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that the greatest men have been formed without the studies, which at present are thought by many most needful to improvement. Homer, Plato, Demosthenes, never heard the name of chemistry, and knew less of the solar system than a boy in our common schools. Not that these sciences are unimportant; but the lesson is, that human improvement never wants the means, where the purpose of it is deep and earnest in the soul.

The purpose of Self-Culture, this is the life and strength of all the methods we use for our own elevation. I reiterate this principle on account of its great importance; and I would add a remark to prevent its misapprehension. When I speak of the purpose of SelfCulture, I mean that it should be sincere. In other words we must make Self-Culture really and truly our end, or choose it for its own sake, and not merely as a means or instrument of something else. And here I touch a common and very pernicious error. Not a few persons desire to improve themselves only to get property and to rise in the world; but such do not properly choose improvement, but something outward and foreign to themselves; and so low an impulse can produce only a stinted, partial, uncertain growth. A man, as I have said, is to cultivate himself because he is a man. He is to start with the conviction, that there is something greater within him than in the whole material creation, than in all the worlds which press on the eye and ear; and that inward improvements have a worth and dignity in themselves, quite distinct from the power they give over outward things. Undoubtedly a man is to labour to better his condition, but first to better himself. If he knows no higher use of his mind than to invent and drudge for his body, his case is desperate as far as culture is concerned.

In these remarks, I do not mean to recommend to the labourer indifference to his outward lot. I hold it important, that every man in every class should possess the means of comfort, of health, of neatness in food and apparel, and of occasional retirement and leisure. These are good in themselves, to be sought for their own sakes, and still more, they are important means of the Self-Culture for which I am pleading. A clean, comfortable dwelling, with wholesome meals, is no small aid to intellectual and moral progress. A man living in a damp cellar or a garret open to rain and snow, breathing the foul air of a filthy room, and striving without success to appease hunger on scanty or unsavoury food, is in danger of abandoning himself to a desperate, selfish recklessness. Improve then your lot. Multiply comforts, and still more get wealth if you can by honorable means, and if it do not cost too much. A true cultivation of the mind is fitted to forward you in your worldly concerns, and you ought to use it for this end. Only, beware, lest this end master you; lest your motives sink as your condition improves ; lest you fall victims to the miserable passion of vying with those around you in show, luxury, and expense. Cherish a true respect for yourselves. Feel that your nature is worth more than everything which is foreign to you. He who has not caught a glimpse of his own rational and spiritual being, of something within

himself superior to the world and allied to the divinity, wants the true spring of that purpose of Self-Culture on which I have insisted as the first of all the means of improvement.

I come now to another important measure of Self-Culture, and this is, intercourse with superior minds. I have insisted on our own activity as essential to our progress; but we were not made to live or advance alone. Society is as needful to us as air or food. A child doomed to utter loneliness, growing up without sight or sound of human beings, would not put forth equal power with many brutes; and a man, never brought into contact with minds superior to his own, will probably run one and the same dull round of thought and action to the end of life.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of all. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am. No matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling. If the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakspere to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live.

To make this means of culture effectual, a man must select good books, such as have been written by right-minded and strong-minded men, real thinkers, who, instead of diluting by repetition what others say, have something to say for themselves, and write to give relief to full earnest souls; and these works must not be skimmed over for amusement, but read with fixed attention and a reverential love of truth. In selecting books, we may be aided much by those who have studied more than ourselves. But, after all, it is best to be determined in this particular a good deal by our own tastes. The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but oftener those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought. And here it may be well to observe, not only in regard to books, but in other respects, that Self-Culture must vary with the individual. All means do not equally suit us all. A man must unfold himself freely, and should respect the peculiar gifts or biases by which nature has distinguished him from others. Self-Culture does not demand the sacrifice of individuality. Nothing can supply the place of books. They are cheering or soothing companions in solitude, illness, affliction. The wealth of both continents would not compensate for the good they impart. Let

every man, if possible, gather some good books under his roof, and obtain access for himself and family to some social library. Almost any luxury should be sacrificed to this.

One of the very interesting features of our times, is the multiplication of books, and their distribution through all conditions of society. At a small expense, a man can now possess himself of the most precious treasures of English literature. Books, once confined to a few by their costliness, are now accessible to the multitude; and in this way a change of habits is going on in society, highly favorable to the culture of the people. Instead of depending on casual rumour and loose conversation for most of their knowledge and objects of thought; instead of forming their judgments in crowds, and receiving their chief excitement from the voice of neighbours, men are now learning to study and reflect alone, to follow out subjects continuously, to determine for themselves what shall engage their minds, and to call to their aid the knowledge, original views, and reasonings of men of all countries and ages; and the results must be, a deliberateness and independence of judgment, and a thoroughness and extent of information, unknown in former times. The diffusion of these silent teachers, books, through the whole community, is to work greater effects than artillery, machinery, and legislation. Its peaceful agency is to supersede stormy revolutions. The culture, which it is to spread, whilst an unspeakable good to the individual, is also to become the stability of nations.

