(Slightly abridged from an Address delivered before the College of Professional Teachers at Cincinnati, by the late ALEXANDER Kinmont, a.m.) *

"Ar the outset it is necessary to remark, that there appear to be two classes of character among men, which we shall beg leave to call the natural class and the artificial. Within the natural class we would comprehend all those characters that seem to have been originally intended by Nature herself, if we may so speak, for the purpose of perfecting the human species. Within this, the natural class, there may be found a vast variety of characters, which are apparently designed to improve and strengthen each other, by their own combinations in society. In this way provision is made that man may live in social being, for he is obliged to look for those talents in perfection in others, of which he himself possesses, as it were, but the rudiments. On the other hand, he himself is furnished with certain gifts and endowments in greater perfection than others; and thus he also, in his turn, is enabled to impart that aid which others need.

"This variety might have existed, and perhaps in greater strength and beauty, although man had never fallen. I recognise, then, a certain fixed diversity of character, grounded in nature itself, and independent, as it were, of any act of man; and this variety of character I term natural or created; for I am inclined to regard it as such, and consequently good, as we are not at liberty to call it anything else, since it comes from God. Of this natural class, then, we say nascitur non fit, it is created, not made.

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* The author of this eloquent address was removed from the present life a few years since, at a somewhat early period, to the great concern of many who regarded him as likely to prove eminently useful to the church and his country. His able work on The Natural History of Man" is in the hands of but few; and the observations here selected being of an original and interesting character, we have thought our readers would not be displeased at our having yielded to the urgent wish of a correspondent for their insertion.-EDITOR.

"Should this be so, we have a foundation for that variety of character on which a teacher has to fix his attention, not insignificant and obscure, but divine and illustrious. He who made man at first, has said, 'Let such and such classes, brotherhoods, varieties of men, exist; and let them be for the aid, and not for the injury of one another; let them help, but not oppress one another. I have placed them here on earth, not that they should claim superiority over one another, or dispute about preeminence, but that each one of them should choose to be the servant of the whole, and to employ his specific endowments for that end.'

"By the natural classes of character, I mean, as before observed, such as were created,-in other words, such as exist from the will of the Creator, which he has seen and sees to be good for the human race, and together perfective of its beauty, its strength, and its end. Under the order, then, of natural classes of character, I do not admit any blemish or imperfection whatever; they are good, superlatively good, for God made them. What then? Am I one of those who consider man's nature immaculate? Very far from it; but the stains, the ingrainings of sin, if you will call it such, I consider artificial, not natural. But are not such blemishes and imperfections on the minds of children, nay, very deeply in them from birth? Yes, but they are artificial still. Observe, I use the word 'artificial' in this sense:-they have been there, I mean, from acts of men; they are not the imprints of the finger of God there. Of course, no one believes that they are; and I am not now broaching any new theory; I only want to fix attention on the fact that the artificial acts of man's evil, in the first place deform his own constitution, mental and physical, and afterwards that constitution so deformed or debased is transmitted to his offspring. I believe that this is a fact on which all men are agreed; but theologians speak of it in one way, physiologists in another. The schoolmaster has nothing to do with either of them, but with the fact only; for it is a fact, an undoubted one, that all the perversions which have been wrought on our nature by our fathers, grandfathers, and remote progenitors, have fallen with an accumulated and deteriorating influence on all of us who are alive at this day. A strong and steady proof this is, that it requires nothing short of the omnipotence of the Divinity to redeem, to regenerate the human nature. And need we wonder, then, at the descent of God Himself on this errand, which our religion tells us of?

Observe, then, what I mean by artificial classes of character; it is those which are superinduced over the natural classes of character before spoken of, and that, either immediately through ourselves-our pernicious habits contracted by ourselves-or mediately, remotely, through others, our progenitors, who have been before us in the line of descent of our generation. And let it be observed, such artificial classes do not by any means improve or adorn those natural classes of character before alluded to; nay, but on the contrary, tend to disfigure and mar them sadly; and how, in consequence, has the gold of man's original character become dim, how has that most fine gold been changed? Gentlemen, the language of natural facts, and the language of Christianity, issue both in one meaning, one expression, and tell the same sad tale,

"I said that it was important for teachers to distinguish what was natural, and what was artificial in human character; and in the sense in which I used the words, you will agree with me that it is best for the natural class to remain-it is the stamp and the individuality of that human being; but the artificial, that is, what the theologian would perhaps call the sinful, this it is the business of education to remove,education in its most extensive sense; the care of the good teacher in the first place and in the dawn of life; the reason of the man himself afterwards, when he has reached maturity; and with reason, that better light which supplies even reason's feeble glimmerings; and that better light, we all know whence it is.

