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His mind and energies to study bent?
To pleasing tasks we turn our backward view,
"Andrews and Stoddard," "Paley," "Butler,"too,
To grasp some mighty thought we vainly try,
Or lose our temper over "x+y,"

Con Wayland's "ego" and "non ego," here,
Or stumble on the "Doctrine of the Sphere."
And will the memory ever pass away,
Of that dread time, examination day,
When just beneath the critic's eye we stood,
And conned old lessons for the "public good?"
In conscious dignity our verbs rehearsed,
And murdered Virgil's sweet and flowing verse?
Yet pause, forbear,-these walls have witnessed

here

The rising youth go forth from year to year,
Forth to the world to thread its dusty mart,
Earning success, by labor or by art.

Whose living light eclipses every other,
And saying thus led forth her Gracchi boys.
Silent, abashed-'mid their imperial toys,
The noble ladies stood, though they had gem s
Worthy to set in royal diadems,

So grandly did that mother-thought alone
Rival the brilliancy of richest stone,
O'ertop the majesty of queenliest dower
In the sweet wealth of its maternal power.
So here 'tis not our country's greatest glory
That she's a name famed in heroic story,
Nor that her riches with her years increase,-
Her brightest jewels are the arts of peace;
Those noble institutions of the free,
Leagued against wrong and joined to equity,
The last best fruits of democratic rule,
The free election and the public school.
Breathing Rhode Island's free and healthful air,

And who can tell — perchance when years have And educated by her generous care,
passed,

We lay our varied talents at her feet,

These youths may make themselves renowned at We bless her liberal hand. It were but meet last,

And by their genius and their moral worth,
Immortalize the spot that gave them birth.
Then, when such patrons and such fame we've
found,

And these fair halls become as classic ground,
No more shall Science stay her wing of light
Through want of apparatus in her flight,
But in those palmy days, that happier year,
The needed laboratory will appear,

The children of her bounty here to-day
Some passing tribute to her worth should pay.
Long may those children guard her vestal fires ;
Long live the worthy sons of worthy sires,
Her brightest hope be in her rising youth,
Her firmest Anchor be her children's truth.

Let us, as passing through the walks of life,
We feel its jostle, mingle in its strife,-
Let us sometimes recall these fleeting hours,

Furnished with instruments both great and small, When hope was young, life garlanded with flow

A bona fide telescope and all.

Come, let us paint the future, when these walls
Shall stretch out broadly into gorgeous halls,
When noble libraries shall open here
Their willing doors to aid the young idea.
See, every spell this magic spot hath graced,
To please the mind and charm the eye of taste,
Art shows you paintings on the frescoed walls,
Your foot on costly carpets softly falls.
But I forbear, lest this may seem to be
Beyond the bounds of possibility,
For, though "hard times

blessing,

ers;

And as each year, spun by the hand of fate,
Leaves on our souls its gladness or its weight,
As slowly fading in life's sterner day,

Our cherished dreams, like mist-wreaths, melt

away,

Still may these hours their pleasing spell retain
To warm our hearts, to make us young again;
Let us at times unlearn the lessons taught,
Forget our larger skill, our deeper thought,
Throw off the shadow by time's dial cast,
stole many a social And bathe us in the sunlight of the past.
'Tis ever thus, upon our onward track,
One footstep forward and the other back,
Our souls still love old pleasures to renew

He left behind our yankee knack for guessing.
These are my jewels, said the Roman mother,

When memory brings her pictured scenes to view, Lurking among us in obscurity;

Still fondly linger by those dusky lines
Where olden bliss with future hope combines
Through gathering shadows ere the fancy wane,
We call old spirits to their haunts again.
But see, the vision fades,-the pictures pale,
Hope sings her silvery song or tells her tale.
How quick old memories oblivion find
Before the bright ideals of the mind,
The future prospect charms the wishful eye,
Anticipation paints a cloudless sky;
To youthful eyes, life's river in its course
Runs smoothly as the waters at its source;
Faith's arching rainbow spans its glowing west,
And Hope's green islands glisten on its breast.
Not in the outward world of time and sense,
Nor in the forms its varying scenes presents,
Or little joy our fleeting span may give;
Not thus, but in ourselves we truly live.
In every soul Hope paints her pictures well,
In every soul some fairy visions dwell

Of that hereafter, when our dreams shall be
Embodied in the blest reality.

How many a different scene of weal or woe
That hidden path, that inner life would show,
If through the future's veil our eyes could see
To read the horoscope of destiny?
What shall we be, when in the coming time,
Our young ambition shall have reached its prime?
Some would be great, their dream of highest
good

Lies in the praises of a multitude.

