talent, whether executive, philosophic, or poetic, contains many excellent and original suggestions.

The last part of the work is devoted to an analysis of the intellectual faculties, and an exposition of the order and plan in which they should be addressed and developed. We will not stop either to illustrate or dispute Mr. Taylor's analysis of the intellectual faculties. It is certainly correct enough for practical purposes. In fact, all quarrelling between metaphysicians generally ceases, when they give themselves to the inquiry, How and in what order shall the human faculties be cultivated? The Sensual Philosophy and the Transcendental agree in the principle laid down by our author, that the Conceptive faculty should be regarded first, as coming first in Nature's order, - that power by which, what has been present to perception returns in the absence of its object, and notions derived from the senses become the mind's permanent property. After the notions of external objects are in the mind, then the sense of Resemblance comes and compares and arranges them. Then comes the sense of Analogy, and compares the relations of ideas, and perceives the harmony or discord of various classes of ideas. Next in order, the power of Abstraction should be educated; and with it the Reasoning faculty; and lastly the Imagination. If the reader marvel that the Imagination should be placed last, let him remember that what is often said about the ardor of imagination in childhood and youth, refers not to what is properly called imagination, but to fancy, or the mind's play with the images of the Conceptive faculty, according to their resemblances and contrasts. The imagination and the imaginative sentiments are the very last to be developed, when nature takes her own course; it is the rich-colored chrysanthemum of the intellectual parterre ;-while the Conceptive power is the very earliest to appear of the properly intellectual elements of our nature; the snow-drop of the mind's flower garden."

The closing chapters give many novel and valuable suggestions concerning the culture of the Conceptive faculty, the sense of Resemblance and Analogy. The author wages mortal war with the old system of education, which teaches first the technical terms of a science, then its philosophic principles or results, and last of all, the facts to which these technicalities relate, and upon which these principles and results are based. We give a single illustration of his meaning:

"What is termed the Use of the Globes, and which might better be called the abuse of them, if we are speaking of early education, affords another instance of that, as I think, mistaken practice which, while it offends nature, actually shuts out intelligence from all but the most resolutely intellectual minds. Instead of placing before the learner, in the first place, the palpable, visible, and picturesque facts of physical astronomy, and physical geography, and which very few children would fail to listen to with delight; the teacher, book in hand, or worse, forcing the book into the hands of the learner, afflicts him in some such style as this: The Colures are two great circles, imagined to intersect each other at right angles in the poles of the world one of them passes through the solstitial, and the other through the equinoctial point of the ecliptic, whence the first is denominated the solstitial, and the second the equinoctial colure. This last determines equinoxes, and the former the solstices,' &c. Such is the style in which mere children are too often introduced to the sciences, and for ever alienated from all kinds of substantial knowledge. The paragraph I have taken from only the sixth page of a much used school book, if rendered into Dutch or Chinese, would have been not a whit less beneficial to thousands of those who, in their sorrowful school-days, have learned, repeated, and instantly afterwards forgotten it. It is not that the technical parts of the sciences should not be learned, but that they should be kept out of sight until after the mind has become familiar with the visible realities to which they relate.

"A description of the earth, combining many topics, separately treated of in five or six sciences, that is to say, astronomy, geography, geology, hydrography, mineralogy, meteorology, and, to some extent, natural history, affords as good an opportunity as we can any where find for calling the Conceptive Faculty into play, and for enriching it with splendid ideas. What we want, in the training of this faculty, is, to accustom the mind to stretch out from the boundary of things actually seen, and to give itself a sort of intellectual ubiquity, by the vigorous effort which realizes remote scenes as analogous to surrounding objects, and yet as unlike them. A child is to be tempted on, until he breaks over his horizon; he is to be exercised and informed, until he can wing his way, north or south, east or west, and show his teacher, in apt and vivid language, that his imagination has actually taken the leap, and has returned from the tempestrocked Hebrides, or the ice-bound northern ocean, from the red man's wilderness of the west, from the steppes of central Asia, from the teeming swamps of the Amazon, from the sirocco deserts of Africa, from the tufted islets of the Pacific, from the

heaving flanks of Etna, from the marbled shores of Greece." pp. 203, 204.

While we are speaking of the need of cultivating clear conceptions and simple, graphic expressions, we may give the author a friendly knock with a weapon of his own furnishing. Mr. Taylor, we are sure, must speak from bitter experience of the need of clear conceptions and simple words. There is little simplicity and graphic power in his pages. He uses abstract terms needlessly, and has a style as little attractive as any writer of the day. There is not a single chapter in any of his works, in which the reader is not made to ache with trying to follow the writer through some craggy and misty paragraph. We think, too, that his admirable chapter on Language should teach him better than to be fond of repeatedly using such words as "perfunctory," when a plain Saxon monosyllable would better give the meaning.

