weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before ; indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon. I see her in her old age, not decrepit, but young, and still daring to believe in her power of endurance and expansion. Seeing this, I say, All hail! mother of nations, mother of heroes, with strength still equal to the time; still wise to entertain and swift to execute the policy which the mind and heart of mankind requires in the present hour, and thus only hospitable to the foreigner, and truly a home to the thoughtful and generous who are born in the soil. So be it! so let it be! If it be not so, if the courage of England goes with the chances of a commercial crisis, I will go back to the capes of Massachusetts, and my own Indian stream, and say to my countrymen, the old race are all gone, and the elasticity and hope of mankind must henceforth remain on the Alle ghany ranges, or nowhere.

Alexander Ireland, the lifelong English friend of Emerson, was born at Edinburgh in 1810. Brought up to a business life, his warm literary interest procured him many intellectual friends, among them the brothers Chambers. His friendship with Dr. John Gairdner, to whom Emerson came with an introduction in 1833, led to his acquaintance with the latter. In 1843 he removed to Manchester, where in 1846 he became publisher of the Manchester Examiner, the organ of the advanced liberalism represented by John Bright and his associates. All the arrangements for Emerson's lectures in England in 1847-48 were made by him. As Emerson said, he approved himself the king of all friends and helpful agents, the most active, unwearied, imperturbable." He was a member of the committee that organized the Manchester Free Library in 1851. He was a friend of Carlyle and of Leigh Hunt, and prepared a useful bibliography of the writings of Hunt and of Hazlitt, and also memoirs of both. Upon Emerson's death in 1882 he published a biography of him, afterward enlarged, containing the chapter of Recollections which constitutes the present leaflet, and which has never before been published in America. His "Book Lovers' En chiridion," a rich collection of passages in praise of books, is well known. He died in 1894. A collection of his books, rich in editions of English writers, was presented in 1895 to the Manchester Free Library by Thomas Read Wilkinson, and a special catalogue was issued in 1898. Ireland," says Richard Garnett in his article upon him in the Dictionary of National Biography, was an excellent man, generous, hospitable, full of intellectual interests, and persevering in his aid of public causes and private friends."

Garnett's biographies of Emerson and Carlyle contain much of interest concerning Emerson's three visits to England. The former contains a careful Emerson bibliography by John P. Anderson, in which are many references to essays and articles upon Emerson by European authors. Matthew Arnold, John Morley, Augustine Birrell, John Beattie Crozier, George Gilfillan, and W. L. Courtney are among the English writers who have written the most valuable estimates of Emerson. The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle and Froude's Life of Carlyle are of the highest importance in connection. See also the Correspondence of Emerson and John Sterling, the Life of Arthur Hugh Clough, and Conway's Emerson at Home and Abroad." Edgar Quinet was perhaps the principal lover of Emerson in France in his time; Herman Grimm, in Germany. The Correspondence of Emerson and Grimm has been published. Emerson's " English Traits" was a result of his second visit to England. His lectures on Italy and France have never been published. 1903.

OR SOCIETY FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOLS AND DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.*

THIS Institution consists of Town and County Lyceums, and measures are in progress to organize State Lyceums, and a GENERAL UNION of the whole.

TOWN LYCEUMS.

A TOWN LYCEUM is a voluntary association of individuals disposed to improve each other in useful knowledge, and to advance the interests of their schools. To gain the first object, they hold weekly or other stated meetings, for reading, conversation, discussion, illustrating the sciences, or other exercises designed for their mutual benefit; and, as it is found convenient, they collect a cabinet, consisting of apparatus for illustrating the sciences, books, minerals, plants, or other natural or artificial productions.

To advance the interests of schools, they furnish teachers with a room, apparatus, and other accommodations, for holding meetings, and conducting a course of exercises in relation to their schools, some of the eldest members of which, with other young persons, attend the meetings of Lyceums, where they are exercised and instructed in a manner fitted to their pursuits and wants. It is supposed that Lyceums may aid in furnishing schools with some simple apparatus, juvenile books or other articles, fitted to awaken an interest and communicate instruction to their members.

Boston: T. R. Marvin, Printer, 32 Congress Street. 1829.

Town Lyceums have conducted their exercises in several different ways, to suit the wishes and acquirements of those who compose them. In some instances these exercises have consisted principally in reading interesting or useful articles from periodicals, a conversation on chemistry or other science, a biographical or historical sketch, communications of intelligence of improvements in education or the arts, or any other subject fitted for the entertainment or instruction of the members. The reading has frequently been accompanied or followed by questions, remarks, or conversation, by any disposed to introduce them.

In other meetings the sciences have been introduced by short and very familiar illustrations by the means of simple apparatus, six or eight, or perhaps ten or twelve, taking a part in the exercises of an evening. Under this plan of exercises, nearly all the members of the Lyceums which have adopted it have not only received, but communicated instruction.

