and satisfactory evidence of the value and
efficiency of this exercise, in the mental and moral training of the
young, was afforded by the experiment undertaken at the request of the
Lesson System Association of Leith, and conducted in the Assembly Rooms
there, in the presence of the Magistrates and Clergy of that town, of
Bishop Russell, Lord Murray, (then Lord Advocate,) and a numerous
meeting of the friends of education. The children were those connected
with a Sabbath school, who had been regularly trained by their teacher,
a plain but pious workman of the town, to draw lessons every Sabbath
from the several subjects and passages of Scripture taught them. To give
all the specimens which afford evidence of the value and efficiency of
this exercise in the education of children, would be to transcribe the
report of the Association; we shall therefore confine ourselves to a few
of the circumstances only, which were taken in short-hand by a public
reporter who was present.

After some important and satisfactory exercises on the being and
attributes of God, from which the children drew many valuable practical
lessons, it is said, that the examinator "expressed his entire
satisfaction with the result, and remarked, that he himself was
astonished, not only at the immense store of biblical knowledge
possessed by these children, but the power which they possessed over it,
and the facility with which they could, on any occasion, use it in
'giving a reason for the hope that is in them.' He then proceeded to the
next subject of examination which had been prescribed to him, which was,
to ascertain the extent of their mental powers and literary attainments,
which would be most satisfactorily shown by their ability to read the
Bible profitably; and for this purpose he requested that some of the
clergymen present would suggest _any_ passage from the New Testament on
which to exercise them. The Rev. Dr Russell (now Bishop Russell,)
suggested the parable of the labourers hired at different hours, Matt.
xx. 1-16. Mr Gall accordingly read it distinctly, verse by verse,
catechising the children as he proceeded, and then made them relate the
whole in their own words, which they did most correctly.

"Mr Gall then selected some of the verses, and called upon them to
separate the circumstances, or parts of each verse, and to state each as
a separate proposition. This also they did with the greatest ease; and
in some cases a variety of divi