44 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



would not hesitate to leave her hut without a fragment of cloth- 

 ing on, would not dare to commit such a breach of decorum as 

 to go out unpainted ! Even so our semi-civilized votaries of 

 fashion think more about the costliness of their dress than the 

 fitness of it, and hesitate not to outrage all the decorums of 

 society at the demand of the milliner. Girls without the least 

 taste for music are compelled to labor at the piano with an as- 

 siduity and perseverance that, applied to the attainment of useful 

 knowledge, would make them accomplished women, and boys 

 waste time enough in elegant pursuits to make them learned 

 and useful members of society. It was a custom among the 

 Jews that all boys, of whatever degree, should learn a trade. 

 Rabbi Judah saith, " He that teacheth not his son a trade, does 

 the same as if he taught him to be a thief;" and Rabban Gama- 

 liel saith, " He that hath a trade in hand, is like a vineyard 

 that is fenced." In compliance with this good and useful cus- 

 tom of the Jews, our Saviour was put to the trade of a carpen- 

 ter, and St. Paul to that of a tent-maker. The historian Gibbon 

 relates that among the Christians brought before the Emperor 

 Nero were the two grandsons of St. Jude the apostle, who was 

 the brother of Jesus Christ, and when examined concerning their 

 fortune and occupation they showed their hands, hardened with 

 daily labor, and declared that they derived their whole subsist- 

 ence from the cultivation of a farm in the village of Cocata, of 

 the extent of about twenty-four English acres. The term edu- 

 cation, as commonly understood, implies acquiring information 

 from books and public teachers. But there are educations prior 

 to that, consisting of the moral and physical discipline, of pri- 

 mary importance, and within the reach of all, however remote 

 from the school-house, or restricted in finances. "We do not be- 

 lieve in the dogma that " all children are born good," but we do 

 not hesitate to say that to parental misconduct and neglect is 

 traceable a great part of the perversity of children, and cannot 

 doubt that if the parents exhibited more self-control, less irasci- 

 bility, more justice and generosity, there would be less exhibition 

 of evil passions in the children, and they would be better pre- 

 pared to carry out in their future life the golden maxim of 

 doing unto others as they wished others to do unto them. 



The Persians did not, like their neighbors, wait to impose 

 punishments upon those who broke the laws, but taking things 



