What is meant by universal mental cultivation? We find it not in the history of nations. The history of the world is no more than a record of human usurpations based on human ignorance. A powerful few have ever moulded and wielded the destinies of mankind. Learning has shone only to render more brilliant some kingly reign. Unlike the great luminary of day, which it should resemble, its beams have ever been confined within the compass of a court or palace. The mountain peaks only of society have felt its light, while at the base, where the great mass congregate, there has been utter darkness. True, we are told of remarkable eras in the history of learning--of the Augustan age, when all that was beautiful and powerful in thought, all that was magic in conception or grand in imagery, shone forth in the most attractive forms; of the reigns of queens Anne and Elizabeth, when the graces and elegances of English literature were unrivalled, as they appeared in the majestic imaginings of Shakspeare, the nervous beauty and simplicity of Addison, and other master minds; of periods in the learning of Italy, when Dante, Tasso, Petrarch, gave a new name and a new being to Italian intellect. But was the state of society, as a whole, refined and elevated in any of these remarkable eras? The lights were chiefly intellectual, and belonged to the higher grades of society; besides, they shone but for a short time and departed, leaving the deeper darkness. Moreover, they were purely literary, and pure literature never reaches the mass of mind. True, it is perpetual, and shines down from age to age, as do the lights of those eras which now illumine in some degree the mind of the present; but it is only a reflection from eminence to eminence--the people see it, feel it not. We repeat it, learning has ever been confined to the few; the many have never known its invigorating influence. Now, mind is the moving and guiding principle of all human action. Mind teaches the nature of the delicate and momentous relations which unite society, preserves their beauty and uniformity, developes their power and usefulness. This mind dwells with the mass of mankind. We would then, that society may be elevated, have the rays of knowledge penetrate and expand this mind. We would have the genius of learning courted and wooed from her mountain residence, that literature and science might come down, and walk radiant with truth and loveliness through every grade of the community. We would have the bright light struck out from the mind of the mass, and its illuminations reach the uttermost boundaries of the land, as extensive as the circling canopy of the sky. So speaks the voice of humanity, even as the voice of an angel.