Page:Authority and Knowledge.djvu/15

 almost above their power; and those who have no such spirit, will give no more for much speaking. Nor have I much regard for the extra tritle which the urgency of a preacher draws out of peoples pockets; unless it comes from hearts touched with some true sense of the privileges as well as duty of Christian giving.

Leaving therefore the subject of to-day's Collection, I would rather go on and ask you to think for a few minutes, of some of the deep thoughts which a Christian school suggests. Such thoughts go beyond the schools; for a school is a picture, a parable, a miniature of life: the principles at work in a school, are at work widely in life, among the grown, as well as the children, though in different forms. But though they go beyond the schools, these thoughts have a most practical bearing on the duties of those who have to do with the Schools and with the children who attend them.

For what ends now does a School exist? It exists because we count two things good for children: and it aims at those two things. The first is Discipline: the second is Knowledge. When you send a child to school, you mean him to learn first his letters, then his reading and figuring, afterwards his geography and history, and all through his Bible teaching. That is the Knowledge. But also you hope he will be trained. If a child is noisy, or untidy, or saucy before he goes to School, you look forward to that being cured by