As well debate with the carpenter as to the value of his tools, as to debate the value of mathematics to the mathematician. For such pronominal natures, then, their course is settled beforehand. There remains only that class among the higher minds which has a natural avidity for general knowledge, that class which mediates among first-rate minds of different orders, and also between first-rate minds of all orders, and the public at large. For them, it is a delicate and difficult task to know what of each branch to take, and what refuse. But, undoubtedly, the best way for them is to accept the guidance of acknowledged masters in each direction, and let them epitomize their results, as Herschel has done in his astronomy. America is so ambitious of excellence, that she will never rest contented until her universities vie with the best in Europe. Candor compels any one who has any knowledge of the subject, to allow, that, at present, this is far from being the case. In the mean time, what is to be done for our finest minds? If the question were put, Do you advise a residence at an English university to give the finishing touch to a young American's education? we should answer by putting three others: 1. Are you sure of his moral character, and his selfcontrol as to personal expenditure? 2. Are his abilities of a high order in a scholarly or mathematical direction? 3. Are you sure that he is so impregnated with the American idea, that he will come back an American, with American ideas on the dignity of labor, and the duties of a citizen of a republic founded on the central thought of the worth of man as man? Unless all these questions were answered unhesitatingly in the affirmative, we would say at once, He had better stay at home. Of all contemptible objects, a mongrel American is the most contemptible. Better sacrifice scholarship than one's birthright. But still it is a distressing alternative. The only real remedy on a large scale is to put our shoulders to the wheel, and resolve that our children shall have secured to them here, in the land of their birthright, - here, in the midst of this great Western wind which so expands the breast, that it can harbor the wildest and most impossible hopes for man, here, where all labor is honorable, and the scholar feels the great pulse of the people's heart beating through his bosom, making the keen brain and the hard hand one in sympathy, here, to establish a university system, so high, so thorough, so allembracing, that there shall be no need of looking elsewhere for that culture which is to fine intellects the very breath of life. Jos. 16. Allen. ART. VI.-THE PRESIDENT'S RECONSTRUCTION. 1. Speeches of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States. With a Biographical Introduction, by FRANK MOORE. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 2. Great and Grave Questions for American Politicians. By EBORA CUS. THE late war was held to prove that a republic can be, at need, the strongest form of human government, surest of its resources, most confident in the temper of its citizens, most apt to deal with "sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion," most absolute in the exercise of that authority needed for its safety, its power, at such a time, being like that of a water-flood, each particle mobile and uncertain, but held in the one channel by elemental forces, and resistless in its accumulated sweep. Even the form of a confederation, which has been generally thought the weakest bond of States, has not checked the exercise of a central, consolidated power, practically as absolute and unchallenged as that of any monarchy. Respecting, to a remarkable degree, the traditions and scruples of a constitutional régime as to its genial policy, the Government has held, in carrying it out, the almost despotic control of an amount of financial and military str.gth, freely, nay, eagerly conceded to it by the people, which has its only parallel in the revolutionary autocracy of Napoleon. The sudden coming-on of peace, with the Presi dent's murder at its beginning, took this accumulated power from the tried and trusted hands, where we saw it rest without anxiety, and committed it to new hands, which few of us had once thought of in connection with that office. What if they should prove treacherous or weak? "The accident of an accident," the transfer of power by a rule arbitrary and impersonal, almost, as the divine right of kingly inheritance, —what if it should prove, at last, a calamity and mistake? The ease and dignity with which Mr. Johnson assumed the reins of administration, six months ago, were only matched by the secure and undoubting confidence which prevailed everywhere in the public mind. At the very moment our commiserating English cousins were deploring the "anarchy" into which the great Republic had fallen, at length, in the hands of an ignorant, weak, and untrusty ruler, there was on this side a clearer consciousness of unity and strength, a more hopeful confidence in the destiny and future of the nation, than any of us would have thought possible, with the wounds of war so fresh. The work of peace was already begun in earnest. Terms of conciliation were already offered, and getting widely accepted among the revolted populations. One army of the insurrection after another was laying down its arms in absolute surrender. The soil was