strive; and whatever influence he may exert for goodhowever small the seed he may plant, and however unpromising the soil may appear, let it be but the good seed and the right, and it will grow and flourish centuries after he has passed away from the earth, and the results will be manifest in the eternal world.2 And not the educator alone but every one in his sphere exerts an undying influence upon those around him--an influence which gives a peculiar value and sacredness to human existence, showing the comparative insignificance of what is merely personal and

1 "Hinter der Education steckt das grosze Geheimnisz der Vollkommenheit der menschlichen Natur."-(KANT: Pædagogik.) "If it be glorious to finish in the most excellent style any work of which mere matter is the subject, it must be still more glorious to give to the whole life of any individual the most faultless perfection of which it is susceptible."(Manual of Conduct.) Education is "the perfecting of the whole by the previous perfection of the individual." (J. A. LANGFORD.) "This picture of the human race freed from all its fetters, withdrawn from the empire of chance, as from that of the enemies of progress, and walking with firm and assured step in the way of truth, of virtue, and of happiness, presents to the philosopher a sight which consoles him for the errors, the crimes, the injustice with which the earth is yet stained, and of which he is not seldom the victim."-(CONDORCET.)

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"By training up children in the way they should go, you both confer on the society of which you are a member one of the greatest benefits which it is in your power to bestow; and you extend your beneficence to those whom you can never see, but who will perhaps mention your name with gratitude on earth and acknowledge its precious influence among the saints in heaven."-(Dr. W. L. BROWN.) Fight on, thou brave true heart and falter not through dark fortune and through bright! The cause thou fightest for, so far as it is true, no farther, yet precisely so far, is very sure of victory. The falsehood alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished as it ought to be: but the truth of it is part of nature's own laws, co-operates with the world's eternal tendencies, and cannot be conquered." (T. CARLYLE.)

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3 "It is interesting to think that there is scarcely any man so limited in his powers or humble in his station as not to be capable of doing much good or promoting by his kind and obliging behaviour much happiness and comfort among his neighbours."--(Manual of Conduct.) Even the weakest natures exercise some influence upon those about them. The approximation of feeling, thought, and habit, is constant, and the action of example is unceasing."-(S. SMILES.) "Every man has a definite place in life, and a place or position differing in some essential respects from that occupied by every other; and... by fulfilling the requisitions of that place, however humble it may be, man is but acquitting himself of his duty as a subject of the kingdom of God-is best answering the intentions of his Creator."-(Manual of Conduct.) "The golden words that good men have uttered, the examples they have set, live through all time; they pass into the thoughts and hearts of their successors, help them on the road of life, and often console them in the hour of death."

affects only the individual in comparison with that which will live and fructify throughout all time, and affect the condition of multitudes.1

Thus then we see that the good or evil effects of education terminate not in the immediate objects of it, but extend and spread in an ever increasing ratio from one generation to another.2 Did the errors and omissions in the education of one generation terminate when the last man or woman of it had passed from the earth-nay! were we even certain that their consequences did not extend beyond the sphere of

(S. SMILES.) "Even the humblest person who sets before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright honesty of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future influence upon the well-being of his country, for his life and character pass unconsciously into the lives of others, and propagate good examples for all time to come."-(Ditto.)

1 "If thou knewest that every black thought of thine, or every glorious independent one, separated itself from thy soul and took root without thee, and for half a century pushed and bore its poisonous flowers or healing roots, oh! how piously wouldst thou chose and think! And dost thou then so certainly know the reverse ?"-(RICHTER.) "There are undeveloped in that child (in the cradle) endless ages of experience, a character whose duration shall have no bounds, a life that shall go on for ever and for ever."-(H. W. BEECHER.) "The example set by the great and good do not die; they continue to live and speak to all the generations that succeed them." (S. SMILES.) "Not the man that drinks but the man who puts the cup to his neighbour's lips is the most wicked."(H. W. BEECHER.) "Your whole life is a mighty power in the midst of the various elements in this world; and the command of the master is Beware! beware! whoso shall cause to err the poorest man, the lowest man, the least man, and make him worse, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were cast into the depth of the sea."-(Ditto.)

come.

