in the realms of celestial purity; but animal appetites and gratifications consume us by their virulence and intensity, and ruin and ignominy, at least, result from freely indulging in them. The faculties we possess place us in the rank we occupy, and set us distinctly above and superior to all other beings, they are the only means of advancing and ensuring our felicity and dignity, and we very properly employ education to develope their extent and utility.

All things are placed under the dominion of man; but in strength and stature, in fleetness and vision, in all the mere senses he is excelled on every side; it is only in his mental nature that he appears pre-eminent, and the subjection he commands is in obedience to his intelligent authority.

To exhibit and preserve the strength, propriety, and perfection of our moral character, aided by the higher duties of religion, should be our chief desire and care. The vine will run wild and be barren if improperly exposed and neglected; but it will yield good and plentiful supplies of fruit, if tended with anxiety, trained in order, and submitted to appropriate and forcing agencies: in like manner the impulses and desires of man, unchecked and unguided, become wild and fruitless, but duly managed and conducted, ensure and yield good effects and propitious results.

But the pleasures of intelligence, to appreciate their worth, must be sought with earnestness. To instruct the feelings in the soft, calm, and unobtrusive colourings of moral scenery, and to regulate our habits by associations of virtue and religion, are duties that demand the stoutest

resolves, and call for the exercise of constant and faithful resolution. Herein, rightly considered, will be found the use and objects of education, and to obtain the advantages of those precepts and examples derived from the long experience of the past, we must unquestionably listen and diligently learn at the footstool of instruction.

We owe to the giver of life, our being, but for the most part, the contingent circumstances of our existence are of our own creating, or otherwise arise from the position we occupy, accidentally, in the human community. Yet irregular as events may appear when casually surveyed, it will be found in experience that they may be brought within order and certainty, by energy of habit and consistent self control. It is true the occurrences of the day cannot be foreseen nor be pre-determined,—there is something of chance attending all, however severely disciplined our conduct, but by placing ourselves under habitual watchfulness, uprightly holding our course, and by acting only under the rectifying influence of reflection and integrity, we cannot go much wrong. Then do not hesitate to drink deeply of the experience of the past, to consume wisdom, and to cherish the acquisitions of knowledge.

Education directs us to the fertile and nourishing pastures of truth-forms the standard of conscientious principle, and brings to the mind, sweets and perfumes whose exhalations of refined enjoyment never satiate. Look to the vulgar and uninstructed herd,-impelled and yielding to coarse desires and impetuous passions, and we witness the moral and social degradation of man.

Education is so important, and a qualification in some degree so general, that there is no state of society in which

the majority of its members are wholly uninformed; indeed, it is hardly possible to discover an individual in the deplo. rable condition of utter ignorance. Aborigines, it is admitted, know nothing of moral philosophy, nor of those principles which create and advance civilized life, but nevertheless, they are instructed in pursuits essential to their situation. Man is naturally a social being, he dwells nowhere alone, and to discharge the duties of the confederacy to which he belongs, he must acquire knowledge. To defend himself from aggression, and to obtain food, and protect himself from the elements, is his study; and from youth, through manhood, he is in the school of experience and necessity. But when uneducated beyond such narrow necessities, he, at most, only developes a certain cunning vigilance, and prompt fortitude in encountering and managing the difficulties of his isolation and dangers; the transmuting effects of knowledge do not reach his feelings or affections, he is unacquainted with the love of learning for its own sake, and science and its application are uninteligible to him.

These high and commanding privileges belong alone to those instructed systematically; therefore the condition of the Barbaric races of mankind is deplorably ignorant and unhappy. Their very virtues are vicious, and their enjoyments ignoble. Instead of the simplicity of their manners and the monotonous lives they lead, exempting them from care and suffering, they are the prolific causes of wretchedness and disaster. The few mental troubles they undergo, so far free them from a class of maladies frequent in educated communities; but physical diseases prey upon them, and among savages there is a greater amount of fatal

illness. In accident and sickness, arising from casualties and the vicissitudes of seasons, they are without help, and perish, when skill and knowledge might have saved them.

There is a popular opinion, that in primitive society there are few diseases, and that disease triumphs only over the old and exhausted, but it is the reverse of this, for in civilized communities the value of life is far greater, and the general standard of health more uniform and higher.

A moment's reflection would satisfy us that the habits and costume of our Thracian forefathers exposed them to constant privations and misery, that the half-clad Belgic Britons and the painted Picts had no comforts comparable with the dwellings and clothing which protect us. It may be thought that use and the limits of their wants had reconciled them in these matters, and that withal, they were as happy as ourselves, that their lives past in simple pleasures, few cares, and a vigourous zest for enjoyment, unknown to the man of refined senses; but the few and simple passions they experienced, the paucity of the means of gratification at their command, served rather to increase their dejection and suffering. The stronger passions of love, hate, and terror possessed them, they knew no ameliorating influences to regulate or check their intensity, whilst in an artificial state of society, the number of objects continually claiming attention, and the numerous desires to be gratified, render them less urgently felt and regarded, and thereby the means of obtaining contentment and satisfaction are increased.

In a state of ignorance, mankind are merely sensual machines, impelled and ruled, exclusively, by the worst and most exciting passions. The pleasures arising from

settled and disciplined habits and the delightful enjoyment presented in the vast and varied beauties of knowledge are unknown, nor are they in possession of any commensurate advantages. Under such circumstances, the disposition is stubborn, fierce, and vindictive; and the mind is troubled, illusive, and unstable.

Education, however, harmonizes our duties and our wants,-it extends our inclinations towards pure and elevated objects, subdues desire, tempers taste, and creates as it were, reason, and yields it willing control. Through its means, the benign influence of the mind is permitted freedom, and the various faculties aud affections being employed regularly and serviceably, they sustain and adjust each other, in firm and temperate uniformity. Its utility is, therefore, apparent and necessary as regards the evils of the uninstructed mind, and it is equally as much so, in what are commonly called good passions; these are themselves among the greatest vices, when they prevail unregulated by wisdom; a normal society, without any other element of error or infelicity, if wholly influenced by them, may be carried to the most baneful excesses and infatuation.

The moral philosopher builds his Utopia, and surrounds himself with shadows,-the sanguine politician is ever pursuing the evanescent bubbles which burst and vanish, when he fondly thinks he has found perfection, and the religious devotee passes through life, distracted by the ecstatic pencillings of his diseased imagination. Thus we find that the best and worthiest occupations should be followed with care and observation, and that the pursuit of good, as the practice of evil, may alike enslave the understanding, and produce mental blindness.