* * * *

When Daniel Webster was a youth of eighteen, in college, he wrote to a
friend these suggestive words: "I am fully persuaded that our happiness
is much at our regulation, and that the 'Know thyself' of the Greek
philosopher meant no more than rightly to attune and soften our
appetites and passions till they should symphonize like the harp of
David."

* * * * *

Perhaps no one ever paid a finer tribute to conscience than John Adams,
when, after advising his son John Quincy to preserve above all things
his innocence, he said, "Your conscience is the minister plenipotentiary
of God Almighty in your heart. See to it that this minister never
negotiates in vain."

EDUCATION.

When in any of the chief activities of human life it becomes necessary
to adopt new methods, or to make some new application of old and
well-tried principles, it is always best that change should be
discriminating, gradual, and slow; and perhaps nowhere does this maxim
demand recognition and respect more imperatively than in educational
reform. We are not disposed to find fault with those who contend for the
authority and sway of the progressive spirit of the present as against
the spirit of the past. In science, art, literature, education; in
religion, morals, philosophy, theology, every genuine gain in depth,
breadth, and fulness is to be hailed with a thousand welcomes. It would
be a pity if an unenlightened veneration for the traditions and
principles of a superannuated conservatism were allowed to rob the world
even of the smallest portion of the benefit of a single new and useful
idea.

The needs and duties of each age require that intelligence should
steadily advance, and in the field of truth there is always something
valuable left for the latest gleaner. No one is fitted for the duties of
to-day who dreads the spirit of free inquiry that breathes around him,
and fearlessly addresses its questions in every direction. Especially
should new and better hints be welcomed as to the true science and
method of instructing the youthful mind. Patience, delicacy,
intelligence, and skill are nowhere required more than in this.

But while it is true that each generation must have liberty to do its
work in its own way, no generation can afford to despise or disparage
the wisdom and experience of previous ages, or to institute reforms
which revolutionize the methods and the principles of