Necessity of harmonious development.

Decide understandingly.

Before deciding that the classics shall no longer fill a prominent place in our systems of education, we should consider the necessity which exists of a harmonious development of the faculties of the mind, the importance of that class of powers which the classics are designed to develop, and whether we have any other course of discipline to substitute for them, which will accomplish the work so well. It is idle to talk of substituting the physical sciences in their place, or to advocate such a change on the ground that it is better to study the works of the Creator than the words of man, as though consciousness were not as legitimate a field for the study of the Creator's attributes as the objects about us in the physical world. The fact is, man was made with his face upward, and it is folly for him to spend his days in poking about his feet. Bunyan's muck-rake is a simile in point. Until we have meditated these questions, and decided them understandingly, until we are able to build in its place a more enduring edifice, let us not tear down a structure whose foundations are firm, and whose massive and majestic walls are covered with the moss of centuries.

Whatever means we adopt for its culture, it is the English language that we are to speak. That good old English tongue has been moulding and perfecting itself for many centuries. It had, at the outset,

The English tongue.

Eminent writers who have used it.

the strongest, yet rudest materials. It has plundered from almost every language that was ever in the mouths of men. It has had the advantage of the highest civilization since the world began.

When we consider that this language which we speak and read, is the language in which Bacon conceived and meditated those thoughts which changed the whole course of metaphysical speculation, and created a new era in philosophical investigationwhen we remember that Shakspeare in this language has ranged the whole field of human character, from the monarch on his throne to the peasant in his straw hut, and has touched, with a master's hand, all the passions, and humors, and sentiments of the human heart—when we read the poetry of Milton, and are enabled by means of it to contemplate all those images of beauty which his plastic imagination has created in Eden's garden, and those scenes of grandeur and sublimity where angels, and the Creator himself, speak to us-when we read the clear, the polished, the transparent periods of Hume, the grand and lofty paragraphs of Gibbon, the penetrating and earnest words of Macaulay, the bold and manly eloquence of Webster, and the sweet, graceful words of Clay, and remember that all this is in our own English tongue-is it not worth while to study, and meditate, and perfect our knowledge of it?

Conclusion.

A language of such depth, and force, and beauty, is not to be learned in a few short terms of school and college, or with little care. To acquire a thorough knowledge of it is the serious business of a lifetime. By the study of its structure and its grammatical principles, by the attentive reading of the best authors, by the study of foreign languages, that shall throw light upon it, and teach us its derivation, by careful and protracted meditation, and by care in speaking, we should strive to know it in its perfection. Some of the purest pleasure of my life has been derived from the study of language. And although the beginning of the way was difficult, and dusty, and fatiguing, the elevations are easy and pleasant, and the prospects delightful.

I

LECTURE VI.

THE MEANS AND ENDS OF EDUCATION.

PURPOSE to speak of the means and ends of

a practical education one that may produce fruit. Education, in its special and restricted sense, is the work of developing the faculties of the mind. It is a process by which the mental energies are furnished with material and put to work. The mind is sometimes compared to a storehouse, where a profusion of articles are indiscriminately stowed away. This is an unfortunate figure. Better liken it to the workshop of the mechanic, or to the hall of the artist, where numerous operatives are engaged in executing forms of beauty and usefulness. The various faculties of the mind, as memory, imagination, taste, are the workmen employed. The material which they are engaged in transforming into beautiful and useful shapes, the marble, the steel, the gold, the silver, are the ideas which we have of the various objects by which we are surrounded. The means by which those workmen have acquired skill in producing specimens of their labor of greater or less excel

Clear conceptions.

Coin and the college degree.

lence, as regards strength, harmony, durability, finish, is, when applied to the energies of mind, what we mean by education.

If this be a true idea, the means employed should be such as to accomplish the end desired. We should not labor so much to accumulate vast stores, as to give the mind clear and vivid conceptions, and to stimulate its energies to long and vigorous exertions. That man is not of necessity best educated, who has read the most books, or spent most time in the schools. Those patents of nobility in the republic of letters, written upon sheepskin, and signed by the president of a college, certifying that the bearer has spent four years of his life within its walls, are, in too many instauces, synonymous with those labels we see attached to bottles of patent medicine. Some of them are good for all they call for; but too many are the currency of quacks. This fact does not in the least depreciate the value of a sound collegiate education. The gold coin issued by government always carries with it the value upon its face, although there is abundance of the spurious article in circulation that is not worth the brass of which it is made But there is this difference between the coin and the college degree. Government puts its stamp only upon the genuine article, and we are left to detect the bogus by the want of it; whereas the faculty of