of excitement and put forth its fiercest energies; when demi-gods struggled with demons; many noble plans for the elevation of humanity were proposed, and partially tried, but speedily failed in consequence of the death of their authors, or were forgotten in the excitement of new and more brilliant schemes. Many of those plans, however, contained germs of vitality which can never perish, and we find them reappearing after long years of neglect and forgetfulness. Among these was the plan of the philosopher and physician Itard, for teaching the SAVAGE OF AVIGNON.

This wild and strange creature in the human form, who was caught in the woods, furnished to the delighted savans of Paris an opportunity of proving the truth of their theory, that man was originally savage, and rose to civilization through long ages of painful travail in barbarism, savagedom, and semi-civilization. They thought that an individual might skip all these transition stages, and become at once a highly civilized being, if he were properly instructed.

Itard undertook to train, teach, and civilize this savage. Νο one was more capable of the task, and his enthusiastic confederates, accustomed to the rapid changes of the drama of the Revolution, expected that the savage of yesterday would be a petit maître on the Boulevards to-morrow, an haranguer of his fellowcitizens the next day; ready to be a leader of some reform the next week, and a victim to the guillotine the next month.

But Itard failed, because, as it proved, his subject was not a savage, but only an IDIOT! Itard failed, but truth never fails. He got a glimmer of it; he saw that idiots might be taught; he communicated the feeble light which dawned upon him to one of his disciples, Monsieur Seguin, who, by following it up, has been guided to the knowledge of a method of teaching all idiots, and vastly improving their physical, moral, and mental condition.

The first work named above contains not only the beautiful and satisfactory results of his treatment, but the theory on which he bases all his mental and physical appliances. It is not altogether sound and philosophical, but we have no heart to find fault with a man's philosophy when his practice brings such a harvest of good fruit.

The second work, De l'Idiotie chez les Enfants, par Felix Voisin, shows a more intimate acquaintance with what we regard as the only philosophy which can guide us in training and teaching idiots and backward children; namely, the absolute and entire dependence of all mental manifestations upon the structure and condition of the bodily organization. In all cases where the mind does not manifest itself at the usual period, or in a normal manner, the cause must be sought in some original defect of the physical organization, or in some derangement of its functions.

Voisin is also a practical and successful educator of idiots: his

établissement orthophrenique, as he says truly, manquait à la science et à l'humanité; but it is wanting no longer.

Besides the establishment at Paris for the training and teaching of idiots, there is another among the magnificent edifices of Berlin, and a third high up among the more magnificent structures of the Alps, at Abendberg. The latter school, perched upon its lofty eyrie, seems like a monastery, nunnery, or other establishment devoted to pious purposes. But there is this difference, that while in them we find religion in theory, in this we find it in practice. It was established and is kept up by the labors of Dr. Guggenbuhl, and is devoted to the instruction of idiotic cretins.

We have no space for a detail of the interesting process of instruction pursued in these schools, or of their beautiful results. The good and gifted persons who manage them work greater miracles, without spell or charm, than even did necromancers of old, who transformed men into brutish beasts, while our modern magicians transform brutish beings back into the likeness of men again.

Idiots of the lowest grade, who could not talk, who could hardly stand erect, who could only eat, sleep, and fatten like swine, whose greatest enjoyment was to lie slavering in the noon-day sun, who seemed utterly without the pale of humanity, are gathered into these schools and taught to use their limbs; to speak intelligibly; to keep themselves tidy; to observe the decencies of life, and in many cases to write, to reckon, and to do some simple work.

There is probably no task assigned to man requiring more courage, zeal, patience, and perseverance, than that of training and teaching idiots. Some idea of its difficulty may be had from the following account given by Seguin of his course in teaching an idiot boy to use his eye in looking at his teacher.

The first exercise is that of taking the boy into a dark room into which a single ray of light is introduced, as by a hole in the shutter. The eye is naturally attracted to this, and the boy soon learns to command the muscles enough to keep the ball fixed. Afterwards this luminous point is moved about from right to left, and the idiot is gradually trained to follow it with his eyes.

Another exercise, and the one most depended upon, is for the teacher to place the pupil before him, and to endeavour to catch his wandering eye with his own earnest look, and to fascinate him, as it were. These and other methods are followed until the idiot learns to see that he sees.

These directions are easily given, but, as Seguin himself says, what exercise, what labor, what perseverance, is necessary before you can ever seize upon the favorable moment! "You approach your pupil,- he hides his face; your eye seeks his, which flies from you; you follow it up, but it escapes again; you seem to meet it, when he suddenly closes the lids; you wait, watching the

opening of the lids that your glance may penetrate them, and if, after all, the child repels you the first time he fairly sees you, or if, in order to avoid confessing the original idiocy of their child, his parents misrepresent and disparage all you have done, then you have got to begin again, and wear away your life with another, not for the love of the individual, but for the triumph of the doctrine which you understand, and in which you bravely trust."

"It is thus that I followed," says he, "during four months, the flying eye of an idiot boy. The first time that his eye fairly met mine, he uttered a wild cry and sprang away; but the next day, instead of placing his hand mechanically upon me as usual, in order to ascertain my identity, he looked at me an instant as at something new, and the next did so again, looking longer and more intelligently each time, until he could satisfy himself without manifesting any surprise or curiosity, and finally he used his sight like an ordinary person."

No school of this kind has yet been established in this country, but we rejoice to learn that the way has been prepared for one.

