Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education (Volume 1) (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: and in private life, the sentiments of religion retained their influence on his heart. Through life they were his guide, in death his consolation. When sinking by painful steps into an early grave, " with what gratitude," he exclaimed, " with what delightful gratitude do I now look back to the period of my infancy, and to the judicious conduct of my mother, who made religion appear to me in colours so engaging and so congenial! Had 1 been taught as other boys are taught, my passions would have made me an easy prey to vice; my love of inquiry would have led me to infidelity. She prepared me for the trial of faith and virtue, and, thanks to God, I have come off victorious. Had religion been made to me a gloomy task in infancy, where would now have been my consolation ?" I find this subject is still too much for me. Adieu. LETTER VI. Same Subject continued. MY DEAR FRIEND, If the establishment of religious principle in the minds of our pupils, on a firm and lasting foundation, appear to us an object of importance, we shall not be satisfied with a slight and hasty survey of the means of accomplishing it. I shall therefore, make no apology for resuming a subject which, in the light I view it, as the only never-failing source of joy and consolation, is worthy of the highest degree of attention. The graces and virtues which adorn the Christian character are of such intrinsic value, as to attract the esteem and veneration of the confirmed infidel. Why is the fruit admired, while the tree that bringeth it forth is held in contempt ? Why is the true source denied or despised, while the stream that flows from it is held in universal estimation ? Is it not because the tree is not examined, nor the source analyzed ? Because fruit which springs not from that tree, bears its ...