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only two or three feet above it, of mud and selves by 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 pub-
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.
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
things. But at the end of those dismal
arches there rises, out of the wide water, a
straggling line of low and confused brick
buildings, which, but for the many towers
which are mingled among them, might be
the suburbs of an English manufacturing
town. Four or five domes, pale, and ap-
parently at a greater distance, rise over the
centre of the line; but the object which
first catches the eye is a sullen cloud of
black smoke brooding over the northern
half of it, and which issues from the belfry
of a church. It is Venice.

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say we have despised literature: what do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as pared with what we spend on our horses? If a man spends lavishly on his library, you call him mad,-a bibliomaniac. But you never call one a horse-maniac, though men ruin themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of people ruining them

Sesame and Lilies, or King's Treasuries

ELISHA KENT KANE, M.D.,
born in Philadelphia, 1820, educated at the
University of Virginia, and in the Medical
Department of the University of Pennsylva
nia, was appointed Physician to the Chinese
Medical Officer and Naturalist to the first
Embassy, 1843; in 1850 sailed as Senior
Grinnell Expedition, of which he published

an account in The United States Grinnell
Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin:
A Personal Narrative, New York, 1853, 8vo,
new edition, Phila., 1857, 8vo; and in 1856
gave to the world, Arctic Explorations: The
Second Grinnell Expedition in Search of
Sir John Franklin during the Years 1853,
'54, 55, Phila., Childs & Peterson, 2 vols.
8vo. Of this expedition Dr. Kane was the
commander, and well has he told its story.
Sixty-five thousand copies were sold in one

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Things grew worse and worse with us: the old difficulty of breathing came back again, and our feet swelled to such an extent that we were obliged to cut open our canvas boots. But the symptom which gave me the most uneasiness was our inability to sleep. A form of low fever which hung by us when at work had been kept down by the thoroughness of our daily rest: all my hopes of escape were in the refreshing influences of the halt.

It must be remembered that we were now in the open bay, in the full line of the great ice-drift to the Atlantic, and in boats so frail and unseaworthy as to require constant bailing to keep them afloat.

It was at this crisis of our fortunes that we saw a large seal floating-as is the custom of these animals-on a small patch of ice, and seemingly asleep. It was an ussuk, and so large that I at first mistook it for a walrus. 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 stationed in the bow, and stockings were drawn over the oars as mufflers. As we neared the animal our excitement became so intense that the men could hardly keep stroke. I had a set of signals for such occasions, which spared us the noise of the voice; and when about three hundred yards off, the oars were taken in, and we moved on in deep silence with a single scull astern.

He was not asleep, for he reared his head when we were almost within rifle-shot; and to this day I can remember the hard, careworn, almost despairing expression of the men's thin faces as they saw him move; their lives depended on his capture.

I depressed my hand nervously, as a signal for Petersen to fire. McGary hung upon his oar, and the boat, slowly but noiselessly sagging ahead, seemed to me within certain range. Looking at Petersen, I saw that the poor fellow was paralyzed by his anxiety, trying vainly to obtain a rest for his gun against the cutwater of the boat. The seal rose on his fore-flippers, gazed at us for a moment with frightened curiosity, and coiled himself for a plunge. At that instant, simultaneously with the crack of our rifle, he relaxed his long length on the ice, and, at the

very brink of the water, his head fell helpless to one side.

I would have ordered another shot, but no discipline could have controlled the men. With a wild yell, each vociferating according 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 men seemed half-crazy: I had not realized how much we were reduced by absolute famine. They ran over the floe, crying and laughing and brandishing their knives. It was not five minutes before every man was sucking his bloody fingers or mouthing long strips of raw blubber.

Not an ounce of this seal was lost. The intestines found their way into the soupkettles without any observance of the preliminary home-processes. The cartilaginous parts of the fore-flippers were cut off in the mélée, and passed round to be chewed upon; and even the liver, warm and raw as it was, bade fair to be eaten before it had seen the pot. That night, on the large halting-floe, to which, in contempt of the dangers of drifting, we happy men had hauled our boats, two entire planks of the Red Eric were devoted to a grand cooking-fire, and we enjoyed a rare and savage feast.

Arctic Explorations: The Second Grinnell
Expedition, ii., Chap. xxix.

HERBERT SPENCER,

a philosophical writer of wide reputation, born in Derby, England, 1820, was for some years a civil engineer.

