HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 



pursuits were, to interfere m the slightest degree with 

 its duties. Yet he soon began to have higher aspirations, 

 and to cast a wistful eye toward the universities with 

 little hope of ever attaining their important advantages, 

 yet, probably, not without some hope, however faint. 

 There was at this time a magazine in publication, called 

 the Monthly Preceptor, which proposed prize themes for 

 boys and girls to write upon ; and which was encouraged 

 by many schoolmasters, some of whom, for their own 

 credit, and that of the important institutions in which 

 they were placed, should have known better than to en- 

 courage it. But in schools, and in all practical systems 

 of education, emulation is made the mainspring, as if 

 there were not enough of the leaven of disquietude in our 

 natures, without inoculating it with this dilutement — 

 this vaccine-vims of envy. True it is, that we need en- 

 couragement in youth ; that though our vices spring up 

 and thrive in shade and darkness, like poisonous fungi, 

 our better powers require light and air ; and that praise 

 is the sunshine, without which genius will wither, fade, 

 and die : or rather in search of which, like a plant that 

 is debarred from it, will push forth in contortions, and 

 deformity. But such practices as that of writing for 

 public prizes, of publicly declaiming, and of enacting 

 plays before the neighbouring gentry, teach boys to look 

 for applause instead of being satisfied with approbation, 

 and foster in them that vanity which needs no such 

 cherishing. This is administering stimulants to the heart, 

 instead of " feeding it with food convenient for it ; " and 

 the effect of such stimulants is to dwarf the human mind, 

 as lapdogs are said to be stopped in their growth by being 

 dosed with gin. Thus forced, it becomes like the sap- 

 ling which shoots up when it should be striking its roots 

 far and deep, and which therefore never attains to more 

 than a sapling's size. 



To Henry, however, the opportunity of distinguishing 

 himself, even in the Juvenile Library, was useful ; if he 

 had acted with a man's foresight he could not have done 

 more wisely than by aiming at every distinction within 

 his little sphere. At the age of fifteen, he gained a sil- 



