Vol. X.-No. 29. 



AiND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



227 



Your (laughters may have their mimic cheese- 

 presses and churns. Their eight ounce cheeses 

 may be kept for their wedding tables ; sucli exer- 

 cises in mimic agriculture and house-keeping, 

 will lead children to make profitable inquiries, 

 and excite a love oflabor which can never be ex- 

 tinguishcd. 



When your children are sufficiently advanced 



cliemieal and philosophical, may be procined in 

 Troy, N. York, for a lower price than any oth- 

 er place on either continent. As I have no pe- 

 ciuiiary interest in the sales, I hope I shall not be 

 charged with partiality. I wdl give one examjjle. 

 A suit of mechanical powers sold at ten dollars, 

 has been considered very cheap : here a suit upon 

 a plan altogether more convenient, more periect, 



in bodily strength, change their mimic labors to i and more clear in its application, may be had for 

 those of real gains. In addition to their labors three dollars, or any boy may be shown how to 

 in the service of their parenjs, let the sons always ; make it for himself. The scholars of the Rens- 



procure their own pocjtel^. money, by cultivating 

 small poitions of ground assigned to each ; aid 

 while the daughters have an agency in the manu- 

 facture of their own homespuns, in kitchen coSike- 

 ry, cleaning and regulating rooms and fui'nitute, 

 let them procure all their extra ornaments by We 

 sale of stockings, mittens, &c, knit by themselves ; 

 by braids for hats, and other saleable articles, Ihe 

 produce of their own industry. Never fail to 

 inalie every son and daughter intimately acquaii)t- 

 ed with all your views and calculations. Farmers 

 slioidd have no secrets in their business, for th^ 

 never proceed on a false credit. The father should 

 tell his sons how ranch he owes towards his fari, 

 and all his prospects and all his fears. 



The mother should instruct each daughter in 

 all the details of her household managemefn, 

 with the precise value of whatever was consumed 

 in food and clolhing. Thus your sons and dau^- 

 ters are prepared to enter upon the theatre of life, 

 with all'Ihe advantages of experienced actors. \ 



Having said as much pn the first, and infinites 

 the most important part of the education of your 

 sons and daughters, as you may be disposed i) 

 read, I will give you a concise view of my opiii 



selaer School make this and many other pieces of 

 apparatus for themselves. 



I saw a suit of chemical apparatus (and I be- 

 heve there is now one of the kind in Rochester) 

 which was considered very cheap at fifty dollars, 

 (part of which was totally unnecessary) and all 

 the useful part could be purchased in Troy for 

 fifteen dollars. Ahnost all articles of apparatus, 

 of chemical substances, &c, can now be purchas- 

 ed at two thirds the cost of the same articles three 

 years ago. For example, the Dutch Prism of 

 eight dollars, can be had in Troy for three dollars 

 fifty cents — air |)unips of forty dollars, can be had 

 at twentyeight dollars, &c 



I hope the farmers of the Genesee River, will 

 permit me to give them a little unasked advice, in 

 regard to the subject of learning most profitable 

 for their sons and daughters. As this will depend 

 much on the quantity of learning which the pa- 

 rent feels able to give, I will set down those sub- 

 jects, according to their degrees of importance. 



After the alphabet and four or five pages of 

 spelling, just to learn the natural powers of letters, 

 let them begin to read. Never purchase a spell- 

 ing book. You will consider your own time lost, 



ion, on the subject of their scientific and literar* while confined to the unprofitable exercise of 

 education. \ spelling, if you recollect you learned to spell by 



Never send a son or daughter from home to be reading, not by spelling. Every child ought to 

 educated. If you expect to have your children read ijoud full two hours each day, as soon as a 

 make ^ny improvement, you will probably calcu- | he can begin to read at all. 



late to be at the extra expense of board, dress, &c,| Next have your children taught to write as soon 

 for six months at least. Suppose you pay but , as possible — not in a painted school boy hand, but 

 $1 50 per week for board and the extra expense I in his natural way without ornament. If he is 

 for dress, travelling, &c, should amount to bntjtobea copy-writer, or a clerk, let him learn that 

 fifty cents per week ; the whole clear loss would kind of hand as he would learn the painter's trade. 

 be but $5'2. In this case the tuition is supposed ' The whole business of your sons and daughters at 

 to be the same at home and abroad. If two of' school, and when not at work at home, should be 

 you unite and advance $104, you can with this | reading good authors, and copying some of their 

 sum procure apparatus, books, &c ; by means ofi best sentences, and composing essays, &c, until 

 which a competent teacher will readily be induced! they can converse and write in good style, and 

 to come among you. The whole district may with facility — then, and not before, they are pre- 



have their children much better educated at home 

 after this preparatory expense, than they would 

 be if sent abroad. Should there be any difliculty 

 in obtaining a competent teacher, a few individu- 

 als may unite, and send any common school-mas- 

 ter, to be taught at the nearest school of the kind 

 required. On his return he would soon be able to 

 repay the sums advanced for his instruction. 



