The literary creator hears the question, "What do you mean?" with a feeling of humiliation. If he has succeeded in producing what he aimed at, a work of art, that work is self explanatory to all who can appreciate it; to those who can not, no explanation will prove satisfactory. What does any work of fine art mean? It means simply approach toward the realization of an ideal. Is there not satisfaction in the mere contemplation of a harmonious, consistent plan?—skillful development of supposed events ?--lively and accurate representation of character and manners?—felicity of expression? Eat thou honey because it is good", is the counsel of Solomon. There is an æsthetic taste. Its honey is the artistic, the well related, the beautiful, the ideally true. If Lord Brougham makes the pleasure of the mind a sufficient motive for the study of philosophy, if Sir John Herschell is indignant when asked "whither his researches tend", and feels that there is a lofty and disinterested pleasure in his speculations that ought to exempt him from such questionings, how snall the literary artist humiliate himself to explain the value of his productions? The true work of art has its practical uses. It signifies many things to many minds. Each reader may interpret Faust or Hamlet as he can, but Goethe and Shakspeare only create. "Say to what uses shall we put The wildwood flower that merely blows, Or is there any moral shut Within the bosom of the rose? But any man that walks the mead, In bud, or blade, or bloom may find, According as his humors lead, A meaning suited to his mind, And liberal applications lie In art like nature, dearest friend; Should hook it to some useful end." Leaving the realm of prose fiction, we find the next manifestation of ideality in the field of poetry. Here imagination takes her noblest flights, and fancy roams at will. The grossest air of poesy is æther; her eye is microscopic, and her ear catches the sound of flowers blossoming. She breathes the odors wafted from paradise, and feeds on dews impalpable, shed from unseen skies, spanning the mystic land of dreams! Vex not the bard with questions of time and sense. He dwells in spirit and eternity. Commiserate him not, though he seem poor and lowly. The poet is forever blest. He loves all things. His is the joy and peace of infinite hope and faith. Surround him with poverty and squalor, and sin and woe; he will discover in the vilest face some angelic lineament, and in the saddest spot some ray of consoling beauty. Put him in dungeon depths, yet will his starry thoughts light up the gloom, transforming it to glory. Poeta, maker-he is like a god. Out of the void, he creates immortal forms. "The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Poeta, maker-he is like a god. What magnificent worlds he has created for our admiration and profit. Think for a moment what Shakspeare alone has contributed to literature. How immense would be the blank should the poetry of this one man be obliterated, and all memory of it vanish from among men. The utter destruction of Paris or London or New York would not cause greater loss to mankind. Ah, this poetry, at which the low-browed utilitarian sneers, is not a false and feeble thing. Of strong and real things it is the realest and the strongest. Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, how they outweigh kings and warriors and millionaires. Poetry is power, truth, beauty, pathos, exaltation. The Utility of the Ideal! How the glowing theme expands as we strive to compass it. In every high department of human cultivation, it is apparent. Proud, calm science, poised in an atmosphere of actual phenomena, is often borne to loftier heights than reason kens, on the daring wings of imagination, as the discoveries of Kepler prove. Max Müller declares that "the torch of imagination is as necessary to him who looks for truth, as the lamp of study", and Sir David Brewster admits "that, as an instrument of research, the influence of imagination has been much overlooked by those who have ventured to give laws to philosophy." Ideality is necessarily developed in the pursuit of the aesthetic arts. Music, that divinest human possession, is it not language without words? one degree nearer to the absolute expression of our passionate longing for unutterable sweetness and harmony? Painting and sculpture, are they not attempts to set forth conceptions more perfect and lovely than any that are derived from natural objects? Are not all great works of art, efforts, as Edgar Poe has exquisitely expressed it, "to apprehend the supernal loveliness? to grasp, now wholly here on earth, those divine and rapturous joys of which we obtain but brief and indeterminate glimpses?" Is not the infinite desire with which we seek to realize the ideal, a species of worship? The favorite subjects of high art have ever been sacred. From the time of Solomon's temple to this day, the resources of architecture have been lavished upon cathedrals dedicated to serving the Lord. Reuben's masterpiece was the Descent from the Cross. Michael Angelo's last work represented the same beautiful and touching subject. The designs of Raphael are chiefly drawn from Scripture History. The last touches of his hand rested upon the head of