its cultivation. The most trivial circumstances often occasion the widest disparity. The man of genius is only a modification of the man of extraordinary common sense. The same qualities inhering in the one exist in the other—but in a higher degree, and with this difference, that genius is usually directed to a particular class of objects, while common sense is more nearly universal in its application. Coleridge has called genius "the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the power of manhood,"- -a definition rather unhappily worded, but in a certain sense true. The child possesses very many truths at which he would never have arrived by the dry and difficult process of formal reason. The truth is brought directly to his mind, and he only obeys the impulse of feeling in receiving it as truth. If we would all carry this spirit of childhood with us into the strength of maturer years, we should be all geniuses. This spirit in the man of genius causes him to overleap the tardy and sometimes painfully intricate processes of deduction, and the truth flashes on his soul a bright ideal; but which he no more doubts than he doubts his own existence. We need only refer to the poet and the painter; who place before us nature with unmistakable exactness, though they have never taken her dimensions or calculated her proportions. This is true of the real artist of every vocation: he leaps over the ordinary steps to what seems to be the desired result, and he finds that he is right. The same thing may be affirmed of common sense, which, as its name implies, is of more general application to the ordinary affairs of life. There is a voice within us answering to that of nature without us, and if we attend to the correspondence of these two voices, our mental cultivation will be much easier and more successful. This brings us to a prevalent defect in the formation of the scholar. Instead of planting the tree of knowledge on the good, nourishing, and substantial soil furnished by nature, we too often try to rear it on the summit of some conspicuous sandcliff, where the elements will dance around it in derision of its owner's folly. Moreover, when men, who have set out to make scholars, have resulted in fools, then nature is soundly berated, because she has withheld the gift of genius. Now we undertake to say for nature, that she has a way of performing her own functions, and will, no doubt, completely execute her own designs. It is true, she has committed some curious freaks in her various manipulations-she has now and then produced a fool, a genuine idiot-but she never created a human donkey. This ludicrous monstrosity is a man's own work performed on himself! He executes this bungling piece of folly by separating science from nature, and words from things. He becomes an encyclopedia of rules and technicalities an inflation of pompous terms-whom the world can never appreciate, because he fails to appreciate himself. - Education does not imply the addition of any new faculty; nor yet is it the mere accumulation of facts. It is rather the training, strengthening, systematizing, and harmonizing the susceptibilities, which we have originally. We have already said that common sense embraces all the intellectual elements of a man; and moreover, that it has to do with the practical truths of life. If we are right in these views, the whole process of education should consist in expanding this faculty and bringing it to bear on principles and facts of a wider range. Perhaps it will better express our notion to say, that the mind must assimilate to itself whatever truth it has to deal with. Such a cultivation of scholarship takes philosophy down from the heavens, makes it walk on the earth, renders it conversant with men and things, and shows its connection and correspondence with the other members of the great family of truth. There is no more egregious error committed by men than when they abandon the obvious and direct method of solving questions as in the ordinary affairs of life, and seek for some more abstract way, valuable only as it is mysterious. "Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill, Bend the strict rule to their own crooked will, And, with a clear and shining lamp supplied, First put it out, then take it for a guide!" This general fault we find throughout the whole course of education—beginning with its first rudiments in the child, and adhering tenaciously, in too many instances, till the final hours of his Alma Materwhether that be a log school-house or a richly-endowed university. The passage from practical to theoretical life is abrupt and absurd; and no wonder the poor subject gets bewildered as to his whereabouts. He is taught that he must ascend into some higher region to find truth; and he struggles to ascend without any steps to aid him, when in reality all he needs to do is to pluck the fruit of the tree of knowledge, whose branches, heavy laden, bend down close to him. Let him diligently compare things as they are and things as they seem; he