He enters at length and with all his heart into the plan; and from what he tells me of the capabilities and the wants of the situation, I know of no man whom I could so much wish to see intrusted with it as yourself, if you should feel disposed to let me name you to Lord Normanby. It is a most noble field, and in Franklin himself you will have a fellow-labourer, and a Governor with and under whom it would do one's heart good to work. He wants a Christian, a gentleman, and a scholar,—a member of one of our Universities,—a man of ability and of vigour of character,-to become the father of the education of a whole quarter of the globe; and to assist, under God's blessing, and with the grace of Christ's Spirit, in laying the foundations of all good and noble principles, not only in individual children, but in an infant nation, which must hereafter influence the world largely for good or for evil. And I think that, if you could feel disposed to undertake this great missionary labour, you would work at it in the spirit of Christ's servant, and would become the instrument of blessings, not to be numbered, to thousands, and would for yourself obtain a κάρπον ἔργου, such as can rarely be the fortune of the most ambitious. Let me know your mind as soon as you can decide on a matter which you, am sure, will not treat lightly. Give my kindest regards to your father, towards whom I feel more guilty than towards any one else; for I am afraid that he and your mother will not thank me for making such a proposal. But I believe you to be so eminently the man for such an undertaking, that I could not acquit myself of my commission to the Government, without naming it to you. Your brother is very well, and writing Greek verse close by my side, seeing that it is Fourth Lesson. I hope that you can give me good accounts of your brother Charles.

I

CLXXIV.

TO THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE.

(Relating to the College in Van Diemen's Land.)

Rugby, March 19, 1839.

Some expressions in your letter lead me to ask whether, if the person appointed to the School were not in orders, there would be an objection on the part of the Government to his entering into them before he left England? Because, I think that many persons best fitted to carry on the work of education, would be actually unwilling to engage in it, unless they were allowed to unite the clerical character with that of the teacher. This feeling is, I confess, entirely my own. Even in a far lower point of view, as to what regards the position of a schoolmaster in society, you are well aware that it has not yet obtained that respect in England, as to be able to stand by itself in public opinion as a liberal profession; it owes the rank which it holds to its connexion with the profession of a clergyman, for that is acknowledged universally in England to be the profession of a gentleman. Mere teaching, like mere literature, places a man, I think, in rather an equivocal position: he holds no undoubted station in society by these alone; for neither education nor literature have ever enjoyed that consideration and general respect in England, which they enjoy in France and in Germany. But a far higher consideration is this, that he who is to educate boys, if he is fully sensible of the importance of his business, must be unwilling to lose such great opportunities as the clerical character gives him, by enabling him to address them continually from the pulpit, and to administer the Communion to them as they become old enough to receive it. And in a remote colony it would be even more desirable than in England, that the head of a great institution for education should be able to stand in this relation to his pupils; and I am quite sure that the spirit of proselytism, which some persons appear so greatly to dread, would no more exist in a good and sensible clergyman, than in a good and sensible layman. Your

master must be a member of some Church or other, if he is not a minister of it; if he is a sincere member of it, and fitted to give religious instruction at all, he must be anxious to inculcate its tenets; but, if he be a man of judgment and honesty, and of a truly Catholic spirit, he will find it a still more sacred duty not to abuse the confidence of those parents of different persuasions who may have entrusted their children to his care, and he will think besides that the true spirit of a Christian teacher is not exactly the spirit of proselytism. I must beg to apologize for having trespassed on your time thus long.

CLXXV.

TO H. WISE, ESQ.

Rugby, March 20, 1839.

Your letter gave me very great pleasure, and I was really obliged to you for writing at such length, and giving me a full account of all the circumstances of your present situation. Every thing in a position like yours depends on the disposition and character of the family; and where these are good and kind, the life of a tutor may be as pleasant, I think, as it is useful and respectable.

I trust that your health is completely restored, and that you will be able to read gently, without feeling it a matter of necessity; a sensation which I suppose must aggravate the pressure greatly when a man is reading, and feels himself not strong. But, on the other hand, you need not think that your own reading will now have no object, because you are engaged with young boys. Every improvement of your own powers and knowledge, tells immediately upon them; and indeed I hold that a man is only fit to teach so long as he is himself learning daily. If the mind once becomes stagnant, it can give no fresh draught to another mind; it is drinking out of a pond, instead of from a spring. And whatever you read tends generally to your own increase of power, and will be felt by you in a hundred ways hereafter.

CLXXVI.

*

TO J. P. GELL, ESQ.

(On the death of his brother, Charles Gell.)

Rugby, April 5, 1839. Your letter ought not to grieve me, but it was a shock for which I was not prepared, as I had not dreamed that your brother's departure was so near. The thoughts of him will be amongst the most delightful of all my thoughts of Rugby pupils: so amiable and so promising here, and so early called to his rest and glory. I do feel more and more for my pupils, and for my children also, that I can readily and thankfully see them called away, when they are to all human appearance assuredly called home. This is a lesson which advancing years impress very strongly. We can then better tell how little are those earthly things of which early death deprives us, and how fearful is the risk of this world's struggle. May God bless us through His Son, and make us to come at last, be it sooner or later, out of this struggle conquerors.

CLXXVII. TO THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE.

July 1, 1839.

Nothing can be more proper than that the Head Master or Principal of the proposed School should be subject to the control of the Governor, or of the Bishop, should there be one in the colony. I am only anxious to understand clearly whether he is to be in any degree under the control of any local Board, whether lay or clerical; because, if he were, I could not conscientiously recommend him to undertake an office which I am sure he would shortly find himself obliged to abandon. Uniform experience shews, I think, so clearly the mischief of subjecting schools to the ignorance and party feelings of persons wholly unacquainted with the theory and practice of education, that I feel it absolutely necessary to understand fully the intentions of the Government on this question.

CLXXVIII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Rugby, May 8, 1839. [After speaking of a decision respecting the Foundationers in Rugby School.] The world will not know that it makes no earthly difference to me in a pecuniary point of view, whether a boy is in the lower school or the upper; and that if I had discouraged the lower school, and especially the Foundationers, who do not interfere with the number of boarders, I should have been quarrelling with my own bread and butter. Lord Langdale did not understand the difference which I had always made between Non-foundationers and Foundationers, as I have indeed always advised people not to send their sons as boarders under twelve, but have never applied the same advice to Foundationers living under their parents' roof. But it is so old a charge against masters of Foundation Schools, that they discourage the Foundationers, in order to have boarders who pay them better, that I dare say Lord Langdale and half the world will believe that I have been acting on this principle; and my old friends of the Tory newspapers are quite likely to gibe at me as liking a little jobbing in my own particular case, as well as other pretended Reformers. Even you, perhaps, do not know that I receive precisely as much money for every Foundationer, if he be only a little boy in the first form, as I do for any Non-foundationer at the head of the school; so that I have a direct interest-since all men are supposed to act from interest-in increasing the number of Foundationers, and no earthly interest or object in diminishing them. I think you will not wonder at my being a little sensitive on the present occasion, for a judge's decision is a very different thing from an article in a common newspaper; and, as I believe that nothing of the latter sort has ever disturbed my equanimity, so I should not wish to regard the former lightly. So I should very much like to hear from you what you think is to be done,-if any thing. After all, I could laugh heartily at the notion of my being