arts; and scientific institutions and learned and literary societies established for philosophers and other men of letters. Men of the busiest activity might spare a portion of every day for some of these pleasures; the laboring arm might cease from its toil in season to allow to the mind an hour or two for reading and contemplation; the conflicts of the forum, the arduous duties of the pulpit, and the anxieties of the sick chamber, might be forgotten for a while in the portico, and in the groves of the academy. In this way men would daily be turned aside, for a short time, from that one unchanging round in which they are accustomed to walk-their minds would have lighter fancies to feed upon, the wrinkled brow would smooth, the hard, anxious. business face would brighten, political asperity would soften, religious rancor would sweeten, and the habit of meeting on common ground, and of exchanging courteous salutations, would soon lead to the interchange of friendly feelings. The education of the world would thus be brought into harmony with the education of the school, and we should no longer be compelled, as we now are, day after day, to give up something of the "frankness and freshness of our first nature-of the devotedness and true-heartedness of youth."

If the principal author, whom we have followed in this article, mistakes not for realities the pictures of his own benevolent spirit and bright fancy-if any good portion of the happy influences which he claims for education can fairly be hoped from it-no human interest can be compared with it, and no excuse can be given for neglecting to make the most ample provision for it; the cost may be considerable, but not a tithe of what is wasted upon idle pleasures and vicious indulgences, and we are not to put gold and silver in the scale against the most precious interests of humanity, and let the former predominate: if we are too selfish to make the necessary advances for the rising and the future generations, why not draw upon posterity, and pledge the whole country from the Atlantic to the Pacific as collateral; it will all belong to them, and out of it they will surely pay the draft; we do such things every day for internal improvements, and other objects of infinitely less consequence; in favor of such trading upon borrowed capital, even General Jackson would make an exception. We must find a better excuse we must say we have no faith in it, and that we have no right to say, until we have given it a fairer trial than we have yet done; and, therefore, if we mean to prove ourselves to be "the intelligent, shrewd, well-informed people," that we claim to be, and if we

are not willing that the despots of the earth shall show a greater regard to their subjects, than we, a free people, show for our children, we must take this matter in hand as earnestly as they do, and prove that we are no less sensible of its inestimable value. We have not only to act, but to be careful how we act; if we undertake to educate, we must see how we educate, "whether we give bread or poison-whether we hold forth to the eager appetite the fruit of the tree of life, or the fruit of the tree of knowledge only."

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The second general proposition, that national education should be universal, is, when applied to these states, an identical one, for the nation is composed of all its citizens. There being no recognition in our country, as in Europe, of distinction of classes, if education be made a concern of the state at all, it must necessarily be for the whole people; and if there is any way in which that whole people can be made one people, it must be this. We know nothing, or we ought to know nothing, of high and low, cept as virtue or vice, ignorance or knowledge, makes men so. Men are rich or poor, as fortune may favor, and industry and skill accumulate, or idleness and incapacity obstruct-as prudence may economize, or extravagance waste; it is a distinction wisely provided in the economy of Providence, and must exist as long as the faculties by which it is produced are unequal-but it constitutes no moral nor political difference, and no proper obstacle to a certain equality of mental cultivation. All may, and all should, have an opportunity of improving their minds to such an extent as will place them on the common level of intelligent beings; it is a natural right and a civil obligation; those to whom God has given the talent, and their own good fortune the means, have the same right to the use of these privileges in attaining all the distinction, and honor, and elevation, which the highest knowledge may confer upon them. We see not how these positions can be disputed.

That national education should be provided with permanent support, is the last proposition discussed by Mr. Wyse. He thinks it cannot be left to the government or to the people exclusively, but that both must participate to secure its accomplishment on the one side, and to keep up an interest in it on the other-the government originating and establishing, the people aiding and maintaining; and herein the correctness of his views is confirmed by our own experience. Wherever the people have been freed from the necessity of personal contributions for the support of education, it has proved detrimental to its interests.

Several subjects, introduced incidentally into the body of the work, such as mutual instruction, classification of teachers, selfexamination, classification of school courses and schools, are more fully treated in an appendix. The practical operation of all these principles, as exhibited in the various institutions for education in all parts of the civilized world, is to form the subject of a second volume, not yet published. Thus it appears that no great topic connected with education will have been omitted, when Mr. Wyse's comprehensive plan shall be completed; in the theoretical part, which we have now been noticing, no omissions has been discovered: but we should have been pleased with a fuller expression of his opinion on private education, had it properly belonged here, and also on female education, of which he speaks only in a note; that, however, is sufficient to show that he is strongly in favor of home education for females, in all possible cases.

We intended a fuller notice of the other works which stand at the head of this article, but as they treat of the same topics as Mr. Wyse's, and less copiously than his, our attention has necessarily been mainly directed to him.

