with them as their instructors, will go on improving, and all the allurements of society will not drive them away from the means, and the only means, of true growth. "I have thus, my friends, stated, as well as I am able, the end at which we should aim in the education of girls. I have pointed out the defects in female education which have fallen under my notice; and I have given you the scheme which I should be inclined to adopt. "I respectfully ask your continued attention to this subject. For my own part, believing, as I do, that the destinies of our country hang upon WOMAN, that she is far more influential at the heart and centre than man ever is, it appears to me one of the greatest questions that can be brought before us, How shall woman be thoroughly and intellectually educated, during the few years given for that purpose?"" But Mr. Perkins's views of education were nowise limited to youth. His own solitary studies and intellectual triumphs had taught him the worth of self-culture throughout the whole of life; and among the mercantile, mechanic, and laboring classes he continually met with men of noblest powers, who were passing through the world comparatively unknown and unfelt, for mere want of mental stimulants. This desire to welcome all to that path of progress which, once vigorously entered, leads upward for ever, prompted him to aid every plan for general enlightenment. Among these were Libraries, Lyceums, and Societies for Mutual Improvement. Of the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association he was a munificent patron. The Board of that institution, in their Reports, acknowledge the following donations :in 1846, "of 146 volumes, most of them standard works, and a few of scarce and valuable editions, together with valuable maps and charts," in 1847, "of 107 vol umes of rare works, with scarce and valuable maps,' in 1848, "of 60 volumes "; and they accompany their acknowledgments with "heartfelt thanks for his great and repeated liberality," and in token of their gratitude presented to him a right of life-membership in the Association. To him was due, also, the suggestion and commencement of a Library of Reference, where costly books might be deposited for purposes of study, and be open for the use of earnest inquirers, with only the restrictions prescribed by honor. Of the Historical Society of Cincinnati, and of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, which in 1849 was removed from Columbus to Cincinnati, and united with the former association, - Mr. Perkins was also a devoted and intelligent member, doing all in his power to keep alive a memory "of that adventurous and hardy band who first broke the stillness of the forests of the West, and planted on her soil the standard of freedom and civilization." Of the Cincinnati Historical Society, which was organized in 1844, he was the first president, and retained his position till 1847, when for two years he served it as vice-president and recording secretary. Of the Historical Society of Ohio he was elected first vice-president at its reorganization in 1849. These honors he well deserved, and office to him was never a sinecure. In the winter of 1838, he delivered an address before the Ohio Historical Society at Columbus, and in his leisure hours during the remainder of that season began the preparation for his Annals of the West, a work whose accuracy, completeness, thoroughness of research, clear method, and graceful perspicuity of style show his admirable qualifications for an historian. Successively, in after years, he wrote for the North American Review the series of Historical Sketches reprinted in the second volume of this collection of his writings, sketches which, even as they stand, form a complete outline of Western history. His penetrating power of analysis, constructive imagination, regard for truth, sound judgment, and humane principle, are brightly manifested in these essays; and throughout is felt his pervading trust in Providence, and awe for the grandeur of human destiny. But it was not as an historian only that Mr. Perkins discharged his duty as a literary man. After the resignation of his editorships, he was still a constant contributor to leading papers and journals, of tales, poems, essays, criticisms, &c., losing no chance to speak a good word for enterprises of usefulness, to advocate the cause of justice and mercy, to allay prejudices, to guide the public mind in a right direction, and from transient questions of the hour to draw enduring lessons. His views of the function of the scholar and author, indeed, were in the highest degree earnest. "Your principle," he says to a friend, in 1839, "of not writing for the public, but to please yourself, albeit one of Carlyle's and I believe of Goethe's, I cannot subscribe to. I surely would not have one write unless he has something. and something of deep interest to himself to say; but I would have every student work for his fellow forked radishes,' let said radishes be as strong and pungent as they may. I am fully of the faith, my most philosophic friend, that if Jesus of Nazareth had any idea in his mind, or feeling in his heart, or law in his conscience, it was this, - Live and labor for all men, never asking what they think of you, nor caring how they receive your efforts.' And to you as a fellow-radish, let me say, in all frankness and without offence, that you and I, and all of us, are in danger of underrating the public, because we feel that the public underrates us. For myself, at least, I am well aware that not a day passes when I have not to struggle against the temptation to sneer, because, as I feel, I am sneered at. And, as a literary man, I know that I need frankness, courage, humility, single-heartedness." Especially as a Western literary man was he intent to reach and keep the highest mood of intellectual action; for he felt how individual and independent, how free from traditional reins and cast loose to the guidance. of their own genius, how practically zealous, hopeful, enthusiastic, pliant, yet sturdy, were the people of the Great Valley, and the thought shone out for ever bright before him, that in the West was soon to be throned the sovereignty of this continent. He longed to be a medium for the spirit of religious humanity, that he might aid to establish there that only real freedom whose essence is love, whose form is obedience to right. It is this earnestness that makes the charm of his verses and narratives; and this sincerity it was that gave to his style its simple strength. How presiding conscience was in Mr. Perkins's habits of feeling strikingly appeared in his æsthetic tastes; and perhaps this predominance of the moral sentiment over the sense of beauty hindered his enjoyment of ordinary works of art. For he kept ever present so pure an ideal, that he could rarely be pleased. Yet that he had fine artistic perception is plain from the following notices of some masterpieces of Powers. "POWERS'S FIRST IDEAL HEAD. -Nicholas Longworth, who was an early and a true friend of Hiram Powers, has just received from him his first original head, cut in marble. "It is a female head, perfectly simple in design and expression, and shows not alone the pure, noble, just conception of the artist, but also his exquisite skill in embodying that conception. "The head resembles, in its outline and air, the Grecian sculptures; but has not their strait, hard profile, nor their unromantic expression. The nose is not Grecian, nor is the hair arranged formally after the Greek models, though it is so far in that style as to possess its peculiar grace. "But when, from the mere outward being, we turn to the inward one, as seen in the expression rather than the features, it seems to us that no Greek, living while woman was what she was in Greece, could have given that which the Christian sculptor has given. And what is this? We need use no hyperbole. It is a lovely image of feminine purity, combined with feminine affection; the brow, the eye, the lip, at once human and superhuman; the counterfeit resemblance of one tried, and rising above trial, · 'A being breathing thoughtful breath, With something of an angel light.' "In a word, it seems to us that the artist in this, his first work, has succeeded most admirably in uniting the spirit of the two great regions of art, the classic and the romantic, the Greek and the Teutonic. And to do this is the office of Christian art. "Three hundred years ago, we all know how perfectly it was done in Italy. In our day, Germany bids fair to revive |