been the first in the competition of life? Loook also to India. The ablest man who ever governed India was Warren Hastings, and was he not in the first rank at Westminster? The ablest civil servant I ever knew in India was Sir Charles Metcalfe, and was he not a man of the first standing at Eton? The most distinguished member of the aristocracy who ever governed India was Lord Wellesley? What was his Eton reputation? What was his Oxford reputation? "If there be in this world a trying test of the fitness of men for the competition of active life, and of the strength and acuteness of their practical faculties, it is to be found in the contests of the English bar. Look at Lord Mansfield, Lord Eldon, Lord Stowell, Sir Vicary Gibbs, Lord Tenderden, and Lord Lyndhurst. Take either the common law or the equity bar. The present Lord Chief Baron was senior wrangler; Mr. Baron Alderson was senior wrangler; Mr. Justice Maule was senior wrangler; Mr. Baron Parke was eminently distinguished at the university for his mathematical and classical attainments; Mr. Baron Platt was a wrangler; and Mr. Justice Coleridge was one of the most eminent men of his time at Oxford. Then take the equity bar. The Lord Chancellor was a wrangler; Lord Justice Sir George Turner was high in the list of wranglers; all the three Vice-Chancellors were wranglers; Sir Lancelot Shadwell was a wrangler, and a very distinguished scholar; my friend, Sir James Parker, was a high wrangler, and a distinguished mathematician. Can we suppose that it was by mere accident they obtained their high positions? Is it possible not to believe that these men maintained through life the start which they gained in youth? And is it an answer to these instances to say that you can point-as it is desirable you should be able to point-to two or three men of great powers, who, having neglected the struggle when they were young, have afterwards exerted themselves to retrieve lost time, and have sometimes overtaken and surpassed those who had got far in advance of them? Of course, there are such exceptions. Most desirable is it that there should be, and that they should be noted, in order to encourage men who, after having thrown away their youth, from levity or love of pleasure, may be inclined to throw their manhood after it, in despair; but the general rule is, beyond all doubt, that which I have laid down. It is this that those men who distinguish themselves most in academical competition, when they are young, are the men who, in after life, distinguished themselves most in the competition of the world." The Greek and Latin Authors Compared. The following eloquent passage is from Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton's address before the Associated societies of Edinburgh University: "Dignity and polish are the especial attributes of Latin literature in its happiest age; it betrays the habitual influence of an aristocracy, wealthy, magnificent, and learned. To borrow a phrase from Persius —its words sweep long as if clothed with the toga. Whether we take the sonorous lines of Virgil, or the swelling periods of Cicero, the easier dignity of Sallust, or the patrician simplicity of Cæsar, we are sensible that we are with a race accustomed to a measured decorum, a majestic self-control, unfamiliar to the more lively impulse of small Greek communities. There is a greater demarcation between the intellect of the writer and the homely sense of the multitude. The Latin writers seek to link themselves to posterity rather through a succession of select and well-bred admirers, than by cordial identification with the passions and interests of the profane vulgar. Even Horace himself, so brilliant and easy, and so conscious of this monumentum ære perennius, affects disdain of popular applause, and informs us with a kind of pride that his satires had no vogue in the haunts of the common people. Every bold school-boy takes at once to Homer, but it is only the experienced man of the world who discovers all the delicate wit, and the exquisite urbanity of sentiment, that win our affection to Horace in proportion as we advance in life. In short, the Greek writers warm and elevate our emotions as man—the Latin writers temper emotions to the stately reserve of high-born gentlemen. The Greeks fire us more to the inspir ations of poetry, or (as in Plato and parts of Demosthenes) to that sublimer prose to which poetry is akin; but the Latin writers are perhaps on the whole, though I say it with hesitation, safer models for that accurate construction and decorous elegance by which classical prose divides itself from the forms of verse. Nor is elegance effeminate, but on the contrary nervous and robust, though, like the statue of Apollo, the strength of the muscle is conceded by the undulation of the curves. But there is this, as a general result, from the study of ancient letters, whether Greek or Roman: that both are the literature of grand races, of free men and brave hearts; both abound in generous thoughts and high examples; both, whatever their occasional license, inculcate upon the whole the habitual practice of many virtues; both glow with the love of country; both are animated by the desire of fame and honor. Therefore, whatever be our future profession and pursuit, however they may take us from the scholastic closet, and forbid any frequent return to the classic studies of our youth, still he, whose early steps have been led into that land of demi-gods and heroes, will find that its very air has enriched through life the blood of his thoughts, that he quits the soil with a front which the Greek has directed towards the stars, and a step which imperial Rome has disciplined to the march that carried her eagles round the world." In