Learning is, next to virtue, the most noble ornament and the highest improvement of the human mind. It is by learning that all the natural faculties of the mind obtain an eminent degree of perfection. The memory is exceedingly improved by appropriate exercise, and becomes, as it were, a storehouse of names, facts, entire discourses, etc., according to every one's exigency or purposes. The understanding--the light of the soul--is exceedingly improved by exercise, and by the acquisition of solid science and useful knowledge. Judgment, the most valuable of all the properties of the mind, and by which the other faculties are poised, governed and directed, is formed and perfected by experience, and regular well-digested studies and reflection; and by them it attains to true justness and taste. The mind, by the same means, acquires a steadiness, and conquers the aversion which sloth raises against the serious employments of its talents. How much the perfection of the mind depends upon culture, appears in the difference of understanding between the savages (who, except in treachery, cunning and shape, scarce seem to differ from the apes which inhabit their forests) and the most elegant and civilized nations. A piece of ground left wild produces nothing but weeds and briers, which by culture would be covered with corn, flowers and fruit. The difference is not less between a rough mind and one that is well cultivated. The same natural culture, indeed, suits not all persons. Geniuses must be explored, and the manner of instructing proportioned to them. But there is one thing which suits all persons, and without which knowledge is nothing but "a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal": this is the supernatural culture of the soul, or the habitual endeavor of man of rendering himself more pleasing in the sight of God by the acquisition of solid Christian virtues, in order thus to reach his last end--his eternal happiness. It is for this reason that our Saviour tells us: "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"--(Matt. xvi. 26.) It is, then, the _supernatural culture_, or the perfection of the soul, that is to be principally attended to in education.