Instruction not Education. 363 



all the faculties and affections of the mind, and must bring out the whole 

 man into the full and efficient exercise of his capacities and duties.* As 

 virtue then consists not merely in a knowledge of what is right, but in a 

 corresponding habit of action, we must not look for disproportionate results 

 when instruction is confined to the arts of reading and writing. "A book," 

 says a judicious writer,t "informs us what habits ought to be— right 

 education insures a number of acts in accordance with the principle laid 

 down in the book." Rote learning can never reach the active principles 

 that govern the conduct, or the teaching of texts and rules be an effectual 

 substitute for moral training, education's paramount object. No system in 

 short can fulfil the design of a sound education, which, while it inculcates 

 the acquisition of knowledge and the exercise of the intellect, does not aim 

 also at bringing the moral nature (as Sir James Mackintosh has beautifully 

 said) "to look on the understanding itself as something that is only the 

 first of its instruments." The whole constitution of nature, and its admir- 

 able adaptation to the faculties of man as a moral, intelligent, and religious 

 being, point to the conclusion that rectitude is the only way of securing 

 happiness. If this is truth for the individual, it is no less truth for the 

 community, and it should be the polar star of all efforts for social ameliora- 

 tion. The finest state machinery must be subject to derangement, unless 

 tLe parts are so shapen and proportioned as to work harmoniously, and 

 with a due dependence on each other. Overlooking this truth, many pa- 

 triotic and enliglitened men, in whose view the political constitution of a 

 country was every thing, have seen their labours end in failure and dis- 

 appointment. Their minds in fact have forerun their age, and over-rated 

 the materials with which they had to work, forgetful of the principle, so 

 well stated by an able writer, J that " no political arrangements can trans- 

 mute the effects of ignorance into those of knowledge ; or bring it to pass 

 that an unenlightened people can be as well governed under free institu- 

 tions as an enlightened one."§ 



• "A plan of education may be devised which shall be admirably adapted for 

 opening and invigorating the intellect, when viewed in itself. But how shall we get 

 it to be acted on ? How shall we ensure the development of the intellect, unless we 

 interest also those feelings which, in the complex being man, are inseparably com- 

 bined with the intellectual powers.' since it is not reason that thinks and judges and 

 infers, but reasoning man ; — not the abstract principle of intellect, but intellect as it 

 physically exists, and as it is modified and controlled by our active and sensitive na- 

 ture." — Dr. Hampden, Lect. on Mor. Phil. p. 60. 



+ Quarterly Journal of Education, No. 18. 



J The Rationale of Political Representation, p. 216. 



§ "Every one who has anything to lose which is worth the keeping, is a gainer 

 by the education of the poorer classes. The safety of your Lordship's property, the 

 well-being of society, the public security, depend upon the christian education of 

 those classes."— Bp. of London's Speech on the Irish Church Bill, Aug. 24, 18.35, p. 8. 



We may add to this Mr. Simpson's axiom, " There is but one time for moral train 

 mg, and that it infancy." — p. 133. 



