NOTE.

The incident with which President HILL introduced his lecture, led to the following Correspondence.

MISS ANGELICA M. BUSS,

CHICAGO, August 13, 1863

Respected Lady:-On the 3d instant a company of gentlemen and ladies, on their way to the annual meeting of the NATIONAL TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, recently held in this city, touched at the North Manitou Island.

During the brief stay of the party, it was the pleasure of some to make your acquaintance, and learn of your work of faith and love among the children of the island.

What we saw and heard deeply impressed us with respect and love for the character of one who, under great embarrassment and self-sacrifice, has isolated herself from loved friends and associations, and devoted the best powers of her mind to the instruction, mental culture, and educational training of the young.

Prompted by a desire to honor you for your devotion to a noble work, and to show our interest in the cause of popular education, the party, with great cheerfulness and unanimity, raised a sum of money with which to purchase an American gold watch, to present to you, as a token of the high regard and respect they have for you and the cause in which you are successfully laboring Be pleased to accept this testimonial of our esteem, with assurance of sympathy, love, and prayer, for you and your pupils.

With great respect, we are most truly yours,

J. W. BULKLEY, Chairman of the Committee.

MR. J. W. BULKLEY,—

REPLY TO THE LETTER.

NORTH MANITOU ISLAND, August 25, 1863.

Kind Sir:-I was very much surprised on the 15th instant by receiving from you a letter expressing kind feeling toward me; also a more substantial token of esteem-a gold watch-the gift of a party of gentlemen and ladies who visited my school.

The magnitude of the gift and the kind expressions contained in your communication have almost made me dumb until the present moment; but I must try and make some acknowledgment for your kindness. And first, permit me to say, you greatly over-estimate my self-sacrifice, for it is indeed a great pleasure for me to instruct the young, and see them improve, mentally, morally, and physically; and what gives me so much satisfaction can not be considered a great hardship.

However, I am greatly pleased to receive your gift, as it is an evidence of your interest in popular instruction and education, the means by which our liberties must be perpetuated. I shall ever keep it by me, and when I look at it shall think of the donors, the occasion of the gift, and the sympathy and generous feelings which prompted you and your associates to such liberality.

I shall be most grateful if I can still have your sympathy and advice; and very glad to hear from you, from time to time, in relation to the cause of popular education, a subject in which we all feel so deep an interest.

Very respectfully yours,

ANGELICA M. Buss.

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION-ITS OBJECTS AND METHODS.

INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE BEFORE THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION AT BOSTON, MASS, IN AUGUST, 1830.

BY FRANCIS WAYLAND, PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY.

In the long train of her joyous anniversaries, New England has yet beheld no one more illustrious than this. We have assembled to-day, not to proclaim how well our fathers have done, but to inquire how we may enable their sons to do better. We meet, not for the purposes of empty pageant, nor yet of national rejoicing; but to deliberate upon the most successful means for cultivating, to its highest perfection, that invaluable amount of intellect, which Divine Providence has committed to our hands. We have come up here to the city of the Pilgrims, to ask how we may render their children most worthy of their ancestors and most pleasing to their God. We meet to give to each other the right hand of fellowship in carrying forward this all-important work, and here to leave our professional pledge, that, if the succeeding generation do not act worthily, the guilt shall not rest upon those who are now the Instructors of New England.

Well am I aware that the occasion is worthy of the choicest effort of the highest talent in the land. Sincerely do I wish, that upon such talent the duty of addressing you this day had devolved. Much do I regret that sudden indisposition has deprived me of the time which had been set apart to meet the demands of the present occasion, and that I am only able to offer for your consideration such reflections as have been snatched from the most contracted leisure, and gleaned amid the hurried hours of languid convalescence. But I bring, as an offering to the cause of Education, a mind deeply penetrated with a conviction of its surpassing importance, and enthusiastically ardent in anticipating the glory of its ultimate results. I know, then, that I may liberally presume upon your candor, while I rise to address those, to very many of whom it were far more beseeming that I quietly and humbly listened.

The subject which I have chosen for our mutual improvement, is, The object of intellectual education; and the manner in which that object is to be attained.

I. It hath pleased Almighty God to place us under a constitution

of universal law. By this we mean, that nothing, either in the physical, intellectual, or moral world, is in any proper sense contingent. Every event is preceded by its regular antecedents, and followed by its regular consequents; and hence is formed that endless chain of cause and effect which binds together the innumerable changes which are taking place every where around us.

When we speak of this system as subjected to universal law, we mean all this; but this is not all that we mean. The term law, in a higher sense, is applied to beings endowed with conscience and will, and then there is attached to it the idea of rewards and punishments. It is then used to signify a constitution so arranged, that one course of action shall be inevitably productive of happiness, and another course shall be as inevitably productive of misery. Now, in this higher sense is it strictly and universally true, that we are placed under a constitution of law. Every action which we perform, is as truly amenable as inert matter, to the great principles of the government of the universe, and every action is chained to the consequences which the Creator has affixed to it, as unalterably as any sequence of cause and effect in physics. And thus, with equal eloquence and truth, the venerable Hooker has said, "Of Law, there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the very greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy."

