common to all men of great talents and learning, and which may be said to arise out of their very excellencies. The high powers, the quick comprehension, the rapid movements of their own minds, render it difficult for them to command, and to apply that degree of patient and indulgent attention, which the office of teaching so often requires. To sink down from the dignity of science-to descend from the loftier eminence of literature-to retrace, again and again, the first elments of knowledge, and to accommodate instruction to the dull or the feeble capacities of youth-all this is one of the hardest tasks, which humanity has to teach, or which genius can be made to learn.

ART. II. LABOR AND STUDY.

BY WM. A. ALCOTT.

FROM a hasty examination of the twentysecond annual report of the American Education Society, we learn that this Society, since its commencement, has assisted 2993 individuals of different denominations in their course of preparation for the ministry, of whom about 1200 have finished their studies and entered upon the active duties of their profession. We learn also, from the twenty first report of the same Society, that, for several years past the number of beneficiaries who have been aided, has been increased on an average of nearly 100 annually. The number assisted by the society during the year ending May 1st, 1837, was 234 in 19 theological seminaries; 575 in 39 colleges, and 296 in 95 academies or public schools, amounting in all to 1,125 in 153 institutions. Of these 621 were assisted at institutions in the New England States, and 504 at institutions in the Middle, Southern and Western States.

The twentysecond report contains a most interesting table, in relation to the earnings of beneficiaries, during the year, both by labor and teaching. A greater or less number of these students in nine theological seminaries, fourteen colleges, and thirty academies, were employed more or less in teaching; and in fourteen theological seminaries, twentynine colleges, and sixtysix academies of manual labor. The

whole number employed either in teaching or labor or both, was 162 in theological seminaries, 420 in colleges, and 243 in academies; in all 825. Their whole earnings were in teaching, $17,278 39, and in labor $22,407 48, amounting in the whole to $39,685 87; or in round numbers, $40,000. This is an average of $20 94 to each student who is engaged in teaching; and of 27 16 to each employed at manual labor.

It is also a curious fact, worthy of remark, that though little more than one half of the beneficiaries were connected with institutions in the New England States, the earnings of the latter, both by labor and teaching, amounted to more than two thirds of the whole sum, or to $26,570 19; so that the latter earned upon the average nearly twice as much as the former. If we compare the Eastern States, and New York with the rest of the States, in respect to manual labor alone, the disparity is still greater. Some of the western colleges and schools, however, have done much at manual labor, among which may be mentioned Illinois College, Lane Theological Seminary, the Western Reserve College, and Oberlin Collegiate Institute. A still larger proportion of the teaching is also done by the students at the north.

On the question, to what extent manual labor and teaching should be combined with a course of study, a volume might be written. There are objections to an union of labor and teaching both; but it has also its advantages. If only the health of the student is to be consulted, manual labor is indispensable; but if the pecuniary advantages are to be taken into the account, its importance is greatly enhanced; and with a view to the latter, teaching during vacation seems highly desirable. It appears that in about half the instances above mentioned, the same students engaged in both kinds of labors. This, as we conceive, is quite too much. We do not believe one student in ten can pursue faithfully a course of manual labor and study during term time, and then fill up his vacations with faithful and intelligent teaching without lasting injury to his health. He may indeed go and sit in the the school room without much injury; but this is not teaching.

We confess ourselves averse to the idea of making the student pay as much as possible, his own expenses. We are in favor of manual labor of some sort during term time,

-we do not believe it safe to dispense with it, in the case of either sex, unless a large amount of recreation, of the athletic kind, is taken-and of teaching during vacation, just so far as will promote in the best possible degree, the health of body and mind, and no farther. Let the grand point in all our schools be to develope harmoniously, in the best and highest degree, the bodily functions, intellectual faculties, and moral powers; and if in doing this in the best manner, the avails of the labor of the student are of any value, he is fully entitled to them, to assist in defraying his expenses. But there is such a thing-and many young men have found it out when too late-as breaking down the constitution of body and mind by their efforts to pursue their studies, and at the same time defray their own expenses. We are in favor of that education which is secured by encountering and surmounting difficulties; but not in favor of that effort which if it do not break the neck of him who is its victim, breaks down his physical frame in general, and renders him not only crippled in body, but half idiotic in mind, for the remain

der of his life.

