of right and wrong, and blot out forever self-consciousness and self-respect. We are governed by circumstances just so far as to form a social brotherhood, and to teach wise men charity; and for the rest we are made to find within ourselves the reasons for our conduct, and to feel responsible for it. Man, relying upon himself, gathers facts from earth, and air, and heaven, and finds the laws that govern them; he seizes the principles, his own reason furnishes and constructs systems of Philosophy; he producesalmost creates forms of beauty in the arts; he establishes governments, and when they fail to subserve his ends, he alters or abolishes them; he casts off the shackles of despotism and slavery, and becomes a freeman; he triumphs over his passions and rules himself, and thus he learns the lesson of INDEPENDENCE.

But with this Independence, come bigotry, pride, obstinacy, pertinacity, dogmatism, tyranny. In their foolish reliance upon self, men become selfrighteous like the Pharisees of old, and vainly expect to purchase Heaven with merit of their own. They eat of the tree of knowledge, and would be gods. Then God stretches forth His hand, and flaming swords guard the entrance to Paradise which man has forfeited by disobedience; a flood cleanses the earth from wickedness; fire and brimstone rain down upon the devoted cities of the plain; Pharaoh's heart is hardened; thunders burst out from Sinai; prophets whose lips had been touched with fire from Heaven warn the nåtions; pomp and power are weighed in the balance and found wanting; men are afflicted, and, like Job, "abhor themselves,

and repent in dust and ashes;" riches take to themselves wings and fly away; and the rebellious are all brought down in heart, and cry upon the Lord in their troubles. In the fullness of time, the meek and lowly One appears and calls, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Multitudes, accept the call, and enter like little children into the Heavenly Kingdom; and thus learn the lesson of HUMILITY.

All goes to show that Independence ennobles Charity, and Humility softens Independence; and together they constitute the essentials of Manhood. We may now pluck the fruitage of all History: PEACE ON EARTH, LIBERTY TO MAN, and GLORY TO GOD.

CHAPTER VII.

INSTRUCTION IN THE ARTS.

ALL Schools should impart instruction in Writing, Drawing, and Vocal Music, and methods of teaching these School-Arts will be presented here in some detail; after which a few general observations will be made concerning Instruction in the Arts in General. This order is the reverse of that followed in the preceding Chapters, and places the particular before the general; but by so doing, while care is taken that nothing shall be lost in perspicuity, something will be gained in symmetry to the book as a whole.

I. Writing.

Writing is the art of making letters and combining them in words. The instrument used for this purpose at the present time is called a pen or pencil; in ancient times it was called a reed or style. The characters used in writing and printing are undoubtedly modifications of the same forms.

It is hardly necessary to say that Writing is a useful art. It seems indispensable in transacting the complicated affairs of modern society.

In learning to write, two objects must be kept in view: first, to make the writing legible; second, to make it beautiful. Without the attainment of the first object, Writing would be of no use, and with

out the attainment of the second it could never gratify the taste.

Writing is partly a mental, and partly a mechanical operation. As a mental operation, it consists in conceiving the forms of the letters, and, as a mechanical operation, it consists in executing those forms. It seems evident, therefore, that lessons in Writing are divisible into two classes: those which are designed to teach the conception of the forms of the letters, and those which are designed to give culture to the muscles used in Writing.

1. LESSONS DESIGNED TO TEACH THE CONCEPTION OF THE FORMS OF THE LETTERS.-In art, the ideal precedes the real; the conception of form precedes its execution. Painters place their mental pictures upon canvas, sculptors realize them in marble, and architects express them in wood and stone. With an imperfect ideal, its realization must be correspondingly imperfect. All this applies to Writing as to other arts, and a teacher of Writing should have lessons calculated to impress upon his pupils' minds the most correct and beautiful forms of the letters.

Some lessons on Form in general may be made valuable auxiliaries to this end.

Young children may be amused and instructed with blocks of different shapes and sizes, out of which buildings and articles of furniture may be made; blocks cut into sections which can be formed into various figures; and diagrams and blocks representing the figures and bodies used in Mathematics. No article of apparatus can be used more advantageously in giving lessons in Form than the

Chinese Puzzle. It consists of eight pieces peculiarly shaped. The pieces may be so arranged as to form a square, a triangle, a parallelogram, and hundreds of other figures. A book accompanies the pieces containing diagrams of the figures to be formed, but not indicating the positions of the pieces; and the problems consist in having certain figures given, to find the position of the pieces in forming them.

Lessons requiring the discrimination of the forms of natural objects, such as leaves, crystals, fruits, &c.; make more vivid the impressions of form.

Some teachers have placed boxes of sand before their pupils and required them to make various figures in the sand, and others have exercised them in tracing figures in the air with rods.

The experience of many good teachers seems to prove that pupils should receive instruction in the elements of Drawing before they begin to write, and that such lessons are better calculated than any others to aid the pupil in attaining the power of conceiving forms correctly.

To impress upon the minds of pupils the particular forms used in Writing, the following exercises will be found valuable:

The letters which have in script the simplest form, such as a, n, u, should first be presented to the pupils. These the teacher should make upon the blackboard. He should make them as neatly as possible, and impress their correct form upon the minds of the class by exhibiting the common departures from it. Each lesson should include but a few letters, as this renders the discussion of their pecu