The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-04-06 00:00:00

EDINBURGH REVIEW.

When we take up the writings of such men as CARLILE
and PALMER, and others of the same class, we take it for
granted that we shall find all the leading opinions which
have formed the character and governed the conduct of the
wisest and bent of mankind, scoffed at and set at nought.
This class of persons avow fairly their hostility to the pub-
lic teachers of our holy faith, and to all that tends to inspire
a feeling of reverence for its Founder. It is the aim of all
their writings, and the boast of all their efforts, to erase, to
the utmost of their means, all those few traces of the
image of God which are engravcn on the heart of man.
But their tracts being thus confessedly atheistical, accom-
plish their evil openly. The most illiterate are forewarned,
and the moat unreflective are put upon their guard. The
poison is labelled, and if we swallow the dose, our sufferinp
are of oar own seeking. But common sense is not easily
deposed from thereat of her jurisdiction, and there is little
to be feared from any efforts of the atheistic scribblers of our
day to dethrone her. Din when men of talents play an
underpart in this desperate game, the matter takes a more
alarming shape. When any periodical work, having
an extensive circulation, assists to accomplish the designs of
.those who are the common enemies of us al:, the evil is
full of consequences too serious to be alighted. In the last
number of the Buisreuarin Review, we find an attempt
made to explode the fundamental principles which have
hitherto governed the great family of mankind in the cul-
ture and improvement of the species. In the article on
Public Edu.Jtion, we find opinions broached, which,—
comiag from writers who profess to rank with the first
lights of the age,—induce us almost to distrust the evidence
of our understanding while actually perusing them. Of that
mural education, which we have been hitherto accustomed to
consider as the only sound and secure basis on whi ch the cha-
racter of man in society can be made to rest, the Edinburgh
Reviewer speaks with an indifference approaching to con-
tempt. We will not ascriue to the writer the deliberate
wish to introduce that mass of vier and wickedness into
society -

which must necessarily follow that utter disregard
to the formation of the moral character of the rising gene-
ration, which be would inculcate ; but we cannot avoid re-
marking the artfulness with which he affects to admit, and
even to reverence, the utility of extending popular instruc-
tion to the utmost, while at tit_ very same time he takes
occasion to sneer at the foolishness of those preeoptors who
would conduct it with a view to the rearing of virtuous prin-
ciples. or the production of virtuous habits.
I" It is impassible," says the Reviewer. " for any persons to have
■ deeper conviction than we have of the infinite importance of ex-
tending the means of instruction to as large a portion of the popu-
lation as possible, and consequently of the value of those arrange-
menu by which the time and the money necessary for such instruc-
tion may be best economised. Upon these points we have no doubt
or hesitation t and the whole tenor of our speculations has shown,
we trust, that we have no want of confidence or zeal. But we pro-
fess, in the first place. an entire unbelief in all projects for rege-
nerating mankind, and giving a new character to future genera-
tions, by certain trite or fantastic schemes of education. In the
next place, we have great doubts whether anything material can
be done towards the formation of moral character or habits. by any
course of early or elementary instruction, or any thing, in short,
that depends on schools and preceptors : and, finally, we consider
it as of no very great importance, even as to the culture of the un-
derstanding, what the studies are to which the time of the pupils
is preferably devoted in such seminaries—or in pursuit of what
acquirements they acquire habits of attention, self-command, and
reflection."

What can be more pernicious than a theory like this?
We have ever thought that the best and most valuable
efforts of human intellect consisted in discovering by what
modes the human mind r -uld be best traim_•d to the prac-
tice of those virtues, and the acquirement of those habits,
on which the individual and social happiness of man must
essentially, and for ever, depend. A doctrine that would
teach us to despise all this as useless, or to discard it u
chimerical, is infinitely more dangerous in its consequences
to society than all the insane trash which such men as
Carlile and his disciples can send into the community. It
tends to perpetuate all the vice and misery which reigns in
the world, by ridiculing every attempt to mitigate it
through that early and sedulous care by which alone we
can ear hope to-succeed.
Of what utility are religious establishments—of what
use are those public rellgiobs instructors which the State
has wisely set apart for the service of God, in the reform-
ation of his creatures, if this doctrine be true ? Can those
who revile at religion, and libel its teachers, have better
confederates than those who would getterate a persuasion
that all endeavour to mould the character of youth by early
and constant cultivation is so much labour lost—that out-
ward circumstances and particular situations alone make
the individual either good or bad, ♦irtuous or abandoned,
and that all early training is utterly thrown away? Yet
such is the insidious support which these enemies to the
best interests and institutions of mankind, who would
weaken all the supports of Government and of the Throne
--such is the insidious support which they here receive
from the language and doctrine of the EDINBUIIG/1 RE-
VIEW.

