The ash is a flashy, smart little fellow, full of quickness and life. His step, in approach, is rapid, and soon he passes away. He lives almost too fast, is the reason why he dies so soon. After that he makes a superb fire, and the generous giving forth of character is visi

his ashes.

The chestnut is a large, burly, rustic old fellow, following his own crooked devices; and yet he is not churlish, it's only his way. Whoever wins from him must take him as they find him, rough and burry as he is; if they agree to his terms, he will reward them with lots of choice fruit, making the winter night joyous.

In the absence of ruined castles and monasteries, of prostrate temples and half-buried cities, we must be satisfied to light upon such scenery as is presented to the American tourist in Frankfort and its neighborhood.ble to the very last. Unselfish, he is respected even in This is the civil capital of Kentucky. It is so often visited and described, that it would be thankless labor to sketch minutely its picturesque features. Scarcely any one is ignorant that it stands on the bank of the Kentucky river, sixty miles from its mouth-that its site is a plain, shut in by the river on one side, and mostly on the others by bold, lofty hills, rising two or three hundred feet high. The wild scenery in the neighborhood gives to the town a peculiar air of rural quiet and beauty. The view in the frontispiece is from the eminence in the fore-ground, whence the spectator looks down upon the plain, and surveys to great advantage the river on the left, a principal street and the markethouse in front, the state-house a little farther to the right, and the penitentiary, the guard-walls of which are seen on the verge of the picture.

Then there is the beech. It has a nut of sweetness and nutrition. It likens the kindliness and the liberality of the sailor's character. Another quality is the enduring hardihood of its body. Like the cedar, it stems the current of mighty waters, and navigates even in Atlantic seas.

The fir-tree, in its elevation, is lifted beyond the sympathy of all. Even its few stinted companions of the same cold region is each an abstract to itself, obeying the force of the element which surrounds it. It points up, and up, and every expansion of growth assists in this aspiration, this propensity of its being. This is the astronomer. Though he subsists on the earth, his

The state-house is a handsome edifice of white stone, quarried on the banks of the river. The penitentiary, if we mistake not, is conducted on the plan of the Auburn state prison. The approach to Frankfort, in one direction, presents scenery of peculiarly bold and pic-desirings are not of it. His reachings are all heaventuresque features.

Original.

ward; and though sterility and poverty are about his path, yet has he never a thought that is downward to richer soils. Bound up in his one sense of aspiring, he has no sense of sympathies bereaved-no groveling discontents of self-place is his all in all, and that is beyond and above.

Opposite to this is the pensile and dejected willow. All its tendencies are earthward. Its growth is rapid; but as in other nature, it is weakened by expansion. Sad is its seeming. By the water brooks it is prone, in its passive listlessness, to sit. It neither receives nor imparts joy; for, like the Grahamite, its nurture is too largely of water. It figures out the puling, sickly, inefficient sentimentalist-sighs and tears are its only answerings. It has a right to be in the world, because it is there; but it has partaken too largely of water, and what is it good for?

TREES AND THEIR LIKENINGS. I SOMETIMES, in musing mood, find myself making spontaneous likenings of inanimate to animate nature, comparing the qualities of things to the qualities of men, and perhaps from the unconscious to the conscious, I will follow out the similitude into a sort of theory. Contemplating with a healthy delight the characteristics of the oak, the first of trees, in my estimation, I find it hardy, enduring, upright, sane, equable, and unmoved. Such an one is . . . . denoting the good soil in which he grew, a field apart from poisonous innovations and from corruptibility, affording shade, shelter, protection as far as his broad influences The generous hickory is a tree of fame. What can extend themselves, and destined in his own elements to my saying add to it? Its offering of fruit in the Ides health and length of life. of autumn is a jubilee to bare-footed urchins. It is also Another genus is the wavy, wide-spreading, umbra- dispensed in higher companies; and the hickory, whethgeous elm. Benevolent and good is the man compared.er dead or alive, being essentially warm itself, by a There is a yielding, but no compromising with the as-known law of our nature, has many warm friends. saulting blast; the pendant boughs are bowed as it If these "likenings" should be deemed by you suitpasses; they comply, but do not submit-presently the able for the Repository, and should my musings congood tree is itself again—the graceful and the lovely—tinue to flow in this channel, you may, at some future typifying the amenity and the dignified elegance of...time, hear from me again. SYLVANIA.

Vol. I.-37

290

Original.
EDUCATION.

BY E. THOMSON.

EDUCATION.

mummy torn from the emboweled catacomb, and transported to a distant shore, to gratify the eye of vain and eager curiosity, reminds us that arts, of which we are ignorant, were known in early ages to Egypt. Pompey's Pillar, Cleopatra's Needles, and the forests of columns, and piles of ruins that are scattered all along the "city of the Dead," bear ample attestation to the ancient glory of Alexandria.

