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seem to be conservatism and skepticism. The quette as the French, but has more real digGermans are slow to try a novel experiment, nity and stability; more thought and princi

ple; while, on the other hand, it is less etherial and speculative, but more animated and practical than the German. The genius of the language, according to these very principles and peculiarities of the people employing it, is well adapted both to the easier forms of con

and they accept the ipse dixit of no man. Where the skeptical tendency has predominated, it has produced an etherial, speculative, rationalistic element of character, and where the conservative has been in the ascendency, it has resulted in a cold, technical, minute and rigid logic. All this is apparent in the struc-versation and sociality, and to the more rigid ture of their language, and is observable in terms of logic and the most technical metatheir literature no less than in the daily life of physics. the people. In ease and grace, conciseness and animation, the general structure of the language is quite deficient. The style is discursive, by no means conversational-and the sentences are long and complicated. The simple meaning is often mystified by a vast pile of parenthetical clauses. They seem of ten to use language as a sheath for the meaning, rather than as a simple dress in which to present the meaning to the listener or the reader. Indeed, it is no uncommon thing to find a single undivided sentence occupying one, two, and sometimes three complete print-mass, upon which existing customs exert the ed pages.

By comparing the Anglican language of the present day with what it was two centuries since, the change exhibited will aptly illustrate in what respects the race has made progress and where it has retrograded. But it should here be observed that in comparing one age with another, less difference of style will be found among the more polished and refined writers, than among those of the ordinary class; since the former are conversant with the best classics of past times, while the language of the latter is moulded more by the

strongest influences.

The peculiarities of the French are quite Another illustration of our subject may be different from those of the Germans. As a drawn from the peculiar differences of the charpeople they are noted for their politeness, sua-acter of the people of Old and New England vity and sociability, their fickleness and want at the present day, which can be quite corof logic. Perhaps there is no language rectly determined by comparing their literawhich so clearly exhibit all of these charac- ture. Although it is true that some English teristics, as the French. Its sentences are terse, perspicuous, brief. Its periods short, rapid, unelaborate. It possesses a peculiar adaptation to conversation, a fitness for the fireside, the drawing-room, and the social gathering.

and American authors differ comparatively little in style, yet with the great mass there may be observed, on the one side, an easy, conservative, phlegmatic style, which indicates the settled character of the mother country, and her attachment to the "Recepti inter ve

The English is rather a medium between teres mores;" and on the other, a more active the two, being neither so terse and conversa-energy, a more fiery zeal, and often a more tional as the French, nor so tedious and techni- | earnest desire for advance, with consequently cal as the German. This is a direct result of a far less respect for the ancient landmarks, national characteristic. The English mind is plainly showing the character of young Amernot so shackled by the artistic rules of eti-ica

very

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the years hickory preserving in after rection which his own tiny hands had given it when a mere shrub.

The evidence of a new country is seen also in coarse, rough words, and provincialisms, which are introduced to express the peculiar customs of the section whence they have arisen. But, to take a more specific example of this Our geographical names, e. g., "Dismal reciprocal influence, we may adduce the efSwamp," " Big Bone Lick," and "Cape fect of the introduction of new words from Lookout," are generally less elegant and eunew customs, and the decay of others. As phonic than those of Europe. This arises language is solely for the accommodation of principally from the heterogeneous sources of the people, when, by some change of custom, their derivation, coming, as they do, from a word is no longer needed, it immediately some circumstance connected with the early falls into disuse, and exists only in the literahistory of these places, from their natural ap-ture of the past; "Letters, like soldiers," as pearance, or from the aborigines of the country.

ers.

The influence of custom upon language is manifest in the varied style of different writAs we judge the unknown by the known, we must continually use similes and comparisons, and it has often been remarked that the early occupation and manner of life of a writer may be known from the character of his comparisons. Franklin's epitaph, in which he compares his body to the "Cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding,' forcibly remind us that he was a printer, and that his life from early youth was spent among books.

Horne Tooke says, "being apt to desert and drop off in a long march." Or, it may change its signification as the custom it symbolizes changes, and be used with a new meaning,the same dress, but covering a very different personage. This process is constantly going on in every spoken language.

On the other hand, some new circumstance takes place, some new custom arises, or some old one must needs be revived with a new dress, and must certainly be christened with an appropriate appellation. is coined to supply the demand, or an old one is set apart and baptized for that specific use.

