grand principle of the universal happiness and 

 exaltation of humanity. We corrupt the spring, and wonder its 

 streams are infected ; we injure the sapling, and complain that the 

 tree does not flourish. Bribery and coercion have hitherto been the 

 grand instruments of all governments; by means of these, armies have 

 been formed, and discipline has trainedmen to slavery and slaughter. 

 Sectarians have congregated their thousands that have been de- 

 voted to prayer here, and have believed in eternal torments hereafter. 

 It is thus made evident what determinate purpose and unity of action, 

 even in violation, of nature can effect. Is there then a doubt as to 

 what wisdom and perseverance, acting in accordance with nature, 

 may produce ? 



The children of the present age will be the legislators, political and 

 domestic, of the next. On the characters given to the now tenants of 

 cradles, will depend the public and private happiness of succeeding 

 years nor will these children fail to re-act on the existing adults, 

 who ere they pass from this scene must taste of happiness or misery 

 through the rising generation. 



How important a consideration then is education ! how paramount 

 of all others ! of what universal interest ! In all matters of great 

 moment, it has hitherto been customary to leave women out of the 

 question, as if they were as rarely to be met in the works of God, as 

 of Jeremy Bentham. I mean to depart from this venerable rule, de- 

 notive, like many others, of the wisdom of our forefathers, and call to 

 the great question of education, WOMEN, as those that ought to have 

 the first voice in it. 



