queathed to us by the past, and which may have been suited to their times, have fallen out of harmony with the intellectual necessities of modern life, and a conflict has arisen which is deepening in intensity with the rapid growth of knowledge and the general progress of society. The friends of educational improvement maintain that the system of culture which prevails in our higher institutions of learning, and which is limited chiefly to the acquisition of the mathematics, and of the ancient languages and literature, was shaped ages ago in a state of things so widely different from the present, that it has become inadequate to existing requirements. They urge that since its establishment the human mind has made immense advances; has changed its attitude to nature and entered upon a new career; that realm after realm of new truth has been discovered; that ideas of government, religion, and society have been profoundly modified, and that new revelations of man's powers and possibilities, and nobler expectations of his future, have arisen. As man is a being of action, it is demanded that his education shall be a preparation for action. As the highest use of knowledge is for guidance, it is insisted that our Collegiate establishments shall give a leading place to those subjects of study which will afford a better preparation for the duties and work of the age in which we live.

The adherents of the traditional system reply that all this is but the unreasoning clamor of a restless and innovating age, which wholly misconceives the true aim of a higher culture, and would reduce every thing to the standard of a low and sordid utility. They maintain that knowledge is to be acquired not on account of its capability of useful application, but for its own intrinsic interest; that the purpose of a liberal education is not to prepare for

a vocation or profession, but to train the intellectual faculties. They, therefore, hold that Mental Discipline is the true object of a higher culture, and that for its attainment the study of the ancient classics and mathematics is superior to all other means. From the tone assumed by its defenders, when speaking of its incomparable fitness to develop all the mental faculties, it might be inferred that this scheme of study was formed by the help of a perfected science of the human mind. Nothing, however, could be more erroneous. Not only was that system devised ages anterior to any thing like true mental science, but it antedates by centuries the whole body of modern knowledge. There was abundance of vague metaphysics, but hardly a germ of that positive knowledge of the laws of mind, which could serve as a valid basis of education. The predominant culture of modern times had its origin, more than eight hundred years ago, in a superstition of the middle. ages. A mystical reverence was attached to the sacred number seven, which was supposed to be a key to the order of the universe. That there were seven cardinal virtues, seven deadly sins, seven sacraments, seven days in the week, seven metals, seven planets, and seven apertures in a man's head, was believed to afford sufficient reason for making the course of liberal study consist of seven arts, and occupy seven years. Following another fancy about the relation of three to four, in a certain geometrical figure, these seven arts were divided into two groups. The first three, Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, comprised what was called the Trivium; and the remaining four, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music (the latter as a branch of Arithmetic), formed the Quadrivium. This scheme has been handed down from age to age, and with but slight changes, still predominates in the higher institu

tions of learning, and still powerfully reacts upon the inferior schools.

Passing by various embarrassing questions suggested by the hypothesis that the one perfect method of bringing the human mind to its highest condition has not only been found, but has been actually organized into educational institutions for hundreds of years—a hypothesis which discredits the whole movement of modern intellect in its educational bearings-let us take up this question of mental discipline. The subject is not only intrinsically important, but its importance is greatly heightened when an old and widely-established system, challenged by the spirit of the age, yields the point of the usefulness of the knowledge it imparts, and offers as its sole defence its superior merits as a system of mental training; and still more important does it become when the idea is so constantly and vehemently iterated as to acquire all the force and tenacity of a superstition, and breed a regular cant of education, which serves as the stereotyped apology for numberless. indefensible projects and crudities of instruction. The writer recently opened a huge volume on Heraldry, and the very first passage which struck his eye in the preface, urged the claims of that subject to more general study on the ground of its excellence as a mental discipline.

I propose, in the present Introduction, first, to point out the defects of the traditional system as a means of disciplining the mind; and, second, to show the superior claims of scientific education for this purpose.

The claims put forth in behalf of the prevailing scheme are as multitudinous and diverse as the tastes and capacities of those who offer them-a natural result, perhaps, in the absence of any considerations so decisive as to command general agreement; but those most commonly

urged are, that the grammatical acquisition of the dead languages best disciplines the memory and judgment, and the study of mathematics the reason. Let us briefly notice these points first:

That the acquisition of words exercises the memory is of course true-those of living languages as well as dead ones, but their assumed merit for discipline raises the question how they exercise it. Memory is the capability of recalling past mental impressions, and depends chiefly upon the relations subsisting among these impressions in the mind. If they are arbitrary, the power of recall depends upon multiplicity of repetition, and involves a maximum outlay of mental force in acquisition. If, however, ideas are arranged in the mind in a natural order of connection and dependence, this principle becomes the most important element in commanding past acquisitions. The conditions are then reversed; the outlay of effort in acquisition is reduced, and the power of recall increased. Now the memory cultivated in the common acquirement of language, is of this lowest kind. The relation between words and the ideas, or objects, of which they are the signs, is accidental and arbitrary. Although philological science is beginning dimly to trace out certain natural relations between words and the things they signify, it will not be claimed that this is made at all available in the ordinary study of Latin and Greek; indeed, the most thorough-going advocates of these studies claim that their disciplinal value is in the ratio of the naked retentive power which they call into exercise. But the memory cannot be best disciplined by a mental procedure which neglects its highest law. If the power of recovering past states of consciousness depends upon the natural and ne

cessary connections among ideas, then those studies are best suited for a rational discipline of this power which involve these natural relations among objects. On both grounds the sciences are preferable to dead languages, as instruments of culture. For if it be held desirable merely to task the memory by a dead pull at arbitrary facts (and there are not wanting those who hold to this notion of discipline), then it is only necessary to use the innumerable facts of science, without regard to order; but when we take into account the immense importance of methodizing mental acquisition, and utilizing the principle of natural association among the elements of knowledge, the immeasurable superiority of the sciences for this purpose becomes at once apparent. This is happily illustrated by some observations of Dr. Arnold, respecting the memory of geography. He says:

"And this deeper knowledge becomes far easier to remember. For my own part I find it extremely difficult to remember the positions of towns, when I have no other association with them than their situations relatively to each other. But let me once understand the real geography of a country-its organic structure, if I may so call it; the form of its skeleton, that is, of its hills; the magnitude and course of its veins and arteries, that is, of its streams and rivers; let me conceive of it as a whole made up of connected parts; and then the positions of towns viewed in reference to these parts becomes at once easily remembered, and lively and intelligible besides."

If now it be said that it is not mere memory of words that is contended for, but the discipline and judgment afforded by the grammatical study of the structure of language, the crushing answer is that a dead language is unnecessary for this discipline, which is far better secured by the systematic study and thorough logical analysis of the