The qualities of children, like those of animals, can be predicted before birth. a matter of every day practice, is reduced to perfect systemthen these same laws can both be ascertained as regards human offspring, and applied to the production, in them also, of whatever physical and mental qualities may be desired. If we can produce speed, or strength, or bottom in a horse, or tendency to fatten in swine; fine wool in sheep; spirit in the game-cock, the qualities for producing good milk or beef in cattle, or tameness, or kindness, and other mental qualities in animals; and if the same laws of parentage govern the transmission of both physical and mental qualities from human parents to their offspring, which no reflecting mind can doubt, then these same law's may be applied so as to produce not only physical strength, suppleness, flesh, and a powerful constitution, but also so as to produce revenge, or amiableness; pride, or humility; intelligence, or stupidity; taste, or coarseness; mechanical, or mathematical, or political, or reasoning, or any other powers desired. Nor need any more doubt hang over the latter results, than now hang over the former. As, from knowing the qualities of the brute parents, we can predict the qualities of animals with certainty before they see the light, so, by knowing the qualities and conditions of the human parentage, can we predict, and with unerring certainty, the future form of body, head, face, &c., and all the intellectual and moral qualities of children, and all before they see the light. And not only can we predict these qualities of otlspring, but parents can so unite, as to cause their offspring to inherit whatever physical, or mental, or moral qualities may be desired-so as to be short and stocky, or slim and long--as to be consumptive or long-lived, healthy or scrofulous ; feeble or vigorous, strong, or spry, or deformed, or well formed, or amiable, or pugnacious, or just, or roguish, or ingenious, or musical, or witty, or acqustuve, or timid, or courageous, or inventive, or communicative, or poetical, or logical, or oratorical, or imaginative, &c. &c. &c., to qualities without a number, and down through all their minutest shades and phases. And he who doubts this, denies one of two self-evident truths--first, that laws of cause and effect govern the transmission of any qualities from parents to their children; or, secondly, that these causes are within Human improvement can be carned intinuely beyond that as animais our observation and application to doube either of which is to doubt that the sun shines, or bodies fall.

But more. That very important advantages can be derived froin etforts 10 improve the breed of animals, is a malter of every day's esperienre and obserration. Above two thousand dollars have been paid for a single Durham calf, and all on account of its qualities as a breeder merely; and that farmer who pays no attention either to his seed or to his trerd, 18 left far in the rear of other farmers.

But the advantages to be derived from the application of these principles to the improvement of man, are as much gmrater than those capable of being derived from their applia cation to the improvement of animals, as man is supenor lo animals, and as his qualities are more vanud and positive than theirs. If the happiness of man can be greatly promoted ty tn poput me the breed of his domestic animals, how much Dife to improving his ourn breed ? As much more as his own oranization and desunis are higher than theirs--as murh me as the number of qualities is greater, and the *3.e of improvement runs higher in hum than in them. Their rarse of improvement is bounded by "strait and narrow" lits; huis, scareiy know's any bounds: thry, have few 921103 to be compounded, and that few are mostly physcal; be, has not only a much greater variety of phurarend puter, but he has a vast range of mental and moral qualities, ne on'y susceptible to every physical improvement made, tuta's tumutres capable of improvenient. As two or thre n1..bers albw but few changes to le rung on them, say iwo ove th.tre letters of the alphabet, and as every additional letter allows a still increasing number of changes to be rung, or of wls to tu prijed, all the twenty-six letters of our als balet

wa number of changes to be munk that will require furty. one fi_uures to express- a number altogether inceneuivalle by IT-an-- the stiil gratrt number of man's phone nological facLilors esprally when taken in conjunto in with the dutierent to prcaments and textures, allow a number of chan;rs. (and at s case, every chalib'e may be an imprintement ) it.fits.lely greater than these alinded to above. Not that all these changes, all these improvements, can be rung on a single

'Appeal to parents.

Erroneous views.

individual, but they can be rung on the race; and very many of them on every individual of that race; for who can calculate the improvement effected when but a single organ is improved ? all its combinations, amounting to millions of mental operations, being thereby improved, both in him, and in his descendants to the latest generations.

