vain-glorious and ignorant pedagogue, would lessen our surprise that so few well-armed scholars have been reared among us. But even this state of education has not wholly suppressed the reputation we may claim for distinguished examples of scholarship. In these days, of more critical acumen, the science of mind seems better comprehended, and studies apter for diversities of intellect, are selected with better judgment and urged with greater fidelity. I tax memory for a case in point under the older régime. I was a youngster at the same school in New-York with Washington Irving. Every thing, I believe, was professed to be taught by the Principal. I remember how rigid was his law in enforcing public speaking; every scholar was assuredly to be made a Cicero. The selections assigned to each speaker were according to the master's deeper knowledge of the temperament and physical qualities of the scholar. "Pity the sorrows of a poor old man!" was given me. To young Irving, who had the advantage of more years, capacity, and strength, was assigned the heroic speech, "My voice is still for war." That my own exhibition was a sorry affair may be readily admitted; but what are we to think of the sedate, the peaceful and benignant Irving, whose bellicose propensities have never yet been developed, and whose organ of combativeness no phrenologist has yet discovered, selected to appear before a large assemblage to display the heroic impulses of a son of Mars! Time, however, has proved the futility of the instruction and the folly of the instructor; and Mr. Irving, while he smiles in secret at the discipline of his school-boy days, may rest satisfied that he wears a chaplet of greater lustre and more lasting glory than ever adorned the warrior's brow.
Life, physical and mental, is the result of association; we are portions of all around us. The harmony of the physiological organization preserves the one; the intellectual stores received by perception sustain the other. By association, the cerebral faculties become more capacious and of wider grasp, and judgment enlarges her sphere and acts with greater wisdom and justice. I would that truths founded on such a basis were more generally recognized, and that opinions and decisions were made on such organic principles. Association, not segregation, is the ladder we ascend, the
