at the time. But in the exercise of our abilities we are the prime movers, the originators of the fact itself; we determine and qualify the action which we intend to perform; and though we are obliged to confine ourselves within the limits which the law of our physical nature has prescribed to us in our powers and organs of action, yet we are not, as is the case in perception, mainly dependant on outward objects. The same principles by which the development of our practical abilities is regulated, ought also to preside over their application. Whatever is calculated to lead to a partial and merely fragmentary cultivation or use of those abilities, which are essentially required to satisfy the wants of human nature generally, and the claims of each peculiar calling and station, is contrary to the true art of education, because in discordance with that law of nature, which enjoins upon us the maintenance of harmony and equilibrium in our own state, as well as in the different relationships of life in which we are providentially placed. Every method of education, therefore, and every mode of life, every practical use of our powers and faculties, which has a tendency to disturb that harmony and equilibrium, ought to be a matter of serious uneasiness to those parents who have the peace and happiness of their children at heart. What else but this general want of equilibrium and harmony, both in the educated and uneducated classes of society, is at the root of all our sham-civilization, and our lamentable masquerade reforms and revolutions. The necessity of following the laws of nature in education, is as evident with regard to our practical abilities, as to the acquisition of knowledge. As the ultimate object of the alphabet of forms, and of intuitive instruction generally, is to lead us in the course of our mental development to clearness of ideas, so is the alphabet of abilities intended to lay the groundwork of future virtues, in the progress of our moral education. Self-command over our physical powers and movements, is as it were the apprenticeship of virtue, in the bondage of which we are to be kept until the development of higher powers assigns to our physical nature at once a subordinate position and a more elevated aim. Upon the attainment of practical abilities, positive rules are to be built, in the same manner as clear ideas upon distinct and comprehensive intuitions; and the former, as well as the latter, are to be summed up in definitions. I have before observed, that the error of letting definitions precede the intuitions, on which they ought to be founded, has the inevitable consequence of making men idle wordmongers; and a neglect of the practical abilities of life produces in this respect exactly the same effect, as the mistake of inculcating the doctrines of virtue and of faith, before a practical feeling of either has been produced in the mind."

The art of gymnastics, which has for its object to supply the deficiencies here mentioned by Pestalozzi, was not, at the time when he threw out these observations, as methodically

developed, nor as generally spread, as it now is. Rapid, indeed, was its rise in those days of fervid enthusiasm, when the German nation felt that the time was come for throwing off the disgraceful yoke of French oppression; when Jahn, at the head of the Berlin youths, formed on his gymnastic poles the vanguard of Blucher. But the shout of liberty which then was raised in Germany, was but a hollow sound which died away before the walls of Paris; and after the congress of Vienna had repealed the indiscreet promises proclaimed from the thrones in a time of need, the gymnastic places were laid waste throughout Germany, to remain melancholy memorials of unaccomplished hopes. Gymnastics, thus expatriated from the soil on which they were reared, did not meet elsewhere with that high flight of patriotism, with which they had been associated; and the attempt made in this country by Professor Völker, to make them the vehicle of an improved state of feeling among the mass of the people, ill repaid the efforts, and painfully disappointed the hopes, of that genuine disciple of old Jahn. In education, however, the value of this art seems to be daily more appreciated, and all that is to be desired is, that while it supersedes the lifeless machinery of military drilling, it may not degenerate into mere "callisthenics for young ladies and gentlemen."

CHAPTER XXIX.

Method of Teaching History.

›n geography we have anticipated the subject r as to show how it ought, in the pupil's mind, al with the locality of every nation. But, how

ever interg the survey to which such a termination of the geographical course leads, it ought not, by any means, to form the groundwork of historical instruction; but only to establish the link which exists between the knowledge of the earth and the knowledge of man, in the same manner as, throughout the course of history, maps of the respective countries ought to be placed before the pupil's view. But, as the instruction of geography ought to present to the mind of the child the picture of divine wisdom and goodness, as set forth in the organization of nature, so in the same spirit should history be handled in such wise as to shew out the divine character, in the education of man from a state of sin and bondage to a state of holiness and dominion. Accordingly, that part of the annals of our species, which is commonly designated by the name of profane history, ought not to be separated from those authentic records in which the actings of God are directly laid open; for while in the latter the divine purpose is revealed, the former, if seen in its true light, shews the universal subserviency of all things to that purpose. The Bible furnishes to the historian not only the earliest documents, but also the key, by the aid of which alone the destinies of nations can be rightly apprehended; and on the

