in many others. The great Warwick of England, the putter-up and the
puller-down of kings, did not know his letters; Marshal Soult, the
greatest of Napoleon's marshals, could not write a correct sentence in
French; and Stevenson, the greatest engineer the world ever saw--the
inventor of the locomotive engine--did not know his letters at
twenty-one years of age, and was always illiterate. It is a question
whether such minds would have been greatly aided by education, or
whether they might not have been greatly injured by it--nature seeming
to have formed all minds with particular proclivities. These are more
marked in the stronger intellects. They direct to the pursuit in life
for which nature has designed the individual: should this idiosyncrasy
receive the proper education from infancy, doubtless it would be aided
to the more rapid and more certain accomplishment of the designs of
nature. To discover this in the child, requires that it should be
strongly developed, and a close and intelligent observation on the part
of the parent or guardian who may have the direction of the child's
education. But this, in the system of education almost universally
pursued, is never thought of; and the avocation of the future man is
chosen for him, without any regard to his aptitudes for it, and often
in disregard of those manifested for another. Consequently, nature is
thwarted by ignorance, and the individual drags on unsuccessfully in a
hated pursuit through life. Left alone, these proclivities become a
passion, and where strongly marked, and aided by strength of will, they
work out in wonderful perfection the designs of nature. Julius Caesar,
Hannibal, Attila, Yengis Khan, Prince Eugene, Marlborough, Napoleon,
and Wellington were all generals by nature--and so were Andrew Jackson
and "Stonewall" Jackson. The peculiarities of talent which make a great
general make a great statesman; and all of those who, after
distinguishing themselves as great generals, were called to the
administration of the civil affairs of their respective Governments,
have equally distinguished themselves as civilians.

The proposing of General Jackson as a candidate for the Presidency was
received, by most of those who were deemed statesmen, as a burlesque;
and many of those most active in his support only desired his election
to further their own views, and not for the country's benefit. It was
supposed he was so entirely unacquainted with state-craft, that