reports; who can be ostentatiously officious of their services in reforming and charitable societies, where the fact is to be known and commented upon; and yet, who would refuse the most trifling temporary aid to a friend, or the smallest boon to a poor neighbor, which might fall short of the necessary blazon to the world. They are very 'prompt,' like Mr. BOWLEY; their 'cash-books,' like that worthy functionary's, are always ready for service, either for entries or excuses; but like his, their hearts beat sluggishly beneath a frozen crust of transparent selfishness. How true is the remark of a benevolent modern essayist: The humble current of little kindness, which though but a creeping streamlet, incessantly flows; although it glides in silent secrecy along the walks of private life, and makes neither noise nor appearance in the world; pours, in the end, a more bountiful tribute into the store of human comfort and felicity than any sudden and transient flood of detached bounty, however ample, that may rush into it with a mighty sound.' The HARPERS have also in press a complete edition of HALLECK's poems, beautifully executed, which has been long waited for, and which will speedily make way for a second edition. Mr. HALLECK's popularity has never for one moment abated. 'Number Forty-five of HARPERS' Library of Select Novels' contains The Regent's Daughter,' translated from DUMAS by C. H. Town, Esq. We hear the work spoken of in terms of high praise, but have not as yet found time and opportunity to read a line of it. That it is well rendered, the translator's name is a sufficient guaranty. . . . Ir is very rarely that we meet with a better number of a monthly publication than the last issue of the Yale Literary Magazine.' The papers upon Agriculture,' 'Moral Outlines of History,' and the 'Ramblings in Italy,' would do credit to works of far higher pretensions than one conducted by mere college-students. The number contains a view of a proposed Gothic-ish edifice for a college-library, a very effective colored wood-engraving of Yale College and Chapel in 1786.'... MESSRS. APPLETON AND COMPANY have published, in a large and well-printed volume, TAYLOR'S 'Manual of Ancient and Modern Hstory; revised, with an additional chapter on the United States, by Prof. C. S. HENRY, of the New-York University;' a luminous compend of the political characteristics, the exterior relations, and the internal condition of the world in all ages. ・ ・ ・ THE second number of The American Review and Whig Journal,' devoted to politics, science, literature and art, has made its appearance. The very best thing in its pages is an unique, singularly imaginative, and most musical effusion, entitled The Raven.' We have never before, to our knowledge, met the author, Mr. EDGAR A. POE, as a poet; but if the poem to which we allude be a specimen of his powers in this kind, we shall always be glad to welcome him in his new department. We skipped the elaborate Result of the Election,' the fifty-four columns on 'ALISON'S History of Europe,' (a work which has been subject to treatment' for several months in foreign and native reviews and magazines,) and the long story of 'Jack Long,' which we had read under another title in the Democratic Review,' where it appears, by an unforeseen circumstance; but we did peruse the paper on Words,' and that on 'GOETHE's Egmont,' with unusual pleasure. We hope that the article on 'Post-Office Reform,' notwithstanding its length, may find numerous readers; for it treats of a subject which deserves both special and general consideration. Six editorial pages are devoted to brief Critical Notices and a record of Foreign Literary Miscellany.' The 'Review' looks well, and promises to be well sustained, as indeed it should be, by the great political party to whose interests it is devoted. We wish our young contemporary all success. Macte Virtute!... We have received from Messrs. WILEY AND PUTNAM A Course of English Reading, adapted to every Taste and Capacity, with Anecdotes of Men of Genius;' by Rev. JAMES PYCROFT, of Trinity College, Oxford; with American additions, from the competent hand of J. G. COGSWELL, Esq.; and Rome, as seen by a New-Yorker,' a clear and most attractive picture of the Eternal City, and its numerous objects of interest., . . WE write this without having seen S. MARGARET FULLER'S new work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century;' but as the different forms' of the volume, were passing through the press of the printer of this Magazine, we heard enough of it read, in the proof-sheets, to be enabled to pronounce it a well-reasoned and well-written treatise.... A MR. ROCHIETTI, an Italian, has been making himself very ridiculous by writing and publishing a work upon this country in the English language. With fifty errors on every page of his own book, he complains elaborately of one or two alleged mistakes in HEADLEY'S well-written and very entertaining volume, 'Italy and the Italians.' A pleasant sort of critic, certainly!... WE have received from Mr. OLIVER DITSON, Boston, 'The Death of WARREN,' a national song, the music by DEMPSTER, which he sings with great sweetness and feeling. A very fine vignette, representing the well-known scene from TRUMBULL'S picture, appeals to the eye, as the music does to the heart. 'Sweet Home of my Childhood,' another of DEMPSTER's popular ballads, the music by his old friend and instructor, Mr. JOHN DANIEL, a gentleman to whose merits we recently adverted, and who needed only to be known, to be highly appreciated, has been sent us by the publisher, Mr. DUBOIS, Broadway. ART. I. THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY AS A SCHOOL-CLASSIC, III. THE SCALP-HUNTER: A SEMI-HISTORICAL SKETCH, IV. DOUBTING MOMENTS. BY HENRY A. CLARK, VI. SCENES AT CONSTANTINOPLE: THE HOLY MONTH RAMAZAN, VII. SONNET ADDRESSED BY AN OLD HUSBAND TO A YOUNG WIFE, VIII. 283 296 297 303 304 305 . 310 'BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHO DIE IN THE LORD.' BY JOHN RHEYN, 311 IX. ON PERCEPTION. BY JOHN WATERS, X. DAYS LONG AGO. BY J. S. Freligh, XI. SKETCHES OF THE GREAT WEST. BY LEWIS F. THOMAS, Esq., . 312 315 316 1. THE PIASAU ROCK. 2. BARBEAU'S CREEK, A LEGEND. 