ly instil a sense of order and harmonious obedience into the soul?'

"And now, too,' Euphranor went on, we may suppose Sir Lancelot's acquaintance with nature, having begun in love, will go on to knowledge, in the way of some of those ologies you talked about.'

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"Not forgetting that most necessary geology, agriculture,' said I, eldest, healthiest, and most necessary of sciences; so loved and practised by the Roman gentlemen in the most heroic days of Rome.""

We will omit all the doctor's talk about the true methods of book-learning. We prefer to listen to him in his more appropriate department of physical education, though he protests against separating this from the moral and intellectual. In what follows, we fear he will be judged unfeeling and reckless of human life. We shall not indorse all he says, but let it pass for what it is worth. Still, we must say, we think he is a humane and tender-hearted man, and does not mean to make light of parental affections and anxieties. We must make allowance for the humor that will creep into free conversation, and for the sprightly exaggerations that are not meant to deceive. But he speaks better for himself than we can for him, and on him rests the responsibility of his doctrine.

"Well, so much for Sir Lancelot's studies in his second septenniad; and now for his bodily exercises; I suppose they advance proportionably in labor and energy.'

"No doubt,' said I, 'the horse he was taken to look at, feed, and be held on, he now bestrides, a pony at all events, trots, gallops, gets a peep at the hounds throwing off; in due time a run with them, fleshes his maiden courage at a leap, rises up Antæus-like from a tumble.'

"Ah,' said Euphranor,' we poorer fellows are cut out of this.' "Well, there are the ditches and rivers for you to fall into, and be drowned in, whether in leaping, skating, swimming, or boating; nay, in this dear old England of ours, the sea itself ready to embrace and strangle the whole youth of Britain in her arms.'

"Ah,' said Euphranor, there again, if mamma was frightened at her boy dabbling in the dew, without his hat, too, what will she say now he is brought home half drowned in a ditch, or his arm broken by a fall from his pony?'

"I must console her as before,' said I;

"If he fall in, good night!

Send danger from the east unto the west,

So honor cross it from the north to south."

It is better to die well, even so young, than to grow up a valetudinarian and poltroon. He can only grow strong in body and soul by such exercises as carry danger along with them; and strong in body and soul our knight must be, must he not?' Nay, but,' said Euphranor, I have not yet agreed that his soul can only grow strong by being in a strong body; and mamma will not agree that the body can only be made strong by dangerous exercises.'

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"All strong exercise is more or less dangerous,' I replied; in digging, rowing, running, we may sprain, strain, and rupture, if we do not break limbs. There is no end of finding out dangers if we look for them. Men have died of grape-stones sticking in the throat. Are we never to eat grapes again, or are they to be carefully picked of their stones first? And as for Courage, which is the strength of soul I speak of. . . .

"Mamma will say it is to be found in good books, good principles, religion, and so on,' said Euphranor.

"And there may be found the long-concocted resolution, that, after all the struggles of natural fear, may nerve a man to be a martyr at last. But while it succeeds in one, it fails in a thousand. For here comes the ancient difference between resolving and doing; which latter is what we want. Nay, you know, the habit of resolving without acting (as we do necessarily in facing dangers and trials in books and in the closet) is worse for us than never resolving at all, inasmuch as it gradually snaps the natural connection between thought and deed."

"Ah,' said Euphranor, you stole that from the Newman I lent you, Doctor; how true and good it is!'

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Very true, and very good,' answered I, and I dare say I stole it from him; though I had long before been familiar with an ancient proverb, (as old as the Fathers for any thing I know,) as to what Thought did as he lay in bed.""

Considerable discourse follows, about the importance of having Sir Lancelot practised in swimming, sailing, rowing, boxing, fencing, riding; about only the strong being good-humored, and only the brave truly merciful; about presence of mind in danger, and readiness for emergencies. in peace or war, and the way to acquire them and the habit of them. We quote only the final rejoinder of the doctor, who is evidently on the point of losing his tem per a little.

"I tell you, my lord Fool, out of this nettle danger we pluck

this flower safely. Only he trots safely who has galloped hard.. .. Besides, what after all is the amount of danger in all the hunting, wrestling, boating, &c., that a boy goes through? Half a dozen boys are drowned, half a dozen shot instead of rabbits by their friends, half a dozen get broken arms or collar-bones by falls from ponies, in the course of the year; and for this little toll paid to death, how large a proportion of the gentry of this country are brought up manfully fitted for peace or war! If I have to do with Sir Lancelot, he shall take his chance, either to grow up a man fit to live, or to die honorably in striv ing towards it."