392

SACRED AND PROFANE HISTORY.

other hand, the chronicle of the world is a standing proof that the truth of revelation is not a matter of creed, but a matter of fact. Of this higher view, in which history becomes a running illustration of God's word, and revelation the torch by which the dark passages of history are cleared up, our divines and historians are, with a few exceptions, equally and totally ignorant; much less does it enter the minds of our school-history manufacturers. The knowledge of a number of detached facts, for the purpose of vain babbling, is all they aim at; and hence it is, that our young men read the bible without interest, and history without profit.

To remedy that crying defect in our present plans of education, is, however, not as easy as it is to point it out. It requires the whole of history to be re-written; the temples of idol-fame, which the different nations have erected for themselves and for each other, to be broken down, and the stones to be fitly framed together in a new edifice, in which the glory of God alone shall dwell. For any man to say, "I will perform this work," were idle presumption; even to say, "I will attempt it," is a mighty undertaking, to which we would not lightly pledge ourselves in uncertainty of the time which we may yet have at our disposal. We would rather avail ourselves of the present opportunity for the purpose of throwing out such hints as may direct the public attention to the subject, and lead teachers and parents, as far as it is possible with the means now extant, to adopt a better course. For the right understanding of what we shall have to say on the different stages of historical instruction, we will preface it by a concise outline of the field of history, as it presents itself to our view.

Following the division of time laid down in the Scriptures, we first distinguish four great periods, or Aions, which comprehend whatever is known of events, past or future, by both human and divine records. For although the Scriptures continually hold out the prospect of aions, nay, and of aions of aions beyond the one next following after that in which we now live, yet they do not give us of those countless and more

SCRIPTURAL DIVISION OF TIME.

393

distant periods a prophetic history similar to that which we have of the fourth or next coming aion.

As regards the distinction between the four aions to which our information extends, they appear to us, according to the scriptural computation, to be linked into each other in such wise, that the first part of each subsequent aion coincides with the closing period of the preceding one; and accordingly between each two aions a space intervenes, which belongs equally to both, and which exhibits the struggle between the things that were, and the things that shall be. Requesting our readers to bear this point in mind, we shall now endeavour to fix the different eras according to the data with which scripture supplies us. We are informed that the first coming of Christ in humiliation, to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself, happened "at, or towards the end of the aions,"* and the apostle speaks of himself and the believers of his time, as of those "upon whom the ends of the aions are come."+ From this it appears, not only that at, or about, the first coming of Christ one aion terminated and another began, but also that preceding that period there was more than one aion. On inquiring farther for the divisions which are made in scripture of the time previous to the first coming of Christ, we find that there is but one mentioned, viz. that between the antediluvian and the postdiluvian world. St. Peter calls the former "the old or primitive world," whom God spared not; and the obvious inference, that the flood forms the landmark between the two aions, at the end of which Christ came, is confirmed by the parallel instituted by Jesus himself between "the days of Noe," and the "coming of the Son of man," which is characterised in the prophecy from the Mount of Olives, as "the end of the aion," that is, of the

* Ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν ἀιώνων, ἐις ἀθέτησιν ἁμαρτίας διὰ τῆς θυσίας αυτοῦ πεφανέρωται. Hebr. ix. 26.

+ Εις οὓς τὰ τέλη τῶν ἀιώνων κατήντησεν. 1 Cor. x. 11.

+ Αρχαίου κόσμου ουκ ἐφείσατο. 2 Pet. ii. 5.

§ Matth. xxiv. 37-39.

Matth. xxiv. the whole chapter from verse 3, in answer to the question: τί τὸ σημεῖον τῆς σῆς παρουσίας, καὶ τῆς συντελείας τοῦ ἀιῶνος ;