36 I AT SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [in. 



history and the geography of the child's own country." 

 But I doubt if there is a primary school in England in 

 which hangs a map of the hundred in which the village 

 lies, so that the children may be practically taught by it 

 what a map means. 



5. A certain amount of regularity, attentive obedience, 

 respect for others : obtained by fear, if the master be in- 

 competent or foolish; by love and reverence, if he be wise. 



So far as this school course embraces a training in 

 the theory and practice of obedience to the moral laws 

 of Nature, I gladly admit, not only that it contains a 

 valuable educational element, but that, so far, it deals 

 with the most valuable and important part of all educa- 

 tion. Yet, contrast what is done in this direction with 

 what might be done ; with the time given to matters of 

 comparatively no importance ; with the absence of any 

 attention to things of the highest moment : and one is 

 tempted to think of Falstaff's bill and "the halfpenny 

 worth of bread to all that quantity of sack." 



Let us consider what a child thus " educated " knows, 

 and what it does not know. Begin with the most im- 

 portant topic of all — morality, as the guide of conduct. 

 The child knows well enough that some acts meet with 

 approbation and some with disapprobation. But it has 

 never heard that there lies in the nature of things a 

 reason for every moral law, as cogent and as well defined 

 as that which underlies every physical law ; that stealing 

 and lying are just as certain to be followed by evil 

 consequences, as putting your hand in the fire, or jump- 

 ing out of a garret window. Again, though the scholar 

 may have been made acquainted, in dogmatic fashion, 

 with the broad laws of morality, he has had no training 

 in the application of those laws to the difficult problems 

 which result from the complex conditions of modern 

 civilization. "Would it not be very hard to expect any one 



