Education Reform (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REVIEW. Education Reform; or the Necessity of a Nati'inal System of Education. By Thomas Wvse, Esq., M. P. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 553. London: Longman Sf Co. Ib36. There is nothing which more brilliantly characterizes the " march of intellect." 1han the impulse it has given to the cause of popular education. The noblest characteristic of human nature is, that the reasoning, and consequently the governing faculties we possess, are capat.le of cultivation and improvement to a degree, which, although indefinite in its extent, yet evidently so far as to give us vastly enlarged ideas both of mental and physical objects, and so as to confer on us the power of self-government in all things where reason is concerned. The gathering up of facts, the accumulation of abstract knowledge, the study of various languages, and the cultivation of the sciences, are deservedly considered as estimable employments, and without an intimate acquaintance with some, and a general idea of all these mutters, we do not usually account a person to be possessed of what is termed a liberal education; yet, after all, these are only to be subservient to higher and more important studies. to lead to a knowledge which it more concerns us to possess; the knowledge of ourselves?of our nature?of onr position both individually and relatively?of the benefits which we can and ought to reciprocate?of the best means of promoting the welfare, not only of the society of which we are respectivelymembers, but also of the whole community of mankind? and, lastly, of the duty and gratitude we owe to the Supreme Dispenser and Disposer?in short, to the knowledge of self- government all other acquirements are to be subordinate and conducive. In proportion as all these duties are understood and practised among mankind, shall...