their own understanding, and entertain a pious horror for all learned disquisition.

It is with reference to intercourse with such men that most students conduct their education. Hence arises this unwarrantable ambition to gain distinction in speaking and writing, while the solid foundation for future distinction in everything, which becomes a man of mind, is comparatively neglected. We cram the intellect with condiments, when we should partake moderately of meat, and naturally enough turn out very dyspeptic thinkers. When we should be laying the firm granitic basis and riveting together iron ribs for a great temple of intellect, we toy with delicate gingerbread work, and with exquisite taste erect a fabric which may tickle the coarse fancies of unlearned men, but vanishes at the mere glance of a fearless inquirer. An undisciplined mind is incapable to receive knowledge. The memory may cling to some facts, but memory is worthless except as a dray-horse for the judgment.

If, then, it be true that the intellectual architect is bound by the same law as the builder in wood and stone, it is certainly the part of a wise student, first of all, to lay broad and deep the firm foundations of his edifice and carefully to rear an inflexible frame-work, without regard for those tasteful adornments which embrace the whole attention of fops, or those stores of information so lauded by practical men. We want first to unfold the mind and then to fill it.

With these views it is plain that those who study little and read extensively in College, do not accord. But it is claimed that discipline may be as well gained by reading as by study. To this it may be replied, that those who have too little energy to grapple with the difficulties of language and science, will reap small profit from any course of reading, which is far more likely to enervate a mind not previously disciplined, and incapacitate it for vigorous, independent thought. There is, moreover, very little of that discrimination in the choice of authors, which would be employed by an energetic reader. Strong, severe writers are too often cast aside for "popular books and booklets, which consist, for the most part, of nothing but stimulants for the sensibility and soporifics for the intellect." We want a little self-denial to refuse to dally with every gaudy image that floats from the diseased brain of stupid sentimentalists.

But reading in connection with study should not be wholly condemned. What we meant to say was, that it should be made only a subordinate part of our course of Education. Every hard-working mind needs an occasional change in the objects of its pursuit. But it should be remembered that it is no relaxation to turn from severe study to the vapid pro

ductions of shallow minds which do not deserve to be dignified with the epithet of sentimental. Such reading weakens and befools the mind.

We should rather labor to attune our intellects to harmony with those noble souls who have brought forth the great thoughts which still rule nations and men. The first object of all discipline being to acquire the power to think, we should use those appliances which will awaken and purify the faculties. Hence the student will often have recourse to wellwritten books, not for the purpose of appropriating the thoughts of others, but to polish his own mind by the attrition, and to provoke his own intellect to more vigorous action.

C. C.

DE FOREST PRIZE ORATION.

The Diplomatic History of Modern Times.

BY ANDREW D. WHITE, SYRACUSE, N, Y.

ANALYSIS.

Diplomacy defined; Necessity of Diplomacy; Power of Diplomacy.

Diplomacy not of regular shape, or logical expression.

Three great Motors in Modern European Diplomacy-Dread of the Hierarch; Dread of the Monarch; Dread of the Anarch.

DREAD OF THE HIERARCH a natural product.

Means of Warfare for and against.

New Resultant Elements-State Symbolism; State Protestantism.

Type of Diplomacy in this Era seen in Gustavus.

Characteristics of Gustavus, and his Policy.

The Ideal of this Diplomacy-Strength.

Reasons for Elevation of this Ideal in Position of Parties; Nature of their Struggle.

Final Diplomatic Expression of Dread of the Hierarch seen in Treaty of Westphalia.
Remarks on Obsoleteness of Treaty of Westphalia.

DREAD OF THE MONARCH caused by encroachments of Monarchy.

The Ideal of Diplomacy in this (2d) Era-Skill.

Reason for Elevation of this Ideal-want of clear Party Lines.

Distinction between Modern and Mediaeval Skill.

Type of Diplomacy in this Era seen in Richelieu.

Character of his Diplomacy, and cause of its fall.

Final Diplomatic Expression of Dread of Monarch seen in Treaty of Utrecht.

DREAD OF THE ANARCH a natural sequent of events in France.

First embodied in Pitt.

Afterward in Metternich, (openly,) Talleyrand, (in secret).

Characteristics of the thinking of these Men.

The Ideal of this Era-Symmetry.

Symmetry a natural sequent.

Final Diplomatic Expression of Dread of the Anarch seen at the Treaty of Paris,
Motor of Diplomacy in our Era-DESIRE FOR NATIONAL GREATNESS.

The Ideal of this time-Expansion in Territory; in Principles.

Expansion of Territory seen in Treaty of Washington.
Expansion of Principles seen in Austrian Letter.
Characteristics of Webster and his Diplomacy.

EVERY nation, whether it obey mob or king, must have men to embody its spirit and guide its energies. It must have power to grasp thrift abroad, as well as to shape it at home. Eloquence in its orators, forethought in its generals, strength in its armies, all are firm bulwarks; but, back of these, guiding and governing, are other servants girt with other armor, and strong in other strength. These seize from the mass of every day facts the principles which are needed, and from every day principles they deduce needed facts. Some of them deal alone with outward forces, or with inward forces in relation to outward. Their hope is to force upon the outer world some good expression for what is majestic, or strong, or true in their nation; their labor is to raise what shall give, and to sink what shall take away this national majesty, and strength, and truth. These are diplomatists. Others may build the nation's towers, or dig the moats,-another talent, entirely, recruits bowmen and spearmen; but these stand at the loopholes, and on the turrets; their hands make the surest shots; their eyes take the keenest observations.

