Language is, for all its uses, the chief of earthly studies. It is in itself alone, as a piece of mechanism, of the deepest interest; and, with such endless connections, does each language run into and out of others, before, around, and behind it, that no one can be studied with any adequacy by itself alone. Language is our first intellectual want; and there is nothing next after our limbs, that, to the end of life, we use so much. There is no such other mode, in which we are always doing good or harm. "Life and death are in the power of the tongue;" and, therefore, "by our words we shall be justified, and by our words we shall be condemned."

There is no intellectual discipline at all equal to the study of language, for variety and force of stimulation to every faculty. No one is really educated, who has not made it a study; and no attention to it can be called a study, which is not analytic and philosophical, and which does not centre in the classical languages, as its great fountain of interest. Variety and fullness of linguistic culture are specially demanded, in the American system of education, beyond anything yet generally conceived. All those languages should be embraced in our system of education, with which, as such, our own language is most fully connected, and whose history and literature have attained to any large growth and maturity. Philology has recently, by a wondrous series of explorations, brought to light a wide array of most curious and valuable facts concerning the different languages of the world, whether viewed singly or in combination. There is no more inviting field of research, now open before an earnest, deep-searching mind. Here is a land abounding in mines of gold and precious stones. Labor is sure of its reward, and glittering prizes on every side await discovery. Literature and its history also furnish a large and fruitful field of study. Here language is employed, not, as in the daily intercourse of life, for present uses, but as the guardian of the precious treasures of thought and experience, laid by in the past for the benefit of all succeeding ages. Here are to be found, alike, the selectest monuments of human genius, and the most enduring memorials of human toil.

The historic literature of the world hangs together, in a con

nected chain of sequences, from first to last. Modern literature is but the broader and fuller efflorescence of the higher growths of thought, that have appeared on the summits of each preceding age. This age is what it is, and English literature has become what it is, because Greece and Rome, and Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and Holland, from whom, in various degrees, it has derived its substance, form, and features, were each respectively what they were. There is no one body of literature, of such majestic proportions, and of so many beautiful and divine aspects, as our own; and this, according not only to our own view, which might be unconsciously perverted, but that also of the great men of other nations, as loudly proclaimed in many directions. Our own literature, I have said; for we are richer in literature than even England herself, as we own all hers and ours also. It is a great defect, in our common style of personal self-improvement, as well as of our system of public instruction, that so little account is had, or rather in most cases no account at all is had, of the vast continent of literature to be found in our language: excelling in breadth and variety, and the luxuriance of its growths, all the literature of the world, present and past beside. Surely here again, "the prophet is without honor in his own country." In connection with our own literature, the man of anything like full education will acquaint himself with Grecian and Roman literature also, without a thorough knowledge of which, indeed, he cannot understand or appreciate our own; as well as with German and French belles lettres, especially German, so full of all vital energies of thought and feeling. Esthetical culture brings great rewards to its possessor, both in respect to his high personal enjoyment and in respect to his influence, as a thinker and writer, over others. No eye can gaze unmoved upon structures of beauty in the world of thought, or see them rise, as if by magic, like fairy castles, under hands skillful in rearing them, without admiration.

To this department of study, criticism and rhetoric belong, the two chief forms of literary art; which are of the highest value, when supplemental to previous courses of thorough mental discipline, but are never to be, as they sometimes have

been, substituted for them. As well might one think of filling the parts of a huge edifice, which should be occupied by solid masonry, with the light ornamental work that belongs only to its finishings.

(4.) The knowledge of human wants.

