But now the “rising generation” will have matters altered. Education is all wrong, and too limited. The spirit of unity, as the Germans call it—that hidden elf which haunts all knowledge, and is the same, however disguised—is not to be caught except by a search which involves the acquisition of every science, art, and philosophy. This, in addition to an insane and, we shrink not from saying, a blasphemous dallying with things sacred, is the grand error of the “rising generation”—the rock on which their bark will founder, if it has not already done so. Man can not be a “universal genius.” Let us by all means shake off the trammels under which education has groveled—under which she still groans. Let us seek by all means to make education so free, that, like the winds of heaven, and the light of the sun, no man shall want a reasonable—a full share of her benefits. Let us seek accurate and varied knowledge and scholarship, endeavoring (although it is a difficult and subtle process) to find out for what our youth are best fitted, by evoking the latent special talents with which their Maker has gifted them, and thus train them in the expert use of that weapon which will enable them to do yeoman service in the wide arena of the world. But, while we do all this, let us beware. We have before now been taunted as a nation of shopkeepers. This was no evil, if true; but who can calculate the direness of that calamity which shall turn us into a nation of smatterers. This is a looming evil of unparalleled magnitude. There can be no doubt that at the present moment there is a tendency to rest content with very superficial acquirements, if they be only heterogeneous enough. A man who can gabble the alphabet of any science or subject may, if he has sufficient presumption, gain credit for possessing a knowledge of its arcana—for the ability necessary to plumb its profounder depths and unravel its intricacies. The successful practice of this imposture, for it is nothing less, has led, and is still leading, many to sacrifice accuracy for variety, both in those departments which their circumstances, rightly considered, demand that they should thoroughly understand, and in those branches which tend only to add grace and finish to a liberal education.