EDUCATION IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 



Approach the house, built in the road to be convenient, and save land! Two stories and 

 a wing, and every blind shut close as a miser's fist, without a tree, or shrub, or flower to 

 break the air of barrenness and desolation around it. There it stands, white, glaring and 

 ghastly as a pyramid of bones in the desert. Mount the unfrequented door stone, grown 

 over with vile weeds, and knock till your knuckles are sore. It is a beautiful moonlight 

 October evening; and as you stand upon that stone, a ringing laugh comes from the rear, 

 and satisfies you that somebody lives there. Pass now around to the rear : but hold your 

 nose when you come within range of the piggery, and have a care that you don't get 

 swamped in the neighborhood of the sink spout. Enter the kitchen. Ha! here they are 

 all alive, and here they live all together. The kitchen is the kitchen, the dining-room, the 

 sitting-room, the room of all work. Here father sits with his hat on and in his shirt 

 sleeves. Around him are his boys and hired men, some with hats and some with coats, 

 and some with neither. The boys are busy shelling corn for samp; the hired men are 

 scraping whip stocks and whittling bow pins, throwing every now and then a sheep's eye 

 and a jest at the girls, who, with their mother, are doing-up the house-work. The young- 

 er fry are building cob-houses, parching corn, and burning their fingers. Not a book is 

 to be seen, though the winter school has commenced, and the master is going to board 

 there. Privacy is a word of unknown meaning in that family; and if a son or daughter 

 should borrow a book, it would be almost impossible to read it in that room; and on no 

 occasion is the front house opened, except when "company come to spend the afternoon," 

 or when things are brushed and dusted, and " set to rights." 



Yet these are as honest, as worthy and kind-hearted people as you will find anywhere, 

 and are studying out some way of getting their younger children into a better position 

 than they themselves occupy. They are in easy circumstances, owe nothing, and have 

 money loaned on bond and mortgage. After much consultation, a son is placed at school 

 that he may be fitted to go into a store, or possibly an office, to study a profession; and 

 a daughter is sent away to learn books, and manners, and gentility. On this son or 

 daughter, or both, the hard earnings of years are lavished; and they are reared up in the 

 belief that whatever smacks of the country, is vulgar — that the farmer is necessarily ill 

 bred, and his calling ignoble. 



Now, will any one say that this picture is overdrawn? I think not. But let us see if 

 there is not a ready way to change the whole expression and character of the picture, al- 

 most without cost or trouble. I would point out an easier, happier, and more economical 

 way of educating those children, far more thoroughly, while at the same time the minds 

 of the parents are expanded, and they are prepared to enjoy, in the society of their edu- 

 cated children, the fruits of their own early industry. 



And first: let the front part of that house be thrown open, and the most convenient, 

 agreeable, and pleasant room in it, be selected as the family room. Let its doors be ever 

 open, and when the work of the kitchen is completed, let mothers and daughters be found 

 there, with their appropriate work. Let it be the room where the family altar is erected, 

 on which the father offers the morning and the evening sacrifice. Let it be consecrated to 

 Neatness, and Purity, and Truth. Let no hat ever be seen in that room on the head of 

 its owner, [unless he be a Quaker friend;] let no coatless individual be permitted to enter 

 it. If father's head is bald, (and some there are in that predicament,) his daughter will 

 be proud to see his temples covered by the neat and graceful silken cap that her own hands 

 have fashioned for him. If the coat he wears by day is too heavy for the evening, calicoes 

 are cheap, and so is cotton wadding. A few shillings placed in that daughter's hand 

 sures him the most comfortable wrapper in the world; and if his boots are bard, and 