Hence a new word

We have in our political language a very expressive appellation for a certain class of men, often, indeed, too numerous for our country's weal, whom we call "old fogies." I suppose—although the word is not given in the dictionaries, and I have never met with its derivation-that it is derived from the word "fog," or, as its former orthography Fogge," which signifies dead grass,

The sweet bard of Israel, when he says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters," plainly tells us that in early life he was a shepherd boy. So we may naturally suppose that the author of the adage, “As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined," sat, in his boyhood, be-was, " neath the gnarled oak, and played among the which remains in pastures during the winter, tender saplings, watching their growth from and is therefore applied to one who is one year to year, perhaps intertwining their generation behind the times, and only a branches to form his summer arbor, where he hindrance to the growth of society. might withdraw from the scorching heat of the summer solstice and spend the hours of childish innocence beneath its cool, refreshing foliage, and thus had witnessed the huge

Much is learned from the history of words, retaining their form but changed in signification, of the history of the past. For example, in speaking of a man who subscribes his

name to a written document, we say, he "signs his name," by no means intimating that he makes a sign or mark for his name, although that custom-which was undoubtedly the origin of the phrase-is shown by the word sign. This phrase shows an elevation of society since its introduction into the language; whereas we often find in the history of words the evidence of retrogression.

The Latin word conjuratio originally meant merely a swearing together," which might be for a good or a bad purpose, but as men of tener took an oath for some wicked design, it finally came to denote "a banding together for unlawful purposes."

Not unfrequently the history of a word

shows some logical process of reasoning, by which a new inclination has been given to its

meaning.

The primal signification of the Greek Kos was "order," "arrangement," but it was subsequently applied to the "world," inasmuch as there was evident in the arrangement of all things such perfect order. This new application of the word speaks volumes for the age whence it originated.

We may therefore. observe, that, by the analysis of language, we perceive the true connection of the present with the past. "The most familiar words and phrases being connected," as an old writer says, "by imperceptible ties, with the reasonings and discoveries of former men and distant times. Their knowledge is an inseparable part of ours; the present generation inherits and uses the scientific wealth of all the past."

We may observe, also, that language, like all else, is subject to change and decay, and that each age and each individual leaves his impress upon it. Hence it is in evidence that our age, and each one of us, especially the teachers of the young, should leave upon a

language, which is spoken by the two most powerful and most enlightened nations of the

world, whose literature is more extensive and valuable than that of any other language, of modern or ancient times,-a language which may yet be spoken by all christendom,-an impress which will honor our memories in after times and be a blessing to ages yet to come.

For the Schoolmaster. Education Necessary to Arrest Natural Tendencies to Degeneracy.

BY REV. WILLIAM BATES.

In this age of speculation and theory, many are violently crying out against classical study; but should such reflect, they might perceive that every year our language is greatly enriched by the accession of new words and phrases from the noble languages of Homer and Vir-ioration. Illustrations of this principle are gil, to pass by those received from our sisters, the French and Spanish.

It is a distinguishing feature of our language, that it readily adopts as its own words from foreign languages, and thus increases its flexibility and power. We use many more words of foreign extraction than did our fathers, in consequence of which the old Saxon words have been restricted in their signification, and more precision and nicety of expresion given to them.

THERE is in all things a proneness to deter

numerous in the natural world. They are often met with by the gardener, the farmer, the shepherd. A garden, if neglected, runs to waste. A house unoccupied, or a ship lying unused at the wharf, rapidly decays. A farm, if uncultivated, declines in value. Its tendency to degeneracy and barrenness can be arrested only by diligent culture, by a rotation of crops, and by a generous enrichment of the soil. Many plants speedily degenerate under neglect. Only the most skillful and at

ing.

tentive culture, can prevent them from declin-To these may be added the masses in our cities and in sparsely inhabited regions who are neglecting the means of education and are deteriorating in enterprise, intelligence and virtue. Now how are we, as a nation, to escape the corrupting influence of such ignorance without the diligent appliance of the means of education? How are parts of this nation to be saved from relapsing into barbarism, and going down, at least, below the capacity to rise, without the elevating power of knowledge?

Illustrations of this proneness to degeneracy may be found also in the history of nations. All history testifies that those nations which have preserved to themselves the adyantages of an enlightened civilization, have done so only by a constant and energetic struggle against the downward currents of social decline that have ever set powerfully against them. How many nations, by these currents, have been speedily swept down to social disorganization and ruin. Nations that have struggled up to the heights of civilization, have stood there only while they have contended, with a watchful eye and a strong arm, against the besetting tendency to deteri

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For the Schoolmaster.
The Message.

