dom, or too short. It is frequently said that the student should visit, and, in the society of the ladies, relax his mind. I could never feel that this is any thing different from an insult to the sex. If you do visit with them, it should, in part, be, to be instructive and useful to them, and not to consider them in the mere light of "parlour ornaments," with the admiration of which it is very pleasant for you to relax your mind after severe study. And how many dinner or evening parties can the student attend weekly, and yet be a student ? Not any. He who would obtain knowledge, must have his body in the proper condition, his mind in his room, his attention all his own. You will find many students who visit much: but they are not what we mean by good scholars. But how shall you ever become acquainted with society, and become familiar with good manners? I answer, by your vacations. Nearly a quarter of your time is given up to vacations for this and similar purposes; and is not this sufficient? 5. Reading useless books. After what has been said on reading, perhaps you will feel impatient that it should be introduced again. But you are probably not aware how much time is consumed in many colleges and academies in reading such books. Clubs exist for the very purpose of purchasing and reading novels; and circulating libraries are exhausted of their trash. A club of such worthies have been known to be all in their places in the chapel on the Sabbath, each with a novel under his cloak, which he most assiduously read during the services. I once heard it asserted in "great company," where the voices were too many and too loud to be resisted by my feeble remonstrance, that "nine-tenths of all the students in our colleges spend most of their time in reading novels." The assertion is not true; but there is too much truth in it. A noble mind and a manly spirit can soon become so much interested in what will be of use in future life, as not to need or even to relish the morbid excitement of fiction. 6. Improper method of study. May I not hope that what I have said under the chapter on Study, will enable you to understand what is meant by study, and also to form habits which will soon make it pleasant? Many students will begin studies which have no present use, and no immediate relation to their prescribed course. They are useless or puerile. You may conquer them; but cui bono? A gentleman was riding through one of our large towns, when a dog came out and began to bark at the chaise. He began to strike him with his whip. This only *What is the good? increased the clamour of the dog, which brought some ten or a dozen more to his aid. It now became a serious business. All the doors were on jar, and the old women and children laughing at the contest. What was to be done? Was a gentleman to be put down so? No. He descends, ties his horse, applies his whip, and actually whips and drives away the yelping tribe. But as the conqueror ascended his chaise, his laurels began to wither, as an old lady cried after him, "Why, after all, you have only chased away a dog!" Are there not many such battles fought by students who pursue studies that are out of the way, and which, if chased, are as honourable as the conquest just mentioned? These remarks do not apply to any thing in the course prescribed for the class. Music, painting, drawing, and the like, are appropriate, and very desirable, in their places; but how many have wasted their time in their pursuit, and thus not merely thrown away their opportunities for making solid attainments, but acquired wrong habits which clung to them through life! Leave your flute at home, and let it be one of the many things to cheer you during vacations, and one of the pleasures which you forego in term-time, to avoid temptations. 7. We lose time by pursuing study when the mind is wearied. There is danger in mentioning this, lest you mistake that restlessness, and that uneasiness of mind, so uniformly attending early discipline, for real weariness. But the mind, as well as the body, may be jaded; and even a horse in that condition, ought not to be spurred. Nil invita Minerva.* Relief and refreshment will be quickly found by turning to some other study. "Post lectione seu stylo defessus, nihil nitor repugnante natura; sed exercitii genus aliud quæro, quo tædium varietas minuat." † 8. Having our studies press us in consequence of procrastination. It is impossible to have the mind free and unembarrassed, if you suffer your studies to be driving you. If you defer your lesson to the very last moment in which you can possibly get it, you are not your own master. A man may do a full day's work in the afternoon; but if he puts it off till that time, he will be unhappy all the morning, over-labouring in the afternoon, and sick in the evening. He who does any thing in haste, no matter what his powers of mind may be, cannot do it well. If I have fifty miles to ride to-day, I can do it all after dinner; but to undertake it would be *Nothing when the mind