1856.] Praetical Education. 215 



wealth and honor are open to all, and the glittering prizes dazzle and 

 gleam in the distance, filling the entire vision of the soul, and creating 

 within it longings that can never be satisfied short of actual possession ; 

 and the great question, especially of the American youth, is how this 

 can be done in the shortest possible period. 



In their eager haste suddenly to amass wealth, which is generally the 

 fruit of years of toil ; and to reap honors in the spring time, while yet 

 unused to the sickle, many young men, advised by those who should act 

 the part of wiser counsellors, neglect those preliminary exercises — that 

 rigid intellectual drill, in the school of discipline, that will give nerve 

 and vigor, solidity and depth, to the mind, and thus make it an engine 

 of power, to accomplish whatever it wills to do. "Without such training, 

 man is like the noisy brook, waiting for no tributary, but rushing down 

 the mountain brow, only to be lost in the sunshine and soil of the plain ; 

 but with it, he resembles the mighty river, moving majestically onward 

 to the ocean, bearing before it and on it every opposing force. 



When the human mind wakes into a consciousness of its existence, 

 and observes the relations which it sustains to the external world, it 

 discovers that earth, air, and water — indeed, that all the elements in 

 nature may be controlled, and, in many important respects, made sub- 

 servient to its interest and pleasure ; and hence, when any new object 

 is discovered, the inquiry is at once made : " To what use can it be 

 applied?" So also, when any new subject is presented to the mind for 

 investigation, or any study proposed for its improvement ; when any 

 new proposition is to be demonstrated, or rule learned, even in the more 

 elementary studies, the practical utility is the first thing that is to be 

 investigated ; and when the mind conceives this to be demonstrated, it 

 will pursue the study with alacrity. 



When we look at the languages of Greece and Eome, in which are 



embodied great thoughts, which breathe, even now, as their living soul 



when we look forward into the winding labyrinths of mathematical 

 science, whose principles are never applied by the merchant in computing 

 the value of his merchandise, or by the farmer in estimating the value 

 of his products — when we consider that in order to master these, years 

 of toil must be spent over paradigms and formulas, not one of which will 

 ever be applied in the practical business of life, we shrink back from the 

 Herculean task. 



While it is true that every study which cannot in some form or other 

 be made to bear upon some important good ; while action, vigorous and 

 useful action, is the great end of life in our present state of existence, 

 still we should so discriminate while using our literary pruning knife, as 



