youth, cannot be expected of any, but the severely studious and the intensely ambitious. It would be far better, then, to demand higher requisites for admission, and put them, in this respect, upon something like the level of collegiate students. For example, let it be required that they should come well versed in Arithmetic generally, English Grammar, Geography, and the rudiments of the Latin. Of the three former, the necessity is urgent; of the latter, the utility need scarcely be vindicated; at this period of enlightened education, few need be told that the Latin is the foundation of our tongue, that its grammar is the grammar of all modern languages, and that, whilst the Greek, and even any thing like classical attainments generally, may be safely disregarded, the rudiments of the Latin must be thoroughly understood by all, who would write or speak well their native language. It is also a necessary preliminary to the study of French, which constitutes so large an item in the academic course. This additional knowledge might be more readily required, by adding another requisite that they should be sixteen years of age before admission. This suggestion derives a strong argument from the high order of studies, to which they are immediately introduced, upon their admission to the academy, compared to the slight acquirements they have previously made. How can it be reasonably expected that a boy of merely ordinary capacity, at the early age of fourteen, with no knowledge, but that of the ground rules of Arithmetic, should be capable of immediately entering upon the most abstruse branches of the Mathematics, and, in two years, acquire a standing in them equal to that of many, who are thought good mathematicians? Yet this is precisely what is expected at the Military Academy. In fact, it is impossible for ordinary abilities to accomplish it, and a great injustice to demand it, as the fate of all, who have not either prepared themselves in advance, or possessed superior talents, abundantly shows. By fixing the age of admission at sixteen, and raising the requisites to what we have mentioned, they would not only be far better qualified for the studies of the academy, but would be able to judge, before admission, whether their capacity and industry would endure its fiery ordeal.

Another improvement that might be made, respects the permanency of the teachers. Of the thirty teachers employed at the academy, but ten are permanent instructers, appointed under the law; the rest are officers of the army, stationed there, as assistant teachers, sometimes remaining one year, and sometimes longer. The department of Chemistry is altogether unknown to the law, and exists only by executive favor. One of the French teachers is employed in the same way; and the Professor of Ethics has no legal assistant. Such an organization has a very unfavorable effect, both upon the teachers and the pupils. The former feel insecure in their places, and are ready for any change; and the latter lose the benefits of a uniform and steady manner of teaching. The proper Professorships and a sufficient number of permanent assistants should be authorized by law, and the vacancies filled by the best talents in the country, wherever found.

There is one other suggestion, I would make, with as much deference and diffidence as its delicacy demands. There is a want of what people in general think a sufficient religious instruction, or rather, if we except one sermon a week, there is none at all. This

deficiency operates against the academy in various ways, and has already given rise to a charge of open infidelity. Though this is utterly untrue, yet, the cause which originated it is regretted not less by the prudent than the pious. We have arrived at a period of the world, in which a professed regard for Christianity is required by public opinion in every portion of Christendom. However numerous the lights and shades of sects, creeds, and opinions, no one covets or can long endure the character of an open contemner of Christian institutions. Every college, and every academy in the Union, has its morning and its evening prayers, its public worship and its biblical instruction; nor, could they long exist without them. And why is public opinion thus unanimous in its calls for such instruction? Is it not, that, however strong the guards against temptation, however severe the punishment of depravity, yet they do nothing, in after life, to dam up the heart against the surges of vice and crime, without the aid of those positive precepts, and pure principles, derived from early moral and religious instruction? The government have provided every other species of building, at West-Point, but a Chapel: there is, however, a large room in the Lyceum, which has always been appropriated to this purpose; but it is insufficient for the accommodation of more than half of those who are, in one way or another, attached to the academy, and entitled to the benefit of public worship. It is altogether incommodious and unfit for the purpose. This deficiency has originated a small Methodist chapel, which, by the subscription of individuals and the permission of the Superintendent, has been constructed out of one of the old storehouses. In that, a Sunday School of eighty or ninety scholars is instructed, and a small but zealous congregation of the attachés of the academy are regularly assembled. The Chaplain, who is a gentleman of elegant acquirements and acute understanding, is also Professor of Ethics, and experience would seem to show that his double duties were too onerous for the full performance of both : indeed, it ought not to be expected or required. The offices should be separated-a Professor of Ethics appointed-and the Chaplain required to hold morning prayers, and hear those simple, biblical recitations, which are entirely free from bigotry and sectarianism.