" Moral character, principle:, or character in general," we are
told, " are not formed by precepts inculcated at school, or by ob.
serrations made, or experience collected in that narrow and artificial
society,—but by the unconscious adoption of the maxims and prac-
tices-that prevail among the free agents around us, and the spon-
taneous assimilation of manners and sentiments which results from
this contagion. The true measure of morality, to which every MID
is primarily and passively trained, is that of the age and country
in which he lives, and the class and circle of society to which
he belongs. He may improve upon this, or degenerate from
it, according to the strength of his reason, his passions, or tempta-
tions : but this is the fixed point, from which these variations are
calculated, and from which, in the great majority of cases, they
never recede very widely. The society of a school may have a little
share in the adjustment of this standard,—but its discipline and
training scarcely any. The habitual sentiments and habits of the
boys, in their idle and unrestrained intercourse with each other,
will no doubt form a part of it, and it may even be affected by the
master's habits and conduct in private life, in so far as these come
under their observation But all the intercourse that is regulated,
all the training that is imposed, will go nearly fur nothing as to
the4Zirmation either of habits or of opinions."
has it seems, that to furnish young minds with ma-
terials for reflection—to form them to useful and upright
principles of conduct—to inspire them with that reverence
for religion and its instructors, which is the surest founda-
tion of all virtue—to do all this; to train them in this
course from infancy to manhood, is to leave them just as
prone to vice, and as easy and willing a prey to it, as if they
bad been left to run riot from the first, and their passions
and propensities had been left to take their own course!
We trust, for the sake of those who are to come after us,
that this extraordinary doctrine will make no converts.
The following quotation which goes to uphold and fortify
this new system of philosophy, is so pre-eminent in ab-
surdity; that it Could be unfair to the sum total of the
argument not to insert it. Having done so, we shall leave
it to the good sense of the reader to furnish the proper
comment.
" Sonic few men, of bold and vigorous understanding, may found
their morality on reflection, and regulate their conduct by princi-
ples which they have thoroughly weighed and digested into a
system. This, however, can never happen in early lflO—and by far
the greater number never give themselves any trouble about the
matter ; but arc guided, in their notions and their actions, by that
practical standard, of the general opinion of their equals and their
own experience of eoasequences, to which we have already re.
fened. Men, in point of tact, always follow their inclinations,
and yield to their passions, as far as it is safe, or not plainly
dangerous to do an: the only real check being that fear of conse-
quences, that anticipation of the ultimate pains of indulgence,
which this standard supplies.
" It is quite plain, however, that these consequences and these de-
terring pains ure quite different, both in amount and in certainty,
in the artilkial society of the best regulated school, and in the
common world—that world from which the boys came when they
went to school, to which they must return whoa they leave it, and
of which they have all the time such glimpses and specimens as to
keep them perfectly in mind that it is the only real world by which
their conduct is to be judged, and their place among their fellows
determinedi
While this is the case, it really seems quite idle to expert that
any permanent cif:ll oR the moral character will ever be produced,
either by the precepts or the constrained practices af a school. In
DO far as these are merely coincident with the great course of train-
ing, which the ,ti;cntral opinions and practices of the world is im-
rosin on all ph° live in it, they 'nay be regarded ar merely in.
difrcrcat. In so far as they differ trom or outgo that general
training, it seems impossible to sropose that they armlet probity
either habits or sentiments that will outlast the constraint in which
bisey originate, ;—and we might as reasonably expect the pupils of
such seminaries to go on all their lives rising at live, and going to
Eel at nine, as to find them generally adhering ton more tight and
erect ahrervarre morality thaw prevail: among their natural ar.
rociates in the world, in Maar of any.doctrincs or practic:: that had
been imposed on them at school.
"On these and on other r 'undo, we profess to :et 11e knit
sible pm-
velue on the elliwts of institutes and arrangemmits for teaching
a patent rrorality at schools; and RT^ persuaded that the best that
" can be said on the elaborated contrivances and ingenious machinery
that have been resorted to for this purpose, is that they do ito