The system of scientific exchanges now so prevalent, and one department of which has received so great a share of legislative encouragement and regard, followed in the train of these great movements; and their philanthropic originator, careless of fame, and content with the consciousness of having promoted the true and lasting welfare of the rising generation, interposing no claims, and putting forward no pretensions, to recognition or reward, left the early and active scene of his labors only to renew them elsewhere. Having transferred himself to the city of New York, he unfolded his plan of operations to a few select friends, capable of appreciating his views, and prepared to co-operate with him in their realization. Here he met with much encouragement and practical assistance, and here, year after year, were gathered, in one of the rooms of the hall of the Board of Education, the noblest and finest specimens of science and of art which the children of the public schools, and such others as could be induced to interest themselves in these attractive operations, could produce. From this rich depository, were, from time to time, forwarded to every section of the Union choice selections, with the view of elicting exchanges; and here were busily and profitably engaged hundreds of active young hands and minds, whose energies might, but for this judicious employment, have been diverted to vice and crime.

Having thus laid the foundation for extensive usefulness in his peculiar field of operations here, Mr. Holbrook turned his attention to the South; there, as here, he surrounded himself daily with eager and attentive young listeners-ex• citing their curiosity and stimulating their exertions by displaying the beautiful and attractive tokens of regard forwarded by their young friends in New York, and pointing out to them the mode by which these most acceptable tokens and remembrances might be reciprocated. Then, after having penetrated the rural districts of Virginia, diffusing light and knowledge wherever he went, and meeting with the kindest and most generous appreciation of his labors and his motives, he succeeded in enlisting the interest and sympathies of the most intelligent and influential men of that "Ancient Dominion" and its adjacent borders; and, repairing to the seat of government, he at once secured the co-operation and countenance of the occupants of the various executive and legislative departments, of the representatives of foreign courts, and of the municipal authorities of the city. Indefatigable in his desire to advance his favorite system, and disregarding the numerous indications of approaching age and failing health, he was induced, during the summer of 1854, to visit the city of Lynchburg, in Virginia; where, in one of his geological excursions, unaccompanied by any of his friends or pupils, he accidentally lost his footing on a steep cliff, overhanging a deep stream of water, into which he was precipitated, and where his lifeless remains were some days afterward discovered.

There, in a secluded corner of the churchyard, followed to his long home by a train of weeping children and pupils-far from the friends and associates who knew and loved him longest and best, reposes all that was mortal of one of the kindest, noblest, purest, and most disinterested and devoted friends of humanity! Long, long after the fleeting and transitory triumph of the politician and the warrior, and the busy schemes of the proud, the vain, and the wealthy, shall have faded into insignificance and oblivion and been forgotten, will his work of humble and unpretending usefulness, his labors for the benefit and advancement of the young, remain an imperishable monument of his untiring philanthropy and ever-active beneficence. How seldom does the world recognize its truest

benefactors! how little do mankind appreciate the immortal few among them, but not of them, who, amid the pressure of straitened circumstances; surrounded by innumerable embarrassments and obstacles; borne down by pain, by illness, and physical suffering; and oppressed by mental anxiety and harassing cares; "press right onward, bating not one jot of heart or hope," in the path of duty; diffusing around them, on every hand, the elements of knowledge, of wisdom, and of happiness; "sowing by the side of all waters" those precious and invaluable germs of future excellence, destined for perennial growth and progress; seeking no other recognition than that of kindred spirits, and asking and receiving no other reward than the consciousness of a life well spent!

Such was JOSIAH HOLBROOK. In the congenial soil of his noble nature, every Christian virtue took deep root, and yielded an ample and luxuriant harvest. With no personal aspirations, no desire for fame, no ambition for individual advancement, and no wish for wealth, he sought only the welfare and happiness of others, and was content to know that these were secured, to pass on his unassuming way. A welcome inmate in every social and domestic circle, the idol of the young, the dignified companion and counselor of mature age, the warmhearted friend, and the devout and earnest Christian, his memory will long be cherished and revered by those who knew his worth, and enjoyed his confidence and regard. His venerable and beloved form has forever passed from among us; but we know that his emancipated spirit has winged its flight to those blissful regions where "the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

"Green be the turf above thee,

Friend of my better days;
None knew thee but to love thee,

None named thee but to praise!"

NOTE A.

AGRICULTURAL SEMINARY AT DERBY.-A former pupil of the Seminary at Derby has furnished us with the following account of its plan of operations for the first half-year.