This is as little, I should think, as should be tolerated in a seminary of young men, and is yet enough to give them some of those positive precepts of moral government, without which all the negative restraints. of isolation, rule, and punishment, will be unavailing. It would be melancholy to suppose that so many ardent spirits, so brilliantly educated, so aspiring in ambition, and so full of talent and promise, should go forth to the world, with no principle of action, but a reckless selfishness, and no determination towards that moral eminence, which is attained only by "the pursuit of noble ends by noble means." Their influence upon the character and conduct of their country will be great; for, after all that is said and bruited about freedom, the vast multitude are moved and regulated by the ambitious few,-the men of disciplined talents and vigorous action. Is it not, then, of momentous consequence that every system of education should contain the elements of a pure, and sound, and high-toned moral government? The tendency of military systems is not only to arbitrary but to licentious principles. This is also the tendency of human nature. It may easily

be imagined, then, with what ease the military student pursues the downward course, when unimpeded by any of those checks upon character and conduct, which, in civil society, are such strong restraints upon the passions of men. The tendency of the government itself is to corruption, and no guards against it can be too strong. A remark of Montesquieu, in his L' Esprit de Loix, should be engraved in golden letters upon the pillars of the capitol,-that Honor is the principle of Monarchies,-Moderation of Aristocracies,- Virtue alone of a DeD. M.

mocracy.

FEMALE EDUCATION.

THE human judgement is never more deeply deceived, than when it is led astray by an involution of errors; that is, when an erroneous theory has produced an erroneous practice, and the truth of theory is argued from the necessity of the practice. I can best illustrate what I mean by an example. Bonaparte was a sagacious man; he looked on the world with a penetrating eye; and having himself made many experiments on human minds, he was an excellent judge of causes and effects. Yet, with all his sagacity, he was deceived in one question which came before him. They were speaking, during his confinement in the island of St. Helena, of the restrictions of the Sabbath in England. A poor man was not allowed to work. "That is wrong," said the abdicated Emperor; "it may be very proper to restrain the rich from their employments; but, they ought not to limit the poor. If a poor man does not work on Sunday, he will certainly be intoxicated, or gambling, or in some of the haunts of dissipation ;" and these observations he believed he could support from experience. Now, mark the involutions of error in his views. The want of a consecrated Sabbath in France had rendered the common people very dissipated. From their practice this keen observer had taken his views. If now he had given such a people as the French one day in seven for repose, no doubt their practice would have confirmed his theory. It never seems to have entered his mind, that a different populace might have exhibited a different practice; and thus it is that errors in speculation produce errors in practice, and errors in practice confirm errors in speculation; and the human mind is never more deeply deceived, than when it is so confined to its mistakes by a double chain.

I recommend these remarks to all those honest foes of man's happiness, who have spent their whole lives in hanging weights on the wings of human improvement. Respecting all our measures, we reason from facts; and we deem that reasoning strong. Facts are stubborn things; facts are the will of God; facts can never deceive us. But let us not be too hasty in this career of confidence. Who made these facts? Who ascertains them? Who applies them to the question in debate? The truth is, facts are only stubborn things in the view of obstinate minds. Man often makes the facts he abuses to his own selfish designs. Facts may be very stubborn things (if we only ascertain them,) respecting the motions of the planets, or the ebbing and

flowing of the sea; but respecting human nature, respecting fickle, variable, intellectual, soaring man, the facts, which confirm your error, may be the effects of a previous error; and if they stand in the way of improvement, let us go to work and make a new series of facts; for the man of the last century is not the man of this; he is born to change.

It is precisely this involution of error, which has stood in the way of female improvement. Let us suppose the proposal to be carried to the Turks of Constantinople, to open the doors of the harem; to release their females from their bonds; and to endeavor after something like domestic enjoyment. With what astonishment would the proposal be heard! How impossible would it appear! What, trust woman to herself! Give liberty to such a childish, trifling, faithless class of creatures! And no doubt he could argue from facts. Their women are the creatures of ignorance, and confinement alone can preserve their morals; for those that find themselves always oppressed, and never trusted, become treacherous of course. But the woman of a Christian land is a very different being from a follower of Mahomet. former has a soul, the latter, almost literally, has none. But have we reached the highest point, to which the elevation of this moiety of the world may be carried? Has female education received the attention it ought? Let us never tire in our efforts, until both man and woman have reached the elevation for which God designed them, and the gates of paradise be restored.

