the spirit of Pestalozzi was there. John of intelligent mechanics, and of fathers of Pound's little ragged school was a better families in the middle classes would say, if Pestalozzian institution than several which asked, that the great event in the life of their have looked grand upon the title. When minds was the getting hold of that book. Dr. Guthrie kindles his audience with ap- There they learned that their bodies were a Beals for the ragged, and shows what has part of the universe, made of substances and been done for hundreds of them, and what governed by laws which it is man's duty to remains to be done for thousands, it is the obey. It was a new view to them that by same thing as hearing Pestalozzi, "in his knowledge and self-management, men have habit as he lived." Whoever else may their health, and the development of their work, and whatever may be done, over and minds in their own hands. They had before above what he could have done, Pestalozzi thought of themselves as beings outside of will remain the representative of educational the world, as it were,-apart from the rest justice to the whole community. of creation, each individual being a single It may be safely said that, but for Pes- existence, incomprehensible in nature and talozzi, we should not have had the benefit qualities, and in no way concerned with natuof the Combes. George and Andrew Combe ral laws, except perhaps in the matter of eatdeclared, with all sincerity, that it was the ing and drinking, for the sustaining of life. doctrine of Gall and Spurzheim which de- When the chemical composition of the hutermined the direction of their powers and man frame was opened to them, and they the aim of their lives; but their beneficent were led to the conception of organs of menapplication of the doctrine of phrenology it-tal action-organs susceptible of health and self was doubtless due to the enthusiasm of disease, and committed to the guardianship the day for educational justice to the whole community. To this cause George Combe was, perhaps, the greatest benefactor of his generation, by giving the world his "Constitution of Man," at the moment when society was ready to appropriate the idea of the operation of natural laws on the bodies and minds of men, as on their outward cir

cumstances.

It was not necessary that Mr. Combe's book be soundly philosophical in its substance and in its reasoning. Few persons, if any, would now pronounce it to be so: yet it has been a singularly valuable gift to society. A work which circulated to the amount of nearly one hundred thousand copies, in the author's own country, during his life, must have some extraordinary aptitude for the popular need; and the spread of the work in America, and in some European countries, was scarcely less remarkable than its reception at home. Part of the circulation was owing to the extreme cheapness of the book, after a benevolent man had left 1 legacy for the purpose of reducing the price; but the demand is a fact, and a significant fact in the history of the time. The educated classes read it, determined its value for themselves, obtained useful hints from it, and left it behind them; but the effect on the half-educated and hitherto untaught was vital. Hundreds of thousands

of human prudence and conscientiousness it was as if a new revelation had come to them. Multitudes rushed into the conviction that their lot was mainly in their own, power, and men set to work to study their bodies and minds, and to arrange their habits for the benefit of both, as no man in this country ever did before. They educated themselves, and claimed education for their children with great zeal; and if there was much nonsense talked from phrenology seizing the imagination of ignorant persons, it was worth while for the sake of the self-respect and self-discipline created by the new set of ideas. Beyond a certain point the Combes themselves hindered the advance of Gall's great discovery. They were not philosophical enough to comprehend the requisites of philosophy; and they could never discern the limits of the scope of any particular evidence. When satisfied therefore, and rationally satisfied, of the main truth of Gall's discovery, they made out all the particulars to their own further satisfaction. They mapped out the brain, left nothing doubtful, left no room for any essential modification, and imagined they had explained things by describing them. They were generous, tolerant, serene benevolent, and practically wise, in comparison with most men; but they had not the clearsightness or the modesty of philosophical inves

tigators and discoverers. They announced | victions. They taught and practised univergreat truths with an exemplary good-will and devotedness; and, to make them real social reformers, it was not necessary that they should perceive precisely the scope, or the actual position of the truth they taught. They did an enormous amount of good, of a kind which perpetuates itself, and can never be lost. If Pestalozzi convinced society of the right of every poor child to the full development of its faculties, the Combes showed every man in society how to do himself justice, and on the whole, what those natural laws are, by obeying which men may raise themselves and their children to the best condition their constitution admits.

The effects have been conspicuous for thirty years past. The bodily habits of society have greatly improved, and our baths and washhouses—our sanitary arrangements of all kinds—our restrictions on hours of labor, and the new demand for bodily exercise are largely owing to the Combes. They denounced the bad arrangements of schools, by which boys became stunted and girls crooked. They haye introduced baths as an ordinary article of furniture in middle-class houses. In their benevolence they had courage to set prudery, as well as prejudice, at defiance; and the mothers of the present (and in them of each future) generation owe them much. Yet greater was the good they did in putting men in charge of their own mental and moral health, by engaging them in an interesting inquiry into their own structure of brain, and into the influences which operate upon it for good or evil. It was to ignorant men like entering upon a new state of existence, when they began to recognize themselves as a subject of study, and their children as committed to them as to a Providence.

sal tolerance; but they made no secret of their pity of those who differed from themselves. In their view it was want of knowledge or of candor which prevented the whole world from being of their opinion; they compassionated the defect, and did their best to remove it. If they could have perceived that their key fails to unlock many of the chief secrets of human nature, and that their proposals are inadequate to the supply of its needs, they would not have been the zealous and happy and confident apostles that they were, and could hardly have led forward the middle and working-classes to the point of improvement which they have reached.

