8 Middle- Class Education. 



people would say, " It is too good to be true." At all events, it 

 is an approximation Avliicli we need not be far from realising 

 if the building be not too pretentious and scholars can be 

 found at once. 



This much, at least, may be said, that unless 300 scholars 

 are forthcoming for half-a-dozen district schools, it would be 

 altogether hopeless to expect that 40 county schools could 

 find the requisite support for an expensive staff of efficient 

 teachers. The Suffolk School contemplates taking children of 

 nine years of age. Could the attendance of scholars of this age 

 and upwards to seventeen be secured, my calculations and antici- 

 pations would be far exceeded. But 1 certainly do not expect 

 that parents in general will send boys of nine years of age to a 

 large and distant boarding-school. On the score of expense alone 

 few would do so to self-supporting schools. Head-masters would 

 not teach children their jji-imers. Besides, the health and training 

 of the heart of a child would be better attended to at home. 

 The education of the heart — the moral training of youth — is a 

 parent's duty and pleasure, if he is what a parent ought to be. 

 At school the precepts of religion may be taught ; but — much 

 more than precepts — mere precepts, and reading of Scripture, 

 are acquired at home. Then who can take the place of a parent 

 who feels the immortal responsibility of his trust ? "A little 

 learning may be a dangerous thing," when not accompanied by 

 moral training ; but more learning under such circumstances 

 would be still more dangerous. The proverb is true that "know- 

 ledge is power," but power may be used for evil just as much as 

 for good. It were better that the child who writes obscene words 

 upon a wall had never learned to write at all, if he can put his 

 learning to no better use. Knowledge may give skill in forgery, 

 and many other such misapplications of skill. Without the 

 restraints which moral principles impose, a man may be an 

 educated demon, — the more intellectual, the more dangerous to 

 all around him. 



Since I hold that children up to twelve or thirteen years of 

 age are generally best left under their parents' daily care, I think 

 it desirable that the present Rural Schools should so far extend 

 their elementary teaching as to include grammar and a little 

 plane geometry. These schools must, for a long time to come, 

 be the chief preparatory schools for either county or district 

 seminaries, and it is highly important that they should provide 

 a satisfactory grounding. Now that, under the Revised Code, 

 teachers are paid according to the results of the examination of 

 scholars, there is no longer reason to fear that the poorer children 

 might be neglected if farmers' sons were taught in advanced 

 classes, defraying, of course, the whole cost of their education. 



