THE SCHOOL-BOY.

And then, the whining School-Boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school !

INFANCY, feeble and helpless, cannot be pronounced of long duration. With the usual assiduous care bestowed upon it by maternal affection, both body and mind are insensibly enlarged; pushing onward toward maturity. The limbs so lax become more fixed; the eyes so vagrant, assume their direction to some particular object; and the faculties are seen to develope themselves by the variations of the countenance. The babe in arms, not unlike the floweret of spring, grows more and more interesting, and is not an unimportant member of the family. The constant vigilance which its tenderness requires, day and night, is repaid by smiles and caresses.

An endearment is generated which words cannot describe. The indulgence which parents feel toward their offspring, sweetens the toils, as well as mitigates the sorrows of mortality!

But it is the developement of mind that imparts a peculiar interest to CHILDHOOD: thus Cowper exclaims:

It is not from his form, in which we trace
Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace,
That Man, the master of this globe, derives
His right of empire over all that lives :
That form indeed, associate of a mind
Vast in its powers, ethereal in its kind;
That form, the labour of Almighty skill,
Fram'd for the service of a free-born will,
Asserts precedence, and bespeaks control,
But borrows all its grandeur from the soul!
Hers is the state, the splendour, and the throne,
An intellectual kingdom-ALL her own!

The change wrought in a series of years upore the countenance of Childhood, may give birth to feelings of an interesting nature.

ON MY OWN MINIATURE PICTURE, TAKEN AT TWO YEARS OF

AGE.

And I was once like this! That glowing cheek
Was mine! those pleasure-sparkling eyes; that brow
Smooth as the level lake, when not a breeze
Dies o'er the sleeping surface! Twenty years
Have wrought strange alteration of the Friends
Who once so dearly prized this miniature,
And loved it for its likeness, some are gone
To their last home; and some estranged in heart,
Beholding me with quick-averted glance,
Pass on the other side! But still these hues
Remain unaltered, and these features wear
The look of INFANCY and INNOCENCE!

I search myself in vain, and find no trace
Of what I was; those lightly-arching lines,
Dark and o'erhanging now, and that sweet face
Settled in these strong lineaments !

SOUTHEY.

The celebrated Frederic Hoffman says, that the human species are Infants until they begin to talk, and Childern to the age of puberty. The term Infant, according to its etymology, is a human being not yet in the possession of the faculty of speech. When this power of speech commences, Infancy, with all its charms of helpless innocence, ceases; and here begins the interesting period of Childhood

See on yon carpet mantled o'er with flowers
A little babbling playful tribe disport !
As yet no cloud o'ershades their joyous hours,
Nor thought intrudes, nor reason holds her court-

But all is bustle in the busy hive,
Each sense imbibes the honied dews of May!
For general use, all eager, all alive ;
As summer flies that flit from spray to spray!

Endowed with faculties capable of developement speech becomes the grand medium of improvement. The interchange of ideas by the operation of sound is the basis of instruction. The ALPHABET therefore now presents itself, and the simplicity of its elements soon finds its way into the tender mind. “Children," says Buffon," begin the difficult task of learning to speak about the twelfth or fifteenth

month. They pronounce the vowel A with more facility, because it requires only the opening of the mouth, and forcing out the air. E requires the tongue to be raised at the same time that the lips are opened. In pronouncing I the tongue is still more elevated, and approaches the teeth of the upper jaw. O requires the tongue to be depressed and the lips contracted, and in the pronunciation of U, the lips must be still more contracted, and somewhat extended. The first consonants articulated by children, are those which require the least motion of the organs. Thus of the vowels, A is most easily pronounced; and of the consonants, B, P, and M. It is for this reason that children in all countries, first begin to articulate Papa! Mamma! These words are the most natural, because they are most easily pronounced, and the letters of which they are composed, must exist in every language."

"Some children,” adds the same intelligent author, “at two years of age articulate distinctly, and repeat whatever is said to them; but most children require longer time. It has been remarked that those who are long before they learn to speak, never articulate with the same facility as those who acquire that faculty more early. The latter may be taught to read before they are three years of age, and I have known children read amazingly at four! But after all it is difficult to determine whether any advantages are to be derived from such premature instruction. We have had so many examples of pro