Alas! for him; when fancy's dreamings high
Illume his mind and upward turn his eye,
In the “fine frenzy" of poetic flight,
The garret's cobwebs only meet his sight;
But still has fate one ray of comfort given,
He literally lives the nearest Heaven.
Our future life seems like a youth's ideal,
Too often visionary and unreal.
Too oft amid the bustle and the strife,
We do forget this is not all of life,
Intent on dreams of trifling follies made,
Whose substance is the shadow of a shade,
We lean on reeds, we live but for to-day;
We work, we struggle, and we pass away,
The only guerdon fate's stern hand has given
A veil which shuts out happiness and Heaven.
Yet there are times,-who has not felt their power,
And known the influence of such an hour?-
When the bound soul from its long dreaming
wakes,

And in its horizon the day-star breaks,
Showing our poor earth-idols made of clay,
Robbed of their hues and mouldering away.
Breathing unworded prayers in their calm light
The stars are watchers of the dead by night ;
So should our souls watch o'er our feebler clay,
Lest passion's clamor rise o'er duty's sway;
So in our daily walk, our lives should be
Sacred to virtue, truth, and purity;
Living so near the courts of light and bliss
Our souls can catch the heavenly harmonies.

And they may win; but ere they reach the goal Though strife and cursing fill the lower air,

How many a lofty principle of soul,

Beneath the car of policy shall lie

A sacrifice to popularity.

Sending back echoings of praise and prayer,
Learning how great, how God-like 'tis to be
Above the world, its pomp and vanity,

Their fame's a bubble; fortune's wheel may turn, Strewing our path with ministries of good;

They say "Eureka" at an empty urn;
Some may be merchant princes; but the ring
Of golden ingots has no charm to bring
The early lustre to the whitened hair,

Or smooth the furrows from a brow of care.
Perchance some embryo author we may find,
Whose words of wisdom shall delight mankind,
Whose ready mind shall guide a pen of light,
To lead the world in ways of truth and right.
Perchance some poet's loving soul may be

Loving all men as one great Brotherhood,
Never forgetting we are not of earth,-
But heirs of God, children of heavenly birth,-
And that our path, though rough and dark it be,.
Leads us to home and immortality.
With such a prospect of a life of bliss,
Is it not strange we fondly cling to this?
Strange that we wander from our Father's fold?
Strange that Heaven fadeth in the shine of gold:
That idle luxury and outward show

Can stifle down the true, free heart below?!
That lines of misery on the brow of care
Can so efface the angel-nature there?
That Heaven's ambassadors retreat in fear
And the Recording Angel drops a tear?

In my youth's gay sunny morning, Ere my dreamland passed away, Or the rose flush of the dawning Yielded in the riper day,

Built I many an airy castle

Where my soul should dwell for aye.

Towers of stone, and doors of iron,
Wrought I for its strong defence;
"I am mightier than Time is,
These shall flourish ages hence :"
Thus I boasted in my weakness,
With no thought of Providence.

I had vassals, I had banners
Broidered with a mystic sign,
Cattle browsing on the hill-sides
In the sunlight,-all were mine;
And my barns were overflowing
With their stores of corn and wine.

"Drink," I said, "oh! Soul, be merry, Eat, to-day may be thy last;

Seize the present time and pleasure,
This is all the life thou hast.

"Not for thankless freedom's mission

Shall my Soul her ease resign,
And the rugged path of duty
Is for stouter feet than mine."

So I turned me to my revel,

Bade the harpers sing once more,
And the light feet of the dancer
Trip upon the oaken floor.

But my soul was heavy. Conscience
Stood and pleaded at my door.
Slowly crumbled the foundations
I had built so strong of late,
Round me an o'ershadowing presence
Brooded like the wing of fate,
For I heard the voice of Wisdom
Thundering at my castle gate.

Wisdom calls; my fabrics vanish,
"Turn ye, turn at my reproof,
Lo, my Spirit shall be with you,
Leave thy follies with thy youth,
Be no more the idle dreamer,
But a Champion of Truth."

In my life-book, stained and blotted,

I have turned another page,

Armed me for life's hot battle,

Eager in its conflict to engage,

Trusting in the glorious promise
Of a heavenly heritage.

Schoolmates, shall our soul's fair gardens
Nurture only useless weeds?
Up, and in the waiting furrows
Scatter good and fruitful seeds;
This is not the age for dreaming
But for great and noble deeds.

Once, 'tis said, the poet Amphion,
Filled with strange, poetic fire,
Raised the walls of Thebes' fair city
By the music of his lyre.

So our lives should flow harmonious
Like a songster's pleasing rhyme,
Should be grand and solemn poems
Chanted by the minstrel Time.

So should we a power inherit

Which should raise and make us strong, And build up, within the spirit, Bulwarks against sin and wrong.

Labor is this mighty lever

Which should raise and make us free;
Earnest, noble. strong endeavor,
Links us with the Deity.

Are your hands too white for soiling?

Of the common herd afraid?
God's right hand is with the toiling,
All are equal he hath made.

Human pride! it leaves its traces,
Whereso'er its shade is thrown,
Like the fabled Gorgon's faces
Turning human hearts to stone.

But for me, let not the dollar,

And the stamp of noble birth
Be the standard that I follow,
And my highest test of worth.

