States; and we trust that the day is not far distant when it will cease to be a question any where. In fact, long before the establishment of the High School in Boston, or of the Lyceum at Gardiner, or of any similar institution in this country or any country; the old academies of New England, and some other parts of the United States, supplied in a good degree that kind of instruction, which we are now endeavouring to afford more fully and perfectly by new and more complete establishments. This was done, and is still done in what is called the English department of our academies, over which the assistant preceptor, always a gentleman of liberal education, immediately presides. We believe that these institutions may claim the honour of having been the first to dispense this very useful and cheap kind of secondary instruction. Good mechanics, correct merchants, and intelligent farmers were educated in the English department of our academies before Pestalozzi or Fellenberg undertook their useful labours in behalf of the middling classes. We do not, however, consider the chasm between primary and collegiate education even in this country as any more than beginning to be supplied. In Europe the deficiency is still greater than it is with us. France, notwithstanding the extension and the impulse given to her public instruction by the genius and power of Napoleon, forms no exception to this remark. By the abolition of the Polytechnic School and its subordinate establishments, and by restoring to the Jesuits, the old enemies of France and of men, the exclusive control of schools and colleges, she has retrograded in her former rapid career of rational and philosophical education. On the former of these events, M. Renouard speaks as follows:

It [the Polytechnic, and connected with it the Normal Schools] had attained in a few years the highest prosperity, and promised to education, to philosophy, to letters, to history, and to the sciences great labours and a rapid progress. This school has ceased to exist; neither its past services, nor its necessity in the system, nor the high hopes which it gave for time to come could obtain mercy for it. But it will rise again, sooner or later, whatsoever principles of public education prevail; because necessary institutions, though accidentally paralyzed, will not perish forever.

M. Renouard discusses the question of universal education, which he considers perfectly practicable, by means, in the first instance, of mutual instruction, which he regards as a great boon to the human race.

Economical of time and money, mutual instruction diminishes the number of masters, and augments that of the pupils; it reinforces authority, and accelerates the progress of learning. The multiplied attacks directed against this method, whose invention will form an epoch in the history of civilization, cannot be explained, except from its very efficiency. But it will stand triumphant over the attacks, which the blindness of party zeal, and the impious proselytism of ignorance may direct against it ;unrivalled in its morality, it diffuses at the same time with instruction that spirit of subordination, justice, and honour, which form its most beautiful characteristics.

The following are enumerated as the instances in which partial attempts have been made to establish in France that kind of instruction, which this work recommends.

1. The Schools of Arts and Trades at Châlons and Angers, permitted to continue by a royal ordinance of the 20th of February, 1807. Its object is to educate master-workmen and journeymen, and to exercise them in the enlightened practice of the mechanic arts. It was removed in 1823 to the city of Toulouse, an event which M. Renouard thinks very inauspicious to it.

2. The Rural Economy and Veterinary Schools at Alfort and Lyons.

3. The School of Miners at Saint Etienne.

4. The three courses of gratuitous instruction at Paris, near the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, founded by an ordinance in 1819. The application of mechanical and chemical science to the arts, and the economy of laborious life, are taught in these courses by skilful professors. To these larger foundations, may be added several of a humbler character, such as the free schools of drawing at Paris, one for apprentices to the mechanic arts, and the other for girls who wish to devote themselves to the manual arts and trades.

M. Renouard pays a warm tribute of respect to the virtues and the labours of the Abbé Gaultier, "who, after having been one of the most zealous propagators of Mutual Instruction, comprehended also the importance of some kind of secondary instruction for the people, and first instituted in his own house a course of gratuitous lessons for that purpose."

The enumeration and description of these French seminaries is followed by a short notice of foreign ones of a similar kind, viz. that of Pestalozzi; the "Agricultural and Mechanical Institutions of Fellenberg at Hofwyl; the School of Industry at Lutschg; its imitator and disciple at Glaris; the industrious

colony of Robert Owen at New Lanark; several German Gymnasiums; and some other establishments worthy to be mentioned in connexion with them; these," adds M. Renouard, "will convince us of the practicability of establishing a system of education specially adapted to those wants which our classical instruction cannot satisfy. So many good examples ought not to be lost."

The course of study recommended for the proposed schools, is this:

1. The National Language.-But the study of grammar ought not to be by any means profound in these popular institutions; it would be foreign to the object to carry it far, and to attempt to resolve all the problems of grammar. One thing only is essential; to make the pupils understand and be understood.

2. Morality.-Moral teaching will not be complete, if it is confined to the searching for those principles graven on the human heart. The voice of heaven and of society unite with the voice of conscience in proclaimimg the great truths of morality, and ought not to be disregarded.