The Proper Sphere of Government, Lond., 1842; Social Statics, 1851, 8vo; Over Legislation, 1854. p. 8vo; The Principles of Psychology, 1855, 8vo, vols. i. ii., 1872-73, 8vo; Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, 1858-74, 3 vols. 8vo; Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical, 1861, demy 8vo; First Principles, 1862, 8vo; Essays: Moral, Political, and Esthetic, 1863, 8vo; The Principles of Biology, 1863, etc., 2 vols. 8vo; Classification of the Sciences, 1864, 12mo; Spontaneous Generation, 1870; Recent Discussions in Science, Philosophy, and Morals, 1871, 8vo; Principles of Sociology, 8vo; The Study of Sociology, 1872, 8vo; Descriptive Sociology, with Tables, 5 vols. roy. 4to: No. 1, English, No. 2, Ancient American, No. 3, Negritto and Malayo-Polynesian Races, No. 4, African Races, No. 5, Asiatic Races Illustrations of Universal Progress, 8vo; Sins of Trade and Commerce, 1875; The Data of Ethics, 1879, 8vo.

Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., New York. publish uniform editions of Spencer's works

-which are remarkable for perspicuity of style, fulness of information, and-in many cases-sophistical and inconclusive reasonings. Nothing can be more absurd or unworthy of a true philosopher than his futile efforts to escape the evidences of design in the works of the Creator.

EDUCATION.

We come now to the third great division of human activities, a division for which no preparation whatever is made. If by some strange chance not a vestige of us descended to the remote future save a pile of our school-books or some college examination paper, we may imagine how puzzled an antiquary of the period would be on finding in them no indication that the learners were ever likely to be parents. "This must have been the curriculum for their celibates," we may fancy him concluding. "I perceive here an elaborate preparation for many things: especially for reading the books of extinct nations and of co-existing nations (from which indeed it seems clear that these people had very little worth reading in their own tongue); but I find no reference whatever to the bringing up of children. They could not have been so absurd as to omit all training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently, then, this was the school-course of one of their monastic orders."

Seriously, is it not an astonishing fact, that though on the treatment of offspring depend their lives or deaths, and their moral welfare or ruin, yet not one word of instruction on the treatment of offspring is ever given to those who will hereafter be parents? Is it not monstrous that the fate of a new generation should be left to the chances of unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy,-joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers? If a merchant commenced business without any knowledge of arithmetic and bookkeeping, we should exclaim at his folly, and look for disastrous consequences. Or, if, before studying anatomy, a man set up as a surgical operator, we should wonder at his audacity and pity his patients. But that parents should begin the difficult task of rearing children without ever having given a thought to the principles-physical, moral, or intellectual-which ought to guide them, excites neither surprise at the actors nor pity for their victims.

To tens of thousands that are killed, add hundreds of thousands that survive with feeble constitutions, and millions that grow up with constitutions not so strong as they should be; and you will have some idea of the curse inflicted on their offspring by pa

rents ignorant of the laws of life. Do but consider for a moment that the regimen to 'which children are subject is hourly telling upon them to their life-long injury or benefit; and that there are twenty ways of going wrong to one way of going right; and you will get some idea of the enormous mischief that is almost everywhere inflicted by the thoughtless haphazard system in common use.

Is it decided that a boy shall be clothed in some flimsy short dress, and be allowed to go playing about with limbs reddened by cold? The decision will tell on his whole future existence, either in illnesses; or in stunted growth; or in deficient energy; or in a maturity less vigorous than it ought to have been, and consequent hindrances to success and happiness. Are children doomed to a monotonous dietary, or a dietary that is deficient in nutritiveness? Their ultimate physical power and their efficiency, as men and women, will inevitably be more or less diminished by it. Are they forbidden vociferous play, or (being too ill-clothed to bear exposure) are they kept in-doors in cold weather? They are certain to fall below that measure of health and strength to which they would else have attained. When sons and daughters grow up sickly and feeble, parents commonly regard the event as a misfortune, as a visitation of Providence. Thinking after the prevalent chaotic fashion, they assume that these evils come without causes, or that the causes are supernatural. Nothing of the kind. In some cases the causes are doubtless inherited; but in most cases foolish regulations are the causes. Very generally parents themselves are responsible for all this pain, this debility, this depression, this misery. They have undertaken to control the lives of their offspring from hour to hour; with cruel carelessness they have neglected to learn anything about these vital processes which they are unceasingly affecting by their commands and prohibitions; in utter ignorance of the simplest physiological laws, they have been year by year undermining the constitutions of their children; and have so inflicted disease and premature death, not only on them but on their descendants.

