The true reason for individual cultivation is undoubtedly to be sought for in the native requirements of the soul. The essential worth of knowledge lies not so much in its adaptations to our temporal conveniencies or ambition, as in the service it performs in promoting spiritual enlargement. What we more especially understand by education is a progressive process whereby the intellectual and moral powers are expanded and developed to the extent of their capabilities, and directed towards objects of action and speculation which have a tendency to advance the effectual wellbeing of the individual--a wellbeing whose character is not to be determined arbitrarily by opinion, or considered as consisting in conditions accordant with mere conventional preconceptions of mortal happiness, but one which pre-exists as an ideal prefigurement in human nature. That only is a right and sufficient education which aims at the perfect culture of the man--which, as far as is possible with objective limitations, educes and invigorates his latent aptitudes and gifts, to the end that he may employ them in a manner which is consistent with the pure idea of his own being. The consideration to be kept continually in view is, what is a man by natural capacity destined to become?--what heights of intellectual and moral worth is he capable of attaining to?--and, on the whole, what courses of discipline and personal exertion are most suitable, as the means of raising him to that condition wherein he will most admirably fulfil the design of his creation? To instruct and educate him with respect to this design is the highest and ultimate purpose of all knowledge. It has thus a grander aim than the mere promotion of the conveniencies of our material life. Prosecuted with reference to this loftier end, it is exalted into the appropriate guide of a man's endeavours--acquainting him with the laws and relations of his existence, and shaping for him the authentic course of his sublunary conduct.