often an advantage and protection to a young boy, and sometimes leads to lasting friendships. There are, however, objections raised to some of the details of the fag's duties, on the ground that they are of a menial character. In only one instance, that of Westminster, does the system appear to have given rise to tyranny and cruelty on the part of the elder boys. But, as the Commissioners remark, it is a system that requires constant watching. The improvement in manners that has affected all classes of the present time has, in great measure, influenced the senior boys at our public schools in their behaviour to the juniors; but it is always possible that one or two boys of bad disposition may be the cause of inflicting much unhappiness, and of setting a bad example to the school to which they belong.

The Commissioners, while briefly recapitulating the principal points in which they think amendment is required, bear witness to the great advantages conferred by these schools upon the country. They dwell upon the fact that there has been a great improvement of morals and manners. The course of study,' they say, 'has been enlarged, the methods of teaching have been improved; the proportion of masters to boys has been increased; the quantity of work exacted is greater than it was, though still in too many cases less than it ought to be. At the same time the advance in moral and religious training has more than kept pace with that which has been made in intellectual discipline. The old roughness of manners has in, great measure disappeared, and with it the petty and thoughtless cruelty and tyranny which were formerly too common, and which used, indeed, to be thought inseparable from the life of a public school. The boys are better lodged and cared for, and more attention is paid to their health and comfort.' The Commissioners also find subject for praise in the maintenance of classical literature as the staple of English education, a service which far outweighs the error of having clung to those studies too exclusively.'

But, after all, it is not so much for instruction as for education that these schools are most valuable. We believe that, as regards the former, they are often seriously defective, and especially in that comparative neglect of modern studies for ancient. But no one can deny the wholesome effect of public schools upon the characters of the boys educated in them. The great lessons of order, obedience, self-reliance, self-control, are constantly taught there. The public school is, in fact, the world in microcosm. The boy meets with the same difficulties and temptations that will beset him when he becomes a man. He is not rendered effeminate by officious screening from

every sort of hardship. He is not taught to set an unduly high value on learning to the exclusion of manly qualities, such as is commonly the case in private schools, where the master seeks to establish a reputation by turning out a larger number of intellectual prodigies than his professional brethren. In the eloquent concluding words of the Commissioners: It is not easy to estimate the degree in which the English people are indebted to these schools for the qualities on which they pique themselves most-for their capacity to govern others and to control themselves, their aptitude for combining freedom with order, their public spirit, their vigour and manliness of character, their strong, but not slavish, respect for public opinion, their love of healthy sports and exercise. These schools have been the chief nurseries of our statesmen; in them, and in schools modelled after them, men of all the various classes that make up English society, destined for every profession and career, have been brought up on a footing of social equality, and have contracted the most enduring friendships and some of the ruling habits of their lives; and they have had, perhaps, the largest share in moulding the character of an English gentleman.'

ART. II.-LABOUR.

LL things are full of labour; man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing.' Worlds wheel around worlds in endless course. The earth, a globular atom in the circling universe, rolls on, content not to be coalescing with the common mass, but maintaining its individuality by energetic rotation, and bearing on and within it multitudinous forms of action. Its inorganic formations, with their inexpressibly gradual upheaval or subsidence; its organic forms rising and decaying with unvaried constancy; its atmosphere bearing to the appointed place the rain torrent; its rivers rushing to their goals; its mighty ocean resisting not the unseen influences, the tidal flow and ebb, currents and counter-currents, evidencing its subjection to the great and universal law; the myriads of its animated forms; in all these it presents scenes of unceasing activity. Add to these the din of human toil, mingling with all nature's various sounds, with the roar of the cataract, the torrent's rush, the murmurings of many streams, the voices of breeze and storm over all lands, the Vol. 7.—No. 26.

H

dash

dash of waters on every coast, the deep music of the lone ocean, and the varied sounds of bird and beast in the wilderness and the solitary place. From these ascends a low and never-ceasing hum to the arch of heaven continually.

"Thou shalt labour' is the law of man's life. Ceaselessly, resistlessly, like the great power which works out the stupendous circle of all inanimate labour, operates the mighty principle of human impulsion. Inexorable, it acts through life and will act throughout eternity. In spite of himself man must labour; if he would he cannot rest. Like a planet, he has been launched into existence, possessing a power which he himself cannot annihilate; which, if regulated aright, will make him part of the grand, harmonious, concentric system; if not, will hurry him off at an abrupt tangent till he dash himself to destruction. Like the power of gravitation, drawing down the swollen volume of a great river's waters, or impelling the majestic march of the ocean's tides, this force may for a time be partially resisted; but ever gathering larger weight, it either tosses all obstruction out of its natural course, or sweeping away its impotent object in another direction, involves all in dire ruin, in confusion worse confounded. A mighty and wonderful agent in the hands of the Great Worker has been this principle of human energy acting in the hundreds of generations which have passed as shadows over earth's surface. Although in the great arena of universal labour it has lifted, as it were, but a grain of sand, in helping to work out one of the stupendous plans of the Omnipotent; yet in the sphere of this world's work it has done much. It has become one of the most potent and active of earthly agencies. The last to be introduced, at first isolated and insignificant, it has increased with the increase of the human race, and now forms the complement of the forces carrying out the great cosmical operations; and, dominating and controlling many of the others, it has now assumed its rightful position as chief. By its agency, in part, the glorious amelioration of the material, which shall accompany the advancement of the spiritual world in 'the latter days,' is fast progressing.