extensively preparing, and the conditions of labor and employment were fast getting established, for the greatly needed harvests of the year. The nation, just rallying victorious from its life-and-death struggle, was exercising a wise and needful charity, in the supply of destitution, and a healing of desolation, absolutely unparalleled. One of the highest officers in the military service, a man as well known for his Christian humanity as for his soldierly fidelity, was the appointed agent of the nation's guardianship over the newly enfranchised race, that was still to be protected from the jealous cruelty of its former masters, and initiated in the painful, slow, first steps towards civilization, equal justice, and political liberty. This was the "reconstruction" which the nation required. And to the immense task of it, the new President had already devoted himself, with an intelligent purpose and a consecration of will VOL. LXXIX.-5TH S. VOL. XVII. NO. III. 35 which nothing in his career hitherto permitted us to doubt,at the very time when he had to vindicate himself before the world from the most wanton misrepresentation, and the most undeserved contempt. It is worth while to look back over these six months, so as to see what ground they have covered, and what advance we have actually made, and to judge fairly the position to which they have brought us. Especially because it cannot be overlooked, that a very painful suspicion and misunderstanding have prevailed among many of the best friends of the country, and the steadiest supporters of the administration, — a suspicion and misunderstanding which the next few weeks must do very much either to remove or fix. While it would be idle to anticipate the developments which the coming session of Congress brings so near, it is simple matter of justice and prudence to judge fairly as we may the great multitude and complexity of the elements which beset the immediate problem of our future. It is indeed very striking to the imagination, the immense, almost unchallenged authority which rests at present in one man's hands. It is stating it quite moderately to say, that the chances of civil peace or war, of liberty or slavery to many generations of the blacks, of sectional hatred or good-will amongst the whites, rest on the single decision of one whom, a year ago, few men had thought of in any connection with the national administration. Old party lines are melted down, and rival political organizations bid for his confidence and support. State elections turn on the dispute, which set of politicians best represents his mind and purpose. Conventions and platforms are dumb or eloquent on great points of public policy, according as he has reserved or declared his own. The confidence which the North is so forward to profess, comes echoed back in Southern speeches, resolutions, and newspapers. Journals of unflinching loyalty throughout the war are foremost in sustaining a plan of reconstruction, which is accepted and praised hardly less forwardly by men fresh from their rebellious counsels, still cleaving to their State-rights' theories, and haughtily accept ing the forms of pardon for an unacknowledged wrong. A measure of simple political equity and democratic consistency fails in a New-England State, it is said, because it is uncertain whether the President will desire it as a condition of reconstruction in the South: the majority of six thousand in Connecticut against negro suffrage would have been the other way, we are told, if only his mind were clear about it. Now, in very marked phases and movements of public thought, not easy to account for otherwise, it is often possible to see, afterwards, evidence of some secret necessity there was in them, as it were a divine or unconscious popular instinct; and the fact vindicates what was the despair of our theory. And we incline to think that we ourselves may recognize hereafter, that this intense need, this imperious demand, of national unity after so fierce a conflict, has its necessary place in our history. Nay, is there not something in the tone of the diplomatic correspondence which is just coming over to us, to make us feel that the astonishing solidity and harmony of our political structure, but just now so rudely jarred, may be our safety from disaster or disgrace abroad? When Earl Russell, who, four years ago, condensed the misrepresentations of half England into an epigram, charging that "the North fought for empire, the South for independence;" and who, two years ago, found matter only of cavil and censure in the edict of emancipation, when he respectfully solicits our Government to accept his sincere sympathy and congratulation that the "empire" has been established, and the emancipation achieved, we seem to see the vindication of at least one motive in the President's somewhat hasty process of reconciliation. It has at least surprised Europe into acknowl edging the legitimacy and the nationality of our republic. - Perhaps no testimony of the last few months has been more striking, than that of the little charm war has for a people that had sustained it so cheerily and fiercely, and of the eagerness for a return to the arts and ways of peace. An army so great that a few months back the Government seems to have feared to give the figures, an army, as it is now stated, of thirteen hundred thousand men, has almost liter - |