theory immediately arrests the learner's mind, and fixes his attention upon those tables of terminations, which it is generally such weary work for the memory to master.

Having communicated this theory, I would, in the next place, present tables of the terminations of the verbs, choosing the most regular to begin with; but while the pupils are learning them, and those variations of meaning which they indicate, I should take some author of the Augustan age, (I have sometimes begun with the bucolics of Virgil,) and teach translation by word of mouth. For I am sure it will be found, that the meanings of words may be fastened on the memory by the teacher's being the dictionary, a great deal more quickly and effectively, than by the use of a lexicon: for the animating influence of the teacher's mind, in tracing the history of the word from its material root, into its imaginative applications; in associating its sound with the English derivations from it, whenever there are any; in opening the learner's mind to the appropriateness of the author's present application of it, which may be always shown in a real classic author; and finally, in leading him to observe its euphonious location in the sentence, an object so constantly kept in view by the Latin authors, whether of prose or poetry; is all powerful, to keep the acquiring mind of the learner in that cheerfulness, good will, and vividness of imagination, which is essential to readiness and retentiveness of memory.-And while, by means of the vocabulary thus attained, there may be perpetual exercises of the knowledge gained by the tables of termination, a ground work is forming for parsing lessons of a more philosophical character. As soon as a passage of fifty lines has been thus learned with the English meanings, the teacher must begin to explain the theory of case, and show what general relations are indicated by the several changes, discriminated in the grammar by the terms nominative, genitive, dative, &c., the force of which technical words is involved in such an explanation. Then the syntactical rules should be taken up and each word explained, and the pupil required to find out, by means of the English sense, (which he has learned by heart,) whether any words, in the passage before him, afford instances of its application. If children have been well exercised, beforehand, in the

analysis of English, and have learnt the various force of English prepositions, the parsing of latin substantives will be learnt with very great rapidity and thoroughness in this way, long before the tables of termination are presented, which are so great a tax to the memory, and so little assistance, after all, in determining the case of a word. These tables of termination however can be given at last-and will have their use, especially as applied to the adjectives and other subordinate parts of speech.

The successful pursuit of this method requires several conditions, however. In the first place it requires previous discipline in the English language; a discipline, which even on Mr. Alcott's method could seldom be completed before a boy was nine years of age, if he began at six or seven. It would also require the best and freshest hours of the day; and must be the main object of the student's attention for a time, with some degree of freedom in the use of his voice to help his ear. With these conditions, there are few boys of ten or twelve years of age, who might not learn so much Latin in a year as to be able to read with facility, and without farther teaching, all the Latin books, preparatory to college life. Farther teaching on collateral subjects would indeed be useful; and that higher teaching might be appreciated, which consists in discriminating the characteristic styles of authors, by an observation of those relations with which his mind is most familiar, indicated by his favorite syntactical and etymological rules of construction.

ARITHMETIC.

Arithmetic was taught from the opening of the school. The younger scholars were provided with Fowle's Child's book of Arithmetic, and the older ones with Colburn's First Lessons, and learned lessons in them; though those who studied Latin had but little time for Arithmetic, and did not make any great progress.

These Arithmetic lessons were always studied at their desks, and the results of each question written, sometimes on the black boards, and sometimes on their slates; and when the lessons were recited to Mr. Alcott, he required from them an account of the process.

Besides this, a course of lessons on numeration, and the

fundamental rules of cyphering, were given by means of the black-board, to the whole school, in lectures, as it were, upon Lovell's Arithmetic. These were very useful, but it was found that, generally speaking, the children were not skilled enough in mental Arithmetic, to have it any advantage to proceed in cyphering any further.

GEOMETRY.

A small class in Grund's Geometry was formed also a few months after the school began. But the plan was, that the lessons should be learned at home, and the parents took so little interest in it, that very little was accomplished; and as they were rather young for it, and had so many other studies, we finally laid it aside, although it will at any time be resumed, when there is good reason for it.

COMPOSITION.

From the above remarks it will be evident that book learning is not entirely neglected by Mr. Alcott. Yet it is true, that he lays himself out, rather to prepare his scholars for it, after they have left him, than to give it to them himself, at the early age when they are under his own care. His main object is to produce activity of mind, and taste for intellectual pursuits. And for the purpose of activity he uses one means which is very much neglected in common schools; and that is, he leads them to express their thoughts on paper, as soon as they can write the script hand so as to be read.

