We are bound to strive against such ungodly and unworthy impulses. We may not be indifferent in whose name it is that we work; whether it is Moses who acts, or Jannes and Jambres. Both theoretical and practical natural science must be taught, in a right and pious manner; both must be sanctified, as well in principle as in purpose.

When man, as the image of God, was placed as his representative in the dominion over the creatures, he was also himself shaped in the image of God.

It would seem that the Creator desired that his creatures should themselves partake of his creative power; for he conferred upon plants, beasts, and men the power of reproducing their kind, to all time; instead of himself forming one generation after another.

But to man he granted more; he granted him the gift of various creative powers, and an intelligent will for the free development of those powers. The bees build dodecahedric cells, not by a free and improvable art, but by instinet; they must make dodecahedra, just as the inorganic elements of a garnet crystal must gather into the same shape.

Of what kind, it might be asked, were these gifts in Adam, before the fall? Only one is mentioned in Genesis, that of speech. It was already observed that the Creator approved of the names which Adam gave to the beasts; and that these must therefore have expressed the real character of the beasts. In these names, humanly given, God's creation was mirrored, they were actual names; really substantives; arising out of the appearance of the creatures themselves. We, fallen men of the present day, can not make such names.*

We may consider this giving of the names by Adam as the first entirely complete expression of human speech; a completeness which later men have sought to equal in many ways, in prose and in poetry.

The very name of poet reminds us that he is an image of his Creator- -a "maker." The greatest of poets has, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, thus described the poet :—

"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name."

Are not the forms born from Shakspeare's wondrously teeming

*We make great efforts to describe in as perfect a way as possible, and search out many words, mostly adjectives, so as to stick together a sort of mosaic picture in words, as perfect and similar as may be, of minerals, &c.

fancy-Macbeth, Hotspur, Desdemona, Shylock-indeed most of the persons in his dramas-so entirely individualized, independent men, that we might almost be tempted to assert that they have a more individual existence than do numberless actual human beings?*

Thus the poet creatively, by his words, reveals a rich interior world.. And his poems even stimulate sensitive hearers to become poets themselves; to repeat his creative act.

The historian and the orator are related to the poet.

But above all the human arts of language, and different from them, stands in holy solitude the revealed Word of God, which through his efficient power causes the regeneration of the world. From its fullness, preachers, and singers of divine songs, draw their power over the hearts of their hearers. In this holy realm, man finds a foretaste of the powers of the future world; of his return into his father's house.

As in the arts of language, so does the creative power of man express itself in fine arts. Raphael does not only give us true representations of localities and of men; he paints a new earth, a new heaven, and glorified saints like angels.

Thus we can trace this creative power in every art; in the sculptor, the architect, the musician; sometimes imitating, and sometimes idealizing, in a divine aspiration.

Every artistic gift implanted by God in the soul of a child must be faithfully cherished and trained. To this end the first requisite is, that his senses shall be trained: his eye to a true, clear, vivid apprehension of the visible world; his ear to true and keen hearing, &c. And with this development of the susceptibilities must sooner or later be connected that of the power of representation of speaking, singing, writing, painting, &c.; that is, the development of the creating power. But, above all, his feelings must be purified and sanctified, that he may have no pleasure in impure artistic labors, in external beauty without internal moral goodness.

I can not utter a sufficiently emphatic warning against the usual abuses of these powers. The apostle James refers to the abuse of speech. "The tongue," he says, (and we may add, the pen and the press,) "is an unruly evil. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. * Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? And it is said, in earnest warning, "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."

*

*God did not make men and then depart, but they are of him and in him. Remain in him who made you. It is upon this truth that the real energy and actual existence of a human being depend.

The Word, added to the element, makes it a sacrament."

These warnings are applicable both to speakers and writers; and to hearers and readers too.

The fine arts, especially, have variously and deeply sinned against purity; let us guard our children against impure pictures. Unholy ⚫ and delusive passions characterize the modern music; let us return to the chaste and pure music of the ancient masters.

I pray the reader to receive with indulgence this attempt to base pedagogy upon principles; to set forth, though only in outline, its purpose and object. It is an endeavor to show that all human training must seek the restoration of the image of God; and that a Christian, ethical, intellectual, and artistic training, in particular, should contemplate the renewal of our similarity to God in holiness, wisdom, power, and creative energy. Such a training leads to holiness, which has the promise of this world and the next.

