Every Wednesday, Mr. Alcott had an exercise which he calls an analysis, intended, it seems, to lay open the characters of children to themselves, and teach them self-examination. This is the scale of the

spiritual empire which he first presents to the children:

SPIRIT.

SOUL.

MIND.

Love. | Faith. | Conscience. | Appetite.| Affection.| Aspiration. | Imagination. | Judgment.| Insight

GOOD.

HAPPINESS.

TRUTH.

In the first place, it will be observed, that a distinction is made between the spirit, soul, and mind, which, even if it were not altogether imaginary, would be quite too subtle for a child's comprehension; and distinctive attributes of their different natures are specified, according to a rule still more arbitrary, uncertain, and tending to confusion. Thus love is made an attribute of the spirit, and affection of the soul. All these attributes are discussed with reference to letting the children see how far they posses them. Love comes first in order, and a little girl is examined as to the existence and operation of this principle in her mind I beg Mr. Alcott's pardon · in her spirit. It is unanimously voted by all present at the investigation, that she loves, she sacrifices, she forbears - that it is real love. So far very good. Then Mr. Alcott says: Well, look at this scale. You see the first division is spirit. The spirit comes from God; it loves, believes, obeys. We obey what we have faith in; we have faith in what we love; love is pure spiritual action. The spirit loves. The spirit, with its love, faith, and obedience, sanctifies, or makes holy, the soul in its appetites, affections and aspirations, so that it gets happiness. And it clears and purifies the mind, in its faculties of sense, judgment, and imagination; so that it discovers truth.'

In the course of a discussion upon faith, the following, among other conversation, occurs: Have you faith in any thing but persons? After a while, she said she had faith in nature. Have you faith in yourself?' 'Yes.' Your faith begins in yourself and goes all round among your friends, and into nature, until it finds God? Yes.'

These are fair specimens of the conversations constantly occurring, in pursuing this analysis, which cannot fail, I think, to leave the minds of the children in hopeless confusion. I should be very unwilling to have a child's mind led through such a maze of bewildering speculations, lest it should never get completely out of its perplexities. In one place, Mr. Alcott makes the children reply affirmatively to the following questions: Is the desire of sleep an appetite?—the desire of motion? - -the desire of sweet sounds? the desire of seeing beauty? the desire of smelling sweet odours, and of touching delicate things?' He makes them say, that there is conscience in love, because conscience makes us love good people' - that 'affection has all it loves within itself;' and obtains their assent to a great variety of similar propositions, to which I am sure they can attach no very precise meaning. Now if this analysis, and the manner in which it is conducted, were unexceptionable in all other respects, the habit children become liable to form, of assenting, often, to what they do not more than half comprehend, and perhaps not at all, renders them highly

objectionable. Such a habit once confirmed, and there is an end to all freedom, soundness, and strict uprightness of miud.

I think, too, that Mr. Alcott is not always sufficiently careful to avoid leading questions. The children seem generally to endeavor to adapt their answers, as nearly as possible, to his supposed wishes. The instances are very rare, in which a child ventures to dissent from him; and I confess I should prize, far more, the sturdy good sense, the independence and uprightness with which the boy in the matter of the hour's thoughts, and another little fellow who would not assent to the proposition that we should seek after things, except as signs of something better, more spiritual,' resisted the ultraism of their teacher, than any degree of imaginativeness, to be obtained only at the sacrifice of these qualities. In one place it is asked: Who says they have no doubt about inward things, but about outward things there is great uncertainty ? Several did, and in this act of assent, 'picture themselves out' to my mind, as a string of little automata, made, by some secret spring, to do all their master's bidding. In another, Mr. Alcott asks: Is the body entirely dead, in sleep? A child answers, Why, perhaps a little spirit stays in the body to keep it alive.' 'But the spirit generally goes out, and sees and hears with its inward eyes and ears, and that is dreaming;' an instance in point, we think, to show the effect of this mystical teaching. Another child says, one morning, when Mr. Alcott asks, Who have brought fresh minds to-day?' that his is fresh from the well.' From what well?' From the well of the spirit.' A third, with more definiteness of idea, when the word blade is explained, asks, if his mind, when it should become sharpened with wisdom, would not be a blade?'