Several of his pupils commenced their journals as soon as they came; but it was some time before they became any record of the inward life. The children were entirely unused to composition, and at first, only set down the most dry and uninteresting circumstances.

Mr. Alcott, however, contented himself with expressing the hope that bye and bye, we should have more thoughts mingled with the record of facts; and he made no criticisms on the language, or even on the spelling; knowing that courage is easily checked, in these first efforts, by criticism; and wishing to produce freedom as a condition of free expression. He did not expect interesting view from them, until their minds were more thoroughly trained to self-inspection and inward thought. .He has little reliance on any method of producing the impulse to composi

tion, except the indirect one of leading children to think vividly and consecutively, which leads of itself to expression. And still less has he any reliance upon the power of a composition which is not the result of an inward impulse. A mere mechanical exercise, leads to a tame and feeble style, which it is a misfortune to acquire, and which generates no desire to write more; but it is spontaneous to endeavor to express energetically, what one feels vividly and conceives clearly; and any degree of success in this, inspires ardor for new attempts.

Instructors are not, perhaps, aware how much the art of composition is kept from being developed in children, by petty criticism. Children have a great deal to contend with, in the attempt to express their thoughts. In the first place, they find it more difficult than better trained minds do, to preserve their thoughts in their memory. For the mechanical labor of holding the pen, of seeing to the spelling, of pointing, and all such details, interferes with the purely mental effort. And even when all this is mastered, and they express original thought, it is like putting out a part of themselves, and they are intensely alive to its reception, in proportion to its real originality, and if it is misunderstood, or its garb criticised, they shrink more than they would at a rude physical touch, and will be very much tempted to suppress their own thoughts, on another occasion, and only attempt the common places, for which they have heard expressions.

For there seems to be in all finely attempered spirits, a natural modesty, sometimes even a shrinking delicacy, which instinctively forbids exposure of the invisible exercises of the mind and heart, except to the eye of a generous liberality and a tender love and it is only time for reflection and a fully realised faith, which gives the strength of mind that may separate the sense of personality from the expression of general truth and beauty; and make clear and possible to them the duty of reposing on the intrinsic worth of what is said, and at all events frankly to express themselves.

And is there not a beautiful cause for the modesty of childhood and genius? Is not the ideal, in these instances, more vivid, to which their own actual creation is so painful a contrast, that if they are forced to attend to the discrepancy,

they are discouraged? It has been remarked that the first essays of high genius are seldom in perfect taste, but exhibit "the disproportions of the ungrown giant." This can be easily explained. Genius is apt to feel most deeply the infinite, and never losing sight of even those connections which it does not express, is unaware of the imperfections of what is seen by others, which is only a part of what is created in its own being. But if left to a natural development, and unhindered by internal moral evil, the mind always works itself out to perfect forms; while premature criticism mildews the flower, and blasts the promised fruit.

This case of genius is not irrelevant. Intellectual education, as an art, is an embodiment of all those laws and means, which the development of genius manifests to be the best atmosphere for the production of creative power. For all minds are to be cherished by the same means by which genius is developed. In the first place, we never know but we have genius to deal with among our pupils, and should therefore always make our plan with reference to it; knowing that the smallest degree of mind is also benefitted in its due proportion, by the discipline which brings out the highest, and is certainly quenched by those processes from which genius suffers. It would not perhaps be going too far to say, that the period of school education is too early a period for criticism on any original production. There is only one fault which may be excepted from this rule, and that is affectation, a style which proceeds from want of the sentiment of truth. Even this, however, should not be taken up as literary blunder, but as moral evil, of which it is an expression, quite as much as affectation of manners, and want of veracity.

The objections made against the intellectual influences of Mr. Alcott's school, by those who do not know much about it, are chiefly of the negative character, which the foregoing pages have attempted to answer. There is one however, of a positive character, on which I wish to make some observations, and then I shall close this protracted essay.

It is said that Mr. Alcott cultivates the Imagination of his scholars, inordinately, by leading them to the works of