space filled with young shrimps, in the act of bounding into the air from the shallow margin of the water or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express delight it was this; if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what I have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment, what a sum, collectively, of gratification and of pleasure have we here before our view.

"The young of all animals appear to me to receive pleasure simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties. A child is delighted with speaking without having anything to say, and with walking without knowing where to go; and prior to both these, I am disposed to believe that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see."

How desirable, nay, how enviable is that frame of mind which can reason thus, and find sources of happiness in watching the habits of the animal and vegetable world around them; that can see only happiness in an action, which appears at first sight to have no meaning, the leaping of a cloud of shrimps from the water; and where an uninquiring mind, or one of a gloomy temperament, would merely say, This is to avoid the danger of falling into the jaws of some fish-monster which is below the surface!

These are thy wond'rous works, first Source of good!
Now more admired in being understood.

Who can listen to the carol of the lark as he soars in the air, and seems so happy, without feelings of delight and without reflections rising in his mind which tend to make him both a better and a happier man? Who can witness the familiar habits of the robin, and see how contentedly he will perch himself on a neighbouring bush close to your side, and pour forth his song, without having his own feelings tempered down into harmony with nature ?-How can man in the midst of all this, which points out the intention

of an all-wise Creator, think that he of all God's creatures is the only one intended to be unhappy!

No!-let him learn to admire the beauties of naturelet him learn to occupy his hours of leisure in trying to understand them-to find

Tongues in trees-books in the running brooks-
Sermons in stones-and good in everything.

Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish man,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life
Shall e'er prevail, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the morn
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk,

And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee; and, in after-years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations!

Nature, enchanting Nature, in whose form
And lineaments divine I trace a hand

WORDSWORTH.

That errs not, and find raptures still renew'd,
Is free to all men- - universal prize!

Strange that so fair a creature should yet want
Admirers, and be destined to divide

With meaner objects e'en the few she finds.

COWPER.

How important the bearing and influence which such trains of thought, inculcated in youth, might have in every class of life it would be wise to consider; how little they have hitherto had, is humiliating to think. A dry remark, many years ago, in a college lecture-room, occurs to me as

full of meaning, although at the time intended for sarcasm. Asking an undergraduate a question on the refraction of light, with which he was not acquainted, and who answered, "he did not know much about refraction," the lecturer dryly added, "nor about reflection either, I am afraid." I hope this will not be lost upon the schoolmaster; not that I wish him to make his remarks in the same spirit.

That the sphere of enjoyment of the labouring and middle classes might be enlarged by education there can be no doubt; and it was observed by a celebrated moralist, more than a century ago, that "man in all situations in life should endeavour to make the sphere of his innocent pleasures as wide as possible, that he may retire into them with safety, and find in them such a satisfaction as a wise man would not blush to take; for although the world may not be so happy as that we should be always merry, neither is it so miserable as that we should be always melancholy."

With respect to that part of the instruction in the foregoing pages which is of a scientific kind, I would say (and I do so from a feeling of conviction which experience gives), that in no way can the teachers in our higher class of elementary schools give such a character of usefulness to their instruction, as by qualifying themselves to teach in these subjects; introducing simple and easy experiments, which illustrate the things happening before their eyes every day, and convey conviction with them the moment they are seen and explained. It is a great mistake to suppose that boys of twelve and thirteen years of age cannot understand elementary knowledge of this kind, when brought before them by experiment; seeing the way in which the bigger boys were interested in it here, and the tendency it had to raise the standard of teaching, and to give rise to a wish for information, it has proceeded further than I at first contemplated—the result has been, that the school is provided with sufficient of a philosophic apparatus for all the common experiments of a pneumatic and hydrostatic kind, a small galvanic battery, an electric apparatus, etc. One little book, used as a text-book, is a

volume of Chambers's Edinburgh books, "Matter and Motion," and this is illustrated by experiment.

The end of all education ought to be, to prepare the rising generation for those duties and those situations in life they are called upon to fulfil—whether they be "hewers of wood or drawers of water," of those who belong to the labouring, the middle, or the upper classes in life, to make them in their respective stations good citizens and good Christians; and I think it will be found that, according as a teacher keeps this in view, making his instruction bear upon the ordinary duties of life, or loses sight of it (I am speaking of a teacher competent to his work), he will succeed, or the contrary. I am perfectly convinced that many well-meaning efforts have not been attended with the success expected from them, entirely owing to their leaving out all instruction relating to the occupations by which they were, in after-life, to earn their bread.

Although these hints are addressed to the schoolmaster, I am not without hope that they may be of some use to many in my own profession, and to others who take an interest in advancing the happiness and respectability of the uneducated classes in this country.

The schoolmaster, especially in the present state of things, is not able to do all that is wanted. He is very often insufficiently educated himself—his social position is not what it ought to be the poor are inclined to resist his authority over their children-to send impertinent messages through them, etc., so that, at first, he wants strengthening in these respects. Then, again, the more wealthy do not place him in that scale of society that he ought, from his usefulness, to be placed in.

In saying this, I am not seeking for him a better position than the interests of society require that he should have. and which, in the end, his own usefulness will work out for him; there is no doubt that the schoolmaster who conducts himself well-who can succeed in raising the standard of education in his school, and in making it what it ought to be, and what it hitherto has not been, a benefit to all classes around him—will establish claims upon all, the labourer, the tradesman, and the farmer, and upon all in

his locality, which will cause him to be estimated in a very different way, and place him in a very different position from that which he has hitherto held. At present, ignorance, and jealousy arising from it, produce in many of the uneducated a sort of dislike to all the instruments of education- a sort of jealous feeling, the result of which is to endeavour to bring all those leaving school to a level with themselves to make them mere masses of clay, animated, it is true, but in every other respect a mere bundle" of ignorance.

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Notwithstanding all the difficulties with which education is beset, but which must prove less and less every year, I hope many of those who persevere in this useful work may live to see the labouring classes of this country much more enlightened than they are at present much more respectable in their conduct honest, manly, and straightforward in everything they have to do-not looking upon insolence as independence, which ignorance does, but feeling that it is a duty which they owe to themselves to be respectful to their superiors, civil and obliging, neighbourly and kind to all about them, and that, when they fail in these things, they are wanting in their duty both to God and man.

It is painful to observe how the uneducated classes, the labourer and those above him, will sometimes, from pure ignorance of what is due to themselves, go out of their way to insult others, from a feeling that this is, as they call it, showing their independence. When I see this, I am always sorry that it does not occur to them, that in doing so they are only lowering themselves in the scale of humanity and of civilization, and that feelings of self-respect ought to deter them from it; education will teach that it does not, at least ought not, to belong to civilised life.

As a means of animating those who, from their situation in life-from their education or their position, may have it in their power to assist in advancing the cause of education in their own neighbourhoods, I can only say, if they once experience the heartfelt satisfaction which arises in contrasting the state of the educated child with that of the totally uneducated one-the intelligent countenance of the