penetrated with an insurmountable disgust for books and a horror for instruction, and a strong resolve to forget it all as soon as possible. That student may have a natural aptitude for some branch of science or some department of letters; but it is buried beneath the mass of rubbish that oppresses his mind. His education ceases, and the ruin of his distinctive and characteristic talents began the moment he was compelled to remember and repeat without understanding. V. It has been truly said that collegiate education cannot create genius; it seldom draws it out, whilst it frequently impedes its progress. But, I would ask, do talents fare better at its hands? Are not as many of them crushed as are drawn out? It must needs be the case so long as the educator continues to ignore the intellectual bias of each student under his charge. Every man has a predominant talent, upon the proper development of which the success of his life-work, in a great measure, depends. In nature and direction, talent differs but little from genius. It is seldom, if ever, given to a man of genius to assert the full force of his greatness in more than one sphere of thought or action. Genius is innate; it is not the outcome of any process of mental development; but it is neither more nor less than a vast array of talent concentrated and intensified in a given direction. It is not something distinct in kind from ordinary talent; it is simply the latter multiplied beyond all reckoning, excrcised in a superior manner, with superior force, and by a superior capacity for comprehension and execution. Now, genius is the highest form of human intelligence. It furnishes a criterion for all other forms. According to the degree with which talent, in its range and power, approximates genius, is it efficient. Therefore, that is the most efficiently cultivated intellect, which, untrammeled, can converge all its faculties, with greatest effect, upon a given subject-matter; and, furthermore, that is the most efficient method of education which develops such an intellect. Here we are led to ask, what is that form of education that will produce this desired result? We have seen that it is not the over-crowded college course. It forces talents too much and too long from their natural bent. Under its exactions the vigor and energy of the intellect become prostrate. Weariness of spirit palls any effort it may make to regain its elasticity. The faculties are exhausted, not strengthened; broken down, not disciplined; cramped and distorted, not developed. Neither will the system of optional studies produce this efficiency. It narrows the intellect; it bars the door to further enlargement of mind; it merges the man in his profession; it makes him the slave of his specialty. But, man has duties to fulfill towards society as well as towards science, and letters, and the industries; and those duties require him to cultivate all his talents, and to be generally intelligent upon the thousand-and-one issues that beat at the door of his intellect for admission, and clamor for the formation of an opinion upon their merits and bearings. To go beyond the utterance of mere platitudes and truisms upon every topic that comes up in an hour's conversation, one must be possessed of a mind well disciplined and furnished with accurate information. That information must be many-sided. It must embrace facts and figures; names and dates; dry terminology and vivid word-pictures addressed to the imagination; severe scientific deductions, and food for the sentiments— all methodized and clearly apprehended. Therefore, in the collegiate course intended to furnish this preparation, stress should be laid upon both literary and scientific training; the one or the other predominating according to the natural bias of the student. Not an exclusively classical course, but a good classical foundation; not an attempt to compass all the sciences, but a thorough acquaintance with the principles and elements of one or a few; this I consider within the scope of a collegiate education, intelligently and efficiently imparted. Another fact to be taken into consideration is this: Our young men, as a rule, abandon their studies prematurely. Their college training generally suffices them. Upon it they build up their after-life of thought and observation. They have no leisured four years to digest, correct, improve, assimilate the crude material they have hastily picked up. If they enter a university, after graduation, it is generally to pursue some learned profession, and not to continue their academic studies. For this reason, our colleges should, in matters of instruction, combine university freedom with thorough collegiate discipline. Instead of being multiplied, studies should be diminished, towards the last year. The student's predominant talent should be consulted. If the tendency of his mind is for mathematics and the physical sciences, let him be encouraged in the pursuit of mathematics and the physical sciences; if it is for the classics and philology, let him have a chance to develop these; if it is for literature and history, give him the opportunity and the required assistance to enable him to excel in these branches. The means by which to attain the desired result are many. Matthew Arnold points out some practiced in the higher schools of Germany. In one place, he found that the students had, each week, a "study-day "-studientag-in