then, to the practice of orators themselves, and of ninety-nine out of evry hundred, who have studyd Demosthenes and Cicero, I feel that I cannot be mistaken in the assertion, that they hav all borne the most decisiv testimony to the fact, that there is neither entertainment nor inspiration to be derivd from such authors.

Having disposd of the Orators and Historians, let us now attend to the classic poets. Of what value are they? I answer, of none, so far as useful knowlege is concernd; for all must admit, that none is to be found in this class of writers. It is plain, that truth is a very minor concern, with writers of fiction. You can, therefore, only expect from them, amusement. But I would appeal to evry hundred, who hav read them, and ninety-nine will say, they would rather read Marmion and the Lady of the Lake, Ivanhoe and Kenilworth, than Homer and Virgil into the bargain. Who ever reads Homer and Virgil, in the original, for entertainment? If there be any such in the United States, I hav never met with them, or heard of them. But we are told of the morals of the poets, and their noble sentiments. As to their morals, who would be willing to hav a son, or brother, like the insolent and brutal Achilles, the hero of the Iliad; or like the mean and treacherous Æneas, the hero of the Æneid, if, indeed, it has any hero. What is the moral of the Iliad, from beginning to end, but war, in all its forms of slaughter and violence? And where is the moral of the Eneid to be found, but in the meanness, ingratitude and perfidy of Æneas, to Dido: and in his dishonorably and forcibly depriving Turnus of his betrothd bride, against her will, and then killing him? But again, we are told that in the sketching and shading of character, the ancient poets are unrivald. I am strangely mistaken, if there be not more power, fidelity, and beauty in Walter Scott, than in a dozen Homers and Virgils. Who would compare Achilles with Burley of Balfour; Agamemnon, with Cœur de Lion, or the Bruce; Nester, with the Douglas; Hector, with Ivanhoe; Ulysses, with Louis 11th; Helen, with Effie Deans, or Constance; Andromache, with Ellen, or the countess of Leicester or Margaret of Branksome; Lavinia, with the Betroth'd or the bride of

Lammermoor; Dido, with Queen Elizabeth; or Camilla with Diana Vernon? And as to Calchas and Chryses, Cassandra and the Sybil, Meg Merrilies, alone, is worth a hundred such: while the death-scenes of Marmion, Front-de-boeuf, and the Templar, are more admirable than all the like in the Iliad and Æneid. What is there in them, to compare to the single combats of Burley and Bothwell; of Fitzjames and Roderick Dhu; of Ivanhoe and the Templar; of Saladin and the Leopard Knight? Again, we are told of the noble and moral sentiments of the classic poets. The beauties of Seakspeare are worth all the beauties of Homer and Virgil. There is more of the sublime, the moral, and the beautiful, of patriotism, in the penitent, self-sacrificing Roderic, of Southey, and in the virtuous, magnanimous Samor of Milman, than in all the character of the Iliad and Æneid, put together. As to the moral sentiment to be found in Homer, Juvenal and Persius, can it be compard to the Christian moral sentiment of Cowper? whose Task, I would rather hav written, than the Epistles of the first, and the Satirs of all of them.

Let me not pass unnoticd, Cicero's Offices, a book, of which a clergyman, the head of a college, has said, in a lecture on moral philosophy, "without the careful study of it, even at this time, a moral education must be allowd to be very imperfect." If this be true, it follows, irresistibly, that they ought to be publishd as an appendix to the New Testament, to perfect the imperfect moral code of Christianity. We still tolerate the Apocrypha, a mere human composition, as an appendix to the history and morals of the Old Testament. Why should we not welcome Cicero's treatis, as an indispensable addition, if that opinion be true, to our unfinishd moral code? But in truth, so far is the sentiment from being accurate, that the Sermon on the Mount, alone, is worth all the Offices of Cicero: and the New Testament, so far from being an imperfect, is a perfect code of moral duty. The truth is, the moral philosophy of Cicero, like that of Epectetus and Antoninus, is of no more value, now that we hav the New Testament, than the works of Aratus, Manilius, and Ptolemy, now that we hav the modern astronomy. The ancient writers on morals are of no

more importance to ninety-nine out of evry hundred, who study Greek and Latin, than the old writers on the mechanism of the heavens. Both classes of the ancients belong, not to the sciences, in their present state, but to their history, and to the history of the progress of the human mind. They do not, therefore, concern, and cannot interest, more than one out of evry thousand of educated men; for how few hav paid any attention to the history of philosophy, or to the philosophy of history and society?

