The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862

Such are the views of one who seems to know what a real Southern-sympathizing secessionist is made of. Let it not be forgotten that there are thousands of native Tennesseeans, as of other borderers of intelligence, character, and influence, who have offered to raise regiments to fight for the Union; and this fact is urged by the doughface democrats as a reason for increased leniency to traitors. We confess we do not see what connection exists between the two. If these loyal borderers are sincere in their professions, they have certainly no sympathy for the wretches around them, who visit with death or pillage every friend of the Union. But it is idle to argue with traitors. Either we are at war, or we are not; and if the history of the past eighteen months has not taught the country the folly of procrastinating, nothing will do it. 'When you feel the knife in your heart, then wish that you had fought!'

THE EDUCATION TO BE

II

A right intellectual education presupposes three essential features: the selection of the most suitable subjects for study; the proper presentation of these, in the order of their dependence, and in view of the gradual growth of the pupil's powers of comprehension; and, not less important than either of these, the finding out and following of the best method and order of presenting the truths belonging to each subject to be studied. These are the problems with which, as something apart from Metaphysics or Logic, the possible but yet unachieved pedagogical science has to deal. To the first of these questions, What shall we teach? or, as he phrases it, 'What knowledge is of most worth?' Mr. Spencer (presuming the child already supplied with his bare implements, reading, spelling, and penmanship) is led, after a long discussion, to conclude that 'the uniform reply is, Science.' The 'counts' on which he bases this verdict, are, the purposes of self-preservation; the gaining of a livelihood; the due discharge of parental functions; qualification for political responsibilities; the production and enjoyment of art; and discipline, whether intellectual, moral, or religious. Taken at his own showing, Mr. Spencer seems to contemplate, as his model of an educated man, a prodigiously capable and efficient mute. But can he deny that the ability to express what one may know, and in speech, as well as in production, is at once the final proof, and in a very real sense the indispensable consummation of such knowing? Language is the counterpart and complement of Science. The two are but two sides, and either separately an incomplete one, of one thing; that one thing we may name definite and practical knowledge; and it is the only sort of knowledge that has real value. Language is yet larger than all the sciences proper which it embodies, namely, those clustering about Philology, Grammar, and Rhetoric. Of these, all deal with words, or those larger words—sentences; but under these forms they deal, in reality, with the objective world as perceived or apprehended by us, and as named and uttered in accordance with subjective aptitudes and laws. In language, then, there stands revealed, in the degree in which we can ascend to it, all that is yet known of the external world, and all that has yet evolved itself of the human mind. Can we decry the study of that which, whether as articulate breath, or through a symbolism of visible forms, mirrors to us at once all of nature and all of humanity? But if we yield this claim in behalf of language, noting meanwhile that the mathematics are already well represented in our courses of instruction, then much of Mr. Spencer's eloquent appeal is simply wasted by misdirection. All that he had really to claim is, that a disproportionate time is now surrendered to the studies of the symbols, as such, and too often to characteristics of them not yet brought in any way into scientific coördination, nor of a kind having practical or peculiarly disciplinary value. If Mr. Spencer had insisted on a more just division of the school studies between the mathematical, physical, biological, and linguistic sciences, he would have struck a chord yielding no uncertain sound, and one finding response in a multitude of advanced and liberal minds. If he had gone yet deeper, and disclosed to his readers the fact that the fundamental need is, not that we study what in the more restricted sense is known as Science, but that we begin to study all proper and profitable subjects, as we now do hardly any of them, in the true scientific spirit and method, he would not merely seem to have said, but would have succeeded in saying, something of the deepest and most pressing import to all educators.

The volume of republished papers from Mr. Barnard's able Journal of Education—the first of a series of five under the general title of 'Papers for the Teacher'—will afford to those desirous of investigating the second of the problems above proposed, some useful material and hints. Especially will this be true, we think, of the first series of articles, by Mr. William Russell, on the 'Cultivation of the Perceptive, Expressive, and Reflective Faculties;' and of the second, by Rev. Dr. Hill, now President of Antioch College, upon the 'True Order of Studies.' In the outset of his first essay, (which appeared in March, 1859,) Dr. Hill takes it 'for granted [postulating, we think, a pretty large ground, and one that analysis and proof would better have befitted] that there is a rational order of development in the course of the sciences, and that it ought to be followed in common education.' The order he finds is that of five great studies, Mathesis, [mathematics;] Physics, or Natural History; History; Psychology; and Theology. 'We also take it for granted,' he continues, 'that there is a natural order of development in the human powers, and that studies should be so arranged as to develop the powers in this order.' Here two very difficult problems are undertaken—the hierarchy of the sciences, and the analysis of the intellect—and though we seem to find in the elucidation of the subject traces of that 'harmony of results of the two lines of inquiry,' on which the author relies as one source of confirmation of the results themselves, yet we can not admit that the solutions given us remove all, nor even all the main difficulties of the case. While we regard the mathematics, physics, psychology, and theology as quite well individualized and distinct lines of scientific research, we can not help feeling that the day has hardly come for embracing physiology under either physics or psychology; the forming of the bile and the growing and waste of brain are yet, to our apprehension, too far removed from the gravitation of planets or the oxidation of phosphorus, on the one hand, as they are from the scintillations of wit or the severe march of reason on the other, for ready affiliation with either. We question decidedly whether Theology proper can, at the most, be more than a very restricted subject; and quite as decidedly whether the heterogeneous matters grouped under History, namely, Agriculture, Trade, Manufactures, the Fine Arts, Language, Education, Politics, and Political Economy, are or can be shown to be linked by any principle of essential unity. Most of these have their historical side; but their unhistorical and scientific side most interests the great body of learners. And this latter aspect of some of them, Education and Politics especially, belongs after, not before Psychology. Then, the great fact of expression—Language—has not adequate justice done it by the position it is here placed in. Want of space is the least among our reasons for forbearing to attempt here a classification of the sciences—a work which Ramus, D'Alembert, Stewart, Bentham, and Ampère successively essayed and left unfinished. But the principle that the faculties in their order are called out by the branches named in their order, is quite given up as the writer proceeds, and distinctly so in his Tabular View of the studies adapted to successive ages. In actual life, usually the first set teaching the infant receives is in language; and even though it previously is and should be getting its ideas of forms, colors, and other qualities, in the concrete, yet it remains far from true that we should 'pay our earliest attention to the development of the child's power to grasp the truths of space and time.' Dr. Hill has, however, taken in these papers a step in a needful direction; and perhaps the best we could at first expect, are hints and an approximation toward a much desired result.

We may fairly assume that Mr. Willson's answer to the question, What to teach? is in some good degree embodied in his elaborate series of 'School and Family Readers,' of which the first six of the eight contemplated volumes have already appeared. These Readers aim to replace in a good degree the more purely literary materials of most of their predecessors, with a somewhat systematic and complete view of the more generally useful branches of human knowledge. They begin, where the child is sure to be interested, with studies of animals, illustrated with good and often spirited drawings, and proceed through Physiology, Botany, Architecture, Physical Geography, Chemistry, etc., up at last, as is promised, to Mental and Moral Philosophy, Natural Theology, Rhetoric, Criticism, Logic, the Fine Arts, including that one of those arts, as we presume we may class it, with which pupils of the rural schools will have best cause to become acquainted, namely, Gardening! Readers on this plan have long been known in the schools of Prussia and Holland, and are even lately well received in England, in the form of Mr. Constable's popular series; though apparently, when finished, the American series will be more full and complete in topics and treatment of them than any preceding one. Of course, restricted space, and the range of maturity of talents addressed, compel the presentation in simplified form of scarcely more than 'a little learning' under the several heads; and the compiler sensibly tells us his aim is not to give a full exposition of any theme, but rather, 'to present a pleasing introduction to science.' We may grant, in the outset, that most pupils will really comprehend, in and through the reading of it, but a modicum of all the high and large fields of knowledge here intimated to them; but who that can now look on his school-days as in the past, does not remember how many grandiose sentences he was then called on to utter in cadence duly swelling or pathetic, but of the meaning of which he had not the most distant approach to a true comprehension? It was ours once to be of a class whose enunciative powers were disciplined by repeated goings 'through' of the 'Old English Reader,' and well do we remember how the accidental omission of the full pause after 'shows' in the quotation ending the piece entitled 'Excellency of the Holy Scriptures,' caused a certain teacher to understand(!) and direct us to read the whole sentence thus: 'Compared, indeed, with this, all other moral and theological wisdom

'Loses, discountenanced, and like folly shows' BEATTIE.'

