ledge provides, obviously imply the possession of a very high order both of capacity and cultivation.

Unquestionably, with reference to our second topic of inquiry, the Established Church is the party which is bound, by considerations of the highest possible moment, to use its best energies in devising, perfecting, and applying an effectual remedy. The duties of the Presbyteries of the Church, in visiting and examining the schools within their respective bounds, have generally been performed, it may be admitted, with sufficient fidelity ; and it is due also to the General Assembly to state, that it has displayed, of late years, a most praiseworthy zeal in increasing the means of education in districts heretofore inadequately supplied with them. But an effective superintendence of the education of a country implies, not merely a periodical inspection of its schools, or, as circumstances may require, an occasional increase of their number, but a regard also to the perfecting of the instruction. which it is their object to communicate. It is here that our National Church appears to us to be called on to make still farther exertions. Physical science has been unremitting in the prosecution of its discoveries, and year after year have new harvests of physical truth been presented to the public mind, clothed in the most attractive and popular forms. The periodical and daily press, also, has opened up to all classes of the community an extended acquaintance with arts, manufactures, commerce, &c., and involved them, moreover, in intricate discussions regarding the principles of government, and other subjects of a like abstract character, while yet comparatively nothing has been done by the Church to impregnate, through the medium of education, the new truths thus brought to bear on society with a religious spirit and tendency. That it is the imperative duty of our National Church to take care, not only that the interests of religion be protected from aggression, but also that the whole progress of society be rendered subservient to the advancement of those interests, cannot for a moment be disputed. Would the General Assembly once take up the subject with a spirit of earnestness and determination commensurate to its infinite importance— would they unfold to the people of Scotland, in an affectionate pastoral address, a clear and comprehensive idea of an education

adapted to the present advanced state of secular knowledge, which, by imbuing every department of that knowledge with the genuine spirit of a living Christianity,-should thus render it in the highest degree instrumental in evolving and perfecting, both for the business of time and the enjoyments of eternity, the whole powers and capacities of man's intellectual, moral, and spiritual being, it may be safely predicted, that for the accomplishment of so truly great and glorious a work, there would forthwith be supplied, with unhesitating readiness, both adequate pecuniary resources, the grateful offering of an enlightened Christian sympathy, and the assiduous and persevering efforts of the most richly endued Christian genius. In such a state of things, opposition would be constrained to yield to the irresistible force of Divine truth. In the light of this truth, prejudice, ashamed, would hide its head; and thus religious education, having its intrinsic worth once clearly revealed to the public eye, would go forth with the prayers of a united Church, and with the rich blessing of the God of all grace, conquering and to conquer.

APPENDIX, D.

EXTRACT from Report by JOHN GIBSON, Esq., her Majesty's Inspector of Schools in Scotland, on the state of Elementary Education in the Presbyteries of Aberdeen and Fordyce.*

"Religious Instruction.

"I regret to be compelled to state, that although due prominence and attention were almost universally given to this branch of the school business, the arrangements made and the methods adopted did not appear to me to secure results, either in nature or amount, proportional to its importance.

"The schools were not always assembled and dismissed with religious exercises; of the twenty-three Parochial Schools examined, one was only occasionally opened with prayer, another only on Saturdays, another only on Mondays and Saturdays, and another was dismissed but not assembled with prayer.

"In very few of the schools, did those religious exercises extend beyond the repetition by the Master of a short extempore prayer; in a few, two or three verses of a psalm or paraphrase were also

sung.

"There was not generally a part of each day exclusively devoted to this branch.

"The Bible is read daily in all the schools. It must, however, be stated that, in very few cases, did the children who were unable to read the New Testament or Bible receive any religious

* Referred to at page 161.

instruction; that the Bible, in a great majority of cases, is read, only by those who use it as a common school-book, from which, and from which alone, they learn to read and spell, and from which, if subjected to any examination at all, they are questioned in the same style and spirit in which a secular lesson is given ; and that those who do not read the Bible as a class-book, receive no special religious instruction, except on Saturdays.

"After these statements, it is almost unnecessary to say, that in very few instances, had any care been taken to arrange, and present to the minds of the children the scripture lessons according to any plan; there were no systematic courses of instruction on the doctrines, precepts, narratives, biographies, parables, miracles, types, promises, and prophecies; in one or two cases no instruction in Scripture geography and antiquities had been given, or any attempt made to present to the more advanced pupils a concise and clear view of the evidences of our holy religion.

"The catechisms generally used are Willison's and Brown's for the junior classes, and the Shorter Catechism for the more advanced. It cannot be said that these are generally and regularly explained; indeed, in the vast majority of cases, the Teachers are satisfied if they are repeated with tolerable accuracy; and even in the numerous instances in which the Shorter Catechism has been not only thoroughly committed to memory, but analysed and explained with great minuteness, the tendency of the whole exercise seemed to me to be rather to cultivate and strengthen the intellectual powers than to affect and mould the heart; it is instruction rather than education.*

* It must not be supposed, from these strictures, that I am disposed to undervalue or neglect instructions of this nature. The mere repetition of this admirable summary I regard as unspeakably important; it is the laying up, at least, "a form of sound words," the utility of which, if not at once obvious, will be found in the power of thus embodying in admirably brief and comprehensive terms, and thereby keeping clearly and steadily before the mind, doctrines forming the subject of books to be read and sermons to be listened to in after life, and which from each advance in spiritual knowledge, will be always receiving illustration, and therefore growing in value. I believe, that to the care with which the Shorter Catechism has been taught in our schools, our national, intellectual, and religious character

X

"In those cases in which nothing more than a Repetition of the Catechism was insisted on or repeated, I was invariably told that while the importance of analysis and illustration was recognised, the multiplicity of subjects to be taught, and the consequent want of time, absolutely prevented them from being systematically practised. The real cause was defect in organization. It is almost unnecessary to say, that in those schools where these exercises were regularly practised there was, to say the least, as much attention given to the other branches, and as much proficiency made in them, as where nothing more could be accomplished than hearing the children say their questions.

"The other religious lessons consisted of the repetition of psalms, paraphrases, and hymns; almost all the children could repeat the Lord's Prayer, and many had committed to memory the Apostle's Creed. They were, almost without exception, mere exercises of memory; no care had been taken to explain the meaning of the terms employed, and the monotonous, unintelligent manner in which they were repeated, showed that the mutual connexion and bearing of the various parts had never been pointed out, and it was almost always found, upon examination, had never been perceived.

"The importance of the application of the explanatory method to all these exercises, is obvious.

"In several of the best conducted Parochial Schools, the pupils are required to prove particular doctrines from Scripture; this was in some cases admirably done; numerous passages proving the divinity of Christ, the personality and divinity of the Holy Ghost, the doctrine of the Trinity, the depravity of human na

owes several of its finest attributes. The discipline through which the intellect must pass in obtaining, at an early period, anything like a view of its beautifully systematic structure, and the habit of mind acquired by being required to prove from Scripture every one of its statements, must operate very much in the same way, and be followed by the same results, as the application to a more matured mind, of a rigid course of logic or mathematics; and it is not merely fanciful to suppose that to this training much of the steadiness and sobriety of the Scottish intellect and character is to be attributed.