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My limits do not permit me to follow Mr. Alcott through this analysis. It is the only part of the book in which our interest flagged, or in which we found more to condemn than to approve.

The scale, it is said, was changed many times in the course of this analysis; and when finally exhibited to the children, stood thus. It will show, at a glance, we think, the justness of our criticisms:

Miss Peabody, when treating of geography, speaks of maps as necessary evils, but certainly evils, so far as they preclude the mind from forming within itself a real picture of the original. There is a good deal of truth in this remark; but it is still more applicable to these maps of the mind, especially when they are parcelled out so minutely, and into so many imaginary departments.

Mr. Alcott's readings of the Bible are most of them admirable, and a great deal of his purely moral instruction excellent. Then he has evidently a care and love of the minds committed to his charge, which makes him very watchful over himself in all that may affect them. For instance, in all the attempts of the little children at any thing new, he carefully forbore from criticism, lest it should produce discouragement, unfavorable to future excellence. He proceeds, too, upon a very wise principle which should be forever present in the mind, and recognised in the practice of every parent and teacher, that in moral as well as physical diseases, prevention is better than cure.'

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Some very beautiful, and some very sagacious replies, are occasionally elicited from one and another of the children:

"One little girl being asked to tell a child how to improve and do better, said: ' You must set your heart to work.' A little boy being asked how the word Try shaped itself to his mind, said, 'As a strong man.' Another, only five years old, said to Mr. Alcott: Will you let me tell you what part of Pilgrim's Progress I like best?' 'Yes.' 'It is where Mr. Great Heart kills the giant Despair.' 'Is there any Mr. Great Heart in you?' 'Yes, and he is just killing the giant Despair; for once I thought I should never be good. Why, I would get tired sitting, and so leave off doing something and look around.' 'Should you like to be very good?' 'O yes.' The following incident was related of the same child: Mr. Alcott, after telling the children that from God's having made the world so beautiful we might infer his love and mercy, said: 'When you see any thing that is beautiful, you should follow after and find what true thing it leads to, and then follow on and find what good thing it is the sign of, and then you are very near God:' and then asked: What did I say, little boy?' The child replied: You said that beauty is the sign of truth, and truth the sign of love- and God is love.""

One word more, in the conclusion of this article, already, perhaps, too long. In pointing out what seems to us as some of the errors in Mr. Alcott's teaching, we hope we shall not be considered as wishing to disparage, or do him injustice. It would be a poor lesson of virtue to inculcate upon our own children or others, not to acknowledge with gratitude, not to treat with respect, the labors of a person, who is devoting his time and talents, with disinterested and ardent zeal, to a cause in which the best interests of humanity are so nearly concerned. As a praiseworthy reformer in a most important department, as a benefactor to that most interesting and no little neglected race, the race of children, he has established a claim to public and private regard, which no opinions of ours can have any tendency to impair. We have the satisfaction of believing, that Mr. Alcott will be the first to thank us, if by any hint, derived from our strictures, he shall be induced to study more carefully what has been happily termed, the balance of character,' to consider man as placed in a world, full of beauty, certainty, and stored with the wherewithal to feed and nourish his spiritual nature, but full, too, of physical obstructions, and with an immense variety of animal wants to supply.

In all places and modes of education, we should never lose sight of the great fact, that the mass of mankind must be brought up to labor, in

some sort, with their hands: and in regard to those who are so fortunate as to be relieved from this necessity, the first lesson to be inculcated is, that it is a shame, even for them, to eat the bread of idleness; that even they must give back to the world, in some form, the advantages they have derived from their superior condition; that if they do not cut down the forest, or plough, and sow, and dig, they must do what in them lies to facilitate the labors, lessen the privations, and increase the enjoyments of those to whom this task is assigned by Providence.

