Four preceptoral colleges, at least, would require to be estab lished in Scotland, and about six times that number in England, for the training of teachers. Much expense would not be requisite in their erection, excepting what behoved to be laid out in the purchase of a library, a museum, and a philosophical apparatus ; which articles would be indispensable in such a seminary, and the more extensive the better. In the meantime, as a temporary expedient, arrangements might be made for establishing such a system of instruction in the different universities and colleges which already exist; as the same class-rooms presently used for the different departments of academical instruction, might, without much inconvenience, at separate hours, be devoted to the system of instruction now proposed. The principal country in which such seminaries have yet been established, is the Kingdom of Prussia, where they are designated by the name of Normal Schools. In 1831 there were thirty-three of these schools in full operation, containing from 40 to 100 pupils; that is one Normal school for every 385,660 souls; the population of Prussia according to the latest census, being 12,726,823. From these

seminaries are furnished almost all the masters of the public schools, elementary and intermediate, in the kingdom. The annual expense of these establishments is 110,553 thalers, or £16,583, of which the state contributes £13,260. M. Victor Cousin, in his voluminous and somewhat tedious "Report on the state of public instruction in Prussia," states a variety of minute details in reference to the economy and regulations of these schools, but affords us no clear idea of the manner in which the different branches of knowledge are taught to those who are intended to be the future teachers of primary and burghal schools. Although these institutions are, doubtless, the most respectable and efficient that have hitherto been established in any country, yet the range of instruction is not so extensive as that to which I have alluded, nor is the office of a teacher placed in that elevated rank which it ought to hold in society. Teachers in Prussia are still considered as belonging to a grade inferior to that of ministers of the gospel, and are placed partly under their superintendence. But if teachers were once endowed with all the knowledge and qualifications to which I have adverted, they ought to be regarded as moving in a station equal to that of the most dignified clergyman.

CHAPTER XI.

On the Practicability of Establishing Seminaries for Intellectual Education.

To any new proposals for the improvement of society, however just or rational, numerous objections from different quarters are generally started. Difficulties are magnified into impossibilities, and a thousand prejudices are mustered up against innovations on established practices, and in favour of existing institutions. In attempting to establish such seminaries as now proposed, the most formidable objection would be founded on the difficulty of obtaining pecuniary resources adequate to their erection and endowment; and, it is frankly admitted, that a very large sum of money, reckoned not by thousands, but by millions of pounds, would be requisite for their establishment and support. A rude idea of the requisite expenditure will perhaps be conveyed by the following statements.

It may be assumed as a fact, that the number of children in any State, from the age of two to the age of fifteen years, is about one-third of the whole population; at least this proportion cannot be materially different from the truth. We find that in the States of Massachusetts, Maine, and Connecticut, North America, there is one out of every four of the population attending a seminary of instruction. In the State of New York, the proportion of pupils to the whole population is as 1 to 3.9, a greater proportion than is to be found in any other country of the civilized world. The ages of the children attending these schools is, in all probability, from four or five to fifteen or sixteen years; for I presume that the children attending infant schools are not included in this enumeration. But although they were, it is well known that infant schools have not yet been multiplied to such an extent as to furnish instruction for one-fifth of the children who would require to attend these institutions. We may therefore fix on one-third as the proportion of the population that requires to be instructed at infant schools, and the higher seminaries of education. This position being assumed, the number of schools required in any city or country may be at once determined. Suppose, for example, we fix on a town of a medium size, such as Dundee, we can easily ascertain the number of seminaries requisite for the instruction of its juvenile inhabitants. The population of Dundee is about 48,000; the one-third of which is 16,000, or the number of individuals that require instruction. Suppose 80 scholars, at an average, to attend each school, there would require to be no

