182 An Evening at the Flushing Institute. [April, Dr Chalmers's remarks on the practical reasons of this course, are not less applicable to our own country than to Scotland. Here also, as we were formerly obliged to let down the system of education for the purpose of drawing more students to college, so now, as the number is so greatly increased, we may raise the system. Formerly, the want of professional men made it necessary to admit them with imperfect qualifications. Now, the overflow of the secular professions gives the full opportunity of demanding such qualifications as they ought to possess; and thus of elevating the professions in character and skill, instead of merely adding to their numbers, already too great. Such a plan would also have a happy effect in leaving room for the support of scientific schools of an elevated character, to which those might resort who are not designed for professional life. Many are led by the empty name of a degree, whose value is daily becoming less, to spend their time in a manner totally unsuited to their peculiar talents and their future destination; or become the mere residents of a college building, and examples of idleness and corruption to those around them; when pursuits congenial to their taste might have roused them to industry, and prepared them for usefulness. I am aware that much has been done by our colleges on this subject, and with happy effect; but much remains to be done, before we can see the plan realized which is proposed by Dr Chalmers. AN EVENING AT THE FLUSHING INSTITUTE. [We have met with nothing which so strongly reminded us of the aspect and spirit of Hofwyl, as the following sketch of an evening at the Institute at Flushing, Long Island, extracted from a number of its interesting journal.] 'Ir is a little after seven, and the bustle of returning from tea has subsided. The boys (for so we call the long coat of eighteen as well as the roundabout of twelve) are at their desks; except the junior class, who have rooms of their own, and the junior section, who have a study of their own. The instructers are at a meeting of the Eumathean Society, and it has fallen to our turn this evening to keep the study.' Seated at one of the ordinary desk's, for there is no pedagogic throne in the room, with pen, ink and paper, we shall be the faithful chroniclers of the important events of the evening. All is as quiet as the restlessness of sixty young 1834.] The Idlers - The Students. 183 mercurials will allow. The business of the day is over, and the evening they are left to employ as they please, provided that during the first hour they are silent, and that no one disturbs his neighbor. And how are they all employed? Students, aspirants after literary fame, they are communing with the master minds of antiquity! Not satisfied with the acquisitions of the day, they are digging still deeper in the mines of classical lore! Their grammars, their lexicons, and their text books, are their delight! - Your sinile of incredulity, gentle reader, rebukes me, and sends me back to the unvarnished truth. There is one who has already fallen to sleep. Tired with skating in the afternoon, he has taken his dictionary for a pillow,' and in his dreams is repeating his pleasures on the pond. There is a fidget a perpetual motion-now he stands up now he sits down, moving about as much as possible within the precincts of his liberty. Presently he will be nodding, too, for the quicksilver of his nature is rather in his body than in his mind, and when one is obliged to be still, the other soon sinks to rest. A book, at this hour, except it be a fairy tale, operates upon him like an opium pill. There is another devouring the Arabian Nights, whose taste will be considerably elevated when he thinks the Iliad superior to Sinbad the Sailor or the Forty Thieves. * * * Mr, I say to one leaning on his elbow, ' Would it not be well for you to devote a part of your evenings to your lessons, that you may stand a little higher in the ranks? Your friends are mortified in seeing your signature so low down.' I give the advice, as physicians do medicine to an incurable patient, more for conscience than for hope's sake. Nature seems not to have designed the young gentleman for a scholar; and yet it will offend his parents to tell them that anything more than a plain English education will be wasted on him. Besides, what shall they do with him for a few years to come? Turning over the leaves of Latin and Greek books is at least an innocent employment: and after all, his instructors may be mistaken: good minds are sometimes very slow in unfolding the acorn gives no promise of the oak. Now yonder little volatile is a boy of talent, and would make a fine fellow, if his mind would only hold still long enough to receive an impression. M is preparing a hoop for the graces;' C― is adjusting one of the buckles of his skates; B is entertained with his picture in a looking-glass, &c, &c. But we must not do injustice to our adopted family. These are the minority, and if they are not turning their time to the best account, it must be remembered in their behalf, that business hours are over. Their recitations during the day make no part of the present scene. The majority are so quiet that they do not attract 184 The Recess. Correspondence. [April, our attention, and hence we have little to say concerning them. But we have our eyes on students in earnest. Some with works of useful information or entertaining knowledge, others with their classics or mathematics, and some with still better books, are making a profitable use of their time. The bell-ringer leaves his seat-a general movement of impatience. Three tolls of the bell say that the hour is gone. Not much mourning at its decease. Every one shoots from his place. The sleepers awake. The 'graces,' battledoor, &c, are all in motion. The five minutes of liberty, bustle and noise, soon fly past, and the ringing of the big bell,' echoed by the jingling of the little bell,' restore the study to order. The letters-the letters.' How many bright eyes of expectation, and eager voices in every quarter anything for me? anything for me?? as the sprightly post boy distributes his packet. It's too bad,' says one, I hav'nt heard from home these three weeks; I'll not write again until I do hear.' While some glad hearts are as enraptured with a letter from home, as if they had received a valuable present. Now and then we observe one who will lay aside a letter from 'home, sweet home,' and not read it until he has finished