some of the commonest terms; enough natural philosophy, to be able to talk of action and reaction, the principle of the screw, and hydraulic pressure. In other words, the received idea of a practical education includes a smattering of so many things, that it excludes a thorough knowledge of any. We think enough has been said to show that such an education is really very unpractical; that the knowledge would not be of any great use if it were firmly retained, and that it is really held in the loosest and most uncertain manner. A practical education is, rather, one which disciplines and invigorates the mental powers to such a degree as to make them quick in acquiring and arranging knowledge, tenacious in retaining it, and accustomed to correct habits of thinking.

A more valid defence is sometimes set up, in the remark that the present wide course of study gives an expansion and liberality of mind which could not otherwise be attained. If it were really true that this expansion of mind could only be acquired under the present system, that would then be a strong argument in its defence. This, however, we think, could not be shown. And, meanwhile, we are paying too dear for the fancy to sacrifice to it all thoroughness, and give ourselves up to a broad, dead level of superficiality.

It may seem, to some, hard thus to contract the sphere of a student's attention. But the complaint should rather be, that our capacities of acquiring knowledge are so feeble and limited, that, learning being so divine a thing, we cannot drink it in as freely as water, but must painfully apply drop after drop to our parched and thirsty lips; that we must grope so blindly in such Elysian fields. The old fable of Tantalus is realized in the position of a scholar. Unlimited fountains of clearest knowledge are welling up around him; and the feebleness of a merely mortal capacity prevents his drinking enough to more than increase his thirst.

Let us turn aside from the main subject, at this point, to notice another great fault of our educational system, which forms the most fatal combination with the one we are considering. We allude to the inordinate attention paid to the arts of speaking and writing. If superficial study were combined with less constant practice in composition, or if incessant speaking and writing were united with habits of patient investigation and thorough study, in either case the evil would not be so great. But when, to a system which does all it can to prevent thorough knowledge of anything, is united a practice which encourages the greatest fluency and confidence in speaking and writing about everything, and that, too, without care

ful preparation, then the result is deplorable indeed. For to this unhappy combination, which pervades almost the whole educational system of the country, must be ascribed, not only most of the literary foibles at which we blush, but also some of the serious evils under which we groan. How often do we suffer from seeing men in positions of official responsibility, for which their whole previous life and education have unfitted them. And although their preferment to these positions is justly ascribed to merely political considerations, yet, if the whole nation were accustomed to thoroughness in every department of life, how much less likely would such cases be to occur, or even to be tolerated! How mortifying, too, was the spectacle, and how pernicious sometimes the consequences, of the unblushing effrontery with which, during our late civil war, men, women, and children, of all ages and conditions, expressed dogmatical opinions upon subjects of which they were totally ignorant; upon questions of finance that would have driven a Gladstone to despair; points of international law that would have perplexed a Vattel; and problems of military force and science that would have gone nigh to break the heart of a Napoleon or a Von Moltke. Nearly all the utterances of our periodical press upon subjects requiring serious thought, and especially the theological discussions of the last few years, afford still more striking illustrations of the immense evils produced by the fatal combination of superficiality of knowledge with facility of expression.

But to return to our subject. Not only does the present system of a vast multiplicity of studies fail to discipline the mind thoroughly, not only does it fail to impart such accurate and understood knowledge as will be of much practical use, it also, in an eminent degree, fails to awaken the interest of the student. And the reason is not hard to find. Thorough study is always interesting. Superficial study is always tedious. In fact, it might be almost stated as a maxim, that any man will become interested in any branch of learning, no matter how averse to it he may naturally be, provided he goes far enough to thoroughly understand it. For every science is like a pleasant field, set round with a thorny hedge of rudiments and technicalities. To penetrate or surmount this is a labor of difficulty and pain; but after it is once fairly overcome, there is then a wilderness of sweets with which to refresh ourselves. Alas, for the poor students, who are forced to all the toil and trouble of half penetrating, first one hedge, and then another, without being permitted to tarry long enough to get entirely through, much less xcviii.-9

to pluck the fruit and flowers that bloom within the enclosures! Is it a wonder that, after the college course, so many are disgusted at the bare thought of scholarship and study, and give themselves up with a sigh to getting through life as well as they can without them?

The point which we have sought, in these remarks, to enforce, is the unavoidable necessity of concentration of effort, in order to thoroughness of attainment or mental discipline. The great evil deplored is the superficiality arising from a neglect of this principle. It may be difficult to determine whether the fault rests chiefly with our schools or with our colleges, for the evil springs from a false theory pervading the popular mind, and controlling our whole educational system.

