seen how important it is to study character in the affair of education. We do it unconsciously. But after we have seen the characters - the natural characters-it is important not only to see them, but to preserve them. They are goods of a particular kind, committed to our care, and it behoves us not to mix them or confound them. There is a curious law in the Mosaic code, given by Jehovah himself, which forbids the Israelites from sowing their grounds with divers seeds; a second which forbids them to plough with an ox and ass together; and a third which forbids a man to wear a woman's apparel. These are trifles apparently, yet who can consider them to be such in reality, who believes them to be from the source whence they are said to come; for it is recorded that God spake them to Moses. Now we can see no very bad result from an ass ploughing with an ox, or a person sowing his ground with various seed, or a man wearing a woman's apparel. These are apparently trivial things when looked at with a superficial glance; yet who can doubt that God has signified by them his paternal regard for the preservation of all the just and established laws of his creation, so that nothing might be confounded together, in use or intent, in this majestic frame of Nature this world—this order here, as the Greeks beautifully called it; for in their language, world and order were expressed by one and the same word. I take it, then, that we are divinely commissioned to see that nothing is impaired, displaced, or confounded together, that is naturally good and created-and youthful minds are such. We must sow, then, every mind with its own unmixed and appropriate seed; and each sex must also be arrayed in its own garment. They talk the sheerest nonsense that ever was uttered who say that boys and girls should be educated alike. If they deserve a refutation, I would stop to refute them, but they do not.

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Let us hasten to the close of the subject. A teacher, then, knows the character of his pupils, and knows also his own. He does not seek to impress his own character on them, but truth and virtue instead. If he be an eager, rapid man, he does not strive to render all his pupils such, or esteem only those who are so; or if he be a cool, prudent, cautious man, he does not strive to render all his pupils cool, prudent, and cautious as himself; or, again, if he be a gentle, bland, courteous man, and if he sets about modelling all his pupils after his own fashion of politeness, he will lose his labour; for many mis-shapen, awkward youths, with all the apparent generosity and magnanimity of the elephant, have also much of its ungainly figure; they were, certainly, never intended to be thus polite, but to be the rough, unhewn stones, as it were, of the general human edifice; and truly, if they do not look as well, they serve as good a purpose in the building as others, perhaps, and variety is interesting. A teacher, then, who sets his heart upon bringing forth a polished courteous behaviour among all his students, is attempting to do something which Minerva will not consent to; and he is ignorant of, or has not thought about, the fixed, unalterable varieties of human character; when he reflects on this, he will change his course.

"The varying aspects of individual character, are also an important subject of study to a teacher, although I cannot now enter upon it. In general, however, there are certain remarkable unfoldings of character,

which take place at pretty regular intervals. You have a marked development about the seventh year, another at the tenth, and the most characteristic one about the age of fifteen or sixteen. It is then that sentiment and romance first begin to open the mind; this is the age tö commence the reading of poetry; the intellect of a youth will also begin, at this time, to put forth something peculiarly his own; before this, he only retailed you back the ideas he got from yourself; now his own reason buds and brings forth ;-crude fruit to be sure, but still such as tastes of the tree, and discovers something of its quality. This is, under every view, the most important point of life. I need not speak of the rudiments of that tender affection which also now begins to be visible. On the taint which may now be cast on that mind, may hang a world of misfortune, a life of sadness. The next grand development is about the age of twenty-one; then, the external mind is, as it were, full-blown. Whatever developments take place after this, are from the denial or reception of religious truths; for Science now resigns her charge to Religion.

