THE CALENDAR. MARCH. The winds of March, the winds of March remember. READING. Among the Romans, March was the first month of the year, and in some ecclesiastical computations that order is still preserved; as, particularly, reckoning the number of years from the incarnation of Saviour, i. e. from the 25th of March. It was Romulus, the founder of the "Eternal City," who divided the year into months; to the first of which he gave the name of his supposed father, Mars. It was in this month, that the Romans sacrificed to Anna Perenna, whose festival was celebrated on the 15th; that they began their comitia, or town-meetings; that they adjusted the public farms and leases; that the mistresses served their slaves and servants at table, as the masters did in the Saturnalia, and that the Vestals renewed the sacred fire. The month of March was always under the protection of Minerva, and always consisted of thirty-one days. The ancients held it an unhappy month for marriage, as well as the month of May. As this month is under the tutelar care of Minerva, the fabled goddess of wisdom and the liberal arts, no apology will be needed for urging upon our readers the incalculable advantages resulting from a systematic course of reading. One of the pernicious results of the defective systems of education, prevalent among us, is the entire indifference, not to say distaste for books, which it leaves on the mind, after it has once been emancipated, as it is called, from the thraldom of schooldiscipline. The school-girl, having been forced, as is too often the case, through a long course of studies within a short time, is considered as having finished her education at the early age of 16; the very period of her life, when the mind begins to assume its character, and to reap, in the incipient developement of its powers, the fruits of its previous labor and toil. At such a crisis in her intellectual progress, the miss doffs her school habits, and throwing aside her books, emerges at once from the ignoble obscurity of the school-room to the conspicuous station of fashionable life. Now the giddy round of frivolous pleasures, now the endless paraphernalia of dress, that, cameleon-like, changes its form and hue by the touch of Fashion's magic wand, forbid even memory from recurring to the joyous scenes of the Lyceum; till the mind, enervated by frivolity, loses the power of abstraction, and sickens at the very idea of original thought. In aid of such debilitating influences upon the mind, the indiscriminate and exclusive reading of the fashionable novel, comes in to finish the work. Such is but a brief sketch of what is deemed a polite education for the female sex. Alas for the age, alas for mankind, when mere external grace and frivolity are esteemed accomplishments in those, to whose care the rearing of the infant mind is necessarily intrusted! We think we can trace, as has been already intimated, so injurious a habit to the great mistakes which obtain with regard to the real nature and object of education. What do we propose to ourselves as the aim of education? One would be of an opinion, by looking into our best schools, that the grand object of education was to crowd the mind with every variety of knowledge, with all the stores of learning, of which it was to be a mere passive recipient. Knowledge and learning, indeed, must be acquired. But they are the instruments, not the ends, of education. The faculties of the mind, in their natural order, are to be developed; this is the all-important end. Now what are the means to bring about so desirable an end? Simply the communication of knowledge to the youthful mind, which is to be digested, and made a part of its very substance, in the same manner as the food which we eat is incorporated with the body by the digestive process, and thus nourishes and strengthens the entire system. Let this truth be once fully received, viz. the enlargement and developement of the faculties of the mind is the primary object of education, and we shall soon see a radical change in the prevalent methods of instruction of the present day. Justice compels us, however, to state that there are some honorable exceptions, which have adopted, in part, a more philosophical view of this subject, and carried it into execution. It is hoped that these are the signs of a brighter day-that they are the forerunners of an universal change in public sentiment ! What we would recommend, therefore, to the consideration of our readers, is an exercise which would supply the defects, and advance the good inherent in the popular systems of education. It is reading, a systematic course of reading, which has been too much neglected by young ladies, upon their retirement from school. From what has been suggested, it will not be supposed that we are the enemies of works of fiction. By no With regard to novels, as well as every other species of writing, judgment and good taste and discretion are requisite to make a selection. To pass an indiscriminate and sweeping sentence of denunciation against all novels, would savour more of bigotry than good sense. For useful aliment for the imagination and taste, as well as good impressions for the heart, may be impressively conveyed through the fascinating style of this species of composition. We must learn to distinguish between the use and abuse of a thing, and not argue from the one to the other. Poetry has been oftentimes made the pander of vice, and breathed a noxious spirit. But from such a perversion of this noblest form of genius, no one thinks of denouncing poetry. Let the author of Clarence persevere in her holy work, and there will not be so much foundation, in future, for the sneers of the bigoted. Let the novelist, the poet