The mathematics form, or ought to form, a severe part of the college course of study. The student does not see, perhaps, of what use it can possibly be to him to master the abstruse parts of mathematics-conic sections, spherical trigonometry, fluxions, and the like. The apprentice to the cutler might as well say he saw no use in the vices, the files, the grindstones, and the emery wheels, that fill the shop in which beautiful instruments are manufactured. I am aware that I am treading on ground often trod before; but I know also, that the student who draws back from mathematical studies, who makes it convenient to be unwell at the time that the most severe studies press him, is losing what he can never regain. The problems which he solves, and the propositions which he demonstrates, may escape and be forgotten; but the mind, in these exercises, as no where else, acquires a precision, a vigor, and a keeness, which are essential to its most desirable discipline; and the man who gives his mind to mathematics, cannot fail to excel in argument, for the same reason that the Romans excelled in battle. The day of battle was a pastime to them, inasmuch as they fought with weapons much lighter than those with which they were every day drilled. A mind superior to that of our own gifted Hamilten is seldom seen; but he thought it necessary to review Euclid once a month to the end of life.-Dr. Todd at Union College.

"The National Association for the Advancement of Educa. tion" met at the city of Pittsburgh, Pa., on the 9th inst., and had an interesting time of it. On the second day Prof. S. S. Haldeman, of Pa., delivered a fiery and able address on the ignorance of science displayed by poets and mere literary men, and the evil resulting from the same. He believed that the judgment-the most im portant faculty of the mind-was not so much cultivated as the imagination. The judgment could only be cultivated by a study of physical and natural science, while the imagination thrived on fiction; the former dealt with rigid truth, the latter with slipshod falsehood. He exposed the ignorance of science displayed by Montgomery in the poem of the Pelican Island, wherein he introduces a "nautilus" as sailing on seas where it is never found. Goldsmith, the poet--a reader only of scientific works, ignorantly described the crab and tortoise as belonging to the same class, and Mrs. Sigourney wrote the zoophytes as insects. In a room of fifty or sixty students studying Butler's Analogy, he had heard the question asked, "how many legs has a fly?" and not one could answer it.

Youths' Department.

ADVICE TO YOUTH.

BY HORACE MANN.

You were made to be clean and neat in your person and in your dress, and gentlemanly and lady like in your manners. If you have not been bitten by a mad dog, don't be afraid of water. There is enough cold water in the world to keep every body clean but there is a great deal of it never finds its right place. In regard to this article there is no danger of being selfish, Take as much as you need. The people of the West boast of their great riversI would rather they would boast of using a large tub full of their water every day.

Contract no such filthy and offensive habit as chewing and smoking tobacco. So long as a man smokes, though a very Chesterfield in everything else that pertains to his appearance, he never can be quite a gentleman. And let me repeat it, you were made to be neat, While cotton cloth can be had for six cents a yard, there is no excuse for not having a pocket handkerchief.

You were made to be kind, and generous, and magnanimous. If there is a boy in school who has a club foot, don't let him know that you ever saw it. If there is a poor boy with ragged clothes, don't talk about rags when he is in hearing. If there is a lame boy, assign him some part of the game which does not require running. If there is a hungry one, give him a part of your dinner. If there is a dull one, help him get his lessons. If there is a bright one, be not envious of him; for if one boy is proud of his talents, and another is envious of them, there are two great wrongs, and no more talents than before. If a larger or stronger boy has injured you, and is sorry for it, forgive him, and request the teacher not to punish him, All the school will show by their countenances how much better it is to have a great soul than a great fist.

You were made to learn. Be sure you learn something every day. When you go to bed at night, if you cannot think of something new you have learned during the day, spring up and find a book, and get an idea before you sleep. If you were to stop eating would not your body pine and famish? If you stop learning, your minds pine and famish too. You all desire that your bodies should thrive and grow, until you become as tall and large as your fathers or mothers, or other people. You would not like to stop, growing where you are now at three feet high, or four feet or

well as

even at five. But if you do not feed your minds as your bodies, they will stop growing; and one of the poorest, meanest, most despicable things I have ever seen in the world, is a little mind in a great body.

Suppose there was a museum in your neighborhood, full of rare and splendid curiosities-should you not like to go and see it? Would you not think it unkind if you were forbidden to visit it? The creation is a museum, all full and crowded with wonders and beauties, and glories. One door, and one only is open, by which you can enter this magnificent temple. It is the door of knowledge. The learned laborer, the learned peasant, or slave, is ever made welcome at this door, while the ignorant, though kings are shut out.

THE POLYPI.-Among the lower order of animals tenacity of life is the most remarkable in the polypi; they may be pounded in a mortar, split up, turned inside out like a glove, and divided into parts, without injury to life; fire alone is fatal to them. It is now about a hundred years since Trembly made us acquainted with these animals, and first discovered their ir.destructibility. It has subsequently been taken up by other natural historians, who have followed up these experiments, and have even gone so far as to produce monsters by grafting. If they be turned inside out, they attempt to replace themselves, and if unsuccessfully, the outer surface assumes the properties and powers of the inner, and the reverse.If the effort be only partially successful, the part turned back disappears in twenty-four hours, and that part of the body embraces it in such a manner that the arms which projected behind are now fixed in the centre of the body; the orignal opening also disap pears, and in the room of feelers a new mouth is formed, to which new feelers attach themselves, and this new mouth feeds immediately. The healed extremity elongates itself into a tail, of which the animal has now two. If two polypi be passed into one another, like tubes, and pierced through with a bristle, the inner one works its way through the other, and comes out in a few days; in some instances however, they grow together, and then a double row of feelers surround the mouth. If they be mutilated, the divided parts grow together again, and even pieces of two separate individuals will unite into one.

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THE HOG THE ONLY GENTLEMAN.-Dr. Franklin used pleasantly to repeat an observation of his negro servant, made when the Dr. was making the tour of Derbyshire, Lancashire, &c., in England. Every thing, Massa, work in this country; water work, wood work, fire work, smoke work, dog work, man work, bullock work, horse work; everything work here but the hog. He eat, he drink, he sleep, he do nothing all day! The hog be the only gentleman in England."

MINUTE WONDERS OF ART.

We last month presented our young readers a description of some of the little things found in nature. It may not be uninteresting to them, in this age distinguished for its great achievements, to see how minute as well as how mighty things the art of men can accomplish.

Mr. Power says he saw a golden chain at Tredescant's Museum, South Lambeth, of three hundred links, not more than an inch in length, fastened to and pulled away by a flea. And I myself (says Baker, in his essay on the microscope,) have seen very lately, near Durnam yard, in the strand, and have examined with my microscope, a chaise (made by one Mr. Boverick, a watch-maker) having four wheels, with all the proper aparatus belonging to them turning readily on their axles; together with the man sitting in the chaise; all formed with ivory, and drawn by a flea without any seeming difficulty. I weighed it with the greatest care I was able, and found the chaise, man, and flea were barely equal to one single grain. I weighed also, at the same time and place, a brass chain made by the same hand, about two inches long, containing two hundred links, with a hook at one end, and a padlock and key at the other, and found it less than a third part of a grain. I likewise have seen a quadrille table, with a drawer in it, an eating table, a sideboard table, a looking-glass, twelve chairs with skeleton backs, two dozen knives, and as many forks, twelve spoons, two salts, a frame and castors, together with a gentleman lady, and footman, all contained in a cherry stone, and not filling much more than half of it." At the present day are to be purchased cherry stones highly polished, with ivory screws, which contain each 120 perfect silver spoons, a bauble worthy the patronage of the juvenile part of the community. We are told that one Oswald Merlinger made a cup of a pepper-corn, which held twelve hundred other little cups, all turned in ivory, each of them being gilt on the edges, and standing upon a foot; and that, so far from be. ing crowded or wanting room, the pepper-corn would have held four hundred more. One penny worth of crude iron can by art be manufactured into watch-springs, so as to produce some thousand pounds.--London Mirror.

Quiz.--This word is said to have originated in a joke. Daily, the manager of the Dublin play-house, so the story goes, wagered that he would make a word of no meaning to be the common talk and puzzle of the city for twenty-four hours; in the course of that time the letters q-u-i-z, were chalked on the walls all over Dublin, and the wager accordingly wor..-Arthur's Home Gazette.

AIM HIGH.

It is said that when one of the ex-Presidents was a young man and about leaving college, some of his classmates who were settling their plans for life, asked him "And what do you mean to be?" "President of the United States," was the prompt reply. They went their ways and in time his resolve was accomplished; the young colleg. ian stood at the head of the nation.

The Manchester Guardian tells the following story of D'Israeli a popular English author and statesman:

When Mr. D'Israeli was a boy at school, he was asked by a companion, who is now a respectable tradesman at High Wycombe, what course of action he meant to adopt in order to make his way in society. The young aspirant promptly replied: "I mean to write a book which will make me famous; when I have purchased fame, I mean to get a seat in Parliament; and when once in Parliament, I shall be determined to become a right honorable." All this has been fulfilled, and we believe the anecdote we have recorded solves any mystery which may cling to Mr. D'Israeli's public

career.

Aim high, boys, but remember the top of the ladder is not to be reached by one mighty jump some fine day after you have become men. The path of the hill of science begins just where you now are-in your school room, and every lesson well learned is a step. Do you see that little blue eyed fellow, in the corner, looking so quietly, and steadily upon his book? his body is still, but his soul, if you could only see it, is taking steps along an unseen but real path which leads through the broad and beautiful fields of knowledge, and up to the heights of fame and wealth and honor. Perhaps he is on his way, even now, to Congress; aye! just as fast now as when, twenty years hence, thousands shall be delighted at his wis. dom and eloquence, and vote for him as their representative in the national council.

-An uneducated youth telling his sweet-heart "I love you," received from the blushing danisel the brief reply "ditto." Walking the next morning in the garden with his father, he asked him what ditto meant. "What is that?" replied his father, pointing to a vegetable. "A cabbage" answered the youth." "And that is ditto," said the father, pointing to another. "Confound the girl," muttered the young man, "she called me a cabbage-head."

PROBLEMS,-A generous boy gave to his sister one half of his apples, and half an apple more, and to a little brother half of the remainder, and half an apple more, and then had just two left.How many had he at first?

-Mr. Rollo told his boys who were inquiring the time, that it was between five and six, and the hands of his watch were exactly together. What was the time?