instances, do not, as a body, exhibit the same tenacity and perseverance in pushing knowledge to its farthest limits as academic men of equal power. Their disposition, in most instances, is to be content with what I will call proximate knowledge,—that which lies about them and can be turned to immediate account. It is in current politics, in general literature, and in popular matter of thought, that they move and have their being; upon the laborious tracks of abstract science, or difficult and extreme speculation, they do not so often enter. Or if occasionally, we do see a self-taught geologist, a self-taught botanist, or a self-taught mathematician, then, not unfrequently, there is an egotistic exultation over the labor gone through, and an exaggerated estimation of the particular science overtaken in its relations to the whole field of knowledge. There is too much, so to speak, of the spirit of the private soldier, whose idea of the field is but the recollection of his own movements. There are, I repeat, examples of self-educated men of so high an order as to be free from these faults. Still, I believe what I have said will be found, in the main, correct. Nay, abroad in society generally there is, I believe, too much of that spirit of contempt for the high, the profound, and the elaborate, in the way of speculation, which the worldly success of half taught men of good natural abilities is calculated to foster.

Even supposing that men could map out the field of knowledge for themselves, determine at a glance into what great orders of ideas the past thought of the human race could be best distributed for the purposes of study, and spontaneously go to work upon these in the right spirit, still, in the detailed prosecution of any study by means of books, assistance would be necessary. Accordingly, one use of colleges is that they direct and systematize reading. The art of recommending good books, and of leading on from one book to another, is one of the most useful qualifications of a teacher, and it may be carried to extraordinary perfection. Perhaps, indeed, we do not sufficiently attend to this function of colleges; perhaps we do not sufficiently attend to the fact that, since colleges were first instituted, their place in the general system of education has been greatly changed. When colleges were first instituted, books were scarce, and difficult of access; men were then their own encyclopædias; and, every Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, or other ornament of a university, was bound to be a walking incarnation of the totum scibile. Hence, a course of lectures in those days was expected to be,--whatever might be its other merits,—a digest of all accessible information on the subject treated. Now, however, that there exist, on all subjects, books which it is impossible for even the best living thinker wholly to supersede, such lectures of a mere digest and detail are out of place; and, the business of teachers is rather to direct the reading of the pupils, and to reserve their original disquisitions for those points where they can hope to modify and extend what has been previously advanced.

Quite as much now as in those remote times when colleges were first set up in Europe they afford to youth that highest of all educational privileges, the chance of coming into personal contact with men either of original speculative power in their several departments, or of unusual fervor and enthusiasm, kindling into zeal all that come near them, and imparting life and fire to all that they touch. I have spoken of the wonderful efficacy of this influence casually encountered in society; but, it is the very nature of colleges to concentrate it and make it accessible.

Finally, I believe there is something in the oral method of conveying knowledge,

whether after the tutorial or after the professorial fashion, but, perhaps, most effective in the latter, which fits it to perform certain offices of instruction far better than they could be performed by private communion with books. I will not enlarge on this topic. I will only say, that it appears to me that the forms and circumstantials of oral teaching are such that any thing in the shape of a general doctrine or principle is far more expeditiously and impressively inculcated, in this mode, through the ear, than it can usually be taken in through the eye; and that, consequently, any science, such as political economy, the proper teaching of which consists in the slow infiltration into the minds of the pupils of a series of such general doctrines, one by one, as well as those parts of all sciences which consist of massive single propositions, can be best taught by lectures and examinations. Curiously enough, this is precisely that function of colleges which, after the revolution in our educational system, caused by the increase of books, would still, at any rate, be reserved for them.

[The views of the efficiency of oral or professorial teaching, so felicitously expressed by Prof. Masson in the above extracts, are held by Prof. Vaughan, in his pamphlet entitled "Oxford Reform and Oxford Professors."]

