of thought. There must not even be the smoothness of Queen Anne's day, still less the delicacy of the current French traditions; but only a good, clear, manly, energetic, insular style, as if each dwelt on an island, and hailed his neighbor each morning in good chest tones, to tell him the news. It is the farthest possible from the style of a poet or an artist, but it is the style of that ideal man for whom Huxley longs, "whose intellect is a clear, cold logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth working order, ready, like a steam-engine, to be turned to all kinds of work." In Huxley himself this type of writing is seen at the greatest advantage; Froude and Seeley have much the same; and books like the "Essays on a Liberal Education," put together by a dozen different Oxford and Cambridge men, exhibit but one style, a style that goes straight to the mark and will stand no nonsense. It is all very well, so far, and this is doubtless better than carving the bow till it breaks, as in Æsop's fable; but is there not room in the world for both science and art, use and beauty? If a page is good that tells truth plainly, may not another page have merit that sets truth in words which linger like music on the ear? We are outgrowing the foolish fear that science is taking all poetry away from the facts of nature; but why should it set itself against the poetry of words? The savans themselves recognize the love of beauty as quite a respectable instinct, when it appears paleontologically. When, in the exploration of bonecaves, they find that some primeval personage carved a bird or a beaver upon his hatchet, they are all in ecstasies and say, "This is indeed a discovery. About the year of the world thirty-three thousand, art was born! But if art took so long a gestation, is it not worth keeping alive, now that we have got it? Why is it that, when all these added centuries have passed, the writer must now take the style, which is his weapon, must erase from it all attempt at beauty, and demand only that, like the barbaric hatchet, it shall bring down its man? In America, this tendency is only dawning; while Emerson lives, it will be still believed that literature means form as well as matter. But no one can talk with the pupils of our new technological schools, without seeing that, in surrendering books like my old Latin text-book, it is in fact literature that they renounce. They speak as impatiently of the hours wasted on Paradise Lost as if they were given to Plato. Even at our oldest University, the department of "Rhetoric and Oratory" came so near to extinction that it only got a reprieve on the very scaffold, at the intercession of some of the older graduates. "To pursue literature per se " has become almost a badge of reproach in quarters where what is sometimes called "the new education" prevails. Now there is no danger, in these exciting Darwinian days, that any one will disregard the study of natural science; but when one sees how desperately it sometimes narrows its votaries, one admires the wit of the Cambridge lady who said the other day, when taxed with one-sidedness by the scientists, that she must, after all, prefer literature per se to science purblind. It is my most cherished conviction that this AngloAmerican race is developing a finer organization than the stock from which it sprang, is destined to be more sensitive to art, as well as more abundant in nervous energy. We must not narrow ourselves into science only, must not become mere observers nor mere thinkers, but must hold to the side of art as well. Grant that it is the worthy mission of the current British literature to render style clear, simple, and convincing, it may yet be the mission of Americans to take that style and make it beautiful. And in this view we need, above all things else, to retain in our American universities all that looks toward literature, whether based upon the study of the modern, or, still better, of the ancient tongues. I do not mean to advocate mere pedantries, such as the Latin programmes on Commencement day, or the Latin triennial Catalogues; but I mean such actual delights in the study of language as my old text-book gave. It seems almost needless to say that the best training for one who is to create beauty must be to accustom him to the study of that which is beautiful; his taste once formed, let him originate what he can. If this can be done by modern models as well as by ancient, let it be done; it is the literary culture, as such, that we need. Keats, who said of himself, "I dote on fine phrases like a lover," was as truly engaged in literary training as if he had been making Latin verses at Oxford; very likely more so; but, at any rate, it was not science that he studied. It is for literature, after all, that I plead; not for this or that body of literature. Welcoming science, I only deprecate the exclusive adoption of the scientific style. There prevailed for a long time, in America, a certain superstition about collegiate education. So far as it was superstitious, the impression was foolish, no doubt; but beneath its folly the tradition of pure literature was kept alive. It appears from President Dwight's "Travels," that, until about the year 1800, our oldest college prescribed Latin verse-making as a condition of entrance. He also says that at that time the largest library in America held but fifteen thousand volumes. While the means of research were so limited, there was plenty of time for versemaking, but it would be foolish to insist on it now. Since the range of study is so much widened, the best course seems to be, to give a child the rudiments of various good things, and, when he grows older, let him choose for himself. Personally, I should hold with Napoleon, that, however high we may rank the scientific exploration of nature, we should rank literature higher still, as bringing us nearer to the human mind itself. "J'aime les sciences mathématiques et physiques; chacune d'elles est une belle application partielle de l'esprit humain; mais les lettres, c'est l'esprit humain lui-même; c'est l'éducation de l'âme." But since the natural preferences of children should be followed in all training, not set at defiance, it is unnecessary and unwise to impose the same order of precedence upon all minds. There is really a good deal of time in childhood; even young Americans do not mature so instantaneously but that you can teach them something before the process is complete. President Eliot says, "There have been many good college students who have learned in two years all the Greek and Latin required for admission into Harvard College." - I am satisfied, from observation and experiment, that it is perfectly practicable so to bring up an average boy that he shall be a good rider, swimmer, and sailor, — shall be a keen field-naturalist, — shall know the use of tools, shall speak French and German,-shall have the rudiments of music or of drawing, and still shall be fairly fitted for our most exacting college at the age of sixteen. If so, we appear to have within reach the beginning of a tolerably good education, and there seems no reason why we should sacrifice literature to science, or science to literature. We must simply avoid bigotry in either direction, and believe that children are as naturally born to learn as to eat, if we can only make the cookery in either case palatable. To be sure, the first steps in book-learning are not all enjoyment, neither are the first steps in learning to skate. But, if the sum total affords pleasure, who remembers the casualties and mortifications? No doubt there were anxieties and pangs enough connected with this poor old textbook; but, through memory's kind chemistry, they are all removed, and only pleasurable thoughts remain behind. Our early recollections are like water in a cistern, which in time throws off all its own impurities and grows permanently clear. On board the receiving-ship at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard they give you a draught from a tank which was filled for a cruise forty years ago, and has never been emptied; there was a period when it was not fit for use, but it is now as sweet as if drawn yesterday. So, in reverting to one's school experience, the impurities and coarseness and tyrannies disappear; but you remember the morning walk to the school-house and the game of football at recess-time, and the panting rest on the cool grass afterwards, and the twittering fellowship of the barnswallows, to whom it was recess-time all day long. You remember the desk at which you sat, with its notches and inscriptions, and the pulley contrived to hold the lid up, the invention of some historic pupil who had long since passed away to the university, and now seemed as grand and remote as one of Virgil's heroes. And with these recurs the memory of the "New Latin Tutor," and the excitement of the novel study, and the charm of the Ro |