all the benefits of mathematical study as a means of disciplining the faculties, may be realized without throwing other departments into the shade. Only let it be remembered, that in improving the plan of college education, this most effective instrument for disciplining the mind, must not be improved away, but must ever be regarded as too valuable to be dispensed with. If, however, a little more mathematical knowledge can be added to the requisites for admission to college,-for example, if to a mechanical familiarity with the rules and processes of arithmetic, there can be added some acquaintance not only with the theory of numbers, but also with the elementary propositions and reasonings of geometry; and if thus more time can be gained for other branches of knowledge, this improvement would be of such a kind as we desire for the advantage of our own sons as well as of the public.

It would seem, that the leading departments of natural science are too popular, too fascinating with the recency and brilliancy of their discoveries, too easy of acquisition, and too directly connected with the increase of national wealth, to fail of receiving their full share of attention. It would seem, too, that the arts of eloquence and the graces of literature cannot be in any danger of falling into contempt in the present day. Against these things there is no outcry, even among the reformers. Against these things the students themselves, even in dog-days, are not apt to murmur, no not the most indolent and stupid. Yet how many colleges are there in the land, annually advertising their ability to give a liberal education, whose means of instruction in the most popular and important of the natural sciences, are not to be spoken of without pity; though in this respect every institution, we believe, is disposed to do all it can. How many colleges are there, whose graduated alumni have never been drilled to habits of purity, precision, and force, in the use of their own mother tongue. And when we remember what sort of training is required to fit the mind for the great function of controlling other minds by the spoken or written utterance of thought, we realize what room there is for improvement in those institutions whose system is already the most thorough and effective. The knowledge of things, the power of connecting thought with thought aright, the skill to discriminate where there is fallacy, and to unravel where there is perplexity, the nice and prompt perception of the force of words, and the practiced sweep of mind, that can bring analogies from every quarter to explain the difficult, and to illustrate the obscure, these are the essential elements of intellectual power, whether in the orator or in the writer. The smooth flow of diction, the melody of intonation, the gracefulness of gesture, and the prettiness of fancy, are well enough, but in the action and col

lision of mind, they are no more than the plumage on the helmet of the warrior in the whirlwind of battle.

Here we must be allowed to throw in a word in behalf of a once honored, but now too neglected art, which Dr. Beecher, though in his heart he loves it, seems almost ready to abandon to the enemy. The science and art of logic, exalted out of measure in the blind idolatry of the schoolmen, and dishonored by their trifling, is naturally enough despised by a generation who imagine it to be their prerogative to argue without regarding the laws of thought, or the principles according to which truth is connected with truth. But with all due deference to this generation, and with unfeigned respect for the great and wise, by whose suffrages the dialectic art and science has been excluded from our systems of education, we plead for logic, for the old logic, stripped, if you please, of its scholastic follies, and suited to the present state of human knowledge. That logic, rightly understood, is simply the art of discrimination, definition, analysis, and inference, reduced to theory and system. No other instrument can be like it for training the mind to sharpness of discrimination. Nothing else can so teach disputants to define the point about which they debate, or to detect each other in errors of statement or fallacy of argument, or to bring each other back to the question, when either is changing his position in the confusion and smoke of the conflict. It was almost exclusively the study of this school logic, in its connection with theology, which constituted the education of Baxter. He testifies, that "he plunged himself very early into the study of controversies, and read all the schoolmen he could get; for," says he, "next to practical divinity, no books so suited with my disposition as Aquinas, Scotus, Durandus, Ockham, and their disciples. I could never from my first studies endure confusion. Till equivocals were explained, and definition and distinction led the way, I had rather hold my tongue than speak! And I was never more weary of learned men's discourses, than when I heard them long wrangling about unexpounded words or things, and eagerly disputing before they understood each other's minds, and vehemently asserting modes, and consequents, and adjuncts, before they considered the quod sit, or the quid sit, or the quotuplex. I never thought I understood a thing till I could anatomize it, and see the parts distinctly, and the conjunction of the parts as they make up the whole. Distinction and method seemed to me of that necessity, that without them I could not be said to know; and the disputes which forsook them, or abused them, seemed but as incoherent dreams."* Would that all the theologians of our day had been trained after such a fashion. It would be pleasant to

*Baxter's Life, lib. i. p. 6.

hold a discussion with such men on the question, whether sin is in any instance preferable in God's estimation to holiness. What the pleadings are, in the trial of a case at law, just that the dialectic art was in the management of a controversy; it did not always bring the controversy to an end, but it did enable the parties and the umpires to see precisely where and what the controversy was.