In taking up this subject, it was our purpose to treat it somewhat more lightly, and expose the numerous false pretences, and impositions of the hosts of charlatans, who dishonor education with their mummeries; but the guide we have followed led to a soberer path, and called up more solemn contemplations, and made us feel that we were treading upon holy ground. If we had looked at it only in its secondary purpose of imparting knowledge, and marked what ridiculous follies have had the sanction of its name, it might fairly have been the subject of a set of Hogarth sketches. In that light, however, it can no longer be viewed-it is as the purifier of the moral atmosphere, and the safe conducter of that impetuous energy which is now displayed in all the great movements of society, that it presents itself to the consideration of every friend of man. On that ground let its appeals be urged, and let its friends confine its claims to the fair limits of its power, and make for it no arrogant pretensions to supersede the necessity of a holier mission, and it must receive the aid and support of every benevolent mind. The grand experiment of its efficacy on social man must be tried in our own country; we have declared that freedom is a common rightwe must endeavor to prove it a blessing.

ART. VIII.-Life of Joseph Brant-Thayendanegea: including the Border Wars of the American Revolution, and Sketches of the Indian Campaigns of Generals Hurmar, St. Clair, and Wayne; and other matters connected with the Indian relations of the United States and Great Britain, from the peace of 1783 to the Indian peace of 1795. By WILLIAM L. STONE. New York: George Dearborn & Co. 1838. 2 vols. 8vo.

IDENTIFIED as we are in name with NEW YORK, and anxious to seize upon every opportunity of illustrating her literary resources, it is with peculiar pleasure that we take up an original work, embracing a most interesting portion of her anuals. The border story of our frontier state-the battle-field of three European wars, and the scene of interminable Indian conflicts alike with the Dutch, the French, and the English colonists, is abundantly rich in romantic incident: but while the most laborious researches have been expended upon the early annals of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and others of the older states, the field of the biographer and historian has been comparatively neglected with us; and our Indian wars, particularly—although so important, both from the number of men engaged in them, the stake for which they fought, and the modern results of nearly two centuries of continual strife-receive but passing notice in the general histories of the country..

Indeed we have still to go to the old French writers if we would learn the early deeds of those fierce cantons, whose indomitable valor and confederated patriotism compelled La Hontan, and other authors, to liken them to the brave Swiss, when-like that gallant people—they interposed the only obstacle to the descent of the French armies upon the fertile fields of the south.

The Indians of the lakes, and more especially the shy and imaginative Chippewas, with their strange traditions, and their poetic parables told in their shifting fishing camps, have often found an able and learned depicter of their manners and customs in Governor Cass and Mr. Schoolcraft; the brave Atlantic tribes of New England have had their history written. upon many a page; the noble deeds of Pocahontas has interwoven the story of her people with the annals of Virginia; the credulous labors of the Moravian missionaries have kept

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the fables of the Delawares from perishing; and Irving has made classic ground of the prairies, in painting their Bedouinlike rovers. But the proud and tameless Iroquois, who for half a century of his protracted reign, withstood the well appointed armies of Louis XIV, a people who, in the words of Dewitt Clinton, were contra-distinguished from all others upon this continent by their attainments in polity and in eloquence, in negotiation and in war, are fading away with but few memorials of their mighty race.

The meagre but still valuable work of Governor Colden was compiled alike during the intervals of pressing official duties, and at seasons already devoted to the abstruse mathematical studies which formed the chief delight of that accomplished scholar. His "History of the Five Nations," published in parts at long intervals, was given to the world rather as an earnest of something better than as a finished work of itself. It is since his day, too, that the annals of the Iroquois (or Aganuschion, as they called themselves) have been most intimately interwoven with those of our republic; and, indeed, unless the historian had recourse as well to the papers of the Dutch West India Company, as to the writings which have treated of the settlement and early wars of New France, it would have been impossible for him to have presented a full view of his subject.

"The Romans of America," as Volney, and Governeur Morris (Discourse before the New York Historical Society, 1812) have termed the Six Nations, though far behind the Mexicans and Peruvians in civilization, yet when compared with the barbarous tribes by which they were surrounded, excelled them as much in their political and social organization, as did those famed nations of the south the naked savages upon their borders. "When you speak of the Five Nations in France, (said Monsieur de La Poterie, a century since,) they are thought by a common mistake to be mere barbarians, always thirsting after human blood; but their true character is very different. They are indeed the fiercest and most formidable people in North America; but, at the same time, are as politic and judicious as well can be conceived; and this appears from the management of all the affairs which they transact, not only with the French and English, but likewise with almost all the Indian nations of this vast continent.”

The federal league of the Six Cantons, their "Central Council Fire," or grand representative assembly, with the distinct and well defined powers, alike of their general congress