It is in this view of the subject, that we are disposed to find a good deal of fault with Mr. Alcott's theory and practice, as a teacher. There is a prodigious deal of hard work to be done in the world, and we think it is the tendency of his system — in attaching almost exclusive importance to the ideal and the beautiful to lessen the resolution and energy with which the various duties of life must be entered upon and prosecuted.

It is well to keep the body under, but it is not well, and it is entirely in vain, to endeavour to keep it out of sight. Although not the best, it is a good and essential part of the human composition, and in our humble opinion those persons are most sure of lasting spiritual good, who are made first acquainted with the hard realities of life, and are prepared to encounter them.

We hope Mr. Alcott will accomplish his mission - such as we have described the enthusiast's mission to be-and therefore wish that the Record of his school should be extensively circulated.

Miss Peabody deserves all praise for the method she has adopted, in order to exhibit this school in actual operation. It is indicative not only of good sense, but of uncommon fairness of mind, for in no other way could the school have been so well, so fully, and so justly comprehended.

She is evidently a woman of genius, and her remarks, when not too deeply spiritual in their character to be unintelligible to the uninitiated, are very fine. We should like to quote several pages, and especially a page or two very admirably written upon the subject of composition, but we had prescribed to ourselves a limit in this article, which has already been transgressed.

It seems to us unfortunate, that the assistant of Mr. Alcott should so much resemble him in the degree and character of her enthusiasm; that she should believe with him, that all the outward world may, even to children, become defined and lost' in the inward and spiritual world. Checks and balances are good in the machinery of all systems, but especially so, it seems to us, in such a system of instruction as this, in which there is so strong and powerful a tendency to ultraism, to go beyond not only all customary and prescribed, but, (if we may be pardoned what may seem paradoxical,) all practicable limits. Miss Peabody is even more prone, if possible, to the mystical, or to a departure from all common modes of expression and illustration, than Mr. Alcott; suggesting to us, whenever she endeavors to improve upon him, the idea of a person endeavoring to render a dim glass clearer, by wiping it over with a wet cloth.

For ourselves, we have no fancy for the mystical, in the regions of imagination or philosophy, and far less in the common-places of life; and we are accustomed to consider language as appproaching most

YOL. VII.

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nearly to perfection, in proportion as it becomes a perfectly transparent medium.

Mr. Coleridge, who is considered, we suppose, one of the most eminent disciples of the spiritual school, says: We do not reverence what we comprehend thoroughly; and thereby betrays, we think, that he cultivated the mystical both in thought and expression. His illustration, in this instance, is particularly unfortunate, viz: that if we could comprehend the Deity as perfectly as we do a tree, we should not reverence him.' Hence it follows, that in the future life, when, as is supposed, we shall comprehend him more and more, we shall reverence him less; an idea which the spiritualists, we think, would be the last to admit.

S.

THE LOVER-STUDENT.

WITH a burning brow and weary limb,
From the parting glance of day,
The student sits in his study dim,

Till the east with dawn is gray;

But what are those musty tomes to him?
His spirit is far away.

He seeks, in fancy, the halls of light
Where his lady leads the dance,

Where the festal bowers are gleaming bright,

Lit up by her sunny glance;

And he thinks of her the live-long night

She thinketh of him- perchance!

Yet many a gallant knight is by,
To dwell on each gushing tone,

To drink the smile of that love-lit eye,
Which should beam on him alone;
To woo with the vow, the glance, and sigh,
The heart that he claims his own.

The student bends o'er the snowy page,
And he grasps his well-worn pen,
That he may write him a lesson sage,
To read to the sons of men ;

But softer lessons his thoughts engage,
And he flings it down again.

The student's orisons must arise
At the vesper's solemn peal,
So he gazeth up to the tranquil skies
Which no angel forms reveal,
But an earthly seraph's laughing eyes
Mid his whispered prayers will steal.

In vain his spirit would now recur
To his little study dim,

In vain the notes of the vesper stir

In the cloister cold and grim;

Through the live-long night he thinks of her

Doth his lady think of him?

Then up he looks to the clear cold moon,

But no calm to him she brings;

His troubled spirit is out of tune,
And loosened its countless strings;

Yet in the quiet of night's still noon
To his lady love he sings: