It is curious to note the difference in tone which there is between the children's books written by him and Maria and those of the second half of the nineteenth century. Our duty to our neighbour is the Edgeworth watchword, while our duty to God is the watchword of Miss Yonge and her school of writers. The swing of the pendulum is constantly passing from morality to religion and back again, because both are required for the perfect life.

Among the experiments which Edgeworth made in the management of his children was that: 'Formerly' (Maria writes) 'from having observed how apt children are to dispute and quarrel when they are left much together, and from fear of the strong becoming tyrants, and the weak slaves, it had been thought prudent to separate them a good deal. It was believed that they would consequently grow fonder of each other's company, and that they would enjoy it more as they grew more reasonable, from not having the recollection of anything disagreeable in each other's tempers. But my father became thoroughly convinced that the separation of children in a family may lead to evils greater than any partial good that can result from it. The attempt may induce artifice and disobedience on the part of the children; the separation can scarcely be effected; and, if it were effected, would tend to make the children miserable. He saw that their little quarrels, and the crossings of their tempers and fancies, are nothing in comparison with the inestimable blessings of that fondness, that family affection which grows up among children, who have with each other an early and constant community of pleasures and pains. Separation as a punishment, as a just consequence of children's quarrelling, and as the best means of preventing their disputes, he always found useful. But, except in extreme cases, he had rarely recourse to it, and such seldom occurred. . . . The greatest change, which twenty years further experience made in his practice and opinions in education, was to lessen rather than to increase regulations and restrictions. He saw that, where there is liberty of action, one thing balances another; that nice calculations lead to false results in practice, because we cannot command all the necesssary circumstances of the data. . . .

'For many years of his life he had, I think, been under one important mistake, in his expectations relative to the conduct of his fellow-creatures, and of the effects of cultivating the human understanding. He had believed that, if rational creatures could be made clearly to see and understand that virtue will render them happy, and vice will render them miserable, either in this world or in the next, they would afterwards, in consequence of this conviction, follow virtue, and avoid vice. . . .

'Hence, both as to national and domestic education, he formerly dwelt principally upon the cultivation of the understanding, meaning chiefly the reasoning faculty as applied to the conduct. But to see the best, and to follow it, are not, alas! necessary consequences of each other. Resolution is often wanting where conviction is perfect. —Resolution is most necessary to all our active, and habit most essential to all our passive virtues. Probably nine times out of ten the instances of imprudent or vicious conduct arise, not from want of knowledge of good and evil, or from want of conviction that the one leads to happiness, and the other to misery; but from actual deficiency in the strength of resolution, deficiency arising from want of early training in the habit of self control.'

Maria adds: 'The silence which has been observed in Practical Education on the subject of religion has been misunderstood by some, and misrepresented by others. … To those who, with upright and benevolent intentions, from a sense of public duty, and in a spirit of Christian charity, made remonstrances on this subject, he thought it due to give all the explanation in his power;' and he writes: 'The authors continue to preserve the silence upon this subject, which they before thought prudent; but they disavow, in explicit terms, the design of laying down a system of education founded upon morality, exclusive of religion. . . . We most earnestly deprecate the imputation of disregarding religion in Education. . . . We are convinced that religious obligation is indispensably necessary in the education of all descriptions of people in every part of the world.

'We dread fanaticism and intolerance, whilst we wish to hold religion in a higher point of view than as a subject of seclusive possession, or of outward exhibition. To introduce the awful ideas of God's superintendence upon puerile occasions, we decline. … I hope I shall obtain the justice due to me on the subject, and that it will appear that I consider religion, in the large sense of the word, to be the only certain bond of society.

'You have turned back our thoughts to this most important subject (education), upon which, next to a universal reverence for religion, we believe the happiness of mankind to depend.' Maria adds: 'I have often been witness of the care with which he explained the nature and enforced the observance of that great bond of civil society, which rests upon religion. The solemnity of the manner in which he administered an oath can never leave my memory; and I have seen the salutary effect this produced on the minds of those of the lower Irish, who are supposed to be the least susceptible of such impressions. But it was not on the terrors of religion he chiefly dwelt. No man could be more sensible than he was of the consolatory, fortifying influence of the Christian religion in sustaining the mind in adversity, poverty, and age. No man knew better its power to carry hope and peace in the hour of death to the penitent criminal. When from party bigotry it has happened that a priest has been denied admittance to the condemned criminal, my father has gone to the county gaol to soothe the sufferer's mind, and to receive that confession on which, to the poor Catholic's belief, his salvation depended. . . . Nor did he ever weaken in any heart in which it ever existed that which he considered as the greatest blessing that a human creature can enjoy—firm religious faith and hope.'

The following extract from a letter written to the Roman Catholics of the County of Longford will show that Edgeworth was no bigoted Protestant, but was in advance of his time in the broad views he took of religious liberty: 'Ever since I have taken any part in the politics of Ireland, I have uniformly thought that there should be no civil distinctions between its inhabitants upon account of their religious opinions. I concurred with a great character at the national convention, in endeavouring to persuade our Roman Catholic brethren to take a decided part in favour of parliamentary reform. They declined it; and it then became absurd and dangerous for individuals to demand rights in the name of a class of citizens who would not avow their claim to them. . . . I wish … to declare myself in favour of a full participation of rights amongst every denomination of men in Ireland; and if I can, by my personal interference at any public meeting of our county, serve your cause, I shall think it my duty to attend.'

CHAPTER 7

DURING Edgeworth's stay in England in 1792 and 1793 he paid frequent visits to London, and he used to describe to his children a curious meeting which he had in a coffee-house with an old acquaintance whom he had not seen for thirty years: He observed a gentleman eyeing him with much attention, who at last exclaimed, "It is he. Certainly, sir, you are Mr. Edgeworth?"