The true object of education is, to acquire the power and the disposition to do good, to the highest possible degree. As the will is made sovereign in the constitution of the mind itself, so the moral is the crowning glory of all the powers and faculties of our entire manhood. It is the law prevailing throughout the whole universe of minds, that he who has obtained treasures of any kind must share them with others, or be made miserable by withholding them. It is as logically and practically necessary for a man to know the actual state of the world, in which and for which he is fitting himself to act, and whose demands upon his thoughts and labors he is to meet rightly, or his life will be a failure, as for one, who is constructing a steam engine or a telescope, to understand well the principles to be followed, and the ends to be gained by his mechanism, when completed. Many make in education the same mistake that others do in religion: in treating it, as if having a distinct existence by itself, separate from its relations. But all things are for their uses; and all the wonders and beauties of their being are found in their many and marvelous adaptations to those uses; and, so, among the whole army of intelligent beings," he that would be the greatest of all, must be the servant of all." "To do good as we have opportunity:" this is the law that is not only appointed of God, but reigns, selfordained, also, over every being that possesses reason and conscience. So many have lack-lustre eyes in their studies, because they have no great controlling object of thought and interest in view. The mind is made to lay out its force upon the objective world, as, upon it, also, that outer world is made to pour perpetually all its myriad influences. Each is made for the other; and, as in the partnership of kindred hearts in life, it is not good for either to be alone. The reason why so many fail in the various professions, as indeed well nigh the great majority do, is because they make a wrong selection for them

selves; and this, because their ulterior aims are such as to pervert their judgment and their action.

Another of the general forms of intelligence to be gained in the higher education, is,

2d. Acquaintance with science.

All sciences and all branches of knowledge have been interwoven with each other into a beauteous "garment of praise" to their great author, which, like a royal robe of many colors, he has dropped, as if with purposed carelessness, among his earthly children, that they might, in disentangling its materials, learn to know him in the greatness of his power, and the goodness of his love.

The sciences, so-called, are the exact sciences, (or the mathematics,) the natural sciences, and mental, moral, and legal science. Some knowledge of the mathematics is absolutely necessary to the most ordinary transactions of business. The utilities of mixed mathematics, from simple arithmetic up to any and all of the applications of trigonometry and conic sections, are obvious, as a matter of practical profit to those who employ them. But pure mathematics, from algebra through all parts of the calculus, have in them a higher value still to the mind itself, in the inward wrestling to which they summon it with difficulties, in that invisible, wondrous thought-land, where an intellect of bold, strong tread, most loves to wander. The higher walks, and visions, and exhilarations of mathematical science, must of course be reserved for that little circle of minds, which are so charmed with its abstractions, as to leave everything else neglected by the wayside, in order to seek after them. Great absorption in this one field of investigation, as indeed in any other, can be had only at the sacrifice of inquiry and progress, somewhere else. For the general purposes of education, the mathematics do not compare at all, in power of drill, and variety of mental exercise, and so of consequent mental growth, with the classics.

As to the natural sciences: they are all, more or less, and generally in the most intimate manner, connected with the mathematics, according to whose principles the inward elements of matter are mixed together, and its outward forms are

constructed. No education can be complete, which passes by the laws and forces of nature: as with them every man is connected, in some way, at every moment. He acts on them, and through them, at all times. By new combinations of some of their most subtle agencies, or new uses of old combinations, some of the highest points of progress, in our age, have been reached. Many of the natural sciences are of very recent discovery, as geology, chemistry, and physiology; and yet these are among the sciences that are now most influential upon human thought and progress. Geology has given eyes to men, which can penetrate the surface of the earth, and read the mystic contents of its dark bosom; so that, like Le Verrier before the observer pointed the instrument toward the new star that he could himself announce but could not see, the geologist, ere the laborer lifts his spade, can point with a sure finger to the mines of coal, or iron, or gold, that lie deep out of sight beneath. Chemistry, also, has broken the seals that before held the secret essences of things together; and taught us how to loose or bind at our will the hidden ties of their connection. The very lightning, the most untamable in itself of all God's "ministers" among "the winds" and "flaming fire," has been made to come and go at our bidding, on errands great and small, and to quietly spell out our various human alphabets, sounding distinctly every letter across seas and continents, in the hearing of all nations. From the science of physiology, what leaves of healing, as from the Tree of Life, have been scattered over all this generation! It has given additional honor to the body, and to our life in it, and poured streams of gladness into all the fountains of our earthly experience. Many of the natural sciences, also, have made such great advancement during the last century, as, though possessing the same name, to have yet become themselves quite new sciences: as natural philosophy, in all its departments, especially in electricity and galvanism: astronomy, in its improved instruments and discoveries: mineralogy and botany, which have been wondrously enlarged in their contents, and beautified in their arrangements. The pursuit of the natural sciences, beside the general advantage which it furnishes of enlarging the