We take leave of "Home Education" and its author with much gratitude, and yet not without some disappointment. The most interesting points in family culture are but slightly touched upon, — we mean the moral and religious bearings of the subject. The education of the moral and religious faculties, and also of the reason and imagination, he reserves for future consideration. We should delight to see a work from his pen, reviewing the moral and religious characteristics of early life, as he has reviewed its intellectual characteristics. We want a true history of the dawning mind and heart, — a natural history of human life, not of the eras in the physical being, but of the stages and crises in the soul. We wish to see that done for the individual soul, which God in his word has done for our race, a history of religion in the individual, as God has given us the history of religion in the race. We would see the Eden period of infancy portrayed, the season of taneous joy and faith, which no thought of shame, or toil, or sin, or death, has yet disturbed. We would see a faithful picture of childhood, the period of the law, when the young mind must walk by the authority of others, and when, too, it has learned something of sin and shame and toil and death. Finally, we should delight to behold a faithful portraiture of that season of youth, when the soul wrestles with the great troubles and strives with the great enigmas of its being, — when childhood's spontaneous faith is reviewed, and either rejected VOL. XXV. 3D S. VOL. VIII. NO. II.

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or confirmed by reflection, when the burden of toil is realized, and man knows that he must work, and makes up his mind, whether to work as a slave chained to his task, or a free child in his Heavenly Father's house, and for a heavenly reward,when the mystery of death and its woes are felt, and death either owned as a curse, or gloried in as giving ground for the Christian's hope.

That Mr. Taylor possesses all the qualifications to write upon “Home Education," especially its moral and religious bearings, cannot be presumed, even by his admirers. His mind is too hard and abstract for the work. His faith and philosophy are well enough for the task, but if there were more of the woman, both in his disposition, and his style and intellect, he would be fully qualified to meet his subject. Indeed, it is to be doubted, whether any one but a woman and a mother is competent to treat of "Home Education" in its most important sense. A successful writer on this subject should have the heart and experience of a woman, and the philosophical intellect of a man.

We ought to deem it one of the good signs of the times, that so much attention has of late been given to the family home, and its importance as a school has been so insisted upon. The homes of mankind decide the destiny of our race. If, indeed, we were to guide ourselves by history, or by the opinions of the world, we should attach exclusive glory to the extraordinary scenes and emergencies in the course of events, we should measure the progress of our race by its illustrious battles, its signal deeds, its brilliant inventions and characters. But far otherwise should we do, if guided by the light of true philosophy. If we would learn how our race has advanced in what is truly valuable, we should turn away from the glowing record of battles gained or lost, and dynasties rising or falling, and should ask ourselves how are mankind advancing in the common affairs of life? what is their daily industry, and what are their homes? The homes of mankind are a better criterion of their progress, than their palaces and trophies. And thanks be to God, that the annals of the fireside bear witness to such an advance in civilization and virtue. Once the home had no such blessing around it as it now has. It was little better than the lair in which the wild beast takes temporary shelter. Now, through the influence of civilization and Christianity, — that mightiest agent in civilization, - home has become the centre of all that is pure and dear in affection, and all that is valuable

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in art and refinement. We rejoice in We rejoice in every effort to increase the glory of the Christian Fireside. Let our homes be held in honor; they should be most honorable. It is there that our happiness is most promoted or harmed, it is there that the young receive their earliest and most enduring impressions, it is there that the world's selfish business and passions may be forgotten in a circle of happy hearts, it is there that in sickness we may meet with those soothing attentions that almost make sickness a blessing, by throwing around it such a halo of love, it is there that we may expect to lie down on our death-beds, and hope that the voice of kindred may cheer our last moments, and the hand of affection close our eyes in the last sleep. Let the home, therefore, be honored equally with the Senate Hall, the Court of Justice, the House of God. It is the cradle of the young, the great school of the forming mind. It should be the abode of our joy, the asylum of our sorrow, the fountain of public virtue, the temple of our faith.

S. 0.

ART. III. PEACE AND PEACE SOCIETIES.

To one, who wishes well for the best interests of his race, it is a cheering circumstance that the subject of Peace has, of late, attracted more attention than was formerly paid to it. That recklessness, with which, in past ages, nations rushed to arms on the slightest occasion, is now seldom witnessed. War, if now undertaken by any civilized power, is only as the last and most painful resort, when all other means have failed, for obtaining real or supposed justice. And when engaged in by any, the strife is not, as of old, regarded with indifference by surrounding nations; it is considered as an evil to the contending parties, and to the world at large; and other states, from just views of their own interest, and from a high principle of national brotherhood, interpose their good offices for its termination. Such is, and such must be, the tendency of an age, when the old and fierce prejudices of mankind are passing away before the rapidly extended facilities of mutual intercourse,