EDUCATION. 175 



parishes in which they may be engaged. Sacred 

 music is found to have a. very beneficial effect upon 

 the pupils, in calming their passions and softening 

 and elevating their minds and feelings. It is natural 

 that they who have been taught, or they who have 

 practised sacred music, should take a deeper interest 

 in public worship, enabling them to join in the 

 chants and other services of the church, or of any 

 other place of worship they may attend: and these 

 habits and feelings, thus engendered, will probably 

 continue with them through life. 



The teachers, in too many instances, do not appear 

 to hold that position with regard to the parents of 

 their pupils which they ought to do. The teacher 

 receiving aid from the Treasury, and a further small 

 gratuity from some charitable society, is considered 

 by many to keep a " free school ; " consequently, , 

 those parents who can well afford to pay something 

 towards their children's schooling, do so very irregu- 

 larly and reluctantly — more as a matter of favour 

 than of right and duty; and after placing their 

 children at school, they think that they can be sent 

 to school or kept at home at pleasure. Children are 

 frequently kept from school for weeks together, with- 

 ' out any reasonable cause (as sickness, &c.), and sent 

 again without the slightest excuse being offered for 