It is reasonable to suppose that when mankind passed from the migratory to the settled condition, the adjustment of the boundaries of their possessions would be an object of attention. Accordingly, we find that geometry is an ancient science; and although its methods

THE history of education may be divided into four periods. The first, commencing with the fall of man and extending to the deluge, comprehends a term of two thousand years, and may be denominated the patriarchal. In this period all was darkness-the whole race was in a barbarous condition--they wandered in deserts and forests, depending upon fishing and the chase for subsistence, and consuming all their time and expending all their energies in procuring the necessaries of life. They had no agriculture, commerce, nav-in early ages were coarse, it nevertheless subserved the igation, arts, or science, worthy of the name. Their most valuable purposes. wars were collisions of brute force-their governments To what extent the natural sciences were cultivated were of the simplest kind, growing in most instances we are at a loss to conceive; but we have sufficient out of the influence of aged patriarchs, or veteran ground to conjecture, that the external character of foschiefs their arts were few and rude-their sciences sils, the structure of the earth, the nature of vegetables, consisted of a few phenomena, perverted to supersti-and the history of animals, were by no means overtious purposes their religion, though based upon im- looked by the philosophers of Egypt. portant revelations, was obscured, if not obliterated, by The more important phenomena of the heavens were vain imaginations. The little knowledge which they observed in a very early age; and although no satisfacpossessed was transmitted only by tradition, as they tory manner of accounting for them was devised until had no written language. Their wealth was poverty, a later period, yet the astronomical knowledge of an their courage ferocity, their wisdom superstition, their tiquity was as accurate, if not as extensive, as widely religion idolatry. God was the only teacher, and it diffused, though not as philosophical, as that of the was but now and then that he opened heaven and let nineteenth century of the Christian era. The phases down a truth upon them. Their wickedness hung an of the moon, the precession of the equinoxes, the difimpenetrable cloud over them, and the few beams that ferences between solar and siderial time were all famildarted through it from the skies, were soon absorbed iarly known to ancient Egypt. The zodiac was diviand lost in prevailing errors. There was, however, at ded into signs by a process simple and ingenious, and all times, one luminous spot on earth, though often requiring a perseverance worthy of the highest reward. bounded by a circle a few feet in diameter. Enoch, So common was astronomical knowledge in those early Nimrod, Noah, and kindred worthies, manifested vig-ages that we have reason to suppose almost every disorous intellect. The history of antediluvian ages is tinguished individual had an horoscope, and that the nearly lost; nor need we deplore the obscurity which rests over that distant period, since we know that it had no influence upon post-diluvian times, and that if the vail could be removed, we could obtain no valuable information.

After the deluge, the human mind manifested increased activity. Less than two hundred years subsequent to that event, Nimrod, or Belus, laid the foundations of Babylon, and Ashur built Nineveh, which became the capital of the Assyrian empire. Not long posterior, the Egyptian empire was founded by Menes or Mizraim.

zodiacs found in the ruins of Estne and Dendara are specimens of that instrument. The true system of astronomy, supposed by many to be the achievement of modern science, was taught by Pythagoras five hundred and ninety years prior to the Christian era, and was probably derived by him from Eunophis, an Egyptian priest of On.

The healing art attained considerable maturity at a very early age. Facts were observed and classified, and deductions drawn, remedies were multiplied, experiments made, and temples dedicated to Esculapius. Knowledge was accumulated and transmitted, and much that is useful in medicine was known before the days of Hippocrates or Galen.

A period of energy, and effort, and light, ensued, comprehending the history of the palmy days of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and embracing a period of more In the fine arts no modern nation has ever been equal than two thousand years. The first and perhaps the to Egypt. Music, painting, and sculpture, were cultigreatest development of human intellect was in the vated among the Egyptians with a success to which no valley of the Nile. Egypt attained an elevation in subsequent age has ever yet approached. Greece rescience, arts, and song, to which the world must look ceived light from Egypt, and traced her footsteps. In up for ages to come. The pyramids, temples, obelisks, government, war, philosophy, art, poetry, refinement, columns, and colossal statues at Thebes, still remain, she has never been surpassed. Do you ask for her having resisted the desolations of time for many suc- lawgivers? History points to her Solen and Lycurgus. cessive centuries, and attest the power, the perseverance, For her orators? She pronounces the name of Deand the skill of Egyptian artizans. The shriveled mosthenes. For her warriors? She mentions Leoni

das and Xenophon. For her philosophers? She di- || Cæsars, or her Catos, she would have buckled on her rects to Pythagoras and Socrates. For her arts? She shield, and her legions would have rolled back the tide points to the Coliseum and Partheon, still rearing their of invasion, and planted the Roman eagle on the invasummits in the sunbeams. For her poets? She men- der's soil. tions Homer, and proudly challenges the present, or the past to name his equal.

