and building of bridges, culverts, viaducts, tunnels, stations. And similarly with the harbors, docks, piers, and various engineering and architectural works that fringe the coasts and overspread the face of the country, as well as the mines that run underneath it.

2. Out of geometry, too, as applied to astronomy, the art of navigation has grown; and so, by this science, has been made possible that enormous foreign commerce which supports a large part of our population, and supplies us with many necessaries and most of our luxuries.

3. And nowadays even the farmer, for the correct laying out of his drains, has recourse to the level-that is, to geometrical principles. When from those divisions. of mathematics which deal with space, and number, some small smattering of which is given in schools, we turn to that other division which deals with force-of which even a smattering is scarcely ever given-we meet with another large class of activities which this science presides over.

4. On the application of rational mechanics depends the success of nearly all modern manufacture. The properties of the lever, the wheel and axle, etc., are involved in every machine; every machine is a solidifiedmechanical theorem; and to machinery in these times we owe nearly all production.

5. Trace the history of the breakfast-roll. The soil out of which it came was drained with machine-made tiles; the surface was turned over by a machine; the seed was put in by a machine; the wheat was reaped, thrashed, and winnowed by machines; by machinery it was ground and bolted; and had the flour been sent to Gosport, it might have been made into biscuits by a machine.

6. Look round the room in which you sit. If modern, probably the bricks in its walls were machine-made;

by machinery the flooring was sawn and planed, the mantel-shelf sawn and polished, the paper-hangings made and printed; the veneer on the table, the turned legs of the chairs, the carpet, the curtains, are all products of machinery.

7. And your clothing-plain, figured, or printed—is it not wholly woven, nay, perhaps even sewed, by machinery? And the volume you are reading—are not its leaves fabricated by one machine and covered with these words by another? Add to which, that, for the means of distribution over both land and sea, we are similarly indebted.

8. And then let it be remembered that according as the principles of mechanics are well or ill used to these ends, comes success or failure-individual and national. The engineer who misapplies his formula for the strength of materials, builds a bridge that breaks down. The manufacturer whose apparatus is badly devised, can not compete with another whose apparatus wastes less in friction and inertia.

9. The ship-builder adhering to the old model is outsailed by one who builds on the mechanically justified wave-line principle. And as the ability of a nation to hold its own against other nations depends on the skilled activity of its units, we see that on such knowledge may turn the national fate. Judge, then, the worth of mathematics.

10. Pass next to physics. Joined with mathematics, it has given us the steam-engine, which does the work of millions of laborers. That section of physics which deals with the laws of heat, has taught us how to economize fuel in our various industries; how to increase the produce of our smelting furnaces by substituting the hot for the cold blast; how to ventilate our mines; how to prevent explosions by using the safety-lamp; and, through the thermometer, how to regulate innumer

able processes. That division which has the phenomena of light for its subject, gives eyes to the old and the myopic; aids through the microscope in detecting diseases and adulterations; and by improved lighthouses prevents shipwrecks.

11. Researches in electricity and magnetism have saved incalculable life and property by the compass; have subserved sundry arts by the electrotype; and now, in the telegraph, have supplied us with the agency by which, for the future, all mercantile transactions will be regulated, political intercourse carried on, and perhaps national quarrels often avoided. While in the details of indoor life, from the improved kitchen range up to the stereoscope on the drawing-room table, the applications of advanced physics underlie our comforts and gratifications.

HERBERT SPENCER.

SECTION II.

PROSE DECLAMATIONS.

1. CHARACTER OF TRUE ELOQUENCE.

[This speech is characterized by full declamatory force, long pauses, strong emphasis, prevailing downward inflection, orotund quality, and radical stress. Require pupils to give reasons for the marking of rhetorical pauses and inflections.]

1. When public bodies | are to be addressed | on momentous occasions, when great interests | are at stake, and strong pássions | excited, nothing | is valuable | in speech, further than it is connected | with high intelléctual and mòral endowments. Clèarness, force, and earnestness | are the qualities | which produce conviction. True éloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cánnot be brought from făr. Labor and learning may

tóil for it, but they will toil in vain. Wórds and phráses | may be marshaled in every way, but they can not còmpass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion.

2. Affected pássion, intense expréssion, the pomp of declamation, àll | may aspire after it; they cannot reach it. It cómes, if it come at áll, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, nátive force.

3. The graces taught in the schools, the costly órnaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate óratory | contèmptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then, pàtriotism | is éloquent; then, self-devòtion | is èloquent.

4. The clear concèption, outrunning the deductions of lògic, the high purpose, the firm resòlve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, béaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole mán | ònward, right onward, to his òbject--this, this | is éloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than âll eloquence-it is àction, nòble, sublime, godlike action.

2. NATIONAL GREATNESS.

1. I believe there is no permanent greatness to a nation except it be based upon moràlity. I do not care for military greatness or military renówn. I care for the condition of the people among whom I live. There is no man in England who is less likely to speak irreverently of the crown and monarchy of England than I am; but crowns, córonets, míters, military display, the pomp of war, wide cólonies, and a huge empire are, in

my view, all trifles light as àir, and not worth considering, unless with them you can have a fair share of cómfort, conténtment, and happiness among the great body of the people.

2. Pálaces, baronial castles, great halls, stately mánsions, do not make a nátion. The nation, in every country, dwells in the cottage; and unless the light of your constitution can shine thère, unless the beauty of your legislation and excellence of your statesmanship are impressed there in the feelings and condition of the people, rely upon it you have yet to learn the duties of government.

JOHN BRIGHT.

3. THE PASSING OF THE RUBICON. [An example of impassioned argumentative declamation.]

1. A gentleman, Mr. President, speaking of Cæsar's benevolent disposition, and of the reluctance with which he entered into the civil wár, obsérves, "How long did he pause upon the brink of the Rubicon?" How càme he to the brink of that river? How dared he cròss it? Shall private men respect the boundaries of private property, and shall a man pay no respect to the boundaries of his country's rights? How dared he cross that river? O, but he paused upon the brink! He should have perished upon the brink ere he had crossed it!

2. Why did he pause? Why does a man's heart pàlpitate when he is on the point of committing an unlawful deed? Why does the very murderer, his victim sleeping before him, and his glaring eye taking the measure of the blow, strike wìde of the mortal part? Because of conscience! 'T was that made Cæsar pause upon the brink of the Rubicon.

3. Compássion! What compassion! The compassion of an assassin, that feels a momentary shúdder as his