education, is one of great importance, and ought to be well understood; namely, that the great end of education is not so much to fill the mind with information, as to call forth its powers; not to regard the intellect so much as a passive receptacle, into which must be poured as much knowledge as possible, but rather as a powerful agent, which needs only to receive the command of its faculties, and to become accustomed to their use, in order to grasp, with resistless strength, the whole circle of good learning, and mould into forms of new beauty and usefulness the knowledge it possesses. And yet, how often is the assiduous teacher censured and abused, because his pupils are found to be ignorant of a few facts, when his efforts have been successfully directed to the all-important object of so exercising the mind, as to enable them to enter, with a firm step and a strong arm, into the vast field of knowledge, and gather its choicest fruits at their will!

Much has been said about the power of knowledge; but, with many, the term is probably vague, and conveys no definite idea. This power has been differently regarded, at different times. It has been even looked upon with superstitious reverence, as enabling the possessor to overcome the laws of nature. Three centuries ago, the power of knowledge might have been described as the superhuman capacity with which the alchemist and the astrologer were invested; the power to command the elements, to arrest the progress of time, to read the mysterious future by the grand secrets of learning. And I am not sure, that there is not lingering in the minds of some, at the present day, a disposition to invest learning with the same mysterious virtue. Such an error, wherever it exists, cannot be too strongly opposed, because its tendency is to encourage and continue that mistaken system of education, whose object is to crowd as much knowledge as possible into the mind of a child, without reference to the higher purpose of developing the native powers.

There is no greater mistake than that of supposing, that

knowledge, in itself, is power; that the mere acquiring of a certain number of facts, or committing a certain number of rules, or even storing the mind with the lore of all the learned, is alone able to confer power. Learning is a dead weight upon the soul, unless it is quickened by thought. It possesses no intrinsic efficacy. To some intellects, which have never been roused to action, it is but foolishness; to others, it is immortal energy. The fall of an apple, to an ordinary mind, seems but the most trivial of nature's operations; but it suggests to a Newton the most sublime system that the intellect of man ever grasped. The power of truth, of learning, consists, then, in this, that there is a principle innate in the mind, which meets it; that it is welcomed and inspired with vital energy, by lifegiving thought; that it calls forth a kindred power, and finds a response in the depths of the soul;-in a word, that it awakens action of mind; and in proportion as this is accomplished, just in the same proportion will be the power of learning. Childhood is not to be regarded as the time of life most suited to the reception of knowledge. There is more danger, in the present systems of education, that the intellect will be weighed down by a mass of communicated information, than that it will be left destitute. Let the mind be first taught to use its own powers, and then it will educate itself.

The power of knowledge, as thus explained, becomes greater, the more widely it is diffused. The greater number of minds that are aroused to thought, the greater will be the power actually possessed by man. When we remember how long facts of the most common occurrence were before the eyes of men, yet conveyed no deep intelligence to the soul,-when we observe how civilization has stood for ages on the very verge of vast discoveries, yet has failed to take the last short step, we can comprehend how feeble is knowledge, unless it is moulded by thought. As we look upon the history of discovery, it seems as if men had remained almost wilfully ignorant of truths and principles, which had power even to re-model

society; we behold them lingering round the unseen shores of discovery for thousands of years,-Cicero absolutely inventing movable types, and yet the art of printing not found out till fifteen hundred years afterwards,—Plato descanting upon the wonderful properties of the magnet, and yet its polarity remaining undiscovered through the dark ages, the mathematicians of Egypt and Greece calculating eclipses, yet waiting for Copernicus to describe the solar system,-the Chinese nation using gunpowder for centuries, without applying it to military

As we review all these wonders in the history of great discoveries, we cannot but acknowledge that mental activity was wanting in the world, that it slumbered for so many ages on the verge of such knowledge. The intellectual spark must be received and cherished by kindred fire, or it will be lost on the cold, dull waste of ignorance and indifference. And in this, perhaps, may be discovered the reason, why certain periods have seemed so astonishingly prolific in great men, and others so destitute of them. It is because there are occasionally combinations of circumstances, which have uncommon power to call forth action of mind, and still more, because great minds not only act with life-giving force upon each other, but they diffuse a portion of their energies through entire communities, arousing the activity of intellect, and unfolding the faculties by their own genial warmth.