Christ in the picture of the Transfiguration. "It was", says Vassari, "the greatest effort of an art which could go no farther; and this last term of the painting marked also the term of the life of the painter. He never touched pencil more." The sublimest musical composition of Hayden is the oratorio Creation; Beethoven's symphonies are the rapture of devotion; the spirit of Mozart breathed itself to paradise in a prophetic requiem. Tasso is immortal in Jerusalem Delivered; Dante in the Divine Comedy ' Milton's genius culminated in the production of Paradise Lost; and the sacred book concludes with the magnificent imagery of the Apocalypse. Thus does the ideal evermore ascend. Thus does it struggle up through earth's restraints and pains, aspiring to immortal estates. The holiest efforts of our lives are strivings towards the ideal good which we vaguely comprehend. That which we call the ideal, is the only eternal actual. Is not the body the simulacrum and the invisible soul the real existence? Are not the essential truth, beauty, good, love of this Universe abstract, indefinite, pure ideal? The fairest visions that float above the low confines of earth, are they not hints and suggestions of heaven? Mysterious heaven,—eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared;—yet when with pure desires we climb the dazzling stair of Ideality, up by the golden steps of spiritual culture, we feel the airs of the city of rapture blowing in our souls, and almost see, with spirit vision, the glorytinted pinnacles of the temple of perfection gleaming afar! Mount higher yet, oh soul, on trembling wings of faith and adoration; pierce further yet, oh anxious eyes, into the uncreated light. The music of the spheres rings in celestial harmony around. The infinite and eternal Paradise is entered; but the Ideal is not attained. It evermore recedes, ascends. It is inaccessible. From everlasting to everlasting we shall pursue it, and the pursuit shall be one endless happiness. For the ideal of those who have put on immortality, is not other than GOD, the sum and essence of all perfections. A PRIMARY COURSE OF INSTRUCTION.* I propose, in this paper, to offer a few suggestions on some obvious principles underlying Primary Education, and then to present, briefly, a Primary Course of Instruction. Such a course may include four years of school life, commencing at the age of six, and thus embracing a period during which books, except the reader, are not relied on, to any great extent, and when oral instructions occupy the greater part of the time. The importance of this period of school life can not be over-estimated. Here a good beginning is to be made; the powers to be quickened and rightly directed; a relish for activity to be imparted; and right principles and habits to be formed, such as will insure future and permanent success. The methods of instruction we employ throughout this primary course, will depend largely upon our conceptions of the true ends of education. And here, the thorough discipline of the powers undoubtedly stands higher than the mere acquisition of knowledge. Do not use the instrument without sharpening it; and in every process and practical drill, let the formation of character, as relating to the entire being, never be lost sight of. "What can be wrought out of this child?" must be the question; not so much, "What can I put into it?" And so, further, "How may this development of power be made subservient to the true ends of life: rectitude, activity, and usefulness ?" *A report by the Committee to whom was referred a Report by Geo. C. Woollard, read at Cleveland, July 7, 1869. What intellectual powers are to be cultivated during this period? I answer, perception, conception, imagination, memory, and, to a limited extent, reason. In the exercise of these, children learn to inquire, to observe, to reflect, to reproduce, to compare, to construct, and, in the mean time, to describe. Here both the senses and the understanding are employed on materials found chiefly in the outer world. From this it follows that concrete and objective methods must be largely employed in the earlier stage of the child's instruction. For its interest and encouragement we must begin with the familiar, and progress, step by step, by known paths into the region of the unknown. Ideas must be connected with words, rules deduced from processes, facts go before principles, and the analytic before the synthetic. Teachers must be acquainted with child mind, with the true order of its development; must have a large practical acquaintance with those facts in the outer world that serve to call into activity these sentient and observing powers of the child; and they must understand those conversational methods that bring these facts and capacities into closest sympathy. Here, Object Teaching has its place; and that this method may have its full scope and success, teachers must be furnished with materials and implements for illustration. Every primary school room should be well stocked with blocks, weights, measures, pictures, and other appliances for ocular demonstrations-not to lie in the dust, but to be skillfully handled by teachers and pupils. And these are to be used, not simply for purposes of discipline