ittle too far from gratuitous instruction. If
possible, instruction ought never to be altogether so. A child will soon
learn to feel a stronger love and attachment to its parents, when it
perceives that they are making sacrifices for its instruction. All that
precept can teach is nothing compared with convictions of this kind. In
short, unless book-attainments are carried on by the side of moral
influences they are of no avail. Gratitude is one of the most benign of
moral influences; can a child be grateful to a corporate body for its
instruction? or grateful even to the Lady Bountiful of the
neighbourhood, with all the splendour which he sees about her, as he
would be grateful to his poor father and mother, who spare from their
scanty provision a mite for the culture of his mind at school? If we
look back upon the progress of things in this country since the
Reformation, we shall find, that instruction has never been severed from
moral influences and purposes, and the natural action of circumstances,
in the way that is now attempted. Our forefathers established, in
abundance, free grammar schools; but for a distinctly understood
religious purpose. They were designed to provide against a relapse of
the nation into Popery, by diffusing a knowledge of the languages in
which the Scriptures are written, so that a sufficient number might be
aware how small a portion of the popish belief had a foundation in Holy
Writ.

It is undoubtedly to be desired that every one should be able to read,
and perhaps (for that is far from being equally apparent) to write. But
you will agree with me, I think, that these attainments are likely to
turn to better account where they are not gratuitously lavished, and
where either the parents and connections are possessed of certain
property which enables them to procure the instruction for their
children, or where, by their frugality and other serious and
self-denying habits, they contribute, as far as they can, to benefit
their offspring in this way. Surely, whether we look at the usefulness
and happiness of the individual, or the prosperity and security of the
State, this, which was the course of our ancestors, is the better
course. Contrast it with that recommended by men in whose view knowledge
and intellectual adroitness are to do everything of themselves.

We have no guarantee on the social condition of these well informed
pupils for the use they may make of their power and their knowledge: