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cessful.

mean to say that there may not be literary men by Statements entitled to confidence have profession, who are under no necessity of devoting shown that a like proportion of young men, who themselves to manual labor, whose attention to the engage as clerks in some of our large cities, make duties of several learned professions creates a sort shipwreck of their moral characters. If this estiof necessity that they should be closeted students. mate should seem to exaggerate the truth,—yet Yet while certain professions may demand this ex-none will deny that facts would show a fearful apclusive devotion of time and talent, I say, the la-proximation to such a result. This is enough to borer possesses great advantages for vigorous men prove that the employments of agriculture and the tal action, and he should be a student as well as a mechanic arts serve to secure that quietude and workman in his trade or art. mental calmness favorable to successful effort. It is the wise saying of a wise man, that "the

Called by business into the shop of an engraver in New York, I found the artist with his appren-objection to gaming is that it circulates money tices earnestly occupied each at his plate, while one in the centre was reading aloud from a useful book. He told me this was his daily practice, and he found it beneficial in all respects. The practice of many mechanic arts will admit of the same plan of improvement. Moreover, all have their evenings, which must be spent somewhere and in something. Let them be diligently employed in gathering intellectual treasure, and the industrious mechanic will soon outstrip the slothful student in mental acquisition.

The efforts at improvement now suggested will require some resolution, labor and perseverance. But these are requisites for success in every thing. With them, any man of common capacity may be intellectual and learned. Let it be tried. Let one year of assiduous application be pursued on the plan proposed, and the result of the experiment will astonish the most sceptical. "Nulla dies sine linea"-let no day pass without one line at least and the year will present an aggregate of acquisition worthy of record.

without any intermediate labor or industry." This brings to view a comprehensive principle. Generally, the same objection obtains to the gaming, or circulation of money in any other way, without intermediate labor or industry. Speculation may be successful; but the money acquired not being the result of labor, will be less valuable either to the possessor or the public. And whenever by fraud, or even by bargain, money is wrung from the necessities of another without a proper equivalent, the moral sense of the oppressing party receives a shock, and he loses with himself more in character than he gains in capital. Labor without profit is often better than profit without labor. Labor is suited to the moral as well as the physical constitution of man: it is necessary to his moral as well as to his physical health. Without it, he will either be a savage despising accumulation, or a sucker on the vitals of society, fattening on the life-blood of others, and dull with plethora, while the victims of his sordid gluttony are fainting with famine.

That man is wise, and regards the physical conI have said that time is money. It is so when stitution of his nature, who earns his own bread by industriously employed. This money is power in his own labor,-personal, if not manual labor. He the hands of the possessor. It is certainly true, is unwise and disregards all experience and all histhat a state of independence is secured with more tory, who trains his sons to rely on the results of certainty, and more generally by farmers and me- his labors or estate, which may be soon squandered chanics, than by any other class of men. If spec- in the practice of idle and expensive habits, and ulators, who often lose all, do sometimes secure leave them doubly poor by contrast and a false edgreat fortunes, the patient and industrious mechan-ucation. Revelation in God's word accords with ic, in all cases, has the moral certainty of that revelation in his works. Both appoint and require which is much better-a competency-all he can that man shall procure his bread by the sweat of enjoy, an independence which raises him above his brow. The man who contradicts either fights want, while he occupies a place below envy. He against God, and finds his proper punishment has the prayer of Agur-" neither poverty nor promptly rendered. Lassitude, ennui, and insanity, riches"—the golden mean-the temperate zone of or dissipation follow in rapid succession. social life exempt from burning heat and frigid cold

We think, naturally and of necessity. It is sur

of the extremes on either side. The hard-working prising how much may be acquired by directing man, therefore, who is studious and industrious, ar- this thought to some concentrated, consecutive rives with all moral certainty at the two great sour-course of investigation. If we attempt one thing ces and means of power-knowledge and wealth. at a time, and always something, by single steps Franklin practised on these principles, and he rose we pass over distances and surmount difficulties from a poor printer's boy to be one of the most which might well frighten bold men in the aglearned, and personally, one of the most powerful gregate. The fable of the snail that outstripped The natural occupations of men are the the hare is full of sound instruction. It is not by safest both to pecuniary profits and to morals. Of fitful leaps, but by steady, persevering labor that all who engage in this country in mercantile profits, men are commonly made great either in wealth or it is estimated that seven-eighths at least are unsuc- 'intellect. The mechanic that is always in his shop

of men.

will be easily found by those who are seeking | labor creditable to the man who engages in it. This his services. If he is always at work, he will be we do, when the laborer is made a scholar and enabled to do much, to be punctual, to fulfil his promises, if they are judiciously made. Punctual labor will make punctual customers, and this man will grow rich, and in due time, when age requires rest, he will be able to be at leisure, leaving his business to others, while those of his age who were at leisure while he was busy, will be struggling still even under the infirmities of age for their daily bread.

secures to himself the influence and respect which knowledge commands for the man who has it. This we do, too, when the laborer is cheered on to perseverance in his efforts and attains to the wealth which is the proper result of industry.

Such men have been honored, are honored, must be honored, wherever they are found. Knowledge is power. The man who has it, other things being equal, will exert a controlling influence. He triA great mistake often made and fraught with the umphs over matter. He controls the masses of worst consequences is, that labor is discreditable to men-their minds as well as their physical force. a gentleman. Nature says-there can truly be no This it is which gives the great superiority to some gentleman without it. It is necessary to the ex-men over others. They are sought out, and will istence-certainly to the perfection of the race in occupy the high places of society. When these their proper relations here. It is necessary to powers are directed to the melioration of human wealth, comfort and happiness. It is the appoint- woes, those who possess and exert them become, ment of God himself. God made man a laborer. and are called, benefactors. Their names are inIn every good sense of the term, which connects scribed on the catalogue of honored and honorable him with the interest of his race and the proper men. They do their part, and do much to render destiny of man; He made the laborer a gentle- labor reputable. Let the mass of working men man and the gentleman a laborer. It has been said then do their duty, and things will find their proper the devil made the gentleman, and this very vulgar level. The order of nature will be restored in the expression is certainly graphic in truth whenever estimate men place on the different professions and any man is tempted to believe that it is discredita- occupations of life. Among the nobility of nature, ble to work for a living, and that a gentleman is the farmer will hold the pre-eminence, first among made by idleness. The term properly expresses equals. The mechanic next-and we shall all a character, not a form or profession. He is a come in, not far behind, indeed, but yet behind in true gentleman, whose heart dictates a propriety our respective professions, forming concentric cirof conduct in all the relations of life, and whose cles: the one great human family around the soil, outward acts are the comely expressions of correct whence we came, and from which we derive our principles. subsistence while we live, and to which we are destined to return and repose in death.

Our day is distinguished for expedients to improve and advance the human race. This is well. The effort is a noble one-worthy of man; and that is saying enough. But, like the efforts of the day on all other subjects, there is a strong tendency to fanaticism in the labors of those who seek human perfectability by ordinary agencies and factitious schemes. Here, too, men seek for the philosopher's stone, some catholicon, a panacea which is to work miracles, some high-pressure expedient for making gentlemen without labor, and securing the avails of labor without industry. After men are starved into the truth, they will find that nature cannot be well forced to make gentlemen. They must come in the regular way. As well might the doll-maker attempt to compete with nature. may make a pretty thing. But he produces no living, breathing, thinking, useful being. So fashion may make a gentleman out of any dandy that walks on two feet instead of four-but it is a thing only fit to show in the windows of a toy shop, and had much better he left there for fools to gaze at, than be put into the hands of a young lady. confer a real benefit, do something effectually to elevate the race, and make advances to the only real philosopher's stone which turns every thing it touches into gold, whenever we do any thing to render'

He

We

THE GOLDEN-RING.

From the German of Bettine Brentano's.

WUNDERHORN.

I mow by the Necker.
And mow by the Rhine:
I have a heart's treasure,
Yet lonely repine.

What helps me the grass, if
The scythe's edge be worn?
What helps me a treasure,
If from me he's gone?

But since I must reap

By the Necker and Rhine,
I'll throw to the waters
This gold-ring of mine.

It rolls down the Necker,
It rolls down the Rhine;
It shall swim on there under
And sink in the brine.

But a fish, as it swimmeth,
Has swallowed the ring,
They serve up the fish

At the board of the king.

Spoke out the king thereat;
-Whose ring shall this be?
Then out spoke my Treasure;
-The ring is for me.

My heart's dearest riding

Both up hill and down,
Quick brought my ring back from
The court and the town.

Thou may'st reap, (he said,) darling,
By Necker or Rhine,
But throw not henceforward
Thy ring in the brine.

South Carolina.

J. M. LEGARE.

events, through all its meanderings, in every age of the world; in every clime, under every diversity of circumstance, and no period can be found in which, under whatever disadvantages, and in conflict with whatever formidable obstacles, unappalled and incorruptible witnesses to the supremacy of man's moral nature, have not stood forth. Beyond and above all, the DEITY himself has spoken through the medium of revelation: and the "great central truths" of humanity—the dictates of duty-the obligations and responsibilities of man-and his destiny in time and eternity-have been proclaimed "in letters of living light" by Him who "spake as never man spake," and who vindicated his authority as a Messenger from Heaven, by the clearest testimonies of power. Eighteen centuries and a half have rolled onwards: that religion which Jesus taught has found its way to the highest seats of human civilization, and professedly lies at the foundation of every enlightened government its rewards and penalties-its doctrines and requisitions, have diffused themselves far and wide over the entire surface of society; and yet the worst deprav

THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE.*ity prevails. Injustice stalks abroad in the noon

It requires but a cursory observation of the past history and existing condition of mankind to become sensible of the widely extended prevalence, in this our world, of a principle of evil-which, call it by what name you will-account for its origin as you may-limit if you please its dominion and establish the impossibility of its ultimate triumph, by considerations drawn from the most infallible oracles of truth,-exerts, nevertheless, and has ever exerted a potent, not to say a paramount influence over the happiness of our race. How to counteract this influence and to substitute in its place the general, if not universal prevalence of truth, how to circumscribe within the narrowest boundaries the operation of the vicious propensities of our nature, and correspondingly to expand the sphere of the nobler and purer affections-these are problems which in every age, and in none, perhaps, more than in the present, have tasked the intellects of the wisest and best of mankind. As cend the stream of history to its very source, and amid the darkness of primeval ignorance, we shall still recognize the presence, and to some extent, the influence of "preachers of righteousness"vindicators of integrity, expounders of wisdom, blameless in their lives, uncontaminated by surrounding corruption, fearless and triumphant in their deaths. Trace the complicated current of human

day sun of Christianity. Man oppresses his brother man deprives him by force or by fraud of his most valued rights: crosses his path at every turn: violates the sanctuary of his home: blasts his reputation: crushes the fairest flowers of hope and affection which sprung up around his path-and systematically prepares pit falls for his destruction, even while professing for him the highest regard. War consumes its thousands, and the unrestrained indulgence of human passion, in channels unsanctioned even by public opinion, its tens of thousands. Want and wretchedness abound; while millions are expended in the establishment and support of armies, the administration of civil and criminal tribunals, and the maintenance of institutions rendered necessary solely by the prevalence of ignorance and vice.

While, however, indulging in this melancholy retrospect of the past-this gloomy survey of the present-we are by no means at liberty to infer that no progress has been made in substantial wisdom and virtue during the ages which have elapsed since the commencement of the historical era. On the other hand, it is manifest that a very considerable advancement has taken place in the general standard of intelligence and moral worth : and that while individual instances of mental and moral superiority in the earliest periods of humanity have not been surpassed in later times, there has obviously been a gradual diffusion of the elements of

Eleventh Annual Report of the Secretry of the Mas. true greatness and happiness throughout the inter

sachusetts Board of Education. Boston: 1848.

vening period, so that at the present day knowledge

The Radix: or Virginia Public School Advocate. By of every description, is far more general, and a

S. A. Jewett. Richmond: 1848.

high moral culture far more frequently attained than

Southern Journal of Education. Knoxville and Rich- in any preceding age. Those impatient spirits

mond: 1848.