In

But the good God who has appointed to everything, animate and inanimate, its full share of labour, surely intended that, in the performance of it, all His living, and especially His intelligent creatures should find their enjoyment. Labour has this profit,' and a valuable one it is in itself. almost all countries, under almost all climates, we find men thoroughly appreciating it for this, its first reward; with enough of satisfaction in working for their 'mere good pleasure' to induce to active continued exertion.

It would have been as easy for the 'All Giver' to have provided for us all necessaries, comforts, and luxuries directly, as indirectly through the instrumentality of our own labours, and to have removed from us all instant compulsion to exertion by advancing the operations of nature a single step farther. To fallen man this would have been a curse more bitter than that by the sweat of our brow we must earn our bread. God has wisely given those things as the reward of, and inducement to, that which is itself necessary; has wisely given the objects and furnished the immediate necessity for the exercise of our physical and mental powers. By its own labour everything tends to the perfection of its kind. Besides the simple pleasure in work, for which alone it is often undertaken, and the material value which productive labour creates, our faculties are silently but surely taking to themselves from every action which they perform aright that which is superior to both. When work is finished, when its tangible produce is consumed, and the evanescent joy in the performance of it has vanished, more lasting results still remain with the labourer-more power and superior skill (which is aptitude for performing again the same work more easily and successfully) remain with the members of the body which have been exercised; keener intellect from the exercise of the mental faculties; superior morality with the striving soul. Labour, under whatever name known, is the only means of human improvement. Idleness

Idleness or sloth, the attempt (and it can be no more than an attempt) to evade the universal law of labour, is only a short pause, during which all that is good in humanity is rotting, and evil powers are germinating which will soon spring up and urge to fearful activity; just as the same water, which, when flowing along in its river course an emblem of the beautiful and joyously free, cherishes the noble vegetation of trees and flowers, confers upon its country health and wealth, and bears the gallant ships that pass thereby; when stagnating in the level marsh, seems at first quiescent, then fosters every dank and putrid thing, and spreads unwholesome malarious vapours over earth's surface. Sloth is a part of that sinister bent which pervades the whole character of fallen man, and impels him to act contrary to the laws of his nature. We must admire the goodness which did not leave it at our own option, but forced upon us by the stern compulsion of physical wants to act in accordance with this great law of our being, to comply naturally and easily with the inexorable necessity, to taste the pleasure which the exercise of our faculties confers, to apply this only means for our improvement.

All

All that has been said of the benefits of labour refers to it when temperate and well directed. If there is decreed unto us the inexorable law of labour, most ample provision has been made by our Creator; the whole economy of nature has been adapted to secure to us seasonable rest. Compound man, possessed of many faculties, each and all ready for use, requiring for the formation of the complete man that they shall be used, is not exhausted with the exhaustion of any one of his divers powers, but is prepared and even disposed to exercise the others, and is thus beneficently furnished with recreation-the pleasant, grateful rest of one tired, but not over-fatigued, with the active, delightful employment of his faculties. To it we hope all work shall become more and more assimilated.

The wise man tells us that 'There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labour.' 'Happiness is health.' And not on the workman only, but likewise on his work, does his delight in it act beneficially. It may be laid down as a rule that the highest excellence in any work, whether mental or physical, can only be attained by aid of the workman's pleasure in it. Of mind and body, the best and strongest, most vigorous and graceful efforts are put forth, not under the pressure of overwhelming and harassing tasks, but as the spontaneous, exultant efforts of a system attuned by the ease of nerve and muscle springy and elastic with the latent power, eager for use, stored up in them by rest; of a system permeated with the feeling of joy, or at least calm satisfaction, in exerting itself.

But intemperate labour destroys all the delight which a man should find in his work; instead of improving the faculties exercised by it, it grinds them down, impairs, and prematurely destroys them; instead of giving health and strength, and making bone and sinew active and skilful, instead of developing the mental powers, instead of quickening and exalting the virtues and graces of the soul, it strongly helps to make the body stunted, diseased, and deformed; to superinduce a sleepless, raving insanity, or by softening and enfeebling the brain, imbecility and idiocy. It deadens and corrupts the soul. God only knows how much of refinement and love, how much of all that most truly ennobles man, has been, as with an iron nerve, put down;' how much of wit and knowledge and ingenuity and genius annihilated, or altogether subverted; how much of athletic vigour and superb gracefulness changed into feeble deformity by over-exertion; how much of comfort and happiness swept as by an avenging angel from the lot of poor

humanity;