ing beyond themselves, are as truly
peculiarities, idiosyncracies, accidents of the individual, as his having
the stature of a Patagonian, or the features of a Negro.

But perhaps this was the rhetoric of an excited moment. Far from it,
Gentlemen, or I should not have fastened on the words of a fertile mind,
uttered so long ago. What Mr. Brougham laid down as a principle in 1825,
resounds on all sides of us, with ever-growing confidence and success, in
1852. I open the Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education for the
years 1848-50, presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her
Majesty, and I find one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, at p. 467
of the second volume, dividing "the topics usually embraced in the better
class of primary schools" into four:--the knowledge of _signs_, as reading
and writing; of _facts_, as geography and astronomy; of _relations and
laws_, as mathematics; and lastly _sentiment_, such as poetry and music.
Now, on first catching sight of this division, it occurred to me to ask
myself, before ascertaining the writer's own resolution of the matter,
under which of these four heads would fall Religion, or whether it fell
under any of them. Did he put it aside as a thing too delicate and sacred
to be enumerated with earthly studies? or did he distinctly contemplate it
when he made his division? Anyhow, I could really find a place for it
under the first head, or the second, or the third; for it has to do with
facts, since it tells of the Self-subsisting; it has to do with relations,
for it tells of the Creator; it has to do with signs, for it tells of the
due manner of speaking of Him. There was just one head of the division to
which I could not refer it, viz., to _sentiment_; for, I suppose, music
and poetry, which are the writer's own examples of sentiment, have not
much to do with Truth, which is the main object of Religion. Judge then my
surprise, Gentlemen, when I found the fourth was the very head selected by
the writer of the Report in question, as the special receptacle of
religious topics. "The inculcation of _sentiment_," he says, "embraces
reading in its higher sense, poetry, music, together with moral and
religious Education." I am far from introducing this writer for his own
sake, because I have no wish to hurt the feelings of a gentleman, who is
but exerting himself zealously in the discharge of anxious duties; but,
taking him as an illustration of the wide-spreadi