ment of Rhode Island. It is written in a very plain manner, and makes no pretensions to high poetic merit, but many passages are impressive from their earnestness and simplicity. The versification is smooth and correct. ROGER WILLIAMS IN THE FOREST. Above his head the branches writhe and bend, His breathless bosom, and his sightless eyes; Assures him progress,-From gray morn till noon— To clothe with deeper glooms the vale and hill, Sire Williams journeyed in the forest lone; And then night's thickening shades began to fill His soul with doubt-for shelter had he noneAnd all the out-stretched waste was clad with one Vast mantle hoar. And he began to hear, At times, the fox's bark, and the fierce howl Of wolf, sometimes afar-sometimes so near, That in the very glen they seemed to prowl Where now he, wearied, paused-and then his ear Started to note some shaggy monster's growl, That from his snow-clad, rocky den did peer. Shrunk with gaunt famine in that tempest drear, And scenting human blood-yea, and so nigh, Thrice did our northern tiger seem to come, He thought he heard the fagots crackling by, And saw, through driven snow and twilight gloom, Peer from the thickets his fierce burning eye, Scanning his destined prey, and through the broom, Thrice stealing on his ears, the whining cry Swelled by degrees above the tempest high. Wayworn he stood-and fast that stormy night Was gathering round him over hill and daleHe glanced around, and by the lingering light Found he had paused within a narrow vale; On either hand a snow-clad rocky height Ascended high, a shelter from the gale, Whilst deep between them, in thick glooms bedight, A swampy dingle caught the wanderer's sight. Through the white billows thither did he wade, And deep within its solemn bosom trod; There on the snow his oft repeated tread Hardened a flooring for his night's abode; All there was calm, for the thick branches made A screen above, and round him closely stood The trunks of cedars, and of pines arrayed To the rude tempest, a firm barricade. And now his hatchet, with resounding stroke, Hewed down the boscage that around him rose, And the dry pine of brittle branches broke, To yield him fuel for the night's repose: The gathered heap an ample store bespoke He smites the steel-the tinder brightly glows, And the fired match the kindled flame awoke, Then joyed our Father in this lonely glade, And blessings crave in his own way again- And O! may still thy tender mercies last; To persecution's exiles yield a rest; And in soul-liberty fore'er be blest- LEVI WOODBURY. Levi Woodbury was born at Francestown, New Hampshire, December 22, 1789. After receiving an excellent preliminary education, he entered Dartmouth College. On the completion of his course in 1809, he studied law at the celebrated Litchfield school, commenced practice in his native village, and rapidly rose to such eminence that in 1816 he was appointed one of the Judges of the Superior Court of his State. In 1823 he was elected Governor, and in 1825 a member of the House of Representatives, where he was made Speaker, and soon after chosen Senator. In May, 1831, he was made Secretary of the Navy by President Jackson, and in 1834 Secretary of the Treasury. In 1841 he was a second time chosen Senator, and in 1845 became one of the Associated Judges of the Supreme Court. He died at his residence in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, September 4, 1851. His political, judicial, and literary writings were collected in 1852 in three large octavo volumes, a volume being devoted to each, and a portion only of his productions of either class given. The first volume contains speeches and reports delivered in Congress as Governor, and in the deliberative assembly of his State, with "occasional letters and speeches on important topics." An Appendix furnishes us with specimens of his political addresses at popular meetings. The second volume is made up of Arguments and Charges. The third contains Addresses on the Importance of Science in the Arts, the Promotion and Uses of Science, the Remedies for Certain Defects in American Education; on Progress; on Historical Inquiries. The style in these is clear and efficient; the argument ingenious and practical. MEANS AND MOTIVES IN AMERICAN EDUCATION-FROM THE ADDRESS ON THE REMEDIES FOR DEFECTS IN EDUCATION. Print, if possible, beyond even the thirty sheets by a steam press now executed in the time one was formerly struck off. Go, also, beyond the present gain in their distribution over much of the world by improvements in the locomotive and the steamboat, so as to accomplish like results at far less than the former cost. Promote the discovery of still further materials than rags, bark, or straw, for the wonderful fabric of paper,-used, not merely as the ornament of our drawing-rooms, the preserver of history, the organ of intercourse between both distant places and distant ages, the medium of business, the evidence of property, the record of legislation, and in all ranks the faithful messenger of thought and affection; but, above all, the universal instrument of instruction. Reduce still further, by new inventions, the already low price of manufacturing paper. Render types also cheaper, as well as more durable. And, in short, set no boundaries and prostrate all barriers whatever to the enterprise of the human mind, in devising greater facilities for its own progress. Next to these considerations, new means might well be adopted to improve the quality of those books which are in most common use. This could be accomplished by greater attention to their practical tendency and suitableness to the times in which we live, and the public wants which exist under our peculiar institutions, whether social or political. The highest intellects might beneficially