that they may have an honest, hearty relish for it. The thing is, to plant the mind full of such loves, and so to set and form the intellectual tastes and habits, that the vicious and false will be spontaneously refused, and the healthy and true be freely preferred; this too, not from any novelty in it, but for the experienced sweetness and beauty of it, and for the quiet joy that goes in company with it.

Let the efficacy of a very few good books be seasonably steeped into the mind, and then, in the matter of their reading, people will be apt to go right of their own accord ; and assuredly they will never be got to go right except of their own accord. You may thus hope to predispose and attune the faculties of choice to what is noble and sweet, before the springs of choice are vitiated by evil or ignorant conversations. If people have their tastes set betimes to such authors as Spenser and Shakespeare, Addison, Scott, Wordsworth, and Charles Lamb, is it likely that they will stomach such foul stuff as the literary slums and grog-shops of the day are teeming with? not readily believe it can be so. ticability, any insuperable difficulty here. Instances of native dulness or perversity there will indeed be, such as no soulmusic can penetrate: but that, as a general thing, young minds, yet undeflowered by the sensational flash and fury of vulgar book-makers, will be found proof against the might and sweetness of that which is intellectually beautiful and good, provided they be held in communication with it long enough for its virtue to penetrate them, is what I will not, must not, believe, without a fairer trial than has yet been made.

I

hope it is not so, and I will Nor can I see any imprac

In reference to the foregoing points, a well-chosen and well-used course of study in the best English classics seems

the most eligible and most effective preparation. Whether to the ends of practical use or of rational pleasure, this cannot but be the right line of early mental culture. The direct aids and inspirations of religion excepted, what better nursery can there be of just thoughts and healthy tastes? what more apt to train and feed the mind for the common duties, interests, affections, and enjoyments of life? For the very process here stands in framing and disposing the mind for intercourse with the sayings of the wise, with the gathered treasures of light and joy, and with the meanings and beauties of Nature as seen by the eye, and interpreted by the pen, of genius and wisdom.

We are getting sadly estranged from right ideas as to the nature and scope of literary workmanship. For literature, in its proper character, is nowise a something standing outside of and apart from the practical service of life; a sort of moonshine world, where the working understanding sleeps for the idle fancy to dream. This is no doubt true in regard to most of the books now read; which are indeed no books, but mere devils and dunces in books' clothing; but it is not at all true of books that are books indeed. These draw right into the substance and pith of actual things; the matter of them is "labour'd and distill'd through all the needful uses of our lives"; the soul of their purpose is to arm and strengthen the head, and to inspire and direct the hand, for productive work. That an author brings us face to face with real men and things, and helps us to see them as they are; that he furnishes us with enablements for conversing rationally, and for wrestling effectively, with the problems of living, operative truth; that he ministers guidance and support for thinking nobly and working bravely in the services, through the perils, under the difficulties and adversities of our state,

this is the test and measure of his worth; this is the sole basis of his claim to rank as a classic. This, to be sure, is not always done directly, neither ought it to be; for the helps that touch our uses more or less indirectly often serve us best, because they call for and naturally prompt our own mental and moral coöperation in turning them to practical

account.

It is such literature that the poet has in view when he tells us,

books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good:

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

And books are yours,

Within whose silent chambers treasure lies

Preserved from age to age; more precious far
Than that accumulated store of gold

And orient gems which, for a day of need,
The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs:
These hoards you can unlock at will.

Nor is it the least benefit of such authors that they reconcile and combine utility with pleasure, making each ministrative to the other; so that the grace of pleasant thoughts becomes the sweeter for their usefulness, and the virtue of working thoughts the more telling for their pleasantness; the two thus pulling and rejoicing together. For so the right order of mental action is where delight pays tribute to use, and use to delight; and there is no worse corruption of literature in the long run than where these are divorced, and made to pull in different lines. Such pleasure is itself uplifting, because it goes hand in hand with duty. And as life, with its inevitable wants and cares and toils, is apt to be hard enough at the best with most of us, there is need of all the assuage

ments and alleviations that can come from this harmonizing Pressed as we are with heavy laws, happy indeed

process.

is he

Who from the well-spring of his own clear breast

Can draw, and sing his griefs to rest.

Next to a good conscience and the aids of Christian faith, there is no stronger support under the burdens of our lot than the companionship of such refreshing and soul-lifting thoughts as spring up by the wayside of duty, from our being at home with the approved interpreters of Nature and truth. This is indeed to carry with us in our working hours a power

That beautifies the fairest shore,

And mitigates the harshest clime.

Now I do not like to hear it said that our school-education can do nothing towards this result. I believe, nay, I am sure, it can do much; though I have to admit that it has done and is doing far less than it might. I fear it may even be said that our course is rather operating as a hindrance than as a help in this respect. What sort of reading are our schools planting an appetite for? Are they really doing any thing to instruct and form the mental taste, so that the pupils on leaving them may be safely left to choose their reading for themselves? It is clear in evidence that they are far from educating the young to take pleasure in what is intellectually noble and sweet. The statistics of our public libraries show that some cause is working mightily to prepare them only for delight in what is both morally and intellectually mean and foul. It would not indeed be fair to charge our public schools with positively giving this preparation; but it is their business to forestall and prevent such a result. If, along with the faculty of reading, they cannot also impart some safe

guards of taste and habit against such a result, will the system prove a success?

As things now go, English literature is postponed to almost every thing else in our public schools: much as ever it can gain admission at all; and the most that can be got for it is merely such fag-ends of time as may possibly be spared from other studies. We think it a fine thing to have our children studying Demosthenes and Cicero ; but do not mind having them left almost totally ignorant of Burke and Webster. Yet, in the matter of practical learning, ay, and of liberal learning too, for deep and comprehensive eloquence, for instruction in statesmanship, and in the principles of civil order and social well-being, Burke alone is worth more than all the oratory of Greece and Rome put together; albeit I am far from meaning to disrepute the latter. And a few of Webster's speeches, besides their treasure of noble English,-"a manly style fitted to manly ears,”—have in them more that would come home to the business and bosoms of our best American intelligence, more that is suited to the ends of a well-instructed patriotism, than all that we have inherited from the lips of ancient orators.

So, again, we spare no cost to have our children delving in the suburbs and outskirts of Homer and Virgil; for not one in fifty of them ever gets beyond these; yet we take no pains to have them living in the heart of Shakespeare and Wordsworth: while there is in Shakespeare a richer fund of "sweetness and light," more and better food for the intellectual soul, a larger provision of such thoughts as should dwell together with the spirit of a man, and be twisted about his heart for ever, than in the collective poetry of the whole ancient heathen world.

It

may indeed be said that these treasures are in a language