groom; but that he is only educated if he is happy, busy,
beneficent, and effective in the world; that millions of peasants are
therefore at this moment better educated than most of those who call
themselves gentlemen; and that the means taken to "educate" the lower
classes in any other sense may very often be productive of a precisely
opposite result.

Observe: I do not say, nor do I believe, that the lower classes ought
not to be better educated, in millions of ways, than they are. I believe
_every man in a Christian kingdom ought to be equally well educated_.
But I would have it education to purpose; stern, practical,
irresistible, in moral habits, in bodily strength and beauty, in all
faculties of mind capable of being developed under the circumstances of
the individual, and especially in the technical knowledge of his own
business; but yet, infinitely various in its effort, directed to make
one youth humble, and another confident; to tranquillize this mind, to
put some spark of ambition into that; now to urge, and now to restrain:
and in the doing of all this, considering knowledge as one only out of
myriads of means in its hands, or myriads of gifts at its disposal; and
giving it or withholding it as a good husbandman waters his garden,
giving the full shower only to the thirsty plants, and at times when
they are thirsty, whereas at present we pour it upon the heads of our
youth as the snow falls on the Alps, on one and another alike, till they
can bear no more, and then take honor to ourselves because here and
there a river descends from their crests into the valleys, not
observing that we have made the loaded hills themselves barren for ever.

Finally: I hold it for indisputable, that the first duty of a state is
to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed,
and educated, till it attain years of discretion. But in order to the
effecting this, the government must have an authority over the people of
which we now do not so much as dream; and I cannot in this place pursue
the subject farther.

8. EARLY VENETIAN MARRIAGES.

Galliciolli, lib. ii. Sec. 1757, insinuates a doubt of the general custom,
saying "it would be more reasonable to suppose that only twelve maidens
were married in public on St. Mark's day;" and Sandi also speaks of
twelve only. All evidence, however, is clearly in favor of the popular
tradition; the most curious fact connected with the subject being the
mention, b