is reluctant. When tired with my book or my pen, I do not make an effort in opposition to nature; but, that variety may lessen my weariness, I seek another kind of employment. unwise, and cruel to myself and my horse. There should be no loitering in the morning, because you can retrieve the loss in the evening. Punctuality in getting your lessons is of the very first importance. "It is like packing things in a box : a good packer will get in half as much more as a bad one. The calmness of mind which it produces is another advantage of punctuality. A disorderly man is always in a hurry; he has no time to speak to you because he is going elsewhere; and when he gets there, he is too late for his business, or he must hurry away to another before he can finish it. It was a wise maxim of the Duke of Newcastle-'I do one thing at a time.' Punctuality gives weight to character. 'Such a man has made an appointment; then I know he will keep it.' And this generates punctuality in you; for, like other virtues, it propagates itself. Appointments, indeed, become debts; I owe you punctuality, if I have made an appointment with you, and have no right to throw away your time, if I do my own." 9. We lose time by beginning plans and studies which we never complete. If the habit of entering upon what is not carried out and completed, be allowed in early life, the evil increases as long as we live. A friend put into my hands a bundle of papers which belonged to one who was reputed a genius. "Were they worth publishing?" was the question. Honesty required the answer to be "No." There was hardly a single thing completed. Here was a poem begun; there a sonnet nearly completed; here a calculation of an eclipse, about twothirds finished, with great accuracy and beauty; there a composition commenced, or a letter about half finished-evidence sufficient that he possessed mind, and even genius; but had he lived, with those habits, he could never have arrived at eminence. Never begin any thing, without carrying it through, unless in so doing you must sacrifice some moral feeling or principle. He who desists, re infecta, not only loses all his labour, but allows himself in a vicious habit. The man who begins to build, but, for some reason or other, cannot finish, has been the object of ridicule for centuries. It is not essential that you devote all your time to the point on which you wish to receive or bestow light; but do something every day, and in time the thing will be completed, however formidable it appears at the commencement. * Order is essential to a proper division and improvement of our time. Any one who has never made the trial, is an utter stranger to the calmness and pleasure with which the soul meets her daily duties, however various, When a thing is actually begun. or however arduous, if they return periodically at the same hour. There will be a sufficiency of variety to afford relief, and also stimulus. But the order should be as complete as possible. A wheel that turns constantly may move a vast power, if every cog of the wheel be right; but if there be one broken here, and another there, the whole machinery will suffer, and eventually break in pieces. So, if you try to have order in all your arrangements of study, you will suffer whenever it be broken in upon. The result will be, that you will abandon it, and let the ship go as she pleases, and how she pleases, or you will seize the helm with an arm more resolute and nerved, and keep her true to her course. If you would make time valuable, beware of low and trifling pursuits. Do nothing of which you will ever be ashamed, either here or hereafter. Is it right that one who has your advantages and your responsibilities should be descending to tricks, or even trifles? What is the verdict of a world against Nero, who, when emperor of Rome, went up and down Greece, challenging the fiddlers to beat him? Æropus, king of Macedonia, spent his time in making lanterns, a very useful article, but no business for a king. Harcatius, king of Parthia, employed his time in catching moles, and was one of the best mole-catchers in the kingdom; but does it tell to his credit? Was Biantes, of Lydia, a useful man, or worthy ruler, though he was excellent at filing needles? In the tenth century, there was a patriarch in the church, by the name of Theopylact, who had his time employed in rearing horses. He had in his stable above two thousand hunting horses, fed upon the richest dates, grapes, and figs, steeped in wines. To say nothing about the waste of money, does not the voice of mankind execrate such an abuse of time, and talents, and station? And yet, what is the difference between such a waste of life, and that which too many young men make, excepting that, in the former case, the responsibility may be greater? What "diseases of labour;" truly! By many, much time is wasted in dressing the person. You will not unfrequently find those who will spend from one hour to two and a half every morning in shaving and dressing. What do they