BY J. SWETT.

Cloudless set the burning sun,
Shades of twilight had begun
And the miner's work was done.

From New England's far off shore,
Dear to him forevermore,
Came a message wafted o'er.

And it breathed in accents low,
"Wheresoe'er thou go
Kindest wishes round thee flow,

Friendship is a golden grain."-
Memories dear awake again,
Like the flowers in summer rain.

Musing on his lonely lot,
Half he thought himself forgot,
Buried in that unknown spot.

66

The importance of education as a conservative power in our republic to preserve the people from a retrogressive course, can hardly be over-estimated. Through its neglect in parts of Virginia and North Carolina, great bodies of the people, whose ancestors were educated men, of cultivated manners, have deteriorated in valuable qualities of character and sunk almost below the point of civilization. It is well understood that there are, all along our western frontier, a body of men So far is it from being true that men are nat(whose fathers were well educated and intel-urally equal, that no two people can be half an ligent) who are sunk to a very low grade of hour together but one shall acquire an evident character. This class is annually increasing. superiority over the other.

Friendship is a golden grain;"
To one heart across the main
It was not a message vain.
Feather River, Cal., Feb, 20, 1858.

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BY MANFRED.

NOT to the antiquarian alone belongs the right to make ancient coins a part of study and research. They stand forth as prominent and truthful guides to one tracing the events of by-gone ages; they serve to explain many of the obscure passages in the writings of the ancients; they preserve the delineations of some of the most beautiful edifices of olden time, not now even existing in their ruins,-in fact they form an almost indispensable part of the world's history. In the later part of the Greek series, they illustrate the chronology of reigns. In the Roman series they fix

the dates and succession of events.

The word "coin" is derived by some from the Greek, Kowes, common; by others, from the Latin, cuneus, a wedge, as probably the first currency was in the form of a wedge or ingots.

The first copper coins of Greece, known, are those of Gelon, king of Syracuse, about 490 B. c. There is no proof of gold coinage in Greece before Philip of Macedon. Athens had no gold money at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, 431 B. C.

About this time money began to be used at Athens to sway the judgment of the officers. Plutarch tells us that in Athens the first man who corrupted a tribunal was Anytas, the son of Anthynion, when he was tried for treason in delivering up the fort at Pylos, at the latter end of the Poloponnesian war."

The earliest Roman coin was copper, issued in the reign of Servius Tullius, 578 and 534 B. C. Silver coinage in Rome took place 266 B. c., and the coinage of gold, according to Pliny, about 206 B. c.

The barbarian coins were those of Lydia, Persia, Judea, Phoenicia, Numidia and Mansitania, Carthage, Spain, Gaul and Britain. It is stated that Alexander the Great, upon his conquest of Persia, 331 B. C., ordered the Darics melted down for his own coinage. Hebrew coins were struck under the dominion of the family of the Maccabees, and chiefly in the time of Simon, the high priest, 150 years B. c. They were nearly all copper, and rude in workmanship. The Phoenician coins

Through all of the early part of scripture, and in the poems of Homer, we search in vain for aught to indicate the use or even the existence of stamped money. Herodotus speaks of the Lydians as the first who coined gold and silver into money, while the Parian Chronicle ascribes its origin to the Eginetans, under Pheidon, king of Argos, 895 B. c. This is corroborated by Ælian in his "Vari-are not considered older than the reign of ous History," and the best versed antiqua- Alexander the Great, and principally referred rians are of the opinion that this statement is to the cities of Tyre and Sidon. The Numidian coins are those of Juba I. and II., about 50 B. c. The Carthaginian coins were struck

correct.

The Lydian coins are probably next in antiquity, and then the early Daries of the Per-off by Greek artists. Spanish coins illustrat

sian kings, probably coined between 522 and 486 B. C., in the reign of Darius the First. Coins are divided into two classes, ancient and modern. The ancient is divided into three divisions, Greek, Roman and Barbarian. The ancient coins comprise those issued be

ed the different nations by which its colonies were settled. The impress of the ancient coins of Gaul was but a rude device, yet after they mingled with the Romans, some of their coins bore an inscription which looked ike Latin, principally in single words, and

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