and the historian consecrate their several gifts to the advancement of the cause of Christian virtue and high moral excellence; and literature, in all the diversified forms which it may assume, may claim kindred to the holy office of religion, that of ennobling and purifying the human soul. It is such works of fiction, then, and such only, which we would commend to the perusal of our female friends. Let the licentious novels of a popular writer of the present day, and a host of kindred spirits, be banished from the drawing-room and boudoir of our ladies, as unworthy a mind of delicacy, good taste, and moral sentiment. In naming a course of reading, history occupies, of course, the foremost rank. Poetry comes next, succeeded by biography and memoirs, the most interesting kind of history, in which the French are so distinguished; lastly, belles lettres, including, of course, a judicious selection of the best novels and romances. We shall not attempt to specify the works under these several heads, though we have a list before us, but would rather leave it to the judgment and peculiar taste of every individual, aided by the advice of her friends and instructers. Nor would we be understood as implying that each class of works, under the several heads above specified, is to be exhausted successively, before the next in order is consulted. That history, for instance, is to unfold all her rich and various stores, ere the mind is suffered to cull a flower in the fields of poetry and romance. We mean no such thing. We would recommend the concurrent reading of history and belles-lettres, which would thus develope two faculties of the mind, that should grow and strengthen together: i. e. the judgment and the imagination. It is not the early period at which the school and the Lyceum are forsaken, but the absolute renouncing of all study, which is the general consequence, which calls more particularly for reform. It is, no doubt, a fact, that every young lady leaves her school with a full determination to continue her studies without interruption, allotting stated periods of every day for this purpose. But alas, few are aware of the difficulty of adhering to such a resolution, in the midst of such repeated inroads on one's time as ensue on leaving school, till the experiment has been made! Fashionable calls, and the etiquette and ceremony incident to an elevated rank in society, put in their claims and thus break in upon the plans for intellectual improvement, which had been formed as we were bidding farewell to the scene of our youthful instructions. But by a methodical arrangement of time, it is possible, in spite of these difficulties, to accomplish the object in question. Our limits forbid our dwelling any longer on this theme. Let a systematic course of reading, then, be marked out and adopted as a part of the duties of every day, and the inestimable benefits which would result from such a habit, would richly recompense any sacrifice of mere external pleasures, if such be indeed demanded. But the fact is, no such sacrifice will be necessary. For method is every thing, and will accomplish every thing. N. L. MOTTO FOR AN ALBUM. Here friendship's galaxy shall shine, LITERARY NOTICES. AN ODE: pronounced before the INHABITANTS of BOSTON, September 17, 1830, at the CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION of that City. By Charles Sprague. The production of good poetry has been, in this country, a rare occurrence; not that our writers are deficient in abilities, but they have, in too many instances, resigned all independence of thought, and expression of genuine feeling to the authorities, models and mannerisms of the British poets. Americans have imitated-and they suffer the penalty which always attends imitators-what is good in their productions is set down as plagiarisms, and by the bad only their powers of mind, their taste and imagination are judged. Poetry, in its highest and purest sense, is the breathing forth of those aspirations, which mark the immortal spirit in man. In this sense, it is, like the Hebrew poetry, the sublimity of devotional feeling, which, at times, seems to ascend to the heaven of human hopes, and bring thence the glorious things of the eternal world in the voice of prophecy. The next most sublime prerogative of poetry, is the kindling and sustaining the sentiment of patriotism; and this includes the exciting and fostering every high and holy excellence of national character, which can render the country of the poet worthy the esteem and admiration he would claim, as its rightful tribute. The Epics of Homer, Virgil, Camoens and Voltaire are national poems, and these poets obtained and have secured their immortality by the truth and beauty with which they depicted the peculiar manners and modes of feeling of their respective countries, and the lofty, stirring and pathetic appeals to those passions which were considered most conducive to national glory." Paradise Lost" is the only successful epic which has not been thus blended, and, so to speak, vivified, with the history of the country to which the poet belonged, and the spirit of the people for whom he wrote; and even Milton mingled, in his celestial musings, much of the peculiar and predominating influence of his own times. We have, in the third place, the refining influence of poetry on the private relations of social life; and it is the perfection of lyrical compositions, that, while arousing or moving the passions, they likewise incline them to "virtue's side." Love, in its various modifications, is here the mighty power of the poet, but to attain its holiest sway, he must direct its energies to that which is good-and hence truth in the sentiment becomes 18 VOL. IV.NO. III. |