The following commendatory letters have been received, and are highly prized,-especially as they are from those whose talents and learning are well known and most justly appreciated.

From the Hon. Lewis Cass, Secretary of War.

To David McClure, Esq.

Sir: I have received your letter, together with a pamphlet containing a system of education for the Girard College. My official duties at this season of the year have not permitted me to devote much attention to the subject; but from the cursory examination I have been enabled to give it, I am pleased with many of your suggestions, and have no doubt, if adopted, will be highly useful.

Very respectfully,

Your ob't servant,

LEWIS CASS.

From James Madison, Ex-President of the United States. Sir: I have received your letter of the 6th, with a copy of the "System of Education proposed for the Girard College."

The views of Mr. Girard call for an Institution so new and peculiar in its modifications, that the plan most promising will probably disclose errors and defects which the best lights of analogy could not avoid.

That which you have offered contains, I doubt not, much that will recommend itself to a favourable consideration.

With friendly respects,

JAMES MADISON.

From Dr. John Bell, author of various well known scientific works of repute, and Editor of several Literary Journals. DEAR SIR,

Your plan of the Course of Studies for the Girard College, has much to recommend it to general notice and favour. The proposal to teach the French and Spanish languages to the Infant Class, by procuring, for the

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children, of whom it may be composed, companions of their own age from France and Spain, in addition to suitable instructers and families of those nations, will, if it can be acted on, no doubt lead to the desired end. The facility with which young persons, natives of Russia and of the towns and islands of the Levant, who have merely received an elementary education, learn different languages, by early and frequent association with the persons from the countries where they are spoken, attests the advantages of your scheme.*

All must cordially wish to see your suggestion carried out, respecting the means of combining amusement and instruction for the Infant Class, by introducing to their notice, the various objects of the mineral, the vegetable and the animal kingdoms, and the products of art in workshops, encouraging them to engage in gymnastic exercises and to learn to swim.-With the same view, and to prevent education from being regarded as a heartless and joyless occupation of time, and ever adverse to pleasure, in fact as a system of fixed penance, in which light the young, by the mismanagement of those of mature age, are so prone to view it, you very properly recommend, that all the boys shall learn Music, both instrumental and vocal, and Drawing. The experience from the German and Swiss system is conclusive, in favour of vocal music constituting a part of elementary education. In fact, whether regarded as a salutary exercise, a means of strengthening and improving the voice, or in reference to its influence on the feelings, aiding devotion and contributing to a better taste for the harmony of verse, we must all eagerly wish for its general introduction into our schools. Music thus. early taught, and associated in the minds of the scholar with much that is instructive and ennobling, would prove in after life, a source of permanent pleasure, and be free from the objections which have been brought against it, when taught at a later period, and under more equivocal auspices. Drawing would form, in addition to its application to Architecture, which you mention, a useful auxiliary to the study of Natural History, since the pupil could not fail to have indelibly impressed on his memory the chief features of an animal or plant, after he had succeeded in copying them with his pencil. You do not look to all the scholars becoming eminent in the arts of music and design. Such a result does not depend on education alone, however carefully conducted, but still more on original aptitude or strength of

*The case of Gibraltar is also peculiarly happy in illustrating the practicability of the plan, for it is well known that here infants of a very tender age speak with equal facility the English, French and Spanish languages.

A remarkable instance of the aptitude of infant minds to acquire language is found in a child in this city, only two years and three months old, that understands and speaks the French, German and English. The mother has always spoken to him in German, the father in French, and his occasional intercourse with the neighbours' children has given him the English.

D. M.

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innate faculties. But all young persons might learn enough to enable them to appreciate the successful displays of the more gifted professors, and to practise for their own amusement, and, occasionally, for the pleasure and benefit of their associates and friends at a later period.