XII. JOSIAH HOLBROOK.*

JOSIAH HOLBROOK, whose name is indissolubly connected with the earlier development of the Lyceum, and with the efforts to improve our system of popular education in America, was the son of Colonel Daniel Holbrook, of Derby, Conn., where he was born about the middle of 1788. Col. Holbrook was an officer in the Revolutionary war, and a man of wealth and influence. His son received the ordinary common school education of the day, fitted for college under Rev. Amasa Porter, of Derby, and entered at Yale College in 1806, graduating in 1810. Three years afterward, he married a daughter of Rev. Zephaniah Swift, of Derby. She died in 1819, leaving him two sons, Alfred and Dwight. On the death of his father and mother, at about this time, the care of the farm devolved upon Mr. Holbrook, and it was during the period occupied in this vocation that the ideas which were the central ones of his subsequent labors first occurred to his mind.

Acting on these views, he opened, about this time, on his own farm in Derby, in connection with Rev. Truman Coe, one of the first schools in America which sought to teach a popularized form of natral science, and to combine manual labor with education. Boys in this school were allowed to pay a portion of their expenses by laboring on the farm. The institution was not permanent, but the experiment satisfied Mr. Holbrook of the practicability of the principle. We quote from a letter of Mr. Coe, to a son of Mr. Holbrook, the following statements respecting this school.

"He had long cherished the idea of endeavoring to found an institution in which the course of instruction should be plain and practical; an agricultural school, where the science of chemistry, and mechanics, and land surveying should be thoroughly drilled into the mind of the pupils by practice. With these views the Agricultural Seminary was commenced in Derby in 1824, and continued to the fall of 1825, under the direction of your father and myself; and, as far

* We are indebted in part for the material of this memoir to our own correspondence with Mr. Holbrook; to letters furnished by his son, Dwight; and to a paper prepared by Rev. Cyril Pearl, of Maine, for insertion in this Journal, but which, proving too long, will be issued by its author in a separate volume, and will be found a valuable contribution to the Biography and History of Popular Education in the United States.

as I know, was the first educational movement of the kind in all that region. But the institution, being unendowed and on a private footing, labored under many embarrassments, especially in never having land enough to carry out and accomplish the ends of its founders. We did what we could to train the students in the analysis of soils, in the application of the mechanical powers to all farming operations, and took out our young men often into the field and country for practical surveying, geological excursions, road-making, and the labors of the farm; but, not being able at that time to place the school on an eligible foundation, it was abandoned."

While at work on his own farm, Mr. Holbrook's zeal in the pursuit of knowledge led him, with the design of increasing his acquaintance with chemistry, mineralogy, and geology, to attend the lectures of Prof. Silliman, at New Haven-riding over and back from Derby for the purpose, notwithstanding distance and an inclement season.

The precise train of thought and of circumstances which led Mr. Holbrook to transfer his efforts from the farm and school at Derby to the wider field of popular scientific lecturing, we have no data for tracing. The American Journal of Education, then conducted by Mr. William Russell, contains, in its tenth number, for October, 1826, a paper by Mr. Holbrook, setting forth his views on the subject of "Associations of Adults for the Purpose of Mutual Education," which we here insert, with the editor's introductory remarks, as the earliest printed exposition of his principles.

ASSOCIATIONS OF ADULTS FOR MUTUAL EDUCATION.

[The following article is from an individual whose attention has been long and peculiarly directed to the subject on which he writes; and who has contributed extensive and efficient service to associations modeled on a plan similar to that which is now presented to our readers. The subject here introduced to public attention is one of uncommon interest, when regarded in connection with the progress of general improvement by means of education; it is equally important in a political point of view, as intimately connected with the diffusion of intelligence, and with the elevation of character among the agricultural and mechanic classes; and to the friend of moral improvement it offers a source of peculiar gratification, as a sure preventive of those insidious inroads of vice, which are ever ready to be made on hours of leisure and relaxation.]

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR-I take the liberty to submit, for your consideration, a few articles as regulations for associations for mutual instruction in the sciences, and in useful knowledge generally. You will see they are upon a broad basis; and the reason is, that men of views enlightened enough upon education to see its defects and its wants, and spirit enough to act, are scattered more or less through the country; and all that is necessary for action, is some definite plan of operation, by which their efforts can be united and brought to bear upon one point. It seems to me that, if associations for mutual instruction in the sciences, and other branches of useful knowledge, could once be started in our villages, and upon a general plan, they would increase with great rapidity, and do more for the general diffusion of knowledge, and for raising the moral and intellectual taste of our countrymen, than any other expedient which can possibly be devised. And it may be questioned if there is any other way to check the progress of that monster, intemperance, which is making such havoc with talents, morals, and every thing that