pment and
strengthening of the intellectual powers as that the student may come,
at an earlier period of his college course, to that class of studies
which call more immediately for the use of reason, and give it
direction in its inquiries after truth. The impulse which the mind
receives from an acquaintance with its own powers, and their
application to some branches of intellectual philosophy, is a matter
of general experience. Every one recollects the pleasure of his first
acquisitions in this department of study, and the ardor with which he
thenceforth aspired to higher attainments. He breathed a free air, he
went forward with a new confidence, and his application to all the
duties before him became more easy and more successful. If, then, we
might, almost on the threshold of a public education, habituate the
mind to itself, and aid it in some of the more simple essays of its
own powers, it would seem, that we should prepare it for the readier
perception of classic beauties, and for mastering more effectually the
elements of mathematical, political, and moral science. Study in
every department ceases to be a mechanical process, when the mind is
thus accustomed, and then we have assurance that study will be a
pleasure, and that what becomes a pleasure will be gain and glory.

"If it were asked, whether any branch of college study might be
spared, few, probably, would be ready to affirm. However, in the zeal
of innovation, the utility of classical learning has been decried, it
is not probable that the name of scholar will ever be awarded to one
who has not loved to spend his days and nights upon the pages of
antiquity, nor drunk deep from these original sources of taste, and
genius, and philosophy. We believe it has rarely, if ever happened,
that one has attained to a symmetry and finished excellency of
character, in the varieties of any one department of learning, who has
not, at least in the early stages of education, received inspiration
from the oratory and poetry of other times, when language was an index
to the passions and emotions of the soul, and conveyed, not the names
only, but the properties of things, the qualities of mind. The very
vigor of thought and power of eloquence with which many, with a
parricidal spirit, have assailed the literature of antiquity, were
borrowed from its stores; and should their schemes of reform prevail
we might fear that other generations, inheriting only their
prejudices, witho