his play a worse sign, by far, than an ill recitation. The mail has brought a favor for ourselves. After a few lines of introduction we read How is coming on? We should be glad to hear from you about him, as often as it suits your convenience to write. Your silence has left us in suspense.' Would that we had the faculty of Dr Dwight for dictating to three amanuenses at once! for then we might communicate with parents about their sons to the extent of their wishes. Our numerous engagements allow us to do but little in this way. We make it a rule however always to answer letters of inquiry; and we are glad also to receive such letters, as they serve to direct our attention more particularly to individual boys. We hope our friends will understand this; and there is another thing on this subject, that we would request of them, which is, that they will not measure our attention to their children by our attention to them. We are alive to the responsibilities we have assumed. Our pupils are our family. Between them and us there are no intervening objects either of interest or affection. That we are not forgetful of his boy, every parent or guardian should feel assured, although he may not receive a line of intelligence from us during the session. To take care of our pupils is our duty; to write frequent letters about them, may or may not be our duty. We repeat again, that we are happy in receiving communications from parents, inasmuch as they serve to bring particular boys to our mind, and we invariably sooner or later reply to their inquiries. It is a deficiency in making voluntary reports, that we would explain. But we have wandered from the study. What are the boys about? 1834.] 185 'The last hour' they spend ad libitum with an extension of the liberty of the first hour, but not to their leaving the room. A couple here are playing at checkers, and there at chess; a few keep to their books if the rattling tongues and restless motion of their companions will permit them; for the majority prefer talking and moving about. And of what are they talking? What are the themes of such incessant discourse? What the unfailing excitement of such constant clatter? One would suppose, that, secluded from the world, and forming a community so entirely among themselves, they would find conversation (to use one of their own favorite words) rather stale.' But no, it is as fresh and as brilliant at mid-session, as when they have just returned from the novelties of the vacation. Beside the music of tongues we have the piping of rare musicians; a dozen flutes are going in all the varieties of melody, from the gamut to the sonata. In one corner two are playing duos, entertained with their own harmony, regardless of the Babel of tongues and the chaos of notes around; a happiness we cordially wish every family that our journal visits. The bell rings out another hour; the little bell calls to order, and all is perfectly still for fifteen minutes before repairing to the chapel - an interval of quiet appropriated to the reading of the Holy Scriptures. Thoughts here possess the mind too deep, and in this medley, too solemn for utterance. The service in the chapel is short. The boys hasten back to the studies and prepare to retire. They linger round the stoves, talking about its 'freezing hard to-night,' and wondering if 'the bay will be frozen over this winter.' With good night, good night,' we give them hints to be gone. Some three or four light the lamps at the desks, and by permission go to reading or studying again until the bell rings ten. The rest are away to their dormitories—a little racket on the stairs - here and there a straggler— and the house is still. The solitary lamp diffuses its dim light through the dormitories the instructor on duty paces the floor. Some of the alcoves we trust are closets of prayer, since there are bended knees beside the beds without. They slumber quietly; not one on the bed of sickness - Gratias, Domine. - The watchman strikes ten the curfew of our little world. --- Thus it is, night after night-night after night. Truly we ought to learn something of patient continuance,' if not 'in well doing.' Tuesday, 10 o'clock P. M., January 21. The articles which we have published in former numbers in reference to the old methods of teaching the languages, as presented by Colet, Ascham, and Milton, and Locke, may perhaps have increased the number of those who wish for some new manuals to aid in their application. A Greek work with an interlineary translation, was published sometime since by Mr W. R. Johnson, of Philadelphia. Some of Taylor's translations of the modern languages have been reprinted, and those of the ancient languages would be, if the demand should justify it. Mr Dwight, in the Lessons in Greek,' has sought to render the languague of the New Testament accessible to all, on the same general principles. We gave a part of his first lesson on the letters, in our last number, and now add other specimens of his plan. After teaching the entire alphabet, he goes on in the several lessons to illustrate practically, and then define, the parts of speech, requiring the pupil continually to spell, read, write, and repeat from memory, every word which he learns, in the spirit of the method of Jacotot, described by Mr Green. After giving the inflections of the article and the declensions of nouns, he proceeds, in the sixth lesson, to give the following example of the verbal analysis of a sentence. to the? What kind of word is? What do you think it to be? What does it mean? What do you change it into, to say — of the And in speaking of many things, how? What nouns are changed like this? Is used with a noun that means a man, a horse, or " any other male creature? What is? Tell its changes. What nouns are changed so? Or is it used with a noun meaning a stone, water, or other lifeless things? What is? Tell its changes. What nouns are changed like this? How is changed; or to what declension does it belong, the first, second, or third? Does it end in , a, as, or xs? Does it end in os or ov? Does it end like any of the words of the third declension? How do they end? How does end? What is the end of nouns of the second declension, in the second or genitive case? Has the genitive case just as many syllables as the nominative? Which has more? How many more? How can you make a new syllable ending in os for ? you put os to nux (neex) it would make a hard word: vos. The Greek language is soft; and when a word would sound harshly if regularly changed, they generally put If |