In their lives they were a thorough contrast to Pestalozzi. He was a man of genius and passion, dirty in his person, always embarrassed in fortune, infirm in temper, but idolized by his dependent pupils. The Combes were altogether respectable,-in manners and the conduct of their affairs; very amiable in intercourse, and delightfully attached to each other; but as far from genius as from passion. The Swiss, by genius, stimulated by passion, and the Scotchmen, by benevolent zeal, concentrated by good sense within a narrow scope, did one of the great works of the age, in extending the range, and elevating the aims of education, in the larger sense.

Another great work, achieved by a man who differs from these as widely as they differed from each other, seems to me to claim honor as a means of educational advance, more than in any other light. The institution of Cheap Postage has been praised daily and hourly for several years now; yet there has perhaps not been enough said about its educational effects on the public at large. Rowland Hill understands this more accuThe brothers were of the very make for rately than social reformers sometimes comsocial reformers, except that Andrew wanted prehend their own work. He was bound to health. In one way his life of disease made show that the scheme would answer in a pecuhim a benefactor; for all who knew him saw niary sense, and as a matter of convenience; how he prolonged and husbanded his life by and his showing this triumphantly is no eviwise and cheerful care. They were consti- dence that he made his scheme for the sake of tutionally firm, confident, and strong in the the money or the convenience. He wrote and singleness of their view and aim, which in- spoke of pence and farthings, and fractions volved some narrowness about other views of farthings; and he went into details about and aims. They were liberal in allowing hours and distances, till apathetic and selfperfect freedom of opinion to everybody; ish people called him a bore: but he was but this did not extend to regarding with thinking, all the while, of the governess respect any divergence from their own con- pining for family letters which were then

too costly a luxury; of the apprentice and whole character. I do not remember meetthe servant-maid who dropped by degrees ing any one person, outside the circle of his their intercourse with the old home because friends, who saw any unity in the principle they or their parents could not pay postage; and the embodiment of it. Nobody saw why and of the lovers who lost all the best com- the postage of a letter should be a penny forts and pleasures of the engaged period rather than threepence, or why it should be by the difficulty of correspondence by letter. universal and uniform. The members of the He thought of the tricks and lies which were parliamentary committee showed no more made common and familiar by dear postage, sense of this than the multitude: did not as vice was made common and familiar by see that the ratio of population to the length prohibitory duties in the days of smuggling. of railroad in any country had any thing to There were plenty of other evils, connected do with the question: had not inquired for with commerce, the administration of jus- post-office returns in America; decided that tice, and social intercourse, for him to think there could be some considerable reduction about: but the family and personal interests in postage, but nothing resembling in wildof the British people were no doubt nearest ness a uniform, or a penny postage. So the his heart. Though the modes of success affair dragged on; and when the mercantile have been more various than he, or any one world compelled the government to do someelse could have foreseen, he must have had thing, the thing that it did was more trying a provision of great and precious blessings, than failure. It ordained a fourpenny postwhen the day should come for letters to be age, and threw the responsibility of it on almost as free as speech; when the evils of Rowland Hill. This and much more he had separation would be softened to families and to bear before his project was adopted; and friends; and when a new inducement should when it was adopted, there was the constant be supplied to fresh classes of persons to irritation of seeing mischief done by the uncultivate thought and the art of expressing scrupulous hostility of the functionaries of it. One is told now, in an evening school the post-office, high and low. I need not in a factory town, by one uncouth young enter upon the well-known old story of what woman of another who is at her pot-hooks they did. It is over now; and cheap cor"Hur wants to write to hur chap." This respondence is to us now as plentiful bread is a great thing, but it is a greater that and spacious windows, a secure daily blessmore civilized orders of families are kept ing. We ought not, however, to forget that together, and as if at home, by our present time in our lives when we were devising facilities for correspondence, and are early schemes to lure the humbler classes to school. habituated to express their thoughts on pa--proposing to make the ability to read and per in a natural way; this being one of the write a condition of domestic service, of enbest methods of acquiring the habit of dis- listment in the army or navy, or the public tinct thought. service, and of admission to beneficial assoNo social reformer has stood more in need ciations of any kind. At that very time than Rowland Hill of the persistency, aris- Rowland Hill was urging a project which, ing from clear conviction, which is the main under a different name, would do more than attribute of the character. He had to con- all these devices for the encouragement of tend with more than the reformer's ordinary popular education. We must not forget that share of obstruction from conceit, apathy, desolate silence of the heart under which levity, wrongheadedness, prejudice, and self-parted households pined before their beneinterest. There were times when, if he was factor gave them the power of calling to patient and serene, his supporters found it each other from any distance, unheard by impossible to be so. I vividly remember the everybody else. There is a vast developnonsense talked at London dinner-tables ment of industry and wealth to be considwhile the project was in suspense, when ered also; and inestimable service to scieverybody supposed himself qualified to ence, art, and convenience: but the main criticise and correct the man and his scheme. blessing of the reform is the enlargement of Most laughed at it as nonsense; and those the powers of speech, among the classes who affected to patronize it, proposed some which needed it most. amendment which would have destroyed its