Nor are we disposed to look with favor on that narrow minded feeling which, in educating a child, looks primarily at the reputation of the parents, the teachers, the institution, or the sect with which he is connected, instead of looking first at the happiness and usefulness of the child himself? Against the idea of saving money to the parent, the school, the college, or the State, as a leading idea, we enter our most earnest protest. Let money be "poured out like water," rather than diminish aught of a student's power or disposition to do that, in subsequent life, which it always is, or always should be, the great object of all education and instruction to accomplish.

Much is sometimes said of the benefits which college students, who go out and teach during vacations, confer on the community, 1, by making known the character, &c., of the college to which they belong, and 2, by acting upon the various neighborhoods in which they engage as a kind of missionaries. To this is also added the advantages the student derives to himself, both from the exercise of teaching, and from the preparation which it affords him for future usefulness. There is, however, quite a draw-back upon this. Few students from colleges and theological schools, succeed well

in their labors as teachers, and we have sometimes doubted whether more harm than good might not be done in this way.

But to return to the subject of labor and study. Notwithstanding all the errors and mistakes which have been made by the friends of education in their endeavors to combine manual labor and study, we must still insist on its exceeding great importance especially to a large proportion of the young men of our country who find their way into the ministry. It has long appeared to us a matter of regret that the ministerial ranks could not, some how or other, be filled by young men of different physical characters from what we too often see. For though they may be eminently useful, for a short time, even when constitutionally feeble, and when their physical inefficiency has been increased by a mistaken education, still they are far less so than might be the case, did they possess, along with the same piety, a greater amount of physical vigor, either natural or acquired. We repeat it, we regret, exceedingly, that our candidates from the ministry cannot oftener be selected, not from the feeblest of their respective families, but from the more healthy and hardy; and we regret still more that it has never come to be regarded as an imperative duty of those who educate for the gospel ministry to educate the body, as effectually as the mind and soul. Why is it that our young men should have their constitution of body so effectually ruined by the time they get through their studies, and are just inducted into the ministry, and begin to feel their responsibilities, that they so often are crushed under their weight, and if not wholly lost to the church and to the world, only have their lives prolonged to be a burden to themselves, and to that community which instead of sustaining them, so much needs to be sustained by them?

Since commencing the foregoing remarks, we have met, in the American Quarterly Register, with a biographical sketch of the life and character of Jonathan P. Cushing, M. A., late President of Hampden Sydney College, which is so strikingly confirmatory of the views which we have advanced that no apology will be necessary for adverting to it.

Up to the end of his sixth year, the education of this excellent individual had been conducted exclusively by his mother. Whether he was over educated, or rendered precocious, we are not told by his biographer, but from his slen

der and consumptive shape, there is great reason to fear that this was the case. His mother dying at this time, and his father when he was about ten or eleven, he was placed on a farm; but disliking the employment, as boys of the temperament we have supposed him to possess often do,he left his guardian at 13, and became an apprentice to the saddler's trade. Here having more leisure for thought, as we understand his biographer to say, and being "much given to meditation," he at length began to look forward to a literary occupation, as a profession for life. It was not long before his mind was made up on the subject; and having an unusual share of energy and perseverance, he labored so hard as to be able, at eighteen years of age to "buy his time," as it is called, and enter an academy. But his excessive exertion to accomplish his object, joined to mental anxiety, either with or without a constitutional predisposition, had already, in all probability sown the seeds of decline; for he had been at the academy only eighteen months, when "from want of health and want of relaxation he retired to his native town, and taught school for about the same length of time. Had he labored upon the farm he so much hated all this time, it is impossible to say what might have been done in the way of restoring him to health; but of one thing we are fully assured, that in so far as the object of teaching is for the sake of relaxation merely, there cannot for young men like Mr Cushing be a worse employment. But instead of working on the farm, or so far as we can learn using any active exercise at all," he paid the greater part, if not all of the expenses of his education by the profits of his trade, at which he worked a portion of every day during the time he staid at Exeter." We shudder, involuntarily when we record this; so ominous of evil is such a course, to such a young man, whether the evil days come soon, or whether as Solomon says of certain evil works that sentence against them "is not executed speedily.'

And what might have been easily enough predicted, soon came to pass. Before he was twentytwo, his health failed him, and he was threatened with pulmonary consumption. It is true the alarming symptoms were excited by sleeping one night in damp sheets; but the predisposition to pulmonary disease had in all probability existed. It is true, he seemed to recover; at least partially; but it was not without