human interests, the vicissitudes of human life, are as necessary as the storms of the atmosphere by which that life is sustained. All this is wrong. At this wrong conclusion some arrive without troubling themselves at all about principles. They see that such inequalities have always existed, and therefore suppose that they will always exist. But others who refer the differences in human character to differences in the strength of original principles, commit a graver error still; and those who suppose differences in the kind, as well as in the degree, of those principles, commit the gravest error of all. There are philanthropists among all these classes; and in so far as their philanthropy is successful, it gains more than can be expected from it. It should reasonably acquiesce in the dictum that the Negro can be made little more of than the ape, the ploughboy than the Negro, the mechanic than the ploughboy, and so on, till the philosopher is declared to be by natural right the king of his race. Let the natural rights of his species be understood, and it will be seen whether some who are now grovelling in ignorance and vice had not originally as good a right to empire as he. Let it be understood that. the primary principles of the human mind are few and simple, and let this knowledge be followed up to its social results, and we shall find —not that there are no original and permanent differences between man and man - but that the present constitution of society sanctions startling iniquities, and that communities are far indeed from being, in their best regulated departments, what they might be, what they ought to be, what they shall be. Let it be as generally allowed as it is certainly ascertained, that the differences in human constitution arise, not from an irregular distribution of faculties, but from a greater or less original sensibility to pleasure and pain, and that one grand principle, having this sensibility for its material, is employed

in the formation of all minds, and it will be seen that the grand objects of human life lie before all; and that though some must attain a higher dignity and enjoyment than others, every one has a right to his share of those lofty intellectual and spiritual privileges which have hitherto been possessed by a very few whom circumstances have peculiarly favored. Let it be acknowledged that every human being at his birth prefers a claim to have his capacity for pleasure and pain, be it large or confined, made the most of, and every such being will be more likely than hitherto to have his power of association judiciously directed, his labors proportioned to his abilities, and his pursuits appropriated to his tastes or genius. Each will be more likely to find his proper place, and to be in the way of earning his share of advantages. As Godwin says,

Putting idiots and extraordinary cases out of the question, every human creature is endowed with talents (or his nature involves principles) which, if rightly directed, would show him to be apt, adroit, intelligent, and acute in the walk for which his organization especially fitted him. What a beautiful and encouraging view is thus afforded us of our common nature! It is not true, as certain disdainful and fastidious censurers of their fellow-men would persuade us to believe, that a thousand seeds are sown in the wide field of humanity, for no other purpose than that half-a-dozen may grow up into something magnificent and splendid, and that the rest, though not absolutely extinguished in the outset, are merely suffered to live that they may furnish manure and nourishment to their betters. On the contrary, each man, according to this hypothesis, has a sphere in which he may shine, and may contemplate the exercise of his own powers with a wellgrounded satisfaction. He produces something as perfect in its kind as that which is effected under another form by the more brilliant and illustrious of his species. He stands forward with a serene confidence in the ranks of his fellowcreatures, and says, 'I also have my place in society, that I

fill in a manner with which I have a right to be satisfied.' He vests a certain portion of ingenuity in the work he turns He incorporates his mind with the labor of his hands; and a competent observer will find character and individuality in it."―pp. 36–38.

out.

Thus will it be with the hewer of wood when he ceases to vegetate like the tree he fells; and thus with the drawer of water when he understands by what obligation and for what end he lets down his bucket into the well. At present, such as these see that their children come into the world resembling in all natural rights the children of the aristocracy while, after a few years, differences of mind as well as manners arise which are not to be overlooked even on the brink of the grave. How and when begins this separation? What is the history of man in the present state of society here?

