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CONCLUDING REMARKS.

If what has been said be true, the imagination holds a rank scarcely second to any in the mental constitution. To give it early development and a right direction is, then, of the highest importance. Being an original element of the mind, it is of course possessed by all men in a normal state, although, like other powers, in an unequal degree. After all, the inequality may be less due to nature than to culture. Thousands of men of the most brilliant natural genius have lived and died unknown. Others, who have become distinguished, would have lived and died equally unknown, but for some incident which early called forth their powers and enkindled their enthusiasm. Among the means most favorable to the development and right direction of imagination are the following:

1. EARLY ATTENTION TO NATURAL SCENERY. Let the child be particularly induced to notice whatever is beautiful, grand, and sublime in nature. Let him be taught to gaze admiringly upon the glories of the setting sun, as it sinks to rest, curtained with its gorgeous drapery of gilded clouds; let him often turn his eyes upward to the splendors of the evening sky, study the mysterious face of that moon, and hold high converse with the stars; let him look off upon the wide ocean, listen to the roar of its billows, and watch its majestic movements; let him be taught to notice the sublime and the beautiful in lofty mountains, majestic rivers, and pleasing landscapes; in a word, let his attention be so directed to whatever is great, sublime, awful, mysterious, delightful, as to excite his admiration, call up his sense of the marvellous, and enkindle his enthusiasm. Let all these things be so associated with their Maker as to lead the enraptured mind "from nature up to nature's God," and whatever of imagination there is will hardly fail to develop itself and to take a religious direction.

2. READING BOOKS HIGHLY IMAGINATIVE. This has been anticipated. Abraham Cowley, a writer scarcely inferior to any that Great Britain has ever produced, for

beauty and brilliancy of imagination, thus describes the manner in which he came to be what he was: "I remember when I began to read, and take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlor-I know not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read any other book but of devotion-but there was wont to lie Spenser's works; this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave houses which I found every where there, (though my understanding had little to do with all this,) and, by degrees, with the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers; so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old. With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the university."

Similar effects are often produced upon the young mind by reading Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. In the lives of Dante, Milton, Shakspeare, Scott, and other men of remarkable genius, we find that the early reading of books vividly impressed with the author's imagination had much to do with developing and directing their own.

3. Hearing and TELLING GOOD STORIES. Imagination early excites a love of stories; this love should not be rebuked on the one hand, nor suffered to run wild on the other. It should be both encouraged and guided. It is a pity that the delicate task of shaping the imagination of children should be so often committed to ignorant and unprincipled nurses. The stories which children hear and are allowed to tell should be conceived by minds of the highest order of imagination, chaste, refined, sparkling, they should be in the main true to nature, should have completeness and finish, should tend to invigorate all the mental powers, and should always have a good moral. Such stories can hardly fail to assist in developing and rightly directing the youthful imagination.

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Some object to all story telling; but this is an untenable position. What they object to meets a want in the mental constitution. Unless children are allowed to hear and repeat good stories, they will hear and repeat bad ones. Objecting to good stories, as a means of intel

* Compend of English Literature, by C. D. Cleveland, p. 228.

lectual and moral culture, is at variance with the usage of the Bible and with the laws of mind.

4. SOLITARY MUSING. Imagination is usually most active when we are alone. Youth in the country have, in this respect, some advantage over those in the bustle of large cities. They are more alone with nature. Their attention is less engrossed with the mere passing fashion and parade of life. Rambling alone in the fields and groves, sitting in solitude under the big elm or by the side of the stream, eyeing the ever-changing phases of the earth and the heavens, without a human being present to interrupt the thoughts, can hardly fail to set the imagination at work.

Not that it is well to be always alone with nature. This would ultimately tend to mental derangement. It would exalt the imaginative at the expense of the social; it would tend to misanthropy. In his true state, man yearns for some friend to participate of his wonder and joy. Yet solitary musings, frequently practised, are of the greatest advantage. They are almost as essential to the growth of eminent literary genius as to the growth of rich spiritual piety. Without them, we as rarely find the one as the other.

5. FREQUENTLY PRACTISING IMAGINATIVE COMPOSITION. The effort to embody our conceptions, and give them a perinanent form, puts the mind in a state of prolonged tension, by which it rises to yet higher and fuller conceptions. When we think we have a full conception of an object or event, we often find, on attempting to describe it, that our conception of it is very imperfect. Writing helps the mind to fill up and perfect what it had begun to imagine.

Milton could never have drawn the full picture which he did, even in his own mind, without the aid of the pen. Mental conceptions soon vanish away, frequently leaving the mind much as they found it, unless reduced by the pen to a permanent form. They then become, as it were, the author's fixed capital, on which he can fall back, and of which he can take advantage, in making further acquisitions. It was thus that Bunyan went on, step after step, in that wonderful work which has rendered his fame immortal. He did not dream, when he

began to write, how much he was going to accomplish; but as he wrote, the dream went on. Sustained and animated by what he had done, his imagination wrought more and more, until at last the production surprised both himself and all his readers.

Let the pupil be put to writing descriptions, allegories, stories such as will task his invention to the utmost and keep his imagination on steady and prolonged duty; let him not be discouraged at failure, but be thereby only nerved to a firmer resolution to succeed; and he will at length have the satisfaction to find, not only that he can call the spirits from their mighty deep, but that they will come when he calls them! The most arduous and discouraging effort will result in the most triumphant and cheering success.

Let the imagination be at an early age thus called up and directed; let it be continuously nurtured and trained with the same diligence which we bestow upon the reasoning powers, and it will be redeemed from the inglorious rank so often assigned it; it will wholly cease to be what it now too often is -a means of debasing and vitiating the soul; and it will become eminently subservient, not only to literary and professional eminence, but to the most important of all interests the interests of sound morality and pure religion.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER IX.

Opening remarks? Illustrations of reciprocity of action? How does perverted imagination produce inordinate love of wealth? Love of power and fame? What is said of youth in cities? Vicious literature? Remarks on imagination rightly employed? How does it aid the Christian? What is said about discipline of the imagination? What is the great error? How should works of imagination be studied? Illustrate the two ways of studying and admiring works of imagination. Remarks? What is said of early attention to natural scenery? Of reading imaginative books! Of hearing and telling stories? Of solitary musing? Of practising im aginative composition? Final remarks?

CHAPTER X.

DREAMING.

DREAMING is a state of mind in which a part of its functions are suspended. Sleep composes the mind to rest. But this rest is not always perfect. The more restive of the mental faculties sometimes continue awake after the others are composed. In absolutely profound sleep, that is, a state in which all the mental faculties are entirely at rest, there is, of course, no dreaming.

The involuntary functions of the body, in sleep, continue their course much the same as when we are awake. The heart beats, the blood flows, the lungs play, the organs of digestion operate, all the involuntary functions go on, as at other times, although with somewhat relaxed energy. With these some of the mental faculties are more closely allied than with others, and hence they are less easily suspended by sleep.

MENTAL ACTIVITY MAY BE ENTIRELY SUSPENDED.

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Some suppose our mental activity is never entirely suspended, and that only memory is wanting, on waking from the profoundest sleep, to assure us that we have still been dreaming. But this supposition seems to be gratuitous. Our minds, in the present state, need repose, the more perfect the better, nor does it appear that all our mental powers do not more or less participate in it. Indeed, the relative time in which we dream is probably much less than is usually supposed. Our dreams, when in health, are mostly confined to a few moments after retiring, or,

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