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It is rather acquired

which such men have been endowed. wisdom and tact, which they have gained by observing closely the characters and actions of men, and the course of human events.

Another advantage of this class of studies is to be found in their effect on mental culture. In order to give full and harmonious development to all our powers, we need studies which address imagination as well as reason- which enlist the feelings while tney enlighten the understanding — which Call us to balance probabilities, and to analyze complex objects of thought.

We need studies which shall accustom us to control the excursions of fancy, and to give them such direction that they shall aid reason, strengthen virtue, and incite to high aspirations after excellence. We need a training that shall enable us to command our thoughts under the most agitating circumstances, and to subordinate our feelings to the authority of judgment and conscience.

I need hardly add, that, in these respects, no studies can be so useful as those which, by introducing us to our fellowmen at eventful moments, when they are called to act under deep emotion, and in view of great interests, train us to the habit of combining judgment with feeling-of consulting truth and right, while we do not stifle sympathy.

Mathematical studies cultivate the power of close and continuous attention; physical science gives scope and employment to the practical as well as the speculative reason; but it is the science of man, as unfolded by philosophy, history. and poetry, that seems best calculated to make the mind vigilant in observation, jealous of fallacy, vigorous and com prehensive in thought, chastened in taste, and discursive, yet sober, in fancy.

BISHOP POTTER.

The above extract from one of the great educationists of the day, confirms what we have already stated on pages 13, 14, and 15, where it is urged, that the pupil should, as far as practicable, be made acquainted with the best productions of the most gifted minds. These "seem best calculated to make the mind vigorous and comprehensive in thought, chastened in taste, and discursive, yet sober, in fancy."

2. The Convict Ship.

MORN on the waters! and purple and bright
Bursts on the billows the flushing of light;

O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun,
See! the tall vessel goes gallantly on;

Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail,

And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the gale,
The winds come around her in murmur and song,
And the surges rejoice as they bear her along;
See! she looks up to the golden-edged clouds,
And the sailor sings gayly aloft in the shrouds;
Onward she glides, amid ripple and spray,

Over the waters, - away, and away!
Bright as the visions of youth, ere they part,
Passing away, like a dream of the heart!
Who, as the beautiful pageant sweeps by,
Music around her, and sunshine on high,
Pauses to think, amid glitter and glow,
O, there be hearts that are breaking below!

Night on the waves! — and the moon is on high,
Hung, like a gem, on the brow of the sky,
Treading its depths in the power of her might,
And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light!
Look to the waters!— asleep on their breast,

Seems not the ship like an island of rest?

Bright and alone on the shadowy main,

Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain!
Who, as she smiles in the silvery light,

Spreading her wings on the bosom of night,
Alone on the deep, as the moon in the sky,
A phantom of beauty, could deem, with a sigh,
That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin,
And that souls that are smitten lie bursting within ?,---
Who, as he watches her silently gliding,

Remembers that wave after wave is dividing

Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever,
Hearts which are parted and broken forever?
Or deems that he watches, afloat on the wave,
The death-bed of hope, or the young spirit's grave?

'Tis thus with our life, while it passes along,
Like a vessel at sea, amid sunshine and song!
Gayly we glide, in the gaze of the world,
With streamers afloat, and with canvas unfurled ;
All gladness and glory to wandering eyes,
Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs.
Fading and false is the aspect it wears,

As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears;
And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know,
Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below;

Whilst the vessel drives on to that desolate shore,
Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and o'er
T. K. HERVEY.

The above extract is from a poet of the happiest descriptive powers. He has placed before us two pictures glowing with the colors of mindbeautiful pictures in which he has imbodied the material and the ideal. The first represents a sunrise on the ocean, with a ship gliding gallantly on, and seeming as if freighted with the bright visions of hope. Again, in the calm moonlight, the same ship, like a phantom of beauty, spreading her wings on the bosom of night, floats smoothly on the shadowy main, seeming as if freighted with happiness, and bound to the regions of bliss. But "souls that are smitten lie bursting within." In a beautiful and simple moral, like a dew-drop mirroring forth the universe, the poet has shown that such is life. With a few letters which the fingers of a child might write or blot, but which Time himself can never obliterate; with a few words, though breath when uttered, yet once uttered may never cease to be repeated; with these few words, arranged in the two following lines,

