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rious course.

At every period of enlargement in the faculties, the field of vision will be extended. Unlike the mountain traveler, who sees "Alps on Alps arise," but knows that another day will bring him to the summit, where all will be beneath him, we shall only learn at every step, with the more delightful certainty, that the exhibitions of Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Goodness present a field for unending occupation and untiring enjoyment.

Education, then, in its largest sense, is not limited to time; it is not confined to the narrow boundaries of existence which we can discern. We have said that its first lessons are given in the mother's arms. The family is its primary school; the series of public institutions is but the academy of this great course. The world itself is the university, in which man is to make his final preparation for the employments and pleasures of that future, endless state, in comparison with which the period of our residence on earth is less than the hours of infancy in the life of a century; for that true life of the soul, in which it first begins its free, its independent existence.

ANNALS OF EDUCATION.

LESSON II.

ON ELOCUTION

AND READING.

THE business of training our youth in elocution must be commenced in childhood. The first school is the nursery. There, at least, may be formed a distinct articulation, which is the first requisite for good speaking. How rarely is it found in perfection among our orators! "Words," says one, referring to articulation, "should be delivered out from the lips, as beautiful coins, newly issued from the mint; deeply and accurately impressed, perfectly finished, neatly struck by the proper organs, distinct, in due succession, and of due weight." How rarely do we hear a speaker, whose tongue, teeth, and lips, do their office so perfectly, as, in any wise, to answer to this beautiful description! And the common faults in articulation, it should be remembered, take their rise from the very nursery. But let us refer to other particulars.

Grace in eloquence-in the pulpit, at the bar-cannot be separated from grace in the ordinary manners, in private life, in

the social circle, in the family. It cannot well be superinduced upon all the other acquisitions of youth, any more than that nameless, but invaluable quality, called good breeding. You may, therefore, begin the work of forming the orator with your child; not merely by teaching him to declaim, but, what is of more consequence, by observing and correcting his daily manners, motions, and attitudes.

You can say, when he comes into your apartment, or presents you with something, a book or letter, in an awkward and blundering manner, "Return, and enter this room again,” or, "Present me that book in a different manner," or, "Put yourself in a different attitude." You can explain to him the difference between thrusting or pushing out his hand and arm, in straight lines and at acute angles, and moving them in flowing, circular lines, and easy, graceful action. He will readily understand you. Nothing is more true than that "the motions of children are originally graceful;" and it is by suffering them to be perverted, that we lay the foundation for invincible awkwardness in later life.

We go, next, to the schools for children. It ought to be a leading object, in these schools, to teach the art of reading. It ought to occupy three-fold more time than it does. The teachers of these schools should labor to improve themselves. They should feel, that to them, for a time, are committed the future orators of the land. We would rather have a child, even of the other sex, return to us from school a first-rate reader, than a first-rate performer on the piano-forte. We should feel that we had a far better pledge for the intelligence and talent of our child. The accomplishment, in its perfection, would give more pleasure. The voice of song is not sweeter than the voice of eloquence; and there may be eloquent readers, as well as eloquent speakers.

We speak of perfection in this art; and it is something, we must say in defense of our preference, which we have never yet seen. Let the same pains be devoted to reading, as are required to form an accomplished performer on an instrument; let us have, as the ancients had, the formers of the voice, the music-masters of the reading voice; let us see years devoted to this accomplishment, and then we should be prepared to stand the comparison.

It is, indeed, a most intellectual accomplishment. So is music, too, in its perfection. We do by no means undervalue this noble and most delightful art, to which Socrates applied himself even in his old age. But one recommendation of the art of reading is, that it requires a constant exercise of mind. It demands continual and close reflection and thought, and the finest discrimination of thought. It involves, in its perfection, the whole art of criticism on language. A man may possess a fine genius without being a perfect reader; but he cannot be a perfect reader without genius. N. A. REVIEW.

LESSON III.

ON FEMALE INFLUENCE.