The monks were the only individuals who paid attention to literature and science; nor did they all devote themselves to these pursuits-it was only here and there that a monk became learned. The mass of civ

This brings us to the third period, comprehending those times to which posterity has assigned the appellaThe human mind, though amply developed, both in tion of dark ages. During the long period of nearly Egypt and Greece, did not take the same direction in ten centuries, the human mind appeared to have lost both. Egypt cultivated the perceptive, Greece the nearly all its power; and the trophies which it had reflective faculties. Egypt surpassed in arts, Greece accomplished were buried in oblivion. Universal darkin science. Egypt observed facts, Greece drew deduc-ness prevailed. tions. The former studied external nature, the latter the internal microcosm. The one cultivated the arts that adorn, the other those that ennoble mankind. Egypt threw her wand upon the pencil and the chisel, and bade the marble breathe, and made the canvassilized mind was stereotyped, and appeared incapable of speak. Greece threw her charm upon the heart, and hushed the passions into calm, or whirled them into storm. The one imitated nature, the other vanquished her. The former arrested the current of life in silent admiration, by her combinations of color, form, and sound; the other held the heart pulseless by her vivid delineations of intense conception.

giving any other impression than that which the "Holy Mother" delineated. The priests spent their time in attending to the ceremonics of the Church, and the Pope and Cardinals were engrossed in managing affairs of state. The whole earth appeared to be wrapt in a pall of death, and the human race to proceed in one great funeral procession of age after age to eternity. The prevalence of Popery accounts for the condition of the public mind during the dark ages. The grand principle on which the Church of Rome stands is that the general intellect shall not be developed. Popery and general education are as incompatible as light and

The last period commences with the revival of letters, and extends to the present time. The Reformation and the revival of letters may be regarded as intimately

Rome followed Greece, but stopped far short of her. The impulse which the human mind had received appeared to have been in some degree spent before it reached the imperial city. Nevertheless, the works of ancient Rome are among the noblest triumphs of man, and her language is the repository of some of the rich-darkness. est treasures of human thought. Long as literature and science are cultivated, or the earth is the abode of man, the works of Tribonian, Virgil, Cicero, and cotemporaneous writers, will be subjects of the highest ad-connected, if not in the relation of cause and effect. It miration. We need no other proof of Roman greatness is certain that no general revival of learning could have than Roman language. It is precisely adapted to con- taken place without the influence of the Reformation. vey strong thought and intense feeling. We may form The grand question between the Reformers and the a very good idea of a nation's intellect by its language. Pope was this, Shall there be but one or many minds? That of France is just such as a versatile, volatile peo-There were many minor points, but this was the grand ple, like themselves, would desire-formed for colloqui-one. The Pope could easily have adjusted the numer al purposes. That of modern Italy seems designed for ous inferior matters in dispute between Luther and the love songs, the only effort for which the emaciated mind Chair of St. Peter; but he could not yield his pretendof its inhabitants appears to be adapted. The language ed right to control the world's intellect. He said, of Rome is fitted for the most majestic movements of "There shall be but one mind on earth; viz., my own." mind. Here Luther joined issue, and maintained that there should be as many minds as there are men.

Since the Reformation the progress and diffusion of

Under the influence of luxury and vice, Rome gradually declined, until at length she was overrun by successive hordes of barbarians, by whom the most val-knowledge have been both rapid and uninterrupted. uable productions of her art were despoiled, and her land which was as the garden of Eden, became converted into a desolate wilderness.

The discovery of the art of printing and the mariner's compass, the introduction of the Baconian philosophy and the application of steam to the purposes It is melancholy to behold the empress of the world, of art, have done much to prepare the way for general who had crushed beneath her iron footsteps Carthage, education. Several important political events have conPontus, and Judea, and whose chains, at one time, ev-tributed largely to the same end. I refer to the Amerery nation, from Gaul to India, were proud to wear, ican Revolution, the French Revolution, and the wars trampled beneath the brutal tread of Huns, Goths, and of Napoleon; the first resulting in the establishment Vandals. The reason was apparent. She neglected of free government on our own shores, and the two the education of her sons. It was not because she had latter in the breaking up of long settled forms of tyranno gunpowder that she fell. She would have fallenny and ecclesiastical usurpation, and all contributing to with an armory in every village, and a magazine in extend the belief that mankind ought to think for every house. Had she possessed the spirit of her themselves.

