the rushing water, the unseen wind, the plastic metal or clay, the variegated wood or marble, the delicate cotton, silk, or wool; and at evening he learns of men—of the wise and genial men who have delivered the best parts of their minds in books, and made of them a sort of ethereal vehicle, in which they can come at a call to visit any secret mind which desires communion with them. And this privilege of double instruction is one which extends to the whole household of the chief pupil. The children of the artisan are happily appointed, without room for doubt, to toil like their father; and there is every probability that they will share his opportunity and his respect for book-knowledge. At the outset of life, they are tended by their mother, owing directly to her their food and clothes, their lullaby and their incitement to play. During the day, they are under her eye; and in the evening, they sit on their father's knee, and get knowledge or fun from him. In their busy home, all the help is needed that every one can give; so the real business of life begins early, and with it the most natural and best discipline. The children learn that it is an honour to be useful, and a comfort and blessing to be neat and industrious. So much more energy is naturally put into what must be done than into what it is merely expedient should be done, that the children are likely to exert their once-roused faculties to much better purpose than if their business was appointed to them for their own educational benefit. The little girl who tends the baby, or helps granny, or makes father's shirt, or learns to cook the dinner, is likely to put more mind into her work than if she were set to mark a sampler or make a doll's frock for the sake of learning to sew. And so with the boy who carries the coals for his mother, or helps his father in the workshop: he will become manly earlier and more naturally than the highborn child who sees no higher sanction for his occupations than the authority of his parents. And how dearly prized are the opportunities for book-study which can be secured! The children see what a privilege and recreation reading is to their father; and they grow up with a reverence and love for that great resource. The hope and expectation carry them through the tedious work of the alphabet and pothooks. And as they grow up, they are admitted to the magnificent privilege of fireside intercourse with the holy Milton, and the glorious Shakspeare, and many a sage whose best thoughts may become their ideas of every day. They thus obtain that activity and enlargement of mind which render all employments and all events educational. The powers, once roused and set to work, find occupation and material in every event of life. Everything serves—the daily handicraft, intercourse with the neighbours, rumours from the world without, homely duty, books, worship, the face of the country, or the action of the town. All these incitements, all this material, are offered to the thoughtful artisan more fully and impartially than to such below and above him as are hedged in by ignorance or by aristocratic seclusion: and therein is his condition better than theirs. After having come to this conclusion, it is no small satisfaction to remember that the most favoured classes are the most numerous. So great a multitude is included in the middle classes, compared with the highborn and the degraded, that if they who have the best chance for wisdom will but use their privilege, the highest hopes for society are the most reasonable.