to survey? Or was there any national reason which should make them the strong men they showed themselves? All these causes had doubtless much to do with the great excellence of their education; but, we hold, cannot account for all the differences which so distinctively mark the scholars of that glorious age and those of modern, and especially of American growth. England and Germany-for the best patterns of manly and thorough scholarship came from them-were at that time in a peculiar position. Europe was just coming forth from the middle ages, as from a land of darkness, with her clumsy absurdities and dusky notions clinging fast to her. Knowledge, of course, was in its infancy, and had gradually worked its way from the sequestered haunts of busy, bungling monks, among the Men of all ranks and common grades were beginning to study and think. All this we know had much to do with their eagerness for truth, while their scanty helps in its attainment may somewhat account for their thoroughness and simplicity. masses. It is a great thing to be on the confines of so significant an age as were those middle centuries. Man becomes infinitely curious and earnest, and his progress incessant and rapid as it is certain. But if they had a great Past to inspire them with energy, speaking from the Roman and Grecian annals with the deep-toned wisdom of two thousand years, surely we have a greater. Never, we believe, was there so splendid a Past, so powerful to command a nation's steady retrospect. Never was there a more glorious career than that of America, at once to make a people sober and glad. If it was the simple study of the Past which then wrought in men's minds so manly and befitting an education, we, of this age, have all that they could look back upon, together with an additional and intermediate period, filled with as great men and more important events than distinguished any former era. Besides, we have now many more tools for the getting of knowledge, the gathered stock of many generations. The highways of thought are becoming wide and open, and have many travelers upon them. The swift advance of science and the widereaching arts are making avenues, not merely for the merchandise of goods, but the interchange of sentiments and theories; swelling the heave-o of the sailor, the whistle of the car and the cotton-mill, as well as that significant hum of knowledge, ascending daily from the lisping lip of childhood or the manlier tongue of youth, all over our land, the delightful presage of an intelligent posterity. Improvement is ever on the wing for a farther advance. Invention, busy and quick-eyed, treadeth nimbly on the heels of ingenuity. Intelligence standeth on the thick-peopled shores of Europe and America, eagerly waiting to pass each to the sister hemisphere, a steady and resistless intermarch of thought, and solemn as the ceaseless flow of the gray midland ocean, which is made its vast vehicle, or the fated rush of spirits, which, as Grecian stories say, 66 were borne, in silence lone, Along the lake of Acheron." All these are our express benefits, in which we stand their betters. There must, then, have been something other than circumstances which made those of olden time the scholars they were. It was not from without-it was not in instruments. It was from within, in the manner of study. In a word, at that time men thought; and this we believe to be the only adequate and proper reason. The world of men and things around had to them a meaning. They were hemmed in by realities. The tangible and visible, which are to us dull forms, lifeless and witless, were in their clear view the simple and pleasant signs of inward and blessed spiritualities. The universe became fervid and glorious with thought, and they were held bound in secret pleasures, which the gross dull-eyed world knew not of. Hence the strength and nimbleness of their powers, the evenness of their minds, and the graciousness of their natures. Seeing things as they were, they had no heart towards improprieties and that monstrous one-sidedness which so disfigures the intellect, and marks an unhealthy soul. We But we have few specimens of this growth, and this firm, even texture of mental being. Now-a-days we do anything but think. read, we hear, we learn, but we do not reflect. We cram our heads with reviews and our memories with facts, but never go to the originals of the one, or dream of applying the other. We mingle with men, yet know them not; we look at things, but see them not. We are busy, no one busyer than the yankee, yet not steady. We hold to the opinions of our fathers and friends, as so many sacred and certain traditions; but we neither examine those, nor form any of our own. In a word, we are in haste, not in earnest. We have, in the character of our people and the peculiarities of our situation, the best elements of the Scholar-enterprise, penetration, and a ready, sleepless ingenuity, which cannot be outwitted-qualities which will make scientific enterprises rapid and effective, like our warfare. We have within ourselves as vast resources in the mental as in the physical world— powers and intellectual prowess; while in those grand or gentle objects of nature, which furnish the strongest symbols of thought,-our old mountains, our primal forests, our rivers and lakes, with a reach and swell like the sea, we have materials for the most splendid and valuable productions of Genius, in Poetry, Philosophy, or Art. one thing we lack-a want which sets us down as below the average of Scholars, in the true notion of the term-a patient-thoroughness in searching the reasons and relations of things. We must be seekers before we can be knowers. Let us awake from our sluggishness and imbecility. Let us pour the gathered energies of our natures upon the truths which concern our being, till we shall have cast off the charge of hollowness and fearfulness in study, and wrought a National Scholarship, which shall make us in science what we are in commerce; so that the nations shall not only respect our flag, which casts a shadow on every sea, but our books, which shall be read in every tongue; and instead of compelling us to visit the old world as the metropolis of knowledge, shall draw all people to the shrine of the new. EARNWALL. VOL. XIII. LIFE-ITS SHADES AND LIGHTS. "A VALE of tears!" Fit name for such a world! To grief and flee away-temptations rush Rolls o'er us, with its dark and sullen waves. Which gather round the mind and shroud it thick With gloom? Who has not worn the saddened brow And can we e'er forget the lonely hours, But is our home 33 Of all our joyous smiles and ardent hopes, To far outweigh the ills of years. And how Exalted, yea, and how unspeakable, The pure delight it gives, to wipe the tear The sad, the broken heart-administer But oh! the height of bliss, Of earthly bliss, is what he feels who lives Not for himself, but for his brother man. How enviable his lot! And if it leads Him far away to other climes, as oft It does, unfriended and alone, to toil And labor there-'tis this that solaces His care-worn breast, that cheers his lonely hours, The cold damp ground, the downy bed-the dews હું Broad canopy, a safe and sure retreat From many a pitiless storm. These then are joys Which we all have or can taste. Therefore, Has more of bitter than of sweet. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN MIND. In the great struggle between the Roman and the Barbarian powers, near the commencement of the Christian era, the Anglo-Saxon race makes its first appearance. Though it was then weak, in comparison with the Huns and Vandals, who swept, like a deluge, through southern Europe, prostrating everywhere in their course its civilization, since that time it has moved on steadily to conquest and to empire, until there is no rival of its greatness. The settlement of America forms an epoch in the progress of this race. It was here placed in new conditions, a new energy was infused into its spirit, a new path was struck out by its genius; and while its developments are still truly Anglo-Saxon, they are also distinct, and characterize a new order of mind. We shall sketch the progress of the Anglo-Saxon race, as it is seen in our own country. National development, it must be remembered, is in obedience to certain principles of human nature. While it is admitted that progress is a law of intellect, whether individual, national or moral; it must be seen that its order is always from the physical to the spiritual. The woodman and the mechanic are pioneers of the artist and the scholar. American mind, noble indeed in the commencement of its career, ever active, ever earnest, cannot be expected to present a full development, until time is allowed for the operation of these universal principles. Our history opens with a few small colonies scattered along the Atlantic coast. Though weak, yet they dare, with a true courage, conceive the idea of subduing a continent over which nature has forever held supreme dominion. True to their wants, to Anglo-Saxon enterprise, to religion, they struggled with their condition, till the ruggedness of nature yields to their industry, and the red man flies before them towards the setting sun. And while their enterprise at home is thus successful, abroad it has penetrated every ocean and sea, in spite of tropical heat or polar cold, and returns laden with the riches of every clime. These colonies, thus nurtured by necessity, swelled into states, based upon constitutions developed within themselves by the collision of free, active mind |