"Development of genius, or natural inclination, indicated by various little matters."] That the dispositions of genius in early life presage its future character, was long the feeling of antiquity.

CICERO, in his "Dialogue on Old Age," employs a beautiful analogy drawn from Nature, marking her secret conformity in all things which have life and come from her hands; and the human mind is one of her plants.

"Youth is the vernal season of life, and the blossoms it then puts forth are indications of those future fruits which are to be gathered in the succeeding periods." One of the masters of the human mind, after much previous observation of those who attended his lectures, would advise one to engage in political studies, then exhorted another to compose history, elected these to be poets, and those to be orators; for ISOCRATES believed that Nature had some concern in forming a man of genius, and endeavoured to guess at her secret by detecting the first energetic inclination of the mind.

This also was the principle which guided the Jesuits, those other great masters in the art of education.

They studied the characteristics of their pupils with such singular care, as to keep a secret register in their colleges, descriptive of their talents, and the natural turn of their dispositions.