He whose hand, embrowned by labor,
Worketh well and worketh sure;
He who scorneth not his neighbor,
He whose heart and lips are pure.

Rise and work! Will idle dreaming
Win the shore by angels trod?
Earthly things are only seeming,
There is nothing true but God.

Onward press! the weeds of pleasure
Flourish not in Heavenly soil,
Oh! compute by higher measure,
Learn to win a Heaven by toil.

Courage in the weak beginning
Turn thy face toward the light,
And thou shalt not fail of winning,-
God is ever with the right.
May 13th, 1858.

For the Schoolmaster.
Expression.

English Dictionaries.

BY PROF. E. O. HAVEN.

IN each of the modern languages in which literature and science have been extensively cultivated, as well as in each of the ancient languages, the knowledge of which is conceived to be valuable, may be, found at least one dictionary that could not have been entirely the work of one man. The best dictionaries are the product of successive generations of laborious scholars. Passow alone could not have produced his valuable Latin Dictionary, which has been still more improved by Andrews. Gesenius was greatly indebted to previous and contemporary commentators in the production of his Hebrew Lexicon. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the persevering and systematic labors of Noah Webster, all tending towards one end, and protracted through far more than the average working life of man, would have produced a dictionary having any claims to be a perfect lexicon of the English language, had he not had the labors of some predecessors for a foundation, and had not the work in some

A MAN, to be truly eloquent, must first possess some well-defined thought which he believes, feels, and with which he is so burden-particular departments been completed by men specially skilled in those departments.

ed that he cannot keep it. Then, if his soul is on fire, there is no fear, provided he discards all affectation or artifice, that he will light up a flame in the minds of his audience, of sparkling, living thoughts, which shall continue to burn forever.

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In early times there were no dictionaries. Men spoke and wrote according to usage, which was never uniform over the whole of any considerable nation or in any two successive generations. Hence the great difficulty in determining the proper meaning and orthography, particularly of words found only or principally in ancient works. It would be difficult to find two manuscripts in Latin, Greek, or Anglo-Saxon, or in any ancient language, in both of which a uniform mode of orthography throughout was used. In these ancient languages scholars have come to an agreement, and if now a new manuscript is found, though sometimes a few copies are

printed in the original spelling that various linguist - could reduce to a system so c›mplex a language as the English. Various spellings continued to appear - but in a far less ratio-words were used in new mean

scholars may have the pleasure and profit of deciphering it, yet the editions designed for general use are reduced to the standard mode of spelling and punctuation. This was the ings, new words were introduced, and a new case, for instance, with a work called Hip-dictionary was needed. Hosts of imitators polytus, a manuscript of which lay unnoticed feeble folk- of course sprung up. They in the library of the University of Paris many are scarcely worthy of mention. All of them years, till some copies seriatim and literatim were made, and soon after an edition according to the modern spelling was made by Bunsen, a celebrated German scholar.

To

introduced some improvements, but many of
them marred more than they improved. Not
one of them, like Johnson, devoted to the
work heroically years of investigation.
these, however, John Walker was an excep-
tion. Though destitute of the boldness and
scope of mind of Johnson, he did improve the
orthography of the language. He saw that
Johnson had perpetuated absurdities, and set
himself to remove many of them. He recti-

The same will apply to books published even after the art of printing had come into general use. Previous to the latter part of the eighteenth century, there was no fixed or indeed general standard of orthography in the English language. Many books even had the same words spelled in two or three, and some-fied the spelling of some words, and introtimes in many different ways. Even in so duced some others. His chief excellency,

short a production as the Will of Shakspeare, his name is written in two different spellings, and it is probable that a printer then would have followed the copy.

In 1775, Johnson's large dictionary was published. He had toiled I think more than ten years in its production. He limited his investigations, however, to works which had appeared within two hundred years of his own time, not studying the Anglo-Saxon, and of course in that day, having an imperfect knowledge of Latin, and still more so of Greek. The great credit of this work was the introduction of some system imperfect as it necessarily was into the perfect medley of orthography which had previously prevailed, and also a very creditable explanation of the meaning of words deduced from their ordinary usage, in the one hundred and fifty years over which his studies ranged.

however, was in exhibiting the true pronunciation of words according to the practice of the best society in London. For this he was especially qualified, as he was for many years a teacher of elocution in the best society. To him in this particular department, all subsequent lexicographers are much indebted.

But the greatest lexicogropher in our language was unquestionably our countryman, the celebrated Noah Webster. His labors in this department, and the results of them, far surpass those of any other man before or since. From the beginning, he seems to have had a strong predilection for the critical study of words. At the age of twenty-five, five years after his graduation at Yale College, he in the meantime having studied law, he published that elementary compend called Webster's Spelling Book, of which more than thir ty millions are said to have been printed, and from which probably more than three times as many people have learned to read as there

But it would betray an inadequate conception of the magnitude of the enterprise, to suppose that one man - and he not a profound are now adults in the United States, and far

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