possible contact with the mind of his author. If he fails, as he very likely may at first, to catch the inspiration, bring him again and again to the work. Place it before him with all the interest and animation that elocution and anecdote and variety of illustration can impart. There are few brilliant passages in our literature whose history is not possessed of a high degree of interest. And there is no great speech, or history, or poem, that does not derive greatly increased interest from all the circumstances attending its composition. You will at once think of the occasion which suggested to the mind of Gibbon the composition of his immortal work, and of the circumstances under which it was completed, of the "Task" of Cowper, the " Traveller of Goldsmith, and others too numerous to mention. Nor should we be content without fixing in the memory those passages which are best calculated to improve the mind and the heart. Wyttenbach, one of the most celebrated classical scholars of Holland, has given us a very pleasing account of the effect produced upon his own mind by a continued re-perusal of an author that at first seemed even forbidding. He says, "I took up Demosthenes. I had a copy without a Latin translation, but with the Greek notes of Jerome Wolf. Darkness itself! But I had learned not to be frightened in setting out. I went on. I found greater difficulties than I had ever had before, both in the words and in the length of the sentences. At last, with much ado, I reached the end of the first Olythiac. I then read it a second and a third time. Every thing now

appeared plain and clear. Still I did not yet perceive the fire of eloquence for which he is distinguished. I hesitated whether to proceed to the second oration, or again read the first. I resolved to do the latter. How salutary are the effects of such a review! As I read, an altogether new and unknown feeling took possession of me. In perusing other authors, my pleasure had arisen from a perception of the thoughts and words, or from a consciousness of my own progress. Now an extraordinary feeling pervaded my mind and increased with every fresh perusal. I saw the orator on fire, in anguish, impetously borne forward. I was inflamed also, and carried on upon the same tide. I was conscious of a new elevation of soul, and was no longer the same individual. I seemed myself to be Demosthenes standing on the bema pouring forth this oration, and urging the Athenians to emulate the bravery and glory of their ancestors. Neither did I read silently, as I had begun, but with a loud voice, to which I was secretly impelled by the force and fervor of the sentiments, as well as by the power of oratorical rhythm. In this manner I read, in the course of three months, most of the orations of Demosthenes. My ability to understand an author being thus increased, I took more delight in Homer, whom I soon finished. Afterwards I studied other great authors with far more profit."

Why should not every American school-boy be permitted to drink in the same high enthusiasm from some speech of Burke, of Everett, or of Webster? Webster himself committed to memory the

entire speech of Fisher Ames upon the British treaty.

How might all the milder virtues which adorn humanity be inculcated by the study of Cowper and Goldsmith and Thomson. And even in our primary schools how proper that Watts's "Divine and Moral Songs," the "Hymns for Infant minds," of Jane Taylor, and Mrs. Barbauld's Hymns, both in prose and verse, should find a place in the minds and memories of the scholars. They would preserve their "following years, and make their virtue strong."

I have already alluded to the prominence given by the Greeks to the study of poetry. It is remarkable, that with their example before us, we are so slow to make a wise improvement of it; that while we eulogize with enthusiasm the results of their education, we do not more readily appropriate to ourselves the great elements of its power. The Greek child, at the tender age of seven years, was brought to those great teachers of the Hellenic race, the poets; and these he learned, not merely in the artificial formulæ of syntax and prosody, but in the melting strains of music. The discipline which was thence derived, was not that of the intellect simply, nor even mainly, but it was a discipline of the feelings, of the imagination and the taste. The Greek youth was not driven the senseless round of the trivium and quadrivium, but taught to listen to his Homer and his Orpheus as the interpreters of his own spiritual emotions. "With these voices," says Frederick Jacobs, "the soul of the boy was

made familiar as soon as his powers began to awaken; and as Homer's poems were the rich source of all art in Greece, so were they also a school of morality, in which the old as well as the young were taught. This school of heroic poetry which likewise possessed the advantage of an olden and, as it were, consecrated language, seemed to people the young man's soul with friendly gods and guardian spirits; and, as Athena stands at the side of the son of Tydeus in the battle's din, and with nimble hand turns off the hostile shaft, so the imperishable glory of those high forms attended the Grecian youth, in order to shield or rescue his better nature amidst the turmoil of life. Thus, therefore, the gods, whose friendly presence, according to the ancient faith, had adorned the life of the heroes, had not vanished even from the later race. And as their image had stood before the soul of the poets, so through the mediation of these their favorites, did they appear to others also, and spoke to them through the mouths of the poets, who were looked upon as the wisest and best, as the favored darlings of the immortals, and sometimes as their interpreters among men."

"The voice of national poetry, which, like a mild and heavenly teacher, opened the minds of the Grecian youth to all that is fairest and highest in man's nature, was not dumb when he reached his maturity. Nor did she appear to him chained to the dead letters of writing, as an occasional pastime for vacant hours, but in the fairest moments of life came she to him with all her festal bravery on, inspired

and inspiring. As she, though born in the dwelling place of the gods, had descended to the life of men to gladden them with the most exalted pleasures, so among them also she loved best to appear at the games and festivals of the gods, and lured the gaze of mortals upward to a higher world.”

Who can deny that this is a correct view of Greek poetry, and of its influence in Greek education. And yet what are the elements of power in the poetry of Greece compared with those which appear in our own Christianized Anglo Saxon. What is the Mythology of Homer, or the Theogony of Hesiod compared with the oracles of the living God? Or what is the juvenile poetry of Greece compared with that of our own English? A single shilling will enable the teacher to avail himself of sweeter and loftier strains of truly heaven-born juvenile poesy than were ever known to the ancient heathen world. He may, if he will, approach his youthful charge with strains that would have charmed and silenced even Homer himself. How many a child has been restive under the discipline of our schools, and turned aside to forbidden paths, that might have listened with delight to the voice of heavenly wisdom, as uttered by our best Christian poets. How much better and wiser would mankind have been, had they bestowed a goodly portion of the time, money, and talent which have been worse than wasted upon the controversies of dogmatic theology, upon the good work of impressing the language and the spirit of a really Christian poetry upon the minds of the young. I should not