And now, parents, does not this principle hold out a star of promise and of blessed hope? Can you see fruit like this within your grasp, and not reach forth your hand and pluck it, and that, too, when it is just as easy as to pluck these sour grapes that many now compel themselves to eat through life? The destinies of your offspring are comPLETELY in your hands and within your control. Nay, willing or unwilling, you are compelled to control them, or else not to enter upon the parental relations at all. There is a necessity in the case. Your children are obliged, in their mental and physical constitution, to be what you are. Can you take a look into the future, and behold these yet unexisting immortals, and remember that their destinies are completely at your mercyand that you cannot possibly escape these awfully solemn responsibilities--and then close again your eyes, and sleep over these momentous consequences? Can you even allow yourselves to become parents thoughtlessly, or unwittingly, or without previously arranging these causes so as to bring about desired results ? But more on this subject hereafter.

SECTION III.

EDUCATION AND PARENTAGE CONTRASTED.

Poeta nascitur, non fit. The oft quoted, and generally admitted sentiment expressed in the stanzes,

* "T is education forms the common mind;

Just as the swig is bent, the tree's inclined," is as erroneous as it is generally diffused. The sentiment should be,

The of knal constrution more important than estuention.

T' is PARENTAGE that rooms the common mind,

While education only trains it. That early education and training exert a powerful influence for good or for evil in moulding and modifying the character and shaping the conduct of childhood, and even through life, is readily admitted, and is tacitly implied in every effort made to cultivate the intellere or improve the morals of children by intellectual discipline or moral training. That they even go so far as materially to strengthen the faculties thus called into frequent action, and enlarge and in porate their organs, is also admitted, and has been establisted in the author's work on "Education and Sll-Impripement," but, great and beneficial as are the power and intereure of early education and discipline in subulumg unTui'y passions, elevating the moral sentiments, and strengthen! the mind, yet those of PARENTAGE are far greater. Torch children, and even adults of but feeble moral and intellectual faculties, may, by proper intellectual culture, moral training, and virtuous assur"lations, be prevented from ter mig vicious, and even rendered passable in intellect and fair in murals, yet the same amount of culture, applied to an of 10 ization originally pool, will yield a tenfold harvest of virtue and talent to the sul jers, and of happiness to all con. comind. The not very elevated, but tnie and perfectly apsahe addaxe, "You cannot mahe a silk purse," dr., impling that to render culture and the product valuable, we must have good materials with which, or on which to operate that the original, inherent conshlution must be good, in order to render etforts at education availalile. Though eduration may greatly improre a youth, and enable him to do wl.at, without severe training, he could not accomplish, yet all the education in the world can never make a doga min, nor a hyena, a lamb. Though a young nak may be trailed to grow stra: hi or crooked, tall or bushy, &c., yet it can peser be trained to grow or to be any other kind of tire, but an animal, nor a man. It may be plantrd in soul phor Luarten), so as to become thnity or stated in growth, yrtit can bever be trained to become any thing but an sak. The

The relative influence of education and parentage contrasted.

influence of education is greatly abridged by the original constitution of the person or thing to be educated. And in order to exert its full power, and shower down its richest blessings—and they are rich indeed—the original stock must be good; and the betier this stock, the more beneficial this education. The public sentiment is wrong in paying too much attention, relatively, to education, and too little to the parentage, or the original stock.

“These things ought ye to have done, but not to leave the other undone." Cultivale corn planted on a barren soil with ever so much assiduity, and the crop will be but meagre. The rich prairies of the west, need scarcely the least cultivation, yet yield abundantly; and a rich soil with little culture, yields a much more plentiful harvest than a barren soil well cultivated. Many deplore their want of education, not knowing that innate sense, is infinitely superior to acquired learning. If a youth enter college a saphead, he comes out a leatherbrains; but a man naturally talented, even if he cannot read, will be capable of managing a large business successfully, and exerting a powerful influence in society. Sound common sense, or what is the same thing, superior natural abilities, weighed in the balance with all that education can bestow, the former is gold, the latter feathers. Education with superior natural abilities, works wonders by polishing the marble, but you must first have the marble before it can be polished. All the education in the world cannot create talents, nor impart them when nature has not. Poeta nascitur, non fit, a poet is born, not made one by education, embodies the experience of all nations and all ages. The sentiment,

" "T is education forms the common mind," is untrue, unless we lay the stress on common mind, and allow that in cases where parentage has given no special bias to the mind, but left it common place, education then gives it various directions. But education can never crente GENIUS. It cannot create any thing; above all, it cannot make a constitutional saphead a Shakspeare or a Milton. Elihu Burritt, the learned blacksmith, in his public lectures, reverses the old adage, Poeta nascitur non fit, and says,