a risk that no young man ought to run.

Instead of recovering in a natural and appropriate manner, he submitted himself to a course of powerful medicine, which his physician told him would hasten his end, if it did not happen to relieve him, saying that he "was determined to have a liberal education or die in the attempt." There can be no doubt that the experiment though temporarily successful, hastened his death. As yet, however, he had not made any public profession of being governed by christian motives or christian principles.

Soon after this temporary restoration, he entered Dartmouth College; where it seems he remained till he graduated; but his "sedentary habits and neglect of exercise" had so enfeebled his health while in college, that no sooner had he received the usual college honors, than he proceeded to the South to restore it. Here he soon became a tutor in Hampden Sydney College. This was about the close of his twenty fifth year. Sometime after this, on the death of Dr. Hoge, the President, he was appointed his successor. This place he filled from the age of twentynine, till his death, which happened when he was about fortytwo years of age.

Though his health seemed greatly improved by a residence in Virginia, he had never been robust; and he was often -we believe nearly every year-obliged to take "relaxation" during the college vacation, by journeying among the mountains or elsewhere. Yet there is little doubt that the seeds of a mortal distemper still remained within him, for a slight cold only seemed sufficient, towards the end of his career, to throw him into a consumption, whose rapid progress nothing now could arrest.

It is exceedingly painful to follow out this narrative from the commencement to the end, without being convinced, at almost every step, of the errors of this excellent but ill-fated young man. We say young man; for he died at the very beginning of what might, in all probability, but for physical mismanagement, have been a career of great usefulness and happiness to himself, and to the world which so much needs. his services. What a blessing will right physical education confer on mankind when it can be brought, under right parental and medical direction so to bear on the rising character of a young man like Jona. P. Cushing, as to preserve him to the age of Franklin, with faculties unimpaired, and with bodily powers comparatively uninjured! What could not forty years of the active life of a man, thoroughly educated, accomplish?

23

ART. III. ADVANTAGES OF DISCERNING PECULIARITIES OF CHARACTER IN PUPILS, AND OF ADAPTING ONE'S SELF TO THEM."

BY JACOB ABBOTT.

PECULIARITIES of character among children arise from two causes.

1. Differences in native constitution.

2. The influences of early education, and the circumstances of early life.

A very little reflection will show us how extensive and powerful is the operation of both these causes.

1. Differences in native constitution. The opinion is sometimes maintained, that there is no diversity in the native constitution of the human mind; the wide differences which we observe being accounted for by the very diverse influences to which minds are subjected in the course of their development. This opinion is a very common one; a tendency towards it, is, in fact, almost universal. And yet it is difficult to account for the prevalence of such an opinion; for both theory and fact very strongly oppose it.

1. Theory is against it. Every presumption from analogy leads us to suppose that every individual mind will possess its own characteristics,-marks of its individuality, as it comes from the Creator's hand. It is so with the whole creation. The vegetable world runs into countless varieties. Every apple tree raised from the seed, bears its own peculiar fruit, dependent not on soil, climate, cultivation, or management, but on some mysterious principle, modifying the very nature of the plant, which the horticulturist can neither understand or control. Whenever a new variety of fruit appears, which exhibits such natural qualities as are desired, the individual, thus favored by nature, is disseminated by grafts, and buds, as far and wide as possible, and though thus transferred to a thousand other stocks, and grown in places far asunder, and in every variety of soil and situation,

A lecture delivered before an assembly of Primary School teachers, in Boston, Oct. 24, 1838.

all its essential characteristics remain unchanged. Difference in its mode of cultivation may make some difference in size, color, and time of maturity, but there is something in its nature, which remains substantially unchanged, and which gives it a distinct and permanent separation from every other individual plant of its kind.

It is so in the animal world, and here we have mental as well as physical differences. The shepherd knows every sheep in his flock, not because he has fed and trained them differently, but because certain unknown causes, in the native constitution of the animal, give rise to differences of development in the countenance and form. How different are the characteristics and tendencies of the varieties of the dog. How impossible, by any course of feeding or training, to give the lap dog the size and courage of the mastiff, or to educate a spaniel to the speed and ferocity of the bloodhound. These native differences seem more striking in those plants and animals which we have domesticated, and thus brought more fully under our observation: but it is, without doubt, equally true of all the rest. The boundless variety, which exists in the works of God, extends to every individual of every species; and gives to each its own native characteristics, which outward causes can modify, but not essentially control.