will be surprised at their similarity, and the instruction received will be greatly valuable. The great truths of Nature were all designed for use, and she never requires us to approach them with such awful reverence as to obscure them by unmeaning terms. When we have computed the number of fingers on both hands, we have "solved a problem." Two particles of matter being mutually inclined to each other, enter into matrimony according to the authorities vested in chemical attraction. Philosophers tell us the reason why monkeys don't talk is, because they are destitute of such powers of reflection as are necessary to furnish them with ideas: in plain English, "they have nothing to say." But this is a species of scientific blasphemy very shocking to some minds, and scarcely excelled by that which affects the nerves of sentimental young ladies after their second term at a boarding school, when they hear of " eating supper" instead of "taking tea," of "putting out a light" instead of "extinguishing a lamp," or applying the name of COW to an animal with powder-horns growing out of its head! 66 It is this neglecting to lead up the common sense to grasp the great principles which are the objects of the scholar's pursuit this straining after the intangible -their excision of the man from the man's mind-that more effectually bar up the student's progress than any other obstruction. To suppose it more difficult to learn the names, classes, and relations of words, than the names, families, and circumstances of our townsmen-that the intricacies of a theory are more bewildering and inexplicable than the roads by which we quickly learn to travel about the adjacent country-or that the solution of a problem requires greater ingenuity than many agricultural and mechanical operations, is simply an absurdity of the grossest kind: the same powers of mind are called into exercise in one case as in the other. There are in all these cases an assimilation and familiarization of the subjects on which the mind is called to act; and there is implied, too, equally in all, a close, consecutive, and continued thought fulness. Why is it that so often a boy is sent to school and found to be dull and worthy the name of blockhead, who, when put to a trade, or, on the farm, becomes a proficient in his vocation? Is not education required just as much in one case as in the other? Obviously the methods are different, and the same kind of mental training which made the farmer or the artisan would have made the scholar. We by no means mean to intimate that the tendency of our times and our communities is not practical enough. The contrary complaint is, no doubt, well founded in some sense. But why is this? Men intending a life of business rarely procure a thorough course of education, because it neglects to cultivate the same faculties of mind, and in the same manner for scholars as is required for business. This is wrong. We do not advocate an increase of utilitarianism, but that education become more practical—not in its results and application-but in itself. Let scholars become more practical-as scholars - then will the practical men become more scholarly. Verily we need a new instauration-a new Socrates-a new dispensation of common sense! THERE are two glorious sights in the world: the one is a young man walking in his uprightness; and the other is an old man walking in the ways of righteousness. It was Abraham's honor that he went to the grave in a good old age, or rather, as the Hebrew hath it, with a good gray head. Many there be that go to their graves with a gray head, but this was Abraham's crown that he went to the grave with a good gray head. Had Abraham's head been never so gray, if it had not been good, it would have been no honor to him; a hoary head, when coupled with an unsanctified heart, is rather a curse than a blessing. When the head is white as snow, and the soul black as hell, God usually gives up such to the greatest scorn and contempt. -Brooks. The National Magazine. MARCH, 1855. EDITORIAL NOTES AND GLEANINGS. RICH WOMEN, REMEMBER YOUR SISTERS.-A lady comments, in one of our daily papers, with some severity and as much pertinency, on the frequent legacies left by wealthy women to institutions for the education of young men, while so little is done for their own sex. Whatever may be our individual opinions about the question of Woman's Rights, there certainly can be no generous man among us who does not perceive the special disabilities of women, particularly in the arts which secure a comfortable subsistence. There is an unreasonable and a most cruel disproportion between the wages of male and female labor. In the department of teaching, there is particularly a shameless depreciation of women's services, as witness the salaries of our female teachers. They have the hardest drudgery and the lowest salaries of our public schools. And besides this heartless and ungallant fact, there are scores of remunerative places, entirely suitable to their more delicate organization, which