worth no more than any other acquisition. The growing teacher will not be so anxious to crowd the minds of his pupils with knowledge, as to give their powers of mind and heart that fulness of expansion and that vigorous strength which shall fit them for extended usefulness and permanent happiness. His pupils will not be the passive recipients of ideas. They will be thinkers. Nor will they know less than those who are taught to regard knowledge as an end. For if the mental energies are kept constantly awake and active by vigorous exercise, the pupil will take delight in seeking for himself the hidden treasures of knowledge. The teacher cannot overestimate the importance of training his pupils to think for themselves. He should not permit a recitation to close without affording an opportunity for earnest mental effort. The range of his questions upon the subject studied should be such as constanty to require this, using the text-book merely as a text-book. When Sir Isaac Newton was asked in what way he had made such vast discoveries and had accomplished so much for science, he replied " by thinking." And all that has ever been done for science or civilization, has been done in the same way. Let not the teacher permit his pupils to be the mere dronish swallowers of knowledge. Such an education is only better than none. But let their minds be constantly working and thinking. Education will then be neither irksome nor worthless, but both profitable and delightful. For to be inactive is to be weak, and to no child of ordinary capacities is there any delight in inactivity or imbecility. Such views of education, and daily reducing them to vigorous practice, will contribute immeasurably to the growth of the teacher. For the great law of the universe that action and reaction are equal, whether it be in regard to matter, morals, or mind, prevails here. As matter cannot act upon fellow matter without receiving the same impulse it gives, as man cannot do his fellow man good or evil without blessing or cursing himself, so mind cannot strengthen kindred mind without receiving equal benefit. He cannot train his pupils to be earnest, vigorous thinkers, without becoming more and more so himself.

The teacher who would be daily adding to his efficiency, must cultivate a genial spirit. He must acquaint himself with the interests of his pupils and be interested in them, enjoy what they may innocently enjoy, sincerely sympathize in their little and larger griefs, make all their pleasures and sorrows really his. He must convince them that he is with his whole heart devoted to their true happiness and good. Let him by all patient, kindly, gentle ways, win their love, and there is no limit to the good he may do them.

When opportunities for self-improvement do not come, he must seek them, and he must use them when they do. When Teachers'

Associations, Conventions, and Institutes do not come to him, he must go to them. Such occasions are feasts to earnest teachers' souls. They give courage, strength and zeal. No teacher can share with kindred minds in the exchange of sympathies, opinions, and counsel, without most material and lasting advantage. Let him be a constant reader and supporter of educational journals, or at least, some one, and if but one, let that be the best (The Massachusetts Teacher.) He thus continually gathers from the wisdom, opinions, and practices of others, compares them with his own, corrects faults and copies excellences. He must be "quick to learn" from his daily experience, and not require to be taught the same lesson twice. And every day should not only teach him something, but should teach him much, as it will, if he thoroughly review and examine it with this desire. The teacher must be a student. He must never think his work done. To be sure he must take time for recreation and exercise. But beyond this, he is an idler. passed with his books in earnest study. great sources of knowledge, and he will knowledge without seeking it. The little plant daily puts forth farther its tiny roots, seeking nourishment. By patiently doing this from day to day, the little plant becomes the stately oak. Let the teacher remember that the law of vegetable is the law of intellectual growth. If habits of busy toil rather than luxurious ease make the life a little shorter, what matters it? Is it not truly better to wear out than to rust out? If we may lead a life of noble usefulness with constant, wearing toil, or have length of days with inglorious indolence, who would not make the choice of Achilles?

Hours must be daily Books are the teacher's not have a fulness of

Fellow Teacher, it has not been our intention to exhaust the subject we have thus discussed, but simply to suggest it as a topic deserving your daily reflections. Does it not demand more of your frequent and earnest thought than it has hitherto received? In view of its importance, of its practical connection with the amount and kind of our influence upon others, of its certain connection with results that are to reach through life, far onward into Eternity, in view of the facilities we possess for our personal advancement and of the sublime motives urging us to seek it, let us awaken our energies anew, form nobler purposes, make better resolutions, think more upon our duties, our responsi bilities, and opportunities, strive more earnestly and faithfully to accomplish something for those who now directly receive our influence, and for those who are to receive it indirectly for all time. Let such be our faithful and earnest endeavors, and if in Time our toils are not appreciated, we can well afford to wait; Eternity shall prove we have not lived in vain.

PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF MENTAL EXERTION.

"Laugh ye who boast your more mercurial powers,

That never feel a stupor, know no pause,

Nor need one; I am conscious, and confess,

Fearless, a soul that does not always think."-Cowper.

THE confession of Cowper, would, I doubt not, be the confession of many others, if they were constrained to own the truth. It is certainly a very fortunate, and I doubt not a wise provision for such, that the operations of their minds are concealed, if they choose to conceal them, from all human observation, so that they can think or let it alone, just as they please, and nobody will ever know it.

There are those, I am aware, who entertain the opinion that the mind is ever active, knowing no respite and needing no pause; that at every moment of existence, even in sleep, it is still pursuing its onward progress, and maintaining an unbroken succession of ideas; that like the ceaseless flow of a river,

"lahitur,

Et labetur, in omne volubilis ævum."

