﻿34 PICTORIAL MISCELLANY. 



ton office, with five cents to pay the postage, requesting that it might 

 be sent to New York by telegraph ! However, we cannot wonder 

 a fiTeat deal at their ignorance, for in truth the most learned men in 

 the world know as yet but very little of the true nature of electricity; 

 and if they could, like the fabled Rip Van Winkle, enjoy a twenty 

 years' nap, they might be as ignorant of the progress which Avill, 

 perhaps, be made in that time, as these persons now are. An indi- 

 vidual, speaking of electricity, remarked, that Franklin caught the 

 wild horse, but that Professor Morse, the inventor of the electrical 

 telegraph, had put the harness on. This is true, yet there is still a 

 great deal to be learned about this wild horse. Perhaps some of the 

 bright eyes now resting upon this page may be the means of giving 

 to the world further light upon this great and mysterious subject. 

 You must all remember that Franklin was a boy once, yet diligent 

 and constant study enabled him, alone and unaided, to bring down 

 lightning from the clouds, and make it subservient to the will of man. 

 His name will be remembered for ages to come, as a benefactor to 

 his race. Aside from the satisfaction you would feel in having done 

 your duty, is not this alone a sufficient inducement for you to study 

 diligently, while young, such useful and instructive books as cannot 

 but make you wiser and better ? You may not receive your rew r ard 

 at once ; your childish investigations may not immediately be 

 crowned with success, but the reward will come, as surely as seed- 

 time is followed by the harvest. Nor will the seeming delay impair 

 in the least degree its value, for with it will be mingled the happy 

 consciousness of a well spent life. 



The Broken Window. 



" CHARLES ! watch the bird while I am gone out ; don't let him 

 fly out of the room. If you go out yourself you must not on any 

 account go into the garden." 



" Yes, father, I will mind you ;" and the father ieft the room, care- 

 fully closing the door after him. 



These words passed between a little boy, some ten years old, and 

 his father, in a room that contained a beautiful canary bird, which 



