from it. His mind, like his body, instinctively takes all the exercise that is good for it. It is matter of notoriety, that children who are obliged by poverty to do a great deal of hard work daily-as in the English factories very generally come to be dwarfish and short-lived men. Now, a child's mind is no more capable than his body, of severe or continuous application; and if subjected to it, he is abused.

'When I was a child,' saith a wise and sainted scholar (whom I know you reverence, madam, notwithstanding that petulant little obiter dictum that fell from you, awhile ago, anent his metaphysics)'when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.' Do not attempt to improve on this good pattern, by requiring your child to put away childish things before nature has made him capable of any other; and to learn our hard lessons, instead of her easy and well-remembered ones,

That little limber, laughing elf,

Dancing, singing, to itself;

With fairy eyes, and red, round cheeks,
That ever finds and never seeks;

for heaven's sake metamorphose it not into

'the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school!'

O leave him to play, and grow, and be happy; and in the lustre of his joyous innocence, remind men of the kingdom of heaven! Let him play out childhood's sweet little prelude to the busy drama of life entirely ad libitum· his exits and his entrances at his own good pleasure. Let him spend the live-long day, if he pleases, sub Dio; let him bring home every night a face embrowned by Phoebus, or reddened by Aquilo; let him play with Amphytrite, in her element, and chase the Nymphs on their mountains; let him rival the Fawns in archness, and the Satyrs in merriment - and I care not if this be, at present, his only acquaintance with classic Mythology. The more potent he is among his play-fellows the more inveterate his vagrancy the more unextinguishable his laughter- the stronger his preference for the outside of a house over the inside the more

invincible his aversion to long sessions and unintelligible lectures the more hopeful you may think him. And boon Nature, be sure, whose impulses he is obeying whose laws he is living by - whose child he is will impel his little mind to all the action that will benefit it to all, that consists with its tender immaturity, and rapid growth; teaching him, by other inspiration than the birch's terrors, or the medal's lure, to

'find tongues in trees,

Books in the running brooks, sermons in stones,
And good in every thing :'

Just the sermons, the books, and the tongues for his edification. From them, better than from all the first-lessons, or infant-school-philosophical-apparatus, ever devised, he will learn that habit of observa

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tion and recollection that prompt self-command, and readiness of resource- that aptitude and availableness of knowledge, which, in their ultimate and combined results, make up the efficient man of

sense.

After that period of early childhood which has been indicated, our young master may take a slate, and a writing-book, and geography, into his hands, and spend an hour or two daily over them, within doors. Coming to these studies with an organization healthfully expanding, and with a spirit, not broken and subdued by confinement, but

'Whole as the marble - founded as the rock
As broad and general as the casing air,'

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he will learn more in six months, than his rival, the infant-school prisoner, has acquired in as many years.

Advancing into the estate of youth, and hobbledehoydom, of course he becomes capable, gradually, of a greater and greater amount of application the caution, for the conduct of that application, still being, not to let it defeat its own object, by causing the neglect, or taking the place, of physical exercises, or by producing more action. and excitement of the brain, than can be balanced by impartial exercise of the whole system.

Under this caution, what should be the first and great aim of juvenile studies? Acquisition? No. Development.

What is education? Can you define that noun, Sir? Nay, be not affronted. You, then, at least, fair lady, who have not, I hope, devoted your blooming years to lexicons, may not object to be informed, or reminded, that educatio is Latin for leading forth. To educate a pupil, is to lead forth - bring out, or develope, the principles and faculties of his nature. Another may help him do this, but cannot do it for him. A wise teacher attempts nothing more than to supply the means and aids; to inspirit and direct his pupil in the great work of self-education. God has set this example to all subordinate teachers.

He does not make us wise and good, but invites and enables us to make ourselves so. He does not educate (otherwise than cooperatively) his most blessed child. -the saint, the poet, or the sage. He but opens before them the awful and shining pages of existence; and they read, therein, aright. The moments and ages atoms and worlds of creation, make the words and sentences of that infinite book - dead letters to us, and worthless, if we do not study out their meaning - which is Truth—the divine aliment, the vital breath, of the Soul.

Life has been said to be a series of schools, concluding with a great university the world. This last is the best; for its President is Omniscient. Let the subordinate ones make it their model. A young student's memory, if forcibly crowded with more facts than it can associate, and more, therefore, than it can permanently retain, is strained and weakened. If exercised naturally and pleasantly, according to its capacity, and in company with his understanding-he being skilfully moved and occasioned so to use it - it is developed, or educated. The object is, not to fill his memory, but to strengthen and enlarge it - to furnish it with bonds of associa

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tion, topics for reflection, data for judgment. The opinions of others should be submitted to him, to excite activity of comparison in forming his own. Illustrious examples should be holden before him, to mature his appreciation of the greatness they illustrate. should be taught him, not as the end, but as a mode, of investigation. So that, by incessant reference of doctrine and example to his own experience and instincts, however crude, he may gradually develope, out of the mental elements of his nature, his own conscience and reason - the only reason or conscience for him.