Now, it is true, the whole sentence, in its best state, would have shown to our green understandings like enough to 'folly,' if we had once made the effort to find meaning of any sort in it; nor can it be considered the most profitable use of school time, thus to 'like folly show' to unknit juvenile brains the abstract and high thought of mature and great minds, who uttered them with no foolishness or frivolity in their intentions! We see reasons to expect substantial advantages from Mr. Willson's books; and we believe teachers will appreciate and use them. We could wish they had not gone so far to mechanicalize the pupil's enunciation; by too freely introducing throughout the points of inflection; but it is safe to predict that most pupils will take up with interest the simplified readings in science; that they will comprehend and remember a useful portion of what they read; that the lessons will afford both them and the teachers points of suggestion from which the mind can profitably be led out to other knowledge and its connections; and that they who go through the series can at least leave school with some more distinct ideas as to what the fields of human knowledge are, and what they embrace, than was ever possible under the régime of merely fine writing, of pathetic, poetic, and generally miscellaneous selections.

The educational interest that grew up in our country between the years 1810 and 1828, about the year 1835 gave place to a stagnation that has marked nearly the whole of the period intervening between the last-named and the present date. In the year 1858, the New-York Teacher was made the first medium of some thoughts in substance agreeing with those set forth in the earlier part of this paper, claiming the indispensableness to true education of a more true and liberal work on the part of the learner's intellectual faculties, and of a more true and logical consecution than has yet been attained, and one corresponding to the natural order of the intellectual operations, in the books and lessons through which the usual school studies are to be mastered. 'Make'—said the first of the articles setting forth this thought—'the [form of the] facts and principles of any branch of study as simple as you choose, and unless the order of their presentation be natural—be that order, from observation to laws and causes, in which the mind naturally moves, whenever it moves surely and successfully—the child, except in the rare case of prodigies that find a pleasure in unraveling complexity, will still turn from the book with loathing. He will do so because he must. It is not in his nature to violate his nature for the sake of acquiring knowledge, however great the incentives or threatenings attending the process.' 'The child's mind … with reference to all unacquired knowledge … stands in precisely the attitude of the experimenters and discoverers of riper years. It is to come to results not only previously unknown, but not even conceived of. Because their nature and faculties are identical, the law of their intellectual action must be the same.' 'Study is research.' In subsequent articles, it was claimed that the law here indicated is for intellectual education, the one true and comprehensive law; and it was expressed more fully in the words: 'All true study is investigation; all true learning is discovery.'

We say, now, that when the first of these articles appeared, the leading thought it contained, namely, that our pupils can and should learn by a process of re-discovery, in the subjects they pursue, had not in distinct nor in substantial statement in any way appeared in the educational treatises or journals; and further, that it was not, so far as their uttered or published expressions show, previously occupying the attention of teachers or of educational writers, nor was it the subject or substance of remarks, speeches, or debates, in the meetings of Teachers' Associations. We say further, and because history and justice require it, that in our country, especially in the educational movements in the State of New-York, and in the several national associations of educators, a marked change and revolution in the course of much of the thought and discussion touching matters of education has, since the year 1858, become apparent, and that to the most casual participant or observer, and in the precise direction in which the thought above referred to points. The essential issue itself—the practicability and desirableness of casting our studies into the form of courses of re-discovery is somewhat distantly and delicately approached, incorporated into speeches by an allusion or in the way of apercû, or thrown out as a suggestion of a partial or auxiliary method with the younger learners, all which is of a fashion highly patronizing to the thought, spite of the scruples about confessing who was the suggester of it. But other questions, which spring up in the train of this, which by themselves had received attention long since, but had been mainly dropped and unheard of among us during the past twenty-five years, have come again into full and unconcealed prominence. Such are the questions about the natural order of appearance of the faculties in childhood, as to what are the elementary faculties of the mind, as to the adaptation of the kinds and order of studies to these, etc. And thus, all at once, is disclosed that Education itself, which many had thought quite a 'finished' thing, well and happily disposed of, or at least so far perfected as to leave no work further save upon the veriest outskirts of details, is in truth a giant superstructure with foundations in sand, or so almost visibly lacking underneath it, that it threatens to fall. For, in the name of the simplest of all common sense, how are we to educate to the best, not yet knowing—and that is now acknowledged—what are the FACULTIES of the very minds we are dealing with, nor what are the PROCESSES by which those minds begin and keep up their advance in knowledge? So, also, those who in the most charitable mood could see in education only something too hum-drum and narrow for their better fancies, find it now rising and expanding into a new and large field for intellectual effort, full of interesting problems, and fraught with realizations as yet undreamed of.

It may be said, that the young mind had always learned what it did learn, by discoveries; we answer, our methods and our books have not in any sufficient degree recognized the fact, provided for it, nor taken advantage of it. It may be said, that writers had previously acknowledged that the mind learns well—some of them even, that it learns best—when it discovers: we answer, that nevertheless, no one had recorded it as a well-grounded, universal conclusion and positive law, that the mind only can learn, in all strictly scientific matters, as it discovers, and that hence, the canons of the method of discovery become rules for directing, in studies of this character, the education of the young. Aristotle and Bacon have recognized and enforced upon the adult mind its two master methods of advance by reasoning. But our children have their knowing also to attain to, their discoveries to make, their logic of proof, on occasions, to employ. Shall we lavish all the treasures of method on those who have passed the formative stage of mind, and acquired the bent of its activities? Rather, we think, the true intellectual method—combining both Baconian induction and Aristotelian deduction—yet waits to realize some of the best of the application and work for which its joint originators and their co-workers have been preparing it; and that perhaps one of the highest consummations of this one method of thought may yet appear in the carrying forward, with more of certainty, pleasure, and success in their attaining of knowledge, the lisping philosophers of our school-rooms and our firesides.

From one source, disconnected latterly from those to which I have thus far called attention, there has arisen a decidedly progressive movement in the direction of right teaching, and one that, at least in geographical studies, promises soon to result in a consummation of great importance. Though Pestalozzianism, as further developed by the Prussian educators and schools, has never yet realized the completely inductive and consecutive character here contended for, it has been tending in a degree toward such a result; and this is perhaps seen in the most marked way in the method of teaching geography developed by Humboldt and Ritter, and represented in this country by their distinguished pupil, Professor Guyot. This method subordinates political to physical geography, proceeding from facts to laws, and by setting out with the grand natural features of the globe, leads the learner to comprehend not only the existence, boundaries, capitals, and strength of nations, but the reasons why these have come to be what they are. As tending in the same true direction, we should not fail to mention also the faithfully-executed series of raised or embossed maps of the late Mr. Schroeter, presenting not only the profile but the comparative elevations of the land-surfaces or continents and islands, and, in detail, of the several political divisions of the globe, thus at once making the ocular study of geography real, and not as formerly, leaving the right conception of the land-surfaces to the pupil's unaided imagination.

Among the decisive and important steps marking the revival of educational interest among us, is that looking to the introduction into our primary schools of the simple lessons for what is called the 'education of the senses,' and what is in fact the solicitation of the perceptive faculties, and the storing of them, with their proper ideas, through the avenues of sense. When employed about observing or finding and naming the parts or qualities and uses of objects, as glass, leather, milk, wood, a tree, the human body, etc., this sort of teaching takes the name of 'Object Lessons;' when it rises to philosophizing in the more obvious and easy stages about natural phenomena, as rain, snow, etc., or about parts of the system of nature, as oceans, mountains, stars, etc., it is sometimes termed 'Lessons in Common Things.' In the year 1860, Mr. E.A. Sheldon, the enterprising superintendent of the schools of that city, first introduced with some degree of completeness and system, this sort of teaching into the primary schools of Oswego. In March, 1861, under the leadership also, as we infer, of their superintendent, Mr. William H. Wells, the Educational Board of the city of Chicago adopted a still more minutely systematized and more extensive course of instruction of this sort, arranged in ten successive grades, and intended to advance from the simple study of objects, forms, colors, etc., gradually to the prosecution of the regular and higher studies. The greater naturalness, life-likeness, and interest of this kind of mental occupation for young learners, over the old plan of restricting them mainly to the bare alphabet, with barren spelling, reading, definitions, and so on, is at once obvious in principle and confirmed by the facts; and for the younger classes—a stage of the utmost delicacy and importance to the future habits of the learner—the fruits must appear in increased readiness of thought and fullness of ideas, and in a preparation for more true and enlarged subsequent comprehension of the proper branches of study; provided, we must add, that these also, when reached, be taught by a method best suited to their subject-matter and to the higher range of mental activity required to deal with it. Whether, now, the object-lesson system and plan is the one competent to carry on the learner through those later studies, is another and larger question, and one to which we shall presently recur.

Under the recall of the minds of educators among us to fundamental principles of methods and tendencies in teaching, which we have pointed out, it was but natural to expect attempts to be made toward remedying the defects and supplying the needs that could not fail to be detected in our teaching processes. Naturally, too, such attempts would result in the bringing forward, sooner or later, of novelties in the topics and form of the school-books. What the pen—which, in the outset, proposed the necessity of molding the school-work into a course of re-discoveries of the scientific truths—should reasonably be expected to do toward supplying the want it had indicated; or what it may, in the interim, have actually accomplished toward furnishing the working implements requisite to realizing in practice the possible results foreshadowed by the best educational theories, it may be neither in place nor needful that we should here intimate. Sometimes, indeed, there is in our social movements evidence of a singular sort of intellectual catalysis; and a mute fact, so it be a fact, and even under enforced continuance of muteness, through influence of temporary and extraneous circumstances, may yet, like the innocent platinum in a mixture of certain gases, or the equally innocent yeast-plant vegetating in the 'lump' of dough, take effect in a variety of ways, as if by mere presence.

We shall remember how even Virgil had to write:

'Hos ego versiculos scripsi: tulit alter honores!'

And the veriest bumpkin knows the force of the adage about one's shaking the tree, for another to gather up the fruit. But Virgil was patient, and did well at the last; though the chronicles do not tell us how many pears ever came to the teeth of him that did the tree-shaking. At all events, it is satisfying to know that time spins a long yarn, and comes to the end of it leisurely and at his own wise motion!

The English object-lesson system being now fairly and successfully domesticated among us, and to such an extent as to call for the invitation and temporary residence among us, in the city of Oswego, of a distinguished lady-teacher from the English Training Schools, it is again but natural that the system should call forth books adapted to its purposes; and it was scarcely possible, under the circumstances we have now shown to exist, that such books should come forth without presenting a more conscious aim toward embodying something of the principle and order of discovery than has marked even their English prototypes. These anticipations we find exactly realized in the first book of the new pattern that has yet made its appearance—the 'Primary Object-Lessons' of Mr. Calkins. Of this book, issued June, 1861, the author thus states the motive: 'With an earnest desire to contribute something toward a general radical change in the system of primary education in this country—a change from the plan of exercising the memory chiefly to that of developing the observing powers—a change from an artificial to a natural plan, one in accordance with the philosophy of mind and its laws of development, the author commenced the following pages.'

Acknowledging his indebtedness to the manuals of Wilderspin, Stow, Currie, the Home and Colonial School Society, and other sources, the author tells us that the plan of developing the lessons 'corresponds more nearly to that given in Miss Mayo's works than to either of the other systems;' and we understand him to claim (and the feature is a valuable one) that in this book, which is not a text-book, but one of suggestive or pattern lessons for teachers, he directs the teacher to proceed less by telling the child what is before it and to be seen, and more by requiring the child to find for itself what is present. Again, an important circumstance, the purpose of the book does not terminate in describing right processes of teaching, but on the contrary, 'in telling what ought to be done, it proceeds to show how to do it by illustrative examples,' (sic.) Now, spite of some liberties with the President's English, which may properly be screened by the author's proviso that he does not seek 'to produce a faultless composition,' so much as to afford simple and clear examples for the teacher's use, we are compelled to inquire, especially as this is matter addressed to mature and not to immature minds, which it is the author really meant us to understand; that is, whether, in fact, the book 'proceeds to show how to do it by illustrative examples;' or whether, in reality, it does not aim to show by illustrative examples how to do it—that, namely, which ought to be done. If we still find Mr. Calkins's philosophy somewhat more faultless than his practice, perhaps that is but one of the necessary incidents of all human effort; and we can say with sincerity that, in some of its features, we believe this a book better adapted to its intended uses—the age it is designed to meet being that of the lowest classes in the primary schools, or say from four to seven or eight years—than any of its predecessors. It will not, we hope, therefore, be understood as in a captious spirit, that we take exception to certain details.

The author is clearly right in his principle that 'The chief object of primary education is the development of the faculties;' though doubtless it would have been better to say, to begin the development of the faculties; but then, he recognizes, as the faculties specially active in children, those of 'sensation, perception, observation, and simple memory,' adding, for mature years, those of 'abstraction, the higher powers of reason, imagination, philosophical memory, generalization,' etc. But that any one of all these is in the true psychological sense, a faculty—save, it may be, in the single instance of imagination—we shall decidedly question; and Mr. Calkins will see by the intent of his very lessons, that he does not contemplate any such thing as 'sensation' or 'observation,' as being a faculty: but, on the other hand, that he is so regarding certain individual powers of mind, by which we know in nature Color and Form and Number and Change and so on.

