subject requires the serious consideration of American parents and educators. We cannot altogether like the public education which is now offered to our daughters. We fear American society will receive damage from it.

We were attracted to this book (we do not spend much time upon books of this class) by its title, and the name of its author. "A story of American Life, by Bayard Taylor." There is not at this moment a more interesting question engaging the attention of the civilized world, than the influence of the peculiar political system of this country, in the formation of character. It is the question of our whole future. On its decision will depend the estimate which the world and future ages will set on our political system. It will be of no avail for us to talk of our freedom, and our equal rights, unless it is found, as the result of our experiment, that our institutions tend to elevate, and purify individual character, and make man a stronger, purer, nobler being than he has ever been under the monarchies, aristocracies, and theocracies of the old world. If it shall appear in the ultimate result, that the influ ence of our institutions is to degrade, materialize, and sensualize man, then shall we demand in vain that our political system shall bear sway over the destinies of the world. It may still be true that the systems of Europe are a sad failure, and the philanthropist may be forced to sit down and weep for humanity; but in that case he will be forced to the conclusion, that the best hope of the future still lies in combining, as favorably as possible, the elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and theocracy.

It is very difficult for an American at home to conceive of the intense interest with which this question is regarded in other lands. Anything which seems to afford evidence that American character is degraded and depraved, is seized on with more avidity by the London Times and the Saturday Review, than a story of a "Confederate" victory, or a Federal defeat. No time is lost in giving it the most effective utterance, and sowing it broadcast, not only over Britain but over Europe.

In this state of the case, we deeply regret that Bayard Tay

lor has given such a testimony of "American Life" as this. This regret springs not only from the infelicities of the picture which we have pointed out, but from others of minor magnitude to which we have not alluded. There is a disposition to depreciate and represent in unfavorable lights, which really indicates, that in his present feelings and tastes he is more European than American. We will furnish an example or two. Arbutus Wilson, or Bute, as he is familiarly called, is the head fariner of Mr. Woodbury, who, after Hannah Thurston, is the leading character of the story. Bute is a man of robust and vigorous frame, strong common sense and kindly feeling, but in respect to education, refinement, and especially moral and religious culture, far below that class in American society to which he would naturally belong. But our author says, "he was a very good specimen of the American countryman." This we affirm is not true. The noblest characteristics of an American countryman are wanting. To have made him such, he should have received a good English education, he should have been immeasurably higher in the scale of intelligence, and he should have been united to his age, and to all ages, by an earnest faith in the Christian religion, sanctifying his home and his private life, and making him an carnest patriot and philanthropist. Bute is in love, and in a conversation with the object of his affection, the author introduces the following very significant comment on his character: "for the latter (Bute) had such a strong sense of propriety about matters of this kind, (speaking freely of the affairs of his employer), as might have inspired doubts of his being a native-born American.” A man has lost much of a just feeling of nationality, when he will speak thus of his own country.

There are other instances in the book where the author manifests a similar spirit. It excites no surprise that Russell, formerly of the London Times, should speak thus; we expect it; it is his nature, and his occupation; but such a remark from a "native-born" American astonishes us. It is but a stroke of the pen, but it reveals much of the author's taste and spirit.

Bayard Taylor has produced a book which in many of its features will be quite acceptable to all persons abroad who de

precate the influence of our institutions. It will leave on all minds, who know us only through books, a false and erroneous impression, an impression in which certain vices and follies of American society, with which few only are infected, stand out prominently in the foreground, while its substantial advanta ges and real excellencies find no place in the picture. We cannot accept this portrait of "American Life" as in any sense true or faithful. It is such a picture as his American readers will generally reject as false and slanderous, while the enemies of democratic freedom will eagerly accept it, and earnestly wish to believe it true.

ARTICLE V.-THE KEY OF THE CONTINENT.

It was a brilliant conception that could only have occurred to true genius, which led to the construction of the chart of the world on Mercator's projection, with the American continent placed in the middle of the map, between Europe and Africa on the right, and Asia and Australia on the left, showing both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in their undivided entireness, as the great thoroughfare of nations. We have failed to discover the original projector of this improvement, which is of quite a modern date. It was first published, so far as we can ascertain, in Colton's atlas of the world, about a dozen years ago, but Mr. Colton does not claim the credit of the invention. It must have been an American idea, for we cannot imagine a European geographer so oblivious of the past, so unbiassed by the prejudices of the present, and so alive to the inevitable developments of the future, as to have accepted and perfected by study an improvement so powerfully suggestive of what is to be in the ensuing ages, so far transcending the consciousness of what is and has been. Though the author may remain unknown, his work will remain for ages as the chart of the future, and the tablet on which are to be delineated the triumphs of advancing civilization as successive centuries roll along their course. Let any man of ordinary intelligence place this chart before him and contemplate for awhile the suggestions that may arise in his mind, as his eye wanders from land to land, and continent to continent, across either ocean, and in various directions, where trade, and science, and religion, and war have left their invisible footprints, and consider all the great transactions, and all the wonderful changes, from the day that Columbus first set foot upon the soil of the New World,-all more or less directly connected with that great discovery. Whole atlasses of scenes, whole Iliads of events, whole encyclopedias of knowledge, rise up and pass in review before the mind, until thought is lost in bewilderment, and

the eye is at last turned to the throne of the Supreme Arbiter, before whom all this tangled net-work is plain, and by whose supreme decree it all receives at once its unity and its boundary.

But it is when we turn the glass forward, and contemplate our chart in the light of the certain or probable developments of the future, that it becomes overwhelmingly vast and sublimely impressive. With the vast plains of Asia and Africa permeated by the light of Christianity; with the map of Europe finally settled, by the conviction of its people that it is of more consequence for each to enjoy the blessings of peace and the protection of a good government, than to know that an imaginary boundary line passes to the right or left of his dwelling; with our own glorious UNION redeemed and disenthralled and unified in the affections and the character of the whole people; and with the southern portions of the continent at length lifted up into the heavenly light of the Bible; when the last and subtlest of the devices of Rome are baffled and put to open shame; the world will witness results which the imag ination may delineate on this chart, that shall compensate both the nations and their dread Sovereign for the agitations and agonies through which we are now about to be carried.

It is impossible to know whether any of these thoughts passed through the mind of him who first devised this presentation of continents and oceans, with the New World in the place of honor; nor is it known that many persons of a philosophical turn have been led into speculations of this sort, by the study of the chart as Mr. Colton has presented it. We are a busy, eager people, intent upon doing what is in hand rather than looking far into the future, and inclined to an easy confidence as to what may be before us, that the energy and ingenuity which have served us so long will not fail to be sufficient for any possible emergency in time to come. And if any Americans have studied the chart for its suggestions in forming plaus or learning prospects of future good, it would be only what might naturally be expected from Americans that they should love to look upon their own country as standing central among the con