and instruction, but also for the actual entertainment of the younger pupils. Happy is that teacher who can make every exercise of the infant school-room all-engaging and attractive! We must here combine work and play. Must give the child every opportunity to make pleasing discoveries by its own inventive and playful experiments. Let the child joyfully see what it can, by its aided efforts, find out and construct, and let it also explain in the use of its own simple language. The primary school must be an attractive nursery in a very pleasant family. From all this it follows that a large amount of manipulation should be encouraged. The appliances of illustration must be handled by the children themselves. They are to make actual measurements, determine the weight and other properties of objects, construct and compare forms, draw elementary lines and combinations, and spend considerable time in writing. From our own later experiences, we know how thought is evoked by the mechanical operations and experiments of the hand, and the subsequent inspection of the eye. These younger minds also require constant change and variety in the exercises of the school room. Short recitations, varied drills, pleasing gymnastics, sprightly conversational exercises, lessons and counting from objects, and writing and drawing, must follow each other in close succession, and be arranged and re-arranged, with such skill on the part of the teacher as to avoid monotony and weariness, and yet preserve a reasonable degree of system. Where such methods are adopted, the true ends of primary teaching are attained; to lead children to examine, to think, and to find language to express themselves. The spirit of inquiry may thus be early developed; and children under such tuition will often distinguish themselves more by their inquisitiveness in asking, than their readiness in answering questions. And their thinking will also assume form early in life, and they will gradually come into the full use of their powers, by that most excellent of all means, composition writing. Children may early take delight in this important exercise. But I must not fail to insist upon it, that primary instruction is incomplete without thorough moral training. Indeed, the moral and physical are much earlier in their development than the intellectual. Providing carefully for the intellectual, and properly regulating the physical, let us also impart spiritual nourishment, by means of religious worship, Scripture passages, pure mottoes, a Christian spirit and example, and a most careful observance and regulation of the spirit, words and actions of the pupils committed to our care. They have souls that are to be saved as much in the school room as any where else. To a pious teacher the thought is dreadful and painful, that a pupil should prosecute his entire course of study in an unregenerate state! What a perversion and waste of power in that event; and how completely schooled and fixed in an unfortunate tendency, to say the least! But we will not neglect, right in the beginning of this race for the mastery, the highest part of our nature. To this end, among the other means, let song, even spiritual song, always hold a high place in the primary course. This comprehensiveness of primary instruction, which I am at least intimating, includes the elements, or first steps of ALL SCIENCE. To my mind, it is positively absurd to confine young children to mere reading and spelling. Even the reading is not mere book work; must include much matter outside the book, and be but the occasion for developing thought, taste, sound, articulation-a complete outer expression of inner thought and feeling. Here, the quality is far more than the quantity; nor must we give so much time to this part of the work, however important it is to make it thorough, as to exclude from the daily programme that practical handling of familiar subjects and objects that is calculated to awaken and sharpen the faculties of the child, and give it a love for the school room, which no dead book-routine could possibly impart. Pupils, thus trained, will continue longer in school, and be prepared, and have a relish for the higher branches, as botany, natural history, geology, natural philosophy, and the like, as they advance in the course. Indeed, I question whether we can lose sight of the elements of familiar science, in any part of the entire course of instruction. In the four years' course of primary instruction I now present, it will be seen that much time is to be given to these more independent, liberal and self-evolving methods; but that book-routine is nevertheless to have its proper place. A very few books, however, will answer during this period. I still doubt the propriety of using primary books in our graded schools. GRADED COURSE OF PRIMARY INSTRUCTION. FIRST PRIMARY-ONE YEAR: Age, 6 to 7. 1. Conversations: On familiar things, including the children themselves,. their bodies, clothing, food, &c.; their parents, home, locality; objects on their way to school; the school room, with its articles; their own actions and feelings, and those of other children; domestic animals, their character and use; flowers, their appearance and fragrance; and other like objects, frequently |