only two or three feet above it, of mud and selves hy their books. Or, to go lower still,
rank grass, with here and there a stunted how much do you think the contents of the
tree; gliding swiftly past the small case- book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public
ment of the gondola, as if they were dragged and private, would fetch, as compared with
by upon a painted scene. Stroke by stroke, the contents of its wine cellars? What posi-
we count the plunges of the oar, each heav- tion would its expenditure on literature
ing up the side of the boat slightly as her take as compared with its expenditure on
silver beak shoots forward. We lose pa- luxurious eating? We talk of food for the
tience, and extricate ourselves from the mind, as of food for the body: now, a good
cushions: the sea air blows keenly by as book contains such food inexhaustibly : it
we stand leaning on the roof of the floating is provision for life, and for the best part of
cell. In front, nothing to be seen but long us; yet how long most people would look at
canal and level bank ; to the west, the tower the best book before they would give the
of Mestre is lowering fast, and behind it price of a large turbot for it! Though there
there have risen purple shapes, of the colour have been men who have pinched their
of dead rose-leaves, all round the horizon, stomachs and bared their backs to buy a
feebly defined against the afternoon sky:- book, whose libraries were cheaper to them,
the Alps of Bassano. Forward still : the I think, in the end, than most men's dinners
endless canal bends at last, and then breaks are. We are few of us put to such a trial,
into intricate angles about some low bas- and more the pity; for, indeed, a precious
tions, now torn to pieces and staggering in thing is all the more precious to us if it has
ugly rents towards the water,--the bastions been won by work or economy; and if puh-
of the fort of Malghera. Another turn, lic libraries were half as costly as public
and another perspective of canal; but not dinners, or books cost the tenth part of
interminable. The silver beak cleaves it what bracelets do, even foolish men and
fast, -it widens: the rank grass of the women might sometimes suspect there was
banks sinks lower, and at last dies in tawny good in reading as well as in munching and
knots along an expanse of weedy shore. sparkling; whereas the very cheapness of
Over it, on the right, but a few years back, literature is making even wiser people for-
we might have seen the lagoon stretching get that if a book is worth reading it is
to the horizon, and the warm southern sky worth buying:
bending over Malamocco to the sea. Now Sesame and Lilies, or King's Treasuries
we can see nothing but what seems a low
and monotonous dock-yard wall, with flat
arches to let the tide through it ;-this is
the railroad bridge, conspicuous above all

ELISHA KENT KANE, M.D.,
things. But at the end of those dismal
arches there rises, out of the wide water, a

born in Philadelphia, 1820, educated at the straggling line of low and confused brick University of Virginia, and in the Medical buildings, which, but for the many towers Department of the University of Pennsylvawhich are mingled among them, might be nia, was appointed Physician to the Chinese the suburbs of an English manufacturing Medical officer and Naturalist to the first

Embassy, 1843; in 1850 sailed as Senior town. Four or five domes, pale, and ap- Grinnell Expedition, of which he published parently at a greater distance, rise over the centre of the line; but the object which

an account in The United States Grinnell first catches the eye is a sullen cloud of Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin : black smoke brooding over the northern

A Personal Narrative, New York, 1853, 8vo, half of it, and which issues from the belfry new edition, Phila., 1857, 8vo; and in 1856 of a church. It is Venice.

gave to the world, Arctic Explorations : The The Stones of Venice, Vol. i.

Second Grinnell Expedition in Search of

Sir John Franklin during the Years 1853,
On BOOKS AND BOOK-BUYERS.

54, 55, Phila., Childs & Peterson, 2 vols.

8vo. Of this expedition Dr. Kane was the I say we have despised literature: what commander, and well has he told its story. do we, as a nation, care about books? How Sixty-five thousand copies were sold in one much do you think we spend altogether on

year. our libraries, public or private, as

“With a less energetic leader the whole party pared with what we spend on our horses ? would have perished.”—Sir Joux Richardson. If a man spends lavishly on his library, you

“ It is one of the most remarkable records I have call him mad,-a bibliomaniac. But you the power of a brave spirit to overcome them.”—

ever met with of difficulties and sufferings, and of never call one a horse-maniac, though men

WM. H. PRESCOTT. ruin themselves every day by their horses,

“His constant self-possession during his long and you do not hear of people ruining them- | trials, his quickness of judgment, his unshrinking

com

courage in danger, his fertility in resources in the very brink of the water, his head fell helphours of greatest difficulty, give him a very high less to one side. place in the very first rank of Polar Navigators,

