table. Yet I cannot suppress the conviction that all our instruction looking to special ends-to make of the student a lawyer, doctor, engineer, merchant or some such-is so shaped and managed as often to narrow and dwarf the intellect it is intended to sharpen. Each of us is trained for and started upon some special path, and incited to pursue it with primary reference not to general good but to his own. Not many of the children, even of Piety or Philanthropy, are urged to inquire out and select that sphere wherein they may contribute most directly and essentially to the general weal, while thousands on thousands are practically taught to consider only what career will probably secure them the most abundant supply of goods and chattels. From this pervading taint of selfishness, not even the inculcations of the pulpit are absolutely exempt. Men are exhorted to become religious, not so much because they ought as because they must, if they would avoid the most fearful penalties and woes. Hence many a man is impelled to strain every nerve to secure the saving of his soul, leaving out of view entirely the preliminary matter of having any soul to save. Whenever the time shall come that all men really have souls, their salvation will not be so arduous a work, and need not absorb so much effort and attention.

I would not if I could conceal from you my conviction that, before Education can become what it should and must be, we must reform the Social Life whence it proceeds, whitherto it tends. To the child daily sent out from some rickety hovel or miserable garret to wrestle with Poverty and Misery for such knowledge as the teacher can impart, what true idea or purpose of Education is possible? How can he be made to realize that his daily tasks concern the Soul, the World, and Immortality? He may have drilled into his ears day after day the great truth that the life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment,' but so long as his own food and raiment are scanty and precarious, his mind will be engrossed by a round of petty and sordid cares. (I speak here of the general fact; there will be striking instances of the contrary-brilliant exceptions, which do not disprove but establish the rule I have indicated.) But the child whose little all hitherto of life has been passed in penury and consequent suffering-who lives in the constant presence, on the very brink of Want-how can he have a higher idea of Life than that it is a struggle for bread, or of Education than that it is a contrivance for getting bread more easily or more abundantly, or else a useless addition to his toils and cares? He whose energies have been, must be, taxed to keep starvation at bay, can hardly realize that Life has truer ends than the avoidance of pain and the satisfaction of hunger. The narrow, dingy, squalid tenement, calculated to repel any visiter but the cold and the rain, is hardly fitted

to foster lofty ideas of life, its duties and its aims. He who is constrained to ask each morning, Where shall I find food for the day?' is at best unlikely often to ask, By what good deed shall the day be signalized? Well did the Divine Teacher enjoin his followers to Take no thought for the morrow,' and difficult will be the work of imbuing the general mind with any lofty ideal of life and its ends until this commandment can be obeyed in verity, and until such obedience can be made to comport with the dictates of a reasonable forecast, and with that care for his own household, lacking which the believer is worse than an infidel.'

And herein is the true foundation for that protest against the divorce of Learning from Labor which the world has not yet begun to comprehend, or at least to treat with decent consideration. The advocates of manual labor as an essential ingredient of a true Education cherish no fanatical regard for physical toil as alone deserving the name and rewards of Labor. They quite well understand and freely concede that much true Work has been done elsewhere than in the fields and the factories; they know and cheerfully admit that the Sage in his closet, the Astronomer in his observatory, the Legislator in the capitol, may be among the noblest and most deserving of toilers for universal good. But it is not given to all men, nor to most, to advance the general well-being from such exalted positions. The ship Common Weal cannot be navigated from the quarter-deck alone; she needs men at the ropes as well as the speaking-trumpet, the wheel and the lead. It being thus certain that the many must live by hard labor, only the few by mental exertion solely, it does seem the most obvious dictate of prudence and wisdom that all should be qualified for efficiency in that sphere which may become the lot of any, and in which energy and skill will at all events ensure a subsistence, independent of the opinion of others. Here, for illustration, is a youth just qualifying himself to enter upon the stage of active life, who desires and expects to be a clergyman, a physician, or a lawyer, and must at all events earn his bread in some sphere of manly exertion. He cannot glide from one profession to another like a harlequin on the stage; he must choose one and abide his fortune therein. But suppose he should find, after exhausting all his means in fitting himself for his chosen career, that he cannot succeed therein without a compromise of principle, a base deference to prejudice or falsehood-suppose, if a clergyman, he cannot preach all the truth that is made plain to his mind without incurring ecclesiastical censure and ignominy -or, as a physician, he stumbles upon some discovery in advance of his age, which raises the hiss of scorn from his brethren, as did Jenner's discovery of the great antidote for Small Pox, or Harvey's theory of the Circulation of the Blood-or suppose that,

as a lawyer, he find or fancy such an oppugnancy between the maxims and usages of the craft and the dictates of a stern integrity, that he can only succeed in the practice by kicking Conscience overboard, and giving the command to circumspect, respectable Knavery-what alternative has the man educated to live only by his profession, but to take the broad road and keep it, at whatever internal sacrifice? A Prime Minister once to the courtier who said to him, "I must live, you know," replied, "Pardon me, Sir, I do not perceive the necessity;" but rarely has any one so decided in his own case. Even if living be to him personally a matter of indifference, there are those dependent on his exertions whom he cannot so stoically resign to the buffetings of adverse fortune. Hence a life of mean compliances and self-condemned hypocrisies becomes a sort of necessity to thousands-nay, often the seeming dictate of paternal or conjugal duty. Thus the landmarks which should separate Vice from Virtue are broken down, defaced, obliterated, and the ends of life are lost sight of in a desperate, degrading struggle for the means of living.