"You ask me what I remember about the Academy of Messrs. Josiah Holbrook & Truman Coe. It was established in the town of Derby, in this State, in the spring of the year 1824, and was, I believe, discontinued after one or two years. The Prospectus published in the newspapers of that day gives an outline of the course of study and the plan of operations. It is substantially as follows:

"The exercises designed are the study of the Latin, Greek, French, and English languages, Rhetoric, Elocution, Geography, and History :-the Mathematics, as Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Plane and Spherical Trigonometry, Mensuration, and Fluxions, Natural Philosophy in its various branches:-Astronomy, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology. No efforts will be spared to render these sciences practical, and fitted to common life. With that view, particular attention will be given to Composition, Declamation with extempore debates, the uses of the higher branches of Mathematics in common business, Practical Surveying, the application of Natural Philosophy to various kinds of machinery, agricultural instruments, &c.,-testing the principles of chemical science in mixing and preparing soils, forming manures, making cider, beer, spirit, and various other articles of agriculture and domestic economy, agricultural, geological, and botanical excursions into various parts of the country, examining and analyzing soils, and practical agriculture."

"One prominent object of the school is to qualify teachers. The most approved methods of instruction will be introduced, and lectures will be given on most of the Physical Sciences, attended with demonstrations and illustrations sufficiently plain and familiar to admit of their being introduced into common education. Courses on Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Botany, will commence at the opening of the Seminary. Ladies will be admitted to the lectures, and there will be a department connected with the institution, where females can pursue any branch of Education they may wish.'"

"The number of scholars of both sexes, during the summer of 1824, was perhaps 50 or 60; among whom were five boys from New Haven, about as many from New York, and some from other places, near and remote. The school was certainly an attractive and pleasant one, and those who were so disposed made good progress in useful learning. Several of the boys were intrusted with surveying and leveling instruments, and used them frequently and successfully. Mr. Coe gave special attention to the mathematical studies, and Mr. Holbrook gave lectures and instruction in natural history and allied subjects. The boys rambled extensively over the hills of that region, did some work in hoeing corn and potatoes and in making hay, and once made a pedestrian excursion for minerals, to Lane's mine in Monroe."

"The working of the school was harmonious,—a spirit of study generally prevailed among the pupils, and the supply of out-door exercise and sports was ample."

NOTE B.

LYCEUM-ORIGIN OF NAME; PROGRESS.

The name Lyceum has been transferred from the local appellation of a building or grove, used for gymnastic exercises, in the suburbs of Athens. This was called the Lyceum, because it was near the temple of Apollo Lycius, "the destroyer of wolves" (Lukoi.) It was made over to Aristotle, to be used by him as a place for delivering his instructions, and as such became famous under its local name. The word was adopted in modern times, and made a generic term or common noun, to designate schools where the philosophy of Aristotle was taught, and subsequently in France to institutions for giving a higher grade of instruction to adults, upon a plan sometimes in whole or in part mutual or conversational, and thus somewhat similar to the lectures in which Aristotle gave his instructions at the original Lyceum.

These lectures are supposed to have been of two kinds; those which he delivered in the forenoon, to confidential-" esoteric"-hearers, on abstruse subjects in philosophy, nearly answering to theology, and on physics and dialectics; and, secondly, those which he delivered in the afternoon, to a less select or "exoteric " audience, which included rhetoric, sophistics, and dialectics, and were of a more popular character. Such courses of lectures, which were then usually given by philosophers eminent enough to be at the head of a school, corresponded in some measure to the collegiate or university education of the present day. Aristotle's instructions were delivered while he and his pupils walked about in the grounds of the Lyceum; and his school was under certain regulations for the preservation of order and decorum.