are now usurped by the other sex-places that hardy and highminded men should blush to appropriate to themselves. We need reform in these respects; who that knows the heart-breaking sufferings of poor but virtuous women, in New-York city, the past winter, can question it? We who laugh at the outcries of the advocates of "Woman's Rights," should do something else besides laughing; our sarcasm will be vain-as ridiculous as their ultraism, and unspeakably more heartless-till we take from them the provocations which our treatment of the sex affords them. hope of self-support and competence to dependant women in our age, and especially in our country. Let the beneficent then be reminded of the fact. We advise ladies of wealth to sympathize more with their less fortunate sisters in this respect. We would respectfully intimate to them, too, that they should not fear to be somewhat exclusive in this sort of beneficence. There is not much danger that our numerous institutions for male education will suffer by a better direction of female liberality. They multiply so fast as to be almost in each other's way. There is a large waste of property on male colleges in the United States through mere local rivalries, while only here and there a female college is seen, struggling through the discouragements of want and public indifference. Wealthy and large-hearted women of the United States, the time has come in which you should rectify this public wrong done to your sex. LOVE IN THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY.-It seems that there was at least one example of "true love" in the history of the Buonaparte family. A newspaper correspondent, writing from Italy, gives some agreeable local reminiscences of their residence in the neighborhood of Florence. He describes the daughter of Joseph as a most interesting and beautiful person. During her residence with her father in the United States, she loved and was beloved by her cousin Achille Murat; but the course of true love never runs smooth. Intended by her family for the eldest son of Louis, ex-king of Holland, she married him against her will, and soon became his widow. His name also was Napoleon; and had he lived, he, instead of his brother, might have been Napoleon III. When Charlotte was a widow, her former lover met her in London, where his disappointed passion poured out to her its bitterness in some French verses, the tenor of which may be inferred from the first stanza, which we here translate: "I see thee again, after eight long years Thou, whose aspect makes flutter my heart! But these legacies-what have we to say about them? The year before last, at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars were provided (to our personal knowledge) in the wills of wealthy ladies, for the education of young men, in the United States; this sum, we doubt not, was not a tithe of the aggregate of such appropriations. During the past year Miss Caroline Plumer, of Salem, Mass., died, leaving in her will fifteen thousand dollars to Harvard College, thirty thousand to the Salem Athenæum, and thirty thousand to found a Farm School at Salem. This was a noble liberality-poet also; so was she! They were both artists and an infinitely better indication of the good sense of the lady than the usual bequests of property to already independent family connections. But why did she not think of her own sex? The munificent sum would have laid the foundations, in Massachusetts, of a provision for some special form of female education, which might, in time, be worth more than all the alms of the state for the poor of her own sex. The lady correspondent to whom we have referred, says :— "There are in the United States about one hundred and twenty literary colleges, forty-two theological seminaries, forty-seven law schools, and forty medical colleges. Of these two hundred and fifty institutions of learning, not half a dozen admit woinen to their privileges Ï" Education, not merely in its usual limited form, but in special forms, must be the chief His poetic plaint seems, however, to have been of no avail, the lamented husband of Charlotte having, after marriage, won her affections completely from her first love. He was a too. "What she designed, he lithographed; what she wrote, he illustrated." In fact, their brief married life was, from all accounts, far happier than that which usually falls to the lot of princes; but, "death did lay siege to it!" nor could the princess long survive her loss. PRESCOTT, THE HISTORIAN.