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ode, a satire, a letter, blank verse, Hudibrastic, heroic, &c. But let such lessons be chosen for reading as contain some useful instruction, whereby the understanding or morals of the youth may at the same time be improved.

It is required that they should first study and understand the lessons, before they are put upon reading them properly; to which end each boy should have an English Dictionary to help him over difficulties. When our boys read English to us, we are apt to imagine they understand what they read, because we do, and because it is their mother tongue. But they often read as parrots speak, knowing little or nothing of the meaning. And it is impossible a reader should give the due modulation to his voice, and pronounce properly, unless his understanding goes before his tongue, and makes him master of the sentiment. Accustoming boys to read aloud what they do not first understand, is the cause of those even, set tones so common among readers, which, when they have once got a habit of using, they find so difficult to correct; by which means, among fifty readers, we scarcely find a good one. For want of good reading, pieces published with a view to influence the minds of men, for their own or the public benefit, lose half their force. Were there but one good reader in a neighborhood, a public orator might be heard throughout a nation with the same advantages, and have the same effect upon his audience, as if they stood within the reach of his voice.

The Third Class.

To be taught speaking properly and gracefully, which is near akin to good reading, and naturally follows it in the studies of youth. Let the scholars of this class begin with learning the elements of rhetoric, from some short system, so as to be able to give an account of the most useful tropes and figures. Let all their bad habits of speaking, all offences against good grammar, all corrupt or foreign accents, and all improper phrases be pointed out to them. Short speeches from the Roman or other history, or from the parliamentary debates, might be got by heart, and delivered with the proper action, &c. Speeches and scenes in our best tragedies and comedies, (avoiding everything that could injure the morals of youth,) might likewise be got by rote, and the boys exercised in delivering or acting them; great care being taken to form their manner after the truest models.

For their farther improvement, and a little to vary their studies, let them now begin to read history, after having got by heart a short table of the principal epochs in chronology. They may begin with Rollin's Ancient and Roman Histories, and proceed at proper hours, as they go through the subsequent classes, with the best histories of our own nation and colonies. Let emulation be excited among the boys, by giving, weekly, little prizes, or other small encouragements to those who are able to give the best account of what they have read, as to times, places, names of persons, &c. This will make them read with attention, and imprint the history well in their memories. In remarking on the history, the master will have fine opportunities of instilling instruction of various kinds, and of improving the morals, as well as the understandings, of youth.

The natural and mechanic history, contained in the Spectacle de la Nature, might also be begun in this class, and continued through the subsequent classes, by other books of the same kind; for, next to the knowledge of duty, this kind of knowledge is certainly the most useful, as well as the most entertaining. The merchant may thereby be enabled better to understand many commodities in trade; the handicraftsman to improve his business by new instruments, mixtures, and materials, and frequently hints are given for new methods of improving land, that may be set on foot greatly to the advantage of a country.

The Fourth Class.

To be taught composition. Writing one's own language well is the next necessary accomplishment after good speaking. It is the writing-master's business to take care that the boys make fair characters, and place them straight and even in the lines; but to form their style, and even to take care that the stops and capitals are properly disposed, is the parts of the English master. The boys should be put on writing letters to each other on any common occurrences, and on various subjects, imaginary business, etc., containing little stories, accounts of their late reading, what part of authors please them, and why; letters of congratulation, of compliment, of request, of thanks, of recommendation, of admonition, of consolation, of expostulation, excuse, &c. In these they should be taught to express themselves clearly, concisely, and naturally, without affected words or high-flown phrases. All their letters to pass through the master's hands, who is to point out the faults, advise the corrections, and commend what he finds right. Some of the best letters published in their own language, as Sir William Temple's, those of Pope and his friends, and some others, might be set before the youth as models, their beauties pointed out and explained by the master, the letters themselves transcribed by the scholar.

Dr. Johnson's Ethices Elementa, or First Principles of Morality, may now be read by the scholars, and explained by the master, to lay a solid foundation of virtue and piety in their minds. And as this class continues the reading of history, let them now, at proper hours, receive some farther instruction in chronology and in that part of geography (from the mathematical master) which is necessary to understand the maps and globes. They should also be acquainted with the modern names of the places they find mentioned in ancient writers. The exercises of good reading, and proper speaking, still continued at suitable times.

The Fifth Class.

