1856.] Grandfather^ s Old Farm, 333 



explaining the facts. Take, for instance, the science of Geoh^gy, its 

 long array of facts in regard to strata and fossils, and crystaline rocks, 

 volcanoes and earthquakes, etc., etc., are presented to the student. Then 

 comes the question, how shall we account for all these phenomena ? The 

 teacher or text-book answers, the commonly received theory is that the 

 Earth has had a crust formed about it by slowly cooling from a melted 

 state ; but any instructor would be held unworthy of confidence did he 

 not state further, that some eminent ged^g'sts, as Lycll and some 

 others, strongly opposed this theory. Though a teacher may tell, as he 

 ought, to which theory he is himself inclined, he would not be deemed 

 worthy of a place in any good school, if he did not urge the student to 

 original research and independent thinking. So wdth other scientific 

 theories : they are taught as such, and are not elevated to the rank of 

 fixed facts until so proven by the most rigid analysis. 



Probably no class of men are more careful to obey the sacred injunc- 

 tion, "prove all things, hold fast that which is good," than teachers. 

 If the editor of the " Scientific American' is aware of any errors taught 

 in our schools, it is his duty to point them out, and he will find none 

 more willing to forsake the error of their ways than are instructors. 

 This dealing in wholesale denunciation by those who are manifestly not 

 infallible, is neither safe nor honorable. 



€raitb father's Olb I mm. 



Some forty years or more ago. a neighbor of mine in C , a Mr. 



Smith, occupied an immense tract of land, which he called a "farm," 

 It was about thirty rods in width, and upward of two miles in length ; 

 an old Indian " grant," as it was termed ; upon which he had been 

 brought up a " farmer," and where his father and grandfather, and great- 

 grandfather had lived before him. 



Each generation of the Smiths that had dwelt upon this strip of land, 

 had "contrived" to "farm it." each in the same old way, year in and 

 year out, from father to son. The place had never known a dollar's in- 

 cumbrance ; scores of Smiths had been reared upon it, generation after 

 generation came and passed away there, and the same cart-path, and the 

 same dilapidated old wall and shanties, and decayed trees were still visi- 

 ble—almost the same furrow had been turned for a hundred years and 