But should not college education be made, to some extent at least, more practical? Should not each student be at liberty to pursue those branches of knowledge which are most directly connected with the profession to which he is destined? We answer, peremptorily, No. The very design of colleges is to give a liberal, as distinct from a professional education. In most minds the tendency of professional studies, is to seclude the individual from the world, to shut him up in a certain circle of technical ideas and professional habits of thought, and to make him even a stranger in the great commonwealth of letters. A liberal education, preparatory to the commencement of such studies as belong to a profession, is therefore, in the highest and truest meaning of the words, a practical education; for it is the only way of giving to the mind enlargement of views and habits of correct judgment, of guarding it beforehand against becoming the slave of technicalities, and of making the man an enlightened citizen, a man of knowledge and taste and mental refinement, instead of merely an intellectual artisan. The liberal education preliminary to professional study, is what makes the learned professions worthy to be called liberal. Who can estimate how much is gained in respect to the illumination, the peace, and the moral improvement of our country, by the fraternity which this system tends to maintain among intellectual men of various employments. Who can fail to see, that the wider the domain of thought and knowledge, which these men have traversed together and occupy in common, the more salutary will be their influence upon each other and upon the nation? What would be the effect of putting the aspirants to the various professions upon distinct and professional courses of study, from the commencement of what is now called college education? Let the ministry, for example, be trained exclusively in schools of theology; let them have no liberal education in common with educated lawyers and physicians; and how would their influence in society be weakened, and the influence of men in other professions be perverted; how soon would preachers of the gospel, ignorant of every thing not in the line of their profession, be the objects of unfeigned and undisguised contempt with infidel barristers and materialist practitioners of medicine? It is the liberalizing influence of a liberal education, conjoined with the reminiscences and associations of college life, that keeps many a VOL. VIII.

medical man and many a legal man from sheer infidelity, and finally perhaps brings him under the saving influence of the truth. Admitting, however, that the college system needs not to be made more practical, is it not deficient in respect to religious influence? Undoubtedly there should be more of the spirit of religion, more holiness, in all our colleges, as well as every where else in this sinful world. Undoubtedly more ought to be done by the guardians and teachers of these institutions, if they can but ascertain what to do, to promote an intelligent, fervent, self-denying piety among the young men committed to their care. But as for the idea so often thrown out, that college studies and habits, and college rules, are peculiarly unfavorable to piety, we do not admit it; we utterly reject it. Where are revivals of religion more frequent, more powerful, more blessed and lasting in their fruits, than in those colleges which are under an evangelical influence? Where are we to find the parents and guardians who watch over the spiritual welfare of young men, more devoutly and wisely than the officers of such institutions watch and pray and labor for the salvation of the young men in colleges? Where are professed christians more abundant in social prayer, more faithful in mutual watchfulness, more active in efforts to persuade and save their companions and friends, than the pious young men in colleges? It is false, it is dishonorable to the gospel to suppose, that the culture of the intellectual powers, the acquisition of knowledge, the close application of the mind to study, must needs be unfavorable to piety. We have heard of a young man who, having a great desire to preach, began to study, and immediately gave it up because his Latin grammar was not spiritual;-but we never thought any better of his piety for his censure on the grammar. If there are those who would have spirituality the sum and substance of all college exercises, or who would forego the culture of the mind for the sake of giving to young men a four-years course of religious exhortation, we cannot but regard their ideas respecting the nature of piety, as being not many degrees more sound or enlightened, than the ideas of those whose mistaken though fervent devotion introduced into the church the system of monkery with all its mischiefs. He who is to be "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord," must needs be "not slothful in business ;" and those who would let down the standard of scholarship, or relax the constancy or vigor of intellectual discipline, for the sake of promoting piety, will find in the end, that such a policy is adverse to the interests not only of piety but of morals.

This, we shall be told, is not what is desired by those who complain of the want of religious influences in colleges. What do they mean then? Do they suppose, that christianity has no

authority, no name or being in our literary institutions; and is it such a deficiency, that they are seeking to supply? But is there a college this side of Charlottesville, in which the students are not assembled morning and evening, like members of a christian family, for the reading of the scriptures and for prayer in the name of Christ? Is there one in which the evidences of christianity are not studied as essential to a liberal education, or in which the study of moral philosophy is conducted without a constant reference to the authority of the christian scriptures as an infallible rule of duty? Is not the professor of divinity a regular member of the academic corps of teachers; and has he not at least one day in seven exclusively devoted to his department; and is he not expected to conduct all his teaching with a view to make his pupils christians, in understanding, in practice, in experience?

Dr. Beecher argues eloquently, that the bible should be made a classic in the colleges. We are far from controverting his position, as he understands it and argues for it. We doubt not, that in some way a course of biblical lessons, to be studied and recited like other lessons, might be advantageously incorporated with the scheme of study in every college. Yet every man who knows any thing of the practical difficulties in the management of a college, may see, that to conduct a class successfully and profitably through such a course of task-lessons, must require either peculiar skill on the part of the teacher, or peculiar docility on the part of the pupils. Bible-classes in colleges, as elsewhere, are commonly formed and managed on "the voluntary principle." It may be a question after all, whether it is not the more excellent way to make attendance on such exercises voluntary with the student; whether the study of the bible should not be encouraged rather than enforced by the college government; and whether to use the bible as a classic might not be, in too many instances, to degrade it rather than to honor it.

But should not more attention be given to physical education? This is an exceedingly popular topic of discourse; and no new institution, literary or theological, has ventured to demand public aid, within a few years past, till it could point to its farm or its workshops, and ring the changes on the neglect of physical education. Of all these institutions, that over which Dr. Beecher presides has been, without parallel, the most successful in the way of manual labor. It is very natural for him, therefore, to favor the manual labor system. Manual labor is very well; but we confess our doubts, whether it can well be incorporated with the system of liberal education. We suspect, that generally the funds given to endow manual labor departments are given to little purpose. The discussion of the subject at large would carry us far beyond the