It is not necessary, at this time, to discuss the practical measures to be adopted to remedy this evil. It is sufficient if the practice of frittering away the attention upon a dozen different subjects is recognized as based upon a wrong theory, and as being pernicious in its consequences. That point once admitted, the practical results will soon follow.

In schools it would be necessary to make a very great diminution in the number of studies pursued. Believing, as we do, that the basis of education should be literary and classical, to a far greater degree than it is at present, we yet hold even this important matter to be of secondary moment to the paramount necessity that something should be thoroughly taught.

In colleges, any change would have to be so made as to harmonize two apparently conflicting claims. In the first place, their university character must be retained. Facilities must be afforded for pursuing the same branches of learning as at present. But, in the second place, the sphere of study for each individual student must be greatly contracted. It certainly can be neither impossible nor very difficult to attain both of these ends, although the best modifications of our present plan may only be gradually discovered. But if the effort is honestly made in this direction, and if, in making it, we are wise enough to profit by the experience of other and older nations, we can hardly fail to make an improvement in our educational system which will be eventually felt, not only in all the walks of professional life, but in all grades of society, and even in all the functions of government.

VERY

ERY many are familiar with the name of Disraeli in connection with his books of delightful learning; such as the "Curiosities and Amenities of Literature." But few, probably, are aware that he ever published a philosophical volume, intended to apologize for, and to vindicate, the faith in which he was educated. One reason is, that the volume is not anonymous only, but devoid of all preface,-coming nakedly forward before the public, to glean such tolerance or commendation as its intrinsic merits might warrant. It was published forty years ago, and ushered upon its fortunes as silently as if it had been a sort of ghost of history, that had slumbered like the primeval world under a canopy of darkness. It would seem, by its own description of its aim, to have been an attempt to recommend Judaism to the literate and scientific; at any rate, to rescue it from their habitual contempt. For its author places near its close, what he ought to have placed on its titlepage as a motto, the following words: "I am not writing the history of the Jews, for antiquaries; but the Genius of Judaism, for philosophers" (p. 239).

This looks as if Mr. Disraeli's aim, in behalf of the fathers of his race, was altogether scholastic; at least, as if he desired to

induce the learned to admit Judaism's respectability. But when we consider the date, 1833, we can hardly help thinking that there was an underlying political aim which also prompted him. But a short time previously, England had consented to emancipatory laws, which opened Parliament and civil offices to the Roman Catholics. A sort of revolution in public opinion had taken place toward a once dreaded class of religionists. He waited till the waves of agitation had spent their force; and when the nation had subsided into a calm, he undertook the cause of a people more oppressed than those who had been set free. We see his timidity in coming out anonymously, and in leaving his volume to fight its own way, without apology or preface. But when, in the course of it, we find distinct and careful mention of the manner in which such men as Cromwell and Napoleon I. had demeaned themselves toward Judaism, it cannot fail to be suspected that politics had quite as much, or more, to do with its inauguration than mere scholarship.

It was a favorable juncture to bring up the auspicious facts that a great English politician, and a great French politician, had each shown himself, at least, not incurably hostile to Judaism. Right in the midst of the Puritans, with "the gilt pocket Bibles of the puritanical doctors" ready to leap out against him, as if something like what we call revolvers, Cromwell did not hesitate to give the Jews' case a patient, careful, and not ungracious consideration. Doubtless, the Cromwellian finances needed looking after, as well as the direct munitions of threatening war. And the astute Protector of the liberties of England, alias his own, well knew and appreciated the arts and mysteries of Jewish financiering. Mr. Disraeli says, understandingly, that Cromwell "took a statesman's view, and did a statesman's act." To pacify his clamorous divines, he listened to them. But "he declared there was nothing but confusion in their counsels; and, as had been his first intention, he allowed a limited number to settle in London, and to have synagogues" (p. 241).

Cromwell could always afford to be blind as a fanatic, but not as a ruler of a people becoming rapidly commercial. He had studied history, as well as submitted to long Puritan harangues. He remembered well what Mr. Disraeli gives us as the financial value of a Jew, in much older times. "The Hebrews became the reservoirs of the wealth of the strange lands where they were found" (p. 230). To whatever financial benefits the Jews might confer on England, Cromwell was determined to glean and grasp; and, with this view,