TO OUR READERS A GLANCE at the opposite Index will snow to the purchasers of this volume what we have done, and are now doing, for the Education of the People. Our exertions have met with wide-spread and heart-felt encouragement, and we gratefully express our acknowledgments for the same. We shall make it our endeavour still more to deserve the encouragement of our subscribers, by increased efforts for their advancement in knowledge and learning. We intend to finish in the next volume, if possible, all the subjects which have been begun in this volume. Of course, it cannot be expected, under such circumstances, that we can commence a great variety of new subjects; as we wish to do justice to those which we undertake. Some of these, however, may be mentioned, as Penmanship, Short-hand, Mechanics, Chemistry, Astronomy, and Natural Philosophy. We have still much to do in Arithmetic, Geometry, and Geography, subjects of the greatest importance to the community at large, and subjects well calculated to expand, improve, and strengthen the reasoning powers; but as the bow must not be always bent, we shall endeavour, from time to time, to relieve these with lighter studies, as we have done in the present volume. Classes: 4. Tetrandria, Teazle, Woodruff, Madder, &c. 5. Pentandria, Gromwell, Comfrey, Bugloss, &c. 185 XV. VII. Classes: 6. Hexandria, Hyacinth, Tulip, Lily, &c. 7. Heptandria, Chickweed; 8. Octandria, Heath, Knot- VIII. Classes: 9. Enneandria, Flowering Rush; 10. Decan- dria, Arbutus, Saxifrage, Catch-Hy, Stone-crop, &c. IX. Classes: 11. Dodecandria, Loose-strife, Agrimony; 12. Icosandria, Carnation, Pansy, Rhododendron, &c.... XII. Class 15. Tetradynamia, Sea-kale, Cress, Cabbage, &c. XIII. Class 16. Monadelphia, Stork's-bill, Robert, Geranium, Introduction; First Principles of Music. Tetrachords; Modulator, Exercises, Troubadour, &c. Metronome, Measures, Notations of the Length of Notes, Standard Scale, Exercises, Griffin, &c. Management of the Voice, Exercises, Leyburn, &c. Effect of Notes, Exercises, Blacksmith, &c.... Leading Notes, Exercises, Mendelssohn's Song, &c. . 49 VIII. Consonance, Melody, &c. Glass Harmonicon, I Love to Linger, &c........ VIII, IX., X., XI. Lectures on Euclid: Introduction, Points, Lines, Planes, Angles, The Circle, 277, 309, 356, 406 TII. 161 V. 177 VI: The Dogs of Turkey, and of the Coasts of the Polar 231 264 327 348 ... ........ XII. Sections XXIII., XXIV., Perfect Tense of certain XIII. Section XXV., Present and Imperfect Tenses of cer- Address to the Reader 395 Female Education 65 Co-instruction Societies 286 III. Nouns, Substantive and Adjective; Case-endings, &c. 54 Solutions of Problems and Queries......64, 79, 110, 191, 239, 287 HISTORY, in its narrowest sense, is the recital of past events. In its wider and higher meaning, it not merely relates bygone occurrences, but inquires into their causes and consequences. These descriptions will hold good at whatever branch of it we look. There is Natural History, which has for its subjects the various natural occurrences which have taken place, in the world and the different orders of animal and vegetable life which inhabit it; there is Life History, or biography, which records the sayings and doings of individual men; and lastly, there is the History of Nations, which tells of the various changes and revolutions which have occurred in human society, with the causes which led to them and the results by which they have been followed. It is to this last mitters of great crimes, unless we have a thorough acquaint ance with all the details of the act, whatever it may have been, to which those motives have led. By it, as by their fruit, we judge of them; and thus form our opinions of the characters of those men who have acted a great part in the history of individual nations, or of the world at large. As man's actions are the truest clue to his character, so it is only from the actions of Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Cromwell, Washington, and Napoleon, that, bearing in mind the outward circumstances which pressed upon each of them, we can form an intelligent and just opinion of the characters of these men. Nor is the making us acquainted with great actions, and thus with their authors, the only or chief advantage class of subjects that the general term History is usually applied. Now as all the changes which have taken place in the internal or external circumstances of nations, from the earliest ages up to the present time, have appeared only the visible results of the workings of individual minds, it follows that history, in its most exalted province, becomes a record of the human mind in the successive developments which it has undergone, and of the progress which it has made from age to age. But this is, as we have said, the highest department of historical science; and before attempting the study of it, an intimate familiarity with the facts of history is necessary. We cannot properly put a value upon the motives which have influenced the achievers of great actions or the comVOL. I. which a knowledge of history brings with it. Presenting human nature, as it does, in so many different lights, it spreads out, as in a map, the varied experience of ages, for the instruction and self-guidance of him who reflects while he reads. And from this he learns that the chief elements of human character are the same in all; that the same mental system, however undeveloped in some, and highly cultivated in others, belongs to the whole human family; and thus the wholesome and warning lesson is taught him, that, in all ages of the world, and under every variety of circumstances, whether it refer to men as individuals, or men collectively as nations, the maxim holds good, that "vice is its own punisher, and virtue its own rewarder." How great, then, is the advantage of the man who is well versed in history, ove |