We must question whether 'in the natural order of the development of the human faculties, the mind of the child takes cognizance first of the forms of objects.' Form is a result of particular extensions: evidently, extension must be known before form can be. But again, visibly, form is revealed through kinds and degrees of light and shade; in one word, through color. Evidently, then, color also must be appreciated before visible form can be. But this 'natural order of the development of the human faculties,' is a seductive thing. In phrase, it is mellifluous; in idea, impressively philosophical. It would be well if this book, while cautiously applying developing processes to the little learner, were to dogmatise less to the teacher. But when the development-idea is carried into the titles of the sections, it becomes, we think, yet more questionable. Thus, a section is headed, 'To develop the idea of straight lines.' First, would not the idea of a straight line come nearer to the thing actually had in view? Again, 'To develop the idea of right, acute, and obtuse angles.' 'The idea,' taking in all these things, must be most mixed and multifarious; it could not be clear, though that is a quality mainly to be sought. Is not the intention rather, to develop ideas of the right, the acute, and the obtuse angle? Instances of this sort, which we can not understand otherwise than as showing a loose way of thinking, are numerous. But then, again, it is assumed that the lessons develop all the ideas successively discoursed about. Far otherwise, in fact. In many instances, of course, a sharper, better idea of the object or quality discussed will be elicited in the course of the lesson. This is, at best, only a sort of quasi-development, individualizing an idea by turning it on all sides, comparing with others, and sweeping away the rubbish that partly obscured it. In others of the topics, the learner has the ideas before we begin our developing operations. But the great misfortune of the usage of the term here is, that develop properly implies to unroll, uncover, or disclose something that is infolded, complicate, or hidden away; but mark, something that is always THERE before the developing begins, and that by it is only brought into light, freedom, or activity! Thus, we may develop faculties, for they were there before we began; but we simply can not develop objective ideas, such as this book deals with, but must impart them, or rather, give the mind the opportunity to get them. First, then, this term thus employed is needlessly pretentious; secondly, it is totally misapplied. Would it not help both teacher and pupil, then, if we were to leave this stilted form of expression, and set forth the actual thing the lessons undertake, by using such caption as for for example, To give the idea, of a triangle, or to insure, or to furnish the idea of a curve? We think the misnomer yet greater and worse, when we come to such captions as 'To develop the idea of God, as a kind Father;' especially when the amount of the development is this: 'Now, children, listen very attentively to what I say, and I will tell you about a Friend that you all have, one who is kind to all of you, one who loves you better than your father or your mother does,' and so on. All this, and what precedes and follows, is 'telling,' as the author acknowledges; of course, then, it is not developing. How is the child here made to find and know that it has such a Friend?—that this Friend is kind to all?—that this Friend loves it better than do parents, or, in fact, at all? This is the way the nursery develops this and kindred ideas, and if the child be yet too young for its own comprehension of the most obvious truths of Natural Theology, then better defer the subject, or at least cease to call the nursery method by too swelling a name!

As to arrangement of topics, though the geographical lessons properly come late, as they stand, the idea of place, as well as those of weight and size, all belong earlier than the positions they are found in; and number, later. Such mental anachronisms as talking of solids before the attempt has been made to impart or insure the idea of a solid, should, where practicable, be avoided; and more notably, such as bringing a subsequent and complex idea, like that of 'square measure,' before scarcely any one of the elementary ideas it involves, such as measure, standard, or even length or size, is presented. As to the substance of the teaching, we will indicate a few points that raise a question on perusal of them. What will the little learner gain, if the teacher follows the book in this instance? 'Where is the skin of the apple? On its surface.' ' This is in the lesson for 'developing the idea' of surface. When, by and by, the young mathematician gets the true idea of a surface, as extension in two dimensions only, hence, without thickness, then will follow this surprising result, that the whole thickness of the apple-skin is on—outside—the apple's surface, and hence, is nowhere: a singular converse of the teaching of those smart gentlemen who waste reams of good paper in establishing, to their own satisfaction, that even the mathematical surface itself has thickness! In the lesson on 'perpendicular and horizontal,' the definition of perpendicular is correct; but all the developing, before and after, unfortunately confounds the perpendicular with the vertical—a bad way toward future accuracy of thought, or toward making scientific ideas, as they should be, definite as well as practically useful. If we judge by the brevity and incompleteness of the lesson on 'Developing ideas of Drawing'(!), ideas of that particular 'stripe' must be scarce. The Object Lessons at the close of the book we find generally very good models of such exercises, clear and to the purpose. Once in a while there is a lapsus, as in this: The criterion of a liquid is presented as being in the circumstances that it does not 'hold together' when poured from a vessel, but 'forms drops.' Now, since it forms drops, it has cohesion, and the criterion is wrongly taken; In fact, the same thing appears in that the liquid, even in pouring out, does hold together in a stream, and a stream that experiments with liquid jets show it really requires considerable force to break up.

Finally, Mr. Calkins's book, in the bands of discerning and skillful teachers, can be made the instrument of a great deal of right and valuable discipline for primary classes; but without some guarding and help from the teacher's own thought, it will not always do the best work, nor in the best way. It is an approach to a good book for early mental development; but it is not the consummation to be desired. Many of its suggestions and patterns of lessons are excellent; but there is too large a lack of true consecution of topics, of accuracy of expression, and of really natural method of handling the subjects. We say this with no unkindly feeling toward the attempt or the author, but because, though no matter by how fortuitous circumstances, it comes to us as in this country the first effort toward a certain new style of books and subjects, and certain more rational teaching; and we hold it, as being the privilege of teachers whose time may be too much consumed in applying, to criticise minutely, as no less our right and duty, and that of every independent man, to recognize and point out wherein this new venture meets, or fails to meet, the new and positive demand of the pupils and the teachers in our time. If, in a degree, the working out shows defects such as we have named, is it not yet a question, whether we have in the book an illustration 'how this system of training may be applied to the entire course of common school education'?—to say nothing now of the question whether, even in its best form, it is a system that ought to be so applied.

After the author of a book for young learners is sure of the comprehensibility of his subjects, and the accuracy of his ideas and expressions of them, the highest need—and one the lack of which is fatal to true educative value—is that of a natural and true synthesis and consecution of the successive steps of fact and principle that are to be presented. We would not be understood that every successive lesson and every act of voluntary thinking must thus be consecutive: to say this, would be to confine the mind to one study, and to make us dread even relaxation, lest it break the precious and fragile chain of thought. Our growth in knowledge is not after that narrow pattern. We take food at one time, work at another, and sleep at a third: and so, the mind too has its variations of employment, and best grows by a like periodicity in them. This is our point—that it is a peculiarity and law of mind, growing out of the very nature of mind and of its knowings, that no truth or knowledge which is in its nature a consequent on some other truths or knowledge, can by any possibility be in reality attained by any mind until after that mind has first secured and rightly appreciated those antecedent truths or knowings. No later or more complex knowledge is ever comprehensible or acquirable, until after the elements of knowledge constituting or involved in it have first been definitely secured. To suppose otherwise, is precisely like supposing a vigorously nourishing foliage and head of a tree with neither roots nor stem under it; it is to suppose a majestic river, that had neither sufficient springs nor tributaries. Now, for the pupil, the text-book maker, the educator, no truth is more positive or profoundly important than this. He who fails of it, by just so much as he does so, fails to educate. Let the pupil, as he must, alternately study and not study—go even on the same day from one study to a second, though seldom to more than a third or fourth. By all this he need lose nothing; and he will tax and rest certain faculties in turn. But then, insist that each subject shall recur frequently enough to perpetuate a healthy activity and growth of the faculties it exercises, usually, daily for five days in a week, or every other day at farthest; that each shall recur at a stated period, so that a habit of mind running its daily, steady and productive round with the sun may be formed; and that in and along the material of every subject pursued, whether it be arithmetic, or grammar, or chemistry, or an ancient or modern language, the mind shall so be enabled to advance consecutively, clearly and firmly from step to step—from observation to law, from law to application, from analysis to broader generalization, and its application, and so on—that every new step shall just have been prepared for by the conceptions, the mental susceptibility and fibre, gotten during the preceding ones, and that thus, every new step shall be one forward upon new and yet sure ground, a source of intellectual delight, and a further intellectual gain and triumph. Need we say, this is the ideal? Practice must fall somewhat short of it; but Practice must first aim at it; and as yet she has scarcely conceived about the thing, or begun to attempt it. In truth, Practice is very busy, dashing on without a due amount of consideration, striving to project in young minds noble rivers of knowledge without their fountains; and building up therein grand trees of science, of which either the roots are wanting, or all parts come together too much in confusion.