All great discoveries, then, evidently depend less upon accident, than upon the constant and powerful action of mind, by which a proper use is made of knowledge already possessed. In this may be found the great principle of all invention or discovery; here is the grand arcanum, which the occult sciences in vain promised to reveal, the magic stone, in search of which the alchemist toiled his life away; the standing-place, which the sublime mind of Archimedes imagined, but never found, from which he might have moved the world. The mind almost recoils from its responsibilities, when we reflect upon the discoveries which are yet to be made. What tre

mendous results may be impending over us, which one happy thought, a single hour, or perhaps only a single moment of intense thought, might enable us to accomplish! What engines of power, what command of the elements, what forms of surpassing loveliness, may be even now within our reach, if the mind were but awake to grasp them! But we may go beyond this. Thus far, the discoveries which have had most influence upon the condition of man, have been almost exclusively confined to the physical world. There is another universe, with regard to which we are still comparatively in deep ignorance ; upon whose threshold, we have hardly yet entered, and in which we have, as yet, made no dazzling discoveries. It is the world of mind, the inward universe, illimitable in extent, and eternal in duration, the image of the all-pervading Deity. And yet how unexplored! how unknown! Shadows, clouds, and darkness still rest upon the unbounded prospect before us; and man has never penetrated them. Treasures, compared with which, mountains of gold and valleys of diamonds are as worthless dross,-forms of beauty which the earth never knew,powers which mock at the weakness of the elements,-conceptions which pausenot at the limits of the created universe,—are gathered there, and none have reached them. Here, then, are yet to be found wonders which shall far transcend in importance and vastness, all that human genius has hitherto arrived at ;here will be revealed the eternal foundations of man's nature, the primeval elements of the soul, the immortal principles which existed before the birth of time;-here are to be discovered truths which are to conquer the world, to elevate the condition of the human race, to reörganize society, to bring the earth nearer to heaven.

Such are the vast objects of education, in the highest sense of the word. Looking to the future, rather than the past; regarding knowledge already gained, as valuable chiefly for the aid it gives in gaining more, and as useful more by strengthening than by storing the mind,-while the destinies of the race

are yet unfulfilled, while there still remains any thing to be learnt, which man has not grasped, while there are discoveries still to be made, and powers still to be developed,—education will still have the same great ends in view. A single glance at the present condition of men, and their past history, will convince us how far these great purposes yet are from being accomplished; and how small is the number of active, thinking minds, compared with those who slumber through life.

It has been proved, how vastly individual power may be increased by associations. Our Bible societies, our temperance societies, our commercial companies, our associations for the accomplishment of any great project, have already performed Herculean tasks, and have clearly showed the immense superiority in point of power, which the efforts of men, acting in masses, possess, over the attempts of the same persons when not united.

But has the experiment yet been made to any extent, com paratively, of the results to be accomplished by men thinking in masses? Is not thought, thus far, almost solitary? Are not the original minds who lead the way, on the advance of society, scattered and alone, without concert, and beyond the observation of each other? If the combined efforts of philosophers have done so much to promote the cause of science, might not as much be done for moral and intellectual discoveries, by the union of talent? May not thought be responded to by thought? May not ideas be expanded and developed, as easily as facts commented upon and applied to use?

To the universal action of mind we must look, for the highest degree of refinement, knowledge and virtue of which man is capable. When the various powers, aided by all the diversities of climate, manners, tradition, language and literature, shall be brought into strenuous exertion at once, and the untried and almost inconceivable strength of the intellect of the whole world shall be brought to bear upon the most exalted subjects, then, and not till then, will the destinies of the race be accomplished.