accomplish in life? They usually have smooth chins and look neat. As for accomplishing any thing good or great, they will never do either. Dress and neatness are highly commendable; but we cannot have our waggons of mahogany, and highly varnished, if we expect to carry heavy loads over mountains with them. I shall speak of the necessity of exercise in another place; but, instead of that exercise which is to refresh and invigorate, how many spend much of their time in sports, and call them recreations! We may have sauces to our dinner; but he who should try to live solely upon them, would find himself shortly becoming lean. Taylor calls such diversions "garments made all of fringes," neither comfortable nor becoming. You are in danger from any recreation which you love much; for men always give their time freely to what they love. He who can make two spires of grass grow where but one grew before, is said to be a benefactor to his species; and I doubt not that he who would show you a method by which you could double or treble the length of your existence on earth, would be a benefactor also. It seems to me that this may be done. Locke observes "that we get the idea of time or duration, by reflecting on that train of ideas which succeed one another in our minds; that, for this reason, when we sleep soundly without dreaming, we have no perception of time, or the length of it, while we sleep; and that the moment wherein we leave off to think, till the moment we begin to think again, seems to have no distance. And so, no doubt, it would be to a waking man, if it were possible for him to keep only one idea in his mind without variation, and the succession of others; and we see, that one who fixes his thoughts very intently on one thing, so as to take but little notice of the succession of ideas that pass in the mind, while he is taken up with the earnest contemplation, lets slip out of his account a good part of that duration, and thinks the time shorter than it is." Hence, on this principle, you will notice that life always seems short, in looking back, to those who have been troubled with but few thoughts. Idiots, and sick people, frequently have weeks pass away, while to them they seem scarcely so many days. Of course, it follows that he who has the most thoughts pass through his mind, and the most rapid succession of distinct ideas, will take most notice of time, and, in the same space of time, will live the longest; so that the curious remark of the philosopher Malebranche is far from being improbable. The thought is beautiful, as well as curious. "It is possible that some creatures may think half an hour as long as we do a thousand years, or look upon that space of duration which we call a minute, as an hour, a week, a month, or a whole age." If Locke's theory be correct, it follows that time will seem long or short, just in proportion as the thoughts are quick or slow. Hence he who dies in the very morning of life, not unfrequently lives longer than another who falls at three-score and ten. Hence, too, the prediction of the prophet may be literally true“The child shall die an hundred years old." The Eastern nations have long, to all appear ance, had this thought. I will give the exquisite illustration drawn by the masterly pen of Addison. "In the Koran, it is said that the angel Gabriel took Mahomet out of his bed one morning, to give him a sight of all things in the seven heavens, in paradise, and in hell, which the prophet took a distinct view of, and, after having held ninety thousand conferences with God, was brought back again to his bed. All this, says the Koran, was transacted in so small a space of time, that Mahomet, on his return, found his bed still warm, and took up an earthen pitcher that was thrown down at the very instant that the angel Gabriel carried him away, before the water was all spilt! "There is a very pretty story in the Turkish Tales, which relates to this passage of that famous imposter, and bears some affinity to the subject we are now upon. A sultan of Egypt, who was an infidel, used to laugh at this circumstance in Mahomet's life, as what was altogether impossible and absurd; but, conversing one day with a great doctor in the law, who had the gift of working miracles, the doctor told him he would quickly convince him of the truth of this passage in the history of Mahomet, if he would consent to do what he would desire of him. Upon this, the sultan was directed to place himself by a huge tub of water, which he did accordingly; and as he stood by the tub amidst a circle of his great men, the holy man bid him plunge his head into the water and draw it up again. The king accordingly thrust his head into the water, and at the same time found himself at the foot of a mountain on the sea shore. The king immediately began to rage against the doctor for this piece of treachery and witchcraft; but, at length, knowing it was in vain to be angry, he set himself to think on proper methods for getting a livelihood in this strange