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From the cradle to twenty-one, the opening of the mind is chiefly the work of science. Boys have no religious ideas—they have religious sentiment. I mean, they form no dogmas to themselves, they define not on the subject, they admit it but as a sentiment; their powers of definition are exerted on science; they have no aptitude for theological formulæ. Religion in a boy is a sentiment only, but yet a lovely one. A boy who has none of this sentiment has no refinement, he is essentially vulgar; you can teach him no poetry or prose of any valuable kind; his mind is rigid, and wants the truly human direction. It is essential, therefore, even in a literary point of view, that the religious sentiment should be infused into the mind of a boy. And it is best done in the domestic circle. A teacher cannot set about formally teaching religion; indeed, as respects boys at least, it is rather to be infused than taught; it is to grow with their growth, and to be interwoven with it, rather than be laid upon it. Accordingly, a youth should, if possible, be imbued with this feeling without his knowing that he is; but this end is defeated if he gets an idea that he knows more about such things than other people. I know of few things more offensive than young persons boasting and pleased with their superior religious acquirements. This is to teach them what, of all things, it is most becoming to be ignorant of, according to the precept, 'Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.' But enough on this subject.

"Let us recapitulate the views which have presented themselves to us. They are, that there are artificial and natural varieties of men— that it becomes a teacher to study them carefully, in order to conduct his task with a skilful hand; that above all it becomes him to have a liberal and enlarged mind, with no bigoted partialities for any one set of characters, but disposed to encourage all that are good, and to consider them as coördinate parts of human nature; the one not to be subjected to the other in ungrateful slavery, softly called the subordination of ranks, but all to be regarded as free to assert their rights, and maintain their honest claims to a just consideration.

"The teacher will then be preparing youths to act their various

appropriate parts fearlessly in this illustrious republic; and if they shall afterwards choose to wear collars, designating them the serfs of any one, and reject that noblest privilege of manhood, the right to the government of their own minds, they will not, at least, have to blame their teachers for having first imposed this ignoble lot upon them.

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What a grand field, not only for action, but even for philosophy, is constantly before us! There is no profession that can liberalize the mind so truly as that of teaching. It is a frequent mistake men fall into, when they become captivated and carried away with one idea. A whole age sometimes in a body go all this way,-they are borne off their feet by the popular current of some one rush of ideas. A teacher is proof against this infatuation, for he sees that men are not made for one exclusive bent of study or of action, and, therefore, it is madness to be carried on to it. Thus, in one age, we find the military profession every thing, and all other pursuits subordinate to this; in another, scholastic learning is all the rage, and all other employments of inferior importance. In this age, and in our country, we are all running to the mechanical sciences; art is every thing, literature is nothing, it is all ideal,-use is a term that cannot be applied to it; it is an appellation which belongs to the products of the mind. We thus become the fools of one opinion, and one idea, or if we admit more, they must be subordinated; we scarcely admit two ideas to be equally important, far less three or more. It is an admirable idea of a late French writer, that all error is exclusive truth, and that exclusive truth is error. It is a remark that cannot fail

to strike every one as just, the more he looks at human life; to this is owing that restless struggle for preeminence in all the various parts of society; each embodies one valuable idea; but humanity is not thus to be completed and rounded off; there must be many and coördinate ones, not less than subordinate.

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Gentlemen, let us rejoice in these occasions of mutual greetings and interchanges of sentiment. It is not necessary that ideas should be new to be interesting. Perhaps I have not advanced an idea that is really new to any of you; and I am sensible how imperfectly I have accomplished even that little which I proposed to myself; but if I shall have at all succeeded in drawing your attention to a subject interesting in itself, and so important to a teacher, as the study of character, I shall not fail of my reward; and I shall have the happiness of seeing talents every way superior to my own engaged in it, and capable of doing it ample justice."

MIND.

MIND! What a variety of feelings and ideas are embodied in that word! It takes in conscious being of every degree. It expresses every variety of human character. Wherever it exists, at its name we wander to it. It elevates our thoughts to heaven, and to Him who is above heaven; and leads us to reflect upon that glorious state of being

in which we shall pass our immortality. It not only gives an idea of affection, but also of action; not only of thought, but also of speech. When we say "mind," we think of the Creator as well as the created; and though it may appear a paradox to say, that mind is both creator and created, yet such is the fact; for in Deity it is the creator, but in man the created.

