They who carefully abstain from giving to themselves any undue or even questionable preferences, will seldom meet with incivilities from others.

CHAP. XXI.

Of the necessity of learning how to use money.

"To know

That which before us lies in daily life,

Is the prime of wisdom: what is more, is fume,
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence."

MILTON.

THERE is one inferior or subordinate branch of knowledge, which great learning overlooks, and great genius contemns: though, in all ages of the world, learning and genius have suffered distressing hardships and perplexities for the lack of it; I mean the knowledge of the use of money.

This is, it must be owned, a vulgar kind of knowledge; amply possessed, not unfrequently, by minds of the baser sort. So far from entering into the scope of scholastic education, few are more destitute of it than some of the deepest scholars. The studies they pursue are altogether foreign from this, and the classical authors which they most admire, speak of it with contempt. It is the ambition of the studious boy to be a fine scholar. This object, along with virtuous disposi tions, embraces, in his estimation, every thing desirable in character. After a painful and laudable course of exertions, he attains it. He steps forth into the busy world in the majesty of learning. By all men that are scholars themselves, his parts and his progress are admired. He has great talents, rare talents, shining talents, and all sense but common sense. He knows the reputed number of the visible stars in the firmament, and not a few of them he can call by their names. has explored the depths of natural philosophy. In metaphysical acumen he is keen, and can split hairs, as with an edge finer and sharper than a razor's. In the

He

most celebrated languages of antiquity, and perhaps in several modern languages, he is marvellously skilled. But, with respect to that ordinary traffic, which all, who have bodies to feed and clothe, must be concerned in, he knows less than a market boy of the age of twelve. And how will he ever get this kind of knowledge? His books teach it not, and besides, to make it an object of practical attention, is repugnant alike to his habits and feelings. Thus richly endowed, and, meanwhile deplorably lacking, he steps into the busy world :—and experience tells the rest.

It is no uncommon thing to find men of excellent parts and profound erudition, who, nevertheless, of the little affairs of practical life, are as ignorant as children. In their dealing they are exposed to daily impositions: the sharks of society prey upon them, and they perceive it not. If they employ laborers they know neither how to direct them, nor how to estimate their services; and are quite as likely to find fault with the honest and faithful, as with those who defraud them and artfully cover the cheat. If they enjoy an income, which, rightly managed, would be competent, it melts away in their improvident hands, and they suffer want. In whatever pertains to abstract science, they are entitled to rank with the great; but in every thing that relates to the supply of their daily necessities, or those of their families, they are least among the little. Though they have an accurate knowledge of the map of the heavens and of the earth, as they know nothing, or next to nothing, of the things about them, they are more pitiable for their ignorance than enviable for their learning.

This sort of helplessness does not, however, befal the learned only; it is alike common to the inheritors of opulence. As they who, from childhood, have been altogether engaged in scientific pursuits, know less of the economy of a family, than of the economy of the visible heavens; so they that are born to the inheritance of wealth, are naturally inclined to despise the very name and appearance of economy, as little and mean. Pos

sessing a superfluity of money earned and acquired for them by others, they squander, rather than spend; and, in a very little while, the fruits of a whole age of pain

ful industry are utterly wasted and gone :-not always from any uncommon evilness of heart, but sometimes, nay often, from merely the lack of ordinary prudence; of that worldly prudence, the study or observance of which they deemed beneath their condition.

"The love of money" (not money itself) "is the root of all evil." There is almost no evil, to which the inordinate love of money has not given birth or aid. But if things were to be estimated merely by the abuse of them, Literature, Science, the light of Reason, and even Reason itself, must fall under reproach. What though money be the idol of griping avarice and the pillar of devouring ambition ? What though it ministers in a thousand ways, to the lusts of men? What though, to many, it opens the flood-gates of vice? What though the sordid seek it as the chief good, and the knavish snatch it by fraudulent means?-Is money itself in fault? Is it not a blessing after all? If it be not a blessing, then it follows, that the naked, famishing savage, is in a condition as eligible as the well-fed and well-clothed European or American; that vile, smoky cabins, are as comfortable as choice houses; and that civilization itself is no better than the forlorn state of nature.