First, then, we are not to make the presentation of any topic or lesson, even to the youngest learner, needlessly inconsecutive; but with the more advanced learners—with those in the academic and collegiate courses—we should insist on the display, and in so doing best insure the increase of the true robur of the intellect, by positive requirement that all the topics shall be developed logically; that sufficient facts shall come before all conclusions; and rigid, sharp, and satisfactory analysis before every generalization or other synthesis. So, the more advanced mind would learn induction, and logic, and method, by use of them upon all topics; it would know by experience their possibilities, requirements, and special advantages; and it would be able to recognize their principles, when formally studied, as but the reflex and expression of its own acquired habitudes. Such a mind, we may safely say, would be educated. But secondly, the foregoing considerations show that we are not unnecessarily to jumble together the topics and lessons; to vacillate from one line of study to another; to wander, truant-like, among all sorts of good things—exploiting, now, a color; then milk; then in due time gratitude and the pyramids; then leather, (for, though 'there's nothing like leather,' it may be wisest to keep it in its place;) then sponge, and duty to parents, lying, the points of compass, etc.! And here, for all ages above nine or ten years, is a real drawback, or at the least, a positive danger, of the Object-Lesson and Common-Things teaching. Just here is shadowed forth a real peril that threatens the brains of the men and women of the—we may say, 'rising' generation, through this fresh accession of the object-lesson interest in our country. Objects, now, are unquestionably good things; and yet, even objects can be 'run into the ground.'

We had put the essential thought here insisted on into words, before object-lessons had acquired the impetus of the last and current year.

'The 'object lessons' of Pestalozzi and his numerous followers, had, in a good degree,one needed element—they required WORK of the pupil's own mind, not mere recipiency. But they have [almost] wholly lacked another element, just as important—that of CONSECUTION in the steps and results dealt with. In most of the schools in our country—in a degree, in all of them—these two fundamental elements of all right education, namely, true work of the learner's mind, and a natural and true consecution in not only the processes of each day or lesson, but of one day on another, and of each term on the preceding, are things quite overlooked, and undreamed of, or, at the best, imperfectly and fragmentarily attempted. But these, in so far as, he can secure their benefits, are just the elements that make the thinker, the scholar, the man of real learning or intellectual power in any pursuit.—New-YorkTeacher, December, 1859.

A like view begins to show itself in the writings of some of the English educationists. The object-teaching is recognized as being, in most instances, at least, too promiscuous and disorderly for the ends of a true discipline and development, and certainly, therefore, even for securing the largest amount of information. It too much excludes the later, systematic study of the indispensable branches, and supplants the due exercise of the reasoning powers, by too habitual restriction of the mind's activities to the channels of sense and perception. Isaac Taylor, in his Home Education, admits the benefits of this teaching for the mere outset of the pupil's course, but adds: 'For the rest, that is to say, whatever reaches its end in the bodily perceptions, I think we can go but a very little way without so giving the mind a bent toward the lower faculties as must divert it from the exercise of the higher.' This thought is no mere fancy. It rests on a great law of derivation, true in mind as in the body; that inanition and comparative loss of one set of powers necessarily follows a too habitual activity of a different set. Thus it is that, in the body, over-use of the nervous, saps the muscular energies, and excessive muscular exertion detracts from the vivacity of the mind. Logically, then, when carried to any excess over just sufficient to secure the needed clear perceptions and the corresponding names for material objects and qualities, the object-lesson system at once becomes the special and fitting education for the ditcher, the 'hewer of wood,' the mere human machine in any employment or station in life, where a quick and right taking to the work at the hand is desirable, and any thing higher is commonly thought to be in the way; but it is not the complete education for the independent mind, the clear judgment and good taste, which must grow out of habits of weighing and appreciating also thousands of non-material considerations; and which are characteristics indispensable in all the more responsible positions of life, and that in reality may adorn and help even in the humblest. In a recently published report or address on a recommendation respecting the teaching of Sciences, made by the English 'Committee of Council on Education,' in 1859, Mr. Buckmaster says:

'The object-lessons given in some schools are so vague and unsystematic, that I doubt very much if they have any educational or practical value. I have copied the following lessons from the outline of a large elementary school; Monday, twenty minutes past nine to ten, Oral Lesson—The Tower of Babel; Tuesday, TheSenses; Wednesday, Noah's Ark; Thursday, Fire; Friday, TheCollect for Sunday. What can come of this kind of teaching, I am at a loss to understand. Now, a connected and systematic course of lessons on any of the natural sciences, or on the specimens contained in one of Mr. Dexter's cabinets, would have been of far greater educational value, and more interesting to the children. This loose and desultory habit of teaching encourages a loose anddesultory habit of thought; it is for this reason that I attach great value to consecutive courses of instruction.... I think, it will not be difficult to show that the study of almost any branchof elementary science not only has a direct bearing on many of the practical affairs of every-day life, but also supplies all theconditions necessary to stimulate and strengthen the intellectualfaculties in a much greater degree than many of the subjects now taught in our elementary schools.'

All the lines of our investigation, as well as the most competent testimony, thus converge in showing that the object-lesson and common-things teaching is but a partial and preliminary resource in the business of education; that, to avoid working positive harm, it must be restricted within due limits of age, capacity, and subject; that it is not, therefore, the real and total present desideratum of our schools; and that, subsequently to the completion of the more purely sensuous and percipient phase of the mind, and to the acquirement of the store of simpler ideas and information, and the degree of capacity, that ought to be secured during that period—hence, from an age not later than eleven, or according as circumstances may determine, thirteen years—all the true and desirable ends of education, whether they be right mental habits and tastes, discipline and power of the faculties, or a large information and practical command of the acquisitions made—all these ends, we say, are thenceforward most certainly secured by the systematic prosecution, in a proper method, of the usually recognized distinct branches or departments of scientific knowledge. Let then, 'common things,' et id genus omne, early enough give place to thorough-going study of the elements of Geometry, of Geography, Arithmetic, Language, (including Grammar,) of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Botany, Physiology, and something of their derivations and applications. Thus shall our schools produce a race not of mere curious gazers, but of conscious and purposive investigators; not a generation of intellectual truants and vagabonds, but one of definitely skilled cultivators of definite domains in handicraft, art, or science.

We are compelled to take issue, therefore, with Mr. Spencer's recommendation, indorsed in the Chicago Report, to the effect that object-lessons should, after a 'different fashion,' 'be extended to a range of things far wider, and continued to a period far later than now.' Not so: after any possible fashion. But let us, as early as the child's capacity and preparation will allow, have the individualized, consecutive studies, and the very manner of studying which shall be made to do for the higher and the lower intellectual faculties together, what well-conducted object-lessons can and now do perform, mainly for the lower. Of all school-method, this we conceive to be the true end and consummation. This would be the ultimate fruitage of the Baconian philosophy, and of philosophy larger than the Baconian—by as much as the whole is greater than any part—in the school-life and work of every boy and girl admitted to the benefits of our courses of instruction.

Thus we have endeavored, with some particularity of examination and detail, to find and state not only what are, but what should be, the tendencies of educational thought and effort in our country and times. And we seem to find that those tendencies are, in spite of a stand-still conservatism or perplexed doubt in some quarters, and of a conflict of views and practices in others, largely in the direction in which the ends to be sought show that they should be. The Education to be, as far as the intellectual being is concerned, when time and study shall better have determined the conditions, and furnished the working instrumentalities, is to be, not in name merely, but in fact, an education by simply natural employment and development of all the perceiving, reasoning, originative, and productive faculties of the mind. It is to be such, because it is to insist on proceeding, after proper age, and then upon every suitable topic, by observation and investigation, and so, by discovery of the principles and results the mind is desired to attain; because it will be an education by rigidly consecutive, comprehended and firm lines of advance, employing processes analytic and synthetic, inductive and deductive, each in its requisite place and in accordance with the nature and stage of the topics under investigation. For the like reasons, it will have become, what we have long foreseen and desired that education should be, rightly progressive in form, and in character such as must develop, strengthen, and store the mind; such as must best fit, so far as the merely scholastic education can do this, for practical expression and use of what is learned, showing all our acquired knowledge in the light of its actual and various relationships, and conferring true serviceableness and the largest value, whether for enjoyment or execution.