I would have ordered another shot, but as a leader, and commander, and man; and no one of them all has told the story of their adven

no discipline could have controlled the men. tures so charmingly as he has done.”—GEORGE With a wild yell, each vociferating according BANCROFT.

to his own impulse, they urged both boats upon the floes. A crowd of hands seized

the seal and bore him up to safer ice. The The Seal! THE SEAL!

men seemed half-crazy: I had not realized

how much we were reduced by absolute Things grew worse and worse with us: famine. They ran over the foe, crying and the old difficulty of breathing came back laughing and brandishing their knives. It again, and our feet swelled to such an ex- was not five minutes before every man was tent that we were obliged to cut open our sucking his bloody fingers or mouthing long canvas boots. But the symptom which gave strips of raw blubber. me the most uneasiness was our inability to Not an ounce of this seal was lost. The sleep. A form of low fever which hung by intestines found their way into the soupus when at work had been kept down by kettles without any observance of the prethe thoroughness of our daily rest: all my liminary home-processes. The cartilaginous hopes of escape were in the refreshing influ- parts of the fore-lippers were cut off in the ences of the halt.

mélée, and passed round to be chewed upon; It must be remembered that we were now and even the liver, warm and raw as it was, in the open bay, in the full line of the great bade fair to be eaten before it had seen the ice-drift' to the Atlantic, and in boats so pot. That night, on the large halting-floe, frail and unseaworthy as to require constant to which, in contempt of the dangers of bailing to keep them afloat.

drifting, we happy men had hauled our It was at this crisis of our fortunes that boats, two entire planks of the Red Eric we saw a large seal floating--as is the custom were devoted to a grand cooking-fire, and of these animals-on a small patch of ice, we enjoyed a rare and savage feast. and seemingly asleep. It was an ussuk, and Arctic Explorations: The Second Grinnell so large that I at first mistook it for a walrus.

Expedition, ii., Chap. xxix. Signal was made for the Hope to follow astern, and, trembling with anxiety, we prepared to crawl down upon him.

Petersen, with the long English rifle, was HERBERT SPENCER, stationed in the bow, and stockings were drawn over the oars as mufflers.

a philosophical writer of wide reputation, neared the animal our excitement became born in Derby, England, 1820, was for some so intense that the men could hardly keep years a civil engineer. stroke. I had a set of signals for such occa- The Proper Sphere of Government, Lond., sions, which spared us the noise of the voice ; | 1842; Social Statics, 1851, 8vo; Over Legisand when about three hundred yards off, the lation, 1854. p. 8vo; The Principles of Psyoars were taken in, and we moved on in deep chology, 1855, 8vo, vols. i. ii., 1872–73, 8ro; silence with a single scull astern.

Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, He was not asleep, for he reared his head 1858-74, 3 vols. 8vo; Education: Intellectual, when we were almost within rifle-shot; and Moral, and Physical, 1861, demy 8vo; First to this day I can remember the hard, care- Principles, 1862, 8vo; Essays: Moral, Politworn, almost despairing expression of the ical, and Æsthetic, 1863, 8vo; The Princimen's thin faces as they saw him move; ples of Biology, 1863, etc., 2 vols. 8vo; their lives depended on his capture.

Classification of the Sciences, 1864, 12mo; I depressed my hand nervously, as a signal Spontaneous Generation, 1870; Recent Disfor Petersen to fire. McGary hung upon cussions in Science, Philosophy, and Morals, his oar, and the boat, slowly but noiselessly 1871, 8vo; Principles of Sociology, 8vo; sagging ahead, seemed to me within certain The Study of Sociology, 1872, 8vo ; Descriprange. Looking at Petersen, I saw that the tive Sociology, with Tables, 5 vols. roy. 4to: poor fellow was paralyzed by his anxiety, No. 1, English, No. 2, Ancient American, trying vainly to obtain a rest for his gun No. 3, Negritto and Malayo-Polynesian against the cutwater of the boat. The seal Races, No. 4, African Races, No. 5, Asiatic rose on his fore-flippers, gazed at us for a Races : Illustrations of Universal Progress, moment with frightened curiosity, and coiled 8vo: Sins of Trade and Commerce, 1875; himself for a plunge. At that instant, simul- The Data of Ethics, 1879, 8vo.