Those of his faculties which (from any of the mischiefs, whether immediate, or accumulated by inheritance, that damage nature's germs) appear least forward, will be specially cherished, in order to a complete and symmetrical development. But there will be no attempt to foist the extrinsic into the place of the intrinsic; to patch (O absurdity!) the vital and expanding growth; to supply, by adventitious substitutes, the imputed deficiencies of nature. A character, or a mind, so formed, cannot endure; its materials cannot assimilate ; it must ever want unity and truth. What is thus done, must be undone. Foreign accretions, by which it has been vainly thought to fill up nature's imperfect work, must be thrown off, however cemented by time, before that mysterious work can complete itself, from its own self-generated and immortal substance. If aided, in so doing, by true education an honest furtherance of nature - the mind will expand constantly toward its own proper perfection; and however little of it may, at any stage, have been developed, that little will be sound, native, and indestructible.

W. H. S.

THE LOVER'S LAMENT.

AN EXTRACT FROM THE 'FAIRY COURT', A MANUSCRIPT POEM.

I SOUGHT the room of one who kept
His vigils late, while others slept;

Who trimmed his midnight lamp, alone
Mid books of science, round him strown;
And as I gazed, unseen myself,
(For viewless is each fairy elf,)
And saw his high and haughty brow
Pensive, and pale, and clouded now,
His cheeks from which the bloom had fled,
I deemed him one of those who tread
The golden paths that lead to fame,
And waste a life to win a name.

Silent and lonely sate he there,

That youth with sad and thoughtful air;
And while I marvelled what might be
The subject of his reverie,

Wisdom, or wealth- ambition high
A world's applause, or woman's eye-
A single tear in silence slid

From underneath the downcast lid;
A single sigh the stillness broke,
And from his trance the student woke,
Raised mournfully his drooping head,
And murm'ring to himself, he said:

'I will not of my lot complain,

Though sad may seem the destiny
To feel that nature's wide domain
Contains no single charm for me.

'The summer fields, they say, are fair,
The birds are singing on the hill,
And gentle breezes wander there,
Stirring the graceful foliage, still.

'The sunlight streaming through the trees
Illumes, they say, my fav'rite grot,
And fragrance freights the evening breeze,
That whispers round that fairy spot.

"They say, th' horizon's western bound

Still wears the hues that erst it wore,
When sunset gilds the clouds around-

But these are charms to me no more!

'Some vestige does my memory bear
Of scenes of beauty and of bliss,
Else have I dreamed of worlds, that wear
Such charms as they portray of this.

"Tis over now! Her cherished lore
Can Fancy lend no more to me,
Which threw its magic mantle o'er
Each sparkling fount and shady tree.

'No more for me the wild bird sings,

While list'ning 'neath the branching oak;
For me no more each flower that springs,
May be the home of fairy folk.

'The setting sun, the rising moon,
The rainbow with its varied hue,
Spanning the flowery fields of June,
Perchance are fair to others' view;

'But eyes that drink the lightning's ray,
Of future vision are bereft,
And thus, one glory passed away,
Benighted hath my bosom left.

'I tread life's weary waste alone,
With grief too deep for tear or sigh;
And all unpitied and unknown,
Indulge no hope-except To DIE!'

NATHAN HALE.

M.

'FALLING, ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage; wheresoever among men a heart shall be found, that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit.' WEBSTER.

to contem

THERE is a mournful pleasure in turning aside from the active duties of life in forgetting its busy hum and bustle plate the lives of those who, having acted the parts assigned them usefully and honorably to themselves and their native land, have passed to the undiscovered country.'

In examples worthy ever to be imitated and extolled, no land surpasses that of our birth. Without seeking, then, in foreign climes, or reviewing foreign history, for fit subjects of eulogy, we need only revert to a period distinguished in our own, to find some of the noblest monuments of bravery, heroism, and virtue. The pages of Grecian or Roman history furnish us with no brighter examples of pure and elevated patriotism, of disinterested ambition, of devoted attachment to country and her best interests, than is to be found in that hour which tried men's souls' - the revolution of '76.

Upward of fifty years have now elapsed, since the American army, in the person of NATHAN HALE, lost one of its fairest flowers. For more than half a century, he has lain in his cold grave, neglected and forgotten; and while the names of many who have only served their country, have been trumpeted by the breath of Fame throughout the world, the name of him who died in its defence, has been suffered to fade away from the memories of his countrymen.

Born on the eve of that awful tempest which shook the old world to its very centre, he arrived at manhood just as its gathering clouds began to concentrate in their wrath. It was at this period in our country's history, that he closed his academic course; and having graduated at a sister institution, it is from this hour we may date both his public and military career.