able defense of the ancient system. The question was soon decided, and it will not again be raised in any of the higher institutions, and we trust that in the exercise of their proper vocation they will, ere long, entirely correct the popular errors that prevail on this subject. The time is not distant, we trust, when that which is deemed essential, as a means of mental cultivation in college, will be regarded as equally useful, for all young persons who are desirous, as far as they can, to improve their minds by the best methods and the best studies. If the word practical means whatever is useful, and the word useful, in respect to school studies, means whatever affords discipline, information, refinement and pleasure to the mind, then is the study of the classics a proper means of education most practical and useful, for boys engaging in all sorts of professions and occupations, demanding mental discipline and cultivation. Class ical studies are adapted to be elemental as well as complemental in a course of intellectual training. They are the best means to educate boys rapidly and thoroughly, while they are most admirable to instruct, refine and delight men.

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"The study of language," says Dr. Arnold, seems to me as if it was given for the very purpose of forming the human mind in youth; and the Greek and Latin languages, in themselves so perfect, and at the same time freed from the insuperable difficulty which must attend any attempt to teach boys philology through the medium of their mother tongue, seem the very instruments by which this is to be effected."

"The study of Latin and Greek is important, as a school exercise mainly because it enables us to understand and employ well that language in which we commonly think and speak and write. It does this because Greek and Latin are specimens at once highly perfect

and incapable of being understood without long and minute attention. The study of them, therefore, nat urally involves that of the general principles of grammar; while their peculiar excellences illustrate the points which render language clear and forcible and beautiful. But our application of this general knowledge must naturally be to our langnage; to show us what are its peculiarities, what its beauties, what its defects-to teach us by the patterns or analogies offered by other languages, how the effect which we admire in them may be produced with a somewhat different instrument. Every lesson in Latin or Greek may and ought to be made a lesson in English. The translation of every sentence is properly an exercise in extemporaneous English composition, a problem how to express, with equal brevity, clearness and force in our own language, the thought which the original author has so admirably expressed in his."

Such is the testimony of the teach. er of Rugby, showing the connection there is between the study of the classics and that branch of study which forms so important a part of common school education. We mean English grammar, including composition, which is too generally neg. lected in the primary schools in this country. We do not think it would be wise for the pupils generally to study Latin in our common schools. The course of study in the primary schools should, in the main, be confined to the rudiments of an English education. Still the advantages of instruction in the classics should be enjoyed by as many of the youth of the land as possible. Such a course would be far preferable to that which is becoming fashionable, to devote very much of the time for the education of young men for agricultural and mercantile pursuits, to the study of elementary treatises on the natural sciencesmost of which, as means of mental

discipline, are no better than a newspaper. It is deemed of the greatest importance that teachers of common schools shall be as well furnished as possible for their work, but how long will it be before the work of improvement will have advanced so far as that every teacher of a New England common school shall be required, not to teach, but to be himself taught in Latin and Greek, as an essential preliminary to engage in his profession, according to that excellent feature of the normal school system in Prussia, which has been so highly extolled, and which requires of every candidate for admission to the teachers' seminaries that he be instructed in Latin and Greek.

And yet the comparatively few classical teachers in this country are deprived of that popular sympathy which the masters of the English schools enjoy in full measure, because the mutual relations of the two departments of instruction are not seen, or because the utility of the classics is feebly or not at all apprehended. They are called upon to answer the questions, who are benefitted by your teachings, save as they may be useful as school drillings? and how can the writings of a remote age, in a language no longer spoken, stand related to the wants of the world in the living, active present? Let the teacher of Rugby reply, than whom no man of our times has lived with aims more intensely practical.

"The mind of the Greek and the Roman is, in all the essential points of its constitution, our own-and not only so, but it is our own mind developed to an extraordinary degree of perfection. Wide as is the difference between us with respect to those physical instruments which minister to our uses or our pleasures, though the Greeks and the Romans had no steamengines, no printing presses, no mariner's compass, no telescopes,

no microscopes, no gunpowder, yet in our moral and political views, in those matters which must determine human character, there is a perfect resemblance in these respects-Aristotle and Plato and Cicero and Tacitus are most untruly called ancient writers-they are virtually our own coutrymen and contemporaries, their conclusions bear on our own circumstances, their information has all the charm of novelty, and all the value of a mass of new and pertinent facts, illustrative of the great science of the nature of civilized man-they belong really to a modern civilization like our own; with a perfect abstraction from particular party names, which so much bias our judgment in modern and domestic instances, they discuss and illustrate the principles of all political questions, both civil and ecclesiastical, with entire freedom, with the most attractive eloquence, and with the profoundest wisdom."

