LOVE'S POEM.

BY JULIA H. MAY.

My soul's glad windows open wide

And thoughts are fluttering in;

Thoughts fresh and new, thoughts old and tried, My poem to begin.

Forgotten thoughts on tuneful wing

Fly just above my own;

I try to catch them, as they sing
Some fond, familiar tune.

But as I close my eager clasp,
They slip from my embrace,

And thoughts that my thought cannot grasp
Come thronging in their place.

Wearing the hue of summer sky,
Sparkling as meteor's light;
One twinkles just before my eye,
And then goes out in night.

And one is like the bow of heaven,
By summer raindrops kissed;
I catch a glimpse of colors seven,
Then all is veiled in mist.

Yes, many a thought both true and sweet

Just peeps into my brain;

I long to stay its flying feet
Ere it depart again.

But when, o'erjoyed, I try to take
The thought that seems so fair,

It fades like snow upon the lake
And leaves no ripple there.

Or if, just for a moment's space,

I seize some truth divine,
I look into the stranger's face
And know it is not mine.

But see! one thought is coming now,
One sweet and simple thought.
It enters firmly; tell me how
To think it as I ought!

As pure as valley lily's cup,
As fresh as morning dew;

'Tis mine! I will not give it up,
Darling my thought is you.

Though grander thoughts should fly away,

And scorn to be my guest;

I care not, love, if you will stay,

Love is forever best.

Love is forever best, and so

It is forever new.

My own sweet thought! you must not go!
O, be my poem too!

A VIGOROUS and mature mind is one in which the real relations of things, and not their accidental connexions, bring them forward and determine either their continuance as objects of thought, or their speedy dismissal. ISAAC TAYLOR.

WHEN there is no recreation or business for thee abroad, thou may'st then have a company of honest old fellows in leathern jackets in thy study, which may find thee excellent divertisement at home. ANDREW FULLER.

THE test of real and vigorous thinking-the thinking which ascertains truths, instead of dreaming dreams-is successful application to practice. JOHN STUART MILL.

THE

EDITORIAL.

HE wholesale criticism of American popular education by a certain class of scientific, social philosophers has ultimated itself in three directions: first, in opposition to the state support of education by The Popular Science Monthly; second, in the crusade against national aid to Southern education, led by The New York Evening Post-Nation, and, lastly, in the representation of American education and society prepared for the information of the British public, in the July number of The Westminster Review, by Mr. Thomas Davidson.

In this remarkable article, copyrighted for home use by the author, Mr. Davidson "lets himself go" before the British public concerning American education and society.

Beginning with a flourish of compliment for our common school system, he launches forth into a criticism of it and young America in general which leaves the reader in doubt as to what is left of such a republic, and what hope there can be from a generation of children and youth so far gone in fatal demoralization.

According to Mr. Davidson, our public school system has no moral basis of character-training. The popular religion has degenerated to the level of "charlatanry and alchemy," and is now the great natural "obstacle to morality, freedom, and social order;" while the new fabric of "scientific ethics" is not yet in a working condition for the teacher's use.

The public school is a moral and social quagmire, into which the national character is fast disappearing. With singular inconsistency, the next impeachment is that the old, severe, moralistic type of Calvinistic training has given place to what is called 'sentimentalism."

"Good time" is now the god of young America, and the coming generation flounders in self-indulgence, superficiality, and selfishness.

Of course there is no American "literature or scholarship; " for "American pedagogy means the art of wheedling children into learning things without knowing it." "The average of American intelligence, outside of business, is low, almost beyond belief."

The mass of graduates from the schools repudiates manual or labo

rious industries and, unless they can become professionals or "counter-jumpers, clerks, and drummers, sink to bar-room politicians," and so on. The only hope is the advent of an outand-out secularism in a State swept clean of "popular religion and "sentimentalism," founded on the rock of "scientific ethics," whatever that abstraction may be. Then State and Church will be one, and education will qualify for life in both.

THE chief importance of this rigmarole is the light it sheds

on this peculiar style of criticism and its absolute impotency in suggesting any working idea of reform.

That there is an excuse for this pessimistic view of American affairs in a good deal that appears on the surface of our new life, nobody denies. But whether all this marks the inevitable collapse of a degenerating, or the crudity and confusion of a great advancing, civilization, is the pivotal question. A city street may be made a labyrinth of obstructions by an earthquake or from the beginning of a vast system of municipal improvement. The point of departure of Mr. Davidson is an abstract theory of human life, never for a day in actual operation in human affairs, which empties society of the most powerful agencies of human advancement. What is called here "popular religion" and "sentimentalism" is nothing less than the Christian religion in its broadest and best practical development in the life of this republic. Such a philosophy of man and affairs inevitably lands its disciple in a hopeless drift of "uncultivated" human nature and an "unscientific" social order compared with which the state of "unregenerate man" in the Westminster Catechism is cheerful reading.

Its advocates pose as a little serene aristocracy of letters in a new, democratic, social order; oblivious of the past, contemptuous of the present, and, except on impossible conditions, hopeless of the future.

What is that judgment worth. which sees nothing in the present movement of American education; the sacrifice and toil of thousands of progressive teachers; the broadening ideal of youthful charactertraining in family and school; the growth of humanity in dealing with social ills; the marvelous development of new industries, and the achievements of a generation of the most hopeful and effective young people that ever trod the earth?

How does such a theory account for the upper side of the United States of America? We are not surprised at this critique of American life and society which, perched on the Olympus of an abstract, impracticable theory of human nature, sweeps away as rubbish all that fails to come up to its hard and fast "scientific idea. We have read after these men for years, and yet wait for one fruitful suggestion, possible to be incorporated in an educational system, which has the least working force as an uplift from the evils apparent to all. Its final word is the anti-gospel of ultrasecularism; and if America is to wait till the "scientific ethics of Mr. Davidson becomes the bed-rock of national life, we may as well all veil our faces and bow before the avalanche.

Happily, this caricature of American education and life will mislead no intelligent person abroad save the philosophers of the same type, from whom our adopted American teacher has drawn. his inspiration, and for whose delectation he evidently has passed this unsavory dish across the Atlantic.

THE

HERE are many reforms and improvements now agitating the public mind in regard to education. The college presidents are discussing the elective system, but there are other topics to which they should give speedy attention. Among them may be named the art of writing good English with facility. A recent writer in Frank Leslie's Illustrated forcibly says:

"The colleges have greatly neglected English composition. The graduates who can write a hundred words of English with clearness, force, and elegance are exceedingly few. The graduates even who can use their native tongue in speech with clearness and vigor are also very few. During the four years many colleges are content to narrow the training in English composition substantially to the writing of a dozen themes' or 'forensics.' The students take little interest in the subject, and the professors even less. All this should be changed. The writing and speaking of the English tongue with perspicuity, with force, and with beauty, is one of the clearest marks of a well-educated gentleman. For this purpose, writing, constant and exact, and with criticism, is one of the best means. Harvard has for a time had one course in English composition, which consists in writing upon each day of the college year a brief composition. The colleges should devote thrice the time and the attention to writing which they now give to it."