country. Accordingly, he applied himself to some people whom he saw at work in a neighbouring wood. Those people conducted him to a town that stood at a little distance from the wood, where, after some adventures, he married a woman of great beauty and fortune. He lived with this woman so long, that he had by her seven sons and seven daughters. He was afterwards reduced to great want, and forced to think of plying in the streets as a porter, for his livelihood. One day, as he was walking alone by the sea side, being seized with many melancholy reflections upon his former and his present state of life, which had raised a fit of devotion in him, he threw off his clothes, with a design to wash himself, according to the custom of the Mahometans, before he said his prayers. "After his first plunge into the sea, he no sooner raised his head above the water, but he found himself standing by the side of the tub, with the great men of his court about him, and the holy man at his side. He immediately upbraided his teacher for having sent him on such a course of adventures, and betrayed him into so long a state of misery and servitude, but was wonderfully surprised when he heard that the state he talked of was only a dream and a delusion; that he had not stirred from the place where he then stood; that he had only dipped his head into the water, and immediately taken it out again. "The Mahometan doctor took this occasion of instructing the sultan, that nothing was impossible with God; that he with whom a thousand years are but as one day, can, if he pleases, make a single day, nay, a single moment, appear to any of his creatures as a thousand years." If life may thus be prolonged, why will it not hang heavy upon us, as it does with many now? The reason is this, that he who has a constant stream of useful and valuable thoughts passing through his mind, will enjoy each one of them, while he who has few thoughts, will have more passions in exercise; and the soul soon palls upon being forced to attend only to the passions. "The latter is like the owner of a barren country, that fills his eye with the prospect of naked hills and plains, which produce nothing either profitable or ornamental; the other beholds a beautiful and spacious landscape, divided into delightful gardens, green meadows, fruitful fields, and can scarcely cast his eye on a single spot in his possessions, that is not covered with some beautiful plant or flower." Some men while young, rush into open, high-handed sin, and plunge headlong into guilt, which quickly leads them to the slaughter-house, or which, if they survive, lays up food for future repentance and deep remorse. But this is not the history of the great majority of our educated men. But the sin which, of all others, most constantly lies at their door, is the waste of time while young, and, indeed, all the journey of life. An evening is spent in chatting and smoking; it seems a small space of time; but when life closes and we leave time to go into eternity, how many of these fragments lie scattered and murdered by the way-side! How deep will be our repentance when too late to remedy the defect, if not too late to seek forgiveness! There is no one thing of which students are so prodigal, as of their time. There are some exceptions-rari nantes; but multitudes would be amazed at their conduct, had they been as prodigal of any thing else. You cannot read that page in Tacitus readily; you never read any of the Latin poets except the * A few swimmers far apart. drudgery spent on Virgil and Horace; but have you not wasted moments and hours sufficient to have made you at home in Latin? You cannot run that Greek verb through all the synopsis, and are blank at a page in Homer; but might you not have made yourself an adept in Greek, and conquered the dialects, and the idioms, had you wasted no time? You neglect duties, public and private, and satisfy conscience, that you have not time to fulfil them all. But the wasted hours cry out against you. They should have been seized and stamped with what would have met the approbation of conscience and of God, as they winged their way to his throne. In this place I may add, that your time will pass neither smoothly nor profitably, unless you seek and receive the blessing of your Maker upon you daily. I am not now speaking as a theologian, but as an observer of men; and I can unhesitatingly assure you, that there is no one, and no ten things that will so much aid you to improve your time as the daily practice of prayer. "Bene precasse est bene studuisse,"* according to a great master in study. In the morning, ask the blessing of God upon your studies, that he who created the mind, and has his finger upon it every moment, would keep it sound and clear, and instruct it; that he give you a disposition to spend all your time in his fear, and to improve it for him. In the evening, recall the day, and the hours, and see wherein you have come short of duty, and what you have this day done, or omitted doing, which the