y where before it saw only ugliness. It reveals a world
we never suspected, and finds the greatest beauty even in the commonest
things. The eye of an Agassiz could see worlds which the uneducated
eye never dreamed of. The cultured hand can do a thousand things the
uneducated hand cannot do. It becomes graceful, steady of nerve,
strong, skillful, indeed it almost seems to think, so animated is it
with intelligence. The cultured will can seize, grasp, and hold the
possessor, with irresistible power and nerve, to almost superhuman
effort. The educated touch can almost perform miracles. The educated
taste can achieve wonders almost past belief. What a contrast this,
between the cultured, logical, profound, masterly reason of a Gladstone
and that of the hod-carrier who has never developed or educated his
reason beyond what is necessary to enable him to mix mortar and carry
brick.

"Culture comes from the constant choice of the best within our reach,"
says Bulwer. "Continue to cultivate the mind, to sharpen by exercise
the genius, to attempt to delight or instruct your race; and, even
supposing you fall short of every model you set before you, supposing
your name moulder with your dust, still you will have passed life more
nobly than the unlaborious herd. Grant that you win not that glorious
accident, 'a name below,' how can you tell but that you may have fitted
yourself for high destiny and employ, not in the world of men, but of
spirits? The powers of the mind cannot be less immortal than the mere
sense of identity; their acquisitions accompany us through the Eternal
Progress, and we may obtain a lower or a higher grade hereafter, in
proportion as we are more or less fitted by the exercise of our
intellect to comprehend and execute the solemn agencies of God."

But be careful to avoid that over-intellectual culture which is
purchased at the expense of moral vigor. An observant professor of one
of our colleges has remarked that "the mind may be so rounded and
polished by education, so well balanced, as not to be energetic in any
one faculty. In other men not thus trained, the sense of deficiency
and of the sharp, jagged corners of their knowledge leads to efforts to
fill up the chasms, rendering them at last far better educated men than
the polished, easy-going graduate who has just knowledge enough to
prevent consciousness of his ignorance. While all the faculties of the
mind should be cultivated, it is yet d