It is, indeed, the case that much diseased substance is offered to form this new body; and if there be not in ourselves a nucleus, a heart of force and purity to assimilate these strange and various materials into a very high form of organic life, they must needs induce one distorted, corrupt, and degraded beyond the example of other times and places. There will be no medium about it. Our grand scene of action demands grandeur and purity; lacking these, one must suffer from so base failure in proportion to the success that should have been. It would be the worthiest occupation of mind to ascertain the conditions propitious for this meeting of the nations in their new home, and to provide preventions for obvious dangers that attend it. It would be occupation for which the broadest and deepest knowledge of human nature in its mental, moral, and bodily relations, the noblest freedom from prejudice, with the finest discrimination as to differences and relations, directed and enlightened by a prophetic sense as to what Man is designed by God to become, would all be needed to fit the thinker. Yet some portion of these qualities, or of some of these qualities, if accompanied by earnestness and aspiration, may enable any one to offer useful suggestions. The mass of ignorance and selfishness is such, that no grain of leaven must be despised. And as the men of all countries come hither to find a home, and become parts of a new life, so do the books of all countries gravitate towards this new centre. Copious infusions from all quarters mingle daily with the new thought which is to grow into American mind, and develop American literature. As every ship brings us foreign teachers, a knowledge of living contemporary tongues must in the course of fifty years become the commonest attainment. There exists no doubt in the minds of those who can judge, that the German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese tongues might, by familiar instruction and _an intelligent method_, be taught with perfect ease during the years of childhood, so that the child would have as distinct a sense of their several natures, and nearly as much expertness in their use, as in his own. The higher uses of such knowledge can, of course, be expected only in a more advanced state of the faculties; but it is pity that the acquaintance with the medium of thought should be deferred to a period when the mind is sufficiently grown to bend its chief attention on the thoughts themselves. Much of the most precious part of short human lives is now wasted from an ignorance of what might easily be done for children, and without taking from them the time they need for common life, play, and bodily growth, more than at present.