Having completed this course of natu ral philosophy, we shall next turn our at tention to the mode adopted in the se cond head of academical studies, or the course of Moral philosophy in the attain ment of this branch. The first year is de voted to Locke and logic, and the two following to Paley, Hartley, Burlamagni, Rutherford, Clarke on the Attributes, and other authors whose writings are of a si milar tendency, and those are made the snbjecti of various Orders of lectures in the differeht colleges ; on the chronology, geography, laws, religious rites and customs of the nations which are mentioned in the Old and New Tes taments, in some degree derived from Bausobre, but partly from Other sources, are also given to promote an accurate knowledge of the foundation of our faith. Unfortunately, although these methods of promoting the studies of the pupils were wisely conceived, and are general ly executed with great ability and advan tage, there have been instances of neg lect and very slight attendance.
The third head includes the belles let fres, or classics, and this, of all the varie ty of pursuit, seems the most successful in each of the colleges, as every term has an appropriate selection of the best for the lecture room, when extracts from the most approved authors of antiquity, judi ciously commented on, and compared with similar passages from modern wri ters, forms a source of entertainment highly grateful as well as useful. Besides
the exeiaions of the tutor in this particu lar, the students deliver, either written, or vivo voce, compositions in their respec tive chapels weekly, which may be in the Latin or English languages. The author of the little but valuable work before mentioned very properly observes, that emulation of an honourable kind is excit ed by prizes and rewards in most of the colleges, and this emulation is not of the dangerous nature too often perceptible in inferior seminaries, as the first man in each year feels his inferiority to those a few years older than himself, and the pre-eminence over his own year in his own college, may receive a most violent check in the collision with the rival heads of his Own standing in fifteen other col leges.