as a specimen of the result of liberal pursuits.  Such an intellect can never stand up beside an active though untutored mind—­untutored in the schools, yet disciplined by the necessities around it.  It is only in the comparison of minds of equal original power, but of different and unequal mental discipline, that the result of a thorough education reveal themselves most strikingly.  The genius that, partially educated, makes a fine bar-room politician, a good county judge, a respectable member of the lower house in our State Legislature, or an expert mechanic and shrewd farmer, when developed by study and adorned with learning, rises to the foremost rank of men.  Great original talents will usually give indication of their presence amidst the most depressing circumstances.  But when a mind of this stamp has been allowed to unfold itself under the genial influence of large educational advantages, how will it grow in power, outstripping the multitude, as some majestic tree, rooted in a soil of peculiar richness rises above and spreads itself abroad over the surrounding forest?  Our inquiry, however, at present, is not exclusively respecting individuals thus highly gifted.

Geniuses are rare in our world; sent occasionally to break up the monotony of life, impart new impulses to a generation, like comets blazing along the sky, startle the dosing mind, no longer on the stretch to enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge, and rouse men to gaze on visions of excellence yet unreached.  Happily, the mass of mankind are not of this style of mind.  Uniting by the process of education the powers which God has conferred upon them, with those of a more brilliant order which are occasionally given to a few, the advancement of the world in all things essential to its refinement, and purity, and exaltation, is probably as rapid and sure as it would be under a different constitution of things.  Were all equally elevated, it might still be necessary for some to tower above the rest, and by the sense of inequality move the multitude to nobler aspirations.  But while it is not permitted of God that all men should actually rise to thrones in the realm of mind, yet such is the native power of all sane minds, and such their great capacity of improvement, that, made subject to a healthful discipline they may not only qualify us for all the high duties of life on earth, but go on advancing in an ever-perfecting preparation for the life above.

The second thing pre-supposed in education is personal application.  There is no thorough education that is not self-education.  Unlike the statue which can be wrought only from without, the great work of education is to unfold the life within.  This life always involves self-action.  The scholar is not merely a passive recipient.  He grows into power by an active reception of truth.  Even when he listens to another’s utterances of knowledge, what vigor of attention and memory are necessary to enable him to make that knowledge his own?  But