In some Lyceums the instruction has been given principally in the form of lectures or dissertations, in which cases one or perhaps two have occupied the attention of the society during a sitting. The instruction given by lectures or dissertations, like that in a more mutual form, is intended to be of a familiar and practical character, that it may be brought within the comprehension of the most untutored minds.

Besides attending meetings of common interest to both sexes and all classes, females have conducted a course of mutual exercises among themselves, by spending together, during the summer, one afternoon in a week for reading, composition, and improvement in the various branches of an accomplished and enlightened education.

Teachers have also held meetings confined to themselves, in which they have introduced subjects and carried on exercises with particular reference to their schools. At these meetings they have had exercises in reading, giving an opportunity for critical remarks upon pronunciation, emphasis, inflection, modulation, and other points in good reading, all eminently calculated to improve them in this useful accomplishment. Exercises in grammar, composition, geography, arithmetic, illustrations in natural philosophy and chemistry, and sometimes discussions or dissertations upon the modes and principles of teaching, have been introduced at these meetings of teachers, and uniformly and immediately for the benefit of themselves and of the schools under their charge.

Some of the eldest members of the several schools in a town, with other young persons too far advanced or too much occupied to be benefited from the daily instruction of schools within their reach have, by the aid of professional teachers, clergymen, or other individuals (sometimes ladies) competent and disposed to guide them, carried on a course of weekly exercises, which have given them gradually, but certainly and permanently, a development and expansion of mind, and a refined and elevated taste.

Some of the advantages which have already arisen from the Lyceums which have gone into operation are the following, viz.:

1. The improvement of conversation. An immediate and uniform effect of a Lyceum, wherever it has been established and whatever the mode of conducting its exercises, is the introduction of good topics of conversation into the daily intercourse of families, neighbors, and friends, and that not among the members merely, but among all who come within the circle of its influence. Subjects of science, or other topics of useful knowledge, take the place of frivolous conversation or petty scandal, frequently indulged, and uniformly deplored, in our country villages. When it is considered that conversation is a constant, and an exhaustless source of information, either good or bad, in every town and among the whole race of mankind, it cannot but be evident that any measures which can give it an intellectual, moral, and of course an elevated character must confer a distinguished benefit upon society.

2. Directing amusements. Few subjects are more important, and none perhaps so much neglected, as amusements. Young people always have had, and, it is believed and hoped, they always will have, places of resort for social enjoyment. From the neglect of parents, and other persons of influence, to furnish them with occasions and opportunities to meet for exercises calculated for the instruction and improvement of each other, as well as for the enjoyment of social affections of a generous and elevated character, they resort to those calculated to corrupt and debase their minds, while they afford them no pleasures but those of the most grovelling character. Instead of having placed before them at their meetings books, apparatus, minerals, plants, and other objects calculated to acquaint them with the works and the laws of their Creator, and to lead them to admire the extent, the variety, the richness, and the grandeur of his creation, all designed and fitted for their immediate use and elevated enjoyment, they are presented with shelves of loaded

decanters and sparkling glasses, so richly filled and so neatly arranged, and for their enjoyment, too, that to neglect them would be vulgar and unmanly. Experiments are of course made upon their contents, not, however, for their mutual entertainment in conversation, and reflection upon the works and the goodness of their Creator, but in the merry song, the vulgar wit, and the loud laugh.

Parents and others to whom the rising generation look, and upon whom they depend for guidance and support, will you be offended at the question whether your children are most to blame for resorting to such places, and engaging in such exercises, or yourselves for neglecting to furnish them with better? On the influence of amusements and conversation, always governing and partaking of the character of each other, and always determining the character of villages, communities, and the world, volumes might be written, but the occasion forbids enlarging.

3. Saving of expense. No principle in political economy is better established by experience than that a liberal support of religious and literary institutions is calculated to promote the pecuniary as well as the intellectual and moral prosperity of the community. Nor is there any mystery in this uniform result from the unerring hand of experiment. It has already been observed that young people must have occasions for social enjoyment and for recreation; and every one is familiar with the fact that the least useful and the most pernicious amusements are the most expensive. The expense of a year's entertainment and instruction at the meetings and exercises of a Lyceum is from fifty cents to two dollars. The expense of one quarter's instruction in a dancing school, including extra clothes, pocket money, &c., cannot be estimated at less than ten dollars for each pupil. The expense of one evening's entertainment at a ball or assembly is from two to ten times the expense of a year's entertainment at the meetings of a Lyceum. Many young men have paid two dollars for a horse and chaise to ride upon the Sabbath, with too manly a spirit to mention it as an expense, who would be ready to confess themselves too poor to pay the same sum for a weekly course of the most useful instruction, through the year. Military exercises, which can hardly be considered in any other light than as amusements for young men, cost, upon an average, every one who engages in them in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, not less than ten dollars annually.