Let Maelzael’s automaton chess-player be exhibited to a promiscuous multitude.  They would all attempt a description of it, so far as they were able to gain a knowledge of its construction, each in his own language.  Some might be unable to trace the cause, the moving power, thro all the curiously arranged means, to the agent who acted as prime mover to the whole affair.  Others, less cautious in their conclusions, might think it a perpetual motion.  Such would find a first cause short of the Creator, the great original of all things and actions; and thus violate the soundest principles of philosophy.  Heaven has never left a vacuum where a new and self sustaining power may be set in operation independent of his ever-present supervision; and hence the long talked of perpetual motion is the vainest chimera which ever occupied the human brain.  It may well appear as the opposite extreme of neuter verbs; for, while one would give no action to matter according to the physical laws which regulate the world, the other would make matter act of itself, independent of the Almighty.  Be it ours to take a more rational and consistent stand; to view all things and beings as occupying a place duly prescribed by Infinite Wisdom, acting according to their several abilities, and subject to the regulation of the all-pervading laws which guide, preserve, and harmonize the whole.

If there is a subject which teaches us beyond controversy the existence of a Supreme Power, a Universal Father, an all-wise and ever-present God, it is found in the order and harmony of all things, produced by the regulation of Divine laws; and man’s superiority to the rest of the world is most clearly proved, from the possession of a power to adapt language to the communication of ideas in free and social converse, or in the transmission of thought, drawn from an observation and knowledge of things as presented to his understanding.

There is no science so directly important to the growth of intellect and the future happiness of the child, as the knowledge of language.  Without it, what is life?  Wherein would man be elevated above the brute?  And what is language without ideas?  A sound without harmony—­a shadow without a substance.

Let language be taught on the principles of true philosophy, as a science, instead of an arbitrary, mechanical business, a mere art, and you will no longer hear the complaint of a “dry, cold, uninteresting study.”  Its rules will be simple, plain, and easy; and at every step the child will increase in the knowledge of more than words, in an acquaintance with principles of natural and moral science.  And if there is any thing that will carry the mind of the child above the low and grovelling things of earth, and fill the soul with reverence and devotion to the Holy Being who fills immensity with his presence, it is when, from observing the laws which govern matter, he passes to observe the powers and capabilities of the mind, and thence ascends to the Intellectual Source of light, life, and being, and contemplates the perennial and ecstatic joys which flow from the presence of Deity; soul mingling with soul, love absorbed in love, and God all in all.