whose cheerful and lively population, immortalized in the annals of human history, forms the connecting link between oriental and occidental civilization. The views which the Greeks took of education, the systems which they introduced in their different republics, although inapplicable to a state of society formed under the influence of divine revelation, nevertheless still possess a high interest for us, inasmuch as they exhibit the most perfect patterns of education, which the pagan world has ever produced, and probably could ever produce, destitute as it was of the light of religion. The principle on which Greek education was founded, was that of the most absolute freedom of individual development, which the community promoted by affording ample opportunities and encouragement, rather than by making any authoritative provisions. It is true, that by the institutions of Sparta, that freedom was greatly limited, if not entirely annihilated; the child being at an early period of life separated from those to whom he was attached by natural ties, and brought under a system of discipline, calculated to render him both an obedient instrument and a faithful representative, of that proud and independent spirit, which Lycurgus designed should be the Spartan character. But it must not be forgotten, that Sparta forms rather an exception to the general character of the Greek republics; and that Athens, as it gave, intellectually and morally, the tone to all Greece, so it is likewise the best instance to be adduced for exemplifying the spirit of Greek education. In the investigation of this subject, I am aware that a distinction ought to be made between the education of those who were destined for the service of the oracles and other temples, and the preparation which the greater number of the free-born youths underwent to be fitted for the pursuits of public life. The former deserves but little consideration, as it was confined to very partial and limited objects; for al

though a superstitious deference was generally paid to some of the religious observances, and particularly to the decisions of oracles, yet this deference was not what can be properly called religious feeling; it seems rather to have been analogous to the superstitious credulity which we often met with. even in enlightened persons, concerning matters in which they would scorn to profess a serious belief. It admits of great doubt, whether at any period of Greek history, the tales of mythology were considered by the enlightened part of the nation any better than as pleasing fictions; indeed it is hardly to be conceived that a system of religion, in which all the supposed deities were purely the creatures of man's imagination, should ever have been more than a matter of poetical taste. This view of the subject is confirmed by the fact, that public educa tion was carried on in Greece, quite independently of the priesthood. In consistency with the principles on which the whole frame of society was constituted in Greece, we find the education of their youths, as I observed before, founded on the basis of perfect individual liberty. A free career was opened to every child for the unfolding of his powers in such a direction, and to such an extent, as was most agreeable to the peculiar organization of his mind. To render those powers independent of the leading-strings of the pedagogue was the first object which the Greek teacher aimed at; instead of endeavouring to keep his pupils under a pedantic bondage, as is the case among us, he exerted himself to emancipate them as early as possible. This was the object of the mathematical instruction of the Greek schools, which, very different from that of our colleges and schools, consisted not in learning by rote a prescribed set of problems and solutions, but in an independent solution on the part of the pupil of such problems as the teacher conceived to be most adapted to his capacities, and the peculiar turn of his mind. To this instruction is that acuteness and penetration to be attri

buted, which, when abused for mean and selfish purposes, degenerated into cunning, and made the Greek name, in that respect, a by-word among the nations; but when applied to the investigation of truth, led to those sublime theories, to which, although apprised of their errors by the superior light of revelation, we cannot refuse to pay the tribute of profound admiration.

While such judicious care was bestowed upon the development of the intellect, still more powerful levers were applied to the moral feelings. The study of the fine arts, and especially of poetry, whose harmonious notes reechoed from shore to shore, and from island to island, formed the other and more important part of that almost irresistible combination of intellectual and moral influences, designated by the comprehensive name of μovoin. μουσική. Thus inspired with a high poetic enthusiasm, and armed with the weapon of acute penetration, the Greek youth approached the study of philosophy, the investigation of the most abstruse as well as the most practical subjects, of the inner nature of man, as well as of his outward relations as a social being. The latitude which was in all their studies afforded to every individual, to invent, to think, to feel, and to apprehend for himself, was the life of their education, which became dead from the moment when the sophists began to reduce it into the forms of system and pedantry. To nothing else than this latitude, this individual liberty, is it to be attributed, that, within comparatively so short a period, and within so small an extent of territory, so many men rose up of eminent character, all strongly marked with the features of distinct originality, the powerful influence of which was so great, that whilst in other nations, and among the Greeks themselves in Sparta, the character of eminent men was determined by that of the nation: in Athens, on the contrary, and in other Greek states, the community assumed successively the different characters, how

ever contradictory with each other, of those privileged individuals, whom natural endowments and a high degree of cultivation rendered, not by legal enactment, but by the universal consent of admiration, the rulers of their fellow citizens, and the tone-givers of their age.

Very different from this picture is that which Rome presents. Rome's social constitution was, from its very beginning, nothing more nor less than a highly refined. and highly consistent system of social selfishness. Much has been said of the disinterestedness of the Roman character, of that spirit of self-denial, and devotedness to the universal welfare, which are praised up as the definitive virtue of that celebrated city; but it has been forgotten that the very reverse of all this was the character which the Romans as a body displayed towards a world trodden in the dust by their unquenchable thirst of conquest. It has been forgotten that, if examples of self-sacrifice occur in Roman history, which are unparalleled in the records of any other Pagan nation, they were only the price paid for those phantoms of glory, by which the Republic rewarded the suppression of every independent thought, and of every free feeling of the human bosom. The self-denial was but an illusory one; for every Roman looked with an eye of insatiable greediness to the commonwealth for his share of the national grandeur and glory, as a compensation, which he considered himself entitled to for the absolute sacrifice of his individual selfishness ; so that when the state was no longer able to satisfy the progressively increasing demands of those impetuous creditors, the Roman threw off the ill-endured mask, and, in the entire dissolution of all social order, displayed individually that same character, which, as his national feature, had rendered him long before the execration of the world. It seems somewhat inconsistent with this absolute claim to the whole existence of every individual, which the Roman community preferred, and for a time enforced, that edu

cation should have been allowed to remain in the hands of the family. But the paradox is easily solved if we consider that the mother was no less a Roman than the father, and that the pride and ambition of the family was an atmosphere so favourable to the growth of those much lauded virtues of the Roman character, that the state, in leaving the child in the hands of the parent, so far from hazarding the public object of education, on the contrary secured it much more effectually than could have been done by any other means. The wisdom of this arrangement is sufficiently vindicated by its results. Nothing was introduced in the education of the young Roman, but what was immediately calculated to fit him for the purposes of the Republic; religious education he received none, for there was not even at Rome so much as an education for the priesthood. The compendious system of superstition, which has sometimes been honoured with the name of the religion of Rome, was never any thing but a lever in the hands of the aristocracy, to set in motion, or arrest, at their pleasure, the brute force of the ignorant and credulous mass; and, therefore, the priesthood was in Rome nothing but an appendage to the executive power. A splendid political and military career was in Rome the straight road to church preferment. How little Roman education had to do with science, with art and philosophy, is notorious enough. Down to the period of the conquest of Greece, those fruits of the Greek soil were entirely unknown in the invincible city; and what estimation they were held in afterwards, is sufficiently evident from the fact, that the task of teaching them devolved exclusively upon slaves. There is, however, one school, and that a public one, in which the Roman youth received part of his education-I mean the camp. To make him a good soldier, and, if descended from an aristocratic family, a good general, the boy was domesticated in the tent as early as possible, there to be rendered familiar with the revolting scenes of the field of battle, and to be inured to