Those who employ their time ill are the first to complain of its shortness. As they spend it in dressing, eating, sleeping, foolish conversation, in determining what they ought to do, and often in doing nothing, time is wanting to them for their real business and pleasures: those, on the contrary, who make the best use of it have plenty and to spare.—_La Bruyère._ * * * * * Even though it were true what many say, that education gives not to man another heart, nor another temperament, that it changes nothing in reality, and touches only the outside crust, I would not hesitate to say that it is not useless.—_La Bruyère._ THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. By A. A. CAMPBELL SWINTON. It seems at present that electricity is to be the illuminating agent of the future, and that, as gas has now all but superseded candles and oil, so in turn gas will soon be superseded by electricity. The reasons for this change are several and various, and follow that most immutable of natural laws, the law of the survival of the fittest. About the commencement of the present century, Sir Humphry Davy, the eminent chemist, succeeded in producing at the Royal Institution the most brilliant light then known. By passing the electricity derived from an enormous battery of four thousand plates through two charcoal points separated from one another, he obtained in air a continuous electric discharge four inches in length, which was increased to seven inches when the experiment was repeated _in vacuo_. This discharge, or arc, as it is called, consisted of very minute particles of charcoal, which being raised to white heat by the resistance offered by the points to the electric current, were also by its means conveyed with great rapidity from one charcoal point to the other, emitting during their passage a light of dazzling brilliancy. The discharge of heated particles being continuous, the arc could be maintained for a considerable length of time. This light, however, was entirely impracticable for any but purely experimental purposes. A battery of four thousand plates is not easily maintained in working order, and besides, the expense of such an arrangement puts it entirely out of the question. Of late years, however, a new method of producing electricity on a large scale has been discovered in the dynamo-electric machine, by means of which currents of great volume and intensity can be obtained from the power generated by a steam engine, water wheel, or other prime motor. This great discovery instigated scientific men to try and bring the electric light within the range of practical utility, in which end they have already been eminently successful.