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of one fashion, varied only by the warmth or coolness of the season; but the dress of Man shifts as the gales and winds of fashion blow around it, and every successive year beholds only some fresh enhancement of the ridiculous. The days of buckskin breeches have gone the days, we hope, of stays and corsets are going; but the days of hats, those heavy weights, those cylindrical boxes, at which, if we saw them on the head of a savage, we should laugh so heartily: these remain, and tight cravats remain, preventing the flow of blood through the arteries, and compressing the muscles of the neck, and diminishing their size, and interfering with the vitalization of the brain. It would be much better for our mental and bodily health if we wore loose ties, and allowed the neck to be quite, or mostly exposed. These are some of the chief habits that we designed to put before the reader; but yet, before we close this section, two or three more may, nay must, be given. There are certain moral characteristics which are very closely connected with a good physical state, and, therefore, with especial emphasis, we say,

EDUCATE YOUR CHASTITY! This is a subject so delicate to touch upon at all, yet so imperatively necessary to be insisted on, that there is great difficulty in treating of it. But fearfully true it is that violated chastity is the brand, the burning brand upon character, self-respect and

manly energy and strength of will. How few withstand temptation! And, oh! the loathsome horrors of the consequences of a revelry in the contaminated abodes of shame and lust! The consequences of licentiousness upon the mind are fearful; their ruin to its purity, to its firmness, its dignity, and frequently its sanity, succeeds the brief hours of shameful self-indulgence; or the long, long years of remorse sting, deeply sting, venomously sting beyond the hope of entire recovery. Fatal criminality, if indulged in, how surely is it followed by the state of mind pathetically described by Burns :

"I waive the quantum of the sin,
The hazard of concealing;

But, och it hardens all the heart
And petrifies the feeling;"

Or if conquered, and the indulgence thrown off, then through the long life to expiate the guilt with the penalties of self laceration, in the language of Scripture, God "writing bitter things against us, and causing us to remember the sins of our youth." These are some of the things included in the idea of self-education. These practices will produce a life not according to whim, but according to law a life balanced—a life of repose; and so far as Humanity can be satisfied with its poor performances, a life of self-satisfaction; and the

probability is, that it will lead to serenity and cheerfulness during life, and a happy and serene old age. The men who have followed such prac tices have usually lived to be old. True Philosophers we should expect would be old. Franklin lived to be eighty-four years of age, and when eighty-two, he says, "By living twelve years beyond David's (? Moses') period, I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been a-bed and asleep. Yet had I gone at seventy, it would have cut off twelve of the most active years of my life, employed, too, in matters of the greatest importance." So Copernicus, so Watt, so Goethe, so Wordsworth, and innumerable men like these, lived to be very old, and it is right without coveting long life, it is right that we should so economise our strength, so plan our being that while living we may live to a useful purpose, and that life may be shortened by no frivolity or imprudence of our own.

CHAPTER XII.

THE EDUCATION OF THE CITIZEN.

POLITICS is a branch of Popular Education—that is, the education of the individual for the part he is to take in public affairs. Now, everybody not possessed of political power is desirous of obtaining it; but very few who are so desirous have been at the trouble to qualify themselves to act decidedly upon any of the great questions which may present themselves to the eye of the citizen. It is the duty of every man to make this topic a subject of distinct study. The man living in society should know something of the principles of domestic policy, of the duties and limits of government, of the nature and equity of Taxation, of his own Rights, of his own Duties. Louis XIV., when spoken to upon some affairs of the State, replied, "The State-the State-What State? I am the State!" It is long since a king in England could with impunity say this; but every individual citizen may feel that he is a part of the State; he

supports it; and whether or not he possess the suffrage, he shares in a degree in the dignities and responsibilities of his country. Unfortunately, the people, as a body, receive no political education.The subject is a sadly tangled one: there is no necessary obscurity in it; but it is bemeshed with the follies and sophisms of many generations. Lecturers have been the hired advocates of a class of opinions; and they have travelled to and fro through the country, not to impart information, but to inflame the passions, and to invoke to the banners of political partizans. Newspaper editors are, as a body, far inferior, in talent and conscience, to the lecturers: they have never desired to aid in the spread of truth over the mind; and there have been but few treatises written of so condensed a character, and so popular a tone, that the people would be likely to derive much benefit from their systematic study. Now, as we have recommended in previous instances, and for other purposes, in the work of self-education, the careful study of fundamental principles, so in this let there be a classification of the ideas connected with the being of a State. Let there be an inquiry into its office, and the nature of its functions. The foolish idea that government was a matter in which the people had no concern, is now quite exploded. Upon this subject the remarks of Lord Brougham are most pertinent and noteworthy. He says, "These con

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