366 
RURAL HOURS. 
house will be cramped by confining their energies within too nar- 
row a field, no fear that their faculties will remain dull and be- 
numbed for the want of impulse. Everything lies open before 
them ; and motives for action are ceaselessly urged upon them by 
the most animating, nay, even exciting language. It is the oppo- 
site principle of restraint which seems to receive less consideration 
than it deserves. It is not wholly neglected, God in mercy forbid 
that it ever should be ; but does it meet with that full, serious at- 
tention Avhich is needed ? Is it not too often rendered subservient 
to the former principle of impulse, and activity ? And yet, let it 
be remembered that it is this principle of restraint which is more 
especially the moral point in education ; where it fails, discipline 
and self-denial are wanting, with all the strength they give to in- 
tegrity, and honor, and true self-respect, with all the decencies of 
good manners Avhich they infuse into our daily habits. That must 
ever be the soundest education in which the proportions be- 
tween the different parts are most justly preserved. 
Let it be remembered, also, that the more knowledge is increas- 
ed, so much the more binding becomes the obligation to keep up 
the just proportions between moral and intellectual instruction. 
We have thrown aside the primer and horn-book, let us bear in 
mind that every new science introduced into the school-room 
brings with it an additional weight of moral responsibility. And 
instead of the amount of intellectual culture bestowed being an 
excuse for the neglect of religious and moral instruction, this very 
amount becomes in itself an imperative demand for more earnest, 
energetic, hearty efforts on those vital points. In a Christian 
community assuming their education, the children have a clear 
right to plain, sound, earnest lessons of piety, truth, honesty, 
