their chief interest, and yours also, that they may so know the Holy Scriptures as to become wise to salvation, and know the Saviour, whom to know is life eternal. Embrace every opportunity of dropping some honey from the rock upon them. Happy the children, and as happy the master, where they who relate the history of their conversion to serious piety may say, "There was a schoolmaster who brought us to Christ." You have been told-" Certainly

it is a nobler work to make the little ones know their Saviour, than know their letters." The lessons of Jesus are nobler things than the lessons of Cato. The sanctifying transformation of their souls would be a nobler acquirement than to be able to construe Ovid's Metamorphoses. He was a good schoolmaster, of whom the following testimony was given:

"Young Austin wept, when he saw Dido dead;
Though not a tear for a dead soul he had.
Our Master would not let us be so vain,

But us from Virgil did to David train.

Textor's Epistles would not clothe our souls;

Paul's too we learned; we went to school at Paul's."

CATECHISING should be a frequent, at least a weekly exercise in the school; and it should be conducted in the most edifying, applicatory, and admonitory manner. In some places, we are informed, the magistrate permits no person to keep a school, unless he produces a testimonial of his ability, and particularly of his disposition to perform the work of Religious Catechising.

Dr. Reynolds, in a funeral sermon for an eminent schoolmaster, has the following passage, worthy

to be written in letters of gold:-"If grammarschools have holy and learned men set over them, not only the brains, but also the souls of the children might there be enriched, and the work both of learning and of grace be early commenced in them." In order to this, let it be proposed, that you not only pray with your scholars daily, but also take occasion, from the public sermons, and from remarkable occurrences in your neighbourhood, frequently to inculcate the lessons of piety on the children.

Tutors in the colleges may do well to converse with each of their pupils alone, with all possible solemnity and affection, concerning their internal state, concerning repentance for sin, and faith in Jesus Christ, and to bring them to express resolutions of serious piety. Sirs, you may do a thousand things to render your pupils orthodox in sentiment, regular in practice, and qualified for public service.

He

I have read this experiment of a tutor. made it his constant practice in every recitation, to take occasion, from something or other that occurred, to drop at least one sentence that had a tendency to promote the fear of God in their hearts. This sometimes cost him a great deal of study, but the good effect sufficiently recompensed him for it.

I should be pleased to see certain classical authors received into the grammar-schools, which are not generally used there, such as Castalio in the Latin tongue, and Posselius in the Greek; and I could wish, with some modern writers, that "a northwest passage" were found for the attainment of Latin; that instead of a journey which might be des

patched in a few days, they might not be obliged to wander, like the children of Israel, many years in the wilderness. I might state the complaint of Austin, “that little boys are taught in the schools the filthy actions of the Pagan gods, for giving an account of which,” said he, “I was called a boy of promise;" or the complaint of Luther, "that our schools are Pagan more than Christian." I might mention what a late writer says "I knew an aged and eminent schoolmaster, who, after keeping a school about fifty years, said with a sad countenance, that it was a great trouble to him that he had spent so much time in reading Pagan authors to his scholars; and wished it were customary to read such a book as Duport's verses on Job, rather than Homer, &c. I pray God, to put it into the hearts of a wise parliament to purge our schools; that instead of learning vain fictions, and filthy stories, they may become acquainted with the word of God, and with books containing grave sayings, and things which may make them truly wise and useful in the world." But I presume little notice will be taken of such proposals as these. I might as well not mention them, and it is with despair that I do mention them.

Among the occasions for promoting piety in the scholars, one in the Writing Schools deserves peculiar notice. I have read of an atrocious sinner who was converted to piety, by accidentally seeing the following sentence of Austin written in a window:-" He who has promised pardon to the penitent sinner, has not promised repentance to the presumptuous one." Who can tell what good may be

done to the young scholar, by a sentence in his copy-book? Let their copies be composed of sentences worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance -of sentences which shall contain the brightest maxims of wisdom in them, worthy to be written on the fleshly tables of their hearts, to be graven with the point of a diamond there. God has blessed such sentences to many scholars; they have done them good all their days.

In the Grammar School also, the scholars may be directed, for their exercises, to turn into Latin such passages as may be useful for their instruction and establishment in the principles of Christianity, and furnish them with supplies from "the tower of David." Why may not their letters be on such subjects as may be friendly to the interests of virtue?

I will add, it is very desirable to manage the Discipline of the school by means of rewards as well as punishments. Many methods may be invented of rewarding the diligent and deserving; and a boy of an ingenuous temper encouraged by the expectation of reward, will do his best. You esteem Quintilian. Hear him: "By all means be sparing of stripes, and rather urge on the boy by praise, or by the distinctions conferred on others." If a fault must be punished, let instruction, both to the delinquent and to the spectator, accompany the correction. Let the odious nature of the sin which required the correction be declared; and let nothing be done in passion, but with every mark of tenderness and concern.

Ajax Flagellifer may be read in the school; he is not fit to be the master of it. Let it not be said of

the scholars, they were brought up in "the school of Tyrannus." Pliny says, that bears are the better for beating: more fit to have the management of bears than of ingenuous boys, are those masters who cannot give a bit of learning without giving a blow with it. Send them to be tutors of the famous Lithuanian school at Samourgan. The harsh, fierce, Orbilian way of treating children, too commonly used in the schools, is a dreadful curse of God on our miserable offspring, who are born "children of wrath." It is boasted sometimes of a schoolmaster, that such a brave man had his education under him; but it is never said, how many who might have been brave men, have been ruined by him; how many brave wits have been dispirited, confounded, murdered by his barbarous way of managing them. I have met with the following address, and I will conclude with it as one of great impor

tance:

"Tutors, be strict; but yet be gentle too;
Don't by fierce cruelties fair hopes undo.
Dream not, that they who are to learning slow,

Will mend by arguments in Ferio.

Who keeps the Golden Fleece, O, let him not
A Dragon be, though he three tongues have got.
Why can you not to learning find the way,
But through the province of Severia ?
'Twas Moderatus who taught Origen,

A youth who proved one of the best of men.
The lads with honour first, and reason, rule;
Blows are but for the refractory fool.

But, O, first teach them their great God to fear;
An Euge, so from God and them you'll hear."