An Imaginary Speech, by T. A. Reed.

Mr. Chairman, I am neither able nor willing to address to this assembly many observations on the present occasion. I conceive it, however, my duty to comply with your request, and to state the reasons which influence me in helping to organize the movement which you have this day met to promote. The education of the young people of our town is a subject which, as you are aware, has greatly interested me. During the period of youth the mind is capable of wonderful development for good or for evil. Probably there is not one of us who does not regret some bad habit acquired in youth ; and there are very few in the world who do not largely owe the good qualities which they possess to early cultivation. If therefore we can, in any degree, store the youthful mind with useful information, or impress it with wise and holy principles, we do one of the purest acts of benevolence which it is possible to perform. It will at once be admitted that a system of education, to be truly valuable, ought to combine moral with intellectual instruction. Where a moral and religious principle is not cultivated, there is a danger lest knowledge should but point out increased facilities for crime, and lead its possessor farther away from the path of rectitude. When I consider the amount of juvenile ignorance and crime existing among us at the present time, I am perfectly astonished that so little has been done to remove it. The only remedy for this evil is education. Some kind of education will be received wherever the child happens to be, in the street or in the house, in the playground or in the school. Are not the familiar occurrences of the day important lesssons, which the child must receive and will apply in one way or another? Each of his childish amusements, even, we may be assured, contributes somewhat to his education, and might be so regulated as either to foster the natural pride of the human heart, or be made serviceable to the government of the temper and the

development of good and happy feelings. I hope, then, that home influence will not be neglected or forgotten. I have again and again myself urged you to begin aright, in order that the character of the child may be well formed. I am not able to describe or point out any specific method, or lay down any definite rules to be adopted. Different methods will be pursued by different individuals, all probably good, no single one perfect or complete. Certain it is that education ought ever to begin at the first dawn of a child's intelligence; nay, as our dear friend Dr. Williams told us, at its very birth. But whatever you do, cultivate in your children's minds an implicit trust in Providence, and a deep love of pure religion as made known in the written revelation of the divine will; the knowledge of which, as Scripture tells us, is "life unto him that hath it." Though a number of objections, some new and some old, are even now made to early moral and intellectual cultivation, they are urged by but few who take what I call a rational view of the matter, and there would be no difficulty in meeting them all. There are some, however, with whom it would be idle to discuss the subject. They admit that ignorance is often the fruitful source of crime, and the barrier to true liberty ; but they are terrified, as it were, at any prospect of enlightenment. If it were a practical task to convince those gentlemen of their error, I woul 1 use every means I possess of doing so; but as I know that I should be consuming our own time and perhaps woundiug their feelings without the least beneficial issue, I have no wish to engage in the undertaking. Allow me now for a moment to refer to the speech we have just heard delivered by our friend Mr. Jones. It would not be possible to go through half his arguments at present; nor does it signify that they are not all now refuted, because they will doubtlpss be successfully met on another and similar occasion; I would merely speak of the fears he so often expressed throughout his speech. He thought, he said, with the writer of a letter that he had

been reading in the Daily News, that our proposed scheme was one for cultivating the mind exclusively, without paying due attention to the body, and the creature comforts and necessities of life. This was the special object of his animadversion, if I did not mistake the tenor of his address. Now the difference between us seems to be this; he is fearful, as he has himself stated, that sufficient consideration should not be bestowed on men's physical wants; we, on the other hand, are under an equal apprehension, lest while we study men's bodily necessities, we care not enough for their souls. Truly we need to watch narrowly and closely over men's temporal welfare, ard for my own part I will not yield to any in my desire to see it promoted; but I confess I would rather that the body perished than that the mind should be degraded and enslaved. The one is outward and temporary; the other, inward and eternal. Every intelligent Christian knows that the internal is of far higher importance than the external, and that the one exists for and should be subordinate to, the other. Such is the nature of the union between them. This truth, indeed, is universally believed in theory, but is it not virtually denied in practice? It is impossible not to see that the manners, actions, and customs of the present generation are external and worldly in the extreme. We say, then, we do not so much want to bid man to take care of the outward casket - for that he is at all times willing to do - as to direct his attention to the treasure within. I quite concur, however, in Mr. Jones's remarks on the punishment of children. A proud, disobedient child, needs punishment; but it will never be administered aright until it is seen that its real object is the reformation of the character, and until we cease to connect it with vindictive feelings. As to intellectual education, remember it does not consist in a mere knowledge of the dead languages, as a past age seemed to think. While these are eminently useful, literature, philosophy, science, art, ought not to be neglected; they are branches of

knowledge which will be found essential, at any rate highly useful, in after life, however mean the trade or occupation that may be followed : till these are properly cultivated, till it is seen that without them mental education is incomplete, we shall have made but little satisfactory progress. We have seen a providential crisis; let us avail ourselves of it; if it had not occurred, we might ere now have had occasion to weep over the miseries which would have been entailed upon us. The ladies I would particularly exhort to be faithful to this movement. Every right minded woman, if she examine our cause, must feel herself more or less identified with it. It is a cause, I am persuaded, on which the salvation of society itself depends, more than on the greatest revolution that can be effected in its external organization, or on any laws that man can enact. It is a cause catholic and unsectarian in its nature, being connected with no particular religious denomination, and having the promotion of the glory of God and the welfare of man as its great objects. Whether these shall be accomplished depends much upon the efforts you put forth. Be generous, then, and benevolent; do all in your power to aid us. Imitate your Savior, who " went about doing good," and who has not withheld from you any blessing that you needed. I thank you for the attention which you have paid me; and, in conclusion let me say to each one here, in the dying words of a fellow townsman to his son, when he saw him for the last time - 'The cause of mercy to which thou hast committed thyself will, I hope prosper; but if not, whosesoever the fault may be, I pray thee let it not be thine."