Such an education would be real in its method as well as in its substance. We have fairly entered upon the era in which education must be, and, spite of any temporary recoil of timorous despotisms, must continue to be, popular and universal. But many are too apt to forget that, upon our planet, this thing of popular and universal education is comparatively a new and untried experience; that, so far as its mode and substance are concerned, it is, in truth, still in course of experiment. There is at present a very general and but too just complaint of the popular education, as tending to inflate rather than to inform; as prompting large numbers of young men especially to aim at scaling to positions above those in which the school found them, a thing that would be well enough were it not inevitable that, in the general scramble, the positions aspired to are at the same time too frequently those above their capabilities, and quite too full without them: as, in few words, inspiring youth with a disrelish for those less responsible pursuits to which a large majority should devote their lives, rather than with a desire to qualify themselves for their proper work. The tendency is admitted; and it has become, in overcrowded professions and commercial pursuits, the fruitful source of superficiality, of charlatanry, of poverty at once of pocket and of honor, of empty speculations, and of the worst crimes.

But, appreciating the unquestionable fact that universal education is to be henceforth the rule in the most advanced nations, and that, in spite of its apparent consequences or our fears, and remembering also that the experience is, for the world, a new one, is there not some hope left us in the thought that possibly the alarmists have been attributing to the fact of popular education itself what in truth is only a temporary consequence of a false, an abnormally-educating method and procedure on the part of our schools? Nay, more; does not the latter afford the true solution of the evil? We believe it has been shown that our teaching methods not only fail in great part, but in a degree positively mis-educate; that the very 'head and front' of this failure and non-developing appears in the want of bringing into just prominence the discriminating and the applicative powers of the mind, the judgment, and reason; in a word, the thinking as distinguished from the merely receptive and retentive powers. Now, what are we to expect from a people too many of whom are put in possession of stores of fact quite beyond the degree in which their capacities to discriminate clearly, to judge wisely, and to draw conclusions rationally have been strengthened and furnished with the requisite guiding principles? What but a shallow shrewdness that should run into all the evils we have above named? But discipline all to think and reason more and more justly and assuredly upon their facts, and to men so educated, the very thought of an inordinate crowding of the so-called genteeler avocations, to the neglect of the more substantial, becomes appreciated in its true light, as absurd and unfortunate in every way, and, in all its bearings upon the individual as well as the social welfare.

So, let us have popular education; and let a due proportion of fit minds enter the professions, the posts of office, and commercial pursuits; let a few even live by mere work of thought; but let all enjoy the luxury of a degree of thought and rationality that shall forbid their richest blessing turning to their rankest curse. That such must be the result of a true education, our faith in a wise Providence forbids us to doubt. Such an education being real, and appealing to all the faculties, does not eventuate in vain aspirings; but fits each for his place and work—fits for making that great and happy discovery, that the best talents and the most complete cultivation of them can not only find in every employment scope for real exercise, but in the commonest and simplest occupations will be more expert and successful than uncultured ignorance can possibly be. In this view, the true education tends not to level but to utilize, to make the most of every man's special aptitudes for his special field. Such an education monarchy and aristocracy might dread, and reäctive tendencies have already, indeed, blighted the once pattern school-system of Prussia, while they are believed to threaten a like step in England. But the idea of such an education as we have striven to portray, harmonizes with the spirit and objects of a commonwealth, and if we mistake not, to the perpetuity and perfection of free institutions it may yet be found the condition precedent.

TRAVEL-PICTURES

A QUIET COURT IN PARIS

No lodging on a village street could be quieter than my room in Paris, and yet the court it opened upon was not more than an easy stone's throw from the gayest part of the Boulevards. Once within the great wooden gate and up the narrow lane conducting to the court, and you seemed to have left the great world as completely behind you as if it had been a dream. It was one of the smallest of Parisian courts, and—to me its chief recommendation—one of the neatest. With its two or three small stuccoed houses built around, it reminded one rather of inclosures that you see in provincial towns in France than of the damp, high-walled courts, so common in the capital. In one of these small houses, looking out upon the sunny, cheerful yard, I had my room, and as I often sat at the window, I began by degrees to take some interest in the movements of my neighbors, as we can hardly help doing when the same persons pass in and out before our eyes for many days in succession. The house was rented or owned by an elderly lady, who, with her niece and an old servant-woman, seemed to be its only occupants, with the exception of two American boys, attending school by day at one of the large Pensions so numerous in Paris. Kinder people can not be found any where, and fortunate indeed is the sojourner in a strange land who falls in with such good hearts. Their history was a singular one, and I did not really learn it till my return to Paris, after a long absence. They interested me very much, from the first day. The lady and her niece had seen better days, and were notable partisans of the Orleans family, whose memory they deeply reverenced. Politics, indeed, could make but little difference to them, passing, as they did, most of their lives in their quiet rooms; but such interest as they had in it clung to what they considered the model royal family of Europe, a family that carried its affections and virtues equally through the saddest and most splendid experiences. They could not sympathize with the oppressive and military character of the present dynasty and the crowd of time-serving adventurers that swarmed around it. The life of the younger lady was devoted to her aunt, and all the spare hours that remained to her from those occupied by the lessons she was compelled to give, to increase their scanty income, were passed in her society. I have seldom seen a life of such entire self-denial as that led by this refined and delicate woman. The third figure of this family group, the old servant, Marie, was a character peculiar to France. She seemed rather a companion than a servant, though she performed all the duties of the latter, keeping the rooms in neatest order, and making better coffee than I found at the most splendid restaurants. She had a clear blue eye, with one of the most faithful expressions I ever saw on human face, and seemed to take as much interest in me and the two American boys as if we had been her children. She was the housekeeper, buying all their little supplies; but when her labors were over, passing her leisure hours in the society of the ladies she had so long served. I soon saw that the connection between these three beings would be terminated only by death. The chief difference in the two ladies and their faithful old bonne, beyond the circumstance of better education and greater refinement, was that for the former the outer world no longer had much interest, while the old Marie still seemed to retain a keen relish for what was going on around her, and often amused me by the eagerness with which she would enter into trifling details of gossip and general news. After sight-seeing all day, and the experiences of a stranger in Paris, I was often glad to join the trio in their little parlor, and talk over the Paris of former days, during its revolutions and fétes, or answer their questions about my every-day ramblings or my American home. I felt, during these evenings, a relief from the general routine of places of amusement, enjoyed their home-like quiet, and knew I could always give pleasure by varying the monotony of these ladies' every-day life. So the three, so devoted to each other, lived quietly on, winning my respect and sympathy. I left them, with many regrets on their part and my own, and on my return, after an absence of nearly a year, one of my first visits was to these kind-hearted people. To my sorrow, I learned that death had removed the elder lady some months before. I could hardly imagine a death that would longer or more painfully affect a family group than this, for they had so few outward circumstances to distract their thoughts. They received me cordially; but grief for their irreparable loss was always visible in every subsequent interview I had with them. Meeting again one of the school-boys who had lodged there, he told me the following circumstances of the death of the lady, and of the relationship existing between them, which was so different from what I had always imagined. Madame de B– was the widow of a French officer of high rank, during whose life she had been in affluent circumstances; but through various causes, she had lost most of the property left her at his death, and retained at last only enough to keep them in the humble style I have described. The manner of her death was very singular. In her better days, she had lived with her husband in a handsome house near the Champs Elyseés. On the day of her death, she was walking with a gentleman from Boston, a friend of the two pupils I have mentioned, and was speaking to him of her more affluent days, when, as they were near the house where she had once lived, she proposed to walk on a little further, that she might point it out. He consented, and as they drew near to it, she exclaimed, 'Ah! nous l'apercevons,' and, without another word, fell suddenly in a sort of apoplectic fit, not living more than half an hour longer. The circumstance of this lady dying suddenly so near the place where she had once lived, and which she so seldom visited, was certainly very singular. To my surprise, I learned that the younger lady was the daughter of old Marie, having been adopted and educated by the person she had always supposed to be her aunt; she having no children of her own. What made it more singular was, that the younger lady had herself been in possession of this family secret only a few years. It reminded me somewhat of Tennyson's Lady Clare, though in this case no one had been kept out of an estate by the fiction. It was merely to give the young lady the advantage of the supposed relationship. This, then, accounted for the strong affection existing between them, and lest any reader might think this conduct strange, I must again bear witness to the kindness and true affection always displayed toward the real mother. I would not narrate this true story, did I not feel how little chance there is of my humble pen writing any thing that would reach the ears of this family, living so obscurely in the great world of Paris.

