of nature; and when Piety puts her crown upon his head, he who owns the title moves and takes rank but a little lower than the angels.

"See how the morning opes her golden gates,

"after

And takes her farewell of the glorious sun; How well resembles it the prime of youth." "Young Men"-there is a feeling In all our visions of the blessed above, of exhilaration in the sound. True, imagination pictures them in the it speaks to our fears as well as to bloom and energy of unfading youth. our hopes. It seems to tell of incon- It portrays the Christian, sideration and inexperience, of pleas- millions of millions of ages, still ing illusions to be dissipated, and youthful and flourishing, and gracesensibilities wounded, of confidence ful, as at the first; no wrinkles on the betrayed, and dangers yet untried, of face, no grey hairs on the head of suspicions to be awakened, and wisdom to be bought at the costly price of suffering.

eternity." What labour is bestowed by many to preserve even the appearance of youth; reminding us of the beautiful Tithonus, in heathen had granted his request of an earthly mythology, who finding that Aurora immortality, soon entreated that the boon might be withdrawn, unless it could be made an immortality of youth. How ancient the delusion, that there is a secret somewhere in nature, by which our youth can be renewed like the eagle's," and how strong the propensity of man to entertain it. Every known element of nature has been tortured, every metal and mineral has been in the crucible,

But the first and direct import of the appellation is full of animation and hope. It is associated in our minds with a rich fulness of life, with elasticity of body, and buoyancy of spirit, with quickness of apprehension, and wholeness of heart, with sensibility of soul, and energy of impulse to extract the precious gift; and, for experiment and daring. How after a thousand disappointments, it rich is youth in possibilities-how regal in its generosity-how affluent in hope-how full of the poetry and romance of life! All things bright and lovely in nature are its appropriate emblems;-the drops of dew that run together on the leaf, tell us of its ready sympathies and earnest friendships-the flowing spring denotes its transparent sincerity-the same stream rushing impetuously down a mountain slope, represents its enterprise and onward course-the virgin soil is a type of its moral fertility, and readiness to repay cultivation-the rising sun, the morning of the day, the spring of the year-all are the consecrated emblems of its winged hopes, and its sunny prospects.

has only been necessary for a Paracelsus, a Cardan, or a Lully to arise, and to boast confidently of his panaceas and balsams, his amulets, and elixirs, in order to intoxicate age with visions of terrestrial immortality, and to create hope "under the ribs of death." Youth is a distinction so great, a property so precious, that many an aged Croesus would cheerfully put you in possession of all his wealth in exchange for your youth; and, on the same terms, many a royal conqueror would gladly have placed his laurels on your head, and his sceptre in your hand. Young men, this invaluable privilege is yours; and He who has conferred it upon you is inviting you, from his throne in

heaven, so to employ it as to turn it Christian benevolence to the society,

into unfading crowns, and imperishable wealth.

and the world in which you live? Do you sincerely ask, how you are to render this return? Joy is awakened in heaven at the inquiry. The Saviour himself undertakes to conduct you to happiness and to God. And the Eternal Spirit begins your renovation. Are you already rendering this return? Happy young man! Angels rejoice as they witness your onward course, and Christians unite to glorify God in you.

"Young Men"- the appellation carries with it a solemn sound of prophecy, and speaks mysteriously of the future. It implies, not merely an unfinished and unfulfilled career, but that the great events of your life are yet to be begun. It intimates that however much of your character may have been already developed, there is many a fold yet to be laid open, and many an unlooked for quality to be brought to light-that the lightning yet sleeps in the cloud, and the stream, meandering near its mountain source, (From has not yet taken its final direction.

IMPERFECT EDUCATION.

Simpson's Philosophy of Education.
Second Edit., 1836.)

"Young Men"-the appellation A CATALOGUE of our social deimplies a capacity for great usefulness, fects, all referrible to the education and, consequently, involves the idea wherewith we are mocked, might be of responsibility. Every privilege expatiated upon to the extent of a implies a corresponding duty: youth volume; the remnants these, of baris privilege, and each of its distinctive barism which still clings to us and our attributes involves a correlative ob- institutions, customs, habits, and ligation; and for the practical recog- manners. I will venture to enunition of that obligation you are held merate a few of these. We direct responsible. Youth is the seed-time yet, for example, an evil eye to of life, and shall no seed be now our fellow-men in other communities, sown for the great harvest? Youth and speak of our "natural enemies!" is prerogative and power; but these We are disgraced by national jeaare for the possessor only in the se-lousies, national antipathies, comcond place; the good of those to mercial restrictions, and often offenwhom we stand related is the primary object intended.

"Heaven doth with us, as we with torches

do

Not light them for themselves: for if our

virtues

Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike
As if we had them not."

sive war. We have our game-laws, and criminal code also, to account for. Brought to the standard of sound ethics and reason, there are many of our customs that have as little chance as these of escaping the reproach of barbarisms, which an educated people Your capacity for usefulness, there- would disown; cruel rural sportsfore, is charged with an amount of for example, fox-hunting, horseobligation proportioned to its great- racing, betting, gambling, prize-fightness. Youth is a gift; but He who ing, duelling, and excessive convibestows it has not given it in such viality. The character and engrossa sense as to give away all right to ing claims of rural sports, as they expect from you a suitable return. are called, will astonish a future better That return he expects—and shall he educated age.* Such an age will not have it ?--in your cordial dedica*I say engrossing claims, for I grant that tion to himself, and in services of killing game is as legitimate as killing mut