THE influence of cultivated female intellect upon the social and religious welfare of mankind, cannot easily be overrated. If civilization and Christianity have elevated woman in the scale of being, she has a thousand fold repaid the debt. Heathenism alone has debased her, and the light of divine truth will, without doubt, fully restore her to her original rank and position. Indeed, it has already done this, as far as its principles control opinion and action. As opportunity and public opinion have permitted, she has herself stepped forward, and gently, but firmly grasped the wand which waves over the circle of her influence. From this elevation, with the love of God in her heart, and the accents of affection on her tongue, she is destined to become the chief source of light and blessing to

our race.

Woman's mind has stamped its impress upon the choicest treasures of modern literature. How many characters have been formed, and souls strengthened for honorable and lofty action, by the sound wisdom and gentle attractiveness of Hannah More, Jane Taylor, and Mrs. Barbauld! How many stricken hearts have bome their sorrows with meek and gentle sufferance, inspirited by the sympathizing strains of Mrs. Hemans, and Miss Landon! And how many have bounded with life, and hope, and the love of nature's works, inspired by Mrs. Hemans' more enlivening lays, and those of the gentle, purehearted Mary Howitt! How many have been made wise, and pure, and affectionate, by the consecrated harp of Mrs.

Sigourney! How often has the happy spirit flitted, in thought, from twig to twig, to the bird-like song of Miss Gould! Thanks to the spirit of the age, to the influence of Christian principle, and to woman's own emancipated intellect, the list of such names is rapidly swelling. The future happiness and prosperity of our race will depend, in no small degree, upon the impulse given to it by cultivated female intellect and heart.

The interests of education will hereafter be committed chiefly to the hands of woman. In her maternal character, this has always been more or less true. But the field of her influence has not yet been fully disclosed. The eye has not reached its boundaries. It will still be widening, until the mother's teachings, and woman's affectionate, persevering, welldirected efforts, shall become, in the hands of God, a mighty agent in the complete conversion of the world. For this task her mental and social qualities peculiarly qualify her. discernment and acuteness fit her to guide the mental traveler; her patience and endurance prepare her to bear with his waywardness; and her activity of mind and her affectionate disposition have formed her for that companionship with youth, without which all teaching is but a heavy task to the forming mind.

Her

But still more important will be her influence upon the heart. This is her peculiar home. It is also the only fountain of happiness. It is made so by the wise and immutable laws of our being. God has formed us to be happy only in loving and being loved, in the exercise of kindness and sympathy, in the interchange of good feeling and affectionate remembrance, and in the cultivation of all those sister virtues, which form the bright chain of love. It is woman's favored lot to twine the shining braid, and make strong the tie that binds man to his fellow man, and reaches even to his Gol above.

Her active sympathy must insinuate itself into the selfishness of man's nature, root out the worldliness of his heart, pacify the angry spirit, shame the turbulence of passion, and point the troubled soul to the true source of happiness on earth, and to an eternal home with the God of peace and love. Evil habit and impure feeling will flee abashed from her presence. Not that her influence will take the place of religious motive

and power, but will greatly assist their operation. As she was the first to disobey, so will she be the first to lead man back to obedience and communion with his God.

What must be the character of that class, who are to exert so great a power over our race? It is needless to say, that there must be high purpose, firm resolve, educated mind, and holy hearts. To accomplish this, her high destiny, woman must be educated. She must have a complete and perfect training, a thorough and well adapted physical, intellectual, and religious education.

T. S. PINNEO.

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My mother's voice! how often creep
Its accents o'er my lonely hours!
Like healing, sent on wings of sleep,
Or dew to the unconscious flowers.
I can forget her melting prayer,
While leaping pulses madly fly;
But in the still, unbroken air,

Her gentle tones come stealing by,
And years, and sin, and manhood, flee,
And leave me at my mother's knee.

The book of nature, and the print

Of beauty on the whispering sea,

Give ay to me some lineament

Of what I have been taught to be.

My heart is harder, and perhaps
My manliness hath drank up tears,
And there's a mildew in the lapse
Of a few miserable years;
But nature's book is even yet
With all my mother's lessons writ.

I have been out, at eventide,

Beneath a moonlit sky of spring,
When earth was garnished like a bride,
And night had on her silver wing,
When bursting leaves, and diamond grass,

And waters, leaping to the light,

And all that make the pulses pass

With wilder fleetness, thronged the night,—

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