SUPERIORITY OF MIND OVER MATTER. When we look at the organized productions of nature, we see that they require only a limited time, and most of them a very short time, to reach their perfection, and accomplish their end. Take, for example, that noble production, a tree. Having reached a certain height, and borpe leaves, flowers, and fruit, it has nothing more to do. Its powers are fully developed; it has no hidden capacities, of which its buds and fruit are only the beginnings and pledges. Its design is fulfilled; the principle of life within it can effect no more. Not so the mind. We can never say of this, as of the fullgrown tree in autumn, It has answered its end; it has done its work; its capacity is exhausted. On the contrary, the nature, powers, desires, and purposes of the mind are all undefined. We never feel, when a great intellect has risen to an original thought, or a vast discovery, that it has now accomplished its whole purpose, reached its bound, and can yield no other or higher fruits. On the contrary, our conviction of its resources is enlarged; we discern more of its affinity to the inexhaustible intelligence of its Author. So, when a pure and resolute mind has made some great sacrifice to truth and duty, has manifested its attachment to God and man in singular trials, we do not feel as if the whole energy of virtuous principle were now put forth, as if the measure of excellence were filled, as if the maturest fruits were now borne, and henceforth the soul could only repeat itself. We feel, on the contrary, that virtue by illustrious efforts replenishes instead of wasting its life; that the mind, by perseverance in well-doing, instead of sinking into a mechanical tameness, is able to conceive of higher duties, is armed for a nobler daring, and grows more efficient in charity. The mind, by going forward, does not reach insurmountable prison walls, but learns more and more the boundlessness of its powers, and range. Let me place this topic in another light, which may show, even more strongly, the contrast of the mind with the noblest productions of matter. My meaning may best be conveyed by reverting to the tree. We consider the tree as having answered its highest purpose when it yields a particular fruit. We judge of its perfection by a fixed, positive, definite product. The mind, however, in proportion to its improvements, becomes conscious that its perfection consists not in fixed, prescribed effects, not in exact and defined attainments, but in an original, creative, unconfinable energy, which yields new products, which carries into it new fields of thought. This truth indeed is so obvious, that even the least improved may discern it. You all feel, that the most perfect mind is not that which works in a prescribed way, which thinks and acts according to prescribed rules, but that which has a spring of action in itself, which combines anew the knowledge received from other minds, which explores its hidden and multiplied relations, and gives it forth in fresh and higher forms. The perfection of the tree, then, lies in a precise or definite product. That of the mind lies in an indefinite and boundless energy. The first implies limits. To set limits to the mind would destroy that original power in which its perfection consists. Here, then, we observe a distinction between material forms and the mind; and from the destruction of the first, which, as we see, attain perfection and fulfill their purpose in a limited duration, we can not argue to the destruction of the last, which plainly possesses the capacity of a progress without end. We have pointed out one contrast between the mind and material forms. The latter, we have seen by their nature, have bounds. The tree, in a short time, and by rising and spreading a short distance, accomplishes its end. I now add, that the system of nature to which the tree belongs requires that it should stop where it does. Were it to grow for ever, it would be an infinite mischief. A single plant, endued with the principle of unlimited expansion, would in the progress of centuries overshadow nations, and exclude every other growth-would exhaust the earth's whole fertility. Material forms, then, must have narrow bounds, and their usefulness requires that their life and growth should often be arrested, even before reaching the limits prescribed by nature. But the indefinite expansion of the mind, instead of warring with and counteracting the system of creation, harmonizes with and perfects it. One tree, should it grow for ever, would exclude other forms of vegetable life. One mind, in proportion to its expansion, awakens, and in a sense creates, other minds. It multiplies, instead of exhausting, the nutriment which other understandings need. A mind, the more it has of intellectual and moral life, the more it spreads life and power around it. It is an ever-enlarging source of thought and love. Let me here add, that the mind, by unlimited growth, not only yields a greater amount of good to other beings, but produces continually new forms of good. This in an important distinction. Were the tree to spread indefinitely, it would abound more in fruit, but in fruit of the same kind; and by excluding every other growth, it would destroy the variety of products, which now contribute to health and enjoyment. But the mind, in its progress, is perpetually yielding new fruits, new forms of thought, and virtue, and sanctity. GRANT DUFF, M. P. Mr. Grant Duff, an accomplished scholar, and Member of the House of Commons for the Elgin Burghs, Scotland, presents the views which we have always held respecting the classical element in a scheme of general education. 'I did not consider the old-fashioned English classical education a good classical education. On the contrary, I consider it a very bad classical education, altogether one sided, failing to give any thing like the cultivation that a classical education ought to give, while it occupies a most unreasonable amount of time. I believe that you could with ease, in very much less than half the time usually occupied in classical studies, familiarize the mind with every thing that has come down from classical antiquity that ought to form any part of general education. I would produce these results in the following ways:-1st, By teaching Greek as, what it is mainly, a living, not a dead language. 