mind skapade (shaped) he them." Here the word mind is used in the same sense as our English word "image," and as an equivalent for the original Hebrew, "y, a shadow, or representation given by a shadow." Man is a shadow of the Deity, and though comparatively dark, yet, like all shadows, beautifully exact-a spiritual daguerreotype-a mind from the great Eternal mind-❘ an image of God, and itself an imaging or imaginative being. It is not at all unreasonable to suppose that the word mind was employed at first to designate the soul as an imaging power, because in this consists one of its most essential properties. In fact, this capacity lies at the very foundation of all mental phenomena. Thinking is mental painting, intellectual imaging, without which memory, reasoning, invention, affection, and voluntary action would be impossible.

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In the word knowledge we have a term not altogether foreign from the ideas suggested above. Knowledge is allowed to come from the Greek "yivwoxw, I know;" and there is little doubt that this verb is of the same origin as vivoμas, to be," and " γεννάω, to produce or call into being." For what is knowledge but a collection of mental beings or things, a kind of intellectual progeny, which the mind has itself called into existence or obtained from others? The power to know, to accumulate knowledge, and to employ this knowledge in various ways according as circumstances may suggest, is the grand peculiarity of mind. Some have called the mind a mirror, but, if it is such, it is an active mirror; it can mirror the object after it is withdrawn, can repeat the impression, and sometimes, as in dreams, with greater vividness than the original, and can use its mental acquirements in a thousand ways for good or for evil.

We have not merely an aptitude for the reception of information, but naturally a most craving appetite for knowledge. Inquisitiveness, therefore, is among the essential attributes of mind. Children very early, even in infancy, exhibit this desire. The soul comes into the world a perfect blank; it has no ideas, but it has a thirst for knowledge, and perhaps its first volitions are put forth to obtain it. Almost every agreeable sensation gives it a zest for its repetition. Knowledge is nectar to the soul, "sweeter than the honey or the honeycomb." Hence, nearly as soon as it can express its wishes, the child wants everything that affords pleasure encored,—it must see the sight or hear the sound again; and this desire of knowledge, unless checked, increases. The infant mind seems essentially curious, and curiosity grows with its growth and strengthens with its strength; it is a query whether this propensity ever expires. The prying philosopher intermeddling with all knowledge is a bright example of its power: and the zest with which the old man peruses the newspaper, or the aged woman listens to any tale that is told, are developments of the same appetite for fresh knowledge. The highest authority in the universe has said, "Also that the soul be without knowledge it is not good;" or to read the Hebrew more literally, "The soul without knowledge is not good." Everything depends upon knowledge. Without it there could be neither memory, judgment, feeling, speech, nor action. Everything in art, science, and religion depends upon knowledge. The body is not more dependent upon food, than the character upon knowledge. Now, as it would have been fatal to the growth and maturity of the body if we had been born without those desires which we call hunger and thirst, so the mind would have remained in infancy all its days, but for its natural appetite for knowledge. We have, then, in the human soul, in the soul of every one originally, whether the individual be a savage, a peasant, or a prince, a pupil capable of instruction, and indeed thirsting for education. Were knowledge imparted in an intelligent, and therefore an interesting manner, there is not a child on the face of the earth but would take as much pleasure in being taught as in being fed. If we made food bitter and disagreeable, our children would dread for meal-time to come; and if we make knowledge nauseating, tuition will be a penance, and the school as loathsome as a prison. On the contrary, let knowledge be imparted in such a way as to interest the mind, and there will be no lack of apt scholars who will drink in instruction with all the zest with which the thirsty traveller drinks of the crystal stream. Hence, in the education of the young, the manner, as II. The mind has a great desire for know-well as the matter, deserves the deepest atledge.

The term

The word "idea" is frequently used as synonymous with knowledge. itself literally means a sight. Originally it was probably confined to such impressions as were received through the organs of vision, but it has long since lost this distinctive meaning, for we now hear of ideas of sound, of odours, and other sensations; it may, therefore, be said to be often employed in the same sense as knowledge, and, indeed, is a very convenient word to express the conceptions of the mind. It is hardly necessary here to observe, that to furnish this mental mirror with faithful representations or reflections of things-to set before this spiritual power the truth, or the true characters of the objects of study-to enable it to take off correct impressions, and then to use those impressions aright,-is the most important part of education. How far this has ever yet been done may be inquired into hereafter.

tention.

