e schoolboy proceeds to
the playground, that he engages in real action and real discussion. It
is then that he is an absolute human being and a genuine individual.

The debates of schoolboys, their discussions what they shall do, and how
it shall be done, are anticipations of the scenes of maturer life. They
are the dawnings of committees, and vestries, and hundred-courts, and
ward-motes, and folk-motes, and parliaments. When boys consult when and
where their next cricket-match shall be played, it may be regarded as
the embryo representation of a consult respecting a grave enterprise to
be formed, or a colony to be planted. And, when they enquire respecting
poetry and prose, and figures and tropes, and the dictates of taste,
this happily prepares them for the investigations of prudence, and
morals, and religious principles, and what is science, and what is
truth.

It is thus that the wit of man, to use the word in the old Saxon sense,
begins to be cultivated. One boy gives utterance to an assertion; and
another joins issue with him, and retorts. The wheels of the engine of
the brain are set in motion, and, without force, perform their healthful
revolutions. The stripling feels himself called upon to exert his
presence of mind, and becomes conscious of the necessity of an immediate
reply. Like the unfledged bird, he spreads his wings, and essays their
powers. He does not answer, like a boy in his class, who tasks his
understanding or not, as the whim of the moment shall prompt him, where
one boy honestly performs to the extent of his ability, and others
disdain the empire assumed over them, and get off as cheaply as they
can. He is no longer under review, but is engaged in real action. The
debate of the schoolboy is the combat of the intellectual gladiator,
where he fences and parries and thrusts with all the skill and judgment
he possesses.

There is another way in which the schoolboy exercises his powers during
his periods of leisure. He is often in society; but he is ever and anon
in solitude. At no period of human life are our reveries so free
and untrammeled, as at the period here spoken of. He climbs the
mountain-cliff; and penetrates into the depths of the woods. His
joints are well strung; he is a stranger to fatigue. He rushes down the
precipice, and mounts again with ease, as though he had the wings of
a bird. He ruminates, and pursues his own trains of reflection and
discovery, "exhausting worlds," as it ap