In proposing that the boys, after they leave the Infant Class, shall engage in some kind of manual labour, either in horticulture or mechanics, as an alternation of course with their studies in the College, you are in accordance with the most enlightened theory of human nature, and with enlarged experience. For the health and vigour of both mind and body, alternate exercise of each is demanded; nor can this be engaged in profitably, in either case, at random, or under occasional and irregular impulses.—An adoption of the system of manual labour schools is, evidently, the best bond of union for the different classes in a republic. The man of science and the professional man will then know enough of the mechanic arts to prize highly those who successfully practise them, whilst the mechanic in his turn, duly appreciating his own position, will do justice to those who work and toil in a different fashion from himself, in the professions and sciences. Prejudices and envy are only nurtured among men by ignorance of the nature and bearing of each other's pursuits and characters.

Worthy, also, of commendation is your proposal to have the outlines of Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene taught in the College, by a competent medical man. It would be easy for this teacher to lay down, at the same time, the main principles of Medical Police and Public Hygiene. In by far too restricted a sense are the well known words of the poet, "the proper study of mankind is man," received; and the wish of the mens sana in corpore sano, though oft repeated and ardently desired, has, hitherto, prompted to very feeble efforts for its attainment. A suitable physical education and a knowledge of the functions of the human body would powerfully tend towards this consummation, and certainly contribute much to the sum of human happiness.

Your specification of branches to be taught in the Scientific and Collegiate Classes leaves little to be supplied by others. You do not, I suppose, consider yourself to be definitively pledged to the order of succession in which you indicate them to be taught.* Classical literature, the exact and demonstrative sciences, and the philosophy of the mind, have received a full share of your notice.

*With regard to the "order of the succession," it will be seen that the subjects of study are not numbered, implying that this particular point is left to the discretion and wisdom of each professor. The only liberty assumed, which may appear like an interference with professional duties, has been to suggest the importance of giving familiar lectures to all the classes of the Institution (page 14). It is presumed, and every confidence is entertained, that fully competent gentlemen will be appointed to fill the different departments of science, and for any one individual, so far to forget becoming

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Contemporaneously with the study of the Law of Nations and of Political Law, specified by you as part of the course for the fourth year of the Collegiate Class, should be that of the Constitution of the United States, and of each State separately, and a careful inquiry into the real nature of our Federal Government. The History of the United States should, also, be made a matter for special study, and their resources and progress in improvements of all kinds, distinctly examined. Guided thus by knowledge, the citizens of the republic will ever be seen tempering patriotic ardour with truth and the counsels of justice and honour.

Your recommendation, for the Professors to give familiar lectures in their respective branches of science, and to examine the pupils at each meeting on the subject of the preceding lecture, combines the advantages of recitation and colloquy, and serves better than any other method to exhibit the connexion between the several parts of a subject, and to fix attention on those which are most deservedly prominent.

Although you have purposely restricted yourself to an outline of a system of intellectual education, you have not the less clearly recommended certain observances which must materially favour properly directed efforts for the moral and religious culture of the youthful inmates of the College. Towards the first, or moral instruction, no better preparation or aid could be furnished than in continued but yet alternate exercise and rational amusement of both mind and body. And at the same time religious conviction will be obtained and strengthened by a knowledge of Natural Theology, or of the harmonies of creation, especially of animated nature, embracing Natural History in its various departments, and Human and Comparative Physiology.

The importance of the subject and my desire to express more than a formal assent to the general features and most of the details of your plan, will be my apology for greater latitude of remark than I had originally intended.*

Very respectfully yours,

JOHN BELL.

modesty as to presume to dictate what shall be the details connected with the whole round of extended science, would only subject him, and very justly, to be considered more presumptuous than wise; for no one individual can be sufficiently experienced in all these matters to justify such a liberty. The single point alluded to, is one which long personal experience has confirmed as highly important, and if there be any "royal road to science," it is that which conducts the traveller pleasantly and delightfully along by the aid and assistance of familiar lectures, explanations, illustrations, and appropriate experiments.

It is gratifying to witness the very deep interest the learned doctor has taken in this highly important subject. The very clear and enlarged views with which he has descanted, most philosophically, on the various parts of the plan, is highly creditable to him, and so far from an apology being necessary, he justly merits the thanks of all who love the promotion of science and the welfare of man. D. M.