of the sun must visit it. It must have room to thrust its roots downward into the earth, and spread its branches outward and upward into the light and air of heaven. The tree as it stands in its strength and beauty is nothing more than the living germ which was in the acorn and the organism which, in connection with the process of nature, it has wrought for itself out of the earth, air, water and sunshine. These are the materials out of which, with unerring plant instinct, it has built its massy trunk, moulded its gigantic limbs, twisted. the fibre of its pliant branches, and woven the green velvet of its leaves. The storms and calms, the sunshine and showers. of a thousand years have had to do with it, have entered into and have become a part of it. It is the product of them all. The influence of these several agents in its development might not inaptly be designated the education or drawing out of the tree. As the oak is in the acorn, so is the man in the boy. "The boy is the father of the man." But man's nature is more complex than that of plant or even animal, and his education is more complex still, nay, is rather the result of a number of distinct and widely differing processes carried forward at one and the same time. The immaterial soul inhabits, animates, dominates, acts through the material body. The body is not only the house in which the mind or soul lives, but the instrument through which it acts, or, rather, it is a number of instruments or organs combined into one complex machine, which is not so much me as mine. The soul does not wake suddenly to the consciousness of its full-orbed powers, as Minerva is said to have leaped full-armed from the brain of Jupiter. The mind is developed by the exercise of its faculties, not only mediately through the senses in contact with things external, but immediately, as when the mental act has its origin within and terminates upon the mind itself, as in reflection, memory, imagination and the judgments of

the moral sense. These several powers grow with exercise. The mental horizon expands with the strengthening vision.

As it is with faculties of the mind, the regal mistress, so is it with the powers of the body, the servant of the soul. In either instance strength and facility come through exercise. The act repeated, be it of the mind or body, crystallizes into the mental or physical habit, and the formation of such habits as shall clothe the mind with power to range widely, think clearly, decide wisely, and train the hand to execute unerringly the behests of the will, is the end of all true education.

In the brief space allotted, it were unwise to attempt any formal or exhaustive discussion of a theme so vast as that of popular education. We would seek simply and briefly to suggest some changes or modifications in the system of instruction provided by the State, which would enable it the better to secure the beneficent ends for which it was designed, the safety and prosperity of the commonwealth through the intelligence and virtue of the people.

First of all every boy and girl should be trained to use their hands. The time will never come when the mass will cease to live by the labor of their hands. The education of the individual should be such as to render life's burden as easy as possible to himself, and his labor, to himself and others, as profitable as possible. The material prosperity of people in the same stages of civilization depends upon the proportion which the product of their labor bears to that which they consume. Old age, infancy, the helpless and infirm must be fed, add to these the thriftless and incompetent, and the burden of society is increased; and if these non-producing classes are sufficient to consume what remains after the laborer is fed, the community is and must remain poor.

Society should see to it that there are not too many drones in the hive of industry and that the individual receive such

training as shall enable him in the greatest possible variety of circumstances to bear his own burden, not only support himself, but contribute to the commonwealth. The school which the State provides should secure to each citizen such a training as would with health practically render him independent in such a land as ours. And such is every one who earns more than he needs to supply his own wants and knows how to care for what remains after his own wants are supplied. Three-fourths of our population are engaged in agricultural pursuits, are tillers of the ground, and the larger number of the children, which from year to year gather for instruction in our public schools, are destined to the same pursuits; than which there is none more ancient and honorable. It only degrades such as regard it degrading.

Teach children that the highest order of nobility in the world is that of honest labor, " Adam delved and Eve span;" Noah was a shipwright; Paul made tents, and our blessed Lord Himself was a carpenter. There is something wrong with the man or woman who contemns the more useful and ordinary forms of manual labor, who thinks it less respectable to patch a boot or make a horseshoe than to measure tape or drive a quill. Something wrong with that woman's education who deems making a loaf of bread or cooking a meal, less noble employment than embroidering a slipper or patching a crazy quilt. It is just such a prejudice as this which is heaping up our population in crowded cities, where they are jostling and shouldering each other in their struggle for bread, while millions of acres lie untilled, fairer and more fertile than which the sun does not shine upon. The rising generation. must needs be taught that there is no more honorable thing in the world than honest labor, whether of the hand or the head: This sentiment must be inculcated in the home and in the school and from the pulpit.