is, that are represented as considering style as an end, instead of a means, and as sacrificing sense to sound!

The conclusion which we draw from Mr. Grimké's premises is, as we have already intimated, that this supposed defect of the classical authors, would be alone sufficient to keep them where they are in our schools. We shall now add the last consideration which our limits will permit us to suggest, on this part of the subject.

In discussing the very important question whether boys ought to be made to study the Classics, as a regular part of education— the innovators put the case in the strongest possible manner against the present system, by arguing as if the young pupil, under this discipline, was to learn nothing else but language itself. We admit that this notion has received some sort of countenance from the excessive attention paid in the English Schools to prosody, and the fact that their great scholars have been, perhaps, (with many exceptions to be sure) more distinguished by the refinement of their scholarship, than the extent and profoundness of their erudition. But the grand advantage of a classical education consists far less in acquiring a language or two, which, as languages, are to serve for use or for ornament in future life, than in the things that are learned in making that acquisition, and yet more in the manner of learning those things. It is a wild conceit to suppose, that the branches of knowledge, which are most rich and extensive, and most deserve to engage the researches of a mature mind, are, therefore, the best for training a young one. Metaphysics, for instance, as we have already intimated, though in the last degree unprofitable as a science, is a suitable and excellent, perhaps, a necessary part of the intellectual discipline of youth. On the contrary, international law is extremely important to be known by publicists and statesmen, but it would be absurd to put Vattel (as we have ourselves seen it done, in a once celebrated Academy, in a certain part of the United States,) into the hands of a lad of fifteen or sixteen. We will admit, therefore, what has been roundly asserted at hazard, and without rhyme or reason, that classical scholars discontinue these studies after they are grown wise enough to know their futility, and only read as much Greek and Latin as is necessary to keep up their knowledge of them, or rather to save appearances, and gull credulous people; yet we maintain that the concession does not affect the result of this controversy in the least. We regard the whole period of childhood and of youth-up to the age of sixteen or seventeen, and perhaps longer-as one allotted by nature to growth and improvement in the strictest sense of those words. The flexible

powers are to be trained rather than tasked-to be carefully and continually practised in the preparatory exercises, but not to be loaded with burthens that may crush them, or be broken down by overstrained efforts of the race. It is in youth, that Montaigne's maxim, always excellent-is especially applicablethat the important question is, not who is most learned, but who has learned the best. Now, we confess we have no faith at all in young prodigies-in your philosophers in teens. We have generally found these precocious smatterers, sink in a few years into barrenness and imbecility, and that as they begin by being men when they ought to be boys, so they end in being boys when they ought to be men. If we would have good fruit, we must wait until it is in season. Nature herself has pointed out too clearly to be misunderstood, the proper studies of childhood and youth. The senses are first developed-observation and memory follow-then imagination begins to dream and to createafterwards ratiocination or the dialectical propensity and faculty shoots up with great rankness-and last of all, the crowning perfection of intellect, sound judgment and solid reason, which, by much experience in life, at length ripens into wisdom. The vicissitudes of the seasons, and the consequent changes in the face of nature, and the cares and occupations of the husbandman, are not more clearly distinguished or more unalterably ordained.— To break in upon this harmonious order to attempt to anticipate these pre-established periods, what is it, as Cicero has it, but, after the manner of the Giants, to war against the laws of the Universe, and the wisdom that created it? And why do so? Is not the space in human life, between the eighth and the twentieth year, quite large enough for acquiring every branch of liberal knowledge, as well as they need, or, indeed, can be acquired in youth? For instance, we cite the opinion of Condorcet, repeatedly quoted, with approbation, by Dugald Stewart, and if we mistake not, by Professor Playfair too, (both of them the highest authority on such a subject,) that any one may, under competent teachers, acquire all that Newton or La Place knew, in two years. The same observation, of course, applies a fortiori to any other branch of science. As for the modern languages, the study of French ought to be begun early for the sake of the pronunciation, and continued through the whole course as it may be, without the smallest inconvenience. Of German, we say nothing, because we cannot speak of our own knowledge; but for Italian and Spanish, however difficult they may be especially their poetry-to a mere English scholar, they are so easy of acquisition to any one who understands Latin, that it is not worth while even to notice them in our scheme. All that we ask then,