Much caution is required in the employment of 

 a teacher, when the object is to improve the me- 

 thod of instruction. We have more than a hun- 

 dred quack schoolmasters to one quack doctor — 

 especially of those modern ' standard raising'* 

 schoolmasters. In selecting apparatus, good ad- 

 vice should be taken. 



If prejudice in favor of one's own place of res- 

 idence may be excused, I venture to say, that the 

 most economical and useful suits of apparatus 



* So called from their conllnually using the phrase, 

 'raisu the Standard of Education,' though they are illit- 

 erate themselves. 



pared for further advances. But their readin 

 should be judiciously directed — always intermix- 

 ing the elegant with the instructive, and the fan- 

 ciful with the profound. Elegant composition and 

 conversation give man or woman, more especially 

 woman, an ascendency which can be attained to 

 liy no other qualification. Among their reading, 

 let Geography and History constitute an important 

 part. 



In early youth, before your children's bodily 

 strength enables them to be very profitable in the 

 field or kitchen, let them learn the names and 

 characters of natural bodies, from the mere dic- 

 tation of a competent teacher. To collect, pre- 

 serve, and label plants, at the age of six and seven 

 ^ears is an excellent and very healthful amuse- 

 ment. It disciplines the mind to habits of atten- 

 tion, and stores it with useful materials. Miner- 

 als should be collected, also ; but the study of Ge- 

 ology is the best calculated to excite sublime emo- 

 tions, and elevate the heart above all unworthy views. 



I will not tire your patience with a detailed ac- 

 count of my views of education. But I must be 

 permitted to give my opinions on the subject of a 

 winter course for your sons and daughters, after 

 they arrive at that knowledge of language (by 

 the proposed exercise in reading and writing,) 

 which shall enable them to nudcrstand scientific 

 authors. Let a warm room with very higli upper 

 ceilings, and its floor near a level with the surface 

 of the earth, be provided. Let a room be cut off 

 from one end of it by a cieling, and two wide 

 doors meet on a narrow middle post. This room 

 should be accommodated with shelves for appara- 

 tus, specimens, &c. A stove so constructed that 

 it might be used as a furnace occasionally, should 

 be set up on a very broad hearth in the room. — 

 This is always' to be locked, excepting when the 

 teacher is present. The outer part may be used 

 for a dayschool, for a town-house, or for any other 

 purpose. In this room, an evening course of lec- 

 tures should be given every year, from the middle 

 of November to the middle of March. The sub- 

 jects embraced in the course, should be Experi- 

 mental Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Technol- 

 ogy, and Geology. Parents ought to attend with 

 their children as much as possible. Four lectures 

 in each week, in the proposed season of leisure 

 among country farmers, would not impose a heavy 

 burthen, while the advantages would be incalcu- 

 lable. A. EATON. 

 Rensselaer School, Troy, Dec. 15th, 1831. 



Agncullure in England. — An American gentle- 

 man, a correspondent of the New York Observer, 

 and now in England, thus speaks, in comparing 

 Enghsh agricidture with that of this country. 



From Manchester to Birmingham, with the ex- 

 ception of the coal regions of Wolverhampton, and 

 another few miles of poor land, the whole country 

 is a perfect garden. An American farmer knows 

 nothing of English husbandry. The difference is 

 too wide for him to be able to appreciate it. Se- 

 lect the most cultivated groimds of the rich on 

 Manhattan Island, or behind Brooklyn, or in the 

 immediate vicinity.of Philadelphia, or of Boston — 

 and they are only ordinary specimens of English 

 farming. A poor English cottager displays a taste 

 about his humble dwelHng, and gets a product from 

 his little patch, which might shame the wealthy far- 

 mers of the United States. I wish not to speak 

 disrespectfully of my country, or countniiien — 

 but I should like to provoke them by whatever 

 means, to more rapid ijiqnovements, both in agri- 

 culture and horticulture. 



Planting Com. — I have for several years, been 

 in the practice of sowing my wheat fields early in 

 the spring with timothy and clo\'er seed ^ and the 

 next season I have ploughed the ground as late in 

 the spring as would answer for planting corn. — 

 By this time the grass would be like a meadow ; 

 and on examining the soil, I found it very much 

 filled with the roots of the grass, which kept it 

 unusually light and mellow, and always,productive. 

 The result of these experiments induced me to 

 sow my cornfield with grass seed, the present sea- 

 son, after hoeing the last time. This docs not ap- 

 pear to have injured the corn ; and I have no 

 doid)t but the field will be well clothed with grass 

 by the time for fallowing next year. Having full 

 confidence in the inility of these practices, I am 

 induced to invite farmers to try the experiment. — 

 Skaneatdes Columbian. 