a taneously with the crack of our rifle, he re- Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., New York. laxed his long length on the ice, and, at the publish uniform editions of Spencer's works

As we

-which are remarkable for perspicuity of rents ignorant of the laws of life. Do but style, fulness of information, and—in many consider for a moment that the regimen to cases-sophistical and inconclusive reason- 'which children are subject is hourly telling ings. Nothing can be more absurd or un- upon them to their life-long injury or beneworthy of a true philosopher than his futile fit; and that there are twenty ways of going efforts to escape the evidences of design in wrong to one way of going right; and you the works of the Creator.

will get some idea of the enormous mischief

that is almost everywhere inflicted by the EDUCATION.

thoughtless haphazard system in common use.

Is it decided that a boy shall be clothed We come now to the third great division in some flimsy short dress, and be allowed of human activities,—a division for which to go playing about with limbs reddened by no preparation whatever is made. If by cold?' The decision will tell on his whole some strange chance not a vestige of us de- future existence,-either in illnesses; or in scended to the remote future save a pile of stunted growth ; or in deficient energy; or our school-books or some college examina. in a maturity less vigorous than it ought to tion paper, we may imagine how puzzled an have been, and consequent hindrances to antiquary of the period would be on finding success and happiness. Are children doomed in them no indication that the learners were to a monotonous dietary, or a dietary that is ever likely to be parents. “ This must have deficient in nutritiveness? Their ultimate been the curriculum for their celibates," we physical power and their efficiency, as men may fancy him concluding.. "I perceive and women, will inevitably be more or less here an elaborate preparation for many diminished by it. Are they forbidden vocif. things: especially for reading the books of

erous play, or (being too ill-clothed to bear extinct nations and of co-existing nations exposure) are they kept in-doors in cold (from which indeed it seems clear that these weather? They are certain to fall below people had very little worth reading in their that measure of health and strength to own tongue); but I find no reference what which they would else have attained. When ever to the bringing up of children. They sons and daughters grow up sickly and feecould not have been so absurd as to omit all ble, parents commonly regard the

event as a training for this gravest of responsibilities. misfortune,-a8 a visitation of Providence. Evidently, then, this was the school-course Thinking after the prevalent chaotic fashion, of one of their monastic orders."

they assume that these evils come without Seriously, is it not an astonishing fact, that causes, or that the causes are supernatural. though on the treatment of offspring depend Nothing of the kind. In some cases the their lives or deaths, and their moral wel-causes are doubtless inherited ; but in most fare or ruin, yet not one word of instruction cases foolish regulations are the causes. on the treatment of offspring is ever given Very generally parents themselves are reto those who will hereafter be parents? Is sponsible for all this pain, this debility, this it not monstrous that the fate of a new depression, this misery. They have undergeneration should be left to the ces of taken to control the lives of their offspring unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy,-joined from hour to hour; with cruel carelessness with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and they have neglected to learn anything about the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers ? these vital processes which they are unceasIf a merchant commenced business without ingly affecting by their commands and proany knowledge of arithmetic and book- hibitions; in utter ignorance of the simplest keeping, we should exclaim at his folly, physiological laws, they have been year by and look for disastrous consequences. Or, year undermining the constitutions of their if, before studying anatomy, a man set up children ; and have so inflicted disease and as a surgical operator, we should wonder at premature death, not only on them but on his audacity and pity his patients. But their descendants. that parents should begin the difficult task of Equally great are the ignorance and the cearing children without ever having given a consequent injury when we turn from phys. thought to the principles—physical, moral, ical training to moral training. or intellectual—which ought to guide them, Consider the young mother and her nurexcites neither surprise at the actors nor sery legislation. pity for their victims.