These are my views of the mathematics and classics, as sources of valuable and entertaining knowlege. They are views, which grew up gradualy, I can scarcely tell how, in the course of twenty years after I left college, and hav been maturing and strengthening ever since. I giv them now as the fruits of reading and meditation, of conversation and observa`tion, thro' a period of twenty-seven years. I cannot therefore but say, if the schoolmaster be abroad in the land, as he certainly is, he is not a valuable schoolmaster, so far as mathematics and classics are concernd; because they do not furnish useful and interesting knowlege to the great majority who study them. Thus far he is not in my opinion, the people's schoolmaster; because as to these branches, he is not the schoolmaster of our age and our country.

The fifth objectionable feature, in things as they are, is, that the present system has no direct and obvious tendency as a good system ought to hav, to create and preserv the habit of intelectual improvment and the lov of reading. Its tendency on the contrary is just the revers. This is matter of fact:, and lies open to the observation of evry one, who has only to look abroad with an attentiv eye, and he will come to the same conclusions at which I hav arrivd. These are proof that the great majority of those, who hav study'd the classics and mathematics, acquir'd from them no lov of study and taste for reading, plainly because they study'd them as tasks, and without pleasure: and secondly of that great majority, all who acquir'd and preserv'd such a lov and taste were indebted for them to the poets, novelists, historians, biographers and essayists of England and America. Now, a system of education, which instead of creating that lov of study

and that taste for reading, leavs the young to make it or find it, when and how they can, is lamentably deficient in a principal duty. That this is one of the most important and sacred dutys of instructers, can be doubted by no man. All will agree that the lov of study and a taste for reading are among the chief securities of virtue and character, of happiness and usefulness in the great majority of the educated. Other impulses govern the few; but never reach the many; such as uncommon strength of principle and purpos, ambition and remarkable talents, or peculiar advantages of encouragement and example. The few require little or no stimulus to mental improvment. How much the many require, how difficult to select, to apply, to make operativ, all teachers know to their sorrow. And yet, as tho' to create and secure to themselvs a tenfold share of trouble, of trial, of temper, of mortification, they still persist in teaching the classics and mathematics, which are the chief, I may almost say, the only fountains of such torment to themselvs and of such widespread calamity to their pupils. When will the schoolmaster who is abroad in the land, take a plain, practical, commonsense view of his office; instead of setting down contented, with theorys, of education, which originated in other ages and countrys, and none of which had the people in view. Why will he not study society, as it is in his own country? Its character as a Christian, American community; its wants and objects, as a republican, educated, reading people? The schoolmaster of things as they are, has indeed done much, and deservs our thanks, but the schoolmaster of things as they should be, will deserv and receiv from the people of this country, Benjamin's portion of praise and gratitude.

6. The sixth objectionable feature in the existing order of things, is, that our schemes of education do not furnish that disciplin of mind, which the country stands in need of. What, I shall be askd, do you deny, that the mathematics are an admirable disciplin of mind? Where will you find such close and clear reasoning, such consummate logic. Grant it all, for the sake of the argument, but the question arises, what hav the materials and the modes of reasoning of the Mathematician, to do with the materials and modes of reasoning, in the moral

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sciences? If a man is to spend his life in thinking and reasoning about matter and its forms, and relations, let him devote all his youth to the science of matter. But on the contrary, if he is to liv in the world of men, and to think and reason about the dutys and business, and all their relations, public and private, does it not, then, seem to be the wise course, to draw his materials, his habits of thinking and modes of reasoning, from the world of men, not the world of matter? The great evils which now exist in all our schemes on the subject of thinking and reasoning, is, that the logic of mathematics is cultivated as tho' it were the logic of actual life; whether public or private. But it is the logic of neither. No one ever apply'd the thinking and reasoning of the mathematician, to the business or the dutys of life. It would be as complete a misapplication of the geometrician's art, as if we were to employ the forms of intricacys of the scholastic logic for the same purposes. The mathematician and the schoolman's arts, are equaly strangers to the business and dutys of real life. They hav no more to do with the subjects and relations, with the trials and difficultys of duty and business, than the art of the astrologer. Now, the reliance placed upon the mathematics as a system of mental disciplin, has led to the neglect of thinking and reasoning, peculiar to the moral sciences. If the time devoted to the mathematics, were dedicated to the latter, we should not only have sounder thinkers and better reasonists on the business and dutys of life; but men incomparably better informd on religions, political, moral and mental philosophy.

Let us grant it, for the sake of argument, say the admirers of the classics, and we offer you in them the very desideratum you are in search of. My reply is a very obvious one. It is true, that you offer me books which treat of the affairs of men and nations, of their dutys and business. But none of them concern me. They belong to a different age, state of society and country, to men among whom we never hav livd and never shall liv. Is it not wise to take our own age and country, our own institutions and state of society, as materials; and to train ourselvs to think and to reason upon and from them; seeing that they are to be the subjects of all our dutys and busi