who, taking counsel from the clearness of their own

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conceptions of truth, and of the vast capabilities of within the half century now about to close, immeathe race, are unable to repress their wonder that surably exceeds that of the entire period which sixty centuries of progress under the guidance of preceded it; and that so durably have the strong teachers sent from Heaven, have scarcely imbued foundations of the intellectual fabric been laid, and mankind with the elementary principles of sound so rich and abundant are the materials already colwisdom, will do well to advert, in their turn, to the lected for the superstructure, a vigorous exertion open volume of nature and providence; and from of the will alone is required to enable even the a consideration of those immense periods of past present generation to erect for themselves “monutime which modern science is but beginning to de- mentum ære perennius”—a monument of enduring velop in the annals of the physical universe, con- grandeur. This may be done by the practical refirm the instructive lesson that with God "a thou-alization of a few simple, but pregnant principles, sand years are but as one day"-and that, in com- and the sacrifice upon the altar of the common good parison with eternity, no lapse of time measured by of a few inveterate and hurtful prejudices, the slow our material standards, can enter as an element growth of centuries of ignorance and error. Place into the estimate of human progress. In the Christianity in its primal simplicity on the throne vast heavens," says Prof. Nichols, "as well as which legitimately belongs to it—let individuals in among phenomena around us, all things are in a every walk of life-let communities and nations state of change and progress. There too, on the faithfully carry out the injunction of the law of sky, in splendid hieroglyphics, the truth is inscri- love as inscribed upon the records of our common bed, that the grandest forms of present being, are faith and written upon the heart of every respononly germs, swelling and bursting with a life to come. sible being-let liberal provision be made in every And if the universal fabric is thus fixed and consti- community, for the early and systematic education tuted, can we imagine that aught which it contains of every child-let our institutions of government is unupheld by the same preserving law-that anni- be so modelled as to give effect to the wishes of hilation is a possibility, real or virtual-the stop- an intelligent constituency, and so administered as page of the career of any advancing being, while to secure to all the unrestricted enjoyment of those hospitable infinitude remains? What, indeed, is the numerical value of the few thousand years during which man and all his works have found their place on this earth of ours, when compared with the myriads, not of years and centuries merely, but of ages, with which modern astronomical and geological researches have rendered us familiar? In reference to periods such as these, the collective annals of humanity dwindle to the merest point. "Fifty lives succeeding each other, and of a length To expect, however, such a state of things, in to which individuals often attain, would reach back- the existing condition of the world: to suppose wards beyond the recorded commencement of the that the complicated interests which are interwo race" but who shall undertake to limit, even in ven in the institutions and laws of the present time imagination, the continuance of its generations, or can, by any process, be at once dissevered and ento fix the precise place, in the order of Providence, grafted upon a new, even though a more thrif which it now occupies, or may at any preceding ty stock-would be Utopian in the extreme. No period have fulfilled in the great scheme of things? such supposition is indulged the idea is both imThere is another consideration intimately con- practicable and absurd. The reformation of socie nected with this view of the subject, and which ty is not the task of a single day, or a single year: may reasonably justify our most confident anticipa- scarcely even of a single generation under the haptions with reference to the future. Nearly all piest auspices. Its foundation may, however, be those great discoveries and inventions which have laid, and its ultimate completion ensured, beyond given such an impulse to our modern civilization, the contingency of fortune, by the co-operation and in many important respects essentially modified the highest minds of the existing generation in an our entire mental and moral philosophy, are due to ENLIGHTENED AND COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM OF Popthe last three centuries; and if we go no farther ULAR EDUCATION. It admits of no dispute-the back than the middle of the eighteenth, or even the proposition has been established by the highest tescommencement of the nineteenth century, we shall timony, and is, indeed, susceptible of the clearest find ample evidence that the progress of improve- demonstration-that it is within the legitimate provment has increased in a rapidly accumulating ratio, ince of the government of every civilized State, within the brief compass of comparatively a very to make such provision for the education of all its few years. Indeed, it would be far from presump-citizens, as shall secure to each the full develop tuous to assert that the progress actually attained, ment and the right direction of the faculties of our in the civilized nations of Europe and America, common humanity--as shall enable each to fulfil

means of prosperity which a bounteous Providence confers-let these simple principles but pervade the minds of the representatives of our modern civilization, and he who distrusts the certain consequences, in the complete renovation of humanity, must impugn the clearest principles of enlightened reason and doubt the uniform results of God's Prov idence as taught in His word and manifested in the whole order of human events.

of

intelligently every duty of life--to shun its vices would be irreclaimable nuisances to society, and and snares-to circumscribe within the smallest possible compass its inevitable ills, physical and moral, and to transmit to coming generations, the fairest inheritance of virtuous dispositions, frugal habits, unsullied integrity, and noble aspirations, which the tide of time has yet wafted upon the expanded shores of Christian civilization.

that ninety-five per cent. would be supporters of the moral welfare of the community.

