stroying its admiration and wonder, substituting dribblets of natural philosophy and simplified metaphysics, for the instruction of eye and ear and hand and heart, most natural to that age when all the world is new and fresh, forgetting ever that

-A deeper import

Lurks in the legend told our infant years

Than lies upon that truth we live to learn.

Never, in utilitarian anxiety for immediate fame or wealth, or importance, will it send forth as educated, the witling so deplorably ignorant as not to know that in the estimation of wisdom he is a fool. Never will it call the philosopher from his retreat, the historian from his library, the poet from the haunts of the muses, and bid them toil in the public thoroughfares, or do homage to the omnipotent spirit of commerce, but will rather bid them, in the sphere determined by education, and the assignment of Providence, be greatly wise for the public good; will counsel them sometimes even to stand aloof from the enterprises of the majority, by virtue of their station, to warn men against the idols of the tribe, the market, the den,' contented, if it be necessary, to bear the reproaches of the violent and unthinking, but striving ever for truth and justice and the public welfare. It is this magnanimous and broadly practical spirit which will give to learning its most extended power, and, without checking the most thorough research, or quenching the fire of passion, or clogging the foot of fancy, will confer upon literature a permanent moral value.

We suggest again that the scholar should cherish a spirit of patriotism. We know how this word has been abused, how it has filled the mouth of "every new protester," till we become ashamed of the empty boast, but there is a profound virtue still in the genuine love of our country, beautiful link as it is in the golden chain of the virtues. An ill omen is it for a nation, that the loyalty of its people is dying out, and instead of the sincere and voluntary homage of affectionate hearts, there remains but a hollow and selfish pretence of regard, as if the State were made wholly for us, and we in no sense for the State. It bodes no good to the letters of a people, when its scholars receive their impulses from foreign nations of diverse laws and customs. And, on the other hand, be a nation couching under the rod of an oppressor, let the home-loving, country-loving spirit of her people be thoroughly awakened, and as surely as she retains intelligence and virtue and courage, her regeneration is sure. She may be Germany under the gigantic dominion of Napoleon,-she will be Germany flinging the fetters to the winds, and standing up in reïnvigorated manhood.

1849.]

The Scholar should be a Patriot.

125

There can be no fresh and genial literature which is not redolent of its age and nation. To be more than a spiritless, though perhaps beautiful imitation, it must utter the sentiments of a peculiar people; must be a mirror of their thoughts, passions, speculations, tastes, faith. Every scholar is a debtor to his country, and the tribute which he renders will be 'twice blessed, blessing him who gives and those who receive.' This is not a matter of speculation, but of literary history. Because Luther was intensely German his works are classics, his renown a part of the national treasure. Because Shakspeare was entirely English, because the varied character of a whole people speaks through his mouth, is he enthroned at once the intellectual king and representative of as mighty an empire as the sun ever shone upon. And because both were so strongly national have they become renowned to the world's end. For this very reason do they express feelings common, in a measure, to the universal heart of humanity; since that which lies deepest in our nature is most widely diffused, and what we imagine shut up and concealed in our inmost heart is the open secret' of the race. Who detects the very soul and life of things but he who recognizes those presentiments and affections which are all pervading?

It is a grand mistake to suppose that by sweeping away the boundaries of country, we enlarge the capacity of the mind, or give a wider scope to literature. We but substitute the general and the common for the original and peculiar; we increase the surface but diminish the depth. The affections, for their best growth, need the protection of an enclosure, with the natural supports of wholesome laws and customs, with common sympathies and pursuits. The soil and climate of the tropics will not produce the fruits of the temperate zone. Cosmopolitism may have its value, but never without harm to letters, to morals, to all social life, can it usurp the place and functions of the elder virtue. Ancient experience and modern have demonstrated its folly, how nearly allied to selfishness in morals, how impotent of grand results in literature and in national character. The mind needs something definite to fasten upon, something within the possibility of its grasp, some country in whose fame it is honored, in whose misfortunes it is afflicted, of whose greatness and virtues it may feel a generous admiration, whose glories it may possibly enhance, may certainly help preserve.

He who vilifies the land of his birth, does a wider and more grievous injury than he may suppose. In taking from its glory, he takes from the motives for guarding its welfare; by pronouncing the sentence of its degradation he helps to make it degraded. By an unfilial

temper, he aggravates the evils against which he inveighs and helps not to make the country free, but to throw it more completely under the dominion of whoever may be strong enough to assume the mastery.

Every scholar preeminently owes his head, his heart, his arm to the country which has nurtured him; he owes it to the government itself, whatever be its form, until by extraordinary neglect, by irremediable carelessness of law and obligations, by a wide and nearly unexampled oppression, the limits of which have wisely been left undefined, the government forfeits its claim to the reverence and affection of the subject. Even then, for the country he must labor, to preserve, so far as he can, its high civic, literary, and moral eminence, to give its activities a wise direction, to guard it from the almost insanity to which nations no less than individuals seem sometimes exposed, and when false principles are rife, to restore her if it may be, to the path of rectitude, and therefore of honor. But to desert her, to take the part of her slanderers and enemies, even, or rather especially in her dark days, is not magnanimous, but mean and cowardly. For him there can be no other native land; here, or nowhere, must he garner up his hopes. Like another Demosthenes, he may raise his voice of warning and entreaty amidst her dying glories; like another Thucydides, he may portray, earnestly and sorrowfully portray her dissensions, her destructive ambition and lust of foreign conquest, the extinguishing, one after another (if it must be so) of the lights of her civil and commercial glory, and thus, like them, soften the rigor of her calamity, and enlighten, for a little, the night which seems descending, but there in adversity as in honor, is the field of his labor. This responsibility, however, greater to him than to the unthinking, leads him to touch cautiously even the evils of the State; impels him to inquire what are the necessary conditions of patriotism, how far a nation may spread its domains and lose none of that concentration which is necessary to afford an object for the general love, to preserve the national honor and a unity of national character. For him, if for anybody, is history instructive. He remembers that the destruction of Carthage, by taking away one mighty impulse to Roman energy and virtue, did much to weaken the security of the Roman State; he remembers that in the proudest days of that domineering republic, when the world acknowledged her authority, under the tropical sun of universal prosperity were germinating with fearful rapidity the seeds of her destruction.