Such a constitution having been established by a perfectly wise Creator, it may be easily supposed that it will remain unchangeable. His laws will not be altered for our convenience. We may obey them or disobey them, we may see them or not see them, we may be wise or unwise, but they will be rigidly and unalterably enforced. Thus must it ever be, until we have the power to resist the strength of omnipotence.

Again; it is sufficiently evident that the very constitution which God has established, is, with infinite wisdom and benevolence, devised for just such a being, physical, intellectual, and moral, as man. By obedience to the laws of God, man may be as happy as his present state will allow. Misery is always the result of a violation of some of the laws which the Creator has established. Hence, our great business here, is, to know and obey the laws of our Creator.

That part of man by which we know, and, in the most important sense, bey the laws of the Creator, is called MIND. I use the word

in its general sense, to signify, not merely a substance, not matter, capable of intellection, but one also capable of willing, and to which is attached the responsibility of right and wrong in human action. And, still further, it is one of the laws of mind, that increased power for the acquisition of knowledge, and a more universal disposition to obedience, may be the result of the action of one mind upon another, or, of the well-directed efforts of the individual mind itself.

Without some knowledge of the laws of nature, it is evident that man would immediately perish. But it is possible for him to have only so much knowledge of them as will barely keep generation after generation in existence, without either adding anything to the stock of intellectual acquisition, or subjecting to his use any of the various agents which a bountiful Providence has everywhere scattered around, for the supply of his wants and the relief of his necessities. Such was the case with the Aborigines of our country, and such had it been for centuries. Such, also, with but very few and insignificant exceptions, is the case in Mohammedan and Pagan countries. The sources of their happiness are few and intermitting-those of their misery multiplied and perpetual.

Looking upon such nations as these, we should involuntarily exclaim, What a waste of being, what a loss of happiness, do we behold! Here are intelligent creatures, placed under a constitution devised by Infinite Wisdom to promote their happiness. The very penalties which they suffer, are so many proofs of the divine goodness-mere monitions to direct them in the paths of obedience. And besides this, they are endowed with a mind perfectly formed to investigate and discover these laws, and to derive its highest pleasure from obeying them. Yet that mind, from want of culture, has become useless. It achieves no conquests. It removes no infelicities. Here, then, must the remedy be applied. This immaterial part must be excited to exertion, and must be trained to obedience. Just so soon as this process is commenced, a nation begins emerge from the savage, and enter upon the civilized state. Just in proportion to the freedom and the energy with which the powers of the mind are developed, and the philosophical humility with which they are exercised, does a people advance in civilization. Just in proportion as a people is placed under contrary influences, is its movement retrograde.

to

The science which teaches us how to foster these energies of mind is the science of Education. In few words, I would say, the object of the science of Education, is, to render mind the filtest possible instrument for DISCOVERING, APPLYING, or OBEYING, the laws under which God has placed the universe.

That all this is necessary, in order to carry forward the human species to the degree of happiness which it is destined, at some time or other, to attain, may be easily shown.

The laws of the universe must be discovered. Until they are discovered, we shall be continually violating them and suffering the penalty, without either possibility of rescue or hope of alleviation. Hence the multitude of bitter woes which ignorance inflicts upon a people. Hence the interest which every man should take in the progress of knowledge. Who can tell how countless are the infelicities which have been banished from the world, by the discovery of the simple law that a magnetized needle, when freely suspended, will point to the north and south!

Its relations to other by which it may This is called ap

Nor is it sufficient that a law be discovered. laws must be ascertained, and the means devised be made to answer the purposes of human want. plication, or invention. The law of the expansive power of steam was discovered by the Marquis of Worcester, in 1663. It remained, however, for the inventive power of Watt and Fulton, more than a century afterward, to render it subservient to the happiness of man. From want of skill in a single branch of this department of mental labor, the human race has frequently been kept back for ages. The ancients, for instance, came very near the invention of the printing press. Thus has it been with several other of the most important inventions. It makes a thoughtful man sad, at the present day, to observe how many of the most important agents of nature we are obliged to expose to the gaze of lecture-rooms, without being able to reveal a single practical purpose for which they were created.

But this is not all. A man may know a law of his Creator, and understand its application; but if he do not obey it, he will neither reap the reward, nor escape the penalty which the Creator has annexed to it. Here we enter, at once, into the mysterious region of human will, of motive, and of conscience. To examine it at present is not my design. I will only remark, that some great improvement is necessary in this part of our nature, before we can ever reap the benefits of the present constitution of the universe. I do not think that any philosopher can escape the conviction, that when important truth is the subject of inquiry, we neither possess the candor of judgment, nor the humility of obedience, which befits the relations existing between a creature and his Creator. In proof of this, it is sufficient to refer to well known facts. Galileo suffered the vengeance of the Inquisition, for declaring the sun to be the centre of the planetary system! How slow were the learned in adopting the discoveries of Hervey or of Newton! Still more visible is this ob