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and all classes employed in the honorable competition of rendering private industry subservient to the public weal. Throughout this vast country he perceives geographical diversities blended into political union, and local interests promoted by mutual dependence. He inquires the extent of territory, and calculates the increase of population. He notes the varieties of soil and climate, and the profusion of animal, vegetable and mineral productions; and he looks forward to the period, seemingly not far distant, when this republic shall be preeminent amongst the nations of the earth.

Such is the scene presented to the eyes of the transient observer. Such are the recorded events imprinted on his memory, and such the associations that cluster in his imagination. If he have the curiosity of a philosopher as well as the enthusiasm of a traveller, he is not content with an external view of the present, or an historical outline of the past. He investigates the causes that have wrought and are producing such wonderful effects. He takes an intimate survey of men and things. He seeks the friendship of individuals, that he may learn from their lips the lessons of experience. He mingles in all the circles of society, that he may trace the clue of its innumerable combinations. He is admitted into the family, where the mother shows her children as her jewels, and where the infant character is formed by parental precept and example. He visits the free school, where education is seated as the faithful nurse by the side of the cradle of liberty. He enters the Lyceum, and is welcomed to the presence of intelligence and virtue. Last of all, he joins the multitude that go to the House of God in company, and there, amidst different modes of worship and instruction, he beholds the all-pervading influence of religion, in its sublime and endearing attributes of holy faith, immortal hope, and heavenly charity.

LECTURE IV.

ON THE

EDUCATION OF THE FIVE SENSES

BY

BY WILLIAM H. BROOKS.

EDUCATION OF THE FIVE SENSES.

THE sun is on his way through the heavens, diffusing his mighty influences abroad over the universe: tell us the great purpose of his magnificent mission. A few hours more, and the firmament will glow with the mild and mingled radiance of planet and star: "But wherefore all night long shine these?" Why has the earth, beneath, its profuse variety of surface, with rock and stream, plain, mountain, and valley, in combinations no where the same, but every where interesting; subject also to the imposing changes of the seasons, and now adorned with so grateful a green, relieved with thousands and thousands of flowers; and again here with the forest, and there with the harvest? The myriad substances of the material world are characterized each by its own dimensions, its own hardness or softness, its own asperity or smoothness, from the atom to the mountain, from the obdurate rock to the yielding fluid, from the rough bark of the oak to its polished leaves. Surely there is some good reason for all this diversity. Are not the powerful odors of Eastern spices, the breath of aromatic herbs, and the sweet scents of our own wild flowers floating on the gales of Heaven? Is not the table of nature now and always spread from pole to pole, with an infinite multitude of luxuries, with the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea, the beasts of the field, and the contributions of the vegetable

kingdom supplying the delicious and abundant fruits scattered from clime to clime? The birds pour forth their heaven-taught notes; the torrent, the tempest, and the ocean roar; and the human voice, with its tones of feeling and intelligence, utters music the divinest of all. But why is all this? Why indeed is the whole creation of God but one majestic assemblage and exhibition of objects of sense of things appealing to the sight, and the smell, the taste, the hearing, and the touch? Is it not because the great design of the Deity in creating the universe was, so far as we can know, the education of the human soul by means of the bodily senses? This surely can be no disparagement from the dignity of his purposes, for we know of no created thing so precious or so noble as is the soul of man.

It is, then, no unworthy object of desire to know if the senses, those material organs which the Deity has honored by associating them with the immaterial soul, and so curiously wrought them that they can be, and are the great conveyances of knowledge to the mind-if these can be improved by human interference; and if so, how that improvement can be effected. I acknowledge the subtile and difficult nature of this hitherto almost untouched inquiry, in the science of education. Few writers upon the human mind have thought it worth their while to trace the current of the intellect to its source, and to observe the place where springs the sacred fountain and the influences, whether earthly or heavenly, which affect its early course. Scarcely one has entered upon such investigation for the high purposes of education. But to the teacher, who deals with the unformed mind, and presumes to shape the Parian marble, it is an imperative duty to study not only the finished statue, but also practically the block itself, that he may discover its original qualities, and ascertain what is necessary to transform and elevate the shapeless elements into the noblest image of man. And how feebly does a comparison of the teacher with the statuary, represent the obligations of the former. The importance of his making the greatest and best use of every influence he can exert upon that celestial

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