Just opposite us, in the court, lived another lady, who has played many fictitious parts, as well as a somewhat prominent one, on the stage of real life. This was Madame George, the once celebrated actress; in her younger days, a famous beauty, and at one time mistress of the great Napoleon. Though long retired from regular connection with the stage, she still makes an occasional appearance upon it, almost always drawing a full audience, collected principally from curiosity to see so noted a personage, or to remark what portion of her once great dramatic power time has still left her. One of these appearances was made at the Odéon, while we were in Paris. Marie informed us of the coming event before it was announced on the bills, and seemed to take as much interest in it as if it had been the débût of a near relative. We had sometimes caught a glimpse of the great actress, tending her geraniums and roses at the window, or going out to drive. On the evening in question, a very large audience greeted the tragedienne, and she was received, with much enthusiasm. She appeared in a tragedy of Racine, in which she had once been preëminently distinguished. Magnificently dressed, and adorned with splendid jewels, trophies of her younger days, when her favors were sought by those who could afford to bestow such gifts, she did not look over thirty-five, though now more than twice that age. I am no admirer of French tragedy, but I certainly thought Madame George still showed the remains of a great actress, and in some passages produced a decided impression. Her tall, commanding figure, expressive eyes, and features of perfect regularity, must have given her every natural requisite for the higher walks of her profession. As I watched her moving with majestic grace across the stage, irrepressible though trite reflections upon her early career passed through my mind. What audiences she has played before, in the days of the first empire! How many soldiers and statesmen, now numbered with the not-to-be-forgotten dead, have applauded her delivery of the same lines that we applaud to-night. Napoleon and his brilliant military court, the ministers of foreign nations, students such as are here this evening, themselves since distinguished in various walks of life, have passed across the stage, and made their final exit, leaving Madame George still upon it. And the not irreproachable old character herself—what piquant anecdotes she could favor us with, would she but draw some memory-pictures for us! Women in Europe, in losing virtue, do not always lose worldly prudence, as with us, and go down to infamy and a miserable old age. Better, however, make allowance for the manners of the time—French manners at that—and contemplate the old lady from an historical point of view, regarding her with interest, as I could not help doing, as one of the few remaining links connecting the old Napoleon dynasty with the new. How strange the closing of a life like hers! Except for the occasional reäppearance on the scene of her old triumphs, not oftener than once or twice a year, how quiet the life she now leads! what a contrast to the excitement and brilliancy that mark the career of a leading actress in the zenith of her reputation! Then, from the theatre she would drive in her splendid equipage through streets illuminated perhaps for some fresh victory gained by the invincible battalions of her imperial lover. Now, in a retired house, she probably sometimes muses over the past, pronouncing, as few with better reason can, 'all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players,' such changes has she witnessed in the fortunes of the great actors by whom she was once surrounded. So here were the histories of two of the occupants of our court. The others may have had experiences no less strange; and in many another court in this great city, from the stately inclosures of the Rue de Lille to the squalid dens of the Faubourg St. Antoine, (if the names have not escaped me,) lives well worth the telling are passing away. Such is a great city.

THE COUNTRY OF EUGENE ARAM

There is a little river in England called the Nidd, and on its high banks stand the ruins of a castle. There is much in this part of it to remind one of the Rhine; the banks rise up in bold, picturesque form; the river just here is broad and deep, and the castle enough of a ruin to lead us to invest it with some legend, such as belongs to every robber's nest on that famous river. No hawk-eyed baron ready to pounce on the traveler, is recorded as having lived here; all that seems to be remembered of it is, that the murderers of Thomas À Becket lay secreted here for a time after that deed of blood, ere they ventured forth on their pilgrimage, haunted by the accursed memory of it all their lives. This is something, to be sure, in the way of historic incident, but the real interest of this immediate region arises from the fact of its being the home and haunt of Eugene Aram. A great English novelist has woven such a spell of enchantment around the history of this celebrated criminal, that I could not help devoting a day to the environs of the little town of Knaresboro', in and around which the most eventful portion of Aram's life was passed. A famous dropping-well, whose waters possess the power of rapidly petrifying every object exposed to them, is one of the most noticeable things in the neighborhood. There are also one or two curious rockcut cells, high up on precipitous slopes, which were inhabited years ago by pious recluses who had withdrawn from the vanities of the world. Some were highly esteemed here in their lives, and here their bones reposed; and the fact of their remaining undiscovered sometimes for many years, was ingeniously used by Aram in his defense, to account for the discovery of the bones of his victim in the neighboring cave of St. Robert. This latter is one of the few places connected with Aram's history that can be pointed out with certainty. It lies about two miles below the castle before mentioned. It is even now a place that a careless pedestrian might easily pass without remarking, notwithstanding that its entrance is worn by many curious feet. The entrance is very narrow, and the cavern, like caverns in general, exceedingly dark. The river flows by more rapidly here than above; the grass grows long and wild, and there is a gloomy air about it that would make it an unpleasant place for a night rendezvous even without the horrid associations connected with it. The exact place where Clark's hones were discovered is pointed out, and probably correctly, as the space is too narrow to admit of much choice. Here they lay buried for years, while according to Bulwer, this most refined of murderers was building up a high name as a scholar and a stainless reputation as a man. A field not far off is pointed out as the place where were found the bones which led to the detection of Aram. Though but few places can now be indicated with certainty in connection with his tragic story, a vague outline of the character of the man before the discovery of his crime, is preserved in the neighborhood. As we read the true story of Eugene Aram, lately published by an apparently reliable person, our sense of the poetic is somewhat blunted; we feel that the lofty character drawn by Bulwer is in many respects a creation of the novelist, while the whole story of his love is demolished by the stern fact of his having a wife, of no reputable character, with whom he lived unhappily; but he was still a man of talent, of great mental, if not moral refinement, and of indomitable ardor in the pursuit of learning. The chief fault of his character until his one great crime was discovered, seems to have been recklessness in pecuniary transactions, by which he was often involved in petty difficulties. He seems to have had a tenderness amounting to acute sensibility, for dumb animals, and to have dreaded killing a fly more than many a man who could not, like him, be brought to kill a fellow-being His mental acquirements, though remarkable for an unaided man of obscure origin, would not probably have attracted wide attention, had it not been for the notoriety caused by the detection of his crime. How many fair girls have shed tears over 'his ill-starred love' and melancholy fate, who little dreamed that he was a husband, in a very humble rank of life. Bulwer speaks of his favorite walks with Madeline, and of a rustic seat still called 'The Lovers' Scat.' It is not, I think, now pointed out, nor is the account of his love probably more than an imaginary one, but it may be founded upon fact, and some high-souled English girl may really, in his early life, or when separated as he was for a long time from his wife, have called forth all his better feelings and revealed glimpses of the beauty of the life of two affectionate and pure beings keeping no secrets of the heart from each other. How it must have tortured him to think that such a life never could be his, well fitted for it as in some respects he was, and ever haunted by the fear that the poor sham by which he was concealed must some day be torn away, and an ignominious fate be apportioned him! No situation can be more deplorable than that of a man of refined and lofty nature, who has made one fatal mistake connecting him with men far worse than himself, who are masters of his secret and ever ready to use it for their own base purposes. Are there not many men so situated—men near us now, who walk through life haunted by the dreadful spectres of past misdeeds hastily committed, bitterly repented—a phantom that can blast every joy, and from whose presence death comes as a friendly deliverer?