There is one more mutual relation of the higher and lower seminaries of learning, to which we will but briefly allude, though in importance, it may exceed all others mentioned. We refer to the common interest they have in relation to correct principles of moral discipline. The modes of moral discipline may, by reason of circumstances, vary in different grades of schools, and even in different schools of the same grade. But there can be but one correct system of moral discipline, the same in all the circumstances of childhood or manhood. The authority of law must be respected, there must be a willing obedience to it, and when it is willfully broken the offender must suffer, so that, at all events, the law shall be honored, and, if possible, that he may be led to reformation. As childhood is the proper season to implant the principle of obedience and a relish for it to continue through the whole period of parental

authority, so is the moral discipline of the common school related intimately to that of the academy and the college, the general duty of obedience and sentiments of respect which pupils owe to their instructors being the same in all schools. Therefore it is a point of infinite concern to the prosperity of the higher seminaries and the safety of the students connected with them, that the right principles of discipline be taught and practiced in all the primary schools. And the relation of schools of learning of every grade, to the security and happiness of the state, is in respect to no one point, more momentous than in this.

In all our colleges and in most of the higher institutions, it is believed that moral discipline is still administered on correct principles. Pub lic sentiment still requires the main tenance of strict discipline, and the enforcement of extreme penalties, to secure the success and safety of students surrounded by the dangers and temptations of college life.

But for the common school, we have heard of new and improved systems of discipline, and in these new systems, though such terms as "moral discipline," "moral influences," and "moral suasion" are introduced, yet the word "moral" has such a meaning as gives it no right to be associated in any way with the idea of discipline.

It is said we must govern by the authority of love. The phrase authority of law sounds harsh and ungentle, and affects the nerves of those who are meekly perverse and good naturedly obstinate, and amiably criminal. The teacher must rule by the law of love and all will be well; he will ever find a ready response to all his wishes.

Now that teacher fulfils to his pupils the law of love, who teaches them to love the law and to reverence its sanctions, and who seeks to implant in them, if possible, an ever abiding VOL. VI.

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regard for the rule of right conduct, a regard fortified by the motive of fear, yea, of exceeding dread of the consequences of wrong doing. And to ensure the habit of moral obedience, the teacher of right may, and in duty must, employ adequate means.

What is there in the idea of an unbending law of right that should be repulsive to young minds, that should be withheld, that should be softened down by smooth names? What child is too young to learn the most important lesson of sympa. thy, with the spirit of what is described in the celebrated words of Hooker, that "of law, no less can be said, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world."

We can not but think the discussions that have prevailed, in reference to the use of corporal punishment, have been uncalled for, and have been demoralizing in their tendency. There may be occasionally instances of severity in its use, but then there are means of redress and remedy, other than calling in question principles on which all authority rests. The exercise of the master's right in the primary school to inflict pain as the extreme penalty of school discipline, must, under judicious and sensible management, but very seldom occur, and then indeed, however painful it may be to the master, the moral uses of it are such as to render it his imperative duty to employ it. The calling in question his right to use this mode of discipline, must tend greatly to increase rather than lessen the occasions of administering it.

That theory of school government which is not safe to announce from the teacher's desk, is not safe to announce any where. That system which would naturally find sympathy with boys, inclined to be idle and vicious, should never be heard of by them. That good time, dreamed of by radical reformers, is never coming, when juvenile de

linquents or adult criminals will be less inclined to wrong doing by the advocacy of such a theory of moral discipline. That good time is never coming when indolence will. be quickened and passion checked, or the power of temptation be weakened by such a notion. That good time is never coming until human nature shall no more need moral discipline, being "fixed in virtue, though free to fall."

The cause of the discussion is not, we are persuaded, that there has been any general abuse of power by the schoolmasters, but the principle is unpalatable on which the ancient theory of school discipline rests. The controversy is analogous in its causes and general bearings, to that which has arisen on the capital punishment question and some other topics of a political character. Retiring from places of public notoriety, such as the hall of legislation and the pulpit, and avoiding controversy with the leading minds who are busily engaged in the engrossing duties of professional life, the advocates of error have entered the school room, and under the covert of a most zealous regard for universal education, have they set them selves to revolutionize public sentiment by infusing false notions into the minds of the young, as to the principles of obedience to the authority of law, and thus will the safety of the state ere long be greatly endangered by a generation of active citizens who will have been in the habit of regarding, not the law of conscience, but mere inclination as the right principle of action.

