These instances have been cited, not as developing the exact mode of modern prudence and economy, but as illustrating the principle, that in every person there lies an immense wealth only to be reached and made available by prudence and energy. How many of the innumerable heroes of the famishing and the poor have toiled through similar efforts and labourswe could almost dare to say, even to the suffering and the impoverished, this lesson of prudence beyond every other lesson, needs inculcating. The improvident man is at once the robber and the incendiary of society. Some insist upon it that there is no possibility of providence and prudence ;-bad wages, high prices, rents, taxes. Yet all these admitted, still the improvidence of the people is immense; the importance of saving little sums is not known nor regarded; the accumulation of small sums is remarkable, and many a man who has begun with the most insignificant trifles, has found himself worth £10. or £100. before he was aware of his wealth. The spendthrift spirit is the cause of a country's depreciation, there can be no capital where men have not learned the habit of saving; nor indeed could there be any works of any dignity or moment,-vast bridges, columns, railways, steamboats, or excellent mansions, can only arise from the surplus of labour. Thus, if labour itself is worthy of the chief merit, so is capital worthy of the next place of eminence, since it is clear how frequently it is both the friend of labour, its child, and in return its author. It is obvious that we were intended to produce more than our own necessities

immediately demand. Thus we have explained to us how this surplus labour should be applied. Very few, comparatively, of the working classes are aware of the benefit to be derived by them from a wise economy of their earnings, by dealing with ready money, and determinately resisting all credit, by purchasing in larger quantities some of the articles needed, by renouncing the use of all mere luxuries, by cultivating home pleasures and enjoyments. By these means they may develope a true provisionary government over their households, and the benefits of their conduct will be reaped by them when others, who in the past time have had their good things, are mourning over the consequences of their folly. We may speak then of the improvident man, as the Ishmaelite of civilization, the man who, in a literal and most ignoble sense takes no thought of the morrow, who shouts with the ancient Bacchanalian, "let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die." It is a lesson hard to be learned, the lesson of proper and healthy accumulation; the misfortune is, that so often when the habit is reformed, and the man becomes an accumulator, it is but a change of sins, for there is not so much difference as one would at first suppose, between a spendthrift and a penurious man-they are different forms of self-gratification. And we are perpetually meeting with instances of those who have spent their first days as drunkards, and upon some strange and violent relapse or reaction in their moral being, turned only from the prodigal to the penurious.

Thus we have glanced at some of the sins of the

people; they were, indeed, all well-known before. But how are we to appeal to the sinner with the greatest probability of success, in order to reclaim him, and make him, too, an efficient fellow-labourer for the reformation of the manners and customs of the world. It is useless merely to appeal to his intelligence, to array before him fact and argument; in few natures can we anticipate the presence of clear and determined, and consecutive thinking. In order to reform, it is most essential to ally the obvious interest with the determined will. The will is the column of true majesty in man. The will is the military and heroic principle of the human soul; it is the great captain of our nature; it stands in the relation to the other faculties of the mind in which rhetoric does to logic-its province is not so much to find truth as to fulfil truth-it is the fountain of virtuous action. At the same time, it must be remembered that the strength of moral protestation depends upon the strength of the impression made on the affections or the understanding. That impression may be made by many motives: the rhetoric will be warm in proportion as the logic is clear and exact; and we find that those motives act the most powerfully and lastingly which have the highest sanction on their side. Prudential considerations present the lowest range of motives, but then they are the most obvious; philosophical are in some degree associated with the prudential, but MORAL motives are sovereign in their influence and their action; they are frequently so lofty as to be unseen by the crowd, but this is only

The

because their scope is so wide that they include the highest prudence and the highest wisdom. object, therefore, of all regenerators of the people should be to robe the prudential motive in the nobler raiment of rectitude and moral principle, thus calling into exercise, for the present good, the highest powers and capabilities of the human soul; and yet, even then, we must not send the will, shelterless and defenceless, to confront the trials and battles of life. The will is indeed the strongest part of our nature, and for all purposes we must appeal to that; but who does not know how weak even its power is. Place yourself in the grasp of some potent passion, stand in the pathway of some strong temptation, confront some charming bait, and if you conquer, still who does not know that the "salvation is by fire," while the greater number are borne away by the overpowering flood of passion. The strongest motives, the highest determination, would be weak indeed, if we could not shelter ourselves beneath the sacred guardianship of the "Father of spirits" and "the God of all grace and supplication."

CHAPTER VII.

THE MISSION OF THE SCHOOLMASTER.

PROLOGUE OF QUOTATIONS.

"The cause of education is the cause of liberty. Nature and Providence point it out as the great means of human improvement. Let us all endeavour to give to our School Committees a loftier pitch; to inspire into the teacher a more generous ambition, and stimulate his exertions by giving him a still nobler estimate of his high vocation. Let us attempt to move every individual in the community to a better sense of his obligations to aid in the cause of public instruction."

S. G. GOODRICH.-Fireside Education.

"Teachers address themselves to the culture of the intellect mainly. The fact that children have moral natures and social affections then in the most rapid state of development is scarcely recognised. Such elevation of the subordinate-such casting down of the supreme-is incompatible with all that is worthy to be called the prosperity of their manhood. In such early habits there is a gratification and proclivity to ultimate downfall and ruin. If persevered in, the consummation of a people's destiny may still be a question of time, but it ceases to be one of certainty."

HORACE MANN,

First Annual Report of the Board of Education of Massachusetts.