. Afterward comes in due order the acquisition of languages,
particularly the dead languages; a most fortunate occupation for those
years of man, in which the memory is most retentive, and the reasoning
powers have yet acquired neither solidity nor enlargement. Such are the
occupations of the schoolboy in his prescribed hours of study.

But the schoolboy is cooped up in an apartment, it may be with a number
of his fellows. He is seated at a desk, diligently conning the portion
of learning that is doled out to him, or, when he has mastered his
lesson, reciting it with anxious brow and unassured lips to the senior,
who is to correct his errors, and pronounce upon the sufficiency of his
industry. All this may be well: but it is a new and more exhilarating
spectacle that presents itself to our observation, when he is dismissed
from his temporary labours, and rushes impetuously out to the open air,
and gives free scope to his limbs and his voice, and is no longer under
the eye of a censor that shall make him feel his subordination and
dependence.

Meanwhile the question under consideration was, not in which state he
experienced the most happiness, but which was productive of the greatest
improvement.

The review of the human subject is conveniently divided under the heads
of body and mind.

There can be no doubt that the health of the body is most promoted by
those exercises in which the schoolboy is engaged during the hours of
play. And it is further to be considered that health is required, not
only that we may be serene, contented and happy, but that we may be
enabled effectually to exert the faculties of the mind.

But there is another way, in which we are called upon to consider the
division of the human subject under the heads of body and mind.

The body is the implement and instrument of the mind, the tool by which
most of its purposes are to be effected. We live in the midst of
a material world, or of what we call such. The greater part of the
pursuits in which we engage, are achieved by the action of the limbs and
members of the body upon external matter.

Our communications with our fellow-men are all of them carried on by
means of the body.

Now the action of the limbs and members of the body is infinitely
improved by those exercises in which the schoolboy becomes engaged
during his hours of play. In the first place it is to be considered that
we do those things most thoroughly and in the shortest time, w