years since, a board bearing the following inscription:--“This mound was planted with evergreens three times, and as often trampled down by thoughtless individuals admitted to walk in the grounds: it is now planted a fourth time.” This was the delicate but touching reproof of the worthy proprietor, who may now, however (having suffered in a good cause), congratulate himself on the amended habits of the people, brought about by the increasing enlightenment on the subject of the necessity and utility of admitting the humbler orders to places of rational and instructive recreation, aided by their improved education and temperate habits, which hold forth great encouragement to those who possess the power to extend the privileges still too scantily accorded. We are indeed satisfied that a most decided improvement in the habits and feelings of the humbler classes of the community has really taken place within the last few years, and that under judicious arrangements they might now be admitted safely even to exhibitions of objects of great intrinsic value; and in proof of this opinion we may state, that about two years since, when, on the occasion of the Queen’s coronation, the Royal Hibernian Academy opened the doors of their annual exhibition to the public gratuitously for one day, though thousands took advantage of this free admission, not the slightest accident to the property or impropriety of any kind whatever occurred. If proofs of the utility of thus disposing of the spare time of the people be required, one answer will be, that they are thus at least “kept out of harm’s way;” and in accomplishing this (quite a sufficient object for exertion when man’s propensities to evil are taken into account), a great deal more of good is achieved, for a spirit of inquiry is thus induced, and a talent for observation cultivated, which are the parents of true knowledge, and which, combined with the habit of concentrating thought and reflection, must open up the sources of wisdom, and produce an enlargement of understanding in the fortunate possessor, which older and still too prevalent methods of education are eminently calculated to repress. It has been observed, until the observation has become trite, that “knowledge is power,” and it is therefore the duty of all who are sensible of the value of mental development to encourage whatever tends to promote it; though, unfortunately, there still exists a class of men who seek to maintain undeserved superiority, by keeping all persons subordinate to them in ignorance, instead of generously extending to them such help as would enable them to advance in intelligence. How different was the feeling of him who said, that if permitted to have his wishes accomplished he would ask but for two: the first, that he might possess all knowledge that man in his finite nature can or ought to possess; and the second, that having attained this knowledge, all his fellow-creatures might be admitted to a participation of it.