3. Geography and History.-We would not ask of history any other knowledge than that which is indispensable for useful reading, for bearing a part in conversation without embarrassment; for keeping up an acquaintance with the passing events of the day. As to geography, all men ought to be acquainted with their own country, and those of which they read, and by some of the numerous vicissitudes in human affairs, may one day visit.

4. The Elements of the Natural and Mechanical Sciences.-The occasions for the application of the natural sciences present themselves at every moment, and amidst all the occupations of life. There is no individual who does not experience constantly the necessity of some knowledge, at least, of their first elements.

M. Renouard gives the following list:

Some general notions of natural philosophy, chemistry, natural history, physiology, botany; some principles of husbandry and of hygiene, and some instructions on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, the motion of the earth, and the principal laws of mechanics.

5. Arithmetic and the Elements of Geometry.-The first rules of calculation are taught in the primary schools; but every youth must be greatly benefited by continuing to exercise himself upon these rules, and continuing the study of arithmetic with a view to abridge the methods of calculation. With respect to the elements of geometry, all the laborious professions would find great assistance from them. The Abbé Gaultier published near the close

of his life, a little treatise under the title of "Notions of Practical Geometry necessary for the Exercise of most of the Arts and Trades." This title alone indicates the kind of geometrical studies which ought to enter into a system of popular education.

6. Drawing. All studies are connected with one another; moral instructions mingle with those of grammar and history; the native language is brought to perfection by the exercises in every other branch of study; geography, which is indissolubly united with history, is also connected by innumerable ties with the natural sciences; numerical calculation arranges and defines our elementary ideas in all the sciences; practical geometry, which cannot be separated from the science of numbers, is mingled, and, to a degree, identified with linear drawing; the applications of linear drawing may serve as auxiliaries and guides to other studies. The representation of the most useful farming utensils will combat the force of tradition, which generally resists and rejects improvements, and would aid the introduction of valuable inventions, whose advantages might be made to appear. Elegant and convenient forms delineated by drawing, would furnish workmen with good models for household furniture; the representation of well chosen architectural ornaments, would accustom the eye to simplicity and grace; a few figures would facilitate the knowledge of the sphere and of geography. It is thus that the study of drawing would be doubly profitable by the useful purposes to which it might be directly applied, and by the precision and steadiness which it would impart to the eye and the hand. 7. Gymnastics.

This is a mere enumeration of the studies which M. Renouard proposes, and upon each of which he makes many excellent observations, which our limits will not permit us to quote.

One chapter is devoted to the question of the proper organization for these "high schools;" but this depends so much on the customs and state of society in different countries, that no one plan, without considerable modification, would be applicable to all communities and climates. Schools of the kind that have been described, or institutions for the same object, are multiplying very rapidly, and if there is any cause more powerful than others to work important changes in society, it is this, which, in fifty years, will increase at least ten-fold the aggregate of human knowledge; we speak of the extension, not of the advancement of it, though undoubtedly the advancement will be accelerated. in at least as great a ratio. The "Mechanics' Institute," about to go into operation in all the principal cities and towns of Great Britain, is one of the most important.

The Revue Encyclopédique, which we take this opportunity to say is always filled with every variety of the most valuable knowledge and interesting intelligence, mentions a "high school" of great respectability at Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia! and, if we recollect right, that it is connected with a subordinate system of primary instruction. This city is twelve hundred miles east of St Petersburg. It probably owes this improvement, and many others with it, to the Swedish officers banished thither by that illustrious barbarian, Peter the Great, after the battle of Pultowa. If this city can communicate her spirit to other cities, and to the capital of the Northern Empire, there will have been one war of ambition, from which humanity gained something.

We intended to say several things respecting the lucid order, temperate political feeling, elegant style, and occasional eloquence which M. Renouard has given to this excellent work; but we must close this article by stating the facts, that he is a lawyer, and secretary of the Paris "Society of Elementary Education," and that he has lately edited "Mélanges de Morale, d'Economie, et de Politique," selected from the works of Dr Franklin, preceded by an original notice of his life, in two volumes. We know that this work is, and we presume that any other work of M. Renouard must be, interesting and valuable.

The Memoirs of Joseph Fouché, Duke of Otranto, Minister of the General Police of France. Translated from the French. Boston. 1825. Svo. pp. 474.

THIS volume purports to be the work of Fouché himself. Some of the reviewers have noticed it seriously and at considerable length, without intimating a doubt of its authenticity; others have agitated the question, and finally yielded to its pretensions. But many still entertain doubts upon the subject; and we have even heard it attributed to a man now living in obscurity in Marseilles. We are unable to decide this question by internal evidence, and we do not think it worth while, at this late period, to enter into a discussion of it. Though the book is drawn up with considerable ability, and contains many facts relating to the French revolution, and the conspicuous characters who figured therein, not before known here, or not now recollected, yet we have no doubt that all this might be easily done by a tolerably shrewd Frenchman upon the spot, with the help of the