gant impressions of the printer's art. So, too, will it be with the orthography of a language. The earliest attempts at spelling, will give you a most grotesque and useless and unpronounceable combination of characters, which the pruning of ages of literary culture must transform into the settled orthography of an age of learning. The uncouth phrases, and the strange irregularities of a language as void of syntactical structure as of orthographical beauty, will become obsolete, and leave you, instead, with the terse and expressive diction, whose rhetoric and orthography and alphabetic notation are equally faultless. See, too, a similar influence at work upon the phonology of that language. Harshness and impracticable combinations give way to euphony and facility. In the Greek, you will find a graceful blending of sounds. Instead of the sharply angular τετυπμένος, you will find the more facile τετυμμένος. In the Latin, ad-loquor becomes alloquor; ad-sequor, assequor; con-ludo, colludo. In the French, the impracticable a-il? and parle-il? are educated into the readily conversational a-t-il ? and parle-t-il ? So, also, in our language we find instead of inmortal, immortal; for con-existent, coexistent; for an boy, a boy; or, without changing orthography, we merely improve the vocal expression, as judgment, abridgment, and commencement, instead of the more literal judgment, abridgment, and commencement. Should you now hear a man insisting upon the latter pronunciation, it would only recall the uneducated teacher of your earliest re membrance; or you would feel that he is a modern with a very sharp point to carry, and even sharpen at that. But look at the influence of culture upon the practical use of that language. You see it in the cultivated voice itself. The boy, who, when this art master takes hold of him for the first time to test his vocal and elocutionary capacity, drawls out his sounds grating through his teeth, mingling in agonizing confusion vowels and consonants, and confounding all distinctions of syllables and words, at length, under the process of training, becomes the applauded speaker, with a richly sonorous voice, and with easily followed, because distinct and forcible, utterance. It was culture like this which converted the stammering Demosthenes into the graceful and impressive orator of the world; and the hoarsely guttural tones of Edward Irving, into that rich bass which knew so well how to take captive any listening ear. And what but a noble capacity, improved by months and years of culture, could ever have resulted in that clear and distinct utterance of our Clay, whose whisper tone, even thrilled the soul of every listener with a strangely magical effect. Still further, the Athenian boy, by the patient culture of years, trained every muscle of that awkward and irritable body into becoming obedience to his art, so that the very lifting of his hand or turning of his eye, bore the burning thought with ten-fold directness and power to his charmed audience; and the English divine whom we have introduced, under a similar educational transformity, passed from the very awkward boy, with angularity for form, and nervous twitches for gesture, into one of the most graceful of men, whether in the parlor, the street, or the pulpit. Not that every boy whom you attempt to train to speak, will be a Demosthenes or an Irving in elocution. Yet it is not too much to say, that a better education here than we now get, would seem very rasping to many of our needless and misplaced protuberances, and doubtless polish to a higher finish what few promises and possibilities of gracefulness are found in any one of us. The medicating might be dreadful to bear, but would it not, should it prove effective, make most of us immeasurably more efficient, as well as more graceful? Or, to instance yet one more illustration of this work, look at the structures of taste and beauty which the literature of nearly every cultivated people can furnish. I surely need not here detain you in even naming those works of classic fame which, in the course of your reading, have charmed you with images of exceeding loveliness, or moved and roused your souls by the appeals of an eloquence which you could not, and would not resist. Need I speak of the primitive beauty which, like native flowers and gems, has often arrested your gaze on almost every page of the old Homer whom you admire? Or shall I summon, again to wield over your captive minds the tones of that immortal eloquence which, from the Grecian bench and the Roman forum, ruled of old the world, and which, till now, has been the fountain of inspiration to all human taste and eloquence? Or, need I cite the works of our Milton and Shakspeare, of our Johnsons and Addisons, of our Burkes and Websters and Clays, of our Chalmers and Halls and Channings, that you may have before you some fitting examples of those beautiful and splendid structures in which our own literature abounds? Who of us would not feel that a night of mournful gloom had set in, should such lights be quenched? and who cannot see in these immortal works, the radiance and glory of that beauty which human education designs and creates ? But we need not multiply our illustrations of this beautifying process in the physical world. We have instanced the individual changed from a clownish boor to the accomplished man; the family, from a wandering flock of isolated animals, burrowing together, only from the blind demands of an instinct which even other animals obey, into a home circle, held together by mutual interests and sympathies, over which is diffused the rich charm of kindly interchange and reciprocating love; human society, redeemed from its savagery and brutal existence, and invested with all that adorns a state of civilization, appropriate and elegant dress,- becoming and ornamental homes, beautiful villages and splendid cities, a language of mechanical and euphonic beauty, and a literature, whose elegant creations fascinate all whose culture has prepared them to comprehend and feel their power; and these surely are ample illustrations of the aesthetic influ - ence of all right and efficient education, over the physical appearance and condition of our race. But education has a higher aim, even, than this. It were unworthy its noble office to exhaust its resources in beautifying the material world alone. Indeed it were an attempt as futile as unworthy. The beauty which is traced on this external Cosmos fades. The boldest mountain peak is crumbling down. The most enchanting landscape turns pale and stiffens under the breath of the mighty frost-king. The noblest brow, the most charming eye, every form of matchless beauty, every voice of richest sweetness, has its date; and to beautify these alone, would only be to scatter sweet roses among burning sands, or over arctic ices. But all right culture seeks more enduring results. Education builds and beautifies for immortality; and in doing so, she rears her noblest structures out of elements as imperishable as the soul itself. Hers is a work of moral and spiritual power; and her highest achievements are to be found in the transcendent loveliness of that grace and purity which shine in all moral excellence. "Nor is the past history of human culture without many trophies on this field. The glorious characters honored in the record of inspiration, witness to this glorious consummation of human and divine culture. And in our age we have seen how exalted a dignity, how rich a charm, moral culture has thrown over many a character which had else been marked by all the ugliness of sin. Right here it is, that education has still a great |