Equally great are the ignorance and the consequent injury when we turn from physical training to moral training.

Consider the young mother and her nursery legislation.

But a few years ago she was at school, where her memory was crammed with words, and names, and dates, and her reflective faculties scarcely in the slightest degree exercised,

where not one idea was given her respecting the methods of dealing with the opening mind of childhood; and where her discipline

did not in the least fit her for thinking out methods of her own. The intervening years have been passed in practising music, in fancy-work, in novel-reading, and in partygiving: no thought having yet been given to the grave responsibilities of maternity; and scarcely any of that solid intellectual culture obtained which would be some preparation for such responsibilities. And now see her with an unfolding human character committed to her charge,-see her profoundly ignorant of the phenomena with which she has to deal, undertaking to do that which can be done but imperfectly even with the aid of the profoundest knowledge. She knows nothing about the nature of the emotions, their order of evolution, their functions, or where use ends and abuse begins. She is under the impression that some of the feelings are wholly bad, which is not true of any one of them. And then, ignorant as she is of that with which she has to deal, she is equally ignorant of the effects that will be produced on it by this or that treatment. What can be more inevitable than the disasters we see hourly arising? Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical.

ON LANGUAGES.

One advantage claimed for that devotion to language-learning which forms so prominent a feature in the ordinary curriculum is, that the memory is thereby strengthened. And it is apparently assumed that this is an advantage peculiar to the study of words. But the truth is, that the sciences afford far wider fields for the exercise of memory. It is no slight task to remember all the facts ascertained respecting our solar system; much more to remember all that is known concerning the structure of our galaxy. The new compounds which chemistry daily accumulates are so numerous that few, save professors, know the names of them all; and to recollect the atomic constitutions and affinities of all these compounds, is scarcely possible without making chemistry the occupation of life. So vast is the accumulation of facts which men of science have before them, that only by dividing and subdividing their labours can they deal with it. To a complete knowledge of his own division, each adds but a general knowledge of the rest. Surely then, science, cultivated even to a very moderate extent, affords adequate exercise for memory. To say the very least, it involves quite as good a training for this faculty as language does.

But now mark, that while for the training of mere memory, science is as good as, if not better than, language, it has an im

mense superiority in the kind of memory it cultivates. In the acquirement of a language, the connexions of ideas to be established in the mind correspond to facts that are in great measure accidental; whereas. in the acquirement of science, the connexions of ideas to be established in the mind correspond to facts that are mostly necessary. It is true that the relations of words to their meaning is in one sense natural, and that the genesis of these relations may be traced back a certain distance; though very rarely to the beginning (to which let us add the remark that the laws of this genesis form a branch of mental science, the science of philology). But since it will not be contended that in the acquisition of languages, as ordinarily carried on, these natural relations between words and their meanings are habitually traced, and the laws regulating them explained, it must be admitted that they are commonly learned as fortuitous relations. On the other hand, the relations which science presents are causal relations; and when properly taught, are understood as such. Instead of being practically accidental, they are necessary; and as such, give exercise to the reasoning faculties. While language familiarizes with non-rational relations, science familiarizes with rational relations. While the one exercises memory only, the other exercises both memory and understanding.

Observe next that a great superiority of science over language as a means of discipline is, that it cultivates the judgment. As in a lecture on mental education delivered at the Royal Institution, Professor Faraday well remarks, the most common intellectual fault is deficiency of judgment. He contends that "society, speaking generally, is not only ignorant as respects education of the judgment, but it is also ignorant of its ignorance." And the cause to which he as

cribes this state is want of scientific culture. The truth of his conclusion is obvious. Correct judgment with regard to all surrounding things, events, and consequences, becomes possible only through knowledge of the way in which surrounding phenomena depend on each other. No extent of acquaintance with the meaning of words can give the power of forming correct inferences respecting causes and effects. The constant habit of drawing conclusions from data, and then of verifying those conclusions by observation and experiment, can alone give the power of judging. And that it necessitates this habit is one of the immense advantages of science.

