Are our British _infant_ schools quite free from participation in the defects just noticed? By no means; and though the subject is far too important to be dismissed with a few words at the end of a slight sketch like the present, (especially since we hope to return to it later,) yet, even here, we must glance at one or two blemishes, that lie so immediately on the surface as to strike even the most casual observer, when once his attention is called to them. In such seminaries, it is known, the ages of the children usually vary from eighteen months to six years, at which tender period of life it is almost impossible to exercise too much discretion not to over-burden the memory, or to obscure the dawning reason; but alas! in the always well-meant, but certainly not always judicious, zeal for beginning education betimes, how often is it begun too early and pushed too far! In an over-anxiety to prevent, by pre-occupation of the ground, the arch-enemy of mankind from sowing his tares, how often is the good seed thrown in before it can have a chance of quickening! _Festinare lente_ should be the motto, in moral and religious, as it is in all other branches of education; since neither in religion nor morals can we hope to arrive at the full stature of perfection, but by slow degrees and long training. The Bible, to be sure, (the only true source of either,) is _the_ Book for all mankind; but as it contains "strong meat for men," as well as "milk for babes," great judgment is necessary, in separating these diets, to give to each age the food particularly adapted for it. We have the apostolic injunction for such discrimination,--"Every one that uses milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But _strong meat_ belongeth to them that are _of full age_; even those who _by reason of use have their senses exercised_ to discern both good and evil."[C] It is further obvious, from St Paul's catalogue of the armour which is to resist _all_ the attacks of the world, the flesh, and the devil, that it comprises many pieces of which young children can neither be made to comprehend the design, nor, at their time of life, to require the use. How unskilful, then, and abortive must be the attempt to put into the hands of _instinct_ the weapons of mature _reason_; to seek to explain the "beauty of holiness" to a child who does not "know his right hand from his left," and to invest an unbreeched urchin in the whole Christian panoply at once! With all due respect, too, to the pains-taking compilers of some of the _manuals_ used in these classes, we cannot help thinking that their labour has been at times worse than thrown away; and it has excited our surprise to hear really judicious[D] persons speak of these lesson-books as "perfectly suited" to the purpose of infant education, and as requiring no amendment. Surely they cannot have read them; or they must have forgotten, when doing so, the _age_ and _condition_ of those for whom they are intended.