"In the study, then, of character, in connection with education, the road becomes plain. We are to take care to separate and distinguish between the works of God and the works of man, between the original and the superinduced, between the natural and the artificial. The former is good, and deserves preservation, the latter is not so, and has to be removed. But how must this be done? Here lies all the difficulty. The artificial part, so far as it is laid on by one generation, is easily removed, especially while the individual is young; but so much of it as has been cast on the character as an heirloom, this can only be softened, bent out of the way a little by education; it cannot be altogether removed. But on this point I shall say more hereafter.

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I wish now to speak more particularly of the care which is necessary while you are removing the artificial part, that you hurt not the natural; the two are so entangled together, that I confess this is sometimes impossible. Yet as every pupil has a natural character, that character ought to remain; if it be a gentle and sweet character, for example, you must not impose a new one upon it; you must not smother up or overlay it with your own character, if your own should happen to be different. Or again, if a character be naturally of a strong and vigorous cast, let it alone; if it be not of God it will come to nought, but if it be, look well to it that you be not convicted of fighting against God. In the whole of this delicate affair, the first great error to be avoided is, an unconscious endeavour to urge our own character on our pupils. This must never be. Attach your pupils to God, and to one another, but never to yourself; if there is any attachment this way, let it be to the truths you teach them, and the instructions you deliver; they will respect you, and that is enough. It sounds wonderfully sentimental, to be sure, that such and such a teacher's pupils are much attached to him; but seek not to incur such attachment; I mean, beware of stamping your own individuality on your school. Call forth the individuality of every pupil, as much as possible, but keep your own in the back ground. This, I confess, is difficult to do, but it will be done when truth becomes every thing to us, and ourselves nothing. At all events, by infringing on this grand principle, by obtruding ourselves purposely on the minds of learners, instead of subduing our own individuality, and, as it were, assuming theirs-much evil is done. A person becomes the model of a neighbourhood, instead of a divine embodied principle being such.

"These remarks apply not only to schools, but to the whole of society. It is to this cause that religious sects sometimes owe their origin-the

predominance of one class of minds. Under its influence, the grave and the gay, the sprightly and the melancholy, all become sober and rigid alike. The character may be a good one, but not the only one which society was intended to wear, and it unjustly excludes every other. It is from a similar cause that whole neighbourhoods and cities often adopt one character; it is the stamp of one or two resembling minds, which has been impressed upon them-impressed so strongly at first, as not to be afterwards effaced. The society has an orderly appearance, and seems to be perfect, but it is far from being so; for it is engrossed with one idea, and will admit of no other. It is in consequence of having no fixed character of this sort that Cincinnati has become so dear to all the lovers of freedom, and not only this city, but the West generally; there is, as yet, no fixed character impressed upon it; and long may it enjoy so glorious a privilege! While it retains it, it will become the favourite residence of all those who delight to see human nature expand itself, and every class and brotherhood of the species unfold the qualities which are peculiar to them-to be consorted together, and blended in harmony, till the whole body of humanity exhibits that form, not unworthy to be accounted an image and likeness of the Eternal, which it was designed originally to be. For mankind are constituted so variously-the more perfectly to represent an image of the infinity of the Creator-that each individual mind might reflect a new aspect of the divine perfections. But this end is defeated when all minds are led to copy after one standard, and that standard, too, not the divine standard, which is presented to us for our imitation, but one of our own setting up, of our own choice; such a standard, for example, of manners and behaviour, of taste and civil refinement, as every city and petty state is so fond of setting up for itself. Some one man, perhaps, who, as a part, an individual part of the whole, is highly deserving of respect, becomes the model of a whole community, we shall suppose him an amiable man,— we do not think of a vicious standard, but of an exclusive one. Those of the same natural temper as himself, at first gather around him; from the common likeness that belongs to all of them, they insensibly fall into one another's manners and ways of thinking; and it is all very well if it stops here, for no harm results from it; but if they also happen to be men of influence in society, from wealth, learning, or other external recommendations, gradually an universal standard of propriety and decorum is established, and the natural character of a few resembling individuals constitute it. All at length are obliged to fall in with it, whether naturally or not; it gains the sanction of general observance, and that is enough; and so, in copying this one exclusive model, at first accidentally produced, and unthinkingly followed, all natural inclinations of temper, genius, and feeling, are at length confounded. Then comes, to rivet the chains of their mental bondage, the ready and the flattering panegyric; nothing can be more agreeable than the manners of the people, nothing more fascinating; they are very scrupulous in the choice of their society, they tolerate no rudeness among them; it is not easy for a stranger to be introduced among them; but the reason is, the very perfection of this model of their local character, which it is difficult for a stranger to hit off precisely, and, if he does not, he is excluded. I do