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ideals. I would have his English grammar and English reading lessons, instead of being an uninteresting routine and task, cost him hours of preparatory thought and study, and make him linger over the pages of Latham and of Richardson, of Klipstein and of Bosworth. Let the teachers themselves become learners, and they will find their reading and grammar lessons invested with an interest and an influence which belong to no other department of study. Dean Trench, in his "Study of Words," and his "English Past and Present," has shown us all what a field for thorough culture and golden harvest has long lain neglected all around

us.

It is true that the order of studies, and the kind of instruction given in our grammar schools, leave all such training as I have described to the hand of the college professor. It is against this very course that my remarks have been directed. Many a boy comes to college when it is too late to begin with advantage this thorough discipline. Many ineradicable vicious habits of expression have been formed by him; a false critical taste has been indulged; sometimes corrupt models have been allowed to usurp the place which belongs of right to the simple and severe ideals which the diligent study of his own literature would have enabled him to form. So that a college course is spent mainly in rooting up weeds and false growths, instead of developing the germs and nourishing the healthy plants which have been started by an assiduous and proper early culture.

But whether such training be or be not possible and advantageous in college, it is obvious that if it be begun in the school, it will greatly promote the influence and the success of the kindred course in the higher institution. The classical course of a University would fail to accomplish its design, were its pupils so ill prepared as are the majority of our English scholars. It would require to be perfected by a course which should accomplish that which it now effects. Now, however, it finds its students generally well trained in the elements of its appointed studies, and leads them to higher attainments; while the English course, in most instances, leave its pupils just at the point where it ought to have received them in charge.

Where a youth does not enjoy a collegiate education, as is the case with all the girls and most of the boys in our common schools, no later training compensates for this deficiency in the earlier. He goes forth with this imperfect and superficial culture which has been described, ignorant and destitute of that which might have been to him an instrument of power and a source of joy forever.

In a few of our schools, the experiment of giving such English teaching has been made with success. Their students ere they enter college are grounded in Anglo-Saxon, and in the history of their native tongue. Their aspirations, tastes, and accomplishments bear witness to the advantages of such culture. I would that the practice were universal. I read with envy Coleridge's reminiscences of that

training which gave him his wondrous power and precision of speech; and I wish that all our boys had masters like Bowyer of Christ's Hospital. "He made us," says Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria, "read Shakspeare and Milton as lessons; and they were the lessons, too, which required most time and trouble to bring up so as to escape cenI learned from him that poetry even that of the loftiest, and seemingly that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science, and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more and more fugitive causes. In the truly great poets he would say there is a reason assignable not only for every word, but for the position of every word."

When shall the walls of all our grammar schools echo teachings of such a spirit and of a similar thoroughness? Not until then shall we have in the very instincts of our youth a pledge that the speech we inherit shall, amid the manifold evil influences of the present age, retain its purity and its power. Not until then shall we see a style, whose inflation and ornament only conceal poverty or want of thought, appeal in vain to the admiration and imitation of a severe and discriminating public. Not until then shall our authors acquire that finish and perfection of expression, which have been attained by the masters of our tongue. Not until then will the English language receive its due from those whose minds it forms and enriches, and to whom it is the most glorious part of their inheritance.

LECTURE IV.

SELF-CULTURE AND SELF-RELIANCE.

BY J. W. BULKLEY,

OF BROOKLYN, N. Y.

MR. PRESIDENT, Gentlemen and LADIES :

PERHAPS in the whole compass of our language there cannot be found in any two monsyllables, an expression so full of meaning, so significant of such grand results, as in the self-relying expression, "I WILL."

What great achievements, what important discoveries in science, art, and nature; what deeds of mercy, what errands of love; what god-like devotion in performing the self-denying and selfsacrificing duties devolved upon man, in prosecuting the mission of life, may not be referred to this expression, as the exponent of the purpose of a noble soul, ever ready to do or die in the accomplishment of an important end.

History is full of illustrious examples of our position, that "where there is a will there is a way." It has been well remarked, that "the great differ

ence between men, between the powerful and the feeble, the great and the insignificant, is energy and invincible determination."

These directed towards proper objects, gain respect and consideration among all classes of society. But a man may have energy without determination; may be always employed without accomplishing any useful end, simply because his energies are not directed to a single point. When, however, a man possesses both of these qualities, with a well balanced mind, he carefully weighs all, and gives to each its proper consideration. Having marked out his course, with a single eye he pursues it. No time is lost in hesitation and wavering. He turns not to the right, nor to the left; a step once taken is not retraced; confident of the right, he goes ahead. His countenance is indicative of the integrity and purpose of his soul; his position being defined, is maintained with due deference to the opinions and feelings of others; but with inflexible regard to the truth. In the course of such a man, there is a moral sublimity, which commands the attention, and secures the respect of all who observe or know him.

Here is self-reliance; self-trusting, without selfsufficiency; he is inflexible, but not obstinate; prompt, but not rash.

It is a wise provision of Providence that this life shall be one of discipline. The necessity that exists for labor both bodily and mental, is undoubtedly a great blessing, contributing alike to the happiness and highest good of man. True, it was pronounced as a punishment for disobedience; that "in the

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