But when in connection with these advantages we consider classical learning as a means of training and developing the mental powers, we think it possesses claims to a much wider diffusion, and to a much more careful cultivation than it has yet received among that class in our country which can afford the time and the means necessary for procuring any thing beyond a mere elementary education.

To this department of our subject we cannot do full justice at present without trespassing too largely on your time. We might indeed treat it very briefly, and perhaps with many of our auditors, who are predisposed in favor of the cause which we advocate, not unsuccessfully, by appealing to experience. We are persuaded that there is no individual of ordinary capacity who has studied the Classics, even with a moderate share of carefulness, for any length of time, who will not admit that he has found his faculties improved and expanded by this course of discipline. We think there are few even of those, who have not themselves enjoyed the privilege of a classical education, but yet have attentively observed the intellectual progress of others under good classical instruction, who will not admit that it has had a conspicuous influence in expanding and ripening their powers. We believe that there is little doubt entertained on this matter by practical teachers, who have themselves given instruction in the Classics, or who have conducted schools in which the Classics have been successfully taught. They will, perhaps universally, admit that their classical pupils make much more rapid progress in the development of their powers. We know that it is the testimony of some teachers — of teachers too, who are not themselves classical scholars, and who on that account may be considered as more impartial witnesses on this subject that the classical part of their scholars besides learning their Latin and Greek, make at the same time greater progress in all their other studies. In the case of such pupils, when their studies are judiciously directed, so that they neglect no important branch of a good English education, it can scarcely be said that any time is wasted in learning the Classics; even were we to admit that the knowledge of them is of no direct value in after life, and even that the training-without any reference to its important bearing on the pursuits of manhood — is only useful in facilitating the acquisition of the other parts of learning. It is in accordance with our own experience in a large English and Classical school, that the classical pupils,

incorporated in the same classes and enjoying exactly the same instruction, usually excel those who attend to English studies exclusively, in every branch which they pursue in common, and are as rapidly and as thoroughly prepared for the counting-house. After candidly making all proper allowance for the circumstance that it is generally pupils of the best abilities who commence the study of the Classics, we are persuaded that the above facts can be fully accounted for in no other way but by admitting the favorable influence of classical instruction in developing and expanding the faculties of the youthful mind.

But it may be more satisfactory to take a closer and less common place view of the subject and to endeavor very briefly to analyse, or rather open up the way for an analysis of the advantages which arise from classical training.

There are two distinct purposes to which intellectual discipline may be directed. The first is to prepare us for the accurate investigation of truth; the second to prepare us to communicate to others the knowledge which we have acquired. Persons who reflect on the subject of education may differ widely in their estimate of these two species of training. The few may prize the knowledge of the truth more than the facility of ready communication; and the many will prize those attainments most, which are most likely to enable them to attract the notice of mankind, and to exercise a more conspicuous influence in society. But all judicious persons, however they may sympathise with those who love truth for its own intrinsic excellence, will admit that both species of training are necessary to a useful development of the intellectual powers. Whilst they admire truth, they will not forget the claims and the wants of society. They will not forget that our labors in the fields of knowledge, as well as in other fields, ought not to be consecrated to mere self-gratification alone, but also to the improvement and the amusement of our fellow-men. They will not, even, utterly forbid to listen to the call of a generous ambition, when it incites to struggle, ardently, but honestly, to obtain a niche amongst those who have gained to themselves immortal fame, and have at the same time enriched mankind by the treasures of their wisdom. Whilst, therefore, they despise the art of stringing together musical periods about nothing words without wisdom-they will not depreciate the cultivation of solid and genuine eloquence.

