reater results than the
Chinese, who live principally on vegetable food. It is also noticed, as
pertinent to the point, that the standard of health is probably much
higher among the people just named than among our New-England laborers.
Dr. Ray sums up by saying that "there is no necessity for believing that
the supply required by the waste of material which physical exercise
produces cannot be as effectually furnished by vegetable as by animal
substances." This is strong testimony from a physician of standing and
authority. Not otherwise have asserted various reform-doctors who are
not supposed to move in the first medical circles. The value of any
approximate decision of the vegetarian question can hardly be
overestimated. There are thousands of families of very moderate means
who strain every nerve to feed their children upon beef and mutton,--and
this with the tacit approval, or by the positive advice, of physicians
in good repute. Can our children be brought up equally well upon
potatoes and hasty-pudding? May the two or three hundred dollars thus
annually saved be better spent in a trip to the country or a visit to
the sea-side? He would be a benefactor to his countrymen who could
affirmatively answer these questions from observations, statistics, and
arguments which commanded the assent of all intelligent men.

Dr. Ray forcibly exhibits the radical faults of our common systems of
education. He exposes the vulgar fallacy, that the growth and discipline
of the mind are tested by the amount of task-work it can be made to
accomplish. The efficiency of a given course of training is indicated by
the power and endurance which it imparts,--not by such pyrotechny as may
be let off before an examining committee. The amount of labor in the
shape of school-exercises habitually imposed on the young strains the
mind far beyond the highest degree of healthy endurance. This is shown
by illustrations which our limits compel us to omit: they are worthy to
be pondered by every conscientious parent and teacher in the land. Our
national neglect of a right home-education brings Dr. Ray to a train of
remarks which sustains what we were led to say in noticing Jean Paul's
"Levana" a few months ago. "How many of this generation," writes our
author, "complete their childhood, scarcely feeling the dominion of any
will but their own, and obeying no higher law than the caprice of the
moment! Instead of the firm, but gentle sway that quietly re