is, that a boy should be thoroughly taught the ancient languages from his eighth to his sixteenth year, or thereabouts, in which time he will have his taste formed, his love of letters completely, perhaps enthusiastically awakened, his knowledge of the principles of universal grammar perfected, his memory stored with the history, the geography and the chronology of all antiquity, and with a vast fund of miscellaneous literature besides, his imagination kindled with the most beautiful and glowing passages of Greek and Roman poetry and eloquence; all the rules of criticism familiar to him-the sayings of sages, and the achievements of heroes, indelibly impressed upon his heart. He will have his curiosity fired for further acquisition, and find himself in possession of the golden keys, which open all the recesses where the stores of knowledge have ever been laid up by civilized man. The consciousness of strength will give him confidence, and he will go to the rich treasures themselves and take what he wants, instead of picking up eleemosynary scraps from those whom, in spite of himself, he will regard as his betters in literature. He will be let into that great communion of scholars throughout all ages and all nations-like that more awful communion of saints in the Holy Church Universal-and feel a sympathy with departed genius, and with the enlightened and the gifted minds of other countries, as they appear before him, in the transports of a sort of Vision Beatific, bowing down at the same shrines and glowing with the same holy love of whatever is most pure and fair, and exalted and divine in human nature.— Above all, our American youth will learn that liberty-which is sweet to all men, but which is the passion of proud minds that cannot stoop to less-has been the nurse of all that is sublime in character and genius. They will see her form and feel her influence in every thing that antiquity has left for our admiration that bards consecrated their harps to her*-that she spoke from the lips of the mighty orators-that she fought and conquered, acted and suffered with the heroes whom she had formed and inspired; and after ages of glory and virtue, fell with Him-her all-accomplished hope-Him, the LAST of ROMANSthe self-immolated martyr of Philippit. Our young student will find his devotion to his country-his free country-become at once more fervid and more enlightened, and think scorn of the wretched creatures who have scoffed at the sublime simplicity of her institutions, and "esteem it" as one expresses it, who learned to

ton-Areopagitica.

+ Who can read Appian's account of this ever memorable battle without shedding tears?

be a republican in the schools of antiquity,* "much better to imitate the old and elegant humanity of Greece, than the barbaric pride of a Norwegian or Hunnish stateliness," and let us add, will come much more to despise that slavish and nauseating subserviency to rank and title, with which all European literature is steeped through and through. If Americans are to study any foreign literature at all, it ought undoubtedly to be the Classical, and especially the Greek.

The very difficulties of these studies, which make it necessary that so many years should be devoted to them-the novelty, the strangeness of the form, are a great recommendation. This topic is a most important one, and we would gladly follow it out; but we have already far exceeded our limits. We will just observe, that the reason which Quinctilian gives for beginning with the Greek, is of universal application. The mother-tongue is acquired as of course-in the nursery-at the fire-side—at the parental board-in society-every where. It is familiar to us long before we are capable of remarking its peculiarities. This familiarity has its usual effects of diminishing curiosity and interest, and of making us regard, without emotion and even without attention, what, if it came recommended by novelty, would leave the deepest impression. It is so with every thing in nature and in art. "Difficulties increase passions of every kind, and by rousing our attention and exciting our active powers, they produce an emotion, which nourishes the prevailing affection."+ Before his eighth year, a boy should be perfectly well grounded in the rudiments of English---and then, if his master be a scholar that deserves the name, he could learn his own language better by having occasion to use it in translations, both prose and metrical, of the ancient languages, than by all the lessons and lectures of a mere English teacher from his birth to his majority. Indeed, it would be difficult, in the present state of our literature to imagine any thing more insipid, spiritless, imperfect, and unprofitable than such a course. But we must break off here.

We were going to appeal to experience, but we know the answer that will be made. It is not sufficient; but, this too, must be deferred. In the mean time, we earnestly exhort our readers to consider the state of the question as we have put it. Not to have the curiosity to study the learned languages, is not to have any vocation at all for literature: it is to be destitute of liberal curiosity and of enthusiasm; to mistake a self-sufficient and superficial dogmatism for philosophy, and that complacent indolence which is the bane of all improvement for a proof of

* See Lowth's first Lecture before referred to. t Hume's Essay XXII. of Tragedy.

the highest degree of it. As somebody quoted by Horne Tooke savs, qui alios a literarum et linguarum studio absterrent, non ant que sapientia, sed nova stultitia doctores sunt habendi. Mr. Grimké's speculative opinions we think utterly erroneoushis excellent example cannot be too closely imitated-but it is unfortunately easy for all to repeat the one, while few have the industry and perseverance to follow the other.

ART. II.-1. The Horse-Hoeing Husbandry: or, a Treatise on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation, &c. By JETHRO TULL, of Shelborne, in the County of Berks. To which is prefixed an introduction. By WILLIAM COBBETT. London.

2. The Manures most advantageously applicable to the various sorts of Soils, &c. By RICHARD KIRWAN, Esq. 7th Edition. London. 1808.

3. Elements of Agricultural Chemistry. By Sir H. DAVY, LLD. F. R. S. &c. Philadelphia and Baltimore. 1821.*

4. A New System of Cultivation, without lime or dung, or summer fallows; as practised at Knowle farm, in the County of Sussex. By Major General ALEXANDER BEATSON, late Governor of the Island of St. Helena, &c. Philadelphia. Matthew Carey & Son. 1821.

FROM the time of the ancient Romans to the book of Jethro Tull, we know of little that has added to the theory or practice of Agriculture, that deserves to mark an era in its history either as an art or a science. The Rei Rustica Scriptores (I. Matt. Gesner. Leips. 1735 4to.) including M. Cato, Varro, Columella and Palladius, not forgetting Virgil, have furnished the materials of Bradley's Survey of Ancient Husbandry, and Dickson's Husbandry of the Ancients: which, if meant to supersede the original authors, should be read in conjunction with the agricultural Travels of Chateauvieux, and the Vestiges of Ancient Customs in Modern Italy, by the Rev. Mr. Blunt. From Hesiod, and

To this edition is added, “A Treatise on Soils and Manures, by a practical Agriculturist," which is an encumbrance of no value whatever.