The name was applied to an institution opened in Paris, in 1786. Pilâtre de Rozier, the celebrated æronaut, and who perished by falling from his balloon, had some years before attempted to establish, under the name of "Museum," an institution for the improvement of adults, of which we find no very full account, but which seems to have resembled quite strikingly, in some of its chief features, the American Lyceum. It included a collection of natural objects, and a library. But it was pecuniarily unsuccessful, and was dissolved; the collection and books being sold. A number of gentlemen of literary taste, some little time afterward, associated themselves together to establish another institution, on a plan improved and enlarged from that of de Rozier's museum, and which they called the Lyceum. At the rooms of this institution, daily lectures were delivered by M. de La Harpe, an eminent author and critic, during the period from 1786 to 1794; when they were interrupted by his imprisonment, and were subsequently resumed for a time. These lectures were to some extent similar to our present popular lectures; or rather to the courses on the Lowell foundation, and sometimes to those before our various young men's institutes. They were of a popular character, and were attended by numerous audiences of the most fashionable people of the day. They were upon the history of literature, and included much collateral disquisition, and particularly criticism. The author subsequently published their substance, under the title of "Cours de Littérature." The work has become a standard one, and has been often republished, and variously edited, with notes and additions. The lectures of La Harpe appear to have constituted the principal instruction of the Lyceum, as the celebrity of the institution did not survive his connection with it.

The name has, during the present century, been applied in France to a class of schools corresponding to the gymnasiums of Germany, and the academies and public high schools of this country.

The Conservatory (Conservatoire) of Arts and Trades, in Paris, which originated with Vaucanson, in the reign of Louis XVI., but did not take specific shape

and action until 1796, embodies, in a systematic form, many of the ideas of the Lyceum, as proposed and labored for by Josiah Holbrook, for all classes of persons and interests, from 1828 to 1840. It has grown with the development of national industry, and the progress of science; and, aided by annual governmental grants, it has become consolidated into an institution. Its thirteen galleries of materials and of machines may be called the archives of industrial arts. Its lectures, scientific and practical, delivered in a large amphitheater, are crowded in the winter evenings by representatives of the working classes. Similar institutions, but resembling more the mechanic institutions of England, exist in the principal manufacturing towns of France.

MECHANICS' INSTITUTIONS. SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. The history of the Mechanics' Institution through all its phases of development, from the earliest young men's mutual improvement society established in London, in 1690, with the encouragement of Defoe, Dr. Kidder, and others, under the name of "Society for the Reformation of Manners"-the Society for the Suppression of Vice-the "Reformation Society of Paisley" in 1787; the Sunday Society in 1789, the Cast Iron Philosophers in 1791, the first Artizans' Library in 1795, and the Birmingham Brotherly Society in 1796, all among the working classes of Birmingham;-the popular scientific lectures of Dr. John Anderson, to tradesmen and mechanics in Glasgow, in 1793-the establishment of the Anderson's University at that place in 1796, and the incorporation into it of a gratuitous course of elementary philosophical lectures by Dr. Birkbeck in 1799, for the benefit of mechanics, the Edinburg School of Arts in 1821, the Glasgow Mechanics' Institute, the Liverpool Mechanics' and Apprentice's Library, and the London Mechanic Institution in 1823-which from this date, through the labors of Dr. Birkbeck, Mr. Brougham and others, spread rapidly all over the kingdom until there are now over 700 societies scattered through every considerable village, especially every manufacturing district in the kingdom, numbering in 1849, 120,000 members, 408 reading-rooms, and 815,000 volumes-constitute one of the most interesting chapters in the educational or social history of Great Britian.

In 1825, as one of the direct results of the extended and growing interest in mechanic institutions and popular libraries, the "Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge" was formed; which commenced immediately a series of cheap and useful publications in a great variety of subjects, and thus led the way to a new era in English literature-the preparation of books adapted in subject and mode of treatment, as well as in price, to the circumstances of the great mass of the people. In 1831, this society commenced a quarterly journal of education, which was discontinued in 1836, at the close of the tenth volume. In 1836, two volumes of essays on education, several of them delivered as lectures before the American Institute of Instruction, were published by this society. These twelve volumes, and the four volumes published by the Central Society of Education, composed of several of the most active and liberal-minded members of the former society, contributed a large mass of valuable information as to the organization, administration, and instruction of public schools in different countries, and prepared the way, in 1839, for the appointment of the Committee of Privy Council on Education. Besides these educational works, the society published other books, comprehended within the intended scope of its action, to the number, in all, of more than two hundred volumes. Among these were the "Penny Magazine;" the "Penny Cyclopedia," a series of more than two hundred maps; a "Gallery of Portraits," in seven volumes; "Statistics of Great Britain," by Mr. M' Culloch, in five volumes; a complete series of agricultural works; two extensive series of volumes called the “Library of Entertaining Knowledge,” and the “Library of Useful Knowledge," which were published in parts or pamphlets; De Morgan's "Differential and Integral Calculus;” tables of logarithms and numbers, and of statistics on annuities, savings banks, and mechanics' institutes. The