Money is indeed a great blessing, and the knowledge of using money as not abusing it-charitably whenever charity calls, but always discreetly-is an interesting branch of knowledge, and well deserves a place in our systems of education. For it is far more important to learn to guide our affairs with discretion, than to be learned in the various foreign languages. Nor is any science else so often and so urgently needed, as home ly household science-or practical skill in managing those little domestic and personal concerns which every day of life brings along with it.

Sully, one of the greatest Ministers that ever guided the affairs of France, or indeed of any other country, says, in his Memoirs: "I regulated my domestic affairs in such a manner, that the king of Navarre confessed to me afterwards, that I owed the greatest part of the esteem with which he honored me, to the prudent economy he observed in the disposition of my affairsIt was my youth only that made this disposition appear

extraordinary, for I began early to be sensible of what advantage it is to observe an exact regularity in domestic concerns.

CHAP. XXII.

Of the wonderful boy.

THERE is a remarkable variety in the growth of mind, from the first visible dawnings of reason to the full maturity of its powers. Of minds that finally attain to an uncommon degree of intelligence, some have a slow growth; an ample harvest of fruit succeeds to no extraordinary blossom. Neither their childhood nor their youth gave promise of the parts which the process of time gradually and slowly developed. It has been remarked of the late Patrick Henry, so celebrated in the annals of Virginia, "that he did not appear at the bar until he was about thirty years old, and that he had attained nearly to forty, before the extent of his talents was discovered by the public, and probably before it was known to himself." Other minds have a rapid growth, and shortly become stationary, or even go to decay; and the maturity of age, disappoints the high expectations that had been built upon the singular forwardness of childhood and youth. The premature brightness passes away, and is presently gone, like the flitting blaze of a meteor.

"The wonderful boy, being no longer a boy, is no longer a wonder." Not that this is the fact in all instances: there have been men of gigantic minds, who discovered marks of superiority in mental stature, almost from the cradle. One remarkable instance of it, was Doctor Samuel Johnson; and another, the late Chief Justice Parsons. Of the latter, the Hon. Judge Parker, in an address to a Grand Jury, observes :→→

"From the companions of his early years I have learned, that he was comparatively great, before he arrived at manhood; that his infancy was marked by mental labor and study, rather than by puerile amusements;

that his youth was a season of persevering acquisition, instead of pleasure; and that, when he became a man, he seemed to possess the wisdom and experience of those who had been men long before him."

But, notwithstanding these and sundry other similar instances, experience teaches that the wonderful boy, not seldom, makes but an ordinary, and sometimes, but an inferior man: and this is owing, perhaps, for the most part, to the two following causes.

In the view that is taken of childhood and immature youth, the partial or superficial observer is very apt to mistake loquacious vivacity for brightness of intellect, and a forward pertness for genius: and the fond hopes that are founded upon this common mistake, are at length blasted of course. In the progress of age, there is discovered the want of solidity and depth. The mind has no bottom. It retains its sprightliness through life; but it is still the sprightliness of childish years.

But the most common cause of the deplorable failure of youths of great promise, is the indiscretion, not to say vanity, of their friends. It is quite common for parents to think their children very bright, if they have merely common sense. But if any one of them happen to be more forward for his age than what is usual, he makes a prodigious figure in their partial and doting eves; nor can they be content to smother or conceal the delicious sensations of their hearts. They exhibit the prodigy of intellect to their acquaintances and visitants; and these, out of courtesy, praise the wonderful boy to his face, and express quite as much admiration of his parts as they feel-and peradventure a little more.

Young master listens-" nothing loth"-to these notes of adulation. Ere he is out of his teens, he thinks himself too wise for instruction, and too important for advice. He looks down with scorn upon the beaten tracks of life, and must needs strike out some eccentric path for himself. Or, depending on the mere force of genius, he despises plodding industry even of the intellectual kind, as fit only for vulgar souls. The deplorable consequences are inevitable.

A boy flattered much for his genius, or a girl for her beauty, is of all human wights the most likely to become