A HINT TO TEACHERS OF HISTORY.

It is a very common thing in some schools to give frequent exercises to pupils on the characters of historical personages, and to desire that short summaries or estimates of such characters should be produced in writing. Such a practice is obviously of great advantage in encouraging observation and judgment, and in giving to a pupil the habit of referring all acts, public and private, to the standard of conscience and of right. But it has one danger, to which I should like to call the attention of teachers. It often leads to a hasty and ill-considered judgment; and leads children to forget that, after all, the business of estimating character is a serious thing. In many of the current treatises on history, estimates of individual character are given very freely and positively, while the data on which the estimates are founded are withheld. Of course it is very easy to go through the list of sovereigns and famous men, summing up each man's character in a short formula, which has a plausible, decisive look on the face of it, and which can be remembered without difficulty. But every man who knows how complex a thing human motive is, certainly every man who knows himself, is well aware that it`is always difficult, and often unjust, to sum up a character in this compendious way. Let a man ask himself, Is there any single sentence of this kind which would do me perfect justice? Would it be fair or right to estimate the animus of my life by inferences drawn from one or two public or official acts? May it not be possible that specific acts so selected might be exceptional ones, by no means characteristic of me; and that any inferences founded on them might be utterly false as regarded my general conduct and intentions? Indeed, it is not possible to come to right conclusions respecting any man's character, unless we know not merely two or three of the prominent acts of his public life, but something also of his education, his temptations, the notions of right and wrong which prevailed in his age, the difficulties, the solicitations, the good and evil influences which surrounded him. We ought to remember that the point of view from which he looked at the events, and perhaps at his own duty, was a very different one from ours; and that we see the same things in the light of their consequences, and with the calm teaching of subsequent experience to help our judgment. The lives of Cranmer, of Queen Mary, of Raleigh, of Bacon, of Cromwell, will occur as among the most conspicuous examples of the sort of moral problems which history presents. Who can look back upon the controversies which have been associated with their names, at the alternate cloud and sunshine which have come over their memories, without feeling that it is impossible to dismiss their characters in a sentence, or to judge them fairly without considerable study and impartial effort? When it is considered that these are but types of a large number of historical personages, who have been extravagantly praised by the zeal of one party, or unfairly condemned by the bigotry of another, the reflection is forced upon us that human character is, after all, not a thing to be lightly discussed; that the world does not really abound in the sort of characters who make the heroes and the villains of romance, but in men of like passions with ourselves; men in whom the good and the evil are mingled in strange and ever-varying proportions; men of great aims, perhaps, but of mean performances, whose lives are a great conflict between what they would be, and what they are between what God designed them to be, and what circumstances are daily making them; men who, in the touching language of the great Apostle—“ find another law in their members, warring against the law of the mind, and bringing them into captivity to the law of sin."

Is history, then, to lose the character which Dionysius gave it "Philosophy teaching by examples?" Are we to let slip the opportunity of imparting to our pupils the moral lessons which it is fitted to convey? By no means. Rightly taught, history will be found to abound in exemplary lessons, and to furnish

admirable discipline in discriminating between the good and the evil in human conduct. There are certain plain cases of right and wrong in which a learner's approbation or censure must be challenged, and his judgment so enlightened that he rises from the examination of them with a clearer perception of the beauty of holiness, and a heightened scorn of what is base and mean. But, beside this, there is another sort of moral lesson, scarcely less important, which history can teach. It should make the student feel the delicacy and the difficulty of the task of estimating a great man. It ought to impress him with the necessity of suspending his judgment in cases where the evidence is incomplete.

The great historian whose loss we have so recently mourned has, I fear, done a little to encourage among students of history the notion that this difficulty does not exist, and so to invite others to imitate the fatal facility with which he himself was accustomed to solve problems of this kind. Lord Macaulay possessed, in fact, the vice to which a cynical critic has given the name of "omniscience." He never halts or expresses a doubt. He rarely confesses, even in the case of the most obscure person whose place in history he designs to fix, that the testimony respecting him is inadequate, and that he finds some difficulty in determining his real character or share in a transaction. On the contrary, a paragraph in an old news-letter, a scrap of personal anecdote, or a casual allusion in a ballad or a pasquinade, suffices to brand a name with infamy or to condemn it "with faint praise." Now a good teacher will not fail to discourage all such hasty generalization, and to show his pupils how much trust-worthy evidence is necessary to enable us to form a just estimate of one who lived long ago. He will be disposed to make the summary of a man's character the last rather than the first part of a biographical lesson. In this way, the teaching of history may incidentally serve a most important purpose in the moral education of a child. It will become to him a discipline in charity and forbearance, and in that careful induction by which alone so complex a thing as human character can be rightly weighed.

THE ENGLISH" INFINITIVE" AND ITS VARIOUS

CONSTRUCTIONS.

