the young mind to idleness, whispering, and fun and frolic in general, it seems doubtful whether our children ever yet attained to so high an average of actual study as two hours a day. As a modification of this statement, it may be granted that in the cities and larger towns the school term reaches forty weeks in a year. If you add one hour as the average amount of study at home, given by pupils of over twelve years, (and the allowance is certainly ample,) you have four hours as the utmost period ever given by any considerable class of children. That there is excess we freely admit. That there are easy committee-men who permit too high a pressure, and infatuated teachers who insist upon it, that there are ambitious children whom nobody can stop, and silly parents who fondly wish to see their children monstrosities of brightness, lisping Latin and Greek in their cradles, respiring mathematics as they would the atmosphere, and bristling all over with facts of natural science like porcupines, till every bit of childhood is worked out of them,—that such things are, we are not inclined to deny. But they are rare exceptions,—no more a part of the system than white crows are proper representatives of the dusky and cawing brotherhood.

Or yet again, do we mean to assert that no attention need be given to the formation of right physical habits? or that bodily exercise ought not to be joined to mental toils? or that the walk in the woods, the row upon the quiet river, the stroll with rod in hand by the babbling brook, or with gun on shoulder over the green prairies, or the skating in the crisp December air on the glistening lake, ought to be discouraged? Do we speak disrespectfully of dumb-bells and clubs and parallel bars, and all the paraphernalia of the gymnasium? Are we aggrieved at the mention of boxing-gloves or single-stick or foils? Would it shock our nervous sensibilities, if our next-door neighbor the philosopher, or some near-by grave and reverend doctor of divinity, or even the learned judge himself, should give unmistakable evidence that he had in his body the two hundred and odd bones and the five hundred and more muscles, with all their fit accompaniments of joints and sinews, of which the anatomists tell us? Not at all. Far from it. We exercise, no doubt, too little. We know of God's fair world too much by description, too little by the sight of our own eyes. Welcome anything which leads us out into this goodly and glorious universe! Welcome all that tends to give the human frame higher grace and symmetry! Welcome the gymnastics, too, heavy or light either, if they will guide us to a more harmonious physical development.

We ourselves own a set of heavy Indian-clubs, of middling Indian-clubs, and of light Indian-clubs. We have iron dumb-bells and wooden dumb-bells. We recollect with considerable satisfaction a veritable bean-bag which did good service in the household until it unfortunately sprung a-leak. In an amateur way we have tried both systems, and felt the better for them. We have a dim remembrance of rowing sundry leagues, and even of dabbling with the rod and line. We always look with friendly eye upon the Harvard Gymnasium, whenever it looms up in actual or mental vision. Never yet could we get by an honest game of cricket or base-ball without losing some ten minutes in admiring contemplation. We bow with deep respect to Dr. Windship and his heavy weights. We bow, if anything, with a trifle more of cordiality to Dr. Lewis and his light weights. They both have our good word. We think that they would have our example, were it not for the fatal proclivity of solitary gymnastics to dulness. If we have not risen to the high degrees in this noble order of muscular Christians, we claim at least to be a humble craftsman and faithful brother.

Speaking with all seriousness, we have no faith in mental activity purchased at the expense of physical sloth. It is well to introduce into the school, into the family, and into the neighborhood any movement system which will exercise all the muscles of the body. But the educated man is not any more likely to need this general physical development than anybody else. Establish your gymnasium in any village, and the farmer fresh from the plough, the mechanic from swinging the hammer or driving the plane, will be just as sure to find new muscles that he never dreamed of as the palest scholar of them all. And the diffusion of knowledge and refinement, so far from promoting inactivity and banishing recreations from life, directly feeds that craving for variety out of which healthful changes come, and awakens that noble curiosity which at fit seasons sends a man out to see how the wild-flower grows in the woods, how the green buds open in the spring, how the foliage takes on its painted autumn glory, which leads him to struggle through tangled thickets or through pathless woods that he may behold the brook laughing in cascade from rock to rock, or to breast the steep mountain that he may behold from a higher outlook the wonders of the visible creation. Other things being equal, the educated man in any vocation is quite as likely as another to be active, quick in every motion and free in every limb.

But admit all that is claimed. Admit that increasing intelligence has changed the average of man's life from the twenty-five years of the seventeenth century to the thirty-five of the eighteenth or the forty-five years of the nineteenth century. Admit, too, that the best educated men of this generation will live five or ten years more than the least educated men. Ought we to be satisfied with things as they are? Should we not look for more than the forty or fifty years of human life? Assuredly. But it is not our superfluous sainthood which is destroying life. It is not that we have too much saintliness, but too little, too limited wisdom, too narrow intelligence, too small an endowment of virtue and conscience. It is our fierce absorption in outward plans which plants anxieties like thorns in the heart. It is out sloth and gluttony which eat out vitality. It is our unbridled appetites and passions which burn like a consuming fire in our breasts. It is our unwise exposure which saps the strength and gives energy and force to latent disease. These, tenfold more than any intense application of the brain to its legitimate work, limit and destroy human life. The truly cultivated mind tends to give just aims, moderate desires, and good habits.

Ay, and when the true sainthood shall possess and rule humanity,—when the fields of knowledge with their wholesome fruits shall tempt every foot away from the forbidden paths of vice and sensual indulgence,—when a wise intelligence shall cool the hot passions which dry up the refreshing fountains of peace and joy in the heart,—when a heavenly wisdom shall lift us above any bondage to this world's fortunes, and when a good conscience and a lofty trust shall forbid us to be slaves to any occupation lower than the highest,—when we stand erect and free, clothed with a real saintliness,—then the years of our life may increase, and man may go down to his grave "in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season."

Meanwhile we must stand firmly on this assertion, that, the more of mental and moral sainthood our people achieve, the more that sainthood will write fair inscriptions on their bodies, will shine out in intelligence in their faces, will exhibit itself in graceful form and motion, and thus add to the deeper and more lasting virtues physical power, a body which shall be at once a good servant and the proper representative of a refined and elevated soul.

NO TIME LIKE THE OLD TIME.