The truly patriotic spirit is far enough removed from a blind and indiscriminate admiration of all which is ours, as it is from a condemnation of all that belongs to another. It is entirely consistent with a

The Scholar should possess a Religious Spirit.

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1849.] full recognition of the virtues and the greatness of a foreign State. Although it may be pardonable, in the indulgence of a proper affection, to dwell upon the grand achievements of one's country, yet to be forever prating of our national greatness, is, to say the least, no proof of what we assert. It has not the merit even of pride, the stronger vice, but only of vanity, the weaker. That is not only a false and dangerous, but a low policy, which, at this age of the world, seeks to perpetuate national differences, to carry the bitterness and antipathies of one generation into another, to cultivate hereditary hate. It is peculiarly the part of scholars, even by virtue of their patriotism, looking to the largest and best interests of their respective nations, to cultivate assiduously a friendly spirit. Especially is this becoming in a republic, the genius of whose institutions is professedly so liberal. And if always becoming, where so beautiful as when exercised between two of the mightiest nations, boasting a common ancestry, common laws, a common fame, a common language, liberty, literature, religion? The world is wide enough for the mother and daughter to travel together in harmony, and even occasionally to render each other mutual "aid and comfort" To cultivate, magnify and extend the sympathy between them, is the privilege and duty of him who can command the ear and the heart of both countries. Most pernicious are those productions which systematically aim to dissever the silken cord which binds such people together. Never to be forgotten, never to be remembered but with gratitude and praise, are those statesmen whose wisdom and magnanimity have removed from such people the prominent excitements of unkindness and hostility.

We venture, as a final characteristic, to allude to a high moral, a religious spirit even, as essential to the highest order of scholars. This may be established by the testimony of history, or as a deduction of philosophy. We use the terms here in no narrow or partial meaning; indeed it is difficult to use words strong enough without seeming to express too much; but it may, we think, be amply demonstrated, not only that a profound and broad literature must represent the religious tone of the nation, but that any people in whom the religious element is weak or deficient, are incapable of producing a literature of strong passion, a deep wisdom, or of enduring power, which will exalt man or honor God. "A hunger-bitten and ideal-less philosophy," to use Coleridge's expression, may "naturally produce a starveling and comfortless religion," but even as surely will a mean religion, much more no religion, produce a shallow literature if it produce any.

He who pursues letters not as a trade (by which both he and they

must be debased), but as a noble and permanent expression of the highest faculties in man, may, by them, be led to serious religious thoughts, but without such thoughts he cannot apprehend his responsibilities, nor recognize the truly grand in life. There are persons indeed of considerable knowledge, who seem to have no conception of anything sublime, of a great character or a truly momentous event. Flippant, dapper creatures, or thoughtless as flies, almost as insignificant and quite as troublesome, they cannot be scholars. He who has no dignified conceptions, whose tastes are trivial, whose life is vulgar, however learned, is not wise. The moral element is wanting.

It is as truly the affirmation of philosophy and history as of religion; a truth demonstrated in literature and art, as well as asserted by Revelation, that man is fallen, and, discontented with the present, is ever striving to realize a better future. So does art elevate and idealize the objects which it touches, and fiction portrays characters more magnanimous than history. Humanity is imperfect; it struggles upward to supply the deficiency. No human form equals the beauty of the Apollo, no ancient hero was like Achilles.

All art that deserves the name, in its last analysis, is found strongly imbued with the religious element. It depends for its highest development upon those feelings which can be awakened and sustained by nothing short of the hopes and fears born of the mysterious, limitless, beautiful, terrible future. Never was anything more true than that scepticism is narrow and degrading. It cannot produce a great school in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, or in architecture. It cannot make a heroic people. For such results it is too narrow in its sympathies, too cold and calculating. It may produce skilful mechanics, but not original discoverers or creators. In the pure sciences, it may accomplish something, but even here, the chances are, that its conclusions will be inadequate and unsatisfactory. It will not do much to dignify and render beautiful our race, not much to make us honor it more or feel thankful for its grander characteristics.

There is a close connection between unbelief and intellectual incompetence. The mind that self-complacently refuses to believe what it cannot understand, must of necessity believe very little; and the mind that will allow no mystery in its creed, and pretends to understand everything, really understands nothing. It will not be likely to recognize as real what will not yield to the test of the senses; faith it will resolve into knowledge; and while professing that the demonstrative process is the sole intellectual process worthy of cultivation, it will ever rest upon a second, and material cause; will cheat itself with the fancy that it comprehends substances and powers when it is only re