gency. This might be well, were the mind, in any respect, like the bones and muscles of the horse. Some, when they are contriving to see how little mental effort will answer, and how far and wide a few feeble thoughts may be spread, seem more like students than at any other time, as if it were dangerous to task the mind too often, lest her stores be exhausted, or her faculties become weakened. The bow is to be only half bent, lest it be overstrained, and lose its power. But you need have no such fears. You may call upon your mind, to-day, for its highest efforts, and stretch it to the utmost in your power, and you have done yourself a kindness. The mind will be all the better for it. To-morrow you may do it again; and each time it will answer more readily to your calls. Remember that real discipline of mind does not consist so much in now and then making a great effort, as in having the mind so, trained that it will make constant efforts. If you would have the discipline anything like perfect, it must be unremitted during the hours of study. The perfection of a disciplined mind is, not to be able, on some great contingency, to rouse up its faculties, and draw out a giant strength, but to have it always ready to produce a given and an equal quantity of results in a given and equal time. This was the glory of the mind of sir Isaac Newton. He who trains his mind to go by impulses, and must wait for them, will accomplish but very little during his life.

The study of human nature is a very important part of education. I know it is thought by some, nay, by many, that no one can understand men but those who are moving, and acting, and crowding among them. I grant that such a one

is the only man who knows the forms and modes of doing business. But if the student has not, at the close of his academical course, a deep and thorough insight into the nature of man, it is his own fault, or the fault of his instructors. Men in active life will judge very accurately as to the manner in which you may expect men to act in such and such circumstances; but though, in these respects, their conclusions are accurate, yet they see not the motives of action, and look not so deeply into the soul, as the accurate student. Let a man in active life undertake to probe the conscience of an audience; he may have this and that fact, but can he do it as effectually as he who has read human nature, and pondered over it, in all its recesses and windings, in his study? Few men ever lived who moved among men so little as Jonathan Edwards. But did he not understand human nature? Can any one read his writings, and doubt, for a moment, that he knew most accurately what the nature of man is? When such a mind pours out its strength upon the world, it does not make mistakes as to the principles of action. He might mistake in purchasing a horse, or a coat, for he never attended to such small matters; but a surgeon never dissected the body with more accuracy and skill than he does the soul of man. It is a tradition, that Edwards knew not his own cows; but, in the world of active, driving, bargainmaking men, you will never find one who understands human nature so well as he did. And not he alone; but this is characteristic of all who are real students. They work upon the deep principles of human nature, those principles which are altered neither by time, nor fashion, nor outward circumstances. This is one reason why an

educated mind will often send the arrow through the heart, while the uneducated man only twangs his bow. He makes more noise, but produces no execution. I doubt not that many will smile at the idea, that the hard student understands mankind; but you might as well smile at the philosopher, who, while he was managing the electricity in the thunder-cloud, could not tell what outward shapes the cloud might, in the mean time, assume, or whether it moved fast or slow.

Self-knowledge is another important end of study. There are some men who have raised themselves to high stations, and maintained them, without a long course of mental discipline. But most are pedants, and self-conceited, unless they have accurately and repeatedly measured themselves by others. It is of great importance that you know what you cannot do, as well as what you can do. By contact with other minds, not merely do you sharpen the intellect, and add a keenness to the mind, but you strengthen it, and you also learn to be modest in regard to your own powers. You will see many with intellects of a high order, and with attainments far beyond anything which you have dared call your own. There must be some radical defect in that man's nature, who can be associated in study, for years, with those who are severe students, and, at the end of the period, feel that he is a very wise or a very great man. He has then but just stepped upon the threshold of learning, and but just looked out upon that field of knowledge and improvement, which is as boundless as the creation of God. But what is the reason why a man must know himself exactly? What if he does over-estimate himself? I answer -if he presents a draft greater than his deposits, it will certainly be protested. There is so much

vanity in the heart of every man, that he will not allow any one to claim more than his merits absolutely compel him to allow; so that, if you place yourself on the list of those who over-estimate their own attainments or worth, you injure your usefulness, and destroy your happiness. The modest man may, and will, draw vastly more upon the sympathy and good-will of mankind, than the forward man, with the same attainments, will be allowed to do. Modesty, to rest upon any fixed, stable foundation, must rest upon an accurate knowledge of yourself. This will be the result of study. A philosopher, whose fame was filling all Europe, was so modest and retiring, that his good landlady, one day, mourned over him, and lamented that "the poor soul would never make anything more than a philosopher after all!"

We are in too great danger of neglecting the memory. It is too valuable to be neglected, for by it wonders are sometimes accomplished. He who has a memory that can seize with an iron grasp, and retain what he reads, the ideas, simply, without the language, and judgment to compare and balance, will scarcely fail of being distinguished. Many are afraid of strengthening the memory, lest it should destroy their inducement and power to originate ideas-lest the light should be altogether borrowed light. The danger does not seem to me to be very great; especially since it may be observed, that those who are so fearful of employing this faculty are by no means to be envied for their originality. Why has that mass of thought, observation, and experience, which is embodied in books, by the multitudes of minds which have gone before us, been gathered, if not, that we may use it, and stand on high ground, and push our way still further into the boundaries and regions of knowledge? Besides, in a world

so dark as ours, it is delightful to see a planet rising before us, even though she sheds no light but borrowed. And, after all, the exact amount of original thought which passes through any one mind, is probably much less than is frequently imagined. Who does not know what a delightful freshness there is in the reading of a youth! The world is new to him. He treads on ground new and enchanting. I have frequently heard men, in maturer years, wish that they could now sit down and find the same freshness in a book, which they did when young. Why do they not? Because a new book, now, is not new. They have seen the same ideas, or the shades of them, many times before; and every book takes away from the originality of that which is to follow it. then, there is not so much of originality in men and in books as you at first suppose, it follows, that memory is the grand instrument of conveying knowledge from one man to another. cultivation is of the highest importance I mention it here, not now to direct how to cultivate it, but to state its immense value.

If,

Its

You will see, from what I have said, that the object of study is to discipline the mind in all its parts; to show it where to find tools, and how to use them. The exact amount of knowledge at any one time in the mind of the student, is not, and need not be, great. Like a good pump, you

could soon exhaust it were it not that it reaches an inexhaustible well beneath, and has all the apparatus for filling itself as fast as emptied. If the knowledge which is now possessed shall evaporate, it will, like the vapours which rise from the ocean, again return to the diligent student, by some other channels.