But is the opportunity fairly afforded for this? Is not the attention which ought to be fixed upon Things, to secure any part of the gain thus eloquently set before us, for the most part distracted and occupied by Words, in the system which commonly prevails? Has not the labour to be undergone in obtaining the ready verbal skill exacted in College examinations, a direct tendency to weaken our pleasure in the history, philosophy, or poetry on which we grind and sharpen that verbal skill? We apprehend that this is really the case; and that the old learning which Oxford persists in thinking all-sufficient for the wants of our new and busy life, is taught upon a method which strips it of its noblest lessons, and withers its choicest fruit. The question is a most serious one for those whom it most immediately concerns, and whom it should warn of the danger of too manifestly lagging behind the time. At this moment power is changing hands, as certainly as in the days of those subtle and eager men who seated the ancient learning on its throne; and who would as surely depose it now, if founding new universities amongst us, and give it but its due and proper place in the expanding circles of knowledge, as, four hundred years ago, they admitted its just predominance, and established its solitary sway. When periods of such vicissitude arrive, it is for those who have been powerful heretofore, to look to their tenures of authority. Upon nothing can they hope to rest, if not upon complete accordance with the spirit of the age, and a thorough aptitude to its necessities and wants. If the education of children is to continue imperfect and bad, as Dean Swift tells us he had found it always in his experience, in exact proportion to the wealth and grandeur of the parents, the next generation of parents will have to look to the continued security of their wealth and grandeur. The Earth is in incessant motion. The time when it was supposed to be permanently fixed in the centre of the universe has passed away for ever, and modes of study only suited to that time will have to share the fate that has befallen it. THE RAILWAY STATION. They judge not well, who deem that once among us A spirit moved that now from earth has fled; Who say that at the busy sounds which throng us, Its shining wings for ever more have sped. Not all the turmoil of the Age of Iron Can scare that Spirit hence; like some sweet bird That loud harsh voices in its cage environ, It sings above them all, and will be heard! Not, for the noise of axes or of hammers, Will that sweet bird forsake her chosen nest; Her warblings pierce through all those deafening clamours But surer to their echoes in the breast.