THE. EDITOR'S PORTFOLIO.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 13, 4 June 1842, Page 52

THE. EDITOR'S PORTFOLIO.

• EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. [Concluded from our last.'] This objection is most likely to come from persons who live in comfortable circumstances, and a fair external good-will towards the circle of their acquaintances, the world to them, and among whom they know kind-hearted, decent, moral, religious, and even a few generous individuals; who shrink from the' disgusting task of examining the sores of society, or going deeper than a very satisfactorily-varnished skin which covers them j who feel in their own persons no inconvenience from alleged social evils, the degradation, physical and moral, of the working classes, and the humble attainments and practical errors of the middle and higher ; and who even resent being disturbed by the tiresome people who are always croaking, " that whatever is, is wrong," instead of enjoying the far more consolatory conviction that whatever is, is right. Readily do I concede to the most contented of theße objectors that there is a large portion of genuine good, moral and religious, in society;- that this, with a much larger ingredient of conventional morality, and its result, positive law, preserves the system from falling to pieces,^*which it would do in an hour, were the picture I have drawn of the lower and higher classes of universal and unqualified application. The higher sentiments are at work in our legislation and our social, economy; justice iB extending its influence, and benevolence and charity are distinguishing the age. But, while all this is granted, it is maintained that the positive evils which have been enumerated do exist; nay, more, that they immensely preponderate, and we should deeply miscalculate if we glossed over and spared them for Ihe sake of the good wherewith they are mixed. When the question is answered, " What is our education ?" all that has been said of our condition will be easily and naturally accounted for. First, there exist no adequate means, either in private families or public institutions, with the exception of infant schools, of which, in the sequel, for educating the feelings, improving the dispositions, restraining the inferior propensities, and exercising the higher sentiments — in short, for Moral Training. In all this we took our chance, and picked up what we might, from partial parents, nursery-maids, and juvenile companions. The animal feelings, being the strongest, acted in us with all the blindness" and all the power of instincts, and laid a broad and deep foundation for habitual selfishness. There is no greater change, nay, revolution in education, than will arise out of the nascent want, the incipient demand which is felt by the more enlightened part of society, for this, education's paramount object. Multitudes do not yet know what it means, or laugh at it as a wild chimera when they succeed in imperfectly taking in the idea. The refracted ray, the full light, is seen from the mountain before it shines upon the valley; but it must shine as the day, and widely influence our institutions, before we shall merit the name of an educated people. As a proof of the slow progress of truths which, nevertheless, concern man in his most vital social interests, it is instructive to look back and find such truths announced to an age long Jiast, by master-minds that arose long before ahegeneration qualified to appreciate their genius and profit by their wisdom. Milton and Locke both advocated moral training ; they held it paramount to intellectual, and intellectual ! merely subservient to it. One hundred and fifty years have passed since they urged on the notice of their countrymen its superiority and necessity ; but no attempt was made to act upon the principles they taught till within the last fifteen years, when the first infant school realized their betjuest to their country, and commenced the era of moral education. I cannot withhold the solemn words of these great men. Impressed, ad I am, profoundly, with a conviction of their transcendent value, they are to me, as it were, "the voice of the spirits of the mighty dead." Milton's words are these — " The end of learning is to repair the ruin of our first parents, by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like' him, as we may' the nearest, by possessing our'souta of true virtue, which, being united to the heavenly grace of faith, make up the highest perfection." — Letter to Samuel Hartlib.

&ays — " It is virtue, then, direct virtue, which 18 the hard and valuable part to be aimed at in education, and not a forward pertness, or any little arts of shifting. All other consideraI tions and accomplishments should give way and be postponed to this. This is the solid and .substantial good, which tutors should not only read lectures and talk of, .but the labour and art of education should furnish the mind with, and fasten there, and never cease till the young man had, a true relish of it, and placed his strength, his "glory, and his pleasure in it." — Locke's thoughts concerning Education. §70. " Learning must be had, but in the second place, as subservient only to greater qualities. Seek out somebody (as your son's tutor) that may know how discreetly to form his manners ; place him in hands where you may, as much as possible, secure his innocence, cherish and nurae up the good, and gently correct and weed outtmy bad inclinations, and settle him in good habits. This is the main point, and this bej&^f provided for, learning may be had into tne'TJf rgain." § 147.