We confess to some sympathy with the real thought of our author, and even mamma must see that there is some touch of wisdom in it, though so roughly put. Sir Walter Scott somewhere says, that the principal things he was concerned to have his son learn were 66 to speak the truth, and ride on horseback"; meaning, that he wanted him to have a good conscience, a sound body, and the possession and prompt use of his faculties, taking it for granted that the necessary intellectual training and cramming would be provided for in the routine of school and college. It has often seemed to us a pity that our young men in tounting-rooms, in sedentary trades, and especially in high schools and colleges, with few calls to manual labor, are not provided with a more generous system of athletic exercises and manly sports,with customs to lead to it, and arrangements to encourage it. The reason for this deficiency is a sadder thing than the fact itself. That reason is the prevailing tendency in our young men, lads even, to couple drunkenness and riot and various dissipation with whatever sports they engage in, in companies. Strong drink, that bane of the youthful body and soul, accompanies and actuates all such things, it is said, and prevents parents, guardians, and college rulers from affording facilities for them. Some think that a system and a custom of genial, earnest, invigorating out-door exercises would have the effect, in the long run, to weaken the morbid appetite for unwholesome stimulants, to brace up the languor of temperament from which that appetite arises, and to fortify the will against the pernicious indulgence. Others think, and this is, we suppose, the prevailing opinion in our large educational establishments, that our youth VOL. LI. 4TH S. VOL. XVI. NO. I.

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must show less disposition to make their sports the occasions of dissipation, before they can be wisely encouraged or extended. Our author, plainly, has no doubts on the subject. He is too lax in his notions, but there is a grain of wisdom in them, and we will hear him a little further. He is speaking of schools. He likes large schools, in which "boys, being lumped together, get knocked out of family delusions, and get to know themselves, by comparing themselves with others." small schools, as, he says, Dr. Arnold did. there are few, if any, in this country, that answer to his description.

He hates

We trust

"As to the smaller schools,' my dear Euphranor,' you cannot imagine the pusillanimous, sordid, soul-and-body-stunting method of some of these, which, if English good sense did not explode just before it is too late, (as English good sense has somehow a knack of doing,) would ruin the middle-class Chivalry of England altogether. Nor are the poor masters only to blame, they are often one-sided, pedantic men, ignorant of the constitu tion of man; the boys' parents are quite as ignorant and mercenary as the master, they must have their full penny-worth. Then, you know, there are your religious establishments, where the intellectual and moral culture of the boys is incessantly attended to, not a moment spared for mischief; and then "such care taken of their healths!" Ten hours a day hard study of the hardest stuff, most indigestible by the young,moral essays; sermons; the little play-time cut up into little intercalary snips of time, even if the few square yards of gravel, or the strict edict against all amusements that threaten the boys' limbs, or the master's window-panes, ever so remotely, should allow it. No cricket, no foot-ball, perhaps a little gymnastic gallows, where boys may climb, and turn over, and swing like monkeys, in perfect safety; no rowing, no sailing, no stolen ride on horseback or on the coach-box; no running and leaping over hedge and ditch, animated by the pursuit of some infuriated game-keeper; but a walk, two and two, in clean dresses, along the high road, dogged by the sallow usher.'

"Of course no fighting,' said Euphranor, and I suppose no flogging either.'

"And yet,' said I, the clenched fist, so soon resolved into the open palm, when once the question of might and right was settled, how much better than the perpetual canker of a grudge never suffered to explode! and the good flogging had its humor, soon passed away, shame and smart, from fore and aft, much better than the heart-pining, body-contracting con

finements and impositions which double the already overloaded taskwork, and revenge a temporary fault with a lasting injury. ..... O, it succeeds well,' I continued; the boy who came to school with but some troublesome activity about him is soon tamed down, grows pale, cheerless, spiritless, hopeless, and very good, a credit to the school, likely to be a blessing to his parents. It is only one of nature's" best earthly mould," with the spirit of her chivalry strong in his blood, who kicks over the traces, throws the whole " very eligible establishment" into disorder, and rouses the whole dastard soul of Skythrops into a meagre attitude of expulsion, however unwilling he may be to part with any victim who pays. But " he must go, nothing can be done with him." He goes.""

We must allow the doctor space to tell us the result of his management of Sir Lancelot during the second septenniad. We cannot in fairness do less, and we have not room to do more. Besides, he is certainly growing lax, and we fear we have already tolerated too much of him for so grave and conservative a journal as ours.

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"I think I shall be content with him,' said I,' if (at sixteen say) he shows me outwardly, as before, a glowing cheek, an open brow, copious locks, a clear eye, and looks me full in the face withal; his body a little uncouth and angular perhaps, as compared to his earlier self, because now striking out into manly proportions, not yet filled up; flesh giving way to fibre and muscle; the blood running warm and quick through his veins, and easily discovering itself in his cheeks and forehead, at the mention of what is noble or shameful; his voice "sweet and tunable," as Margaret of Newcastle notices of her brothers, she does not mean, she says, (nor do I,) an emasculate treble, but no husking or wharling in the throat," that is her word, clear, open, bell-like voice, telling of a roomy chest, and in some measure, I think, of a candid soul. However that may be,' continued I, seeing Euphranor shake his head at me with a smile, 'candid of soul I hope he is; for I have always sought his confidence, and never used it against himself; never arraigned him severely for the smaller outbreaks of youthful spirit; never exacted sympathy where it was not in the nature of youth to sympathize. He is still passionate, perhaps, as in his first septenniad, but easily reconciled; subdued easily by affection and the appeal to old and kindly remembrance, but stubborn against force; generous, forgiving; still liking to ride rather than to read, and perhaps to settle a difference by the fist than by the tongue; but submitting to those who do not task him above nature's due; apt to sleep under the sermon, but not ceasing to repeat morning and evening the prayers he learned at his mother's knee; ambi