much
sincerity and disinterestedness as was manifested by this _infant_,
I am much mistaken if we should not see a very different state of
_society_.

"Moral education," writes Mr. Simpson in his "Philosophy of
Education," "embraces both the animal and moral impulses. It regulates
the former, and strengthens the latter, whenever gluttony, indelicacy,
violence, cruelty, greediness, cowardice, pride, insolence, vanity,
or any mode of selfishness shew themselves in the individual under
training, one and all must be repressed with the most watchful
solicitude, and the most skilful treatment. Repression may at first
fail to be accomplished, unless by severity; but the instructor
sufficiently enlightened in the faculties, will, in the first
practicable moment, drop the coercive system, and awaken and appeal
powerfully to the higher faculties of conscience and benevolence, and
to the powers of reflection: this, done with kindness, in other words,
with a marked manifestation of benevolence itself, will operate with
a power, the extent of which in education is yet, to a very limited
extent, estimated. In the very exercise of the superior faculties the
inferior are indirectly acquiring a habit of restraint and regulation;
for it is morally impossible to cultivate the superior faculties
without a simultaneous though indirect regulation of the inferior."

It is indeed a melancholy truth, that moral training is yet, to a very
limited extent, estimated, and this is mainly owing to its not being
understood by the generality of those selected for the office of
teachers of infants, nor can it be expected that persons of sufficient
intellect and talent to comprehend and carry out this great object,
can be procured, until a sufficient remuneration is held out to them,
to make it worth their while to devote their whole energies to the
subject. It is a fatal error to suppose that mere girls, taken perhaps
from some laborious occupation, and whose sum total of education
consists of reading and writing, can carry out views which it requires
a philosophical mind, well stored with liberal ideas and general
knowledge, to effect. They may be able to instruct the children in
the mere mechanical part of the system; and as long as they confine
themselves to this, they will go on capitally, but no further than
this can they go; and though the children may appear to a casual
visitor, to be very nicely instructed, and very wonderful little
creature