Thomas Arnold. In what is usually called classical knowledge, both in extent and profundity, Parr must be regarded as greatly the superior of Arnold. We have no anecdotes of Arnold illustrating that astonishing erudition which was the chief characteristic and the glory of Parr. The master of Stanmore spent more hours, and read more of both Greek and Latin with his boys, than the master of Rugby, and that reading was most amply illustrated by all the learning of ancient and modern times. But who does not feel that there existed at Rugby an influence that was never known at Stanmore or at Harrow? And who does not feel that this difference is due to the high moral tone which characterized the teaching of Arnold, and which led him to view all the events and characters in history or in poetry as only so far valuable as they served to “illustrate moral truth, and incite us to higher moral effort."

Of a kindred spirit to Thomas Arnold was John Milton, the greatest classical scholar of his own and, perhaps, superior to those of any other age. He may properly claim some notice from us, as his name illustrates the history of our own profession,- a circumstance which has furnished Dr. Johnson with an opportunity to indulge in one of his "growling sarcasms." "Let not our veneration for Milton," says he, "forbid us to look with some degree of merriment on great promises and small performance, — on the man who hastens home because his countrymen are contending for their liberty, and when he reaches the scene of action vapors away his patriotism in a

private boarding-school." But Dr. Johnson, great as he is in the realm of morals, should be silent respecting such a man as John Milton. The range of the teacher and poet was far above and beyond that of the moralist and critic. In the good old angelology, the Seraphim that love surround the throne in a nearer circle than the Cherubim that know. If Johnson possessed the cherub's knowledge, he certainly lacked the seraph's fire. And it was this that lighted up the faculties of Milton to that all-consuming fervor which makes the sublime language of Gray far less a poetical exaggeration than a glorious reality.

"He passed the flaming bounds of place and time,

The living throne, the sapphire blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,

He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night."

Milton commenced his career as a teacher. The patriotism of which Dr. Johnson speaks, as being vaporated away in a private boarding-school, was really directed to higher ends than if it had been displayed upon the tented field. Milton felt that there was need of men, and it was this need that he proposed to supply. Like Cromwell, he felt that the times had need of men who should have the fear of God before them, and, having this fear, should know no fear beside. And it is any thing but a matter of "merriment" to see a truly heroic soul spurning all that talent and genius might have commanded, and devoting himself to rearing a nobler type of humanity than was common in an age which

still endured the tyranny of the Stuarts. We are left in no doubt respecting the character of Milton's teaching. His system of education was pervaded and surcharged with a moral vis viva, - this was the controlling principle, the central force, around which all subordinate principles and agencies revolved in harmonious and delightful proportion. I know it has been termed impractical, and so have most things that have ever been of any service to mankind. Milton himself foresaw that it would be so esteemed. "It is not," he remarks in the concluding sentence of the "Tractate on Education," "it is not a bow for every man to shoot in that counts himself a teacher; but will require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave Ulysses; yet I am withal persuaded that it may prove much more easy in the assay, than it now seems at distance, and much more illustrious; howbeit not more difficult than I imagine, and that imagination presents me with nothing but very happy, and very possible according to best wishes; if God have so decreed, and this age have spirit and capacity enough to apprehend." I have said that the life of Arnold was an epic. The same is true of Milton. There are no two characters in English history between which it would be easier to run a parallel. Who that has read the "Paradise Lost" attentively, has not felt how forcibly some of his best passages apply to the circumstances of his own life. - how some of his angels, in their highest services, were but acting the parts among "principalities and powers in heavenly places," which Milton himself had acted in fighting

for the rights and liberties of Englishmen. Sir Egerton Brydges seems to think that he has discovered a remarkable coincidence in the fact that, when Milton entered the lists of controversy, at that moment the Muses forsook him. Nor did they, says he, return for twenty years. This is, certainly, profound philosophy! It seems to be, in some sense, a law of our intellectual and moral natures, that a man must live an epic before he can write one. Bunyan did not write his " Pilgrim's Progress" until he had first acted it, as Carlyle says, upon the face of the earth with a brown matchlock on his shoulder. And Milton wrote not his "Paradise Lost” until he had wrought out in his own life all the high moral elements which enter into its structure. And Sir Egerton Brydges would have philosophized more correctly, had he regarded this production of Milton's mature age as the crown of glory bestowed upon a head which had become hoary in the great warfare. for truth, if like his own Abdiel, he had regarded him as led to the sacred hill and presented before the seat supreme

"from whence a voice

From midst a golden cloud, thus mild was heard.
Servant of God, well done; well hast thou fought
The better fight, who single hast maintained

Against revolted multitudes, the cause

Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms;
And, for the testimony of truth, hast borne
Universal reproach, far worse to bear
Than violence; for this was all thy care,

To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds
Judged thee perverse."

The "Paradise Lost" is the halo of heavenly glory surrounding the head of the great champion of Puritanism, - a celestial radiance beaming upon an expiring generation which had been more prolific in great mindedness than any other period of English history.

I have dwelt upon the characters and writings of two teachers, and two classical authors, too long, perhaps, certainly too imperfectly, that I may place in a strong light the elements of character which I esteem it to be the peculiar office of the higher classical instruction to impart. In the moral, as in the physical world, like begets its like. If we desire our scholars to attain to high degrees of moral excellence, to possess those strong moral elements which will lead them to look with loathing scorn upon every form of unhallowed indulgence, and to aspire with heroic ardor to the very heights of virtue, what more effectual instrumentality can we adopt, than to place before their minds the characters of such men as Arnold and Milton, as they appear in their heroic actions and in the attractive colors in which they have, in their works, displayed every sentiment of virtue? How can a mind which has been in contact with such characters otherwise than be transformed into the same image "from glory to glory?" This, certainly, is the law of our moral being. If it fail, we must look for the cause to extraneous influences or imperfect appliances. And here let me insist, for a moment, upon a high degree of thoroughness in this study of our vernacular classics. Let the pupil be put in the closest