of the Regius Professor, who last carried the highest honours of his college. If he is a Bachelor or Master of Arts, such is reckoned a sufficient qualification to enable him to discharge the duties of a tutorship. Yet though his mind may be filled with all the lore of antiquity, and all the science of modern times, he is not on that account one whit the better qualified for the task to which he has been selected. Nay, more, the high eminence he has gained is only a collateral proof that he is less qualified. His own mind, amid the complexities of mathematics, and the subtleties of logic, must be drawn far away from the simplicity necessary to communicate elementary knowledge to young children, and the distance vast indeed, between his own and the unsophisticated mind of the pupil upon whom he has been chosen thus to experiment. To such a person, indeed, the monotonous drudgery of teaching the mere elements of knowledge is often painful in the extreme. Having no specific knowledge of any art in training, he wants the power necessary to break down his own acquirements, and turn them to account in educating children. The labour may be immense, but the result fruitless. He may exhaust his own energy and patience, but the task be still unperformed. He has to wade through the depths of his own learning before he effects a landing on common ground with his pupil. He forgets the rude condition of the boy's mind, and appeals to it in terms as unintelligible as the ideas he is attempting to explain; and as he can perceive no progress on the part of his pupil, he most probably will relapse into a state of careless indifference regarding his work altogether, ascribing his ill success to the stupidity of his charge, or to anything but a want of method in himself. Besides, as the duties of a tutorship are so often undertaken by collegians from hard necessity, or the hope of gaining

patronage, they must be but superficially performed. It is made a stepping-stone to something better, and, like a stepping-stone, its duties are trampled upon, while the mind is busily engaged in quest of obtaining a higher and more eligible position in society. They are performed rather to please the patron than to benefit the pupil, whose temper and disposition are much less studied than the whims and caprices of the former, or, if studied, it may only be as a means of gaining an ascendency over the mind of the parent.

The same erroneous principle which is here spoken of guides the selection of masters for all public schools of the better classes. It is the talent of the individual that procures him the situation. If a Latin or Greek master be wanted to teach the mere elements of these languages in a grammar school, the profound scholar is fixed upon, he whose memory is best stored with the customs, laws, and manners of ancient Greece and Rome, the history of their battles and conquests, their superstitions and mythologies, and who can himself best translate and write their beautiful but dead languages. The amount of his own abstract knowledge in ancient literature is taken as a proof of his skill in communicating its elements, and the length of time taken to acquire this knowledge held as a guarantee of his fitness for an art to which he has devoted no time. Or, if a mathematical master be required, the fortunate student at Cambridge is the successful candidate. It is seldom suspected that his high qualities will scarcely ever be needed in the situation. he is to fill. His aptitude for imparting knowledge is seldom taken into account, or thought of only as a secondary matter. Now, such qualifications may indeed render him eligible as a professor, where less art is necessary in teaching, because he would have to operate upon

more matured intellects; but for elementary and juvenile grammar and other schools, the mere attainments of the master are secondary pre-requisites. If he is a person of the most ordinary attainments, and able to communicate all he knows, he is a most successful teacher indeed. The successful prize-taker at Oxford, or senior wrangler at Cambridge, would never, in all probability, communicate half so much. The abstruse mind of a deep student can have but little sympathy with the intellectual weaknesses of ordinary humanity, much less with the wayward dispositions and eccentric freaks of light-hearted children. Let any one read Sir W. Scott's "Dominie Sampson," and he will there see no overdrawn picture of a specimen of this class. It is evident, that, with all that individual's kind and affectionate manner, his profound learning, and however much Lucy Bertram excelled in the "tongues," and her lost brother might also have done, the chasm was no less "prodigious" between his own abstract and absent intellect and the mind of his pupils, than his unwieldy body was greater than theirs. And Sir W. Scott's example and memorable opinion, in the selection of a governess for his own daughters, is a much better testimony still. A young lady "whose temper and disposition" would be in harmony with the children's, were supreme qualifications in his estimation. He cared little about what were usually called "attainments."

But the strangest part of the anomaly is, that, from these qualifications alone, coupled with a certain degree of clerical rank, is a tutor often selected to teach the mere rudiments of English,-an example of which, if it be not a merely nominal appointment, was lately given to the world in the choice of a preceptor for a pupil of the highest rank in the country. For such a charge, it certainly was not talent but tact that was wanted; not

deep learning, but facility in communicating its elements; not dignity, but playfulness of manner; not the precepts, but the guidance of morality. A man near sixty, however learned and amiable, can have but little sympathy, either mentally or morally, with a child not six, the formation of whose character will therefore be left virtually to the nursery governesses around him, and the menials who tend his physical wants. However well his manners may be regulated by courtly etiquette, the early development of his moral faculties will be in the power of servants, and take place most rapidly under the guidance of those whose active duties are of a different kind. Before he can discern the difference in the form of his alphabetical characters, his own character will have assumed a more definite form in the eyes of others. His mental and moral education will then formally commence under the most competent instructors that can be had, but whose moral effect being partly eradicative, will be half useless. An undoing of much must take place, before anything can be done. The best of precepts, and most illustrious of examples, will be exhibited for imitation, but if any contrary tendency may have been developed by previous nursery treatment, these will fail entirely to correct it. It may be softened by the breath of love, and moulded in a different direction by the most assiduous care, but the elasticity of the habit will cause it ever to return, and though modified, will retain a place in his nature, until the sceptre drop from his hands.

It is true, neither the political nor moral destinies of the country depend upon the chance character that may thus be formed. Fortified by a bulwark of laws and liberty, the British constitution is not dependent upon the caprice of a sovereign's will, but of how much moral influence is that will the source! and in the disposition

and character now forming in the future sovereign of these realms, may already have been implanted, much that may ultimately retard or advance the social happiness and prosperity of his empire. A king is the fountain of honour to all his subjects. How necessary, then, to cleanse and prepare the first springs which compose that fountain, that it may flow forth from the bosom of nature pure and unadulterated! He gives a tone not only to the manners, but the morals of those around him which often vibrates to the lowest depths of society, and if struck in unison with the pure morals of nature, will be caught up and re-echoed universally; but if pitched upon no higher key than a mere political morality, can only awaken a hollow response in the adamant breast of an interested faction.

While, therefore, such means are now at command for moulding and bringing to perfection the character of our young prince, and so much depending upon the result, it is to be hoped that no prejudice will stand in the way of bringing to the task all the light that science has evolved, and art can practise, in conducting his education. No want of sympathy would exist between the prince and the peasant, the ruler and the ruled, if all were alike the subjects of a moral government. On this, as a basis, should rest the education of every individual, as well as the laws, institutions, and government of every country.

In the selection of governesses, a similar error'prevails in judging of their qualifications. Among the higher ranks, it is generally young ladies belonging to decayed families that are preferred. So far, therefore, as forming the manners of the pupil is concerned, this will afford a pretty sure guarantee of their fitness. Adversity often. improves the manners, as well as refines the character of