Then comes the æsthetic culture. First the substantial, afterward the ornamental--this is the natural order, to reverse which were to begin building the tower at the top. The very idea of the ornamental supposes something substantial to be ornamented. No man will attempt to polish the sponge, or paint a picture on the vacant air, or rear a stone cathedral on a sunset cloud. There is no lily-bloom without the sustaining stalk, nor magnolia grandiflora without the sturdy and stately tree. "Wood, hay, stubble," are not fit materials for jewelry; but "gold, silver, precious stones," may be wrought into a thousand forms of beauty, sparkling with myriad splendors. The solid marble superstructure resting upon its deep foundations of granite, firm as the seated hills, can scarcely be too finely finished or too sumptuously adorned. Upon a thorough mental culture sit gracefully, and quite at home, philosophy, history, poetry, eloquence, music, painting--all in literature and the arts that can refine the taste, refresh the heart, and lead the fancy captive. To the mind thus disciplined and adorned, a pleasant path is opened to the broadest and richest fields of intellectual inquiry, where it may range at will with the freedom of an angel's wing, charmed with beauties such as Eden never knew, thrilled with melodies such as the leaden ear of ignorance never heard, rejoicing in a fellowship of wisdom worthy of the enfranchised sons of God, and realizing the truth so finely expressed by the greatest of German poets:-- "Only through beauty's morning gate, Canst thou to knowledge penetrate; The mind, to face truth's higher glances, Must swim some time in beauty's trances; The heavenly harping of the muses, Whose sweetest trembling through thee rings, A higher life into thy soul infuses, And wings it upward to the soul of things." But is there not something still better, which ought to be an element in every process of human education? What is man? Merely an intellectual animal? Nay, but he has a spirit within him allied to angels and to God. The higher nature calls for culture no less than the lower. To the development and discipline of the rational and æsthetic faculties must be subjoined "the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Otherwise we educate only the inferior part of the man, and leave the superior to chance and the Devil. Make scholars of your children, but do not omit to make them Christians. Lead them to Parnassus, but let them go by the way of Calvary. Conduct them to Olympus, but let them carry the dew of Olivet upon their sandals. Make them drink deeply from the wells of human wisdom, but deny them not the living water whereof if one drink he shall never thirst again.