52 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



the ground must be in some measure prepared before it is sowed. Where young 

 people are barely taught to copy 



" Comrnand you may 

 Your mind from play 



— as in some States, where it is the great boast that ah can reaa ana write — 

 there will yet exist as little sensibility to the charms of literature, or relish for 

 informing books, as where there has been been not even such a mere apology for 

 education. 



In New-Jersey, for example, a State exempt from debt, enjoying an ample 

 income, with every resource that freedom and prosperity can afford for the per- 

 fection of her industrial and social systems — yet even in that State we have it in 

 proof that not more than half the rising generation are known to avail themselves 

 of the schools provided for them, such as they are ; and that those who do attend 

 them average not more than two weeks in the year ! * Now of what avail, Sir^ 

 for any intellectual or useful purpose do you suppose would be the cheapest lit- 

 erature to people thus schooled ? It is in their most youthful days, with both 

 sexes, that a taste for books must be imbibed, just as the young ox only is taught 

 to bear the yoke, and the youthful dog to fetch the duck. Habits must be formed 

 and tastes acquired while the physical and intellectual natures are yet in the 

 course of development, and as soon as the constitution of the mind and body 

 will take the impress you desire to stamp on it ; and this eagerness for the 

 treasure contained in books may be imparted as soon as the child can learn to 

 read — even at four years of age — if we had books better adapted to that period 

 and purpose. 



In too many of such as have been got up for that object, the work has been 

 addressed too exclusively and too long to the external or mere animal senses and 

 imagination of the child. The reasoning faculties have been too slowly brought 

 into exercise. It has not been well considered how the mind, as soon as distinct 

 ideas are acquired, is capable of combining them, nor how language may be so 

 let down, as it were, and simplified, as to place knowledge and the rudiments 

 of knowledge within the reach and comprehension of the child, as soon as the 

 senses become susceptible of distinct impressions. Even the parent bird would 

 teach us a useful lesson on this point, if we would mark how she tempts her cal- 

 low young, by every motive and device, to follow her a-wing, even before it 

 would seem to be safe to leave the nest. The great desideratum is to throw 

 into these first incipient teachings as strong an infusion of thought as the youth- 

 ful mind can be made to bear, and soon it would be found that intellects so man- 

 aged would achieve, comparatively, as early a development, and as much alert- 

 ness and power of self-support, as does the body of the rope-dancer, which owes 

 all its extraordinary suppleness and activity to early training. 



A work thus fitted at once to entertain and to strengthen the mind of young 

 children — to inveigle them, if I may say so, into the love of virtuous knowledge, 

 and to fix upon them a habit of pursuing it in books, even before they are aware 

 of it, has just been produced in Paris, writen by a man of no less distinction 

 than the Professor of Philosophy in the Royal College of Poictiers, M. Charles 

 Jeaunel. This little work — in which sketches of sacred and secular biography 

 are blended with glimpses of natural history, all in a style equally simple and at- 

 tractive — has just been translated, as I happen to know, by Mr. F. G. S., for the use 

 especially of his own children, and might well be placed in the hands of every 

 mother in the land, to assist them, on whom, after all, the task chiefly devolves 

 to " teach the young idea how to shoot." Ay, to the honor and glory of the sex 



l_* By the Census of 1840, there were in New-Jersey 6,385 over 20 years of age — while 

 pevsons — or 17 out of every 1,000, who could neither read nor write ; in Pennsylvania 20 out 

 of every 1,000, and in Virginia 79 out of every 1,000. But it is an interesting question, were 

 it possible to solve it, what proportion of those who can barely read and write have over gone 

 far enough to get a taste of the pleasures of knowledge or the least love for books. Any fool 

 may shoot down a bullock in the field, but it takes early associations and practice, and a cer- 

 tjun degree of wood-craft, to make a sportsman. Any man may bait a book, but only a tnxo 

 disciple of Izaak Walton can wait all day for " one glorious nibble." Ed. Farm, Lib."] 

 (148) 



