these, probably not impregnated, and very pointed at the smaller end, was picked up on a naked down, on a spot evidently not chosen for a nest.

Two of the Redfoot, (Erythropus Gallicus), or Red Partridge of ordinary parlance, occupy the next plate, and are well figured. Of these we have a numerous assortment, obtained in Leadenhall market, where these eggs may be procured every season in abundance. We have a specimen with bolder markings than in figure 1. We then open upon three of the variable, beautiful eggs of the Common Quail, a species, by the way, not rare upon the Surrey hills. The young are at first covered with a black down. This is an admirable plate.

And lastly, we close our first volume with that of the great Bustard, somehow styled Tarda. This is a large, greenish, or rather dull-green egg, blotched and spotted with scattered markings of brown, varying in intensity, according as they are nearer the surface of the shell. The shape is rather long, and in size about equal to that of a Goose.

Our commentary on the succeeding volume shall be reserved for the next No. of The Analyst, as we are unwilling not to give it an equally full consideration, which space, on the present occasion, will not well permit. For the most part, we have throughout been noting, as though the book were before the reader, as it ought to be if he take the least interest in the subject. It is exactly what every ornithologist should possess; and we earnestly entreat those who have not the work, to procure a copy, were it only to offer every encouragement to its persevering author. Let them assist also, to the utmost extent of their ability, in affording him the means of figuring unusual varieties and the eggs of rare species; and we may hope, hereafter, to have a complete series of the eggs of British birds, such as no cabinet could ever rival, and which would reflect no inconsiderable light and assistance, in enabling us to judge of the mutual affinities of the members of this interesting department of our native Fauna.

B.

VOI. V.NO. XVII.

M

REMARKS ON DR. CALDWELL'S "THOUGHTS ON PHYSICAL EDUCATION."*

DR. CALDWELL'S Thoughts on Physical Education, were originally delivered in a discourse addressed to a convention of teachers, in Lexington, Kentucky, on the 6th and 7th days of November, 1833; and, in the following year, they were published in the form of a Treatise, which has been reprinted at Edinburgh, by an editor whose judicious and instructive Notes have greatly enhanced the author's Essay, both in usefulness and importance.

Education, in the abstract, is considered by Dr. Caldwell as a scheme of action or training, by which any form of living malter may be improved and, by perseverance, reared to the highest perfection of which it is susceptible. He uses the expression" any form," because the lower orders of living beings-vegetables not exceptedmay be educated and improved as certainly as the higher, and on the same grounds. That this scheme may produce its desired effects, its principles and their applications must be conformable to the constitution of the race of beings for whose improvement it is intended. No one, therefore, is capable of devising and arranging a system of education for the amendment of the general condition of the human race, or even of comprehending and applying it skilfully, unless he be thoroughly acquainted with the human constitution. He that would rectify or improve a piece of machinery, must first understand its structure and principles: in like manner, he that would alter human nature for the better must know it as it is. Special education, designed for a given purpose, is a scheme of training in accordance with that purpose. General training does nothing more than improve general powers: special training fits for some definite and corresponding pursuit. By the human constitution, Dr. C. means the material portion of man, in its organized and vital capacity; this being the only part of him we are able to improve.

Dr. Caldwell's theory of education is universally admitted to be correct, as it respects several of the mental functions. Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling, as well as voluntary muscular motion, are as true operations of the mind as judging, reasoning,

Thoughts on Physical Education, and the true mode of Improving the Condition of Man; and on the Study of the Greek and Latin Languages, by Charles Caldwell, M.D., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Clinical Practice in Transylvania University; with Notes by Robert Cox, and a recommendatory Preface by George Combe. 12mo. Edinburgh and London. 1836.

remembering, or calculating by numbers. Now the former are as susceptible of improvement as the latter; but, when improved, the result is never considered as consisting in any amendment of simple spirit, but of compound organized matter. For example, when vision is improved the amendment is uniformly referred to the eye, the optic nerve, and that portion of the brain which is immediately associated with them; they being the organs wherewith the mind sees, and without which it cannot see. The position is so plain that to state it simply is to prove it to a demonstration. With regard to the higher mental operations the same may be affirmed. In performing these, the mind works with the brain as its machinery, as certainly as it does with the eye in seeing, the ear in hearing, or the muscles in performing voluntary motion. By practice, man becomes more powerful and expert in reasoning and judging; but in this case the mind is not changed; no-the improvement is confined to the organ in the brain, with which the mind reasons and judges. For man to claim the power of operating immediately on spirit, and of amending or deteriorating it by any means he can employ, is an assumption perfectly gratuitous, and, in his opinion, the Doctor adds (too modestly) not a little extraordinary and arrogant. It is enough that man is able to change matter, and to control it to his purposes, by material agents. All the means used in teaching are material: when, therefore, we wish to improve mental operations, we have only to amend the organs which the mind employs in performing these operations. There is good reason to believe that spirit cannot be altered or modified by any thing short of the Creative Will, by which it was primarily brought into existence.