But a few years ago she was at school, To tens of thousands that are killed, add where her memory was crammed with words, hundreds of thousands that survive with and names, and dates, and her reflective faculfeeble constitutions, and millions that grow ties scarcely in the slightest degree exercised, up with constitutions not so strong as they-where not one idea was given her respectshould be; and you will have some idea of ing the methods of dealing with the opening the curse inflicted on their offspring by pa- mind of childhood ; and where her discipline

did not in the least fit her for thinking out mense superiority in the kind of memory it methods of her own. The intervening years cultivates. In the acquirement of a lanhave been passed in practising music, in guage, the connexions of ideas to be estabfancy-work, in novel-reading, and in party- lished in the mind correspond to facts that giving: no thought having yet been given are in great measure accidental; whereas, to the grave responsibilities of maternity ; in the acquirement of science, the connexions and scarcely any of that solid intellectual of ideas to be established in the mind corculture obtained which would be some prep- respond to facts that are mostly necessary. aration for such responsibilities. And It is true that the relations of words to their now see her with an unfolding human char- meaning is in one sense natural, and that acter committed to her charge, --see her pro- the genesis of these relations may be traced foundly ignorant of the phenomena with back a certain distance; though very rarely which she has to deal, undertaking to do to the beginning (to which let us add the that which can be done but imperfectly even remark that the laws of this genesis form a with the aid of the profoundest knowledge. branch of mental science:—the science of She knows nothing about the nature of philology). But since it will not be conthe emotions, their order of evolution, their tended that in the acquisition of languages, functions, or where use ends and abuse as ordinarily carried on, these natural relabegins. She is under the impression that tions between words and their meanings some of the feelings are wholly bad, which are habitually traced, and the laws reguis not true of any one of them. And then, | lating them explained, it must be admitted ignorant as she is of that with which she has that they are commonly learned as fortuitous to deal, she is equally ignorant of the effects relations. On the other hand, the relations that will be produced on it by this or that which science presents are causal relations ; treatment. What can be more inevitable and when properly taught, are understood than the disasters we see hourly arising ? as such. Instead of being practically acciEducation : Intellectual, Moral, and Phys- dental, they are necessary; and as such. gire ical.

exercise to the reasoning faculties. While

language familiarizes with non-rational reON LANGUAGES.

lations, science familiarizes with rational

relations. While the one exercises memory One advantage claimed for that devotion only, the other exercises both memory and to language-learning which forms so promi- understanding. nent a feature in the ordinary curriculum is, Observe next that a great superiority of that the memory is thereby strengthened. science over language as a means of disciAnd it is apparently assumed that this is an pline is, that it cultivates the judgment. As advantage peculiar to the study of words. in a lecture on mental education delivered But the truth is, that the sciences afford far at the Royal Institution, Professor Faraday wider fields for the exercise of memory. It well remarks, the most common intellectual is no slight task to remember all the facts fault is deficiency of judgment. He conascertained respecting our solar system; tends that “society, speaking generally, is much more to remember all that is known not only ignorant as respects education of concerning the structure of our galaxy. the judgment, but it is also ignorant of its The new compounds which chemistry daily ignorance." And the cause to which he asaccumulates are so numerous that few, save cribes this state is want of scientific culture. professors, know the names of them all ; | The truth of his conclusion is obvious. Corand to recollect the atomic constitutions and rect judgment with regard to all surrounding affinities of all these compounds, is scarcely things, events, and consequences, becomes possible without making chemistry the oc- possible only through knowledge of the way cupation of life. So vast is the accumu

in which surrounding phenomena depend on lation of facts which men of science have each other. No extent of acquaintance with before them, that only by dividing and sub- the meaning of words can give the power dividing their labours can they deal with it. of forming correct inferences respecting To a complete knowledge of his own division, causes and effects. The constant habit of each adds but a general knowledge of the rest. drawing conclusions from data, and then of

Surely then, science, cultivated even to a verifying those conclusions by observation very moderate extent, affords adequate ex- and experiment, can alone give the power of ercise for memory. To say the very least, judging. And that it necessitates this habit it involves quite as good a training for this is one of the immense advantages of science. faculty as language does.

Not only, however, for intellectual disciBut now mark, that while for the train- pline is science the best, but also for moral ing of mere memory, science is as good as, discipline. The learning of languages tends, if not better than, language, it has an im- if anything, further to increase the already

