PRACTICAL CULTURE. 197 



stitutes true culture. Surely a few accomplishments that will enable us to pass 

 current in fashionable society will not answer the purpose of our being. 



True culture affects the heart, making its impulses kindly, reflects the 

 "golden rule" in its influence on all its surroundings. ''Whatsoever you 

 would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," is the very essence 

 of all courtesy. Good manners are an outgrowth of culture, and we need not 

 affect to despise them, for we must acknowledge their subtle charm and power. 



Let us look at ourselves, at our neighbors, at society in general, and then 

 answer, " llave we no cause to plead for practical culture? " 



A few days since I read an article headed " Society Analyzed." A Georgia 

 lady comparing the society of the " golden long ago" with that of to- 

 day, avers that society has sadly degenerated from the high, moral, and intel- 

 lectual standard to which it once attained; that the old grand manners, courtly 

 graces, and brilliant repartee in a great measure have passed away. 



It is a sad fact that society degenerates as the age advances. In the olden 

 time girls were educated with a view to high and noble purposes, and to fill 

 useful positions, and the boys for men of integrity and imlustry. Now the 

 former are educated to make a show, and the latter to aid the exhibition. The 

 young now enter society with but one ambiiion, and that is to extract the 

 greatest amount of enjoyment from their lives. One continual round of excite- 

 ment is the order, and no sooner is one festivity over before another is planned. 

 Leisure hours are idled away or spent in getting up some wardrobe for the next 

 place of amusement. Perhaps an air of accomplishment may be assumed, but 

 the appetite for intellectual food is lost in the littleness of their lives. 



Such young people have very little desire for the domestic circle. The 

 parents practice the economy, the mother doing all the work, denying herself 

 many comforts, that her daughter may often shine in new attire, thereby hoping 

 to make a good catch for a husband, which often fails in its accemplishment, 

 or, if successful, turns out a mutual disappoiunient, withering in its nature. 



Few can we find to-day of the young ladies or gentlemen of so-called society 

 who can reason, reflect, feel, or are possessed with a stock of ideas and principles 

 ready to be applied as occasion may demand as wives, mothers, husbands, or 

 fathers We know there are exceptions to these in every community, and 

 grand exceptions too. Sons and daughters, who, by application, have acquired 

 knowledge sufficient to make their influence felt in life's activities. It is not 

 because we do not learn enough, but he 



" Wholearns and learns, but acts not what he knows, 

 Is one who plows and plows but never sows." 



Is it possible that good talking is one of the lost arts? We believe it, for 

 a good talker is rarely met with now-a-days. Books and papers are read: ser- 

 mons, speeches and addresses are listened to by the thousand, and many of 

 them are excellent; but an edifying talker, who can find? 



Before the invention of printing, the scarcity of books made it necessary 

 that much of the knowledge that was transmitted from one generatiou to 

 another should be conveyed by conversation. And thus it happened that when 

 persons of any information met in social intercourse, they didn't talk about 

 the pedigree of a horse, or discuss the respective merits of two gladiators, or 

 players, or inquire into the philosophy of some game of chance, or take up the 

 latest scandal, or the fashions, or any of the thousand and one useless, if not 

 degrading themes that claim so large a share of attention now-a-days. But 