Three Lectures on the Advantages of Mathematical Study. By J. R. YOUNG, Professor of Mathematics. Souter and Law. We recommend these lectures to the careful perusal of the youthful portion of our readers. The following is a fair specimen of their style and spirit. After discoursing of the commercial good resulting from the study of abstract science, the lecturer says:

"Even if the mathematical sciences were not of the vast importance they confessedly are in the practical affairs of civilized life, even if they possessed not that power of invigorating the mind which the ablest statesmen, the soundest divines, and the acutest philosophers know by experience they do possess, still they would deserve a large share of attention on account of the beautiful and striking truths they unfold, viewing these merely as matters of intellectual gratification. Is there not something striking in the fact that there are certain spaces or surfaces of infinite length, so that, if we were to attempt to ascertain that length by actual measurement, and had even gone on to the distance of the remotest fixed star, we should still be no nearer to the end; and yet that mathematicians know how to determine the exact measurement of these spaces even to the millionth part of a hair's breadth? Is there not something striking as

well as interesting in the fact, that a certain curved declivity may upon mathematical principles be formed, possessing the remarkable property that if you suffer a smooth ball to roll down it, the ball will always arrive at the bottom in the same time, from whatever height you let it go; so that, if you observe the time occupied in falling when you let the body go within ten yards of the bottom, you may be perfectly assured that that will be the time in which the body will reach the bottom, if you let it fall from the height of 10,000 miles? This is a truth as well established as that the three angles of a triangle amount to two right angles, the evidence of each truth being equally indisputable, although the former, not lying so near to first principles as the latter, requires that we pass over a greater number of subordinate propositions before we can arrive at it.

"I can well conceive how startling the proposition in question must appear to a person unacquainted with the remarkable truths which the higher mathematics reveal; and I can easily imagine how unhesitatingly he would reject a statement so entirely opposed to his preconceived notions of what would take place. What! he would exclaim, do you mean to assert that if I were to let a body fall from the height of this ceiling along the curve you propose, supposing all friction and atmospheric resistance to be removed, that it would arrive at the ground no sooner than if I had let it fall down the same curve from the height of the fixed stars? Is this what you really mean to assert to be as demonstrably true as that any two sides of a triangle are together greater than the third side? Every mathematician would answer-it is: nay, more, that this very curve would carry a body from any point in it to another lower down in less time than if the body took any other path whatever, although, perhaps, you might suppose that the straight line from the higher to the lower point, as it is the shortest distance between them, would be the line of swiftest descent.

"This is but one of the very many extraordinary truths revealed to us by mathematical investigation, which would recommend itself to our notice, were it only for the mental gratification consequent upon the discovery of such truths. But it doubly recommends itself to our attention, for the collateral advantages which the mind derives from the reception of these truths. Is it not natural for a person who is guided to such remarkable results by the unerring light of demonstration, sometimes to look back upon the period when, for want of that light, he would have opposed, as absurd or impossible, what he now receives with the fullest conviction? And is it not likely that the question may sometimes arise in his mind-may not other things, things in which I am more deeply interested, notwithstanding their apparent impossibility, be equally true? I admit the propositions of science, because my mind has been led to them by a process of logical deduction. Do I reject the grand propositions of religion because they are not susceptible of being proved, or is my intellect mighty enough to grasp the reasoning, even if it were offered? May not that which is matter of faith to mortal minds,

be subjects of the clearest demonstration to a higher order of intelligences?"

Appended to these lectures are some valuable notes; among which we may mention for special approval an "Examination of Hume's Argument against Miracles."

The Student's Help for the attainment of the English, French, and Italian Languages. By GUIDO SORELLI. Hatchard and Son, Piccadilly.

THE work of a poor pious Italian, whom we trust will prosper. It consists of portions of Scripture, printed in Italian, English, and French, after the following fashion :

Ossèrva l' uomo dabbène, e considera l'uomo giusto poiché la fine d' | uòmo tale è la pace.

Mark the perfect man and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

Prends garde à l' homme droit;

car la

fin d'un tel homme est la paix.

Notes on English Grammar. Simpkin and Marshall. A VALUABLE little book for the little learners of the land.

Double Entry Elucidated: an Improved method of Book-keeping. By B. F. FOSTER :-and Remarks on the Ordinary Modes of Teaching Writing and Book-keeping. By the same. Souter

and Law.

EVERY one who has been trained for commercial pursuits, will testify to the absurdity of the mode in which book-keeping is generally taught. A thorough reformation is required, and we think Mr. Foster is the man to effect it. His "Double Entry Elucidated" is a rational, simple, and valuable production. We strongly recommend it to the attention of parents, teachers, merchants, tradesmen, and clerks. Any comparison between it and its predecessors would be immeasurably to their disadvantage.

In the little pamphlet of "Remarks," Mr. Foster pleasantly exposes the folly of ordinary school teaching, and is very severe on what he terms the "six or eight lesson charlatanry. He refers to the practice of those who pretend they can cause the most clumsy fist to perform the most beautiful penmanship in a few hours of instruction. "No well-devised scheme," says Mr. Foster, "no new-fangled system, no skilful teacher can accomplish this object without labour, and that labour must be performed by the learner. He who pretends to impart knowledge without labour, pretends to do what no system can accomplish; he who undertakes to simplify the communication of knowledge, and to stimulate the industry of his pupil, does all that the best system can effect." Mr. Foster evidently understands his vocation.

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