correctly from nature, and in perspective, all sorts of machines for agriculture; and are very fond of trying chymically the different sorts of soil, and have tables of them very well arranged.

Various gymnastic games are also practised occasionally; but mental exercises find their place better after hard labour: They do indeed in the fields full as well as on the benches of the school. For instance, when the boys are employed in digging trenches to irrigate a meadow, and while directing the water along artificial ridges, and round hills, so as to regulate the fall and distribute the moisture equally, they put each other in mind of what they have heard about the laws of hydraulics. When they clear a field of the stones turned up by the plough, and are directed to separate those which are calcareous, in order to be burned into lime, they know and practise the different tests by which their nature is ascertained, and can point out in the horizon, the particular mountains which have furnished these various fragments.

In order to encourage the attachment to property acquired by our own industry, the pupils are allowed certain emoluments, such as the proceeds of the seeds they collect, some part of their gleanings, and what they raise in a small garden of their own; all which accumulates, and forms a fund for the time of their going away. No ambitious views are fostered by this mode of training the poorest class, beyond that of being good husbandmen. The pupils of the school of industry are not raised above their station; but their station, dignified and improved, is raised to them. It has been remarked before, that men born in the poorest class of society, constituted as it is at present, especially those who subsist in part on public charity, find it almost as difficult to get out of their dependant situation as a Hindoo to leave his cast,—kept down as they are by a sort of inbred ignorance and improvidence, and, above all, by their multitude; which is one of the worst consequences of that improvidence. The higher and middling ranks scarcely keep up their numbers any where; while multiplication goes on, unrestrained by any consideration of prudence, precisely among those who are least able to support a family. The poor may, in the bitterness of want, exclaim against taxes and ill government, and certainly not always without reason;—but the worst government is their own of themselves.

Agricultural labour is not the only occupation which can be made the base of such an education. Manufactures, with all their disadvantages, might answer the purpose, provided the children were not collected together in vast numbers in the same rooms—provided they were under the care of intelligent and kind masters and overseers, and were allowed gardens of their own, and a certain number of hours each day to work in them, or take exercise in the open air—all which must abridge necessarily the time allotted to productive labour, or to learning. One of the great advantages of husbandry is, that it affords sufficient exercise, and leaves more time for mental improvement. Such of Vehrli's pupils as have a turn for any of the trades in demand at Hofwyl—wheelwright, carpenter, smith, &c. tailor or shoemaker—are allowed to apply to them. These boys will leave the Institution at the age of one-and-twenty, understanding agriculture better than any peasants ever did before, besides being practically acquainted with a trade, and with a share of learning quite unprecedented among the same class of people; and yet as hard-working and abstemious as any of them, and with the best moral habits and principles. It seems impossible to desire or imagine a better condition of the peasantry.

Public education, Mr. de Fellenberg observes, is too generally a uniform process, imposed indiscriminately, and by force, upon every variety of disposition, talents, and character. His object, on the other hand, is to suit the education to the pupil, and not the pupil to the education.—A good preceptor should be an experienced friend, who guides,—not a master who commands, and, above all, not an irascible master. Punishments and rewards he considers as equally objectionable: for fear makes slaves, and the love of distinction unfolds, in the end, most of the bad passions. Do as you would be done by is, he maintains, the only safe rule of conduct to inculcate; a lively feeling of right and wrong, goodwill and kindness to all men, the only sentiments fit to be encouraged. Emulation, perhaps, is too powerful and universal a stimulant to be altogether excluded; but it needs more frequently to be repressed than excited. Such a vigilant and cautious system of training would be best carried on certainly under the parental roof, in a well regulated and united family; and therefore he wishes a school to resemble as nearly as possible such a family, and to be as unlike as possible to a mere manufactory of learning.

The whole course of studies may be considered as divided into three periods, of three years each. In the first, they study Greek and the Grecian History, the knowledge of animals, plants, and minerals. In the second, Latin, Roman History, and the Geography of the Roman world. And in the third, Modern Languages and Literature, Modern History to the last century, and Geography—the Physical Sciences, and Chymistry. During the whole nine years, they apply to Mathematics, Drawing, Music, and Gymnastic Exercises.

The geometrical representation of near objects—the house, the garden, the course of the river, the surrounding country, the mountains beyond it, taken by approximation in the shape of a map—is the natural introduction to Geography. When the pupils feel a curiosity to know more of the world than they can see, maps are then laid before them, and the globe and its uses are explained. They are made to delineate correctly, from memory, the shape of continents and seas; and to place and name the principal chains of mountains, the course of rivers, the boundaries of states, their provinces and capitals;—and this leads to an inquiry into the particular history of each, and their natural productions.

Drawing is early cultivated, from natural objects first, then by copying, and finally by composing characteristic heads, or rather endeavouring to imitate the effect of passions on the human countenance. The execution is generally correct, but hard and dry—in the style of Perugino certainly, rather than of Rembrandt. Music likewise is much practised; not however with a view to execution, but for the sake of the Poetry of music, and its Piety—as an elevated language, in which certain ideas and feelings are expressed, which no other human means can reach or convey. The gymnastic exercises have for their object, health, and the dexterous use of the bodily faculties; but they never are exhibited in public, and made an occasion of show and display.

It is the endeavour of the master to encourage his pupils to express freely, both in writing and conversation, the opinions and feelings which have been suggested by their reading; and thus to enable them to rectify their mistakes, either as to facts or inferences; never dictating to them what they should think, and yet restraining and directing the flights of a young imagination. The pupils do not read the history of the last century before their twentieth year, when judgment is sufficiently matured; and even then, all reference to the politics of the day is avoided, that they may enter the world with minds wholly free from party spirit, and able to form unprejudiced opinions. Common newspapers and political pamphlets are never seen at Hofwyl.

The study of Mathematics continues during the whole period of education, to an extent determined entirely by the individual capacity and disposition of each pupil, who is not hurried on or retarded for the sake of keeping pace with others. Every problem is analyzed and explained