III. The mind is essentially sensitive.

The first is that of untutored, unphilosophic minds, to whom a large proportion of natural phenomena are as unintelligible as many of the hieroglyphics of the ancients. The second is that of philosophical inquiry, experiment, and registration, and is the age of laboratories, books, and profound study. The third is that of general education and intelligence, when every human being sees with a philosophic eye and hears with a scientific ear. In this age, nature is not only read, but understood, and her outward forms and inward structure are, to a great extent, comprehended. The planets are weighed, their distances and dimensions measured, and their velocities calculated to the minutest divisions of time; and the in

In the language of holy writ the soul is spoken of as being in "a tabernacle," or as "clothed with a mortal body." This earthly abode is not unfrequently called its prison, and therefore death, which is the period when the "spirit shall return to God who gave it," is represented as its release. This incarceration, or rather incarnation of the heavenly principle, is probably unfavourable to the full development of its powers. Still we cannot examine the body without admiring its adaptation to be the medium of intercourse between our souls and the material world. Through the eye we can become acquainted with the visible forms and beauties of creation; through the ear we can hear the sweet accents of nature and revela-ternal economy, as well as the peculiar extion, and especially that most wonderful of all the implements of thought, the human voice. One sense allows us to inhale the odours which our Heavenly father has compounded to delight and refresh us; while another enables us to taste the dainties with which he has bountifully loaded our table; and a third seems spread over every point of our body, both external and internal, that every part may be shielded by sensibility and thrill with the consciousness of life. These five senses are the windows of the soul; through them it can enrich itself to an indefinite extent with the wonders of creation, providence, and redemption.

some

ternal habits, of birds, beasts, fishes, and insects, clearly revealed. The grain of corn is watched in all its changes by vegetation, reproduction, transformation into food, into chyme, chyle, vital blood, bones, sinews, nerves, and muscles; until, having done its work, it returns again to its original elements, and commences a new cycle of miracles for the benefit of man and the glory of God. To tutor the soul and the senses to read, mark, learn, and digest these great truths, is one of the great ends of education. To be able thus to read God's name in all his works, the organs of sensations were given us, and until we can thus read and underThe eye and the ear are especially im- stand, we cannot be said to be educated. portant from the large store of knowledge All souls are essentially sensitive, and God that can be obtained through their instru- has employed as much skill in the construcmentality, and therefore with these the in- tion of the eye or the ear of a negro, a savage, structor of youth has especially to do. For or a clown, as on that of a Newton, a Milwant of proper training there are ton, or a Hall. And these delicate instruthousands who cannot use their eyes or ears ments of observation were not bestowed aright, and because they never duly exercise upon the soul in vain, nor were they granted their senses, are deprived of an immense that their possessor might merely be a maamount of the most valuable and pleasurable chine to raise cotton or sugar, or be the knowledge. Many animals of the lower passive tool for ambition, tyranny, bigotry, creation may have organs of sensation far and avarice to work with. God has made more acute than ours, but then they are des- nothing in vain, nor for a bad purpose. In titute of that immortal principle which en- all his works economy is as prominent as ables man to make such a god-like use of munificence: the insect that has a thousand these avenues to the soul. And never was lenses to its eye could not spare one without there a period when so many facilities were feeling the loss. The delicate organs and at hand to aid us in the right employment of organization which the entomologist has these material organs. When man first brought to light were not created in vain: looked on creation it was with the admiring the infant bee has hardly left its cell and but unscientific eye of a child; and ages mounted the air, but its sensibility is saluted rolled away before nature was subjected to by a thousand odoriferous invitations which the scrutinizing researches of science. But almost every plant and flower has sent forth for some years past the philosopher has been to allure it to its bosom, and it has only to abroad; has employed his tests, his cru- throw itself into the balmy current and it is cibles, his microscope, his telescope, his soon wafted to fields of beauty and rivers of quadrant and thermometer. He has experi- nectar. Here all is "good" and munificent, mented, reasoned, calculated, and registered but at the same time economical. Man has the results of his investigations. The print- no superfluous organs or powers, and his ing-press has come to his aid, and stands corporeal formation was intended not only ready to place his discoveries in the hands of to minister to his own happiness and that of every human being. There are three distinct others, but to conduce to the higher purages in the history of human observation. poses of mental education; to make him

a god-like being on earth, and to prepare | tion, as the after thinking and reasoning him for heaven. The exquisite sensibility of the soul renders it peculiarly susceptible of knowledge; the senses are beautifully adapted to be the mediums of instruction; and the world of matter and of mind, in all their infinite variety, are intended to supply it with endless information and pleasure. Thus we have all that we need for the education of that immortal principle which God has called into being, and sent into this world to be instructed and inspired with everything truly great and benevolent. But how have we used these resources? Let the present intellectual and moral condition of the world supply an answer.

