118 ON THE EXPEDIENCY AND MEANS OP 



the infant inspires love through all its perceptive being ; from sense 

 to sense, in the new developing capacities of its nature up to child- 

 hood, love is the element of life and growth. Intelligence is the 

 rational image of God; love is the natural similitude of man. But 

 another age arrives — the educative age ; the tenderness of home is 

 exchanged for the harshness of school. Three relations influence 

 the education — that of the master, the scholars, and the school. 

 The features of the masters are already depicted. 



Not to dwell upon the personal and domestic character of the 

 master, which, however, necessarily enter into the process of educa- 

 tion, the teaching system is not only bad, but uncertain. Had a 

 schoolmaster the vision of Elisha, and could unobserved review the 

 conduct of every scholar, he could not instruct them all, the number 

 effectually holds him remote from the individual, and the chances of 

 his examination are so uncertain as to encourage idleness, from the 

 chance of escape. " The vital and essential part of a school is the 

 master ; but at a public school no boy, or at the best only a very 

 few, can see enough of him to derive any considerable benefit from 

 his character, manners, and information."* 



Moreover there is this disadvantage without perhaps an excep- 

 tion, that the acquirements of the master are not general enough, 

 he may be well adapted for giving instruction in one or two branch- 

 es of education, and to the study of which his preference has ad- 

 dicted him, but of that wide and universal knowledge of his voca- 

 tion, which is rather a supervision of the whole than any exclusive 

 part of teaching, masters are deplorably ignorant. An educator 

 should be like a skilful commander over his army governing indivi- 

 duals through accessories, but all through himself, continuously vigi- 

 lant over the whole school, sitting in his high watch tower, direct- 

 ing and aiding the whole monitory process. But with a degraded 

 office, and a vitiated officer, education deviates into innumerable ec- 

 centricities to fit the caprice and profit of the educator. The rela- 

 tion of the scholar to the teacher is, therefore, in every way ill a- 

 dapted, either for his happiness, goodness, or knowledge. The re- 

 lation to the scholars — a child is the surest and sweetest teacher of 

 a child; for whereas men content themselves with words, a child 

 can teach only by things, and first impressions are not only the 

 most lasting, but are the quickest learned and cannot be forgotten, 



* Edinburgh Review, vol. xvi. p. 332. 



