But it is a different thing to act out the character of the American, because it combines the other elements which are sent forth from the domestic altar. A prominent and distinguishing feature in American teaching, should be the full developement of the domestic character. And when the domestic altar shall be adequate to the supply of its own demands, the American boy will be properly instructed in his character as an American citizen. GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTISM. The Greeks and Romans were patriots more from passion and impulse, than from regular and systematic training. Hence the impassioned and impulsive outbursts that are so frequent in their history. The Roman seemed ever ready to lay his life upon the altar of his country; and the soul of the Greek was unconquerable even by superior prowess of some brother Greek, and, as far as the self-sacrificing spirit of the patriot is viewed, their superiors are not found upon record. But there is another element that enters into the formation of the American character. With the noble traits that raised the Greeks and the Romans above every other nation of their day, there are to be associated in the American the more refined qualities of character which render him pre-eminent as a social and religious being. And without these qualities the American character is incomplete; they are essential to its exhibition in the perfection of its beauty. I do not say that the youth of Greece and Rome were entirely destitute of those social qualities which I recognise as being the peculiar adornment of the American character. These qualities were certainly possessed in a degree by the men of those nations. But what I say is, that they were lost sight of in the requirements for the forum and the field, and obscured in the brilliance of the statesman’s honors and glare of military glory. Thus it is clear that it was the patriot which those ages were most likely to exhibit, while other and equally essential parts of character were overlooked and obscured. The domestic altar was wanting, in its softening and subduing influence, to mould the man for the domestic circle, and for the refined intercourse it demands. PROPER ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER.