3. In selecting subjects and exercises for the education of the young, those are to be preferred, by which _the largest amount of true and solid happiness is to be secured to the pupil_.--A man's happiness is his only possession. Every thing else which he has, is only the means which he employs for the purpose of acquiring or retaining it. Happiness accordingly, by the very constitution of our nature, is the great object of pursuit by every man.[29] The means of happiness are no doubt frequently mistaken, and often substituted for happiness itself. But even these conflicting circumstances, when properly considered, all tend to shew, that happiness is the great object desired, and that it is universally sought after by every intelligent mind. By a wise and beneficent arrangement of the Almighty, it has been so ordered, that happiness is to be found only in the exercise of the affections;--and the amount of the happiness which they confer, is found to be proportionate to the excellence of the object beloved. The love of God himself, accordingly, is the first of duties, and includes the perfection of happiness. The love of all that are like him, and in proportion as they are so, ranks next in the scale; and hence it is, that all moral excellence,--the culture of the affections and the heart,--is to be preferred to intellectual attainments, as these again are to take precedence of mere physical good. This established order for the attainment of happiness, is in society most strangely inverted. Beauty, strength, honour, and riches,--mere physical qualities,--are generally preferred to the qualities of the mind;--and mental attainments, again, too often command more consideration than moral worth. This is altogether an unnatural state of things; and the consequences of its prevalence in any community, must be proportionally disastrous. How far the modes for conducting the education of the young hitherto have tended to extend or perpetuate this error, it is not for us here to say. But if they have, the sooner the evil is rectified the better. Happiness, as we have said, is the single aim of man,--however he may mistake its nature, or the means by which it is to be attained. And as it is to be found, not in intellectual power, nor in the possession of physical good, but only in moral culture, it follows, that the attainment of this moral excellence should be the one chief design aimed at in the education of the young.