Commissioners appointed by the Governor have been for some time at work examining into the condition of idiots in this state. We learn that they find there are more than a thousand unfortunate creatures of this class within the borders of Massachusetts.

A thousand human beings here in our very midst, sunk in the depths of brutish idiocy, and not a helping hand held out to lift them up upon the platform of humanity! A thousand men and women in Massachusetts in whom exist the glimmer of reason and the elements of improvement, and yet we leave them to perish like the brutes, without an effort to awaken them to a consciousness of their humanity, while we send our missionaries to the uttermost parts of the earth to make doubtful converts of ignorant pagans at a thousand dollars a head!

But it will not be long so, we trust. Men are beginning to see that religion consists in something besides building churches and frequenting them; besides preaching, praying, and believing;-that it consists in work-zealous and steadfast work for the good of our brethren of mankind. We must work for their temporal good; we must supply their pressing wants; we must heal their bodily infirmities and enlighten their minds, or the barren WORD which we send them is but as a stone instead of bread. There is something repulsive in the subject, but we shall return to it in our next, and endeavour to learn from the condition and treatment of these pariahs of society some lessons which may be useful; for there is no subject so "ugly and venomous" that does not contain within itself precious jewels to reward the earnest seeker after truth.

3.- General Principles of the Philosophy of Nature: with an Outline of some of its Recent Developments among the Germans, embracing the Philosophical Systems of Schelling and Hegel, and Oken's System of Nature. By J. B. STALLO, A. M., lately Professor of Analytical Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Chemistry, in St. John's College, N. Y. Boston: Wm. Crosby and H. P. Nichols. 8vo. pp. 520.

NOTHING but a regularly projected article can do justice to or fitly introduce this book to the American public. It is altogether the best thing upon the profound subjects to which it relates that has ever appeared on this side of the water. It is the best, because it gives the most intelligible and thorough analysis of the modern Identity-systems of the Germans, and because that part of the book which is original with Mr. Stallo discriminates most sharply and successfully the true theory of Development from that bold, popular generalization which first appeared in the "Vestiges," and thence dribbled, but not distilled, through the abnormal predicament of Mr. Davis. It is a counter-revelation of reason and science, with which, luckily, "spirits from the second sphere of existence" did not meddie.

Some pages of Mr. Stallo's book are written with rare warmth and vigor; for instance, nearly all the sections under the head of "Organization of Society." But we must be allowed to say that we do not think he has fairly stated the theory of Fourierism, or rather, that particular foreshortening or modification of it which is held by the spirited and devoted associationists of this country. We agree with Mr. Stallo as to the fact that the centre must always create its circumference, and that, therefore, the phalanx, so long as it is an exterior scheme to be applied, is impracticable. But there is no associationist in this country who will dispute his position that "the person and family are an essential existence in society." It is not true that their system annuls the natural feeling, "the immediate reality of the relations of brother and sister," in favor of an abstract brotherhood. It should always be sufficient to state the central objections to Fourierism, without complicating the question with these special issues, which were first started by the newspapers. Mr. Stallo has had some private jousts on this arena; and personal arguments, which never convince any body, have left their sediment perturbing the discussion.

What is the Identity-system of the Germans? Briefly said, and without mentioning its necessary terminations in thought and science, it is this: Mind and Matter are "eternally opposed to each other, and, nevertheless, eternally one. They are different but corresponding revelations of the Deity, which is their source only

"All

in so far as it is their identity." So that, to use Mr. Stallo's apt illustration, "the symbol of the absolute is the magnet; one principle constantly manifesting itself as two poles, and still resting in their midst as their identity. Divide the magnet; every part will be a complete system in itself,-two poles and a point of indifference. And just as every part of the magnet is the entire magnet in miniature, so, also, every individual development in nature is a miniature universe." This figure comprises the true theory of development, and involves the true immanence and function of God in the world. It is the formula of that great Synthesis of Nature, which is the present task of science to construct, and noble fragments of which, prophesying the whole harmonious system to which they must belong, are already discovered and accredited. science is but a rehearsal of the absolute science," starting from this new term of the Identity, yet difference, of God and the Real. Mr. Stallo is completely informed upon the present state of science, and knows its latest acquisitions. He holds firmly and clearly the great idea which the active thought of this epoch, in every domain of life, is pledged to substantiate. He is a German, yet we are harassed by no mysticism. He has a system, yet it is not a mere scaffolding of formulæ enclosing nothing, and it has not crowded out a single tender feeling or moral aspiration. The destiny of the individual has been identified by him with the destiny of the race. God becomes completely manifested only when every individual has that "absolute egotism," which is the perfect expression of his nature, and which is embodied in the text, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself; that is, as much as God. Mr. Stallo, in speaking of social questions, finely says, "the assurance that the discords of this world are to be silent in a better one, is not accepted as an indemnification and a reprieve; these discords are to become accord here, to resolve themselves now into harmony. A Sunday of uninterrupted, stagnant inactivity cannot compensate for the brutal, unmitigated toils of the preceding week; the descent of heaven upon earth, the consecration of every day of labor as a legitimate Sunday, is the great expectancy of our generation.” Whittier expressed the whole humanitary philosophy of the day in the single line:

"The New Jerusalem comes down to man."

We may as well pause in our notice here; for a discussion of all the points which throng upon us, suggested or re-awakened by this book, would carry us far beyond our limits. We cordially greet this work, and hasten to recommend it to our scholars. As far as we are able to judge, its analysis of the German systems from Kant to Oken is just, clear, and comprehensive. We should