idiom. Indeed, in many cases the source can only be traced by a conjectural reproduction based on the most extended comparison of all the cognate languages; for when we take some given variety of human speech, we find it in systems and series of words running almost parallel to one another, but presenting such resemblances in form and signification that convinces us that, though apparently asymptotes, they must have converged in the form which we know would potentially contain them all. This reproduction of the common mother of our family of languages, by a comparison of the features of all her children, is the most general object to which the efforts of the philologer should be directed; and this — and not a mere derivation of words from one another constitutes the etymology that is alone worthy of the name.— Preface to the New Cratylus. THE UTILITY OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES. Education is of two kinds: It is either general or professional; it is either designed for the cultivation of the intellect and the development of the reasoning faculties which all men have in common, though not perhaps to the same degree—or it is calculated to adapt him for some particular calling, which the laws of society -on the principle of the division of labor have assigned to him as an individual member of the body politic. Now the education of the individual for this particular purpose is not an education of man as such; he might do his particular work as well or better if you deprived him of all his speculative faculties, and converted him into an automaton. In short, the better a man is educated professionally, the less he is a man; for, to use the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, The planter, who is a Man sent out into the world to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the at torney, a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship." 66 It was for this reason that the clear-headed Greeks denied the name of education (Paideia) to that which is learned for the sake of some extrinsic gain, or for the sake of doing some work, and distinguished formally between those studies which they called liberal," or worthy of a free man, and those which were merely mechanical and professional. In the same way Cicero speaks of education, properly so called, which he names "humanity" (Humanitas), because its object is to give a full development to those reasoning faculties which are the proper and distinctive attributes of man as such. Now we do not pretend that philology is of any mechanical or professional use; for we do not call Theology a profession; it is merely a branch or application of philology. We do not say that philology will help a man to plough or to reap; but we do assert that it is of the highest use as a part of humanity, or of education, properly so called. The test of a good education is the degree of mental culture which it imparts; for education, so far as its object is scientific, is the discipline of the mind. The reader must not overlook what is meant by the word mind when used in reference to education. That some dumb animals are possessed of a sort of understanding is admitted; but it has never been asserted that they enjoy the use of reason. Man, however, has the faculty called reason in addition to his understanding; he has a power of classifying or arranging, abstracting and generalizing, and so arriving at principles. In other words, his mind is capable of method. Accordingly, what we mean by saying that the object of education is the cultivation of our minds, amounts simply to this, that we better perform our functions as rational creatures in proportion as we carry further the distinction between ourselves and the brute creation.- The New Cratylus. THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. We think we may fairly assume as the basis of our view with regard to the origin of language the account given in the Book of Genesis, so far as that account is confirmed by the researches of modern authors. We find that the structure of human speech is the perfect reflection or image of what we know of the organization of the mind: the same description, the same arrangement of particulars, the same nomenclature, would apply to both; and we might turn a treatise on the philosophy of mind into one on the philosophy of language by merely supposing that everything said in the former of the thoughts as subjective is said in the latter of the words as objective. And from this we should infer that if the mind of man is essentially and ultimately the same, then language is essentially the same, and only accidentally different; and there must have been some common point from which all the different languages diverged handle to the fan which is spread out over all the world some first and primeval speech; and that this speech was not gradually invented, but necessarily sprung, all armed, like Minerva, from the head of the first thinking man, as a necessary result of his intellectual conformation. Now this agrees with the account in Genesis ii. 19, 20.- -The New Cratylus. some D ONNE, JOHN, an English clergyman and poet; born at London in 1573; died there March 31, 1631. He studied at Oxford and Cambridge, being designed for the legal profession, but in his nineteenth year he abandoned law for theology. He had been educated in the Roman Catholic religion, but he renounced it for the Church of England. While Secretary to Lord Egerton he privately married a niece. of that nobleman and was discharged. In 1610 he wrote the Pseudo-Martyr, which procured him the favor of James I., who, about 1614 made him one of his chaplains. He distinguished himself as a preacher, and was later made Dean of St. Paul's. He wrote sermons, devotional and controversial treatises, poetical satires, elegies and epigrams. A complete edition of his works, was issued in 1839, under the editorial care of Dean Alford. Donne was the first and Cowper the second of the school which Johnson denominated "metaphysical" poets, who labored after conceits and novel turns of thought. Dryden styles him "the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet of our nation." Hallam says: "Donne was the most inharmonious of English versifiers. Of his earlier poems many are very licentious; the later are chiefly devout. THE SOUL'S FLIGHT TO HEAVEN. Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie; But think that death hath now enfranchised thee! Twenty, perchance, or thirty miles a day 'Twixt heaven and earth! She stays not in the air, -- Can being one star - Hesper and Vesper be. Goes through, not staying till her course be run; At once is at, and through, the firmament: And, as these stars were but so many beads Strung on one string, speed undistinguished leads Her through those spheres, as through those beads a string, Whose quick succession makes it still one thing; As doth the pith which, lest our bodies slack, SONNET TO DEATH. Death, be not proud, though some have called thee - For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow. And soonest our best men with thee do go Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery! Thou'rt slave to Fate, Chance, Kings, and desperate Men And dost with Poison, War, and Sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, Or better, than thy stroke: Why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die! ELEGY ON MISTRESS ELIZABETH DRURY. She who had here so much essential joy, Better than when in images they be; God's image in such reparation Within her heart, that what decay was grown |