descend, at times, to labor in writing for the humblest spheres of letters and life. In cases of long and obvious deficiencies in books designed for particular branches of instruction, boards of education might well confer premiums for better compilations. Such boards might also, with advantage, strive to multiply institutions particularly intended to prepare more efficient teachers, female as well as male. In short, the fountains must always be watched, in order to insure pure streams; and the dew which descends nightly on every object, and in all places, however lowly, is more useful than a single shower confined to a limited range of country. We must take paternal care of the elements on which all at first feed; and if in these modes we seek with earnestness the improvement of the many, we help to protect the property and persons of the favoured few as much as we elevate the character and conduct of all situated in the more retired walks of society. There is another powerful motive for exertion, even by the higher classes, to advance the better education of the masses. It is this: the wealthy, for instance, can clearly foresee that, by the revolutions of fortune's wheel, their own children, or grandchildren, are in time likely to become indigent, so as to be the immediate recipients of favor under any system of free education, and thus may be assisted to attain once more rank and riches. Nor should the talented be parsimonious in like efforts, because a degeneracy of intellect, not unusual after high developments in a family, may plunge their posterity into ignorance and want, where some untaught Addison or "mute inglorious Milton" might, after a few generations, reappear, but never instruct or delight the age, unless assisted at first by opportunities and means furnished through a system like this. All which is thus bestowed will likewise prove, not only an inheritance for some of the offspring of the favored classes, but a more durable one than most of those honors and riches, endeavored so often, but fruitlessly, to be transmitted. It is true that vicissitudes seem impressed on almost everything human,-painful, heartrending vicissitudes, which the fortunate dread, and would mitigate, if not able to avert. But they belong less to systems than to families or individuals, and can be obviated best by permanent plans to spread stores of intellectual wealth, constantly and freely, around all. VOL. II.-9 SAMUEL H. TURNER Was born in Philadelphia, January 23, 1790, the son of the Rev. Joseph Turner. He took his degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1807. He was ordained deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church by Bishop White in 1811, and the next year became settled in a parish in Chestertown, Kent county, Maryland. He returned to Philadelphia in 1817, and, October 7, 1818, was appointed Professor of Historic Theology in the General Theological Seminary at New York, where he has since resided, attached to that institution, with the exception of an interval in 1820 and 1821, which he passed at New Haven. In the last year he was appointed Professor of Bibl:cal Learning and the Interpretation of Scripture, in the Seminary. In 1831 he was chosen Professor of the Hebrew Language and Literature in Columbia College. His life has been almost exclusively passed in the occupations of a scholar engaged in the work of instruction: but he has also given the public numerous important books. He was one of the first to introduce into the country translations of the learned German critics and divines. In 1827 he prepared, with the joint assistance of Mr. (now Bishop) William R. Whittingham, of Maryland, a translation of Jahn's Introduction to the Old Testament, with notes, and, in 1834, a tran-lation of Planck's Introduction to Sacred Criticism and Interpretation, with notes. A third publication, in 1847, exhibits Dr. Turner on the ground of one of his favorite studies, the Rabbinical Literature, with which he is particularly conversant. It is entitled Biographical Notices of Jewish Rabbies, with Translations and Notes. He is the author also of several theological writings; Spiritual Things compared with Spiritual or Parallel References, published in 1848; Essay on our Lord's Discourse at Capernaum, in John vi., in 1851; Thoughts on Scriptural Prophecy, 1852. He has of late been engaged on a series of Critical Commentaries on the Epistles of the New Testament, of which the volumes on the Hebrews and the Romans severally appeared in 1852 and 1853. Dr. Turner has, in addition, corrected and prepared for the press Mr. Jaeger's Translation of the Mythological Fictions of the Greeks and Romans, published in 1829 by Moritz. Dr. Turner maintains a high rank for his exact critical scholarship and the fairness of his writings, which have received the approval of those who differ from him in theological opinions. THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT. In the first organization of this state, when the country was for the most part a wilderness, the Constitution, in 1777, included a recommendation for the founding of a University. There was some delay while negotiations were going on with the neighboring Dartmouth College, which received a grant of land from Vermont in 1785. The home project was, however, fairly set on foot in 1789, when Ira Allen, of Colchester, made a liberal offer of lands, labor, and materials. Allen was the brother of Colonel Ethan Allen. He was prominently connected with the early annals of Vermont, of which, in 1798, he published a history, and was always a zealous advocate of the interests of the College. His gift of land was liberal, and his selection of the position of the University clear-sighted. President Wheeler, in his College Historical Discourse in 1854, speaks of "his comprehensive mind and highly creative and philosophical spirit." There was much agitation, as usual, respecting a site for the institution, but the various local claims were finally overcome in favor of Burlington, which, from its fine position on Lake Champlain, on the high road of travel, offered the most distinguished inducements. The University was chartered in 1791, but its officers were not appointed nor its building commenced till 1800. The Rev. Daniel C. Sanders, a graduate of Harvard of 1788, was elected the first president; of decided personal traits, in a stalwart figure, and mingled courage and courtesy, he was an efficient director of the youth under his charge. He performed his onerous duties for the first three years without an assistant. The class of 1804, we read, received all their instructions from him; and as the classes increased he often employed six, eight, and ten hours of the day in personal recitations. "He was not profound as a thinker," adds Dr. Wheeler, "nor severely logical as a reasoner, nor of a high form of classical elegance and accuracy as a writer; but he was lucid, fresh, and original in forms of expression, full of benignity and kindness in his sentiments, and was listened to with general admiration."* By the year 1807 a college building, including a chapel and a president's house, had been erected, and the commencement of a library and philosophical apparatus secured. The course of study embraced the usual topics, with the aldition of anatomy; the Rev. Samuel Williams, the author of the Natural and Civil History of Vermont, first published in 1794, having delivered, for two years, lectures on astronomy and natural philosophy. As an illustration of the simple habits of the time and place, a calculation was made by the president, that "a poor scholar, by keeping school four months each winter, at the average price of sixteen dollars a month, could pay all his college bills and his board, and leave college with thirty-two dollars in his pocket.' The college asked only twelve dollars a year from each student. There was a moderate income from public lands, from which the president received a salary of six hundred dollars; a professor of mathematics less than three hundred and fifty, and a tutor three hundred. These simple receipts and expenditure required constant vigilance and self-denial in the management of the institution, which was shortly affected from without by the stoppage of the commerce of the town with Canada in consequence of the non-intercourse policy of Jefferson, by the rivalry of Middlebury College, which was chartered in 1800, and by Historical Discourse, p. 12. + MSS of Sanders, quoted by President Wheeler. Middlebury College was encouraged by the success of the Addison County Grammar school, and the natural desire of the intelligent citizens of the dist: iet to take the lead in education. The Rev. Jeremiah Atwater, who had been connected with the school, was the first president. In 1865 there were the interference of the legislature with the vested rights under the charter. The University outgrew these several difficulties. The war ended; it became strong enough to hold its own against all diversions; and the Dartmouth College legal decision having led to a better understanding of the rights of college property, the old charter was restored in its integrity. While under the more immediate control of the legislature the wants of the University were at least clearly indicated by a committee composed of the Hon. Royal Tyler and the Hon. W. C. Bradley, who reported in favor of the appointment of new professorships of the learned languages, of law, belles lettres, chemistry, and mineralogy. During the war the college exercises were suspended and the faculty broken up. After the establishment of peace, the Rev. Samuel Austin was elected president in 1815. He was a native of Connecticut, born in 1760, a graduate of Yale, subsequently teacher of a grammar-school in New Haven, while he studied theology with the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards then settled there, next a valued clergyman in Connecticut, and at the time of his call to the college settled in Worcester, Mass., where he had preached since 1790. He was a man of earnest religious devotion; and his reputation in this particular, no less than his especial labors, served the institution, which was thought in danger of lay influences, from the immediate control of the le gislature of its affairs. Dr. Austin resigned in 1821, despairing of reviving the college, which was now greatly pressed by financial embarrassments. The suspension of the college appeared at hand, when new vigor was infused, chiefly through the activity of Professor Arthur L. Porter, whose services were soon again required, on the destruction of the original college building by fire. The Rev. Daniel Haskell, a man of energy, was elected president, and was shortly succeeded, in 1825, by the Rev. Willard Preston, of an amiable character, who again, in the next year, gave place to the Rev. James Marsh, under whose auspices the fame of the institution was to be largely increased. I. Marst. James Marsh, the scholar and philosopher, was born in Hartford, Vermont, July 19, 1794. His grandfather was one of the early settlers in the state, and its first lieutenant-governor. His father was a farmer; and it was amongst rural occupations, for which he ever after entertained a longing, that the first eighteen years of the life of the future professor were passed. He was brought up to the hardy labor of the farm, and it was only upon the withdrawal of his elder brother from sixteen graduates. Henry Davis, who had been professor of languages in Union College, succeeded to Atwater in 1810, and held the office till 1817. The Rev. Joshua Bates, of Dedham, Mass., was next chosen. He has since been succeeded by the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Labaree. The Institution has been well attended and has become enriched, from time to time, by various important donations and bequests.