THERE are many instances in English where the outward appearance of a word points to the class into which it ought to be put. For instance, the possessive case of nouns, the past tense of verbs, &c., are cases in point. We see from the form of the words what they are, and are therefore less likely to bestow that consideration upon them which they would otherwise receive at our hands.

Among words of this nature is the infinitive of verbs. It happens that in English the infinitive is preceded by " to." Hence we can easily dispose of such forms as to love," ,"" to be loved," &c., by saying that they are verbs in the infinitive mood." An observant scholar, however, will, we think, feel a little remorse in thus passing over the various constructions of which the infinitive is susceptible in English. We propose to give a short space to its consideration.

The English infinitive with "To" is always equal in its construction, either to a VERBAL noun, or else to a preposition and a noun.

(a.) When the infinitive forms the subject or the object of a verb, it is then equal to a verbal noun. In the following extract, the various infinitives form the subject of the sentence :

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

To throw a perfume on the violet,

To smooth the ice, or (to) add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.'

King John.

In the above, the infinitives in italics, it will be noticed, are neither more nor less than verbal nouns-nouns as the subjects of the sentence, yet retaining somewhat of the force of their verbs, as is seen in the power of some of them to govern the objective case. In the seventh line, there is an instance of an infinitive forming the object of another infinitive, namely—to garnish, the construction being to seek to garnish. In the following, the infinitive is the object of the verb defer :

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God will not long defer
To vindicate the glory of His name.'

.”—Samson Agonistes.

Here, as far as syntax is concerned, we might read, defer the vindication of, &c. There is yet another case where the infinitive with to is equivalent to a substantive merely. In such sentences as the following

"It is useless to grieve,"

the infinitive is a substantive in apposition to the pronoun it, the sense being to grieve is useless, and the construction it (viz., to grieve) is useless. So "it is human to err"=it, viz., to err, is human. Of course, if the verb be transitive, it will require an object, as

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"Tis best to weigh

The enemy more mighty than he seems."

Here to weigh is in apposition to the pronoun it—" It, viz., to weigh, &c., is best." From what was said above of the infinitive's being sometimes the object of another verb, is derived the old-fashioned rule that "one verb governs another in the infinitive mood," which of course "means," to use the words of Dr. Latham, " that one verb can govern another only by converting it into a noun."

The cases like all the above examples, where the infinitive with to is equivalent to a noun, are very simple. The other constructions of the English infinitive are somewhat more complex. What is often called the infinitive is a prepositional phrase, or is, in other words, a preposition with its case. Now we know that very often a preposition and a noun are used with an adjectival force; e.g., A man of prudence a prudent man. In the first expression, the phrase, "of prudence," performs the office of the adjective in the second. So a book of reference, a book for reading, &c. In a precisely similar construction we may use the so-called infinitive. We give a few examples :-A house to let a house for letting; a time to die a time for dying, or a time for death. So again :-A living to earn; a debt to pay; a pen to write with, &c., &c.

The fact is, such expressions are something more than infinitives. They are infinitives (i.e., verbal nouns), plus a preposition. Indeed the preposition to, which commonly precedes the infinitive, does not form a part of the mood itself in any case. We have abundant instances in English of infinitives without to; e.g., I dare not do it; he need not come; Who saw him die? It will, perhaps, be objected here that in such cases the to is omitted. But it seems to us that it would be more correct to say that in those constructions of the infinitive where to has not the force of a preposition, the to has been inserted; and that those cases where the to is said to be omitted, are in truth instances of the normal form of the infinitive. In Anglo-Saxon, the parent of English, the simple infinitive was not preceded by to; it was complete without it; it had its proper termination; etan meant (to) eat; drincan meant (to) drink. Sometimes, however, (and from this perhaps arose our almost constant use of to before the infinitive,) they did insert to before the infinitive; but then the infinitive was put in the dative case, as being governed like a noun. Examples:

Thu næfst nan thing mid to hladenne.
Thou hast nothing (with) to draw.

Ic hæbbe mete to etanne.

I have meat to eat.

John iv. 11.

John iv. 32.

THE ENGLISH INFINITIVE AND ITS VARIOUS CONSTRUCTIONS.

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In these Anglo-Saxon sentences and their English equivalents to has a prepositional force. It is here used to "express the relation between one noun and another." We have

So

Thing to hladenne (hladenne verbal noun or gerund);
(no) thing to draw (draw = verbal noun or inf.);

or—(no) thing for drawing (drawing = verbal noun.)

Mete to etanne (etanne=gerund or verbal noun).
Meat to eat (eat=infin. or verbal noun).

Meat for eating (eating=gerund or verbal noun).

Again, a preposition with its noun is often used in English as an equivalent for an adverb; e.g., The boy was punished for rudeness. In precisely the same construction the infinitive (so called) may be used; that is to say, it has the force of a prepositional phrase; for example

"And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray."