Notwithstanding this universal nature of mind-its presence above, below, around, and evidences of it everywhere,—there is but really little known of its true nature. With some it is but the result of bodily organization; with others, a refined material substance, of which we know nothing; with others, again, it is an ideal, unsubstantial, and scarcely imaginable something. Now, what can be more absurd than the supposition that it is the result of organized matter! If mind is the result of organized matter, then, organized matter is the cause of mind, and mind is the effect of organized matter, To show the fallacy of this notion, we only need to point out the glaring impossibility it involves. It supposes that the effect can be superior to its cause; a thing which every one can see is impossible. The mind is unquestionably superior to the body-superior in every thing; for it lives in a sphere above that of the body, and enjoys advantages which can never be predicated of the body. For, only suppose mind and body to set out upon a tour through the world; before the body had advanced a single step, mind would be home again,-yes, and relating all the wonders it had seen! And just think what bulky records the body would make of this same journey, and compare them with the portable and minute records which mind lays up in its interior chambers! Think also of the time that each would take in narrating what it had seen; what the body would take half a day to relate, mind could think over in half a minute! Remember, too, how old and decayed and decrepid the most refined bodily organization becomes in the course of seventy or eighty years; but it is not so with mind: it increases in vigour, and energy, and strength, up to the latest period of bodily life,-it neither becomes decayed nor decrepit; and if there is sometimes an appearance of both, it is but an appearance; the reality being, that the bodily organization has become impaired and worn out, and is, therefore, no longer a proper instrument through which a healthy mind can operate. Thus, while the body is decaying, the mind may be blooming with eternal adolescence; it lives amidst "the wreck of matter," and will live on for ever in immortal youth. Who, then, can doubt the superiority of mind over matter?

If, then, it is a fact that mind is so much superior to bodily organiza

tion, how comes it that, in this solitary instance, the effect is superior to the cause? According to our usual notions of cause and effect, we admit that cause is superior to effect,-in a similar way as the creator is superior to the created; but if mind is the result of bodily organization, it is not so! A moment's reflection, however, is sufficient to convince any candid person, that, from the very nature of things, an effect must be inferior to the cause. It is contrary to all propriety to suppose that a thing can communicate more than it possesses; and inasmuch as the all of the effect is derived from the cause, it follows that the effect cannot be superior to the cause; and, therefore, mind being superior to, cannot be the effect of bodily organization.

The very reverse is the truth. Bodily organization is the result of mind, and not vice versa. The mind acquires, or rather clothes itself with those bodily forms in the womb, adapts them to itself, and, as it were, makes them its servants; by which its spiritual affections and thoughts are made manifest in natural forms. There is nothing more evident than that bodily organization is under the dominion of mind; for no sooner is the mind affected, either by passion or anxiety, than a corresponding change is produced upon the body. Besides, we have daily evidence of the causative power of mind, and the passive character of material organisms, in that endless variety of artificial organization, called "machinery." The production of this is, in some respects, analogous to the production of the machinery of the human body. Mechanism, we can all see, is the result of mind, yet this is not more certain than that the body is the result of the same. The former is the effect of mind operating through the medium of our bodily organization, hence it comes before the evidences of the senses; the latter is the effect of the same, operating under the divine superintendence, before we come into conscious being.

Another supposition, scarcely less strange than the above, is that which declares mind to be an unorganized vapoury something! It is remarkable that the thought never occurred to those who advocate such an idea, that an unorganised thing is necessarily a dead thing! for life can only exist within forces adapted to receive it. Therefore, to say that mind is unorganized is to say that mind is lifeless; and this once admitted, what becomes of its immortality? We thus perceive, that there is more involved in this subject than is sometimes supposed. Perhaps, however, they who are advocates of this opinion are unconscious that it leads to any such conclusion; but whether they are aware of it or not, such is the fact. They may be also unaccustomed to push opinions to their consequences; but if opinions will not bear carrying out, they are