The type is a poor substitute for the human voice. It has no means of arousing, moderating, and adjusting the attention. It has no emphasis except italics, and this meagre notation can not finely graduate itself to the needs of the occasion. It can not in this way mark the heed which should be specially and chiefly given to peculiar passages and words. It has no variety of manner and intonation, to show, by their changes, how the words are to be accepted, or what comparative importance is to be attached to them. It has no natural music to take the ear, like the human voice; it carries with it no human eye to range, and to rivet the student, when on the verge of truancy, and to command his intellectual activity by an appeal to the common courtesies of life. Half the symbolism of a living language is thus lost when it is committed to paper; and, that symbolism is the very means by which the forces of the hearer's mind can be best economized, or most pleasantly excited. The lecture, on the other hand, as delivered, possesses all these instruments to win, and hold, and harmonize attention; and, above all, it imports into the whole teaching a human character, which the printed book can never supply. The Professor is the science or subject vitalized and humanized in the student's presence. He sees him kindle into his subject; he sees reflected and exhibited in him, his manner, and his earnestness, the general power of the science to engage, delight, and absorb a human intelligence. His natural sympathy and admiration attract or impel his tastes, and feelings, and wishes, for the moment, into the same current of feeling; and, his mind is naturally, and rapidly, and insensibly strung and attuned to the strain of truth which is offered to him.

One peculiarity and advantage, too, in this mode of communication, attends a comprehensive lecture, which is not shared by a book. All who hear it, must hear it at the same moment; it affects a large number of individuals at the same time; it, therefore, becomes straightway more or less a topic of conversation or conversational debate, in which the comparison and contribution of impressions tends to diffuse, and, in some degree, equalize, the benefit; especially in an academical city, where the dispersed audience quits the lecture-room to meet again in the halls and common-rooms of the university within a few hours.

XVIII. NOTICES OF BOOKS.

1.—Knowledge is Power; a view of the productive forces of modern society. By CHARLES KNIGHT. Revised and edited with editions by DAVID A. WELLS, A. M. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 12 mo. pp. 503.

An entertaining and valuable exposition of the infinite mastery which organization and invention have given to men over the masses, the forces, and the life, of the unintelligent creation. Few books of so small size contain so many startling details and generalizations explicative of the force of mind, and of its actual victories over matter, in production and almost in creation.

2.-The Rural Poetry of the English Language; illustrating the Seasons and Months of the Year, their Changes, Employments, Lessons, and Pleasures, Topically Paragraphical; with a complete Index. By JOSEPH WILLIAM JENKS, M. A., lately Professor of Languages in the Urbana University, Ohio. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co. Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman & Co. 1856. Royal 8vo. pp. 544.

This royal octavo volume, beautifully illustrated printed and bound, is a monument of well-directed labor on the part of Prof. Jenks to bring the chief rural poetry of the language together in an attractive form. As a prize or a gift for Christmas, or New Year, or Birth-day, it is worth a dozen of the volumes usually presented on such occasions. Although we have most of the poetry in other volumes in our library, we would gladly purchase this, to have ready access to the elaborately prepared and copious topical index at the close of the volume.

3.-My Schools and Schoolmasters. By HUGH MILLER. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1854. 12 mo. pp. 537.

This is the plainly told and intelligent story of Mr. Miller's own life. It is well known that he has risen by his own exertions-and the task is much more difficult in Great Britain than in America-from being merely a day-laborer at stone-cutting, to a recognized and high position as a man of science and a writer; and we have here his own detail of his aspirations and struggles, and the various agencies and helps by which his education and character have been achieved.

4.-Recollections of a Life-Time, or Men and Things I have seen: in a series of Familiar Letters to a Friend. By S. G. GOODRICH. 2 vols. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan. 1856.

We anticipated great pleasure in the perusal of a work of this description from the varied experience and ready pen of Peter Parley, and we have not been disappointed in the glance which we have been able to give through these well-filled volumes. We shall recur to them again for extracts.

5.-Bacon Essays; with Annotations. By RICHARD WHATELY, D. D., Abp. of Dublin. From the Second London Edition. New York: C. S. Francis. 1 vol. 556 pages.

This edition, the text of Bacon and annotations of Whately,-is every way one of the most remarkable books in the language, and should be in every library, and be read by everybody.

[We are obliged to postpone other Notices to our next issue, when we will try to clear our table of books received.]