The

The truth is, there is no one subject on which we may indulge better hopes, or in which the past is less a pattern for the future. In these last ages, there has been a wonderful revolution respecting the female character. Since the fall of the Roman power, whose refinement has been so vastly overrated, and since the Gothic nations broke in from the north, first to afflict, and then to mend the human race, there has been a charm thrown over domestic life, and a coloring over the female character, which is perfectly new. The ancients knew nothing of it. It is like the soft hues of an Italian sky, which a traveler sees, and can estimate from no other sky he has ever seen. It is one of those accessary ideas of the imagination, which sometimes strangely arises, and which, the more we endeavor to account for, the more we admire. It sprang up partly from chivalry, partly from religion, partly from the influence of their songs and romances; but chiefly, from the higher elevation to which women themselves rose. I shall not say, that this new passion has not been productive of evil as well as good; that it has not strewn some thorns, as well as some roses in the sober path of life. Earth is no paradise; and fiction must forsake a man some time before he reaches the grave. But when one compares the respectful attention paid to a modern lady, with the gross familiarity used to ancient woman; when we place the refined sentiments of a Christian lover along side of the furious sensuality of the old Pagans; when we pass from the grossness of one of the odes of Horace to the better sentiments of one of our most ordinary novels, it is impossible not to own and admire the mighty change. It is a privilege for a woman to be born in these latter days. She is sure to secure the best influence, as soon as she deserves it.

A

In considering female education, let us first consider the character which woman sustains, and the station which she is called to fill. good education must have reference to both.

If we had not seen the vast influence of different objects in forming the mind, we might suppose the distinction of sexes reached to the human soul; that the intellects of females were cast in a different mould; and that God did not design them for such different occupations, without originally imprinting on the secret springs of their conduct an impression and bias, which would perpetually distinguish them even in a world of spirits. But before we admit such a conclusion, let us look at the operation of other causes. Souls are formed by their interests and objects; their original texture is lost in the thousand webs, which custom, education and society have woven around them. How astonishingly do men differ! What opposite beings are the American savage and the Hindoo! The common professions of life will sometimes alter the whole structure of man's mind, and shape all the passions of the heart. The difference, therefore, in the minds of the two sexes, it seems to me, may be fully accounted for, in their being born to different interests, and those interests separated by impassable lines. There is no sex in the soul. Their abilities, their capacities, their affections, are equal. If, at the natal hour, all who are now acting in the affinities of fathers, husbands and brothers, could have exchanged souls with those, who are now filling up the gentler stations of mothers, wives and daughters, the world would have been just what it now is; the same designs would have been formed, the same abilities displayed. The lawyer would have plead his cause; the preacher would have mounted his desk, and the general would have gone to the field of battle. It is, therefore, an object of some importance, in cultivating minds, to remember, that spirits have no sex. Men are masculine women, and women female men; we have each of us a vital spark from God, which can only blaze when it is kindled by improvement.

It has been customary, I believe, to pay the female sex a compliment respecting their virtues, at the expense of subtracting just so much from their abilities. I question both these representations. Women are neither angels nor fools. They are human beings under a weaker structure, and in a peculiar form. I question whether there is more real goodness found in their hearts, than among men. But do not misapprehend me. I am not contending that the decencies of life and a higher tone of morality are not better preserved among those for whose reputation it is to be decent and moral. This is to be expected. The point which I question, is, whether, when an impartial God comes to trace our actions to their spring, and to weigh our faults with our temptations, he will not find as much goodness among the sons of Adam, as the daughters of Evc. Alas! we cannot reproach each other; we are both miserable sinners. Hand in hand our parents left the garden of Eden together; and hand in hand we have gone on in the paths of transgression ever since.

Thus, it seems to me, in estimating the original and distinctive character of the female sex, we may say, they are not so much below their counterparts in point of abilities, nor so much above them in point of heart-virtues, as is commonly supposed. Perhaps there is no differ

ence.