In the former instance, something like an enumeration may be attempted; but who can form the most distant conception of the number of minds which must have united their powers in discovering and familiarizing to the apprehensions of the multitude, those elementary truths in morality, in physics, in mechanics, and in natural history, which the lowest of the people, in the present state of European society, derive insensibly from parental instruction, or from the observation and imitation of the arts which are practised around them.

I shall make no apology for this digression, into which I have been insensibly led. In the few remarks which I have yet to add, I shall confine my attention to the only view of the subject which is immediately connected with the plan of the foregoing lectures;—the importance of extending the means of an elementary education, not with a view to the discovery or embellishment of natural genius, but as the best security for the morals and good order of the community.

In this point of view, supposing all the necessary arrangements to be made, much remains to be done for the improvement and reformation of the established modes of instruction. One very important step of this kind appears to have been lately made in England, with singular success, by Mr. Lancaster, whose very valuable pamphlet, containing an account of the details of his plan, I must content myself at present with merely recommending to your attention. The following particulars, which I mention merely as proofs of its practicability, I extract from a letter which I received a few years ago (April 1805) from a friend in London, [Mr. Francis Horner,] to whom I was indebted for the first intelligence of this interesting establishment:

"I take an opportunity of sending you two pamphlets on the education of the lower orders, written by a Quaker practically engaged in that occupation upon a very extensive scale; whose institution has excited a great interest among the people in London, that can be interested by such things. You will form a pretty correct idea of his method from his own account of it in these tracts; I have visited his school, and it exhibits

a sufficient and very pleasing proof of its practicability. He seems to have introduced, or at least reduced more to system, one or two important principles, which are very little attended. to in the ordinary course of elementary education. His scheme of rewards and of punishment, chiefly by withdrawing or delaying rewards, is both ingenious and very humane, and he has given greater activity to the emulation of children than is com-monly done. Nothing can be more pleasing than on going into this school, that you discover nothing of the languor and sickly idleness which make a common parish school so melancholy to see. He has got a library too of almost three hundred volumes, in which there are books from Mrs. Trimmer up to the lives of the Admirals and Cook's Voyages, and the boys get these to take home with them from week to week. The man owned to me, that his boys always preferred the works of adventure or fun, to scientific dialogues."*

Besides improvements of this sort, calculated to facilitate and cheapen the common modes of teaching, and which, I am persuaded, have not as yet attained to all that perfection of which they are susceptible, a most important desideratum for completing the business of popular instruction yet remains, in the multiplication and the circulation of books judiciously adapted to the capacities and to the circumstances of men destined for the inferior situations of society. The number of books which have been produced of late years by persons of genius and learning, for the instruction of the rising generation, do honour to the enlightened benevolence of the present times; and it would be a task not less important, nor less worthy of a philosophical mind, to diffuse among the multitude such truths as may render them happier and better. It is, in fact, an act of justice which we owe to those who relieve us from the necessity of bodily labour, to impart to them, in return, some small share of the advantages which we derive from the undivided attention they enable us to bestow on the culture of the understanding. Although, however, a great deal still

* [This letter appears also in the Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Horner, Vol. I. p. 312.]

remains in prospect to animate our exertions, much must be admitted to have been already done in this way. Mr. Locke's Treatise on Education, and the books which have been since published with similar views, have had no inconsiderable effect in turning the attention of parents to objects of real utility; and, what is scarcely of less consequence in pointing out to them the frivolousness of those scholastic studies which entered formerly, more or less, into the most limited plans of instruction. The improvement which, in this respect, is daily taking place, promises in time the happiest consequences. The number of readers is, I believe, in every part of our island, rapidly on the increase, and to these, useful knowledge is every day presented in forms more and more accessible, and more and more alluring.