To improve the youth in composition, they may now, besides continuing to write letters, begin to write little essays in prose, and sometimes in verse; not to make them poets, but for this reason, that nothing acquaints a lad so speedily with a variety of expression, as the necessity of finding such words and phrases as will suit the measure, sound, and rhyme of verse, and at the same time well express the sentiment. These essays should all pass under the master's eye, who will point out their faults, and put the writer on correcting them. Where the judgment is not ripe enough for forming new essays, let the sentiments of a Spectator be given, and required to be clothed in the scholar's own words; or the circumstances of some good story; the scholar to find expression. Let them be put sometimes on abridging a paragraph of a diffuse author; sometimes on dilating or amplifying what is wrote more closely. And now let Dr. Johnson's Noetica, or First Principles of Human Knowledge, containing a logic, or art of reasoning, etc., be read by the youth, and the difficulties that may occur to them be explained by the master. The reading of history, and the exercise of good reading and just speaking still continued. Sixth Class.

In this class, besides continuing the studies of the preceding in history, rhetoric, logic, moral and natural philosophy, the best English authors may be read and explained; as Tillotson, Milton, Locke, Addison, Pope, Swift, the higher papers in the Spectator and Guardian, the best translations of Homer, Virgil, and Horace, of Telemachus, Travels of Cyrus, etc.

Once a year let there be public exercises in the hall; the trustees and citizens present. Then let fine gilt books be given as prizes to such boys as distinguish themselves, and excel the others in any branch of learning, making three

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degrees of comparison; giving the best prize to him that performs best, a less valuable one to him that comes up next to the best; and another to the third. Commendations, encouragement, and advice to the rest, keeping up their hopes, that by industry they may excel another time. The names of those that obtain the prize, to be yearly printed in a list.

The hours of each day are to be divided and disposed in such a manner as that some classes may be with the writing master, improving their hands, others with the mathematical master, learning arithmetic, accounts, geography, use of the globes, drawing, mechanics, etc.; while the rest are in the English school, under the English master's care.

Thus instructed, youth will come out of this school fitted for learning any business, calling, or profession, except in such wherein languages are required; and though unacquainted with any ancient or foreign tongue, they will be masters of their own, which is of more immediate and general use; and withal will have attained many other valuable accomplishments; the time usually spent in acquiring those languages, often without success, being here employed in laying such a foundation of knowledge and ability as, properly improved, may qualify them to pass through and execute the several offices of civil life, with advantage and reputation to themselves and country.

[On his return to Philadelphia in 1785, Dr. Franklin found that the Institution which he had originated in 1749 had not only drifted away from the plan and methods marked out for its development, but that its future progress had become involved in disputes and discussion which seemed, in his mind, to make it necessary to go back to first principles. Accordingly in June, 1789 he issued a pamphlet entitled, "Observations Relative to the Intentions of the Original Founders of the Academy in Philadelphia," in which he traces the successive steps by which the trustees gave prominence to the classical side of the institution, and dwarfed his conception of a liberal education suitable for an American citizen who had not time or taste for the accomplishments of ancient learning or linguistic culture. In consequence of this course the Academy became a College and University (of the American type) without the option of courses which his larger and more practical views contemplated. He concludes his 'Observations' as follows:

The whole body of science is now to be met with in our modern languages, so that learning the ancient for the purpose of acquiring knowledge is become absolutely unnecessary. But there is in mankind an unaccountable prejudice in favor of ancient customs and habitudes, which incline to the continuance of them after the circumstances which formerly made them useful cease to exist. Hats were once thought a useful part of dress. They kept the head warm, and screened it from the sun, rain, snow, etc.

At what time hats were first introduced we know not, but in the last century they were universally worn throughout Europe. Gradually, however, as the wearing of wigs, and hair nicely dressed, prevailed, the putting on of hats was disused by genteel people, lest the curious arrangements of the curls and powdering should be disordered; and umbrellas began to supply their place; yet still our considering the hat as a part of dress continues so far to prevail, that a man of fashion is not thought dressed without having one, or something like one, about him, which he carries under his arm. So that there are a multitude of the politer people in all the courts and capital cities of Europe, who have never, nor their fathers before them, worn a hat otherwise than as a chapeau bras, though the utility of such a mode of wearing it is by no means apparent, and it is attended not only with some expense, but with a degree of constant trouble.

The still prevailing custom of having schools for teaching generally our children, in these days, the Latin and Greek languages, I consider therefore, in no other light than as the chapeau bras of modern literature.

