ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION.
It has been thought by some that all human minds are originally constituted alike: that as you can move eastward or westward, according as you choose to set your face in the one direction or the other; so it depends entirely on the determination of the will in what department of effort you shall excel. But we need scarcely remark that all children are not alike precocious, and all adults are not alike capable of learning and teaching. Original constitution, out of which women as well as men are made, is infinitely varied. As from a few elements the endless forms of matter are built up, so out of different proportions of mental and moral qualities the endless diversities of human character are formed. In the world of matter, an almost infinitesimally small portion of foreign substance may quite alter the chemical character of a compound; and in the world of mind, the smallest excess or defect in any given faculty or feeling may make all the difference between the best and the worst, the dullest and the brightest, of mankind. Some seem to have all the most characteristic elements of greatness heaped upon their heads, or intensified in their constitutions; and so they become wonders to the world. Others have minds so obtuse that none but the plainest elements of knowledge are attainable by them, and souls so torpid that they are never able to originate a poetic thought.
If we turn to external nature, we behold endless diversity. How various the forms of animal life, whether considered in existing species, or traced back through endless ages to the first dawn of time! In the mineral kingdom, what forms and hues may we trace, from the diamonds of royal crowns down to the rocks of the everlasting hills! So in the vegetable domain. The weed flourishes in the bed of the sea—the moss on the summits of our highland hills—the lichen amidst the ice and snow of Nova Zembla—the palm in India—the cedar in Lebanon—and the pine in Norway. Shall not God’s resources find their amplest illustration in His last and noblest work—humanity? It is contrary to all analogy to expect uniformity of faculty or temperament among the human species. Be it observed, also, that as in the animal kingdom, structure necessitates function and habit; that as in the mineral kingdom there are fixed laws which we cannot alter; and that as in the vegetable kingdom nature determines her own growths: so in the world of mind, in the formation of character, while God permits moral agency, he asserts His own sovereignty. We do not believe that you are children of circumstances, as socialists and fatalists affirm, so that your character is formed for you, and not by you; still it would be the utmost folly to deny that circumstances exercise a mighty influence. As the storms affect the flight of the eagle and the speed of the steam-ship, but do not determine their course: so your original constitution influences you, but does not necessarily determine your character.
FAMILY CIRCLE.
The discussions which have of late occupied the public mind regarding the polemics of education, have, we fear, had an injurious influence on the real progress of education amongst us. Some tell us that it is the bounden duty of the State to educate the democracy; and others inform us that the Church of the country is the proper instructress of the people. Without attempting to expose by facts, or assail in abstractions, the reasoning of these different classes, we would remark, that in the world children have to toil, to struggle, to resist, to endure—to labour long, and to wait patiently for a distant and even, to a certain extent, precarious result; and the school for the kind of lore which fits for that is around the domestic hearth.
A powerful influence is exerted by the family circle, in the formation of character. While all real formation must be self-formation, we cannot deny the moulding agencies of home life. Indeed the plastic power of home is so great as to be almost appalling. Home society works on the very foundations of character, and at no stage of life is social influence so strong as in youth; and no influence is so powerful as that of a mother over a daughter. Whence issues that moral influence which, to the tender mind, is paramount over all formal teaching? Primarily and supremely from the mother. The histories of all who have risen above the level of their compeers, shows that the largest and most potent share of influence lies with the mother. God’s plan of reforming communities is to train families. When an architect was asked how he built one of the lofty chimneys which stud some parts of Lancashire, he replied, “I built it up from within.” Nations are built up in the same manner. The future mothers of a people are the best protectresses of a state from moral deteriorations. When every cottage in our land shall be blest with a well educated female, bearing the noble distinctions of wife, mother, and Christian! we may hope that the vilest wanderer will be reclaimed to the sweet bonds of household allegiance.
“How pleasing,” says Dr. Winter Hamilton, “are the touches of domestic tenderness and order, which some incidental passage, in a classical author unfolds, as marking the Roman common life. We are accustomed to think of it only in its severer forms. We call up before our minds unrelenting sternness and stoicism. But the parental character was not despoiled of its nature. It was beheld in the most ardent desire to train offspring for all social duties. While it assiduously prepared them for the state, it resigned not that business to it. Thus in the Adelphi of Terence, the wit of Syrus does not hide from us the paternal influence in education. ‘Ut quisque suum vult esse, ita est.’ Nor does the weakness of Demea conceal the indefatigable earnestness of that influence:—
‘Nil prætermitto: consuefacio: denique,
Inspicere, tanquam in speculum, in vitas omnium
Jubeo, atque exallis sumere exemplum sibi.’