CHAPTER V. The State of Education at Laxington. We name the world a school-for day by day CRABBE. WHEN Charles Lever had arrived, as his parents judged, at a proper age, he was sent to school. Now in the town of Laxington there was only one school of higher pretensions than the national school; and that certainly was a school of some pretensions. The following was its inviting prospectus : 66 LAXINGTON COMMERCIAL ACADEMY, For Cheap and Expeditious Education, KEPT BY T. TOPHAM. "T. Topham begs to return his grateful thanks to the commercial and agricultural inhabitants of Laxington and its vicinity, and takes the opportunity of assuring them that, by unremitting care and diligence, it will ever be his ambition to merit a continuance of their distinguished patronage. "T. T. continues to instruct the young gentle E men of his establishment in English grammar, writ ing in all its branches, orthography, calligraphy, stenography, geography with the use of the globes, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, mathematics, landsurveying, linear drawing, natural and moral philosophy, Scripture history and gymnastics.-Terms fifteen shillings per quarter. "N.B. French and dancing taught by eminent professors in those branches." Whether Mr. T. T. understood the meaning of half the fine words in his prospectus is rather doubtful. Before he became a schoolmaster, Mr. Topham had been a broken-down tradesman (if, indeed, a tradesman can be called broken-down who began with nothing, and ended with nothing-who set up on credit, and ended in bankruptcy). Having failed in business, he commenced teaching a school on the same capital; and his new employment was likely to be of the same duration as the former,—that is to say, as long as his credit should last. Hitherto he had found it more easy to satisfy the public with regard to the value of his scholastic qualifications than of his cloths and muslins, the flimsy texture of the latter being more palpable than that of the former. With a good stock of assurance, and a facility of adapting himself to the tempers of the good people of Laxington, Mr. Topham had attained for his school no inconsiderable share of patronage; and one cause of his popularity was a discreet for bearance to express any decided opinion upon religion or politics. I remember a story of a French gentleman, who took his two boys to place them at a provincial school in France, and, after much conversation with the master respecting the studies which he desired his sons should enter upon, and other matters connected with their welfare, was about to drive off in his carriage, leaving his sobbing boys under the care of the pedagogue. Just as he was on the point of departing, the master called out-the subject having only just then for the first time occurred to him" Mais, monsieur, quelle religion faut-il enseigner à vos enfans? J'en connais toutes"-[By the by, sir, what religion shall I teach your children? I know all sorts.]1 Mr. Topham's plan was not exactly the same as that of the French professor in truth, not quite so good. He taught a sort of general religion, if religion it could be called, which might suit all his pupils. They read the Bible as a book of ancient history, and then were left to form their own judgment on its contents and meaning. To be sure there was a book of questions which the children were expected to answer, in order to aid their historical researches:-Who was the first man? who was the first woman? in what year was Christ born? But who our Lord Jesus Christ is, whether God or man I See Letter to Lord Lansdowne, on Education, by the Rev. R. I. Wilberforce. -how fallen man is to be saved-how to seek for holiness-what is the Church of Christ-what the nature of a sacrament-such things as these were never told them. Nor, indeed, was Mr. Topham himself ever known to have committed himself by an opinion on these subjects. Perhaps there is no point on which the Church and the world are so diametrically opposed as on the subject of education. The world says,-sometimes in so many words, but more frequently in spirit, and without avowing it," Do not bring your children up in religious prejudices—defer their religious instruction until they are of age to judge for themselves." This is a most palpable delusion of Satan. It is as if Satan were to say to a parent, "It is unfair in you to instil Christian doctrines and principles into your child before he is able to exercise his judgment on them. You are taking an unjust advantage over me. Leave your child unprejudiced until he is come to years of discretion, and then let us start fair, and each do our best to persuade him." Would any parent listen to such a proposal, if it were made openly by the Evil One? And yet men are wont to look upon it as something reasonable when philosophical liberals forbid them to instil into their children's hearts the doctrines and principles of God's true religion. The Church acts in a manner directly the reverse. She places her seal upon the child before he is able to discern between good and evil. She grafts him by baptism into the body of Christ, bids him renounce Satan, teaches him precisely what he is to believe, places before him the commandments which he is to obey, and sets him forward in the path which, if he will follow, he is safe. She does not desire him to exercise his choice as to the path in which he will walk, but points out to him the true path, and bids him, by God's help, walk in it. It was under the general, or neutral system, that the rising generation of Laxington was trained; the master of the Laxington academy being of opinion that it would be more convenient (for him) that the parents should teach their children at home what religious opinions they chose, and send them all to his school to receive instruction in other matters. Young Franklin, and a few others, who were blessed with sound-principled, conscientious, church-going parents, took little mischief from this system; but nine-tenths of the parents were either too busy, or too idle, or too ignorant, to supply the deficiency of their children's education in this most vital of all points. Charles Lever was of that active and intelligent mind that he would have acquired a certain degree of knowledge from any system; and under the tuition of Mr. Topham he gained a good deal of general, rambling, ill-arranged information of one sort or another. Nor was his religious education neglected by his excellent mother: but then, as we have seen, she was herself sadly misinformed on many important points of Christian faith and duty; and though, |