Thus the time spent in that study might, it seems, be much better employed in the education suitable for such a country as ours; and this was indeed the opinion of most of the original trustees.]

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, D. D., the first president of King's (now Columbia,) College, New York, was born at Guilford, Conn., Oct. 14th, 1696. His father and grandfather were both residents of Guilford, and both deacons of the congregational church in that town. His great-grandfather, Robert Johnson, was one of the original settlers o. New Haven. From a very early age, he manifested a great fondness for books, and his father, after a trial of four or five years, finding it impossible to reconcile him to the idea of business, finally complied with his earnest wishes, and allowed him to prepare to enter Yale College, then recently organized. He fitted for college under Mr. Eliot, who afterward settled at Killingworth, as a preacher. Mr. Chapman, who succeeded Mr. Eliot as a teacher, at Guilford, and Mr. James, a very eminent scholar of Guilford. At the age of fourteen, he entered Yale College, then located at Saybrook, receiving instruction from Messrs. Noyes and Fisk, at that time tutors in the college, as the rector of the college, Mr. Andrew, then resided at Milford, and only instructed the senior class. In 1714, he took the degree of A. B., having, in addition to the ordinary college studies, made some progress in Hebrew.

The early part of the eighteenth century was a period of great depression to all the interests of learning in New England. The eminent scholars of the early emigration were dead, and most of those who came over, at the period of the restoration, had also passed away; since the revolution of 1688, the causes which had led to emigration had been removed, and more returned to England than came from thence; the generation upon the stage at the time of Mr. Johnson's graduation, were almost entirely educated in this country; and, though the course of study at Harvard College was respectable for the time, and the circumstances of a colony, whose existence was yet numbered by decades of years, yet it was far from being up to the standard of European culture. Yale College had maintained a sort of nomade existence, for some thirteen years; its trustees were among the most eminent scholars of the colony, and they were disposed to do what they could to make it a reputable school of learning; but its course of instruction was extremely limited. At the time Mr. Johnson took his degree, all that was attempted, in the way of classi

cal learning, was the reading of five or six of Cicero's orations, as many books of Virgil, and a part of the Hebrew Psalter. In mathematics, only common arithmetic, and a little surveying were taught; in logic, metaphysics and ethics, the doctrines of the schoolmen still held sway, and Descartes, Boyle, Locke, Newton, and Bacon, were regarded as innovators, from whom no good could be expected or hoped. In theology, Ames' "Medulla," and " Cases of Conscience," and "Wollebius," were the standards.

With, perhaps a pardonable vanity, Mr. Johnson, who had stood very high as a scholar in his class, regarded himself as possessing superior attainments; but his good opinion of his own abilities was very suddenly lowered, when, a year or two later, chance threw in his way, a copy of Lord Bacon's "Advancement of Learning," then a very rare book in this country. Humbled by the sense of his own ignorance, which that book gave him, he was still much enlightened by it, and, to use his own language, "seemed to himself like a person suddenly emerging out of the glimmer of twilight, into the full sunshine of open day." His mind being thus prepared for further culture, he soon had an opportunity for its subsequent development. A collection of books made in England by Mr. Dummer, the agent of the colony, amounting to about eight hundred volumes, was sent over to the college. Among them were the works of Sir Isaac Newton, Blackman, Steele, Burnet, Woodward, Halley, Bentley, Kennet, Barrow, Patrick, South, Tillotson, Sharp, Scott, and Whitby. To a mind, as earnest as was his to acquire knowledge, these books furnished indeed "a feast of fat things." In company with Messrs. Cutler, Eliot, Hart, Whittelsey, and his classmates, Wetmore and Brown, he devoted all his leisure to their perusal.

Meantime, the college was in great danger of extinction. The students, complaining of the unfitness of their tutors, scattered themselves in different parts of the colony, studying under such teachers as they chose; a part, including those living in the vicinity of Connecticut River, placed themselves under the direction of Messrs. Woodbridge and Buckingham, the ministers at Hartford, who were trustees of the college, and at their instigation, Messrs. Williams and Smith, two young ministers, were persuaded to set up a collegiate school at Wethersfield, in the hope of obtaining a removal of the college thither; and to this school, the students of the river towns resorted. Those belonging to the towns on the sea-shore, put themselves under the tuition of Mr. Johnson, at Guilford.

Under these circumstances, a meeting of the trustees was held, in the spring of 1716; a majority of the trustees present, as well as