Dr. Caldwell divides education into three distinct branches-the physical, moral, and intellectual. Nothing is more certain, he says, than that the intellectual and the moral powers may be educated separately the former being amended while the latter are not, and the converse. There is as real a difference between moral and intellectual education, as there is between these and physical education but they are all three so intimately connected, that the improvement of any one of them may be made conducive to that of the rest. Nor can it be otherwise, except through mismanagement: moral action, intellectual action, and physical action, all have their sources and instruments in different parts of the human system: these parts are essentially connected by sympathy, and other ties more mechanical and obvious: wherefore, one or more of them being injured or benefited, the rest must necessarily be affected. Thus, for instance, the human body is a very complicated system. It con

sists of many different organs, which are again made up of other organs, each performing its specific functions: but, instead of acting every one for itself alone, these organs act also for each other individually and collectively, and are united in a system by function and sympathy. The condition of one organ, therefore, whether sound or unsound, influences and modifies that of many others: if it be a principal organ, it influences the whole machine. There are three great sets of organs which, while they are intimately and indispensably connected with each other, they control all the rest and assimilate their condition in no small degree to their own. These are the chyle-making or digestive organs: the blood-making and blood-distributing organs, consisting of the lungs, the heart, and the blood-vessels; and the brain, spinal cord and nerves, which are the organs of intellect and feeling, as well as the sources of voluntary motion. All the other organs are controlled by these three sets, and they produce this effect by mutually controlling themselves, by exercising such a reciprocal influence as to be all, at the same time, somewhat assimilated in condition. They are as necessary to each other as they are to the whole: when one of them is materially deranged in its action, the two others immediately suf fer, and all the rest of the system is disordered in its turn. Hence, it is quite evident, that moral and intellectual education which consists in amending the condition of the brain, and physical education which is the improvement of the other parts of the body, are indispensable to the perfection of each other, and consequently to that of the whole system. Physical education is to the other two, what the root, and trunk, and branches of the tree are to its leaves, blossoms, and fruit it is the essence and source of their existence: injure or improve it, and you produce on them a kindred effect: without a strict and judicious attention to it, man cannot attain to the perfection of his nature. If history and tradition be credited, the people of ancient Greece, as a nation, were, physically and intellectually, the most perfect of the human race; and there is reason to believe that their unrivalled attention to physical education was highly influential in determining this result. If, then, instead of treating technically of moral, intellectual, and physical education, authors and teachers would speak more correctly of the education of the different portions of the body, each portion being trained according to its organization and character, their discourses would be more philosophical than they are, and also greatly more instructive.

Physical education, in its philosophy and practice, embraces every thing that, by bearing in any way on the human body, can injure

or benefit it in its health, vigour, and fitness for action. This is Dr. C.'s position; and, according to him, the first and most important element of physical education is to procure, for those to be educated, a constitution of body originally sound. For attaining this end, the soundness of parents is necessary; because it is a law of nature that constitutional qualities are hereditary and transmissible from parents to their progeny, in man and animals. That the descendants of a community, sound, and vigorous, and hardy, in mind and body, will be themselves a community of the same description, unless they are changed by adventitious causes, is a general rule to which neither does history contain, nor can observation adduce, a single exception. This principle is extensively and powerfully operative on the standing and welfare of the human race it is the reason why children, born at different periods of the lives of their parents, and under the influence of different circumstances, especially different degrees of parental health and vigour, are often so unlike each other: and it is also the probable source of the very frequent strong resemblance of twins who receive the impress of the same parental condition. The firstborn children of parents who marry when very young, are rarely equal, either in body or intellect, to those born afterwards, provided the parents continue healthy. Dr. C. explains this occurrence by stating that very young parents are immature and comparatively feeble in constitution; that their constitutional imperfection descends to their early offspring; but that, as years pass on, their being ripens and their strength increases; and that, as a natural effect of this, the constitutions of their children become ameliorated. During early life, the animal faculties and their organs predominate: parents, therefore, who marry at this period, communicate in a higher degree to their children the same unfortunate predominance which renders them less intellectual and moral, and more sensual-less capable, as well as less ambitious, of pre-eminence in knowledge and virtue, and more inclined to animal indulgences.

Dr. C. refers to history and observation for a confirmation of this doctrine, and to philosophy for its exposition. He advises, as a means toward the improvement of our race, the prohibition or abandonment of too early marriages: before the parties form a compact fraught with consequences so infinitely weighty, let the constitution of both be matured. They will then, he says, not only transmit to their progeny a better organization, but be themselves, from the knowledge and experience they have attained, better prepared to improve it by cultivation. Patriotism, philanthrophy, and every