Not only, however, for intellectual discipline is science the best, but also for moral discipline. The learning of languages tends, if anything, further to increase the already

undue respect for authority. Such and such are the meanings of these words, says the teacher or the dictionary. So and so is the rule in this case, says the grammar. By the pupil these dicta are received as unquestionable. His constant attitude of mind is that of submission to dogmatic authority. And a necessary result is a tendency to accept without inquiry whatever is established. Quite opposite is the attitude of mind generated by the cultivation of science. By science, constant appeal is made to individual reason. Its truths are not accepted upon authority alone; but all are at liberty to test them, nay, in many cases, the pupil is required to think out his own conclusions. Every step in a scientific conclusion is submitted to his judgment. He is not asked to admit it without seeing it to be true. And the trust in his own powers thus produced is further increased by the constancy with which Nature justifies his conclusions when they are correctly drawn. From all which there flows that independence which is a most valuable element in character. Nor is this the only moral benefit bequeathed by scientific culture. When carried on, as it should always be, as much as possible under the form of independent research, it exercises perseverance and sincerity.

Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Phys

ical.

GOLDWIN SMITH, LL.D., born 1823, at Reading, England, where his father was a physician, was educated at Eton, and entered at Christ Church, Oxford, but was shortly afterwards elected to a demyship at Magdalene College; took his degree of B.A. in 1845, having obtained the Ireland and Hertford Scholarship and the Chancellor's Prize for Latin verse, and was subsequently elected Fellow of University College, of which he became Tutor; called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1850, but did not practise; acted as Assistant Secretary to the first Oxford Commission (that of Inquiry), and as Secretary to the second; and was a member of the Education Commission of 1859; Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford, 1858 to July, 1866, and since his resignation has delivered many lectures in advocacy of political Reform, of which he is one of the most influential champions; Professor of English and General Constitutional History in Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1868.

An Inaugural Lecture delivered at Oxford, Oxf. and Lond., 1859, 8vo; On the Foundation of the American Colonies, 1861,

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8vo; On the Study of History, 1861, 8vo; On some Supposed Consequences of the Doctrine of Historical Progress, Oxf. and Lond., 1861, 8vo; Lectures on Modern Ilistory, delivered at Oxford, 1859-61, 1861, 8vo; Rational Religion and the Rationalistic Objections of the Bampton Lectures for 1858, Oxf., 1861, 8vo; Irish History and Irish Character, Oxf. and Lond., 1861, 8vo; An Oxford Professor on Church Endowments, Lond., 1862; The Empire, Oxf., 1863, p. 8vo; Does the Bible sanction American Slavery? 1863, p. 8vo; A Letter to a Whig Member of the Southern Independence Association, 2d edit., Lond. and Camb., 1864, cr. 8vo (in favour, as are others of his publications, of the Federal Government of the United States); A Plea for the Abolition of Tests in the University of Oxford, Oxf., 1864, cr. 8vo; England and America, Bost., 1865, 8vo; Speeches and Letters, from Jan. 1863 to Jan. 1865, on the Rebellion, New York, 1865, 2 vols. 8vo; The Civil War in America, Lond., 1866, 8vo; Three English Statesmen (Pym, Cromwell, and Pitt), Lond., 1867, 8vo and p. 8vo: The Reorganization of the University of Oxford, Oxf., 1868, p. 8vo; A Short History of England, down to the Reformation, Oxf., in preparation, 1868. Contributed to the Anthologia Oxoniensis, Oxford Essays (Oxford Univ. Reform), Encyc. Brit., 8th edit. (Sir Robert Peel), Macmillan's Mag., (London) Daily News, etc.

"I am a great advocate of culture of every kind, and I say, when I find a man like Professor Goldwin Smith, or Professor Rogers, who, in addition to profound classical learning, have a vast knowledge of modern affairs, and who, as well as scholars, are profound thinkers; these are men whom I know to have a vast superiority over me, and 1 bow to them with reverence."-RICHARD COBDEN:

Speech at Rochdale, Nov. 23, 1864.

MARCUS CATO.

Marcus Cato was the one man whom, living and dead, Cæsar evidently dreaded. The Dictator even assailed his memory in a brace of pamphlets entitled "Anti-Čato," of the quality of which we have one or two specimens in Plutarch, from which we should infer that they were scurrilous and slanderous to the last degree; a proof even that Cæsar could feel fear, and that in Cæsar, too, fear was mean. Dr. Mommsen throws himself heartily into Caesar's antipathy, and can scarcely speak of Cato without something like a loss of temper. The least un civil thing which he says of him, is that he was a Don Quixote, with Favonius for his Sancho. The phrase is not a happy one, since Sancho is not the caricature but the counterfoil of Don Quixote; Quixote being spirit without sense, and Sancho sense with

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