-Historical Sketch by Professor Fowler. Am. Quar. Reg. ix. 220–229. the college opportunities tendered to him, that he turned his studies in that direction. He was admitted at Dartmouth in 1813, where he pursued the ancient languages and literature with diligence; and where, under the influence of a religious excitement which took place at the college, he became deeply devotional, which led to his entrance at the theological school at Andover. He passed a year there, and became a tutor in 1818 at Dartmouth. After two years profitably spent in this way he returned to Andover, taking a visit to Cambridge by the way, for the sake of a candid view of the studies he was prosecuting. His course at Andover was laborious. Abstemious in diet, and frugal of his physical resources and the claims of society, he devoted all his powers to learning. One of the first fruits of these studies was an article on Ancient and Modern Poetry, published in the North American Review for July, 1822, in which he exhibits the influences of Christianity upon the later literature. German literature had occupied much of his attention, and he prepared a translation of the work of Bellerman on the Geography of the Scriptures, as he afterwards employed himself apon a version of Hedgewisch on the Elements of Chronology. His most important work in this way was his translation of Herder's Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, published in two volumes at Burlington, in 1833. From Andover he passed for awhile to the South, where he was engaged in the business of tuition in Hampden Sidney College, in Virginia, with Dr. Rice. He sometimes preached, though he had little fondness or aptitude for this "acting in public," as he called it at the time. Turning his thoughts to the North, an editorial connexion was planned with the Christian Spectator, a theological review at New Haven, a post for which he was well qualified, but the plan was not carried out. In 1824 he was formally appointed to a professorship in Hampden Sidney, and the same year was ordained a minister. His entire connexion with this college lasted but three years, when he was appointed to the presidency of the University of Vermont in 1826, a position which he entered upon and occupied till 1833, when he exchanged its duties for the professorship of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy in the same institution. He held this till his death, July 3, 1842, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. It is by his college labors and the philosophical publications which they elicited, as well as by his noble personal influence upon his pupils, that Dr. Marsh is best known. He was one of the first to revive attention in the country to the sound Christian philosophy advocated by Coleridge, and illustrated in the writings of the old English divines, as distinguished from the later school of Locke. In the words of his faithful biographer, Professor Torrey, "the prevailing doctrine of the day was, Understand, and then believe; while that which Mr. Marsh would set forth, not as anything new, but as the old doctrine of the church from the earliest times, was, "Believe, that ye may understand." views," said Marsh, may not indeed be learned from the superficial philosophy of the Paleian and * * Memoir prefixed to the Remains, p. 91. "Such Caledonian schools; but the higher and more spiritual philosophy of the great English divines of the seventeenth century abundantly teaches them, both by precept and practice." În accordance with these views he published in 1829 the first American edition of Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, as a book which answered his purpose, for which he wrote an able Preliminary Essay, addressed to "the earnest, single-hearted lovers" of Christian, spiritual, and moral truth. With the same view he edited a volume of Selections from the Old English Writers on Practical Theology, which contained Howe's Blessedness of the Righteous, and Bates's Four Last Things. His views of college study and discipline were those of a liberal-minded reformer, and were to a considerable extent adopted by the institution over which he presided. He held that the admission to colleges might be extended with advantage to those who could avail themselves only of a partial course; that a paternal discipline, based on moral and social influence, might be employed; that the liberty of the powers of the individual might be preserved under a general system of training; that additional studies might be prosecuted by the enterprising: and that honors should be conferred on those only of real abilities and attainments. These were all liberal objects; and as they were pursued with warmth and candor by Dr. Marsh, they gained him the respect and affection of the best minds among his students, who have now carried his influence into the walks. of active life. In addition to the writings which we have mentioned, Dr. Marsh published in 1829 a series of papers in the Vermont Chronicle, signed "Philopolis," on Popular Education. He wrote also for the Christian Spectator a review of Professor Stuart's Commentary on the Hebrews, in which he did justice to the objects of the author. At the close of his life Dr. Marsh intrusted his manuscripts to Professor Torrey of the University of Vermont, by whom in 1843 a volume of Remains was published with a Memoir. It contains the author's college lectures on psychology, several philosophical essays, and theological discourses. He had projected and partially executed a System of