shilling to commence with. Get the shilling; and the next time you get the person to pull out his purse, half-a-crown will more readily follow. The man is acquiring the habit of giving; he is under moral training; and from the shilling or half-crown you may train him, time after time, enlightening his understanding unquestionably, yet pulling-until a pound or five pounds may be as easily had as was the shilling or half-crown in the first instance, and simply because now the benevolent man has acquired the habit of giving.

We are told by some whose sentiments we ought to respect and calmly consider, that we attach too much importance to habits. Now, we consider the exercise of all and every principle to be habit, and that we can scarcely estimate too highly the influence and importance of early training in forming correct habits, whether these be physical, intellectual, or moral. These persons seem to overlook the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of training an old horse, bending an aged oak, curing a miser, a drunkard, or the abandoned, or the more innocent practice even of snuff-taking. How commonly is it said, such a practice is just from habit. A man is almost rude, or he may be polite, from habit. Children, if not placed under training, almost instinctively get into bad or offensive habits. Who hopes to alter the habits of the precise, stayed old man, far less the moral and physical habits of a whole kingdom? and yet, by the power of early training, under God's blessing, this might be accomplished, to a very large extent, in a single generation.

CHAPTER XII.

SEPARATION OF THE SEXES.

HAVING stated the great object in view, viz., the moral and intellectual training of the young, and the new or additional machinery requisite-before analysing the peculiar mode of conducting the system to which the succeeding chapters are more particularly devoted, we may state our reasons for establishing the practice of boys and girls being trained together in the same school.

Till lately in the schools of Scotland, boys and girls were uniformly taught together. In England, the custom of separation has been nearly as universal. Of late years,

among the higher and middle classes in Scotland, girls have been taught separately from boys, and among the poor the separation system has been gaining ground.

In England, the tide has begun to flow in the opposite direction. The public now discuss the subject freely and dispassionately; and as many directors of schools in the south, who have been supplied with trainers from our seminary, have ventured to place the sexes together in one gallery, and in one play-ground, with great advantage; prejudice is beginning to give way, and the enlightened part of the public are yielding to the suggestions of fact and experience.

It cannot but be important to the moral and intellectual well-being of the rising generation, whether girls are trained with boys, or separately. The point is not a mere negative question, but fraught with important national, and, of course,

individual consequences. Let us look calmly at the subject in some of its bearings.

We are all aware of the softening and humanising effect which female society has upon the male creation. It influences the fireside, the social circle, and the public meeting. It restrains rudeness and impropriety of every kind; and while the men are thus improved, the females are not less benefited in their intellectual and moral character. Deprive man of female society, and he would soon approach to, if not actually sink into, barbarism; and exclude females from the society of the other sex-the history of nunneries will unfold the consequences. What is morally and intellectually true in regard to grown-up persons, is equally so in respect of the young; and if men and women ought to act properly towards each other when they meet, and meet they must, then children cannot be too early trained to practise this virtue.

Every one is satisfied that boys are improved by the presence of girls; a wholesome restraint is obviously experienced. It is not so apparent, however, that girls are improved by the presence of boys. We believe it is perfectly mutual, although not so obvious. The girls are also under a restraint, less visible, it is true, because they are less boisterous, but equally valuable in elevating and strengthening the real character, by preventing the exercise of tittle-tattle, evilspeaking, etc., etc., and substituting things ennobling, which females are perfectly capable of attaining. Let each sex approach the other nearly half-way, and then each in manner and real character will be certainly and equally improved.

The consideration of the separation of the sexes in education is exceedingly important; for if it forms a part of moral training, no parent who calmly considers the good of his children can treat the subject with indifference or neglect. It is a subject that cannot be too often repeated, and therefore we would ask the question: Ought boys and girls to be educated separately or together? The youth of both sexes of

our Scottish peasantry have been educated together, and, upon the whole, the Scots are the most moral people on the face of the globe. Education in England is given separately, and we have never heard from practical men that any benefit has arisen from this arrangement. Some influential individuals there, mourn over the popular prejudice on this point. In Dublin, a larger number of girls turn out badly, who have been educated alone till they attain the age of maturity, than of those who have been otherwise brought up; the separation of the sexes has been found to be positively injurious. In France, the separation of the sexes in youth is productive of fearful evils. It is stated, on the best authority, that of those girls educated in the schools of convents apart from boys, the large majority go wrong within a month of their being let loose on society, and meeting the other sex. They cannot, it is said, resist the slightest compliment or flattery from the other sex. The separation is intended to keep them strictly moral, but this unnatural seclusion actually generates the very principles and practices desired to be avoided.

We may repeat that it is impossible to raise girls intellectually as high without boys as with them; and it is impossible to raise boys morally as high without the presence of girls. The girls morally elevate the boys, and the boys intellectually elevate the girls. But more than this, girls themselves are morally elevated by the presence of boys, and boys are intellectually elevated by the presence of girls. Girls brought up with boys are more positively moral, and boys brought up in school with girls are more positively intellectual, by the softening influence of the female character. The impetuosity and pertness of a boys' school are by no means favourable even to intellectual improvement; and the excessive smoothness of female school discipline does not strengthen or fortify the girl for her entrance into real life, when she must meet the buffets and rudeness of the other Neither sex has participated in the improvement in

sex.

H

tended by Providence, by boys and girls being born and brought up in the same family. Family training is the best standard for school training; and if the schoolmaster, for a portion of each day, is to take the place of the parent, the separation of the sexes in elementary schools must be a deviation from this lofty standard.

Much may be said on this highly-important subject. We would solicit those benevolent ladies who sigh for the establishment of girls' schools, to the exclusion of the other sex, to examine carefully and prayerfully, whether the exercise of such tender benevolent feelings may not actually prove injurious to society as a whole. It is very pretty, and truly sentimental, to witness the uniform dress and still demeanour of a female school; but we tremble at the results. Most certainly, moral training wants one of its most important ingredients when the sexes are not trained together to act properly towards each other.

A number of the schools established of late years in the towns of Scotland, even where the system pursued has been what is termed intellectual, have been for boys alone, or for girls alone the projectors acting as if they trembled at a shadow or a phantom of their own imagination. Man, whether male or female, is, no doubt, a sinful creature; and sin and folly are to be avoided and checked on their first development. We admit that there is some danger in a teaching school without proper superintendence; but there can be none in one for training.

Under twelve years of age nearly all lessons may be given to boys and girls in the same class with mutual advantage. Beyond that age, the branches useful to each in the sphere in which Providence intends they should be placed, although in some points the same, yet naturally and gradually diverge. Absolute separation, however, for any lengthened period, we conceive to be positively injurious.

In the model schools of our Normal Seminary, the most