The

He comes into life consecrated by the touch of the Creator. Among those on whom he has just bestowed his highest gifts, there is no distinction of ranks. There is mockery in the very conception. Every child's spirit is for some time fed by the same influences, and the growth of its intellect provided for by the same means. The mother's voice is near in the mansion and in the cottage. moon and stars shine through the lattice as well as through painted windows. The turf is spread under foot for all, and the breezes of spring bear away the light laughter of all the little ones who love them without caring whence they come and whither they go. Eyes so young look in the faces of all alike with freedom and confidence. Hearts so young act upon impulses as yet unchecked by the dead weights which are soon to be arbitrarily imposed. Nature and man are as yet alike to made more or less beautiful varieties in the sensibilities.

all, except as far as they are and grand by constitutional When the infant becomes the

pupil, much of the equality remains, be the school in which he learns what it may. He is still divided between spontaneous and prompted action. Be he rich or poor, be he well or ill taught, he is alternately free and subject to control. Mr. Godwin describes the schoolboy:

"In school our youth are employed about the thoughts, the acts, and suggestions of other men. This is all mimicry, and a sort of second-hand business. It resembles the proceeding of the fresh-listed soldier at drill; he has ever his eye on his right-hand man, and does not raise his arm, nor advance his foot, nor move his finger, but as he sees another perform the same motion before him. It is when the schoolboy proceeds to the play-ground that he engages in real action and real discussion. It is then that he is an absolute human being, and a genuine individual. The debates of schoolboys, their discussions what they shall do, and how it shall be done, are anticipations of the scenes of maturer life. They are the dawnings of committees, and vestries, and hundred-courts, and ward-motes, and folk-motes, and parliaments. When boys consult when and where their next cricket-match shall be played, it may be regarded as the embryo representation of a consult respecting a grave enterprise to be formed, or a colony to be planted. And, when they inquire respecting poetry and prose, and figures and tropes, and the dictates of taste, this happily prepares them for the investigations of prudence, and morals, and religious principles, and what is science, and what is truth.

"It is thus that the wit of man, to use the word in the old Saxon sense, begins to be cultivated. One boy gives utterance to an assertion; and another joins issue with him, and retorts. The wheels of the engine of the brain are set in motion, and without force perform their healthful revolutions, The stripling feels himself called upon to exert his presence of mind, and becomes conscious of the necessity of an immediate reply. Like the unfledged bird, he spreads his wings, and essays their powers. He does not answer, like a boy in his class, who tasks his understanding or not, as the whim of the moment shall prompt him, where one boy hon

estly performs to the extent of his ability, and others disdain the empire assumed over them, and get off as cheaply as they can. He is no longer under review, but is engaged in real action. The debate of the schoolboy is the combat of the intellectual gladiator, where he fences, and parries, and thrusts, with all the skill and judgment he possesses.

"There is another way in which the schoolboy exercises his powers during the periods of leisure. He is often in society; but he is ever and anon in solitude. At no period of human life are our reveries so free and untrammelled as at the period here spoken of. He climbs the mountain-cliff, and penetrates into the depths of the woods. His joints are well strung; he is a stranger to fatigue. He rushes down the precipice, and mounts again with ease, as though he had the wings of a bird. He ruminates, and pursues his own trains of reflection and discovery, 'exhausting worlds,' as it appears to him, 'and then imagining new.' He hovers on the brink of the deepest philosophy, inquiring, How came I here, and to what end? He becomes a castle-builder, constructing imaginary colleges and states, and searching out the businesses in which they are to be employed, and the schemes by which they are to be regulated. He thinks what he would do, if he possessed uncontrollable strength, if he could fly, if he could make himself invisible. In this train of mind he cons his first lessons of liberty and independence. He learns selfreverence, and says to himself, I also am an artist and a maker. He ruffles himself under the yoke, and feels that he suffers foul tyranny when he is driven, and when brute force is exercised upon him to compel him to a certain course, or to chastise his faults, imputed or real." - pp. 168-171.

Such is the schoolboy, whether his dreams be of a park, or of a farm, or of the humblest roof which he may call his own in the darkest alley of the city. efforts, whether his aims be lofty or low.

Such are his Such are the

stirrings of his spirit, whether or not they are doomed to be laid to an ignoble rest. But here the companionship of minds is at an end. It is decreed by society that though