"The children of the present age are the hope of the age to We who are now acting our several parts in the busy scenes of life are hasting off the stage apace." "The circle of thirty years will plant another generation in our room: another set of mortals will be the chief actors in all the greater and lesser affairs of this life, and will fill the world with blessings or with mischiefs when our heads lie low in the dust. Shall we not then consider with ourselves what can we do now to prevent those michiefs, and to entail blessings on our successors ? What shall we do to secure wisdom, goodness, and religion among the next generation of men ?" "Let us hearken then to the voice of God and Solomon 'Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.'"-(Dr. I. WATTS.) "I conclude that each generation has enormous power over the natural gifts of those that follow, and maintain that it is a duty we owe to humanity to investigate the source of that power, and to exercise it in a way that, without being unwise towards ourselves, shall be most advantageous to future inhabitants of the earth."—(GALTON: Hereditary Genius.)

this earth, then there might be less cause for concern on the subject; but each generation imparts its character and transmits its errors to those that come after it, and as men live and act here so will their condition hereafter be determined.1 But while we have thus ground for fear and caution, there is also matter for hope and encouragement in knowing that the consequences of a right education will go on increasing and spreading through all time, and that its beneficial effects will be experienced in a future and higher state of existence.

To the parent in particular this should be full of fear and hope.2 It shows him how the evil effects of his teaching and example may, and of necessity must, extend to after generations, and will bear fruit even in the future life; and it also gives him the hope of, in some degree, mitigating that sad legacy of evil that he entails upon his children.*

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The

1 "The successful efforts of pious parents in training up their children for God will be visible in the character and happiness of their favoured offspring millions of centuries hence. The flight of eternal ages will not efface the impressions that were produced in the brief space of time."(Parental Care.)

2" Parents should often consider that the neglect of this duty will not only involve them in the inconvenience, and shame, and sorrow of their children's miscarriage, but in a great measure in the guilt of it; they will have a great share in all the evil they do, and be in some sort chargeable with all the sins they commit. If the children bring forth wild and sour grapes, the parents' teeth will be set on edge." "Part of all their wickedness will be put upon your score; and probably the sins which they commit many years after you are dead and gone will follow you into the other world."(Archbishop TILLOTSON: Sermons.) "Buxtorf. . . . tells us that the Jewish fathers professedly take upon themselves the guilt of all their children's sins till they come to be thirteen years old, at which age the youth is called Filius Præcepti, as being then reckoned under the obligations of the law, and so, by a solemn discharge, left to sin for himself." (Dr. R. SOUTH: Sermons.)

"Where parents neglect their duty usually the children perish, and their blood will be required at the hands of careless parents; and what is more, there is commonly this dreadful token of Divine vengeance in this world, that those who are careless of their duty, both towards God and towards their children in this particular, feel the sad effects of it in the undutifulness, contumacy, and rebellion of those children against themselves afterwards, as if God permitted them to revenge His quarrel."(Holy Living.) "Parents who let their children perish for want of due care are answerable to God for their souls, and for the mischief they do in the world, which might very likely by them have been prevented."-(Dean WILLIS.)

4"Let parents consider what a sad inheritance they have conveyed to their children. Methinks, parents that have a due sense of this should

religious and thoughtful parent must feel that he is accountable for much of the sin, original and actual, of his children; and it must comfort him to know that by means of careful instruction and training he may in some degree lessen this load.1

We are all, in our several spheres, educators. We all exert an influence upon others, as others exert an influence upon us; we all labour and suffer for others, and we all also reap the benefits of others' labours and sufferings.2 A law of mutual dependence thus pervades humanity which cannot be shaken off; and from this we learn the comparative insignificance of what merely concerns self in relation to what may be for the benefit of many. No one will ever get a

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be very solicitous, by the best means they can use, to free them from that curse, by endeavouring to correct those perverse dispositions and cursed inclinations which they have transmitted to them. Surely you ought to do all you can to repair that broken estate which from you is descended upon them."-- (TILLOTSON: Sermons.)

