212 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



FEB. 



no advantages ; they are mere show-shops, 

 drill-yards, manufactories of bigotry and 

 solemn foppery, cramping and stunting the 

 human intellect, grinding all, mechanically, 

 in the same mill, or shaping them after the 

 same pattern. The foremost thought among 

 the great patrons of education in England 

 is to teach the greatest numbers by the 

 smallest means, without distinction of capa- 

 city or regard for particular talent not to 

 awaken the intellect to spontaneous exertion 

 so set it a working and fermenting, but 

 to cram the memory with odds and ends 

 creeds and codes of divinity ; to show 

 handsomely at public examinations to teach 

 sharpness in detecting the slips of their 

 companions, and emulation, envy, and all 

 uncharitableness. Gabbling the command- 

 ments against swearing, lying, and stealing, 

 is to counteract the practice and examples 

 they meet with in the streets and at home. 

 The difference between the National and 

 Lancasterian systems, he finds to amount 

 to a geometrical distinction the first teach 

 in squares, and the others in semi-circles ; 

 and infant-schools are mere introductions to 

 the national, governed by the same prin- 

 ciples, and filled with the same nonsense. 

 In none of them did Dr. Biber discover any 

 thing like intelligence ; none of the children 

 could go one step out of the given track of 

 question and answer. He found one form 

 copying " Live in Love." " What does 

 that mean?" "I don't know." " You 

 don't know ! but don't you know what 

 love means ?" " No." " Or do you 

 know what live means ?" " No." 

 " What must you do to live in love ?" 

 " I don't know." " Do you know what 

 you must not do to live in love ?" " No, 

 I don't."" Well ; but you should know 

 something about what live in love means. 

 Does it mean that you are to fight with the 

 other boys ?" " I can't tell." " Well,' ; 

 said I, turning to my friend, " what do you 

 say to this ?" Upon which the school- 

 master, observing somewhat of the scope of 

 our conversation, came up to us, and said, 

 " I dare say you might ask such questions 

 nil over the school, without getting a better 

 answer ; they none of them know what they 

 are writing." 



Others were writing long words one had 

 on his slate, " disadvantageous." " AVhat 

 does that word mean, my boy ?" " I don't 

 know." " You know, perhaps, what dis- 

 advantage means?" "No." "Do you 

 know what advantageous means ?" " No." 

 " Or have you ever heard the word advan- 

 tage ? what does that mean ?" " I don't 

 know." " Well, but suppose you lost your 

 jacket, would that be an advantage or a 

 disadvantage to you ?" " An advantage" 

 was his answer. Some of the children read 

 the parable of the Prodigal Son, when Dr. 

 R. asked what was meant by riotous living ? 

 "Dissipated living." "And what doe;? 

 that mean ?" " Wasteful living." " And 

 what does that mean ?" Their synonimes 



were exhausted. To get upon intelligible 

 ground, he then asked what things were 

 necessary for subsistence, and what were 

 not ? when some of the girls contended that 

 beer, and cheese, and cakes, and patties, 

 were indispensably necessary for life, &c. 



The cant, and parade, and puffery of these 

 institutions, in a multitude of particulars, 

 are well exposed, as well as those of some 

 others of a less public character, especially 

 Gall's Sabbath School System, and his 

 Rules for Teaching Children to Pray. But 

 in nothing is he more earnest, or more 

 effective, than in dissecting the hypocrisies 

 and pretensions of society, in higher classes : 

 but we have no space to follow him. The 

 whole volume is worth . attending to. We 

 are tempted to quote a piece relative to 

 servants. Of course the evil it exposes is 

 incurable ; but let it be seen. 



In no country, I apprehend, is there a more de- 

 based and more corrupted race of servants to be 

 found than in this owing to the hauteur with 

 which they are treated, and from which other 

 fruits cannot be expected. It is not natural that 

 a human being should consent to be treated as 

 if he belonged to a different species, to be used 

 as a machine for a variety of purposes, without 

 being regarded otherwise than as a machine ; 

 seen, and yet not perceived ; spoken to, and yet 

 hot noticed ; to be condemned to stand, earless, 

 eyeless, motionless, and speechless, until the look 

 or word of command restore to him the use of his 

 senses and limbs for a specific purpose ; to be 

 considered and dealt with, in the parlour, as a 

 piece of furniture ; or in the kitchen, as an uten- 

 sil ; and to be attended to in his wants and wishes, 

 or cultivated in his affections, no more, if not less, 

 than the dog or the horse, upon whom it is his 

 duty to wait, in the master's name ; I say it is 

 not natural that a human being should consent to 

 endure all this degradation at the hand of his 

 fellow-creature,without a compensation which, in 

 his estimate, makes up for the loss of what no 

 man should ever be tempted to part with, his 

 human capacity. And what can that compensa- 

 tion be ? It cannot, in the very nature of things, 

 he a moral one ; for the last remnant of taste for 

 any mental or moral gratification, would render 

 the condition, by the endurance of which it is 

 supposed to be purchased, perfectly insufferable. 

 The compensation for the conditional setting aside 

 of the fact, that the servant has an immortal soul 

 as well .is his master, and is his fellow-creature 

 in every respect, can only be one which is cal- 

 culated to make the victim of human pride and 

 vanity, really forget that, which he is under the 

 obligation of affecting not to know; it can only 

 be the high wages of Mammon, and the sensual 

 enjoyments which can be bought with them, and 

 which too often the master's sensuality presents 

 in a more alluring light. Are we then to wonder 

 that our servants are covetous and vicious, when 

 we have taken care to exclude from their bosoms 

 every nobler feeling, which might be a safeguard 

 to them against the snares of evil ; and if, by 

 way of reconciling them to such degradation, 

 we hold out direct temptations to covetousness 

 and to vice? The feelings and humanity of re- 

 ligion have, after a long- slumber of dulness, 



