{617} To these authorities of Babington and Gisborne, I believe might be added that of every writer of any eminence on the subject of education, from the first who denounced emulation as an unchristian and most pernicious principle of action, to the most distinguished of our own times. Yet, strange to say, it continues to be made the master-wheel of the whole machinery of instruction in almost all the schools of the United States. Very few exceptions can any where be found. The deleterious nostrum is administered far more extensively than any quack medicine ever yet invented—nay, than all of them put together; and common sense and christian morality interpose their warning cries in vain. Parents, teachers, and scholars are all playing into each others hands, (if I may so express myself,) to perpetuate this fatal quackery; but the sin lies principally at the doors of the first. _They_ influence and direct, mediately or immediately, the whole system of education; and if _they_ will not commence the Herculean work of reformation, it must remain an utterly hopeless undertaking, since none else have either the authority or the power to make it. Self-amendment therefore in _them_, must necessarily precede amendment in others. But how is _this_ to be brought about, when the leaders themselves, or rather those who should be so, in this vital work, are just as blind generally to their own faults, as so many insane persons; while the few who can see them, have not enough moral courage even to attempt their extirpation. The great popularity of emulation is easily explained: it saves parents the difficulty and trouble of explaining and enforcing the duty, demonstrating the advantages, and portraying the pleasures of literary, scientific, and moral acquirements; for teachers also, it is the same labor-saving process; while it imparts to the pupils themselves a stimulus to mental effort, similar to that which alcohol produces on bodily exertion—a stimulus that excites feeling, while it deadens judgment, and irresistibly transforms benevolence into the most unqualified selfishness. And thus it is, that instead of genuine christian morality and true religion being made the only basis of all education, a spurious principle of most pernicious tendency, fatal alike to both, is substituted for them. _Such a principle is emulation_, however sophistry may disguise, or our own bad passions recommend it. The victory for which it constantly goads us to struggle, _must be obtained_, cost what it may to the peace, the fame, or the happiness of others.