and Harrison, who have sprung from the depths of poverty, to astonish and benefit mankind, no more prove that education is useless to the mechanic, than the corresponding examples prove that it is useless to the statesman, jurist or divine.

Besides, it will perhaps be found, that the great men, like those I have named, instead of being instances to show that education is useless, prove only, that occasionally men, who commence their education late, are as successful as those who commence it early. This shows, not that an early education is no benefit, but that the want of it may sometimes be made up in later years. It might be so made up, no doubt, oftener than it is; and it is in this country much more frequently than in any other.

The foundation of a great improvement is also often a single conception, which suggests itself occasionally to strong and uneducated minds; and who have the good fortune afterwards to receive from others that aid, in executing their projects, without which the most promising conception might have perished undeveloped. Thus Sir Richard Arkwright was a poor barber, endowed, however, with a wonderful quickness of mind. What particular circumstances awakened his mechanical taste we are not told. There is some reason to think, that this, like other strongly-marked aptitudes, may partly depend on the peculiar organization of the body, which is exactly the same in no two men. The daily observation of the operation of the spinning wheel, in the cottages of the peasantry of Lancashire, gave him a full knowledge of the existing state of the art, which it was his good fortune to improve to a degree which is even yet the

wonder of the world. He conceived, at length, the idea of an improved machine for spinning. And in this conception,not improbably a flash across the mind, the work of an in-stant,-lay all his original merit. But this is every thing. America was discovered from the moment that Columbus firmly grasped the idea that, the earth being spherical, the Indies might be reached by sailing on a westerly course. If the actual discovery had not been made for ages after the death of Columbus, he would, nevertheless, in publishing this idea to the world, have been the pilot that led the way, whoever had followed his guidance. Sir Richard Arkwright, having formed the conception of his spinning machine, had recourse to a watchmaker to execute his idea. But how rarely could it happen, that circumstances would put it in the power of a person ignorant, and poor, to engage the COoperation of an intelligent watchmaker!

Neither is it intended, that the education which we recommend, should extend to a minute acquaintance with the practical application of science to the details of every art. This would be impossible, and does not belong to preparatory education. We wish only that the general laws and principles should be so taught, as greatly to multiply the number of persons competent to carry forward such casual suggestions of improvement as may present themselves, and to bring their art to that state of increasing excellence, which all arts reach by long-continued, intelligent cultivation.

It may further be observed, with respect to those great discoveries which seem to be produced by happy accidents and fortuitous suggestion, that such happy accidents are most likely to fall in the way of those, who are on the look out for

them, those whose mental eyesight has been awakened and practised to behold them. The world is informed of all the cases in which such fortunate accidents have led to useful and brilliant results; but their number would probably appear smaller than it is now supposed to be, were such a thing possible as the negative history of discovery and improvement. No one can tell us what might have been done, had every opportunity been faithfully improved; every suggestion sagaciously caught up and followed out. No one can tell how often the uneducated or unobservant mind has approached to the very verge of a great discovery, has had some wonderful invention almost thrust upon it, but without effect. The ancients, as we learn from many passages in the Greek and Latin classics, were acquainted with convex lenses, but did not apply them to the construction of magnifying glasses or telescopes. They made use of seal-rings containing inscriptions; and they marked their flocks with brands, containing the owner's name. In each of these practices, faint rudiments of the art of printing are concealed. Cicero, in one of his moral works (De Natura Deorum), in confuting the errors of those philosophers, who taught that the world was produced by the fortuitous concourse of wandering atoms, uses the following language, as curious in connection with the point I would illustrate, as it is beautiful in expression, and powerful in argument :— "Here," says he, "must I not wonder, if there should be a man who can persuade himself, that certain solid and separate bodies are borne about by force or weight, and that this most beautiful and finished world is formed by their accidental meeting? Whoever can think this possible, I do not see why he cannot also believe that,

if a large number of forms of the one and twenty letters (of gold or any like substance) were thrown anywhere together, that the annals of Ennius might be made out from them, as they are cast on the ground, so as to be read in order; a thing which I know not if it be within the power of chance to effect, even in a single verse. How very near an approach is made, in this remark, to the invention of the art of printing, fifteen hundred years before it took place!

How slight and familiar was the occurrence which gave to Sir Isaac Newton the first suggestion of his system of the universe! This great man had been driven by the plague from London to the country, and had left his library behind him. Obliged to find occupation in the activity of his own mind, he was led, in his meditations, to trace the extent of the principle which occasioned the fall of an apple from the tree, in the garden where he passed his solitary hours. Commencing with this familiar hint, he followed it out to that universal law of gravity, which binds the parts of the earth and ocean together, which draws the moon to the earth, the satellites to the planets, the planets to the sun, and the sun itself, with its attendant worlds, toward some grand and general point of attraction for that infinity of systems, of which the several stars are the centres. How many hundreds of thousands of men, since the creation of the world, had seen an apple falling from a tree! How many philosophers had speculated profoundly on the system of the universe! But it required the talent of a man, placed by general consent at the head of the human race, to deduce from this familiar occurrence, on the surface

of the earth, the operation of the primordial law of nature which governs the glorious movements of the heavens, and holds the universe together. Nothing less than his sagacity could have made the deduction, and nothing less than a mathematical skill and an acquaintance with the previously ascertained principles of science, such as falls to the lot of very few, would have enabled Newton to demonstrate the truth of his system.

Let us quote another example, to show that the most obvious and familiar facts may be noticed for ages without effect, till they are observed by a sagacious eye, and scrutinized with patience and perseverance.-The appearance of lightning in the clouds was as old as creation; and certainly no natural phenomenon forces itself more directly on the notice of men. The existence of the electric fluid, as excited by artificial means, was familiarly known to philosophers a hundred years before Franklin; and there are a few vague hints, prior to his time, that lightning was an electrical appearance. But it was left for Franklin distinctly to conceive that proposition, and to institute an experiment by which it should be demonstrated. The process by which he reached this great conclusion is worth remembering. Dr. Franklin had seen the most familiar electrical experiments performed at Boston, in 1745, by a certain Dr. Spence, a Scotch lecturer. His curiosity was excited by witnessing these experiments, and he purchased the whole of Dr. Spence's apparatus, and repeated the experiments at Philadelphia. Pursuing his researches with his own instruments, and others which had been liberally presented to the province of Pennsylvania, by the proprietor, Mr. Penn,