the reign of Henry the Eighth, and Edward the sixth, a person who did not read Greek and Latin, could read nothing or next to nothing. The Italian was the only modern language which possessed anything that could be called a literature. All the valuable books then extant in all the vernacular dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a single shelf. The Latin was in the sixteenth century all and more than all that the French was in the eighteenth. It was the language of courts as well as of the schools. It was the language of diplomacy; it was the language of theological and political controversy. This is no longer the case. All political and religious controversy is now conducted in the modern languages. The ancient tongues are used only in comments on the ancient writers. The great productions of Athenian and Roman genius are indeed still what they were. But though their positive value is unchanged, their relative value, when compared with the whole mass of mental wealth possessed by mankind, has been constantly falling. They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a part of our treasures. We are guilty, we hope, of no irreverence towards those great nations to which the human taste owes art, science, taste, civil and intellectual freedom, when we say that the stock bequeathed by them to us has been so carefully improved that the accumulated interest now exceeds the principal. We believe that the books which have been written in the languages of Western Europe during the last two hundred and fifty years, are of greater value than all the books which at the beginning of that period were extant in the world.-T. B. Macaulay. He only is a great man who can neglect the applause of the multitude, and enjoy himself independent of its favor. CIRCULATION OF THE JOURNAL. The first and second columns in the following Table, exhibit the circulation of the Journal, in the several counties in Ohio, at the close of those volumes, and the third, the present circulation of the current volume. In addition to these, we have about 200 subscribers in other States, making the whole number 2,423. Teachers' Institutes and Normal Classes. The following are the arrangements for the summer and fall, so far as known at present: Hancock county, at Findlay, August 28th, one week. Athens county, at Athens, August 31st, three days. Clinton county, at Wilmington, September 4th, one week. Knox county, at Fredericktown, October 16th, one week. Jefferson and Harrison counties, at Cadiz, October 16th, two weeks. Columbiana county, at New Lisbon, October 30th, one week. Editors' Portfolio. The fact that the Resident Editor has attended an Institute during every week of the past month, has prevented him from giving that attention to this number which he would have bestowed; and this must be his apology for any delay which may occur in the issue for this month. The Teachers' Institutes, thus far, have been well attended, generally better than could have been expected at this season. It is hoped that in the counties where they are yet to be attended, vigorous efforts will be made by Teachers, School Examiners and all friends of the cause, to secure a large attendance. Often a little effort, a brief conversation, or a letter addressed to some Teacher in a town remote from the place of meeting, may secure his attendance, and that of several others, who would not otherwise have been present. The anniversary of the N. Y. State Teachers' Association was attended in Oswego on the first of August; no full report of their proceedings has been received, but it is gratifying to learn that JAMES JOHOSMOT, of Syracuse, was appointed Agent and is to enter upon a field of labor similar to that assigned to the Agent of our Association. In alluding to this subject, the Rural New Yorker employs the following language: "The State Teachers' Association, during its late annual meeting at Oswego, with commendable zeal for the promotion of the Common School interest, appointed an agent, at a salary of one thousand dollars, to travel through the State during the ensuing year, hold institutes and perform such other labors as will best promote popular education. The teachers have resolved to advance from their scanty salaries a sum sufficient to keep at least one agent in the field, where there is room for the active labors of a hundred. All he can do, at most, will be to visit the counties and principal points where the teachers of the vicinity can be easiest assembled, give them such lessons of instruction as he can impart, and encourage them to meet together more frequently for mutual aid and comfort. A general visitorial duty is impossible, as he would become grey with age, and the pupils themselves assume the positions of fathers and mothers in many districts, if not in Israel, with their own children in the schoolhouse, long before the agent would approach their neighborhood in his extensive peregrinations." Attention is invited to the new advertisements for this month; those of Ivison & Phinney, D. Appleton & Co., and Dr. Cutter. Parents, as well as Teachers, will doubtless look with interest for the work on Physiology announced. Correspondence. MR. EDITOR: At the close of the exercises of the Scientific Institute, recently held at this place, the following Preamble and Resolutions were reported by a committee of three ladies and three gentlemen, and unanimously adopted by the Institute: WHEREAS, we recognize a sad deficiency on the part of teachers, in the use of apparatus, and in the practical application of scientific principles; therefore, Resolved, That A. Holbrook, Chas. S. Royce, David Parsons, and Jesse Markham, be a committee to address a circular to the teachers of the State, setting |