excellent way." If a young man has begun wrong, and entered college without a thorough acquaintance with the elements of science, the leopard may as well put off his spots, as he who has been thus accustomed to do every thing ill, learn to do it well.

The guardians and instructers of our colleges have endeavored, too, to raise the standard of education, by increasing the requirements for admission to college. Their catalogues present a formidable array of studies preparatory for admission; and we do not doubt that they mean what they say, and contemplate a rigid enforcement of these requisitions.

But what, after all, is the practical effect of this elevated standard? A young man presents himself for admission to college. He has gone over the preparatory course of study. He is able to stumble along through the passages given him to construe in Virgil and Cicero, but is utterly ignorant of their scope and meaning-just able to seize here and there upon a few words that bear some resemblance to English words, and to guess out the rest;-and as it respects grammatical forms, sufficiently versed in the declensions and conjugations to decline a noun, or verb, when he has been informed to what class it belongs. He is thus examined. The college is poor, dependant on its students for support. The professors would be glad to take an independent stand, but if they reject him, some other college will receive him. Perhaps his advantages have been meagre, or he was embarrassed at the examination. He will improve. May have done so. They conclude to receive him on trial; intending, honestly, if at the end of the first term he be not found to have made sufficient progress, to advise him to wait a year. The end of the term comes, and he is still in the rear. But it is a very delicate matter to degrade a young man. He would feel the disgrace very sensibly; perhaps take offence and leave the college. Besides, he is a moral, perhaps a religious young man. He will do good, though he be not a great scholar. He is recommended to study, during his winter's vacation. He returns in the spring; but is just where he was, or has made very trifling advance. He enters, however, and goes on with his class; though instead of going thoroughly, he is now hurried over the new and more difficult parts of the "course," for which his previous training has but poorly prepared him, and so is suffered to be carried through college by the mere force of gravity.

This is no picture of fancy. It is what takes place every year in every college in the land. Said a gentleman to the writer a few months since, "I attended as examiner at the

last semi-annual examination of College, and we found quite a number in the junior and senior classes, who could not have stood an examination to enter college: but prescription and public sentiment would not permit us to degrade them."

in ter

We ask then again, What is the practical effect of the bulletins and manifestoes annually published in the catalogues of our colleges? They do indeed in some cases operate rorem," to stimulate an indolent student; but farther than this, they have very little influence-and young students now generally understand, that to have read over the preparatory studies, however cursorily, is sufficient to secure their admission to college.

Thorough reform, then, in the character of collegiate education, is utterly impracticable, on the part of the instructers of colleges. If they try moral suasion, they do but charm in the ears of deaf adders who will not listen, charm they never so wisely. If they rise in their demands for admission, they cannot get students-till a healthier public sentiment shall sustain them in an independent position. All the efforts of professors in college to effect a radical reform in the mental habits of students who have been permitted to proceed thus far in a wrong course, whether by exhortation, or discipline, or in any other way, if not perfectly nugatory, must at least fall far short of the desired end. Quinctilian was right when he said, "natura tenacissimi sumus eorum quæ rudibus annis percepimus; et hæc ipsa magis pertinaciter hærent, quæ deteriora sunt." The remedy does not reach the source of the evil; the hurt is but slightly healed by it.

Appeals like Professor Stuart's to the instructers of colleges, if they stop there, are of no avail. It is morally impossible for a professor in college, be he ever so skilful, or faithful, to break up all the wonted habits of the student of some three or four years standing. If he were to "bray him in a mortar with a pestle," his wrong habits would not depart from him. He has been accustomed to think that the mere reading of his classics, so far as to make out a tolerable sense, is all that is necessary. The ability to read over a whole book of Virgil or Homer at a single exercise, is in his estimation the perfection of scholarship. So far from having been led to the exercise of the higher criticism, the examination of the beauties of style, of the nicer shades of thought, and felicitous arrangement of sentiment in his author, he has not ever been taught to analyze a single sentence, nor is he able to assign any reason for the choice, or arrangement of a single word. And yet he can boast of having read this and that author, and imagines that he has ex

Vain, we repeat it, is the

hausted all their fulness and beauty. effort to reform such a mind. There needs a new creation. What then is to be done? We have taken, it is true, an extreme case. All students are not so deficient as our remarks, if taken in an unqualified manner, might imply. But such cases, and those too insulated, or rare, do exist in our best colleges. And the great majority of students fall very far short of the standard to which they might attain. The looseness and desultoriness of mind we have described, is far more general than is commonly supposed. Mingle in the throng of theological students, as they leave the lecture room, and listen to their remarks upon the lecture. "That was a striking anecdote," says one: "I wish the Dr. would spice his lectures with more illustration," says another; "he is usually dull," "he is not practical enough." These, and such like remarks, are almost the only ones you will hear, while you may see here and there a silent, thoughtful student, whose intellect has been fed with the profound views and reasonings of the lecturer, retiring from the crowd, disdaining to waste his "breathing thoughts" upon the superficialness and inanity around him.

