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RURAL HOURS.

house will be cramped by confining their energies within too narrow a field, no fear that their faculties will remain dull and benumbed for the want of impulse. Everything lies open before them; and motives for action are ceaselessly urged upon them by the most animating, nay, even exciting language. It is the opposite principle of restraint which seems to receive less consideration than it deserves. It is not wholly neglected, God in mercy forbid that it ever should be; but does it meet with that full, serious attention which is needed? Is it not too often rendered subservient to the former principle of impulse, and activity? And yet, let it be remembered that it is this principle of restraint which is more especially the moral point in education; where it fails, discipline and self-denial are wanting, with all the strength they give to integrity, and honor, and true self-respect, with all the decencies of good manners which they infuse into our daily habits. That must ever be the soundest education in which the proportions between the different parts are most justly preserved.

Let it be remembered, also, that the more knowledge is increased, so much the more binding becomes the obligation to keep up the just proportions between moral and intellectual instruction. We have thrown aside the primer and horn-book, let us bear in mind that every new science introduced into the school-room brings with it an additional weight of moral responsibility. And instead of the amount of intellectual culture bestowed being an excuse for the neglect of religious and moral instruction, this very amount becomes in itself an imperative demand for more earnest, energetic, hearty efforts on those vital points. In a Christian community assuming their education, the children have a clear right to plain, sound, earnest lessons of piety, truth, honesty,