One circumstance which, indeed, has been operating more or less ever since the period of the Protestant Reformation, but which, in our times, has acted with peculiar effect, may not be undeserving of notice: I mean the wide circulation of occasional pamphlets, and of periodical journals, those cheap and enticing vehicles of information, which adapt themselves to the rapid, and often capricious changes of general curiosity, and communicate, even to the indolent and dissipated, some imperfect knowledge of the course of political events, and of the progress of scientific improvement. The advantages which some of these fugitive compilations derive from their familiar style and regular publication, are abundantly obvious. A late eminent mathematician, in speaking of a periodical work commenced in the year 1704, under the title of the Ladies' Diary, and which, among a collection of rebusses and acrostics, contained some ingenious mathematical problems, assorted promiscuously, said, "that this small performance has contributed more to the study and improvement of mathematics over England, than one-half of the books professedly written on the subject." What, then, may be supposed to be the influence of similar works conducted by men of superior genius and learning, and which address the public on subjects much more immediately connected with the business of human life?

"The people," as an eloquent writer observes, "cannot be profound, but the truths which regulate the moral and political relations of man, are at no great distance from the surface. The great works in which discoveries are contained cannot be read by the people, but their substance passes, through a variety of minute and circuitous channels, to the shop and the hamlet. The conversion of the works of unproductive splendour, into latent use and unobserved activity, resembles the process of nature in the external world. The expanse of a noble lake, the course of a majestic river, imposes on the imagination by every impression of dignity and sublimity. But it is the moisture that insensibly arises from them, which, gradually mingling with the soil, nourishes all the luxuriance of vegetation, fructifies and adorns the surface of the earth."

Some other causes, too, which naturally result from the progress of society, have conspired, with the circumstances now under our consideration, in extending and quickening the circulation of knowledge. The multiplication of high-roads, and the establishment of regular posts and couriers, have virtually contracted the dimensions of all the countries which have adopted them, communicating to them the advantages arising from the intimate relations and contagious public spirit of a small society, together with the power and influence connected with a numerous community, spread over an extended territory.

In order to damp the pleasing prospects inspired by these considerations, it has often been alleged, that in proportion as knowledge advances and spreads, originality of genius fails, and what is gained in the number, is lost at least in the parts and eminence of literary characters. Voltaire has, I think, placed this fact in its proper light, by remarking that "original genius occurs but seldom in a nation where the literary taste is formed. The number of cultivated minds which there abound, like the trees in a thick and flourishing forest, prevent any single individual from rearing his head far above the rest. Where trade is in few hands, we meet with a small number of overgrown fortunes in the midst of a general poverty. In proportion as it extends, opulence becomes general, and great for

tunes rare. It is precisely," he adds, "because there is at present much light and much cultivation in France, that we are led to complain of the want of original genius."

In this remark of Voltaire, it seems to be implied, that the apparent rarity of genius in times of general cultivation, is partly owing to the great number of individuals who, by rising above the ordinary standard, diminish the effect of those who have attained to a still greater eminence. But granting the fact to be as it is commonly stated, that the diffusion of knowledge is accompanied with a real decline in point of genius, no inference can be deduced from this, in favour of less enlightened ages; for the happiness of mankind, at any particular period, is not to be estimated by the materials which it affords for literary history, but by the degree in which it imparts the capacity for enlightened enjoyment to the community at large. In this point of view, what a spectacle does the situation of our own island afford during the last forty years, literary and agricultural societies arising in various provincial towns, and a multitude of female authors in every department of science and taste, disputing the palm of excellence with the most celebrated of the other sex. Among such a profusion of productions, there will, no doubt, be much to call forth and to justify the severity of criticism; but the philosopher traces with pleasure, in the humblest attempts to instruct or to amuse, the progress of science and of patriotism in widening the circle of their operation; and even where he finds little to admire or approve, he is pleased to observe the engagements of study, and an active and enlightened spirit of inquiry, no longer confined to the walks of academical retirement, but displaying themselves both amidst the employments of private life, and on the great theatre of political ambition.

Still, however, the question recurs, are the morals of men improved, and their enjoyments increased in proportion as the cultivation of taste and learning advances? Various doubts have been suggested on this subject, particularly of late years. But I confess, for my own part, I am disposed, without the smallest hesitation, to answer the question in the affirmative.