CHAP. V.

Mechanical Reading:-how obviated.-School-Lessons to promote Moral Qualities :—Obedience: Regularity: Attention: Patience: Alacrity.-Happy Fruits of these Qualities.-Failures to be expected.-How to be borne.

Ir often happens that reading is made too mechanical. If the words are properly pronounced, and attention is paid to the stops, and the parts of the sentence are put together with tolerable propriety, the teacher rests satisfied, though the understanding of the scholar has been little employed. This is very generally the course with village schoolmasters, and many parents of good education too nearly approach it. Even the mere reading, were this alone the object, as it often is in a village school, can never be good when the mind does not thoroughly enter into the sense; but that parents, whose views extend much farther, should ever acquiesce in their children's pronouncing sentences somewhat like parrots, and missing a large portion at least of the information and improvement which it was the intention of the author to convey, is really surprising. When this kind of reading is permitted, I believe it is owing in a good measure to their not being aware how imperfectly their little scholars understand what is so plain to themselves. The evil in question is of far greater importance than may at first appear. The

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child is led into a habit of reading without thinking, and of resting contented with a very confused notion of what is read. Scarcely any thing can be a greater obstacle to the acquisition of sound and useful knowledge, and of vigorous habits of investigation. If these are not acquired, the mind will generally become a prey to frivolity and intellectual idleness; and it is well if it do not also resign itself to low pursuits, and sensual indulgence. As one antidote, through divine grace, to these most unchristian and often fatal evils, let a child always be made, as soon as he can read a sentence, to understand what he reads, and to give an account of it afterwards. order to effect the latter object, when his reading has been more than three or four lines, let him take his book and look it over, and give the account when he finds himself prepared. The parent must not expect this to be given without leading questions to draw it forth; and he will think it an important office to make this part of the business pleasant to his scholar, by smoothing difficulties, making the best of imperfect answers, and interspersing the whole with suitable illustrations and moral remarks, in a tone and manner favourable to the right feelings of his pupil, and likely to exclude wrong ones, or to administer a gentle cure to such as may be rising. So also, whatever is to be got by heart, should always be previously read, explained, illustrated, and (if I may so say) practically applied.

But the parent ought always to bear in mind that every lesson is as truly a lesson in the moral qualities

to be acquired and strengthened by its being properly learnt and properly said, as it is in the branch of knowledge to which it relates. Those qualities are of a very high order, and the character in future life depends extremely on the progress made in their acquisition during early youth. I will particularize five of them; obedience, regularity, attention, patience, and alacrity. These ought to be in exercise during every lesson; and a proper regard to them in the pupil during school hours, will do much, under the divine blessing, towards making them habitual.

1. Obedience. I well remember being much impressed by a sermon about twenty years ago, when I was a young father, in which the preacher said, that were he to select one word as the most important in education, it should be the word "obey." My experience since has fully convinced me of the justice of the remark. Without filial obedience, every thing must go wrong with it, if the parent has right views of his duty, and is consistent in his practice, notwithstanding present appearances may be very unpromising, every thing may not improbably become right. Is not a disobedient child guilty of a manifest and habitual breach of the Fifth Commandment? And is not a parent, who suffers this disobedience to continue when he knows he is armed with sufficient power to overcome it, an habitual partaker in his child's offence against that commandment? How can those who are thus criminal hope for God's blessing on any part of their conduct? And, without that blessing, what can they expect but a progress

from bad to worse? Besides, without obedience, there will be no respect for the parent; but he will be the object of disregard, and even of a portion of contempt. He will be treated slightingly; his opinion will be criticised; his judgment will be questioned; and the very endeavours he uses to lead his son to better sentiments, will probably produce more harm than good. Is it surprising, that under the Divine government, the enforcing of obedience should be so essential a duty of parents, when the whole tenor of Scripture shews us, that obedience is the very groundwork of Christianity? The natural propensity of man to shake off the yoke of legitimate authority, is the disposition most adverse to God and his service. By the disobedience of our first parents, sin came into the world; and through the obedience of the second Adam, are the gates of heaven opened to true believers. The wicked are emphatically styled, "the "children of disobedience :" and it is clearly the primary object of the Divine plan of salvation to conquer the rebellious spirit of man, and to bring him into a state of humility and submission. Parental authority is one powerful instrument for effecting this change. It is intended to bend the stubborn will, to repress froward humours, and by habituating a child to subjection to earthly parents, to prepare him for Christian obedience to his heavenly Father. In proportion as filial obedience is calculated to smooth the way for true religion, filial disobedience must produce the opposite effect. The parent who habitually gives way to it, has appalling reason to

apprehend that he is educating his child not for heav en, but for hell. His labours for its good may be many and great; but what produce can he expect from such a soil? The heart, poisoned by pride and selfishness, will be removed very far indeed from that "honest and good heart" in which the seed produces "thirty, sixty, a hundred fold." I have been induced to dwell the longer on this subject, from having observed many good people fail to require, regularly and steadily, prompt obedience from their children. This failure proceeds, I think, principally from that affection and that suavity of manners which are the genuine fruits of Christianity: but partly from a perversion of the christian tenet, that "God "alone is the Author of all good," inducing, or rather tempting, them to leave to Him, with too little effort on their part, as his instruments, the cure of those evils against which they find it most irksome to contend. Let them, however, recollect, that Jesus Christ, our model, united the most determined and invincible resolution with more than human love; and personal exertions, almost too great for his mortal frame, with perfect reliance on the divine power.

2. Regularity. Whoever has observed its high importance in human concerns, and the natural propensity of man to be changeful and desultory, will enforce its observance in his system, of education.. Man is formed to attain to far higher powers than those with which he is naturally endowed, and to reach far higher objects than those which appear to be within his grasp. But these can only be obtain