We find that the same analogy holds good with man in respect to his bodily conformation. The form, the size, the cast, and the expression of the countenance, the color of the hair, and of the eyes, how evident it is that the diversities, which exist in these respects, have their origin in causes which lie concealed, far beyond the reach of diet and regimen. All these analogies do not, indeed, prove, directly and positively, that there are similar diversities in the native constitution of the mind, but they certainly amount to a strong presumption which should lead us to expect them. If all human souls are, in their original nature, alike,—having the same capacities, the same powers, the same propensities and tendencies, and in the same measure, such a monotony would stand out as a strange exception to the whole economy of nature.

2. Then, fact is against it. It seems as if impartial observation must enable every one to perceive the evidence, of marked, original and ungovernable diversities in the struc

ture of the human mind. One is mild, gentle, affectionate, a word checks, a look alarms,--or the most cautious reproof brings a tear,-another is cold, stern, headstrong, insensible to the severest rebukes, and even in punishment restraining his tears with a heroism which we cannot but admire, though it makes our task the harder. Here is a child who is always excited, and bright, and happy. He runs, he jumps, he laughs, he plays. His limbs, tongue, mind, thoughts are incessantly in motion. There is his brother, quiet, sedate, cool, clear-headed, and still: as deeply interested in his plays, and as successful in his studies as the other, but making a totally different exhibition of conduct and character. There again is a third, healthy and strong in body, but inert, confused and torpid in mind. These differences are endless, and far beyond the reach of any attempt to account for them by the influence of any outward causes.

2. Then, secondly, besides the native constitutional differences of different minds, endlessly diversified, the influences of early life, produce other extensive dissimilarities. These influences of early education, and the circumstances of early life, though not sufficient to explain all the differences in the mental characteristics of children, which we perceive, occasion, nevertheless, very extensive modifications of character. It is not so much the difference in the ideas and plans of education, which different parents follow, as in the circumstances in which the children are placed, in respect to the neighborhood, the playmates, the family, in which their early life is spent. These indirect, or rather incidental influences, have far greater agency in shaping the . character of childhood than all the positive instruction they receive. That little, fair-haired girl, for instance, who comes timidly in, on the first day of the school, her dress arranged with the most scrupulous neatness, her hair nicely adjusted in smooth curls over her little temples, is her mother's only child. She comes in with an air of precision and propriety, seems to shrink from observation, sits erect in her seat, looks timidly at her new companions, and forms her figures upon the slate, and her strokes in the writing book, with the utmost deliberation, precision and care. She is an only child.

Then, here comes another, dancing along, with her work bag whirling over her finger, and her tresses and bonnet ribbons flying behind. Her countenance is full of gaiety,

and her motions and air all indicate perfect self complacency and ease. She walks boldly in, out of breath, advances to you with an air of confidence, and looking you full in the face, asks you where she shall sit? She, too, though so different from the former, is an only child. The mother of the one lives in seclusion. She is a widow, and in her loneliness and bereavement takes a melancholy pleasure in the most unremitting attention to the training of her child. So she watches every motion, forms artificially every habit, and checks and restrains her daughter continually. The other mother is a woman of the world, enjoying wealth and all the pleasures of social intercourse. Her maternal fondness is as great as the other's, but it takes the form of indulgence, not attention. The result of this one difference, in the circumstances of the two mothers, is a totally different cast of character in the two children. In the one, you have a trained, only child; in the other, an indulged, only child: two classes of children, very large and very strongly marked all the world over.

There may be two troublesome boys,-the most troublesome in the school, yet having characters opposite to each other in a great many important respects, and the opposition may be traced altogether to the different kinds of mismanagement they have labored under at home. One is cunning and treacherous. He will tell you falsehoods with perfect assurance, and composure. He does mischief by stealth, is sullen when detected, and goes away with a vindictive look when punished or reproved. You can make no friendly acquaintance with him, he is morose, looks away when you speak to him, and always escapes from your presence as soon as he can. If you meet him at the door, or before the fire at the recess, and say a pleasant word to him, which brings a momentary smile over his features, it withers away again in an instant, with a peculiar expression, as if he supposed your playfulness was only treacherous irony, to be followed up by a blow.

The other boy is rude, noisy, open, honest, always doing wrong, and apparently unconcerned about exposure. He meets you cordially, and advances towards an acquaintance. When you call, he runs to you; he accosts you familiarly, looks you in the face. He is ready and bold with his excuses, defends himself against reproof, and perhaps offers