complete, systematic. The want of well-balanced minds is a serious fault of this age. Inventors, or would-be inventors, are found who spend years of time and large sums of money upon an insane attempt to produce a result that any respectable scholar in mechanics or chemistry could have told them in five minutes could never be obtained. Mathematicians are found, who, though experts in their favorite studies, are nevertheless useless in the world for want of the proper training and development of other faculties. Law-suits in numberless cases are entered upon and fought through to the bitter end (frequently terminating like the famous case brought before Mr. Justice Monkey, concerning the cheese), simply from a misunderstanding, or from a wrong use or a wrong interpretation of language. Education should aim to produce well-balanced minds, not erratic geniuses.

In the second place, the teacher should always remember that the book is only an aid, and that many things are to be taught which are not found in the routine curriculum. By this combined method the pupil will be properly developed into something like a symmetrical character. Honesty will not be sacrificed to taste and good breeding, but many an honest soul will have its sharp, angular edges rounded off, and the rough marble polished into well-proportioned and beautiful columns.

What then will be the influence of the high

school, with this proper curriculum of studies, upon the business life of our country?

If there is one thing more evident than another in these days, it is, that within the last quarter of a century all the old methods of doing business have, through the influence of the universal diffusion of knowledge, been radically changed.

I venture to say that during the last half-century greater changes have taken place in the world's life than ever before in any period of five hundred years. But what shall we see in the future?

Were John Jacob Astor and Stephen Girard young men of business to-day, and bent on amassing a fortune, it would be absolutely necessary for them to change essentially the tactics of their business methods, so successful in the early part of this century. Certain fundamental principles will ever remain the same; but as our knowledge of the sciences increases, the structure built upon these foundation stones differs widely from the old building erected by the fathers and the grandfathers.

The young man who is to-day launched upon the broad tide of trade will find the science of navigation so entirely changed from what is laid down in the books, that if he have no guide but the old rules, he will possibly be under the necessity of taking a pilot on board, or of risking the entire destruction of his bark and its freight. To conduct any kind of mercantile or manufacturing business successfully to-day, and for twenty-five years to

come, will require a far greater discipline of mind, a more liberal culture, a more generous scholarship than were necessary a generation ago.

Besides all this, we live in a republic, and it is hoped that a despotism is not possible in America. But in a republic every man is equal before the law.

Your

It is necessary, then, to abolish caste. bootblack to-day may be your lawyer to-morrow, and the rail-splitter or the tanner or the humble schoolmaster at twenty years of age may become the chief magistrate of fifty millions of free people before he is fifty. For more than twenty years, we have had a President who has climbed up from the lower walks of life. Let, then, the processes of education go on; let the young teachers of today strive to teach better than the elders now teach. Let the doors of the school-house, the "brain factory," be open to all the children; and the child once started on the career of learning,. let him not find those doors ever closed against him till, if he so elects, he shall have completed. not merely the course of study in the common English branches, but in the English high school,. the scientific school, or the college.

Thus will be brought about the time when will be realized on earth the two great principles alike of the highest human philosophy and of our holy religion the common fatherhood of God and the equal brotherhood of man.

LECTURE IV

M

POLITICAL EDUCATION.

BY HON. J. W. Patterson, LL. D., CONCORD, N. H.

ARTIN LUTHER, in an address to

magistrates, puts this pregnant interrogatory: "Beloved rulers, if we find it necessary to expend such large sums as we do yearly upon artillery, roads, bridges, dikes, and a thousand other things of the sort, in order that a city may be assured of continued order, peace, and tranquillity, ought we not to expend on the poor, suffering youth therein, at least enough to provide them with a schoolmaster?" The great monk of Erfurt-who, as a ragged, barefooted boy, sang songs through the streets of Eisenach to secure an education — in this single sentence enunciated by implication the fundamental truth upon which rests the pri mal right and duty of the state.

The leaven thus cast into the thought of the fifteenth century so pervaded the public mind, that in a little time all Europe felt its fermentation. In Holland especially it dominated all classes, and the right and duty of the govern

ment to educate its children became the popular sentiment. We recognize its controlling power over the emigrants who colonized and founded. New Netherlands, the present Empire State of our Republic. In the articles proposed for the settlement and trade of that province, it was provided that "Each householder and inhabitant shall bear such tax and public charge as shall hereafter be considered proper, for the maintenance of schoolmasters." Here, at that early period, we have a clear recognition of the right of a civil organization to tax its people for the maintenance of popular education in the interest of the general safety and well-being, a principle which some of the oracles of modern statecraft - have denied. Colonial history seems to leave no doubt that the Dutch settlers of New Netherlands, who also laid the foundations of New Amsterdam, the modern city of New York, believed in free public schools supported by taxation. Under the English there was a reaction.

England early established schools and universities for the education of the higher classes,. "from which has come the perpetual flow of cultured minds that have given skill to English industry, scope to English commerce, learning to English statesmanship, and eminence to her lit erature and science"; but the great forces of the Reformation, which were the potent factors in