But the most satisfactory of all the experiments on this point, as implying the possession of a well-cultivated mind, holding at command an extensive field of useful knowledge, was the one in Leith, although from accident, or inadvertence on the part of the reporter, a large portion of it has been lost to the public. The following fragment, however, will be sufficient to shew its nature and its value. The examinator wished "to ascertain the power which the children possessed of applying the passage to their own conduct; and for this purpose, he proposed several circumstances in which they might be placed, and asked them to show how this portion of Scripture directed them to act.—Supposing, said he, that your father and mother were to neglect to take you to church next Sunday, would that be wrong?—Yes.—From what do you get that lesson? And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.—Is it right that children should go to church with their parents? Yes.—Why? Because Jesus went with his parents.—Would it be right for you to go out of church during the time of the service? No.—Why? Joseph and Mary remained till the service was over.
"The next point to be ascertained was, whether the children were able, not only to perceive what passages of Scripture were applicable in particular circumstances, but also to find out what circumstances in life those passages might be applied to. For this purpose, Mr Gall asked, 'Could you tell me any circumstances which may happen, in which you may be called on to remember that Joseph and Mary attended public worship?'—If a friend were to take dinner or tea with us, that should not detain us from attending church.—Idle amusements should not detain us from church; and nothing should keep us from it but sickness.
"Mr Gall again expressed his unabated satisfaction at the results of the examination, in proving the intellectual acquirements of the children. But so important did the application of the lessons appear to him, that he must trespass still further upon the time of the meeting by a more severe test of the children's practical training on this particular point. It was a test which he believed to be altogether new to them; but if they should succeed, it will prove still more satisfactorily, that their knowledge of Scripture has made it become, in reality, a light to their feet, and a lamp to their path.
"Mr Gall then produced a little narrative tract, which he read aloud to the children; and after the statement of each moral circumstance detailed in it, he asked the children whether it was right or wrong. When the children answered that it was right, he required them to prove that it was so, by some statement in the word of God, because the Bible should to them, and to every Christian, be the only standard of what is right and wrong; and so, in the same manner, when they said that it was wrong, he required them also to prove it from Scripture.
"As soon as the children perceived what was wanted, passages of Scripture, both of precept and example, were brought forward with as much readiness and discrimination as before. The only exception, was one or two quotations from the Shorter Catechism in proof of their positions, which were of course rejected, as deficient of the required authority."
The concluding remarks by the Right Honourable and Reverend reporters of the Experiment in Edinburgh, may with propriety be here given, as it is applicable, not only to prison discipline, but to education in general. "The result of this important experiment," they say, "was, in every point, satisfactory. Not only had much religious knowledge been acquired by the pupils, and that of the most substantial, and certainly the least evanescent kind; but it appeared to have been acquired with ease, and even with satisfaction—a circumstance of material importance in every case, but especially in that of adult prisoners. But the most uncommon and important feature of it was, the readiness which they, in this short period, had acquired of deducing Practical Lessons from what they had read or heard, for the regulation of their conduct. Every leading circumstance in Scripture, by this peculiar feature of the System, was made to reflect its light on the various common occurrences of ordinary life, by which the pupils themselves were enabled to judge of the real nature of each particular act, and to adopt, or to shun it, as the conscience thus enlightened should dictate. The acting and re-acting, indeed, of every branch of the System, upon each other, interweaves so thoroughly the lessons of Scripture with the feelings and thoughts of their minds, and associates them so closely with the common circumstances of life, that it is almost impossible that either the portions of the Bible which they have thus learned, or the practical lessons thus drawn from them, should, at any future period, escape from their remembrance. The evolutions of their future life, will disclose circumstances which they are prepared to meet, by having lessons laid up in store, adapted to such occurrences; and especially, when the mental habit is formed of applying Scripture in this manner, there is scarcely an event which can happen, but against its tempting influence they will be fortified by the armour of divine truth.—Their compliance with temptation, should that take place, will not be done without a compunction of conscience, arising from some pointed and warning example that comes in all its urgency before their minds;—and they will, when seduced from rectitude, have a light within them, and a clue of divine truth, to guide them out of the dark and mazy labyrinth of error and crime, into the path of duty and virtue. It is God alone that can bless such instruction, and render it savingly efficacious; but surely the inference is fair, that this System furnishes us with an instrument, which, if skilfully employed, will effect all that man can do for his erring brother or sister."
FOOTNOTES:
[26] 1 Cor. x. 1-11.
[27] Heb. xiii. 5, 6