acher himself, and most flatteringly exhibited to the
inspectors of schools and casual lookers on. A still more lamentable
error which proceeds much from the same cause, is an over-strained
application to mental processes of arithmetic and mathematics; and a too
minute attention to departments of natural and civil history. How much
of trick may mix with this we will not ask, but the display of
precocious intellectual power in these branches, is often astonishing;
and, in proportion as it is so, may, for the most part, be pronounced
not only useless, but injurious. The training that fits a boxer for
victory in the ring, gives him strength that cannot, and is not
required, to be kept up for ordinary labour, and often lays the
foundation of subsequent weakness and fatal disease. In like manner
there being in after life no call for these extraordinary powers of
mind, and little use for the knowledge, the powers decay, and the
knowledge withers and drops off. Here is then not only a positive
injury, but a loss of opportunities for culture of intellect and
acquiring information, which, as being in a course of regular demand,
would be hereafter, the one strengthened and the other naturally
increased. All this mischief, my friends, originates in a decay of that
feeling which our fathers had uppermost in their hearts, viz., that the
business of education should be conducted for _the honour of God_. And
here I must direct your attention to a fundamental mistake, by which
this age, so distinguished for its marvellous progress in arts and
sciences, is unhappily characterized--a mistake, manifested in the use
of the word _education_, which is habitually confounded with _tuition_
or school instruction; this is indeed a very important part of
education, but when it is taken for the whole, we are deceived and
betrayed. Education, according to the derivation of the word, and in the
only use of which it is strictly justifiable, comprehends all those
processes and influences, come from whence they may, that conduce to the
best development of the bodily powers, and of the moral, intellectual,
and spiritual faculties which the position of the individual admits of.
In this just and high sense of the word, the education of a sincere
Christian, and a good member of society upon Christian principles, does
not terminate with his youth, but goes on to the last moment of his
conscious earthly existence--an education not for time but for eternity.
T