conscience, quickened by prayer, tells you should have been done. Alas, how many have squandered this precious gift, and then, when they came to lie on the bed of death, have reproached themselves with a keenness of rebuke, which language was too poor to convey! The lofty Queen Elizabeth, on her dying bed, cried out, "Millions of money for one inch of time! How many such inches had she thrown away! The piercing cry came too late. "O," said one, as he lay dying, "call back time again: if you can call back time again, then there may be hope for me: but time is gone!" "Where is that thrift, that avarice of time, Fast binds, and vengeance claims the full arrear. *To have prayed well is to have studied well. CHAPTER VI. CONVERSATION. "WHAT a delightful evening we have spent!" said a student to his companion, as they were returning home from a visit during vacation. "Yes, I do not know that I ever spent one more agreeably; and yet I cannot tell exactly what it was that rendered it so agreeable. The circle all seemed to be happy, and parted so; but, for myself, I was so taken up by the conversation of that stranger, that I took little notice of what the rest were doing." "That was precisely my own case. Without seeming to know it, he possesses uncommon powers of conversation." And this was the whole secret of the pleasures of the evening-that there was one in the circle, who, by nature and education, was fitted to instruct and please by his conversation. There are few things neglected more than the cultivation of what we denominate conversational powers; and yet few which can be more subservient to bestowing pleasure and advantage. The man who knows precisely how to converse has an instrument in his possession with which he can do great good, and which will make him welcome in all circles. Take notice as you are introduced to a stranger. In a short time, you find he is interesting. You are in the stage; you hear him, and forget the time, and are surprised at the rapidity with which you approach the place at which you must part. What makes him so interesting? It is his powers of con versation. The advantages of this mode of communicating ideas need not be dwelt upon here. It is the method devised by the Infinite Creator for the happiness of man, in all circumstances. It is the most perfect way of giving and receiving instruction. It is simple, as are all his works. We may produce strong dazzling lights, by chemical combinations; but the pure light of heaven is the most perfect. We may tickle the appetite by artificial drinks; but the pure water which God has provided for man, in all circumstances, is the most perfect drink. Speech, between man and man, is the universal medium of transmitting thought, and it is, by far, the best that can be devised. We now wish to know how we may best cultivate and use this faculty. Every one feels the importance of this knowledge. If you have a friend whom you wish to warn, or upon whose mind you wish to make a deep impression, you know the most perfect way of doing it, is with the tongue. You first think over his situation, his prospects and dangers; you think over all his temptations, what apologies can reasonably be offered, and what he will probably offer for himself; you then think of the motives with which to impress him. You then go to him; you try, by tones and voice, to convince him that you are his friend; you tell him your fears in language chosen and tender, and then you pour out your heart upon him, just as you had planned beforehand. You are perfectly aware that you have used the best and most appropriate means in your power, when you have exhausted your powers of persuasion in conversation. If you cannot reach his heart and conscience in this way, you despair of doing it. If you wish for information on a particular subject, and there is a book which has it all drawn out on paper, and there is a friend who perfectly understands it, why do you go to that friend and hear him converse, rather than to the book? Because you know that the latter method is not the most interesting and easy way of obtaining information. You can ask light on particular points; you can state your objections; you can compare with what you already know; you can soon know all that your informer knows. Varilles has said that, "of ten things which he knew, he had learned nine from conversation." Make it a matter of study, then to understand this subject, and not merely try to free yourself from faults, but to make it an accomplishment-a part of your education. There is scarcely any way by which you can gain a stronger hold upon the circles in which you may move, or in which you may do more good. In conversation all are free-booters, and may carry away and appropriate to themselves as much as they can; and there is a vast quantity of thought and information afloat upon the great mass of intelligent mind, which never has been, and never will be, committed to paper. He who is permitted to draw from this great fountain, can hardly fail of having |