" But under whose care soever a child is put to be taught, daring the tender and flexible yean of his life, this istcertain. it should be one who thinks Latin and language tLe least part of education ; one who, knowing how much virtue and a well-tempered soul is to be preferred to any sort of learning or language, makes it his chief business to form the mind of his scholar, nd gije that a right disposition; which, if once

got, though all the rest should be neglected, would, in due time, produce all the rest; and which, if it be not settled, so as to keep out ill and vicious habits, languages and sciences, and all the other accomplishments' of education, wHH' be to no purpose, but to make the worse or more dangerous man." § 177. Lord Kames anticipated hie age more than half a century. In his " Hints on Education," with profound truth to us, but mere sentimental writing to the generation he addressed, he says — " It appears unaccountable that our teachers generally have directed their instructions to, the head, with very little attention to the heart. From Aristotle down to Locke, books without number have been composed for cultivating and improving the understanding; few, in pnAption, for cultivating and improving the affections. Yet, surely, as man is intended to be more an active than a contemplative being, the educating of a young man to behave properly in society is of still greater importance than the making him even a Solomon for knowledge." Society has suffered much, and suffers severiy yet, for its ignorant neglect of these admonitions. The principle and the practice of moral training will be detailed in its proper place. — Necessity of Popular Education as a National Object. IDLENESS. It is a mistake to imagine that the violent passions only, such as ambition and love, can triumph over the rest. Idleness, languid as it is, often masters them all ; she influences all our actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions and virtues.—RochefottcauWs Maxims. THE TOWER OF LONDON. [From the Timer. Translated from the French in the Times of December 9, 1841.] Gray sentinel of Thames, hast thou so long 4 From frowning towers on wide foundations reared, Bastion and fosse, and lofty battlement, Imperial fortress 1 o'er the lordly town, The merchant city, fattening on fraud, Rebellious citizens, and pallid dames, The darkness of thy feudal shadow shed ? Conies not the day when every guilty spot, High tower, strong castle, donjon, dark bastile, Must shake beneath th' avenging people's axe, Or, blasted by the fire of outraged Heaven, In ruin fall ! — a day when the proscribed, Whose slaughtered sires cold on the pavement fell, Shall trample down the towers now moss o'er- . grown, The spot where their unhappy fathers died ? Yes, fortress of the Norman Conqueror ! Hark to the loud alarm ! — thy doomsday comes. See, round thy time-worn sides the red flame leaps. As once o'er Sodom, licking up the blood On the broad flag-stones as it upwards curls To the roofs, rushing from the vaults below, Devouring in their cells plebeian bones, Or in their sepulchres a line of kings. All, all the flame consumes ! Within a hall Obscure — one night, the fatal block prepared Within behold a woman, beautiful, Young, innocent, aiii pure, for some feigned plot. Guiltless, immured in this abode of gloom ! Pale, breathless, trembling, agonized she kneels ; Her streaming eyes the gloomy headsman binds, Heaves high the pond'rous axe — it flashing falls ! Again — two royal babes in sleep unconscious — " Their alabaster arms " entwined — In fond embrace have sobbed themselves to rest ; In dreams a mother's sweetest smiles they share. By the dim lamp that lights the sleeping pair With its pale gleam, see dark-brow'd ruffians steal Towards the couch whereon the brothers He, And two foul murders are committed there. There sinks the Tower where cruel Glo'ster's hand The blood-stained sceptre from his nephews tore. The rushing flame, like a red hurricane, Raging o'er all, consumes the fatal block Where lovely Jane, with mildest fortitude, Bowed her white neck beneath the headsman's stroke ; Nor spares its devastating blaze the halls Of kingly John, the prisoner of France. Proud Tower ! around thy thy time-worn battlements Curls in thick smoke thy dark funereal pall ; Mourning in sadness bends thy haughty' head In desolation, while the gazer's eye Marks in each yawning breach and shattered wall .. The tardy vengeance of an outraged Heaven. 1 Palace of ancient kings ! what now remains Of all thy boasted strength, of all thy pride ? Where now thy matchless magazine of war ? Thy ponderous train of dark artillery — Lance, sabre, firelock — in elaborate range, And each on each alternate glancing back Their martial lustre ? Where thy proud array Of sculptured chivalry ? Each haughty form — Victor of Cressy, Agincourt, Poictiers — All in one molten mass' commingled lie. Thus should'st thou fall, proud queen of citadels ! Thus in avenging flames should'st meet thy doom. *■ A thousand years thy dark and stately front Hath lowered defiance. Lo ! each subject tower Upreared beneath thy shade shall share thy fate, As on the plain where many a guiltless head Sank 'neath thine axe, in retribution stern, Prostrate and shattered, sinks thy haughty form ! We beg to inform our friends residing at the Port < that copies of this paper can be had of Mr. Moore. Tksms op Subscription.— Forty shillings per annum, payable in advance, or one shilling for single numbers. 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