3. THE MISSOURI RIVER. XVI. THE POLYGON PAPERS. NUMBER THIRTEEN, XV. BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. BY SUSAN PINDAR, XVII. LINES FROM A HUMBLE LOVER TO A CRUEL LADY. By 'PENSIEROSO,' XIX. THE GALES OF SPRING. BY CLAUDE HALcro, XX. THE CHEMIST'S DREAM. BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR, LITERARY NOTICES: 1. PHRENO-MNEMOTECHNY, OR THE ART OF MEMORY, 2. THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN TEACHER. BY J. N. BELLOWS, ESQ., 354 355 4. INDA: A LEGEND OF THE LAKES, WITH OTHER POEMS, 356 EDITOR'S TABLE: 1. EARLY AMERICAN TRAVELLERS IN THE HOLY LAND, 3. NOTRE-DAME AUX VIOLETTES, A LEGEND, 1. SALUTATORY: ALL FOOLS' DAY: THE VICTIMIZER VICTIM'D. 2. GRATEFUL RE- LITERARY RECORD. DUNNIGAN'S DOUAY BIBLE; EDSON'S 'VOCAL GUIDE;' MESSRS. BURGess, Stringer THE KNICKERBOCKER. VOL. XXV. APRIL, 1845. No. 4. THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY.* THIS Magazine has always said its best word of encouragement to the cause of popular education; and now we purpose to take another onward step in this department. To introduce any science as a new classic among elementary studies, demands exact knowledge of that science, and a wide survey of existing institutions. It is the part of wise policy for our country to borrow from other lands all that is good, while we make better whatever we appropriate. We have no fear of any thing foreign, whether in science, literature, arts, or even manners, so long as we can filter them through our republican minds and our puritan hearts. Our country ought to take the lead in this business of popular education, and set such an example to our sister republics of the South as can be followed with safety. We should teach them to hope all things not impossible, and to believe all things not unreasonable. We maintain that all knowledge, which does not lead to error, is useful. Where there exists in a nation the greatest diversity of pursuits, there the business of society goes on with most precision; and where there are the greatest number of relationships in our ideas, there we advance most rapidly and securely. Happy then is he who in this stage of existence can acquire the most knowledge with the greatest degree of innocence. To educate is to form character; it is to develope all the powers in their natural order, proper time and due proportion, so that we shall see in that grown-up character all that God designed in the infant constitution. Education does not so much consist in carrying materials to the mind, as in bringing out materials from the mind. To the teacher falls the sacred office of education; (educo) of drawing humanity out of man; of tempting forth the various energies of thought, and of becoming a fellow-laborer with God in bringing out the godlike in the human soul. The universe, our globe, life, truth, art, science, *I. CAHIERS D'Histoire NatureLLE, a l'usage des Collèges et des Ecoles Normales Primaires. Par M. MILNE EDWARDS et M. ACHILLE COMTE. Paris: 1838 II. A SYNOPSIS of NATURAL HISTORY; embracing the Natural History of Animals, with human and general Animal Physiology, Botany, Vegetable Physiology and Geology; Translated from the French of C. LEMMONNIER, and arranged as a text-book for schools. By THOMAS WYATT, A. M. pp. 191: Philadelphia. faith, immortality, in short, every thing our minds can know, or hope grasp, are means. Man is making his progress through matter; he is here at school, schooling for eternity. He has an interest, an inevitable positive interest, in every moment of the eternal future. We may therefore add to our statement just made: To educate is to form immortal character. For the child's body GoD has prepared the best food fitted for every moment of its growth. For every moment of the child's mind he has likewise prepared the means of growth. These means are arranged in a naturally-ascending series, corresponding to the gradually-unfolding powers of the mind; beginning with those which arrest the eager curiosity of the youngest child, and ending with those which reveal themselves only to the searching analysis of the profoundest philosopher. To the teacher belongs the duty of applying these in their proper portions, suitable times, and simple forces. If the body has not so much of the natural food as it can well digest, it languishes, and is not such a body as God designed. If the mind has not so much of its natural aliment as it can well digest, it languishes, is stinted, and is not such a character as GoD designed. The question then is, what has GoD provided for the best nourishment of the young mind, and how should these means of development be applied so that we may realize God's idea of a man? It is not our purpose to answer this question except as pertains to one particular branch of instruction, and that branch is NATURAL HISTORY. GOD seems to have proposed his material creation as a standing, perpetual study to his intelligent creatures, where, ever learning, they can never learn all. We cannot open our eyes, nor stretch out our hands, nor take a step, but we see and handle and tread upon the things from which the most wonderful discoveries and the most useful inventions have been deduced. The subject of Natural History is no narrower than the vast creation; a history of nature. The study of this science, then, how comprehensive!-comprehensive, because it embraces a knowledge of all the beings and bodies spread over the surface of the earth, of all the substances under that surface which constitute its mass, of all the phenomena of which these bodies are the seat, the various characters which distinguish them from each other, and the part they all act in the great economy of the universe. The study of this science, moreover, how simple! —simple, because it has to do with what our eyes can see, our hands can handle, and our minds can know. Leaving the fields of conjectural criticism and vague hypothesis, it goes to plant itself on the sterling facts of nature and of life. From this wide field of truth and inquiry we select one topic, suggested by the two works named at the head of this article; viz. the introduction of Natural History as a regular classic into all our colleges, academies, normal and high schools. The questions which seem to embrace our subject are these: FIRST: Is Natural History a science which youths from twelve to eighteen years of age can understand? SECOND: If they can understand it, is it a study which will help to |