which they were free from all lessons, that they might pursue their favorite studies. And he tells us that "in the same spirit, in the gymnasium generally, promising boys in prima are excused certain of the school lessons, that they may work at matters which specially interest them." He further remarks that the results of this private study are to be produced at the examinations, and are taken into account for the leaving certificate. Other and equally efficient means may suggest themselves to you all; what they are matters little, provided youth are taught how to think, are subjected to that mental discipline that begets vigor of mind and exactness of thought, and are thus braced to grapple comprehensively with the problems of life. In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I would make this remark: If in your experience or mine, we happen upon a system that stands between a student and the right development of his intellect, then, whether it be based upon antiquated prejudices, or whether it be the outcome of some new-fangled theory-be its origin what it may perish the system, for it is of human hands, and let the intellect live, for it is the work of God. *Higher Schools and Universities in Germany, p. 134. EXPRESSION IN READING; ITS PHILOSOPHY AND APPLICATION. By Miss MARY F. HENDRICK, of the Cortland Normal School. Mr. Chancellor and Gentlemen of the Convocation: To so cultivate the ear, that strains of music as they come from the soul of the skilled amateur shall find a responsive echo in our own, is a process involving careful and patient labor. To enter a gallery of fine art and be able to determine the qualities or characteristics that stamp one work as a master-piece, or which, by their absence, assign another to hopeless inferiority; to detect the elements that give life to this scene, beauty to that; or that endow yonder statue with all save the power of speech;-to be able to do all this necessitates an attentive study of nature, and of the modes whereby she may be reproduced in art. So intimate and necessary are the relations existing between the immortal soul and the mortal body, through which alone the former can make itself known to the external world, that the artist, before he can create an effect worthy of intelligent appreciation, must attain a comprehensive and minute knowledge of them. To sever these relations would be to shut the soul into solitary imprisonment, in a darkness and a silence more fearful than any of earth's prison cells. Of what avail would be the mightiest intellect, if unable to utter itself through the voice, the features, the muscles of the material part of man's two-fold nature? This intimate knowledge of the relation of the soul to the body has been recognized by all who have attained eminence in any department of the fine arts, and the closer the observation has been of the emotions and passions, and their outward showing, the more nearly has the artist approached perfection. This outward manifestation, whether it be addressed to the eye or ear, is in general termed expression. The painter must study the effects of all varieties of emotion and feeling. Though he may desire to reach the mind by the stillness and tranquillity which characterize the higher subjects of painting, he cannot hope to do this until he is able to represent all the phases of violent passion. What is true of the fine arts, comes with two-fold force when applied to expression in the living man. Reading is the interpreting of thought, and, taken in its broad sense, includes all modes and means by which thought can be communicated; by the pen, the printed page, the orator's utterances, the voice of the declaimer, the gesticulations of the pantomimist, the majesty of the choral anthem, the marble agony of a "Dying Gladiator," or the "Dead Christ of a Rubens. Everything has a language of its own which can be interpreted by the intelligent reader. Nature, in all her wondrous beauty and variety, from the blush of the delicate sea-shell to the roar of the mountain avalanche, "speaks a various language" to him who has won her confidence. The art creations of Italy and Greece, the poet's dreams, the theories of the philosopher, the ideal life of the novelist, are only different dialects of the inotherspeech. Reading includes, in a general sense, knowledge, comprehension, and meanings gathered by inspection and observation. Says Spenser: "An armed corse did lie, In whose dread face he read great magnanimity." Shakspeare recognizes this acceptation. from her the perfect ways of honor." "Those about her shall read All vocalists recognize the fact that three things are necessary to the effective rendering of any piece of music, namely; voice, intellect, and heart. An Arabian proverb says: "He is the best orator who can turn men's ears into eyes." He who translates the pen-sketches and the word-paintings of the poet and of the dramatist into the picture that does not lack vividness or coloring before the mind's eye, is the successful reader. "Think when you talk of horses that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' th' reclining earth.” In studying the source of expression, it is found "that the organs of the body are the links in the chain of relation between it and the material world, through which the immaterial principle within shall be effected; a relation too often overlooked, and one which the reader must