less than 200 seminaries erected to supply adequate instruction for such a town. Of these, 50 would be requisite for infant instruction, and 150 for the instruction of children from the age of six to the age of fifteen, in the higher branches of education specified in the preceding part of this work. According to a statement made in Parliament, by Mr. Colquhoun, in June, 1834, there is only one-fifteenth of the population of this town at present receiving the rudiments of a common education; so that, instead of 16,000 receiving instruction, there are only 3200, and instead of 200 schools, averaging 80 children in each, there are only 40 schools* on an average, containing the same number, which is only one-fifth of the number of schools which require to be established. In order to supply Dundee with proper education, a large building has lately been erected at an expense of about £10,000, which is called "The Dundee Seminaries," where about 200 or 300 children receive education. The expense was supplied partly by subscriptions, and partly by funds belonging to the town; and the whole of this sum has been expended merely to afford accomodation for the children of 100 or 150 genteel families! while the great mass of the population has been entirely overlooked. There is no law against the children of the middling and lower classes attending that seminary; but the fees demanded amount, in their case, to an absolute prohibition. With the same sum of money, ten commodious seminaries, capable of containing accommodation for 200 pupils each, or 2000 in all, might have been established. It has never yet been stated to the public, on what principle education is to be conducted in these seminarieswhether it is to be conducted on the old system, or whether a plan of intellectual instruction is to be prosecuted-a most important matter, which ought to have been determined before a stone of the building was laid, or even before a plan of it was selected. For the plan and arrangements of any building intended for intellectual instruction ought to be materially different from those of others, and to have conveniences and arrangements peculiar to itself. But the erection of an expensive and splendid building, as an ornament to a commercial town, seems to have been an object of far greater importance in the view of the Committee of Education, than the arrangement of an efficient plan of moral and intellectual tuition. Such are the principles and views of many in this country who profess to be the patrons of education!

Let us now consider the number of seminaries which the whole

*There is a greater number of schools in Dundee than the number here stated, but the average attendance of scholars is only 43 in each school.

for Scotland, and the expense to £6,666,000; and for England, to 38,889 schools, and the expense to £38,889,000; so that the whole amount of expenditure for both divisions of the island would be about 45 millions.

This will appear, in the eyes of many, a most prodigious sum -a sum which we can never hope to realize. It is admitted that the sum is great; but nothing in proportion to the magnitude and importance of the object intended to be accomplished—which is nothing less than to raise the great mass of our population from degradation and misery-to irradiate their minds with knowledge to inspire them with moral principle and holy affections to render them happy in this world-and to prepare them for the noble enjoyments of the life to come;-in short, to strike at the foundation of every moral evil-to counteract the principles of vice and criminality of every kind—and to make the moral world, in all its departments, move onward in harmony and order. Surely, if such objects could be accomplished, we need not grudge the expenditure even of a hundred millions of pounds. And such objects will never be accomplished, nor will the moral world be ever thoroughly improved, till such a system of moral and mental tuition as we have faintly sketched, be universally established. We sometimes talk about the approaching Millennium, and look forward to it as if it were to be introduced by some astonishing miracle, similar to that which caused the chaotic mass at the Mosaic creation to be enlightened, and reduced to beauty and order. But such views are evidently fallacious, and contrary to what we know of the general plan and tenor of the Divine government; and they have no other tendency but to unnerve our energies, and to damp our exertions in the cause of human improvement. Throughout the whole range of the Divine dispensations recorded in Scripture, we can point out no miracle that was ever performed, where the operation of the established laws of nature, and the ordinary powers of human agents, were adequate to accomplish the end intended. Man, under the present dispensation, is "a worker together with God,"-in accomplishing his purposes; and, under the agency of that Almighty Spirit which "moved upon the face of the waters at the first creation, is able to accomplish all that is predicted respecting the Millennium,-provided his rebellious will were subdued, and his moral energies thoroughly directed to this grand object. It is owing to the sin and rebellion of man that this world has undergone such a melancholy derangement, both in its physical and moral aspect; and it will be by the moral and mental energies of man, when properly directed by the Divine Spirit, that the chaotic mass of the