"With teachers properly trained in Normal Schools, and with such a popular disposition towards schools as wise legislation might effect, nineteen-twentieths of the immoralities which afflict society might, I verily believe, be kept under hatches, or eradicated from the soil of our social institutions." I believe there would not be more

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Mr. PAGE, the late distinguished Principal of the New York State Normal School, whose lamented death, in the midst of his usefulness and the meridian of his fame, recently occurred, says:

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The practicability of such a result has been placed in strong relief by the last Annual Report of the able Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, the Hon. Horace Mann, at present the than one-half of one per cent. of the children eduRepresentative in Congress from the eighth Con-cated, on whom a wise judge would be 'compelled gressional district of that State, and the successor to pronounce the doom of hopelessness and irreof John Quincy Adams. Having addressed a cir- claimability."" cular to the most experienced teachers, residing in several States of the Union, and in different localities, east, west, north and south, with the view of eliciting reliable information on this interesting point, he puts the inquiry, What percentage, or Could I be connected with a school furnished proportion in every hundred pupils, if placed under with all the appliances you name; where all the their tuition, or, that of the ablest and best teach children should be constant attendants upon my iners which can be procured, for a period of twelve struction for a succession of years; where all my years, between the ages of four and sixteen for ten fellow teachers should be such as you suppose, and months of each year, during the ordinary school where all the favorable influences described in your hours, can be so trained as to become "useful and circular should surround me and cheer me, even exemplary men, honest dealers, conscientious ju- with my moderate abilities as a teacher, I should rors, true witnesses, incorruptible voters or magis scarcely expect, after the first generation of chiltrates, good parents, good neighbors, good mem-dren submitted to the experiment, to fail, in a sinbers of society? In other words, with our present gle case, to secure the results you have named." knowledge of the art and science of education, "I should not forgive myself, nor think myself and with such new fruit of experience as time may longer fit to be a teacher, if, with all the aids and be expected to bear, what proportion or percentage influences you have supposed, I should fail, in one of all children must be pronounced irreclaimable and case in a hundred, to rear up children who, when irredeemable, notwithstanding the most vigorous they should become men, would be 'honest dealeducational efforts which in the present state of so- ers, conscientious jurors, true witnesses, incorruptciety can be put forth in their behalf; what pro-ible voters or magistrates, good parents, good neighportion or percentage must become drunkards, pro- bors, good members of society;' or, as you express fane swearers, detractors, vagabonds, rioters, cheats, it in another place, who would be 'temperate, inthieves, aggressors upon the rights of property, of dustrious, frugal, conscientious in all their dealings, persons, of reputation or of life; or, in a single prompt to pity and instruct ignorance, instead of phrase, must be guilty of such omissions of right, ridiculing it and taking advantage of it, publicand commissions of wrong, that it would have been spirited, philanthropic, and observers of all things better for the community had they never been sacred;' and, negatively, who would not be drunkborn?" To these inquiries, the persons addressed ards, profane swearers, detractors, vagabonds, riwithout concert with each other, concur substanti- oters, cheats, thieves, aggressors upon the rights ally in opinion that from ninety-five to ninety-nine of property, of persons, of reputation or of life, or in every hundred of the children thus educated guilty of such omissions of right and commissions may be rendered virtuous and intelligent men and of wrong that it would be better for the community women; and this too of the first generation sub- had they never been born." " mitted to the experiment.

The venerable Dr. John H. Griscom, of New Jersey, a man of irreproachable integrity, and of the utmost weight of character, after an experience of more than forty years as a teacher, and after having had thousands of children under his care,

says:

Mr. SOLOMON ADAMS, of Boston, a gentleman who has been engaged in the profession of teaching for nearly a quarter of a century, and during that time has had under his charge nearly two thousand youth of both sexes, says:

"Permit me to say that, in very many cases, after laboring long with individuals almost against "My belief is that, under the condition mention- hope, and sometimes in a manner too which I can ed in the question, not more than two per cent. [of now see was not always wise, I have never had a the first generation submitted to the experiment,] case which has not resulted in some good degree

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