*

scarcely believe "the butcher work so, that in the alternative of their

66

This

that then befell" the unsparing urban or rural excitement the objects slaughter of all that is furred and fea- are so low? Is it indeed so, that thered and finned, in field and flood, without the slaughter of its innocent on mountain, moss, and moor ;" animals, which spread a living poetry they will discredit the graft of the over its fields, our "better classes" hunting stage on the race upon a civi- find no attractions in the country, no lization at its lowest immensely in delight in "the green fields of Engadvance of that stage; they will re- land in the merry month of May," no ject the story that the boast of the luxury in the roses of June, the pride Iroquois and the Esquimaux was of July, or the mellowness of autumn? also the distinction of the most po- The same desire of wealth, added to lished ornaments of our drawing- ambition to rise above others, regurooms, namely, the havoc of their un- late or rather derange the whole erring aim, the life they have extin-system of life, and there is not one guished, the blood they have shed, ray of light but disregarded Christhe "head of game" they have gloried tianity, to guide in a direction more over as trophies spread out dead consistent with real happiness. before them, and the larders which is ignorance of the moral condition they have outdone the butcher in of the human weal. An enlightened stocking! All is not right in our friend of the author's once asked an habits of thinking—in other words, in excellent young man about to embark our education-when our "elite" can for India, what views he entertained claim, and multitudes can accord, a of life, and the objects of his own excertain distinction to a 66 capital shot," istence. The question was new to the victor in what the Olympics knew him. He had been "well educated," not-" a steeple chase," or the pro- in the common acceptation of the prietor of a pony which can trot six- words; but he had never conceived teen miles an hour! that life had any higher aim than to acquire a fortune, marry, rear a family, live in a fine house, drink expensive wines, die, and go to heaven! There was no provision in this for reaping enjoyment from the higher faculties of his nature; he was not aware that these had any other function to perform than to regulate his conduct in the pursuit of the gratification of his inferior feelings. This is the condition of mind in which almost all young men of the upper and middle classes of society enter into active life; and nothing can well be conceived more disadvantageous to their success and happiness.

I know the ready answer to such strictures on rural sports; and that answer implies the very educational

vacuum which there is so much reason

to deplore. It is of great importance, it is said, to our rural population, that the aristocracy shall pass a reasonable portion of their time in the country. They are the spoiled children of excitement; and if you withhold that in the country, they will seek it in the capital, in pursuits and pleasures infinitely more debasing and more ruinous to health and fortune. Look at Paris. Is an educated aristocracy here spoken of? Is it indeed

ton, and do not quarrel with a subordinate and moderate resort to the field by those whose main avocations are most useful and dignified. It is healthful exercise; I cannot concede to it a higher merit.

This deficiency in knowledge is also remarkably exemplified in young men born to large fortunes, who have succeeded in minority to their paternal estates, and, on attaining majo

rity, are by law entitled to pursue tion was sincere, and the character of their own happiness in their own way. the speaker such as to warrant the It is quite lamentable to observe the belief that he would act upon it, if his humble, the debasing course they education had been such as to have almost always adopt. Rational views shown him how to do so, or rather, as of themselves, of human nature, and the previous point, what to do. Το of the institutions of society, would keep a pack of hounds, to be followed be invaluable to such individuals; over fields and enclosures by the elite but they have no adequate means of of the county, does not stand very obtaining them, while positively false high in the scale of good: to engage views have been implanted in their keenly in party politics is not good, minds by a perverted education. perverted education. I for these are generally incompatible. grant the case to be an extreme one, with the general weal: to dispense a young gentleman of large fortune, costly and luxurious hospitality innot destitute of talents and good feel- discriminately, is to do wide-spreading, and regularly subjected to all the ing mischief: to pursue or encourage appliances of dead language edu- idleness or frivolous occupations, is cation at school and college, who on not good: to strengthen, by influence the day of his majority was declared and example, the pride of rank and a free man, with power to choose the its correlative sycophancy, to uphold most likely road to real happiness. the heartless, icy, withering barriers What did he do? He established, of of fashion, and, by external pomp, course, a stud of hunters, a pack of circumstance, and equipage, to shut hounds, and a whole armory of out knowledge of, and sympathy with, fowling pieces-galloping and blazing the general mass of society, cultivated and slaughtering being universally and uncultivated, are all severally held inseparable from wealth and bad, and, although much the practice rank, in the present state of civiliza- of our nobility, injurious in a degree tion. Coach-driving, either of pri- to which their education shuts their vate four-in-hand vehicles, or the eyes, to themselves and to society. public conveyances, is no longer Education, rendered what it ought to sanctioned by general approbation, as be, will point out "what is good" suiting the age; nevertheless, our both in its temporal and spiritual hopeful had a trial of coach-driving. sense, to the wealth-loaded favourites From this he was diverted by matri- of fortune. mony, and post nuptially took to communicate," is eminently in their another gratification of his faculties of power, if they will first, "with all rather an original kind; he placed their gettings, get knowledge," and cats upon a float in the middle of a apply it to useful purposes; if they pond, and sent dogs to swim in and will learn and value the acts and maattack them! This last occupation nifestations of high intellectual and would have been disdained by a young moral endowments, more than phynobleman of immense possessions, sical comforts, sensual enjoyments, who, at a feast in honour of his majo- and external pomp; if they will rity, manifested the best natural dispositions, by acknowledging that he had always been taught, and had always felt, that the great duty imposed upon him by his rank and fortune was to do good. The declara

"To do good and to

seek the society of enlightened and benevolent men, whose intellects are replenished with knowledge of the Creator's works and ways, whose hearts swell with wonder, adoration, and love, whose whole minds are in