See a boy of but fifteen years, with no want of youthful diffidence, and not without a craving desire to learn, sent upon a stage, pale and choking with apprehension; being forced into an attempt to do that, without instruction, which he came purposely to learn; and furnishing amusement to his classmates, by a pardonable awkwardness, that should be punished, in the person of his pretending but neglectful preceptor, with little less than scourging.

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3. Then visit a conservatorio of music; observe there the elementary outset, the orderly task, the masterly discipline, the unwearied superintendence, and the incessant toil to reach the utmost accomplishment in the Singing-Voice; and afterwards do not be surprised that the pulpit, the senate, the bar, and the chair of medical professorship, are filled with such abominable drawlers, mouthers, mumblers, clutterers, squeakers, chanters, and mongers in monotony; nor that the Schools of Singing are constantly sending abroad those great instances of vocal wonder who triumph along the crowded resorts of the world; who contribute to the halls of fashion and wealth their most refined source of gratification; who sometimes quell the pride of rank by a momentary sensation of envy; and who draw forth the admiration and receive the crowning applause of the prince and sage.

4. The high accomplishments in elocution are supposed to be universally the unacquired gifts of genius, and to consist of powers and graces beyond the reach of art. So seem the plainest services of arithmetic to a savage; and so, to the slave, seem all the ways of music which modern art has so accurately penned, as to time, and tune, and momentary grace. Ignorance knows not what has been done; indolence thinks nothing can be done; and both uniting, borrow from the abused eloquence of poetry an aphorism to justify supineness of inquiry.

DR. RUSH.

5. ON LEARNING BY HEART.

1. Till he has fairly tried it, I suspect a reader does not know how much he would gain from committing to memory passages of real excellence; precisely because he does not know how much he overlooks when merely reading. Learn one true poem by heart, and see if you do not find it so. Beauty after beauty will reveal itself, in chosen phrase, or happy music, or noble suggestion, otherwise undreamed of. It is like looking at one of Nature's wonders through a microscope.

2. Again how much in such a poem that you really did feel admirable and lovely on a first reading, passes away, if you do not give it a further and much better reading!-passes away utterly, like a sweet sound, or an image on the lake, which the first breath of wind dispels. If you could only fix that image, as the photographers do theirs, so beautifully, so perfectly! And you can do so! Learn it by heart, and it is yours for

ever!

3. I have said, a true poem; for naturally men will choose to learn poetry-from the beginning of time they have done so. To immortal verse the memory gives a willing, a joyous, and a lasting home. Some prose, however, is poetical, is poetry, and altogether worthy to be learned by heart; and the learning is not so very difficult. It is not difficult or toilsome to learn that which pleases us; and the labor, once given, is forgotten, while the result remains.

4. Poems, and noble extracts, whether of verse or of prose, once so reduced into possession and rendered truly our own, may be to us a daily pleasure ;—better far than a whole library unused. They may come to us in our dull moments, to refresh us as with spring flowers; in our selfish musings, to win us by pure delight from the tyranny of foolish castle-building, self-gratulations,

and mean anxieties. They may be with us in the workshop, in the crowded street, by the fireside; sometimes, perhaps, on pleasant hill-sides, or by sounding shores;noble friends and companions-our own! never intrusive, ever at hand, coming at our call.

5. For those, in particular, whose leisure time is short, I believe there could not be a better expenditure of time than deliberately giving an occasional hour-it requires no more-to committing to memory chosen passages from great authors. If the mind were thus daily nourished with a few choice words of the best English poets and writers; if the habit of learning by heart were to become so general, that, as a matter of course, any person presuming to be educated might be expected to be equipped with a few good pieces,—I believe that it would lead, much more than the mere sound of it suggests, to the diffusion of the best kind of literature and to the right appreciation of it; and that men would not long rest satisfied with knowing a few stock pieces.

6. The only objection I can conceive to what I have been saying is, that a relish for higher literature may be said to be the result of cultivation, and to belong only to the few. But I do not admit that even the higher literature must belong only to the few. Poetry is, in the main, essentially catholic-addressed to all men; and though some poetry requires knowledge and culture, much, and that the noblest, needs only natural feeling, and common experience. Such poetry, taken in moderation, followed with genuine good-will, shared in common, will be intelligible and delightful to most men who take the trouble to be students at all, and ever more and more so.

7. Perhaps, also, there may be a fragment of truth in what Charles Lamb has said-that any spouting "withers and blows upon a fine passage; " that there is no enjoy

ing it after it has been "pawed about by declamatory boys and men." But surely there is a reasonable habit of recitation as well as an unreasonable one; there is no need of declamatory pawing. To abandon all recitation, is to give up a custom which has unquestionably given delight and instruction to all the races of mankind. If our faces are set against vain display, and set towards rational enjoyment of one another, we need not fear that our social evenings will be marred by an occasional recitation. And, moreover, it is not for reciting's sake that I chiefly recommend this most faithful form of reading-learning by heart.

8. I come back, therefore, to this, that learning by heart is a good thing, and that it is neglected among us. Why is it neglected? Partly because of our indolence; but partly, I believe, because we do not sufficiently consider that it is a good thing, and needs to be taken in hand. We need to be reminded of it. I here remind you. Like a town-crier, ringing my bell, I would say to you, "Oyez, oyez ! Lost, stolen, or strayed, a good ancient practice-the good ancient practice of learning by heart. Every finder shall be handsomely rewarded." 9. If you ask, "What shall I learn?" the answer is, do as you do with tunes-begin with what you sincerely like best, what you would most wish to remember, what you would most enjoy saying to yourself or repeating to another. You will soon find the list inexhaustible. Then "keeping up" is easy. Every one has spare ten minutes: one of the problems of life is how to employ them usefully. You may well spend some in looking after and securing this good property you have won.

LUSHINGTON.

6. SCHOOL LIBRARIES.

1. The influence of well-selected books in a school is second only to that of the teacher; and in many instances the information, self-gleaned by the pupils, is the most valuable part of a common-school education.

2. A teacher may fail in the discharge of duty; but the golden grains of thought gleaned from good books will spring up in the youthful minds and yield their fruit, just as certainly as the fertile soil of our beautiful valleys rewards the toil of the husbandman with a bountiful harvest.

3. The object and aim of the public school should be to give children a thirst for information, a taste for reading; to make them alive to knowledge; to set them out on the path of self-education through life. Why teach them to read at all, if books be not afterwards furnished for them to read?

4. Not many years ago, in one of the obscure towns of Massachusetts, there lived a farmer's boy who "went to a common school" in the winter, and worked on the farm in summer. The books of a little town library fell into his hands; he devoured them, and hungered for more. He grew to be a man, and was acknowledged by all to be the most distinguished American educator of his time.

5. Every public school in our country is a debtor to Horace Mann. He thus graphically sums up the advantage of a school library: "Now no one thing will contribute more to intelligent reading in our schools than a well-selected library; and, through intelligence, the library will also contribute to rhetorical ease, grace, and expressiveness. Wake up a child to a consciousness of power and beauty, and you might as easily confine Hercules to a distaff, or bind Apollo to a tread-mill, as to confine his spirit within the mechanical round of a