What then, we repeat it, can be done? We answer, lay the axe at the root of the tree. Take the student at the beginning of his course. When he first opens his Latin-grammar and declines "penna." Teach him principles. Learn him to think and reason. He will not be slow to appreciate the benefit and the pleasure of it himself. Proceed upon this plan. When he commences his Virgil and Cicero, unfold to him their beauties. Teach him to appreciate the terseness and strength of the language. Make him feel that thorough study is its own reward. Lay open to him the high objects of study. Disabuse him of the false impression, so common to the minds of young students, that much knowledge is necessarily wisdom. Make him to understand that" non refert multa, sed multum"it matters not how many things, but how much, he knows. Do this in the outset. Let him read an hundred lines of Virgil in a thorough, radical way, and he will feel himself a satisfaction, a confidence of knowledge, which he would not exchange for the superficial perusal of the whole Æneid.

With such views we are prepared to welcome any effort which promises to remedy, in any measure, the evils of which we complain. It is with peculiar pleasure, then, that we notice the little volume whose title stands at the beginning of this article. We hope that it has already attracted the notice of most of our readers. To such of them as have read it, it need no commendation of ours. For such as have not, we subjoin some

brief analysis of it, interspersing such remarks as may be suggested by its topics.

It is addressed to a Young Student, in the first stage of a liberal education. This circumstance, as would naturally be inferred from what we have said above, gives it its chief excellence. It begins at the right end. Dr. Miller's Letters to theological students,-sound, judicious, practical and minute though they be, for reasons suggested above, do not meet the exigency of the case. There was needed a book, which should be to students at our academies, what Dr. Miller's book is, to those for whom it was designed. And such an one, the Author of the "Letters to a Young Student," has produced. It is written in a chaste, simple, and perspicuous style, and evinces, on every page of it, by the particularity of its details, and its perfect adaptation to the circumstances and wants of those to whom it is addressed, that its author was master of his subject, and every way qualified to write a book for young men in these circumstances, having had experience in them himself.

The book is eminently a practical one. It comes home to the "business and bosoms" of students, with a directness of appeal, and a consciousness of the soundness of its principles, which cannot fail, we think, to find a corresponding echo in the breast of every candid young man, who peruses it. We were particularly struck with this characteristic of the book, on comparing its table of contents with that of a book entitled "Letters to a Young Gentleman commencing his education," published a few years ago by a distinguished living author. One letter of the latter book, is on the "Low state of Philosophy;" another on "Brown's theory of cause and effect;" another "on the question whether Moses was the writer of the several books of the Pentateuch," and the others on subjects equally intelligible and edifying to a young gentleman, just commencing his education.

We surely need not say that our author has avoided all such transcendental things.-His first letter is introductory, and composed of "general remarks on the formation of character" -setting forth, in a simple and convincing form, the high objects of an education, the importance of a right beginning, the necessity of fixed principles, good habits, &c.-The second letter is on health, a subject that can never be agitated too much, or too early, in relation to a sedentary life. Would that we could transcribe with a pen of iron every precept of this letter, on the heart of every student, young and old, in this country. When will students learn that there is an education of the body, as important as that of the mind, and which can

no more be neglected without a sacrifice of comfort and usefulness, and oftentimes of life itself? Alas! this truth is often learned too late ;-and a broken constitution, shattered nervous systein, and a sad predisposition to disease, are the fruits of the first years of the student's course.

The next two letters are on the subject of "Intellectual habits." Then follow two on "Moral habits ;" and one more on "College life," closes the volume.

In our previous remarks, we have alluded to the want of something in the early stages of study, calculated to educate (educo-i. e. to draw out) the mind. Our author's hints on all the various points which go to form the student's mental character, on his personal habits, on system, patient investigation, thorough analysis, &c., are the suggestions of a mind deeply imbued with sound philosophy, and accustomed to close and accurate observation. And we are fully persuaded that no young man can ponder and practise the precepts he has given, and not make a wiser man. He will learn that every thing, his books, his intercourse, his walks, all the circumstances and relations in which he finds himself, are to be laid under contribution, to the developement and strengthening of his intellect. He will, in the very outset, acquire a habit of analysis, of "patient thought," more invaluable to him, than the richest stores of acquisition. He will come, at a very early period of his course, to take large and comprehensive views of the ends and means of education, and learn to subject his partialities for some favorite science, or pursuit, to the higher object of mental symmetry and completeness. Nothing is more common than for students to conclude, "a priori," that mathematics, or languages, or natural science, will be of no use to them. In every such case their feelings practise a delusion upon their better judgment. The secret of their error is, that they do not love these studies. They do not love them, because they have never thoroughly understood, even their elements. Let the student, in the first instance, in the practice of the excellent rules of our author, lay a good foundation, and be thoroughly indoctrinated in the elementary principles of science; and nothing will be dull, or uninteresting to him.

The minutiae of Latin and Greek philology, and the theorems of Conic Sections, will have, for him, as many attractions, as ever his once favorite hobbies would have had. It is the happiness of a well-disciplined mind, to be able to apply itself to any important subject, with alacrity and vigor. To such a mind, "labor ipse voluptas est ;" and the more abstruse and difficult the subject of investigation, the higher the enjoyment

VOL. VI-NO IV.

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