-A Boston correspondent of one of our city papers says: "Mr. Prescott appears daily in our streets, and may be often seen taking long walks for the preservation of his health. He is now at his winter residence on Beacon-street, where he spends about nine months of the year. The other three months he has generally spent at Nahant and Pepperell, at both of which places he has country seats, most congenial to the pursuits of an author. Mr. Prescott is as systematic in his daily studies as any Boston merchant, and THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE. as great a miser of the minutes. As many have learned, he was so unfortunate as to lose one of his eyes while in Harvard College. By this loss, the other eye became weakened through over-work, so that, practically, he has written his immortal histories as the blind write, or with an apparatus such as they use. he has scarcely the appearance of any difficulty And yet of sight, and recognizes his friends in the street with that single faithful eye. Indeed, the observer might regard his eyes as fine as one could desire. Mr. Prescott, while engaged in writing, writes rapidly, averaging about seven of the printed pages of his volumes daily. His secretary copies his manuscript in a good plain hand for the printer. He is now diligently composing a history of Philip II. His private library is a very valuable one, particularly in the departinent of that history that can throw any light upon the subjects of his past and present investigations. His library contains near six thousand volumes. It is a picture of a room that the proprietor had constructed for his special use, as he did his study, some distance above it toward the heaven, where his beautiful compositions are produced. That Mr. Prescott, with his physical embarrassments, has accomplished so much toward forming an American standard literature, is quite a marvel. Another wonder is, that though he has been confined to his books and his study for forty years, as close as the monk to his cloister, he has nothing of the scholastic manner, but the ease and polish of a gentleman wholly in society." THE CRIMES AND CASUALTIES OF 1854.-From tabular statements of the past year, in some of the newspapers, we gather : The total amount of property destroyed by fire in the United States during the year is estimated, in round numbers, at twenty-five millions of dollars. How economical then would almost any sum be, which should be expended on improvements for the better extinguishment of fires! The number of persons whose lives have been sacrificed by burning buildings is put down at one hundred and seventy-one. There have been one hundred and ninetythree railroad accidents, killing one hundred and eighty-six persons, and wounding five hundred and eighty-nine. There have also been forty-eight steamboat accidents, killing five hundred and eighty-seven persons, and wounding two hundred and twentyfive. During the year six hundred and eighty-two murders were committed, and eighty-four persons were executed. In the state of New-York alone there were seventy-four murders and seven executions, and, in California sixty-four murders and fifteen executions. New-York, it must be remembered, in abatement of her dishonor, is the receptacle, the cess-pool of the European pauperism and vice that pours into the Union. By the English Life Tables it is shown that the half of a generation of men of all ages passes away in thirty years, and that more than three in every four of their number die in half a century. COLERIDGE ON PREACHING.-Coleridge never evangelical suggestion than the following:made a more philosophical, not to say more "Since the revolution of 1688 our Church has been lulled and starved too generally by preachers and reasoners, Stoic or Epicurean: first, a sort of Pagan morality was substituted for the righteousness by faith; and lately, prudence or Paleyanism has been substituted even for morality. A Christian preacher ought to preach Christ alone, and all things in him and by him. If he find a dearth in this, if it seem to him pleroma, the fullness. It is not possible that there a circumspection, he does not know Christ as the should be aught true, or seemly, or beautiful, in thought, will, or deed, speculative or practical, which may not and which ought not to be evolved out of Christ, and the faith in Christ;-no folly, no error, no contrariancy and enmity to Christ. To the Christian evil to be exposed or warred against, which is not at preacher Christ should be in all things, and all things a link in the chain, of which Christ is the staple and in Christ: he should abjure every argument that is not ring." Put that gem, Brother Homilist, on the bald brow of your next "skeleton." - A strong movement in favor of theological educaMETHODIST MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. tion has been in process among the Methodists for a few years past, much to the gratification tively sustain or oppose it. or the affliction of the good men who respecThe Institution flourishing, and promises soon to be numerically at Concord, New-Hampshire, is unexpectedly the first Theological Seminary of the country. Evansville, near Chicago, under unusually favorAnother school of the kind was opened lately, at able auspices, a hundred thousand dollars having been pledged, it is intimated, by a single individual a lady-toward its endowment. The opening exercises are described, in our Chicago dent Dempster delivered an eloquent inaugural exchanges, as exceedingly spirited. Presiaddress; a