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    feelings — cultivation of all those various powers , whether of heart or mind , by which the Deity has connected individuals with himself and with society . Hitherto , in defiance of all the immense varieties of character , constitution , and talent , the grand aim in our schools for the poor , and in some of our highest grammar-schools- also , is to make all get through a certain quantity of learning , and there the discipline stops . In schools for the

    poor , we have also farther to object , that the whole mechanism is calculated to swallow up individual peculiarity , or to hide it from the roaster ' s eye ; so that he really knows nothing of the actual state of mind or feeling of the various children under his charge . Now the principal problem which has to be solved in education is , what are the exercises most calculated from the earliest period to strengthen and develop the whole compound character . We may satisfy our minds as to the general solution of this problem , and so

    far , and no farther , do our querists often proceed ; but , be it remembered , that there is a fresh problem to solve with every individual child presented to the schoolmaster , and that his general rules must not stand in the way of his particular investigations . As there is a peculiarity in every mind , ( how or why arising we need not now stop to inquire , ) there must be a modification of his previously-formed system probably in every case , if he pays due deference to the nature of the being before him . Yet there are gentleman pedants ( we do not say Mr . Bryce is one of them ) who propose to work out

    the reformation of the poor by means of the grammar and lexicon , and by crowding their minds with historical facts . Not so Dr . Channing . " The great liope of the world , " says that able man , who sees the world and all things in it from the elevation of truly Christian virtue , — " the great hope of the world is in individual character : the grand lesson for men to learn is , that their happiness is in their own hands ; that it is to be wrought out by their own faithfulness to God and conscience ; that no outward institutions can supply the place of inward principle , of moral energy ; whilst these can go far to supply the place of almost every outward aid . " *

    The value of the human character , we would add , is in the proportion which all its component parts bear one to another—in permitting every different power to occupy its just place in the system , and no one faculty to be the tyrant of the whole . Difficult and impossible as it may be for any individual not endowed with omniscience to mete out with perfect correctness the stimulus or the check which may be necessary for the formation of a well-proportioned mental and moral character , we surely ought always to be

    aiming at this point . We ought not , at any rate , to labour at increasing the inequalities which prevail . This , however , is too often the case with teachers . They seize upon that faculty which a pupil exercises with the greatest ease—the memory , for instance—and by it and with it they principally work ; neglecting the obvious inference , that * if one power is particularly strong , another , probably , is in a state of weakness and depression , and

    requires especial attention , while the strong one has sufficient strength to maintain its ground till greater force has been acquired by that which is weak . Mr . Bryce has chiefly adverted to exercises of memory in a child ' s earlier years , and has never even mentioned the advantages of awakening its powers of observation upon itself and the objects around . Natural history is not once alluded to ; and though a child is to learn to read at five years old , writing is not to begin till seven . What can be the reason for this

    ar-- * Thoughts on Power and Greatness .

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    National'Education for Ireland . 243

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 243, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/19/