near five score summers on the mountains; the old man, grasping a long stick, leads his children with a firm step. His son, the master of the flocks, follows with his wife; she is often seated on a horse, with a child in her arms, and other horses are led, all clothed with the gay trappings of a Turkish stud. Asses are allotted to the younger children, who are placed amidst the domestic stores, and never without a pet cat in their arms; long tresses of hair hang down their necks, and are kept closely to the head by a circlet of coins. By their side walks the eldest son, with all the air and alacrity of a young sportsman; over his shoulder hangs a long-barrelled gun, in his hand is the cage of a decoy partridge, and a classic looking hound follows at his heels; a number of shepherd boys mingle with the flocks and bring up the rear. The gay costume, the varied noises of the cattle, and the high glee attending the party on this annual expedition, must be supplied by the imagination.

"I should think that twenty families passed in succession during our halt, few of them having less than one hundred head

of stock, and many had more. In some families, attendants,

servants, or farm-laborers were among the cattle, generally with their aprons tied around, in which they carried two or three young kids; they had often over their shoulders a small calf, with all its legs tied together on the breast, exactly as seen in the offerings on the bas-reliefs at Xanthus and elsewhere.

"The longevity of these people in this pastoral country is very remarkable. I am sure that we have seen at least twenty peasants, within the last two days, above a hundred years of age, and apparently still enjoying health and activity of body; in some instances the mind appeared wandering. An old-looking hag, screaming violently, seized my servant Mania, and asked if he was come to take away her other child for a soldier, for if he were gone, she should have none left to take care of her. The temperate habits of the Turks, as well as some of their customs, may in part account for the prolongation of life in this country. One custom I may mention, as tending to diminish the cares of age, and to show the excellence of these simple people. When sons grow up and marry, the father gives over to them his flocks and property, and trusts to the known natural affection of his children to take care of him in his declining years; to a son his parents are always his first charge."

A HYMN OF THE SEA.

By W. C. BRYANT.

THE sea is mighty, but a mightier sways

His restless billows. Thou, whose hands have scooped
His boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy breath,
That moved in the beginning o'er his face,
Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient waves,
To its strong motion, roll and rise and fall.
Still from that realm of rain thy cloud goes up,
As at the first, to water the great earth,
And keep her valleys green. A hundred realms
Watch its broad shadow warping on the wind,
And in the dropping shower, with gladness, hear
Thy promise of the harvest. I look forth,
Over the boundless blue, where, joyously,
The bright crests of innumerable waves
Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands
Of a great multitude are upward flung
In acclamation. I behold the ships
Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle,

Or stemming toward far lands, or hastening home
From the old world. It is thy friendly breeze.
That bears them, with the riches of the land,
And treasure of dear lives, till, in the port,
The shouting seaman climbs and furls the sail.

But who shall bide thy tempest, who shall face
The blast that wakes the fury of the sea?
Oh God! thy justice makes the world turn pale,
When on the armed fleet, that, royally,
Bears down the surges, carrying war, to smite
Some city, or invade some thoughtless realm,
Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks
Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails
Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts

Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks,
Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf,
Their cruel engines, and their hosts, arrayed
In trappings of the battle field, are whelmed
By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks.
Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause,
A moment, from the bloody work of war.

These restless surges eat away the shores
Of earth's old continents, the fertile plain
Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down,
And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets
Of the drowned city. Thou meanwhile, afar,
In the
green chambers of the middle sea,
Where broadest spread the waters and the line
Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work,
Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm
To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age,
He builds beneath the waters, till, at last,
His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check
The long wave rolling from the Arctic pole
To break upon Japan. Thou bidst the fires,
That smoulder under ocean, heave on high
The new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks,
A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird.
The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts

With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airs
Ripple the living lakes, that, fringed with flowers,
Are gathering in the hollows. Thou dost look
On thy creation and pronounce it good.
Its valleys, glorious with their summer green,
Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods,
Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, join
The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn.

FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION, TOGETHER WITH THE FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE BOARD.

IN the floods of periodical literature, which have issued from the press since the publication of this Report, we have scarcely been able to catch a glimpse of a notice of it, or the doings of the Board or Secretary, or of the progress of Education in the Commonwealth. How are we to account for the silence of Literature at the progress or even the movements of Education?

While the Board should have long since found able coadjutors in the conductors of periodical literature, we acknowledge our own fault in the matter, and numerous supporters in its patrons, it has been left to convince the public of its utility, and to carry on its plans single-handed and alone; and the only discussions, which have excited any considerable degree of agitation, have related to the question of existence. The question, whether the Board shall be abolished or suffered to live, not supported, is yet entertaining men's minds; while we might rather have expected them to be engaged in discussing measures of policy and progress with an eager zeal.

How can a body of men act with any degree of vigor, while the humiliating questions of the propriety of continuing its existence as a body is gravely controverted? Why is it, that the voice of Literature has not long since drowned these preliminary clamors? Is it because the subject is exhausted, unpopular, or barren, because education has nothing to do with the progress of society, or because the Board and the Secretary have by their own individual exertions, efficient as indeed they are, forestalled the suggestions of all Experience, the inferences of all Analysis, and the conclusions of all Philosophy? Is it because the office of the common-school system is too insignificant to merit notice, because its chaotic materials have not yet assuined a character, because it wants individuality, or because it has already arrived at the perfection. of a full maturity? Should the Literature of this State fail to discover in its Board of Education the movements and bearing of a young Hercules, while its operations have attracted the admiration of distant nations, and the first words of encourageVOL. XXXIII. - 3D S. VOL. XV. NO. I.

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ment, which greet its ear, fall in no insignificant accents from the lips of a people separated from us by the broad Atlantic ? Not thus does Literature in sister States. Virginia is bestirring herself in the work of common-school education, and her Literary Messenger, if not foremost in the enterprise, espouses its prosecution with a most commendable zeal.

The apathy here is not because people are indifferent. The community is shaking off its slumbers in this matter. To its ear the sleepy hum, by which the indistinctly uttered claims of common-school education once lulled it to a deeper repose, is becoming the imperative summons which quickens it to a vitality of multiplied vigor. The infinite individual and social difference between men educated and uneducated, by the striking contrasts presented in condition, fixes observation. To the common-school system the ignorant, lamenting over their inestimable misfortune in having been insensible to its value in early life, do homage. On it the philanthropist rests his anxious gaze, in the ardent expectation, that, though it now be a little cloud just visible in the horizon, and no bigger than a man's hand, it will soon pervade the whole hemisphere of mind, and, fraught with fertility, penetrate into all the secret sources of mental vegetation, causing abundant harvests to grow upon and beautify barren desolations. To it the wise look joyfully, as the instrument which shall eradicate imposition, empiricism, prejudice, and superstition, and prostrate the barriers of factitious distinction.

That its movements are onward is visible, notwithstanding its many discouraging obstructions. Five years ago the plan of a Board of Education, suggested by the example of sister States, was adopted into practice. Such was the doubt as to its utility, that it was with difficulty that a vote could be obtained from the Legislature to continue its existence. The fostering hand of private munificence gave at once strength to its character, and health and nerve to its feeble frame. Still its claims to support have been granted reluctantly, if not grudgingly. Partisanship and sectarianism have made it the target, on which to expend the ammunition of desperate assaults. These now, beginning to perceive the real grandeur of the objects which the system embraces, are hiding their forms in shame at the dastardly spirit that would lay sacrilegious hands on institutions, whose foundations are laid in a disinterested humanity. Each successive year gives new occasion for the