It might, at first sight, appear that the preparation for the

investigation of truth has not only the priority in point of importance, but should have the priority in order in a judiciously regulated education. It may be said, what use in learning to communicate truth till we have first learned to acquire it? But a little examination will be sufficient to convince us that this is one of the many instances in which mere abstract speculation, unaided by the light of experience, might lead us astray from nature and from truth. It is obvious, to every experienced observer of the order in which the powers of the human mind are developed, that the faculty of communication takes the precedence of the faculty of reasoning - of reasoning, at least, in all its higher and more dignified functions. Though it is a good rule to think before we speak, yet the faculty of speaking, we must admit, displays itself mucli earlier than the faculty of thinking. In many, indeed, the former faculty seems to be the only one having connexion with the intellect, which ever attains to any considerable development; a development sometimes more gratifying to themselves than to their neighbors, whilst the power of thinking that is of deep and accurate thinking either exists not at all, or remains completely dormant. But it is not the purpose of any judicious system of education to increase the number of mere talkers. There always has been, and we presume there always will be, without any artificial culture, an abundant supply, if not for the instruction, at least for the amusement be to try the patience ofmay mankind. Yet to find fault with this, were unphilosophically to find fault with the distribution which nature has made of her gifts, who has evidently designed that the great bulk of mankind should acquire all their knowledge from others, and by whose impulse they freely communicate that which they have freely received. But, farther, nature has obviously intended that not only the great mass of mankind, but even those who in after life, may become the profoundest thinkers, should receive their first knowledge in the same way. The child learns through the exercise of its imitative powers, to lisp its first accents, whilst it has no idea, or only a very confused idea, of the sense attached to them. And the boy is capable of learning the appropriate usage of language, as a vehicle of com-. munication, before he is capable of being put in possession of the truths of abstract science, though digested by others and prepared for his use; and, consequently, long before he is capable of engaging successfully in independent research, ex

or it

cept on the plainest and easiest themes. From this it follows that though a pupil should be trained, from a very early period of his education, to the investigation of such subjects as are suited to his capacity, yet, in accordance with the example which nature has set us, the system of training for the purpose of communicating knowledge to others may, and ought, to be carried forward in advance of the other process, and may even be finished before it, if any part of man's education can with propriety be said to be finished in the present stage of his existence. The truth of this position will be obvious if we reflect that there are many men, who can never hope to add the slightest contribution to the already accumulated stores of thought, or even to follow, save at a very humble distance, the adventurous discoverers in the fields of science, who yet are reputed eminent for their literary attainments, and are conspicuously useful either as teachers of christianity, or the instructers of youth in knowledge, for which they are exclusively indebted to the researches of others. In the case of such persons it is all important that the power of ready and impressive communication should be thoroughly exercised; whilst their researches being in a great measure confined to a selection of the best guides to useful knowledge, a long course of training for this purpose is only of secondary importance.

So much being premised respecting the general design of early intellectual training, it will not be very difficult to show that classical instruction conduces powerfully to promote both the purposes which we have mentioned, and especially the latter.

As regards the first purpose of mental training, classical instruction when properly conducted, serves as a constant exercise in criticism, commencing with the lower and more minute verbal and grammatical criticism, and ending, when the course is sufficiently extended, with the higher and more philosophical criticism. It habituates the pupil to pay the closest attention to the sense of what he reads, (a habit which of itself constitutes a very important and essential part of a good education), as without this it is impossible that he can make any progress in the business of translation. Almost every time that he is obliged to have recourse to his lexicon, his taste, his powers of discrimination, are called into exercise in the selection of appropriate terms to express the meaning of his author. And his judgment is still more severely exercised in unravelling intricate constructions when they occur. The

parsing, in the commencement of his course, of all that he recites, and in his after progress, of every word or sentence which presents any difficulty, affords, as at present conducted by careful teachers, excellent training in the art of analysis, and might, with some judicious improvements, afford still better. We would observe, as we pass, that this is a part of classical instruction which we think might be simplified and improved, and much better directed to the development of the sense of the subject parsed; and this is its proper and only object, though one, which under the present system, a young pupil does not, in every instance, clearly discover. The improvements of modern times seem to be very slow in reaching this important branch of classical-and the same is also true of English-education. It is still handed down from one race of teachers to another, with the same imperfections, and the same barbarous, and to boys, unmeaning terminology, with which it was transmitted from the scholastic ages. But it would lead us into a tedious discussion to present our views fully on this subject. Besides, we should think it wrong to propose any sweeping innovation in a part of instruction so important, till the plan suggested as an improvement were very completely matured, and subjected to the rigorous test of experiment.

It may be objected to what we have said above, that, though classical instruction trains the mind to the investigation of truth, the subjects of investigation are in their nature trifling, and remote from the important concerns of human life, - - the mere philosophy of words and not of things. In reply to this, we might ask, Is the vehicle by which we obtain nearly all our knowledge, and hold all our communication with our fellow-men, which constitutes one of the chief distinctions betwixt us and the lower orders of creation, without which our minds, even though possessed of all their present powers, would remain in a state of comparative darkness — a mere uncultivated waste is this vehicle of thought, this glorious gift of our Creator, a thing of small importance? Besides, what species of training possesses closer analogy with the pursuits of the theologian, the lawyer, the statesman, the cultivator of polite and of useful literature, and especially the now rapidly increasing class of productive laborers in the various departments of human learning, who devote their time and their talents to the honorable employment of enlightening, or amusing their fellow citizens? —not to speak