We can but mourn when we contemplate the blood- || Nearly all the German states have imitated the Prusshed of revolutionary France; but may we not con- sian system; and several of them have brought it to ceive that even that disastrous event had a powerful the same perfection as Prussia herself. If we cast our influence in undermining the foundations of venerable eyes toward Turkey and Egypt, we shall see that even superstition, and extending liberal principles and pro- the sublime Porte has caught the general spirit, and moting general knowledge? transferred it to the Pacha, to spread over the land of Sesostris and the Pharaohs, once the cradle of science and the arts.

It is customary for us to regard with wonder verging upon Atheism, the man who, more terrific than the image in prophetic vision, "which had legs of iron and arms of brass," laid waste the fairest portions of modern Europe. He raises his head to the heavens and bids defiance to earth-he advances, and obstacles sinkhe strikes, and thrones crumble-he commands, and armies wither-he walks abroad, and nations are crushed. Earth curses him, heaven frowns upon him; for he desolates one and blasphemes the other. Yet he sprang not from the dust, nor did his victories come by chance. There were other eyes than those of man that surveyed his march, and other means than human hands that arrested his career.

In our own country education is becoming general. To New England belongs the honor of first providing, by law, for popular education. Her noble example has been followed with various degrees of spirit and of wisdom by most of the other states of the Union.

The General Government has not been an idle spectator of these movements of the sisters of the confederacy. She has assigned to the new states (besides occasional donations) the thirty-sixth part of all the lands within their chartered limits for the purposes of general education. Indeed, to our country we must look for the origin of all those plans of general educaIf we turn our attention to Europe, we shall find tion which have been brought to such perfection in that a day of general knowledge has already begun. Europe. We believe that when the wisest of modern The parochial schools of Scotland have long been ad- monarchs, Frederick William III., ascended the throne mirable. The subject of general education receives of Prussia, New England had a common school sysmuch attention in England, and although ecclesiasti- tem matured by many successive years of reflection cal and political institutions present an insuperable and experience. He saw America free-he believed barrier to the establishment of any efficient system of her institutions would prove permanent—he knew that common schools adequate to the wants of the British freedom was contagious, and that the example of Amernation, yet legislative and private munificence are suf-ica would be followed by the other nations of the world, ficient to secure the blessings of education to the hum-unless monarchies were rendered popular. To accomblest walks of life.

plish this object he devised an admirable expedient, viz., the education of his people; thus making the crown the source of the highest blessings that can descend from human governments, and endearing the monarch to his subjects. Many crowned heads have already perceived his wisdom, and imitated his example. The throne of an enlightened people is a danger

rope will soon contain; and the question among monarchs is, whether thrones shall be abolished, or made obedient to the popular will.

The common school system is acquiring daily efficiency and extension in France. The Citizen King is acquiring enduring popularity by elevating the general mind of the great nation which he rules, and which has so often been fertile in wars and wickedness. There is much to commend in the spirit which has long prevailed on the subject of the diffusion of knowl-ous seat; yet such is the only kind of people that Euedge in Switzerland, and much to admire in the public and private institutions of that independent people. In Sweden the most liberal views have long been entertained in relation to education. She has a common It is enough to make Americans blush to observe school, supported at the public expense, in every con- what despotic governments have accomplished with a siderable town. The University of Upsal has an en-system borrowed from ourselves. If republics standviable reputation; and the general education is a prom-ing alone cannot endure without popular education, inent object of consideration with the Swedish govern- how can they stand in the light of monarchies which ment. The parochial schools of Denmark are equal to outstrip them in virtue and intelligence? those of Scotland; and her metropolis, Copenhagen, is Although education is rapidly extending, much reone of the great centres whence radiate the rays of mains to be done before its universal diffusion. Milscience and civilization over the world. Even Catho- lions are in total ignorance. It was the opinion of a lic Spain and Italy are awake on the subject of educa- late monarch, that out of ten millions of the adult poption. In Russia and Austria common schools and sem-ulation of a civilized nation scarce one thousand were inaries are erected, teachers are educated, and an am-well informed. If we limit our view to our own counple course of instruction is pointed out by law. More-try we shall find much to be done. In some of the over, the children are not only provided for but com-states the systems are partial, and in others there are pelled to avail themselves of the legal provisions for radical defects. The necessity of universal education their advantages. is obvious to all. There are peculiar reasons why education should be general in our own country. We need intelligence to bring out the treasures of our land, a land which, extending from the lakes to the gulf, and from

Of the system of Prussia we need scarcely speak. It is the best that was ever devised, and will long be the model for all the enlightened nations of earth.

TO REBECCA.