If these wrong notions of school discipline shall prevail in the common schools, their influence will soon extend to the higher institutions and increase a thousand fold the difficulties of maintaining sound discipline in our colleges and universities. And no conservative power of any or all of our seminaries of

learning, will be able to prevent the destruction of public morality and the introduction of the worst principles of civil government.

Therefore this heresy in the matter of school discipline should be watched with a most wakeful solici tude by the patriot and the Christian. It is the offspring of a false philosophy of social life, though loud in its pretensions of reform. It is a philosophy which calls crime a misfortune or a disease, and retributive justice it calls revenge. It is the offspring of a false philanthropy, though loud in its professions of benevolence. It is a philanthropy which sheds crocodile's tears over the merited sufferings of the guilty criminal, but has no sympathy for outraged justice; and thus have the forms of law been made to shield the greatest crimes, and penitentiaries have become retreats for the insane or cities of refuge from the avenger of blood.

We shall not endeavor here to refute these monstrous errors farther than to say, that if the principle of punishment be not legitimate which makes the criminal a sufferer, and those ends of punishment can not be justified which are retributive, then we know not what to think of the universal sentiment of mankind, which has awarded the highest honors to such names as that of Aristides the Just; of the elder Cato, the stern old Roman Censor, "who had rather his good actions should go unrewarded than his bad ones. unpunished;" of Sir Thomas More, who could most cheerfully die rather than compromise his integrity; and of our own Marshall, whose love of truth and justice was a burning passion. How shall teachers in our schools commend, as they do, these examples to the admiration of their pupils, and yet exercise over them a system of discipline which tends to the subversion of that idea of truth and justice, the love and the practice of which made these great names immortal?

THE art of landscape* is wholly a modern art. It is but recently, indeed, that it could with any plausibility prefer a claim to a place among the arts; as it is but recently that any serious attempt has been made to reduce it to any artistic principles.

It is more than any other of the fine arts, perhaps, an art of peace. Only where civil quietness and security, and consequent domestic enjoy ment, reign in a high degree, can it well be cultivated. The warlike Greek, while he carried other arts of design to the highest perfection, never dreamed of expressing "immortal sentiments and divine ideas" in landscape; for the sentiments and ideas most appropriate to such expression, were in a great measure by his social habits and condition driven from his bosom. He could chisel sentiments of courage and heroic endurance in forms of matchless beauty, for they were sentiments which his condition was every way fitted to develope and strengthen; and such products of his constructive genius were not so liable to perish in an age of incessant strife and war. The sculptor found in the solid and enduring marble, the fittest material in which both to embody the commanding ideas of his age-an age of martial heroism, and also safely to enshrine the workings of that anticipating genius which can find in nothing short of immortality its end and satisfaction. The reigning ideas of such an age naturally delighted, too, for

We think it time to drop a part of the cumbersome expression, landscapegardening, and designate the art henceforth directly from the material on which it is employed. Justified as the designation is, by abundant philological analogies, use will soon wear off whatever of

harshness or strangeness may appear at first in the expression.

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the same reason, in the massive stateliness, the solidity and firmness of architectural forms.

Hence in the two departments of sculpture and architecture, Grecian art particularly developed and perfected itself.

How uncongenial both with the material and the sentiments proper to the art of landscape, was such an age and such ideas. This art is the expression more of domestic seclusion and tranquillity,-of the mild, the gentle, the yielding graces. It implies a state of civil and social security and confidence. Strong-walled towns thronged with a population seeking protection and defense on the one hand, and waste, deserted fields on the other; states condensed into cities, and cities the common and fit designations of states; aggressive warfare for its own sake, the prime element and characteristic feature of all state-polity and all state-policy; society in its inmost structure clannish, if not Ishmaelitish, and in its actual outworkings marauding, pillaging, wasting, even the humble art of agriculture hardly reached in growth the measure of mere necessary wants, and a welltilled, well-stocked field was regarded as a rare and admirable achievment of energy and skill. The kitchen-garden of Alcinous, Homer paints with a poet's enthusiasm, as if a prodigy of art; and in later times, Plutarch gives us but a sorry view of the development of taste in this direction, when he tells us the common practice in ornamental gardens was, to set off the beauties of roses and violets by intermingled leeks and onions.

Roman life, at certain periods of its history, admitted more readily the culture of the art. But those periods were periods of luxury and prodigality; and Roman gardens