2d, By considering that the only object worth keeping in view with regard to Latin and Greek, considered as a part of general education, is to enable your youth to read whatever exists in Latin and Greek that you can not read as well in English, French, or German. To that end, I would immensely curtail the amount that is read, and even of the authors which must be read I would read in translations as much as could be with propriety read in that way. I would strike my pen remorselessly through every thing that was uncharacteristic in a first rate author; but, on the other hand, I would include in my list of books a good deal that is usually, but most unreasonably, omitted. I would wholly banish from general education all Latin and Greek composition whatever, except in prose. On the other hand, I would consider it just as necessary that the persons who were to go through a classical education should have their eye familiarized with whatever is most beautiful in Greek coins, statues, gems, and buildings, as that the ear should be familiarized with the finest passages in the language. When I was at school it was the fashion to learn by heart thousands and thousands of lines of Latin and Greek. To all that I would put an utter end, and never encourage a line to be learnt that was not sufficiently good to be treasured through life as a possession for ever. 'The time is surely come for some scholar of commanding reputation, or better still, for some committee of scholars, to put forth an answer to this question -considering that Latin and Greek studies do bring the mind into contact with ideas with which it is not otherwise brought into contact, and considering that there are a vast number of the studies which it is absurd and disgraceful to neglect what is there that you insist upon as specially worthy of attention? I am persuaded that the list of books or part of books which would be written down in answer to such a question as this by scholars, who, in addition to having read widely in the classics and having made themselves acquainted with the chief treasures of classic art, have a wide knowledge of modern literature, would not be of unwieldly length. I yield to no one in the desire to keep classical study a part of education, but you must remember that the place which classical studies now hold in this country is a mere accidental result of their having been introduced when there was hardly any modern literature. Of late they have been studied from a fantastic notion that they are a peculiarly good discipline for the mind, that they are in some mysterious sense educative. They were not introduced, however, for any such silly reason. Latin and Greek were in the days of the Renaissance the keys of almost all knowledge worth having. They were studied, not as being educative, but being instructive. What I advocate is, that we should go back, to the practices and principles of our ancestors in this matter, and act as they would have acted if the languages which it was necessary to learn for the ordinary purposes of an intelligent life had been then, as English, French, and German are now, full of books which introduced the reader to the knowledge best worth having. If that had been so in their day, they would, I trust, have used the classics to do for them what other literature could not do they would not, I trust, have used the classics to do what other literature could do better There is another question which a committee of scholars might usefully answer. What are the best translations of the clas sics in English, French, or German, and what is there that must be read in the original? If those two questions were satisfactorily answered, if it became once understood that a classical education must include a familiarity with the best productions of classical art, as represented at least by casts, electrotypes, drawings, and other copies where the originals are not accessible, and ought, if possible, to include a visit to the principal classical sites, I believe that the amount of classical culture in this country would be enormously increased, and give time for more valuable studies. 'I want carefully to guard myself against saying a word against these studies -classical or any of their adjuncts per se. The least useful of these adjuncts is probably Latin and Greek verse composition, but I would utterly banish it from general education, I would endeavor to keep up the traditions of English success in what I admit to be, like fencing, an excessively pretty accomplishment, by giving large rewards for it both at our schools and universities. The best and most legitimate use to which you can put endowments is to encourage studies which will not, so to speak, encourage themselves, and I should be sorry if there were ever a time when a few persons in this country could not write Latin verse as well, say, as the late Professor Conington, or Greek Iambics as well as the late Mr. James Riddell, not to mention the names of living people. It is a common thing to represent those who are opposed to the present system of teaching the classics as enemies to the classics themselves, but nothing could, in my case, be more unjust. I wish, as you have seen, that the classics should still occupy a considerable place in the education of any one who has any apti. tude for literature, and who can carry on his studies to the age at which young men usually leave Oxford and Cambridge. Further, I should like to see such a rearrangement in the application of our University funds as to encourage a small number of specialists to give their attention to every one of the adjuncts of classical study. I can not possibly make it too clear that what I want is, not to diminish the amount of classical knowledge in the world or of classical culture in general education, but by a wiser ordering of classical studies to get time for other studies even more important, without overtasking the strength of fairly intelligent and fairly healthy young persons. I believe that English boys lose at least five clear years of life between seven years old and three-andtwenty, thanks to the unwisdom of our present system, in addition to what they may lose by their own idleness.' THE SCHOOL AND THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. THOMAS HOOD. 1798-1845. THOMAS HOOD, the son of a bookseller, was born in London, in 1798. He entered the counting-house of a Russian merchant as clerk, which he left on account of his health, for the business of engraving, but in 1821, became sub-editor of the London Magazine, and afterward was an author, by profession, till his death in 1845. His "Whims and Oddities," "Comic Almanac," &c., have established his reputation for wit and comic power, and his "Song of a Shirt," "Eugene Aram's Dream," &c., indicate the possession of more serious and higher capacities. His "Irish Schoolmaster," "The Schoolmaster Abroad," "The Schoolmaster's Motto," abound in whimsical allusions to the peculiarities of Irish and English schools and the teachers of our day--greatly exaggerated, we would fain believe. THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER. ALACK! 'tis melancholy theme to think This College looketh South and West alsoe, And in the midst a little door there is, "CHILDREN TAKEN IN TO BATE:" And oft, indeed, the inward of that gate, |