THE GREAT ST. BERNARD

We reached the Hospice about an hour after dark, somewhat stiff, and very wet from the rain and snow that commenced falling as we entered the region of clouds. We had passed unpleasantly near some very considerable precipices, and though unable to distinguish the ground below, knew they were deep enough to occasion us decided 'inconvenience' had we gone over them. The long, low, substantial-looking building finally loomed through the mist, and alighting, we were shown into a room with a cheerful fire blazing on the hearth, and were soon joined by a priest of cordial, gentlemanly manners and agreeable conversation. So this was the famous monastery of St. Bernard, which we had read of all our lives, and the stories of whose sagacious dogs had delighted our childish minds. A substantial supper was provided for us, to which was added some excellent wine, made in the valley below. Conversation was pretty general in French, and somewhat exclusive in Latin; two of our party understanding the dead language, but ignorant of the living, framed with great difficulty ponderous but by no means Ciceronian sentences, which they launched at our host, who replied with great fluency, showing that for conversational purposes, at least, his command of the language was much better than theirs. Being anxious to attend the early mass in the morning, and tired from our ride, we were soon shown to our rooms. Walking along the passages and viewing the different apartments, we saw the house would accommodate a great number of persons. The rooms were long and narrow, many of them containing a number of beds; but in this bracing mountain air there is no fear of bad ventilation. No crack of my window was open, but the wind blew furiously outside, and there was a decidedly 'healthy coolness' about the apartment. The room was uncarpeted and scantily furnished, but every thing was spotlessly clean, and in pleasant contrast with the dirty luxury of some of the Continental inns. A few small pictures of saints and representations of scriptural subjects graced the white walls and constituted the only ornaments of the room. Looking from my window I saw that the clouds had blown away, and the brilliant moon shone on the sharp crags of the hills and on the patches of snow that lay scattered about on the ground. The scene was beautiful, but very cold; the wind howled around the house, and yet this was a balmy night compared with most they have here. I thought of merciless snow-drifts overtaking the poor blinded traveler, benumbed, fainting, and uncertain of his path; of the terrors of such a situation, and then glancing around the plain but comfortable room, I could not but feel grateful to the pious founders of this venerable institution. Long may it stand a monument of their benevolence and of the shelter that poor wayfarers have so often found within its hospitable walls!

At daybreak we made our way to the chapel, a large and beautiful room with many pictures and rich ornaments, gifts of persons who have shared the hospitality of the place. At the altar the brother who had welcomed us on our arrival was officiating in his priestly robes, assisted by several others. A few persons, servants of the establishment and peasants stopping for the night, with ourselves, composed the congregation. Two of the women present, we were told, were penitents; we asked no further of their history, but at this remote place the incident gave us cause for reflection and surmise. Heaven grant that in this sublime solitude their souls may have found the peace arising from the consciousness of forgiveness. I have never been more impressed with the Catholic service than I was this morning, when the voices of the priests blending with the organ, rose on the stillness of that early hour in one of the familiar chants of the Church. It seemed, indeed, like heavenly music. Here with the first dawn of morning on these lofty mountaintops, where returning day is welcomed earlier than in the great world below, men had assembled to pour forth their worship to God, here so manifest in his mighty works. The ever-burning lamp swung in the dim chapel, and it seemed a beautiful idea that morning after morning on these great mountains, the song of gratitude and praise should ascend to Him who fashioned them; that so it has been for years, while successive winters have beat in fury on this house, and the snows have again and again shut out all signs of life from nature. As my heart filled with emotion, I could not but think of the aptness to the present scene of those beautiful lines of our poet:

'At break of day as heavenward
The pious monks of St. Bernard
Chanted the oft-repeated prayer.'

Time and place were the same, and the service seemed as beautiful and solemn as might have been that chanted over the stiff, frozen body of the high-souled but too aspiring boy. The service ended, and we were left alone in the chapel. In one corner of it is the box in which those who can, leave a contribution for the support of the establishment. No regular charge is made, but probably most persons leave more than they would at a hotel—and our party certainly did. I believe that the money is well applied; at any rate, for years the hospice afforded shelter before travel became a fashionable summer amusement, and in those days it expended far more than it received.

Our breakfast was very simple, and the Superior of the establishment confined himself to a small cup of coffee and morsel of bread. They have but one substantial meal a day. I was interested in observing our host. His appearance and manner were prepossessing and agreeable, but this morning something seemed to weigh anxiously on his mind. He was abstracted in manner, and once as I looked up suddenly, his lips were moving, and he half checked himself in an involuntary gesture. Had the confession of the penitents, perhaps, troubled him? I believe he was a sincere, self-sacrificing man, and I have often thought of his manner that morning.

We were, of course, very anxious to see the dogs, but were told they are now becoming exceedingly scarce. They can not be kept very long in the piercing air of the mountains, its rarefaction being as injurious to them as to human beings. Most of them are therefore kept at Martigny, or some other place below. We were told, however, that two 'pups' were now at the hospice; and as we sallied out for a walk over the hills, we heard a violent scratching at an adjoining door, which being opened, out burst the pups. They were perfect monsters, though very young, with huge paws, lithe and graceful but compact forms, full of life and activity, and faces beaming with instinct. Darting out with us, they seemed frantic with joy, snuffed the keen air as they rushed about, sometimes tumbling over each other, and at times bursting against us with a force that nearly knocked us down. They reminded me of two young tigers at their gambols. I have never seen nobler-looking brutes. What fine, honest, expressive countenances they had! At times a peculiar sort of frown would ruffle the skin around their eyes, their ears would prick up, and every nerve seem to be quickened. The face of a noble dog appears to me to be capable of almost as great a variety of expression as the human countenance, and these changes are sometimes more rapid. The inquisitive and chagrined look when baffled in pursuit of prey, the keen relish of joy, the look of supplication for food, of conscious guilt for misdemeanor, the eyes beaming with intense affection for a master, and whining sorrow for his absence, the meek look of endurance in sickness, the feeble, listless air, the resigned expression of the glassy eye at the approach of death, blending even then with indications of gratitude for kindness shown! These dumb brutes can often teach us lessons of meek endurance and resignation as well as courage, and few things call forth more just indignation than to see them abused by men far more brutish than they.

Accompanying one of the younger brethren on an errand to the valley below, we watched them dashing along till the intervening rocks hid them from our view. In the extensive museum of the Monastery we found much to interest us. Many of the curiosities are gifts of former travelers, and some of them are of great value. There is also a small collection of antiquities found in the immediate neighborhood, where, I believe, are still traces of an ancient temple. The St. Bernard has been a favorite pass with armies, and is thought by many to have been that chosen by Hannibal.