recognize as the basis of all true expression. Different theories have been advanced in regard to the location of the emotions, assuming respectively the breast, the bowels, or the heart as their source; but without accepting either of these theories, it is evident that emotions are conditions of the mind acting through these external organs. Sir Charles Bell thus expresses it: "Certain strong feelings of the mind produce a disturbed condition of the heart, and through that corporeal influence, directly from the heart, indirectly from the mind, the extensive apparatus constituting the organ of breathing is put in motion, and give the outward form of expression." The lungs and the heart are the great instruments of expression. They are readily influenced by emotion. The mind acts directly upon them, and they, in turn, act directly upon the organs of the voice and upon the features. Thus has man a marvelous apparatus for expression. It is composed of the circulatory and respiratory organs the voice, the features, and the gestures. It is stimulated to excitement by the mind, both directly and indirectly, thus being endowed with a two-fold capacity. To discuss the subject of expression in reading, is to lay under tribute all the elements of expression just named. It involves the consideration. of the expression of rest as well as of motion, for the reader has to do with both of these. He is at once the statue which has color and motion; he stands the triad of form, color, and action. The most prominent mode of manifesting to another what is passing in one's mind is by means of the voice. Words are only symbols of ideas; tones are personations. The terms anger, fear, love, do not rouse these sensations, but the tones of the voice are effectual in exciting sympathy, even though the words may be in an unknown tongue. Sheridan gives the following: "That the whole energy or power of exciting analogous emotions in others lies in the tones themselves and not in the words, is evident from the fact that in intense passion, words give place to inarticulate sounds; sighs and murmurings in love; sobs, groans, and cries in grief; half-choked sounds in rage; and shrieks in terror. The power of tone is plainly seen in its effect upon the lower animals. The horse shows pleasure in the caressing tones of its master, but evinces fear if he speak angrily. The dog becomes an embodiment of humble joy and affection when kindly addressed, while the same words harshly uttered would cause him to slink dejected out of sight. A quotation from Herder, translated by Churchill, bears on this point. "It is singular that the ear should excite and strengthen compassion so much more powerfully than the eye. The sigh of a brute, the cry forced from him by bodily suffering, brings about him all his fellows, who, as has often been observed, stand mournfully about the sufferer, and would willingly lend him assistance. Man, too, at the sight of suffering, is more apt to be impressed with fear and tremor than with tender compassion; but no sooner does the voice of the sufferer reach him than the spell is dissolved, and he hastens to him; he is pierced to the heart. Is it that the sound converts the pictures in the eye into a living being, and recalls and concenters in one point our recollections of our own and another's feeling? Or is there a still deeper cause that sound and language are the principal sources of man's compassion?" Quintilian says: "The very name of eloquence rests upon the idea of the exertions of the voice, and where voice fails eloquence ceases to have a living existence." The masterly appeals of Burke, Fox, Pitt, if interpreted by the eye, will be found to have lost their brilliancy, not for want of logic or rhetorical construction, but because they are wanting in their living oratory. The qualities and management of the voice are of the highest importance to the reader and orator. The ancients were well aware of this fact, and used every effort to improve the natural voice, and exerted all their art in its management. This was owing, largely, to the necessities of the case. The nature of the governments of Greece and Rome obliged their public speakers to address large assemblies, convened in some open place like the Forum. The loudness of the voice gave extraordinary advantage, as men could only be influenced by what they heard. Horace speaks of “ a certain orator who bawled himself into credit." "But when two hundred wagons crowd the street, And sure such strength of lungs a wondrous praise is." Homer attributes to his hero this irresistible power of voice: "Achilles stands upon the rampart, and shouts dismay to the Trojans." "He stood and shouted; Pallas also raised a dreadful shout, and tumult infinite excited throughout all the host of Troy." "The Grecian Stentor was so remarkable for this talent, that the goddess Juno is represented as condescending to borrow his form and voice for her purposes." "There white-arm'd Juno stood, And in the form of Stentor, for his voice Of brass renowned, audible to the roar Of fifty throats, the Grecians thus harangued." "The shout of Mars when wounded by Diomedes, as might be expected, was far beyond the power of mortal lungs. Homer represents it as terrible as a whole army of men." "Bellow'd brazen-throated Mars Loud as nine thousand warriors, or as ten." Cowper thus expresses it: "Joined in close combat, Grecians, Trojans, |