a philosopher might leave out of consideration without falling into serious error.  Of course, this trivial and, fugitive fact of personal wealth does not create a permanent class, unless some special means are taken to arrest the process of disintegration in the third generation.  This is so rarely done, at least successfully, that one need not live a very long life to see most of the rich families he knew in childhood more or less reduced, and the millions shifted into the hands of the country-boys who were sweeping stores and carrying parcels when the now decayed gentry were driving their chariots, eating their venison over silver chafing-dishes, drinking Madeira chilled in embossed coolers, wearing their hair in powder, and casing their legs in long boots with silken tassels.

There is, however, in New England, an aristocracy, if you choose to call it so, which has a far greater character of permanence.  It has grown to be a caste,—­not in any odious sense;—­but, by the repetition of the same influences, generation after generation, it has acquired a distinct organization and physiognomy, which not to recognize is mere stupidity, and not to be willing to describe would show a distrust of the good-nature and intelligence of our readers, who like to have us see all we can and tell all we see.

If you will look carefully at any class of students in one of our colleges, you will have no difficulty in selecting specimens of two different aspects of youthful manhood.  Of course I shall choose extreme cases to illustrate the contrast between them.  In the first, the figure is perhaps robust, but often otherwise,—­inelegant, partly from careless attitudes, partly from ill-dressing,—­the face is uncouth in feature, or at least common,—­the mouth coarse and unformed,—­the eye unsympathetic, even if bright,—­the movements of the face are clumsy, like those of the limbs,—­the voice is unmusical,—­and the enunciation as if the words were coarse castings, instead of fine carvings.  The youth of the other aspect is commonly slender, his face is smooth, and apt to be pallid,—­his features are regular and of a certain delicacy,—­his eye is bright and quick,—­his lips play over the thought he utters as a pianist’s fingers dance over their music, and his whole air, though it may be timid, and even awkward, has nothing clownish.  If you are a teacher, you know what to expect from each of these young men.  With equal willingness, the first will be slow at learning; the second will take to his books as a pointer or a setter to his field-work.

The first youth is the common country-boy, whose race has been bred to bodily labor.  Nature has adapted the family organization to the kind of life it has lived.  The hands and feet by constant use have got more than their share of development,—­the organs of thought and expression less than their share.  The finer instincts are latent and must be developed.  A youth of this kind is raw material in its first stage of elaboration.  You must not expect too much of any such.  Many of them have force of will and character, and become distinguished in practical life; but very few of them ever become great scholars.  A scholar is, in a large proportion of cases, the son of scholars or scholarly persons.