competition, it renders the competitors more alive to the malignant feelings which it fosters.

Nor is the perfection of any system of Education to be estimated solely by its tendency to promote literary exertions, or its adaptation to reward literary merit. These exertions had better be suppressed, our books had better be for ever closed, if the structure of literary improvement is to be raised on the ruins of a single virtuous feeling. It is indeed the cultivation of the benevolent affections, in the early period of life, that will supply the best check upon the conduct and passions in that wider field of competition, where, as the interests are more varied, there is greater scope for envy and jealousy to obtrude themselves. As in a machine the contriver is careful to place certain wheels and springs to serve as correctors, when, by any physical causes, the uniformity of the action has been disturbed; so in the moral mechanism, early instructions may strengthen feelings, which, when moral impediments have interfered, will spontaneously come into operation, and restore all to its original order.

A good moral tendency therefore in a scheme of education is a point essential to recommend it even to our consideration; and there would be no difficulty in laying down the slightest deficiency of this quality as a sufficient reason for condemning any scheme, if such a determinate

rule would not seem to rest upon the imaginary possibility of arriving at perfection. It is indeed an evil inseparable from the best system that human skill can devise to be the occasion of some ill feeling. But it is important to notice the distinction between the cause and the occasion of evil. The one we should endeavour to remove; the other we can only hope to obviate by controlling the evil propensities of our nature. And as Education has nothing in it of the character of an end; as its business is not so much to impart knowledge, as to encourage habits; it is of the greatest importance that every expedient adopted should be directed to strengthen those principles which it is desirable that we should carry into the world with us; and should be selected with a view to the general benefit of those who constitute society. But every project of education will fail; its duties will be regarded as tasks to be despatched as rapidly as possible; and the habit of labouring in self-improvement will remain unformed, unless the mind be brought to feel an interest and a pride in its occupation. Without this co-operation, constraint to any course of study must do positive harm, by attaching disagreeable associations to subjects of solid importance.

And however the employment of Emulation as an instrument of improvement might be condemned, opinions of this nature are not in ac

cordance with the uniform conduct of mankind in this very particular. There is no more universal expedient for engaging the exertions of the young on the side of honourable and virtuous accomplishments than that of proposing to them an example which they are likely to imitate. And wherein else consists the power of example but in the emulation intended to be excited by it?

The principle, therefore, as in theory it has been proved to be exempt from the objections urged against it, will in practice be found not only serviceable, but indispensable for advancing a system of education. And to employ it for this purpose does not imply any desire to improve the understanding at the expense of the more important consideration due to the heart. Nay, if the preceding observations are correct, in proportion as an honest emulation prevails, there will be less room for malevolent feelings to intrude. Or even admitting that envy and jealousy are the necessary accompaniments of Emulation, there is at least no greater tendency in the pursuits of literature to produce them, than in pursuits of any other kind; and it is only common prudence to select such as will afford some compensation for the moral detriment sustained. This position of the argument, however, although it proves the point contended for even on the most unfavourable hypothesis, is rendered

unnecessary by its having been shown that the hypothesis itself is unfounded. Happily we are not reduced to the alternative of choosing between the malevolent feelings exercised towards a worthy object on the one hand, and the same feelings employed about an unworthy object on the other. For it has been shown, that we are able to obviate to a great extent the feelings themselves.

In conclusion it may be observed, that it must after all, be left to each individual to correct for himself many evils which the most perfect system cannot avoid. This may guide his studies, and remove everything of a directly injurious tendency, but it cannot weaken the connection, which every one is sensible of, between success and arrogance on the one hand, and between failure and ill-will on the other. These defects, each, as he values his own improvement, and for still weightier reasons, is bound to correct in himself. It should be remembered, that Education is not an end; that its rewards are not meant to be valued for their own sakes, but only as an earnest of those higher rewards which are attached to nobler exertions: that it is a state of discipline for that greater sphere of action, in which the course of events will not be accommodated to our prevailing tastes and habits. There opposition will be encountered of a more formidable kind than any which is met with in the petty

VOL. V.

M

rivalry of Education; and that too in the pursuit of objects more closely connected with our interest. If Education has failed in implanting the habit of virtuous exertion, it were better we had never known the value of these objects, which, if rightly pursued, are calculated to increase our happiness and ennoble our nature.

HENRY WALL, B. A.

ST. ALBAN'S HALL.

1833.