Diplomacy, whether working out old systems or new systems, is, to outward sight, wayward. It is not a thing of regular shape. Its expression is rarely logical, and its form never wrought with the painstaking of the cloister. It often points, for its greatest victories, to its most startling innovations. Its inner clue is broken continually-yet the nature of the state workman, as well as the nature of his material give us some general principles. Leaving behind the ancient and medieval the three eras in modern European diplomacy give us three different motors: Dread of the Hierarch, Dread of the Monarch, Dread of the Anarch. The first receives its final expression at the Treaty of Westphalia, the second, at Utrecht,-the third, at Paris.

The first of these principles which takes huge shape, is DREAD OF THE HIERARCH. That Europe, plagued so long by too careless Popes, and scared by too zealous nuncios, should come, at last, to dread these causes of her troubles, is not strange. Far more strange had men not seen some of God's great facts, through all of man's poor symbols. For the struggle which this dread must bring, both sides had hewn out strong-holds in the popular mind; one in the early veneration and later affection for sign and symbol,-the other in reverence for Him who gave sign and symbol force. Out of these elements in religion, sprung new

elements in politics-state symbolism, and state protestantism. The former dealt no longer with chalice and breviary alone, nor did the latter rely alone on religious simplicity; there were many worldly elements in either, and these gave Diplomacy form and consistence. It had been before the mere pretence of a policy—it had known the Italian maxims of intrigue against peaceful states, and secret war on nations likely to become powerful; but the mind of the diplomatist followed no just formula, and was true to no worthy type. And this outer smoothness was its smallest want. It lacked heart to obey any steady motor,―lacked mind to create any stately ideal. For any lasting wrestle, it had neither pith

nor nerve.

This want of strength was seen, and the needs of the time compacted a new man. His type is seen in Gustavus, and it is reproduced in lesser proportions in Oxenstiern. The new state servant is an athlete strong and symmetrical, with body hardened and limbs polished; with heart plastic, and mind rigid; and his polity is like him. He stumbles into none of the old blunders, and tells none of the old lies. With overt elements he drives out the covert. He gives heavy blows and expects them, but the world has taken a great stride, for the fight has become fair. The new man uses fairness himself, and forces it upon his enemy. He seems to stir in every statesman something of old Greek and Roman life;-for Gustavus asked why men of his time might not have Greek valor. Richelieu thought there was place in modern man for Roman vigor. Many old casuistries were walled up in the cathedral crypts, and truth stalked as sentinel through the aisles above.

The diplomatist now set up as his ideal, highest strength. This deification of strength was forced upon him by the position of the parties, and the nature of their struggle. The struggle was open, the parties face to face; hence the chances were that victory must come to the strongest. Tilly recognized this in his saying that the God of Battles favored the strongest regiments; and this is the ideal which, in any new sequence of events, comes first. As, in the march from the primal to the norinal, the strong man comes before the crafty man; as the former builds the Pyramids before the latter plans the Parthenon; as stout muscle is expressed in walls and columns, before cunning thought is carved on friezes and capitals; so, in diplomacy, strength goes before skill, and is its prophet. This force of will and strength of muscle brought victory to the northern statesman, and thrust toleration into the codes of Central Europe.

Diplomacy then built one of its strongest monuments in the Treaty

of Westphalia-a treaty known of all men as one that has served its purpose. True, it is now, in its direct working, obsolete; but, as the slight pillar in one of our great caverns, serves as a nucleus for the evergrowing stalactite which shall be a pillar everlasting and infinitely more beautiful, though the woody fibre at the core be dissolved, so around this dissolving work of the diplomatist, has crystallized according to the most divine laws, a public opinion which shall uphold all that is good and just in the State, when the mere nucleus shall be forgotten.

The next principle which receives the full force of diplomatic thought, is DREAD OF THE MONARCH. The monarchical principle, in its pretence of casting about for natural boundaries, was creeping into the most sacred strongholds of Europe. The statesman now made to himself another ideal,-the ideal of highest skill, for, as in the last era, the working of all the forces then in being made strength the highest state good, so now the new forces caused the deification of skill. The man of stout sinew now yielded to the man of quick wit. There were no longer two parties, clearly defined, and face to face; for, between those pledged to the rise, and those determined upon the ruin of absolutism, there were many grades, and their dividing lines were hardly to be found by the best searching. The thing sought then, was not to give weight to the blow, but to know when to strike and where to strike.Under such conditions, mere brute force is ever placed in serfdom, and meets in craft, its born lord, just as quickly, just as completely as uncouth Aztec strength met its master in the skill of Cortez. This is not, however, mediæval skill—that which gave power to Louis XI, impunity to the wild De La Marck, and discouragement to Charles the Bold. It is not the cunning of the Communes, playing into the hands of the Suzeraine, to spite the feudal lord. That was poor in its plans and meager in its acts.

The type of the new man of skill, whom absolutism must have, is seen in Richelieu; and in this apostolate of his, he stands as representing past church greatness, and future state greatness. Of all men he cares least for chance. His soul in isolation is a true hermit-near no other-not to be compassed if it were near. Its only work-fellow is a spirit in French hearts of his own making; its only visitor on good terms is an abstraction-French monarchical greatness. He breaks through the confusions which baffle other men, by setting against them certain old ideas, on which, by renewal, his stamp is as clearly pressed as is his monarch's initial on the treasury ingots. What other men dream he interprets and congeals into realities. But he and his are of