166 Taking this comprehensive view of the organic unity of successive generations of men it shows the past descending on the present, the present on the future, by an inevitable law, and yet gives every parent the hope of mitigating the sad legacy of mischief he entails upon his children, by whatever improvements of character and conduct he is able to make a hope which Christian promise so far clears to his view as even to allow him the presumption that his child may be set forth into responsible action as a Christian person." (Dr. BUSHnell.)

2" We see no good done in this world that somebody does not suffer... If a child is sweet, and pure, and aspiring, and noble, somebody must have practised self-denial or suffered for it; somebody must have thought for the sake of the child's good thinking; somebody must have agonized to save the child from agony; somebody's conscience must have been crucified that the child's conscience might be saved from the thorn."(H. W. BEECHER.) "So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours, that men have to suffer for each other's sins that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsation of unmerited pain."-(GEORGE ELIOT.)

"If we attempt to detach ourselves from the general mass, to individualise ourselves from the community of our species, we shall be imprisoned and pent in. The more we embody ourselves and our happiness with the interests of others the interests of the whole the more in reality we consult our own happiness."-(MATTHEW HALE.) "It is really true what Plato says, that, in seeking the good of others, we find our own. -(S. SMILES.)

"It is God's plan to make us all the channels and agents of his goodness to each other. We are a living body, and every member is under obligation to render service to the whole."—(R. W. DALE.) "Look whither we may, if we have an eye for truth, we shall everywhere perceive that the spirit of self-sacrifice has been God's chosen angel for distributing his blessings to mankind. To this spirit we are indebted for our

true or clear idea of the workings of Divine Providence who cannot look beyond self and its concerns, and even beyond the things of this life; nor will he, in the highest sense, be

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chief temporal, and for all our eternal goods. All the great benefactors of mankind, all who have done good in their generation, all who have cast the seeds of good beside the waters of futurity-heroes, and patriots, and sages, and confessors, and prophets, and apostles-all have been moved by the self-same spirit-all have wrought in the self-same spirit. In a word, it is by the spirit of self-sacrifice that every

good gift cometh."-(Rev. J. C. HARE.)

"The chief use, then, in man of that he knows,
Is his painstaking for the good of all;
Not fleshly weeping for our own made woes.

But sweetly rather to ease, loose, or bind,

As need requires, this frail, fallen human kind."-(Lord BROOKE.)

"Bentham lays it down as a principle that a man becomes rich in his own stock of pleasure in proportion to the amount he distributes to others." (S. SMILES.) "By an economy, full of beauty and wisdom, the Divine Being has ordained that the subordinate principles from which man's virtue springs should have a tendency to promote that which is his direct end, the welfare of the whole system of being."-(HENRY ROGERS.) "God is represented in the Scriptures as conferring His favours in such a way as that no creature shall be blessed merely for his own sake, but that he might communicate his blessedness to others. With whatever powers, talents, or advantages we are endued, it is not merely for our gratification, but that we may contribute to the general good."-(Rev. A. FULLER.) "The egotist is next door to a fanatic. Constantly occupied with self, he has no thought to spare for others. He refers to himself in all things, thinks of himself, and studies himself, until his own little self becomes his own little god."-(S. SMILES.) "The thing to be lamented is not that men have so great a regard to their own good or interest in the present world, for they have not enough, but that they have so little to the good of others."-(Bishop BUTLER.)

1"Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.' These very words, if we give heed to them with a godly simplicity of heart, afford us a clue to most of the mysteries in this our state of sinful mortality; they hold the keys of life and death."-(JULIUS C. HARE: Sermons.) "From the representative relation in which men often stand to each other, a blessing or a curse in the ordinary course of Divine Providence is made to descend upon the person represented, according to the manner, whether for good or ill, in which the representative has acquitted himself of the duties appropriated to his station.". (Manual of Conduct.) "The tower of Siloam fell, not for any sins of the eighteen who were crushed by it, but through bad mortar probably, the rotting of a beam, or the uneven setting of the foundations. The persons who should have suffered, according to our notions of retributive justice, were the ignorant architects or masons who had done their work amiss. But the guilty had, perhaps, long been turned to dust; and the law of gravity brought the tower down at its own time, indifferent to the persons who might be under it."—(J. A. FROUDE.)