It is not contended, indeed, that the mind is all this time conscious of its own operations, or, if conscious at the time, that it retains the recollection of this consciousness; but it is inferred from the immateriality of the mind, that it can never remain dormant. It is not my purpose, in this article, to investigate the truth of this opinion, which has been entertained both by the learned and by the unlearned. In the sense in which Cowper says he was conscious that he did not always think, few persons, I imagine, will be disposed to deny, that they too are conscious of the same fact. It may be safely presumed that most persons have at times experienced that degree of physical exhaustion, which incapacitated them for any well-directed and efficient mental effort. We do, indeed, sometimes meet with those whose "more mercurial powers" really seem to need no respite; from the rising of the sun until the going down of the same, and even until the noon of night, they keep the machinery of their minds in constant motion-driving its engine by the powerful energy of their own vito-galvanic battery. Nothing seems to stay the strong current of their thoughts, but their own determination.

That such persons should regard the mind as "something distinct from the body," and as independent of it in its operations, is not perhaps so remarkably strange. But to those who, by their daily experience, are compelled to admit the truthfulness of that declaration of the wise king of old, "much study is a weariness of the flesh," or to those whose waning health and exhausted physical energies incapacitate them for any considerable degree of mental effort, and which admonish them that

they have "need to make a pause," (perhaps a "solemn pause,") to such, I say, the subject of this article-physical conditions of mental exertion-will not, as they peruse it, strike their minds as words of strange and doubtful import. To them, at least, the assertion that such is the connection of the human mind and body, that certain conditions of the latter are requisite to sustain the active energies of the former, will have all the force of a self-evident proposition. Their own conscious experience is to them all the proof that is requisite. Admitting, then, the proposition to be correct, it becomes a matter of some interest to know what these conditions are; for, just in so far as they are wanting, may we infer that deleterious or deranged action will ensue. Let us then inquire,

What are some of the physical conditions of mental exertion?

1st. The organ of the mind must be perfectly formed in all its parts.

The brain is the great sensorium of the mind, by impressions upon which, the mind gains all its ideas of the existence, qualities, properties, and relations of external objects. These are the primary sources of all its cogitations; for how is it possible to think of that whose existence is not either obvious to our senses, or inferred from the existence of objects that are? The brain is, then, the medium of the mind's communication with the external world, and the organ of all its operations.

If, then, the organ of the mind be imperfectly formed, the medium of its communication with other objects, is, just in so far as this imperfection obtains, interrupted, and its capacity for receiving and retaining those impressions requisite to a correct knowledge of these things, is diminished or impaired. How can it be expected that the eye, for instance, should rightly perform its office, if it be in any considerable degree defective? If the focal distance of its lenses be either too long or too short, the light that is transmitted through them, will be either too diffused or too converged, and will fail to form a distinct image upon the retina. Thus objects will appear indistinct, confused, or distorted. So, likewise, if that portion of the brain, which is especially adapted to receive the final impression first made upon the retina, and by means of the optic nerve, transmitted to that part, be defective in structure or otherwise, we may justly infer that a correct impression will not be made.

There are some persons, who, owing to a defect, as I suppose, either in some organ of sense, or in the organization of some parts of the brain, or of the abnormal condition of those parts, cannot discriminate between particular qualities of color, sound, flavor, or odor, which are perfectly distinguishable to most other persons. I know an individual of unquestionable veracity, who

assured me that he could not distinguish the colors red and green; admitting, I presume, these colors to be of equal brilliancy. I directed his attention to the red and the green figures in the carpet before us; he said they appeared to him of the same color. The red rose and its green leaves must then, I suppose, present no pleasing contrast to his eye. I have heard of other similar instances.

If, then, any of the organs of sense, or those parts of the brain which receive and treasure up the impressions made primarily upon these organs, be defective, all that class of ideas which reach the mind through the medium of the defective faculty, must be imperfect; and hence all reflections upon these imperfect ideas, must also be of an indefinite character.

2d. The organ must be in a sound or healthy condition.

If a limb of the body, as the arm, be paralyzed, it cannot perform its office. If it be inflamed with rheumatism, every effort to use it will be painful, and its action will be inefficient. The arm may, nevertheless, be perfect in its formation. Every bone, joint, ligature, muscle, nerve, artery and vein, may be perfectly formed and properly adjusted.

And so it is with the brain. It may be complete as to its formation, but if it be diseased, wholly or in part, no just dependence can be placed upon its efficient action. It is a well known fact, that those diseases which affect the brain, do more or less affect the mind. It is also known that parts of the brain may be affected or injured, and a consequent degree of insane action, or want of action will be produced. Monomania is a disease too fully recognized at the present day, to admit of a doubt as to its reality.

As the brain is only a part of our corporeal system, nourished by the same circulating and assimilating process, and connected with every other part of it, even to the minutest fibre, by means of the spine and its innumerable ramifications, called nerves, which are of the same substance as the brain, it is reasonable to infer, and no one will dispute the correctness of the inference, that there should be a sympathy of the parts, and that when one member suffers, the others should also suffer with it. If one part receives an injury, the vitality of the other parts is directed to the injured part, to sustain the requisite healing process, and to effect the necessary repairs.

As all sensations are transmitted to the brain, by means of the nerves, if these sensations be uncommonly intense, the habitual current of the mind must be disturbed, or deranged, just in proportion to the degree of that intensity. The brain itself may become diseased in consequence, and its efficiency permanently impaired or destroyed. Intense physical suffering is well known to induce, in many cases, mental insanity. The