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education, as in New England. The second is, when a few of tho 

 more spirited and intelligent of the citizens move the rest by taking 

 the burden in the beginning upon their own shoulders by setting the 

 example themselves, and by most zealously urging all others to follow. 



The villages of New England, looking at their sylvan charms, 

 are as beautiful as any in the world. Their architecture is simple 

 and unpretending often, indeed, meagre and unworthy of notice. 

 The houses are surrounded by inclosures full of trees and shrubs, 

 with space enough to afford comfort, and ornament enough to de- 

 note taste. But the ma^n street of the village is an avenue of elms, 

 positively delightful to behold. Always wide, the overarching 

 boughs form an aisle more grand and beautiful than that of any old 

 Gothic cathedral. Not content, indeed, with one avenue, some of 

 these villages have, in their wide, single street, three lines of trees, 

 forming a double avenue, of which any grand old palace abroad 

 might well be proud. Would that those of our readers, whose souls 

 are callous to the charms of the lights and shadows that bedeck 

 these bewitching rural towns and villages, would forthwith set out 

 out on a pilgrimage to such places as Northampton, Springfield, 

 New Haven, Pittsfield, Stockbridge, Woodbury, and the like. 



When we contrast with these lovely resting places for the eye, 

 embowered with avenues of elms, gracefully drooping like fountains 

 of falling water, or sugar-maples swelling and towering up like finely 

 formed antique vases some of the uncared for towns and villages 

 in our own State, we are almost forced to believe that the famous 

 common schools of New England teach the aesthetics of art, and 

 that the beauty of shade-trees is the care of especial professorships. 

 Homer and Virgil, Cicero, Manlius, and Tully, shades of the great 

 Greeks and Romans ! our citizens have named towns after you, but 

 the places that bear your names scarcely hold leafy trees enough to 

 renew the fading laurels round your heads ! while the direct de- 

 scendants of stern Puritans, who had a holy horror of things ornamen- 

 tal, who cropped their hair, and made penalties for indulgences in fine 

 linen, live in villages overshadowed by the very spirit of rural elegance ! 



It is neither from a want of means, or want of time, or any ig- 

 norance of what is essential to the beauty of body or of mind, that 

 we see this neglect of the public becomingness. There are numbers 



