THE ANALYST 



ON ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 

 By James Simpson, Advocate.* 



Elementary or primary education is that training of the 

 faculties and communication of knowledge which ought to be im- 

 parted to every human being, from birth to the age of fourteen, 

 without distinction of sex, rank, or condition in life. In no branch 

 of human affairs have notions been more limited and erroneous 

 than in this. The cause is, want of the requisite knowledge of the 

 human constitution, bodily and mental, the improvement and right 

 direction of which are, in its widest sense, sound education. Intel- 

 lectual education solely, and that most defective in kind and degree, 

 has hitherto engrossed the attention of the teacher of the young, 

 while moral education is a novelty in society. Yet Locke and 

 Milton, above a century and a half ago, conceived and expressed 

 the opinion that moral training is paramount in importance, and 

 ought to take the precedence of intellectual, which is chiefly useful 

 as aiding the other more important branch in its grand object, the 

 improvement and ultimate perfection of human happiness. Edu- 

 cationists are beginning to miss this vital branch of instruction : 

 they find no institutions for it until infant schools were established. 

 These have demonstrated its reality as a part of education, and, yet 

 more — its practicability. 



But the omission of moral education is only one symptom of 

 that disease of ignorance on the great subject which afflicts society. 



* Author of the " Philosophy of Education, with its application to a sys- 

 tem of popular education as a natural system." Second Edition. 