irreligion? To give correct and profitable | tion are at a distance. Had his first imideas to the mind, and to teach it to use pressions been as fleeting as the reflection them aright, is the perfection of education. in a mirror, neither malignant nor beneHence, all the instructors of the young volent purposes could have been entertained. should be themselves storehouses of all use- This essential property of mind constitutes ful knowledge, and models of practical no small portion of its greatness. Memory wisdom. Every foolish, impure, and irre- is not analysis, reasoning, nor affection: yet ligious sentiment should be banished from in a very large number of instances, if the school-room; in fact, everything likely memory were annihilated, there could be to produce a bad impression, should as early neither of these operations. Acquaintanceas possible be removed from the world. ship would cease, and every object when The mind has an appetite for ideas; it can- seen for the thousandth time would be as not exercise its senses without gaining new as when seen at first. Knowledge is knowledge of some description; and if it only a collection of ideas, and could not cannot obtain what is useful, it must feast exist apart from memory, because every upon what is injurious. It will in infancy thing would vanish as fast as it was perlive on such food as is spread before it. ceived. The long calculations of the matheThe child could as easily create the provision matician, the beautiful conceptions of the by which its body is nourished, as call into poet, and the subtle reasonings of the loexistence an intellectual and moral world. gician, would be impossible; and thus the The infant savage cannot surround himself most important exercises of the mind would with the scientific stores of civilization. The be unknown. But it is as natural for the infant committed to the care of ignorant mind to remember as it is for it to think: nursemaids or guardians, cannot transform indeed, memory is one of the most valuable them into suitable instructors of his youth. efforts of thought, and its store of ideas, He is passive in providing for his education, whether many or few, moral or immoral, but he is awfully active in the use that his true or false, furnishes aliment for all its soul is making of his tutors; and his cha- feelings, and gives impetus to all its actions. racter will feel the effects through every The character must be formed out of the maperiod of his existence. This apprehending terials contained in this mental treasury: faculty of the mind-this power to grasp "Out of the abundance of the heart the ideas, and to retain them for ever-and for tongue speaketh ;" and "from the heart are ever to use them for good or for evil,-lays us the issues of life." "A good man out of under the deepest obligation to guard the the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth young from all contaminating thoughts, and good things; and an evil man out of the to labour to the utmost to imbue them with evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." those ideas and sentiments which shall make Now it is allowed by all that we are born them as intellectual and moral as the Father without a single idea, and therefore these of their spirits intended them to be. good or evil treasures must have been acquired by means of instruction and observation, and the memory has been the receptacle or storehouse in which they have been laid up.

V. The mind possesses the power of collecting vast stores of knowledge.

This faculty is generally called memory, or recollection. It is a different operation from that of merely apprehending or understanding what is subjected to our senses or proposed to our consideration. It is the recalling of ideas and impressions. It is connected with the reception of knowledge; because, if we had never been the recipients of ideas, we could never recall them. the re-collection of our thoughts is very different from the act of originally collecting them. In the darkest midnight, in the gloomiest dungeon, or at the distance of many thousands of miles, we may have the most vivid recollections of past sensations and impressions. It is by means of this faculty that the mind uses its knowledge. He who meditates revenge for an insult carries away with him to his retirement a deep sense of the real or supposed injury which he has received; and he who is devising means to relieve a case of distress, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, or instruct the ignorant, is exercising his sympathies although the objects of his commisera

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The memories of some may be much more capacious than others; but the weakest mind has the power of storing up an incalculable amount of knowledge, and therefore, in the cultivation of the young, we should be anxious to have the heart well furnished. Still This is one of the great branches of tuition on which everything else depends. might as well expect a field in which nothing useful has been sown, or in which every thing poisonous has been scattered, to yield a valuable and copious harvest, as to expect minds in which truth has never been deposited, or into which every thing vile has been instilled, to be intellectual and moral. "What a man soweth that also shall he reap: he that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully." How far those who conduct dame and other schools for the people have been qualified to enrich the minds of their pupils is a subject that demands the most serious inquiry.

It is a