Sir Rowland Hill is a Representative So

cial Reformer by his earnestness, his per- | sincere reformers do not stop to calculate sistency, the clearness of his aim, and his the probabilities of success before going command over the proper means. He has into action. That he has title, position, had a fuller success than most of his order, wealth, and even fame, is of less interest to though he had to wait for it through years both aspirants and mere observers than the of solitude and vexation. In the accuracy qualities which he brought to bear on his of his statements and his expectations he is work. He represents the social reformers a fine example for men who believe them- who succeed in a great object by means of selves born to set the world right, and are adequate knowledge and clear sense, actuin too great a hurry to do it. His experi- ated by honest intent, and upheld by a goodence of success is something unusual: but natured patience.

HARRIET MARTINEAU.

Land, which is said not to have been seen since the beginning of the eighteenth century, when it The schooner, after the return of the sleigh was rediscovered by Capt. Gilles, a Hollander. party, is, if practicable, to take the eastern passage and pass through Henlopen Strait, which divides the main island from East Spitzbergen.

As this expedition in greater part is composed of enterprising, scientific men, the most of whom are known from their former journeys in the polar regions and near the White Sea, for scientific purposes, and is well provided with instruments, great results may be expected. Photographic instruments and materials have also been provided, and several of the party are excellent draftsmen.-Boston Journal.

A SWEDISH ARCTIC EXPEDITION.-It may | eastward through Thymes Fiord toward Gilles' not be generally known here that besides the North Pole Expedition that left our harbor last July under the command of Dr. I. I. Hayes, another, commanded by Mr. Torell, well known for his researches in the polar regions, and under the auspices of the Swedish government, was also organized last summer, and have by this time left Tromsoe for Spitzbergen. Dr. Hayes' plan was to make a winter harbor on the west side of Smith's Sound, and to proceed northward as early this season as circumstances would permit. Mr. Torell's expedition have wintered at Tromsoe, which is on the northernmost coast of Norway. This expedition consisted of two vessels a schooner and a sloop, each commanded by an officer of the Swedish navy, and is accompanied by the well-known Danish arctic traveller, Carl Petersen, who was with Capt. Penny's, Dr. Kane's, and later with Capt. McClintock's Arctic Expeditions in search of Sir John Franklin. Nine scientific gentlemen, ably representing the departments of Geology, Physiology, Zoology, Astronomy and Botany, are attached to the expedition, which is in every respect well equipped for the voyage.

For service on the ice they have forty dogs, some of which are trained Esquimaux dogs, and three English ice boats, with runners attached, serviceable both for sailing in open water and as sleighs on the ice. The plan is to get as near the north-west point of Spitzbergen as possible, and from there proceed on the frozen ocean by the aid of the crews of both vessels, to establish provision depots at various secure places northward for the return trip. A party, under the leadership of Carl Petersen, will then, with two dog sleighs, push northward as near the pole as possible. The schooner is to await the return of this ice party, which Mr. Torell accompanies, while the sloop is to proceed southward exploring the inlets of the west coast of Spitzbergen, and, passing the South Cape, enter the Great Fiord and if possible pass out to the

PERILOUS VOYAGE OF THE "MAID of the MIST."-The little steamer "Maid of the Mist," which used to carry passengers into the midst of the drenching spray of Niagara Falls, has successfully accomplished the very dangerous feat of running down the fearful rapids of Niagara River near the Suspension Bridge, and without any further damage than the loss of her smoke stack. She was conducted by the gallant Robinson, who, with his skiff, has performed so many deeds of daring in the vicinity of the Falls, and was bound for the peaceful waters at the mouth of the river. The Buffalo Courier learns that the voyage was a most perilous one-a current of ever so many miles an hour, a rushing whirlpool and unexplored channel to pass through-but it has been done, as hundreds of eye-witnesses can testify, and the little steamer has safely traversed the Niagara River from its falls to its mouth.-Boston Journal.

THE Sentinella Bresciana states that a night telegraph by means of an electric light apparatus, is being established between Mantua and Verona, to be used in the case of a blockade.

Ah! boys, how you hurt! You were strong as It was Guido himself, who knew what I could you pressed,