Logic, and meditated a matured treatise on psychology. In 1833, on the retirement of Dr. Marsh from the presidency, the Rev. John Wheeler, of Windsor, Vermont, was appointed president. A subscription which had been projected for the benefit of the college was now completed, and the sum of thirty thousand dollars obtained, which added largely to the practical efficiency of the institution. Other collections of funds have since been made, which have further secured its prosperity. During the administration of Dr. Wheeler, Professor Torrey succeeded Dr. Marsh in his chair of moral and intellectual philosophy, the Rev. Calvin Pease was elected professor of the Latin and Greek languages, and the Rev. W. G. T. Shedd professor of English literature. In 1847 Professor George W. Benedict, a most active supporter of the college welfare, resigned his seat as professor of chemistry and natural history, after twenty-two years' services to the institution. President Wheeler resigned in 1848, and was succeeded by the present incumbent, the Rev. Worthington Smith, D.D., of St. Alban's, Vt. On the 1st of August, 1854, the semi-centennial anniversary of the University was celebrated at Burlington. A historical discourse was delivered by the former president, Dr. Wheeler, from which the materials of this narrative have been mostly drawn. An oration, "Our Lesson and our Work, or Spiritual Philosophy and Material Politics," was pronounced by Mr. James R. Spalding; a poem by the Rev. Ŏ. G. Wheeler; while the associations of the Institution were recalled in the after dinner festivities, with an honest pride in the favorite philosophy of the University. In the course of the Historical Address Dr. Wheeler gave the following sketch of the course of study projected by Dr. Marsh and his associates, for the institution. "The principal divisions or departments of a course of collegiate study are set forth in the laws of the University. They are four: first, the department of English literature; second, the department of languages; third, that of the mathematics and physics; fourth, that of political, moral, and intellectual philosophy. Every year, during my personal connexion with the University, the synopsis was carefully examined, always in reference to its practical execution, and commonly in reference also to its theoretic excellence. How much this means and involves, few can understand, who were not members of the faculty. If this course of study is carefully examined, it will be found to contain, perhaps, what no other course of collegiate study in the United States has so fully attempted. It seeks to give a coherence to the various studies in each department, so that its several parts shall present more or less the unity, not of an aggregation, nor of a juxtaposition, nor of a merely logical arrangement, but of a natural development, and a growth; and therefore the study of it, rightly pursued, would be a growing and enlarging process to the mind of the student. It was intended also, that these departments of study should have a coherence of greater or less practical use with each other. The highest department, that of philosophy, it was intended, should be, now the oscillating nerve, that should connect the various studies together, during the analytical instruction in each; and now the embosoming atmosphere that should surround and interpenetrate the whole and each in its synthetical teachings. In philosophy the course began with crystallographythe lowest form of organization-and discussed the laws of all forms, that is, the geometry of all material existence. It proceeded to the laws of vegetable life, as the next highest; to the laws of animal life, that is to physiology, as the next; thence to psychology, and the connexion of the senses with the intellect;-thence to the science of logic-the laws of the intellect,-in the acquisition and in the communication of knowledge, that is, the laws of universal thought, as seen in language and grammar; and thence to metaphysics, as the highest and last form of speculative reasoning, or of contemplation. Within this pale it considered the spiritual characteristics of humanity, as distinguished from all other exist ences. From this position moral science was seen to issue; the ground of the fine arts was examined and made intelligible; the principles of political science, as grounded in the truths of reason, but realized under the forms of the understanding, was unfolded, and natural and revealed religion was shown to open the path where reason had reached her termination, to glory, honor, and immortality." CHARLES SPRAGUE Was born in Boston, October 26, 1791. His father, a native of Hingham, Mass., where the family had lived for five generations, was one of those spirited Whigs of the Revolution who engaged in the adventure of throwing overboard the tea in Boston harbor. His mother, Joanna Thayer of Braintree, is spoken of for her original powers of mind and her influence in the development of her son's talents. The latter was educated at the Franklin school at Boston, where he had for one of his teachers, Lemuel Shaw, now the Chief-justice of Massachusetts. By an accident at this time he lost the use of his left eye. At thirteen, he entered a mercantile house engaged in the importation of dry-goods; and in 1816, at the age of twenty-five, formed a partnership with his employers, Messrs. Thayer and Hunt, which was continued till 1820, when he became a teller in the State Bank. On the establishment of the Globe Bank in 1825, he was chosen its cashier, an office, the duties of which he has discharged with exemplary fidelity to the present day. Halleck, another poetical cashier by the way, has sighed over this "bank note world" and the visions of the romantic past, now that Noble name and cultured land, |