"And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know,

Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below,".

the poet has presented to our minds a scene of unrivalled accuracy and trut a scene which calls up all that memory can recollect, all that prescience can forebode -- a scene which suggests all that fancy can reach, all that imagination can conceive -a scene, in fine, which touches the heart, stirs thought from its depth, and rouses resolve into ardent, earnest, healthful, virtuous exercise

3. What the Teacher should be.

IN intellectual culture, it will be found, that the ripest knowledge is best qualified to instruct the most complete ignorance. It is a common mistake to suppose, that those who know little suffice to inform those who know less; that the master who is but a stage before the pupil can, as well as another, show him the way; nay, that there may even be an advantage in this near approach between the minds of teacher and of taught; since the recollection of recent difficulties, and the vividness of fresh acquisition, give to the one a more living interest in the progress of the other. Of all educational errors, this is one of the gravest.

The approximation required between the mind of teacher and of taught is not that of a common ignorance, but of mutual sympathy; not a partnership in narrowness of understanding, but that thorough insight of the one into the other, that orderly analysis of the tangled skein of thought, that patient and masterly skill in developing conception after conception, with a constant view to a remote result, which can only belong to comprehensive knowledge and prompt affections.

With whatever accuracy the recently initiated may give out his new stores, he will rigidly follow the precise method by which he made them his own; and will want that variety and fertility of resource, that command of the several paths of access to a truth, which are given by a thorough survey of the whole field on which he stands. The instructor needs to have a full perception, not merely of the internal contents, but also of the external relations of that which he unfolds;

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Approximation, approach or drawing near to any thing: ap, 10; ion, 96. - Sympathy, feeling with: sym, 55. — Partnership, union or joint participation, state of being associated: ship, 121. — Narrowness, want of extent or comprehension, state of being confined or contracted: ness, 113.— Analysis, separation into first elements: ana, 13. — Masterly, skilful, like or suitable to a master: ly, 110.- Comprehensive, having power to under stand many things at once or together: com, 20; ive, 103.- Perception, power of seeing through, of perceiving or observing: per, 41; ion, 96.

as the astronomer knows but little, if, ignorant of the place and laws of moon and sun, he has examined only their moun tains and their spots.

The sense of proportion between the different parts and stages of a subject, the appreciation of the size and value. of every step, the foresight of the direction and magnitude of the section that remains, are qualities so essential to the teacher, that without them all instruction is but an insult to the learner's understanding. And in virtue of these it is, that the most cultivated minds are usually the most patient, most clear, most rationally progressive; most studious of accuracy in details, because not impatiently shut up within them as absolutely limiting the view, but quietly contemplating them from without in their relation to the whole.

Neglect and depreciation of intellectual minutiæ are characteristics of the ill-informed; and where the granular parts of study are thrown away or loosely held, will be found no compact mass of knowledge, solid and clear as crystal, but a sandy accumulation, bound together by no cohesion, and transmitting no light. And above and beyond all the advantages which a higher culture gives in the mere system of communicating knowledge, must be placed that indefinable and mysterious power which a superior mind always puts forth upon an inferior-that living and life-giving action, by which the mental forces are strengthened and developed, and a spirit of intelligence is produced, far transcending in ex cellence the acquisition of any special ideas.

In the task of instruction, so lightly assumed, so unworthily esteemed, no amount of wisdom would be superfluous and lost; and even the child's elementary teaching would be best conducted, were it possible, by Omniscience itself. The

Depreciation, the act of bringing a thing down to a lower price, or undervaluing: de, 23; ion, 96. — Minutiæ, small particulars.— Granular, pertaining to small, compact particles: ar, 73. — Accumulation, one thing heaped upon another: ad, 10.— Transmitting, sending through: trans, 56. — Transcending, climbing beyond, surpassing: trans, 56. — Superfluous, full of, flowing over, more than enough: super, 53; ous, 119.

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