The most effectual remedy for this which is attainable under our present Social Order is the blending of Manual Labor with Education, so that they should be inseparable by the wealth or personal distinction of the learner. Let it be settled, as a fundamental base of our higher popular Education, that a stated portion of each day shall be devoted to the acquisition of skill in some department of Industry-to Manual Labor for the sake of the strength it imparts, the disorders it baffles, the comforts it creates, the independence it secures and the professional man may then stand up before his flock, his patients, his clients, in an attitude of conscious self-reliance, and say to them, "Employ and requite me if you choose: the earth and the kindly elements will reward my efforts if you do not want them; and so long as vegetation proceeds, and sunshine follows the shower, I can exist as well without you as you can without me. I have learned to labor efficiently with my hands; and I am neither afraid nor ashamed to do so; and whenever I have no other employment I shall joyfully earn my bread thus." Surely the opinions and inculcations of the professional man in this attitude would deserve and command a degree of respect which is not now accorded to them. He could never more be rendered the slave of others' vices or prejudices; he would be master of his own aims, if not of his destiny. The humiliating, fettering consciousness that any reckless following of Conscience out of the track of Prescription or Tradition would almost entirely deprive him of bread, would vanish forever. In its stead would come self-respect and serenity; and not self-respect only, but the respect of those made to realize that his livelihood did not depend on his conformity to the stan

dard of their opinions or desires. My profound conviction that the independence, adequate influence, and proper dignity of the better educated or professional class imperatively demands a reform in our systems of instruction, which shall render the eduacted man skilful as well as knowing, handy as well as longheaded, will not allow me to neglect any fair opportunity of proclaiming and insisting on the requisition of Manual Labor, as an integral part of our better Education. Not for their own sakes merely, though greatly for those, do I insist that the Thinking Class shall become a Working Class in the rude, palpable sense. I demand a more brotherly relation between the man who lives by turning clods, and him who strives to turn hearts. That spectacle of the Emperor of China standing forth under the vernal sun a guider of the plow, can you think that it has no worth, no meaning, but as a state ceremonial-a relict of bygone ages? I tell you nay!-it is to-day, and will be while time and it endure, a most inspiring, beneficial Reality and no sham. That single act shall lighten the heavy burthen on millions of aching shoulders-shall make the poorest and most heart-weary delver in all China more hopeful and joyous, at all events less miserable, than he else would be. Who shall deem himself degraded or dishonored by a calling which the Sovereign Majesty takes pleasure and pride in following, if not constantly, yet statedly, as if to say that he would cleave to it daily did not imperious duties and the welfare of three hundred millions sternly forbid? Rely on it, there is no other day in all the year when the Brother of the Sun and Moon' does half so much toward the right governing of these millions, as on that day when he turns the sward beneath the gaze of exulting thousands. Herein does he prove himself truly a ruler, and more-a teacher, by indisputable example-of truths which, if once universally accepted and lived, would make governing easy, and outward, forcible government a quite subordinate matter. For let men but profoundly realize the dignity and true meaning of Labor-let them feel that not the fruits of it alone, but the work itself is desirable, essential to the well-being of every son and daughter of Adam, and it is not possible that standing arinies and armories, forts and magazines, multitudinous police and tip-staves, would be requisite to keep men from plundering and throttling each other, mainly for sordid pelf. It is the divorce of Work from the visible reward and out-come of Work-of laudable exertion from the palpable need of exertion -which fills the world with knaves and dastards, almost beyond the power of authority to repress.

When that day shall have come which must come, which sees the truth that lurks in our aphorisms transferred to our popular convictions-when men shall find the highest reward of doing good in being good-when the heir of Wealth shall rejoice in his

good fortune, in being able not to fare more daintily and live more uselessly than his poorer neighbors, but to relieve more distress and diffuse more blessing-when the public opinion, not of the poor only but of the rich, shall hold the consumer in idle and selfish luxury of a bounteous income a craven-hearted object of pity rather than of scorn-when he who in cheerful poverty and serene humility most worthily hews out from stubborn wood or more obstructive stone, the subsistence of a numerous family, shall, unseeking, be sought out for public trusts and honors; when, in short, honest industry and modest worth shall be sure of respect and competence, while scheming knavery and bloated pretence shall be equally sure of detection and defeat, the work of the true teacher will be easy, the progress of the pupil rapid, compared with what we now witness. The perpetual and gigantic obstacle which confronts the instructor now is the opposition of the incessant teachings of the street, the gathering, and alas! the family fireside, to his own. Does he speak reverently of virtue and its superiority to rank, wealth, power, or any outward success, he finds his pupils puzzled if not perverted by the palpable, notorious truth that, tested by superficial and vulgar standards, virtue is not popularly esteemed and rewarded. The coterie or the club-room rings with the general laugh at any supposition that a man has done a heroic act, has sacrificed popularity or property from any other than a sordid impulse; and the child is taught, if not expressly yet virtually, by the very mother that bore him, to ingratiate himself with school-mates excelling him in station, affluence, talents, expectations, any thing, in short, but essential goodness. To combat and overbear these insidious influences, to make the pupil see through the misleading mists of opinion and test every appearance and event by eternal instead of transitory consequences, is the high duty of the true monitor and guide of the feeble, faltering steps of youth. At the basis of all morality, all true Knowledge, all lofty endeavor, lies the truth that God reigns. I doubt not that there have been many worthy and useful men whose consciousness of this truth was obscured, whose minds the subtle mazes of metaphysical disputation had clouded, or the pride of scientific attainment had made giddy, so that bewildered in the very vastness and magnificence of the universe, they had lost sight of its Creator. I disclaim all impeachment of the morals or characters of unbelievers when I say that I find it utterly impossible to demonstrate the certain and unvarying superiority of virtue to vice, of right to wrong, if there be no Discerner and Ruler of all things. I know and have said that the truly good man will do right though the heavens were all swept from his vision, and this earth alone were left, whirling aimless and unguided through the depths of infinite space. But the question is, how shall we first