In this instance, the words to scoff and to pray are phrases expressing purpose. Indeed, in some provincial dialects they say "He goes to hunting," &c., instead of 'He goes to hunt."

This adverbial use of our infinitive with "to" was generally expressed in AngloSaxon not by the simple infinitive, but by the dative infinitive or gerund with the preposition "to." For example, in John iv. 38, we have

Ic sende eow to rypanne, &c.
I have sent you to reap, &c.

Indeed we have in Latin precisely the same idiom :—

Ego misi vos ad metendum, &c.

In the three examples just given, the preposition to (ad) has its ordinary prepositional force, governing the verbal nouns which follow, viz., rypanne, reap, and metendum respectively; and in each case the phrase, viz. to rypanne, to reap, and ad metendum has an adverbial construction, expressive of purpose. In such cases the preposition to denotes the end to which an action or a thing is directed; thus-"I send you❞—to what end?" to reap," &c. "Give me a book." What for? "To read." In old-fashioned and in vulgar English, we have this expressed more strongly by a cumulation of prepositions. Thus :

"What went ye out for to see?"

:

to geseonne (A.S.) "This is Elias which was for to come.'

He ys Helias the

to cumenne ys (A.S.)

Matt. xi. 14.

Some grammarians are of opinion that those forms of our "infinitive" in which (according to our explanation) the "to" governs the following verbal (as "to" governs “reap” above) are of the same origin as our gerund or participial-noun ending in ing, and that both are derived from the Anglo-Saxon infinitive (in the dative with " to"), ending in nne. Archbishop Whately, on the other hand, calls our gerund in ing an infinitive. We quote his own words :

"It is to be observed that in English there are two infinitives; one in 'ing,' the same in sound as the participle present." And then in a note he says, "Grammarians have produced much needless perplexity by speaking of the participle in ‘ing' being employed so and so; when it is manifest that that very employment of the word constitutes it, to all intents and purposes, an infinitive, and not a participle.”—Logic, B. II., Cap. i., § 3, and note.

Besides the adjectival and adverbial use of the infinitive with "to," illustrated

above, there are other instances where it is a 66 after adjectives. For examples :

prepositional phrase," especially

Ready to depart=ready for departure.

=

Eager to learn eager for learning.

Desirous to go=desirous of going, &c., &c.

From the above considerations, we think we shall be justified in making the following statements :

I. The so-called English infinitive with "to" is always equal in construction either to a noun merely or to a noun and a preposition.

II. The preposition "to," which usually precedes the infinitive, is no part of the infinitive itself, but is either redundant, or else has the ordinary force of a preposition.

N.B.-The to is redundant in the following cases when the infinitive is either :(i) The subject of a verb. (ii) The object of a verb. (iii) In apposition to the pronoun it. S. H.

ON MAPS AND MAP DRAWING.

THE most correct representation of the globe of the earth is by means of an artificial globe, as the one is only a diminished copy of the other; the shape and position of the continents, islands, seas, rivers, &c., being the same on the artificial globe as on the earth itself, only of vastly smaller size.

But a globe is inconvenient for common purposes, and, if small, could show few names or places, and if made large enough to cure this deficiency, it would be so cumbrous as to be nearly useless.

Hence has arisen the necessity for representing portions of the face of the earth on a flat surface, and such representation is called a map.

In strictness no map is perfectly accurate, for no portion of the outside of a globe can be exactly laid down on a plane or flat surface. The difference, however, is so small as to be practically of no importance.

On a globe or map there are certain lines and marks represented corresponding to real appearances on the surface of the earth; as the form of a coast line, the course of rivers, the direction of mountain ranges. These are only copies in miniature of what actually is found on the surface of the earth; they represent, in short, the features of natural or physical geography.

Thus, in a good map, the south coast of England, the course of the Thames, the outline of Lake Geneva, are copies on a small scale, as exact as they can be made, of the real south coast of England, of the real windings, tributaries, and direction of the river Thames, and of the real shape of Lake Geneva.

But there are other lines, straight, or regularly curved, drawn on a map or globe, which have no existence on the globe of the earth. They are, in fact, imaginary lines. Thus, the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn, mathematical lines drawn on an artificial globe or map, do not exist in reality on the surface of the earth; they only show the distance all round the globe (23° 28′), beyond which the sun never goes from the equator. Besides the tropics, are the equator, the polar circles, the parallels of latitude, and the meridians of longitude. These are mathematical lines, and an acquaintance with them, and with the purposes they serve, is a part of the science of mathematical geography.

But though these lines are imaginary, they are of real service, enabling us to determine the position of places on the earth, and so to ascertain their direction and distance from each other. Among the most important of these lines are the meridians of longitude, and the parallels of latitude.