dishonesty on the part of a Boston clerk. He had charge of the financial affairs of the firm in whose service he was, and he abstracted a large amount from their funds, and absconded. If we could know the precise history of this young thief, we should probably ascertain that his leisure hours were spent in objectionable and sinful ways. All kindred cases would reveal a similar fact in regard to evening hours. When leisure moments are allowed to run to waste, or are spent in pleasures and follies that leave stains upon the soul, it is pretty sure that the course is downwards. Here sinful amusements and games come in with their attractions, and seduce the heart even when the youth feels secure. But here we meet with the objection, that there is little encouragement to pursue letters or science without teachers. This is an erroneous view of the matter of culture. If the sentiment had been generally adopted, the world would have been deprived of many of its noblest benefactors. We have named many individuals in the foregoing pages, who not only studied without the aid of instructors, but made their most signal acquisitions while pursuing some laborious calling for a livelihood. No class of men have made themselves more useful than the self-taught. Some one has said: Selfmade, or never made." Patrick Henry and Sir Humphrey Davy were self-taught. So were Benjamin West, James Ferguson, Sir William Jones, James Watt, Cobbett, Rumford, Scott, Baxter, Young, Roger Sherman, Newton, Franklin, and a host of others. Not one of these persons enjoyed so favourable advantages for acquiring knowledge, in early life, as are possessed by almost every young man of the present day.

66

Let us view this subject just as we would any business transaction. There is scarcely any young person who cannot find one hour in a day, which he can call leisure time. Suppose he devotes this time to reading. He can read twenty pages a day, or one hundred and forty pages a week. In a single year he would read more than seven thousand pages, which is equal to eighteen large duodecimo volumes. At this rate, he might take a course of historical reading, which would make him familiar with the history of his own and several other countries. Suppose he continues this plan of reading twenty pages per day, for a series of twenty years. In that period he would read nearly one hundred and fifty thousand pages, equal to three hundred and sixty-five volumes of the size named above. An acquaintance with these books would put him in possession of a large fund of historical and biographical information, and not a little of general literature besides. All this is the result of reading one hour in a day for twenty years!

Again, suppose this one hour per day is devoted to some branch of science, such as astronomy, geography, geology, or philosophy, the person might distinguish himself therein by becoming complete master of that particular branch of science. The celebrated Hugh Miller, the great geologist, whose death caused sadness throughout the scientific world, was a stone-mason in his early manhood. But he devoted the time he could spare from his pursuit to geological studies, and he won thereby immortal fame. How many men in manual and mercantile pursuits might have made similar progress by devoting their spare moments to some scientific study!

There are many interesting facts, relating to this topic, in addition to those already enumerated, and we will consider a few of them.

Robert Bloomfield was born nearly a hundred years ago, and his pursuit was that of shoemaking. A writer says of his first appearance in London: "I have him in my mind's eye: a little boy, not bigger than boys generally are at twelve years old. When I met him and his mother at the inn, he strutted before us, dressed just as he came from keeping sheep, hogs, &c., his shoes filled full of stumps in the heels. I remember viewing him as he scampered up; how small he was. I little thought that diminutive fatherless boy would be one day known and esteemed by the most learned, the most respected, the wisest, and the best men of the kingdom." He had no time to devote to study, except such as every apprentice finds in leisure hours; yet he distinguished himself in literary pursuits, and became the author of several famed productions. His biographer says, that his "literary acquirements appear to have been all made during the time he was learning the business of a shoemaker, and afterward while he worked at the same business as a journeyman.”

Julias Cæsar was a military officer and politician, and yet he found time to write his Commentaries known throughout the world, in addition to other works on astronomy, history, and miscellaneous subjects. It is said that his Commentaries were written amid the bustle and toils of his campaigns, by improving fragments of time; and, when he was obliged, on one occassion, to leap from his ship in the bay of Alexandria, to save his life, he swam to the shore

with his weapons in one hand and his Commentaries in

the other.

William Cobbett, of whom we have spoken in another place, says: "I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on sixpence a day. The edge of my guard-bed was my seat to study in, my knapsack was my book-case, and a board lying on my lap was my desk. I had no money to buy candles or oil; in winter it was rarely that I could get any light but that of the fire, and only my turn even at that. To buy a pen or a sheet of paper, I was compelled to forego a portion of food, though in a state of starvation. I had no moment at that time I could call my own; and I had to read and write amid the talking, singing, whistling, and bawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in hours of freedom from control. And I say, if I, under circumstances like these, could encounter and overcome the task, can there be in the whole world a youth who can find excuse for non-performance? ""

We give below the account of a distinguished mathematician who resolved, when he was fourteen years of age, to devote one hour a day to study, and he has kept his resolution for more than thirty years. It is Charles G. Frost, of Brattleboro', Vermont, who is by trade a shoemaker.

Let me tell you how it was done. He says: "When I went to my trade, at fourteen years of age, I formed a resolution, which I have kept till now-extraordinary preventives only excepted-that I would faithfully devote one hour each day to study, in some useful branch of knowledge." Here is the secret of his success.

He

66

is now forty-five years of age, and is a married man, the father of three children; yet this one hour rule accompanies him to this day. "The first book which fell into my hands," he says, was Hutton's Mathematics, an English work of great celebrity, a complete mathematical course, which I then commenced-namely, at fourteen. I finished it at nineteen without an instructor. I then took up those studies to which I could apply my knowledge of mathematics, such as Mechanics and Mathematical Astronomy. I think I can say that I possess, and have successfully studied all the most approved English and American works on these subjects." After this he commenced Natural Philosophy and Physical Astronomy; then Chemistry, Geology, and Mineralogy, collecting and arranging a cabinet. "Next Natural' Philosophy," he says, "engaged my attention, which I followed up with close observation, gleaning my information from a great many sources. The works that treat of them at large are rare and expensive. But I have a considerable knowledge of Geology, Ornithology, Entomology, and Conchology." Not only this; he has added to his stores of knowledge the whole science of Botany, and has made himself completely master of it. He has made actual extensive surveys, in his own State, of the trees, shrubs, herbs, ferns, mosses, lichens, and fungi. Mr Frost thinks that he possesses the third best collection of ferns in the United States. He has also turned his attention to Meteorology, and devotes much of his time, as do also Olmstead, Maury, Redfield, Smith, Loomis, Mitchell, and many others, to acquire a knowledge of the law of storms, and the movements of the erratic and extraordinary bodies in the air