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    abuse of ibe powers of an instructor , to employ them in principling a pupil , ( as Locke calls it in his 4 Essay on the Conduct of the Understanding /) a process which tends to nothing but enslaving and ( by necessary consequence ) paralyzing the human mind . An enlightened instructor limits his operations in this respect to apprizing the learners

    what are the opinions actually entertained ; and by strengthening their intellects , storing their minds with ideas , and directing their attention to the sources of evidence not only on every doubtful , but on every undisputed point , at once qualifies and stimulates them to find the truth for themselves . Let the teaching be in this spirit , and it scarcely matters what are the opinions of the teacher : and it is for their capacity to teach thus , and not for the opinions they hold , that teachers ought to be chosen . The most enlightened pupils have often been formed by

    the most mistaken teachers . We repeat , it is a total misunderstanding of all the objects of teaching to suppose that it has anything to do with impressing the teacher ' s opinions . These may be all true , and yet not only may be , but if the inculcation oi them be what the teacher conaiders his duty , probably will be , so taught as to have no effect upon the understanding but to contract and fetter it ; while , on the contrary , we are so far from apprehending any bad effect from teaching even the falsest religion , in an open , free spirit , that we should hardly object ,

    under a good method of teaching , to a professorship of astrology . under a good method of teaching , to a professorship of astrology . All this , we grieve to say , \ zwnot { vie trust ) useless , but , with respect . to any hope of immediate application , wholly unpractical . We hold it utterly unavailing , in the present state of the national mind , to hope for any national religiods instruction , not calculated , in a most eminent degree , to narrow and pervert the intellect and feelings . In Prussia , such things may be ; for qot only does the spirit of free inquiry pervade both the institutions of that people , and the popular mind , but

    there is no exclusiveness , because there is no literalness in their religion ; no German values dogmas for their own sake , nor cares for any thing in a religious system but its spirit . In Prussia , —will an Englishman believe it ?—the two great divisions of the Reformed Church , the Lutheran and the Calvinistic , in the year 1817 , by a voluntary agreement , actually united themselves into one church . * This most astonishing fact speaks of a state of religion , to which that which is almost universal in our own country , presents , unhappily , a diametrical contrast .

    To speak no longer of Prussia , or Utopia , or any other purely ideal model , but of England ; looking at the English Ecclesiastical Establishment as an existing fact , as part of the present machinery of society , which must either be made available for the purposes of society , 01 swept away ; and considering , not whether we would establish such an institution if we had to begin de novo , but in what manner we would deal with it now when it exists ; we should not press for its abolition , if either in its own councils or in those of the State we saw the faintest

    glimpse of a capacity to perceive and understand the real religious wants of the country . That moral influence of the State over the clergy , which has been used solely to purchase the sanction of religion for existing political institutions , and even for existing Ministries might , by * S * e ond of the notes ( p . xnrii . ) to Mrs . Austin ' s admirable translation of one of the most important public documents ever printed-r-M . Cousin ' s Report ou the State of Primary Instruction , in Prussia .

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    444 Notes on the Newspaper * .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1834, page 444, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/62/