a

undue respect for authority. Such and such 8vo; On the Study of History, 1861, 8vo ; are the meanings of these words, says the On some Supposed Consequences of the teacher or the dictionary. So and so is the Doctrine of Historical Progress, Oxf. and rule in this case, says the grammar. By the Lond., 1861, 8vo ; Lectures on Modern Ilispupil these dicta are received as unquestion- tory, delivered at Oxford, 1859-61, 1861, able. IIis constant attitude of mind is that 8vo; Rational Religion and the Rationalof submission to dogmatic authority. And a istic Objections of the Bampton Lectures necessary result is a tendency to accept with- for 1858, Oxf., 1861, 8v0; Irish IIistory and out inquiry whatever is established. Quite Irish Character, Oxf. and Lond., 1861, 8vo; opposite is the attitude of mind generated by An Oxford Professor on Church Endowthe cultivation of science. By science, con- ments, Lond., 1862; The Empire, Oxf., 1863, stant appeal is made to individual reason. p. 8vo; Does the Bible sanction American Its truths are not accepted upon authority Slavery? 1863, p. 8vo; A Letter to a Whig alone ; but all are at liberty to test them,- Member of the Southern Independence Asnay, in many cases, the pupil is required to sociation, 24 edit., Lond. and 'Camh., 1864, think out his own conclusions. Every step cr. 8vo (in favour, as are others of his pubin a scientific conclusion is submitted to his lications, of the Federal Government of the judgment. He is not asked to admit it United States) ; A Plea for the Abolition of without seeing it to be true. And the trust Tests in the University of Oxford, Oxf., 1864, in his own powers thus produced is further cr. 8vo ; England and America, Bost., 1865, increased by the constancy with which Na- | 8vo ; Speeches and Letters, from Jan. 1863 ture justifies his conclusions when they are to Jan. 1865, on the Rebellion, New York, correctly drawn. From all which there 1865, 2 vols. 8vo; The Civil War in Amerflows that independence which is a most ica, Lond., 1866, 8vo; Three English Statesvaluable element in character. Nor is this men (Pym, Cromwell, and Pitt), Lond., the only moral benefit bequeathed by scien. 1867, 8vo and p. 8vo : The Reorganization tific culture. When carried on, as it should of the University of Oxford, Oxf., 1868, p. always be, as much as possible under the 8vo; A Short History of England, down to form of independent research, it exercises the Reformation, Oxf., in preparation, 1868. perseverance and sincerity.

Contributed to the Anthologia Oxoniensis, Education : Intellectual, Moral, and Phys- Oxford Essays (Oxford Univ. Reform), Enical.

cyc. Brit., 8th edit. (Sir Robert Peel), Macmillan's Mag., (London) Daily News, etc.

“I am a great advocate of culture of every kind, GOLDWIN SMITH, LL.D., and I say, when I find a man like Professor Gold

win Smith, or Professor Rogers, who, in addition born 1823, at Reading, England, where his to profound classical learning, have a vast knowlfather was a physician, was educated at edge of modern affairs, and who, as well as scholEton, and entered at Christ Church, Oxford, ars, are profound thinkers ; these are men whom

I know to have a vast superiority over me, and I but was shortly afterwards elected to a

bow to them with reverence."---RICHARD COBDEN : demyship at Magdalene College; took his Speech at Rochdale, Nov. 23, 1864. degree of B.A. in 1845, having obtained the Ireland and Hertford Scholarship and the

Marcus Cato. Chancellor's Prize for Latin verse, and was subsequently elected Fellow of University Marcus Cato was the one man whom, College, of which he became Tutor; called living and dead, Cæsar evidently dreaded. to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1850, but did | The Dictator even assailed his memory in a not practise; acted as Assistant Secretary brace of pamphlets entitled “ Anti-Cato," to the first Oxford Commission (that of In- of the quality of which we have one or two quiry), and as Secretary to the second ; and specimens in Plutarch, from which we was a member of the Education Commission should infer that they were scurrilous and of 1859; Regius Professor of Modern IIis- slanderous to the last degree; a proof even tory in the University of Oxford, 1858 to that Cæsar could feel fear, and that in Cæsar, July, 1866, and since his resignation has too, fear was mean. Dr. Mommsen throws delivered many lectures in advocacy of po- himself heartily into Cæsar's antipathy, and litical Reform, of which he is one of the can scarcely speak of Cato without somemost influential champions; Professor of thing like a loss of temper. The least un English and General Constitutional Ilistory civil thing which he says of him, is that he in Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, was a Don Quixote, with Favonius for his 1868.

Sancho. The phrase is not a happy one, An Inaugural Lecture delivered at Ox- since Sancho is not the caricature but the ford, Oxf. and Lond., 1859, 8vo; On the counterfoil of Don Quixote; Quixote being Foundation of the American Colonies, 1861, spirit without sense, and Sancho sense with