collation was given on the premises; Rev. Messrs. Judson, Crew, Burroughs, (of the and addresses were delivered by Dr. Evans, Baptist Church, Chicago,) and Watson of the North Western Christian Advocate. On the return of the company to Chicago, in the cars, the reunion was organized, and the " resumed (everything "speechifying' 66 goes by steam "" in that Williams, and T. Hurd, Esq. Mr. Watson's magnificent region) by Rev. Messrs. Watson, E. address at Evansville has been published, by request; it is remarkable for its brilliant origintimes" of Methodist pioneering in the West:-ality. We give an extract on the "good old Watson, "who was ever inside of a theological school "There is scarcely a preacher here to-day," said Mr. purpose. For three years, in the domestic comforts of in his life. For one, I frankly confess that this is the first hour I ever spent under a roof devoted to such a a rough and ready' itinerancy, we never saw a yard of carpet, not even rag carpet, or trod a sawed planklibrary was the saddle-bags; our closet and 'study' nothing but puncheons or porcelain, that is, the clean swept dirt, without the puncheons. Our the wildwood; our parlor a prairie; our 'reading-desk' the snake-head-like pommel of a huge Spanish saddle; and our easy chair the back of our favorite pacing 'Bucephalus. Our circuit swept a circumference of over four hundred miles, with distances between appointments of from thirty to sixty. Nor did we, for the next seven years of twenty-three of our itinerant life, as it regarded opportunity for study, fare much better. But in all this rough and tumble' portion of our itinerant life, we suffered nothing-absolutely nothing. True, we have often slept in prairies, with some danger of having a rattlesnake for a pillow; or in the woods, with some danger of presenting to the wolf or panther a tempting banquet; and still oftener EDITORIAL NOTES AND GLEANINGS. have we rode thirty miles to preach to a congregation STATISTICS OF OLD AGE.-The census of 1850 shows that the oldest person then living in the United States was 140. This person was an Indian woman, residing in North Carolina. In the same state was an Indian aged 125, a negro woman 111, two black slaves 110 each, one mulatto male 120, and several white males and females from 106 to 114. In the parish of Lafayette, La., was a female, black, aged 120. In several of the states there were found persons, white and black, aged from 110 to 115. There were in the United States, in 1850, 2,555 persons over 100 years. This shows that about one person in 9,000 will be likely to live to that age. There are now about 20,000 persons in the United States who were living when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. They must necessarily be nearly 80 years old now, in order to have lived at that time. French census of 1851 shows only 102 persons over 100 years old; though the total population was near 36,000,000. Old age is therefore attained among us much more frequently than in France. The POPERY IN THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.-We said "That whereas the greatness of this nation_doth, kingdom from counterfeit Christianity, and to uphold A NEW REVOLUTION.-The Archbishop Innokenti, in an Address to the Russian troops before the battle of Inkerman, said among other things:-"In heaven it has been decreed that the scepter which shall rule over the whole world shall remain alone in the right hand of the Lord's anointed autocrat of all the Russias !" COMPLIMENT TO AMERICAN SCHOLARS.-In a notice of the Bibliotheca Sacra, the Christian Spectator (an English Journal) says:-" As a rule, we believe American theological writers to be better versed in modern languages, and more deeply read in ancient literature-in other words, better and abler scholars-than the majority of theological writers in this country." EXPLORATIONS AT BABYLON.-We have repeatedly alluded to the explorations now in progress on the site of Babylon. From our English papers we learn that the celebrated orientalist, Colonel Rawlinson, has spent a portion of the winter there; a letter from him was lately read before the Asiatic Society of London. At its date he was encamped under the ruins of ancient Babylon, where he had been engaged in tracing the course of the old river through the ruins; and had succeeded, by the aid of bricks and slabs with inscriptions, all found where they were originally deposited, in identifying most of the buildings of the city, and in tracing the ancient wall, which gave a circumference pretty nearly agreeing with what we have received from Greek information. The excessive heat (110° in the tent) had, however, stopped out-door work; and the colonel had passed the time in his tent in making a literal translation of the great slab found on the Euphrates, sent to England by Sir H. Jones in 1807, and deposited in the East India House. He promised to send this translation as soon as completed; and in the mean time he transmits an abstract of it, recording, in succession, the repairs to |