▼oi.. 3^\^^. no. 2*. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER, 



209 



farming tools or machinery, should be to perform, 

 in a o-iven time, a e:renicr amount of work in a more 

 thorough and econo7nical manner, than the imple- 

 ments for which they are substitutes. With this 

 object in view, purchase the most simply construct- 

 ed machines, and neither condemn them or be dis- 

 couraged because after a few trials they do not ful- 

 fil your expectations. Let them be mil tested, and 

 every attempt made to discover the cause of failure 

 before they are given up. Be careful that this 

 cause be not in the employer rather than the ma 



must meet with, will scarcely be felt; the time will 

 be too short for his dully exercises; his engage- 

 ment will expire ere he is aware of it ; and great 

 as may have been his toil, he will close the school 

 with regret. Such a teacher, when his other qual- 

 ifications are respectable, wiU be almost sure to 

 succeed anywhere. Every body will see that he 

 is seeking not his own ease and emolument, but the 

 good of his pupils ; he will infuse sometliing of his 

 own enthusiasm into their minds ; the confidence of 

 liis employer will be secured, and all things will 



chine And the farmer's well known intelligence go well. But on the other hand, if the schoolmas- 

 and caution must be his protection against tlie em- ter whom you employ would never teach another 

 ployment of n,achinery or modes of farming of any day if he could help it-that is, if he could do as 

 sort, that are of doubtful utiUty. By placing a | well for himself in some other way; jf '..s grand 

 proper decree of confidence in the experience and j object is to get so many dollars a month ; if he had 



opinions of those who have fairly tested various 

 farming instruments, and by exercising his own 

 judgment critically, there is no reason why the far- 

 mer more than any other man, should be the dupe 

 of useless inventions. 



We have already extended our remarks to a great- 

 er length than we had intended. But the impor- 

 tance of the subject must be our apology, and we 

 shall be content with having drawn any to an at- 

 tentive consideration of what we have said, and the 

 various conclusions to wnich our suggestions may 

 lead. H. V. 



Gretnfidd, Nov. §0, 1839. 



From the New York Observer. 



DR. HUMPHREY'S THOUGHTS ON EDUCA 

 TION. 



Qualifications of Teachers. 

 (Continued.) 

 Every schoolmaster, I have said, should be a 

 man of good, plain common sense — should be well 

 educated himself— should be apt to teach— should 

 be a man of good temper and entire self-control, 

 and should possess the faculty of governing his 

 scholars, so as to gain their affections, at the same 

 time that he secures their implicit obedience. 



My next remark is, that he ought to have a par- 

 ticular /o?i(/ncs.'! ybr teaching. This remark is foun- 

 ded on a very important general principle, viz., that 

 in every employment, other things being equal, 

 men succeed best in what suits their taste. One 

 man has a talent, or genius, if you please, for paint- 

 ing, and another for architecture ; one has a taste 

 for mathematics, another for languages, and anoth- 

 er for the natural sciences ; one is enthusiastically 

 fond of poetry, and another of nmsic ; one has a 

 natural turn for mechanics, and another for the in- 

 dependent and invigorating pursuits of agriculture, 

 and as a matter of course, every man will betake 

 himself more cheerfully and successfully to what- 

 ever he has a taste for, than to any thing else. It 

 often happens that persons from mere fondness for 

 their profession, trade or employment, excel others 

 who are greatly their superiors in abilities and ac- 

 quirements. 



It is as desirable, and almost as necessary, th^t 

 men should be 6or?i schoolmasters, as poets, musi- 

 cians and painters. If a person loves to teach, 

 loves to be surrounded from morning to night, by 

 a group of young immortal beings, whose minds 

 are continually expanding, and loves to watch their 

 progress in all the elementary branches of educa- 

 tion, his task, which to another might be insupporta- 

 blv irksome, will be pleasant; the thousand little 



rather begin every morning a few minutes too late 

 than too early ; if the time hangs heavy upon his 

 hands, and he puts his watch often to his ear, and 

 wonders when it will be noon ; if the greatest in- 

 terest he takes in the children, is to send them 

 back every night to their parents ; if he spends 

 more thoughts in contriving how he shall get 

 through the winter, with the least amount of labor 

 to himself or with the least interruption to some ul- 

 terior object of pursuit ; or if he tries to be faithful 

 merely in obedience to the dictates of conscience, 

 while his heart and his flesh are all the while cry- 

 ing out, O what a weariness, what a weariness ! if, 

 in fine, he has no real fondness for teaching, but 

 rather an aversion, let him not thrust himself into 

 a place which might be better filled by another. 

 Let him find something else to do, which he likes, 

 if iie can ; and if he cannot, it is better to betake 

 himself reluctantly, if he must, to almost any other 

 employment for a livelihood than to school-keeping. 

 Another prime and essential qualification in a 

 schoolmaster, is good principles. !n all ordinary 

 cases, when we are about to confide any of our in- 

 terests to a third person, one of our first questions 

 is, can we trust him ? Is he honest ? Will he be 

 faithful? And we are the more particular and 

 anxious in proportion to the value of the stake — 

 Now what higher responsibility can a parent devolve 

 upon another, than the right moral direction of the 

 minds and hearts of his children? Next to the 

 parent, certainly no one has so much influence over 

 the child as a popular teacher. The chair which 

 he occupies is his tlirone. His word is the law, to 

 which all his juvenile subjects implicitly bow. He 

 holds their whole moral destiny, as it were, in his 

 hands. What he believes they believe. What he 

 says they repeat. If he is a man of high moral 

 principle, they will soon find it out; and they will 

 bereadvto embrace whatever sentiments he ex- 

 presses,' because they love to admire the man. Even 

 when he takes no particular pains to mould their 



consequence what a schoolmaster believes, provided 

 he keeps it to himself. But if his principles are 

 bad, are corrupt, or merely of the Galileo school, 

 iciH he keep them to himself ? CfMi he? Did you 

 ever know a cause withotit an efl'ect ? lie may not 

 think it expedient to disclose his principles — he 

 may even take pains 'to conceal them; but he will 

 find it extremely difficult. The moral perceptions 

 of children are as instinctive as they are inexplicable. 

 They cannot be every day under the care of a 

 teacher, even for a short time, withoutalmost rend- 

 ing the "thoughts and intents of his heart." And 

 besides all this, so long as our children are deprav- 

 ed, and so much more susceptible to evil than to 

 trood influences, they will imbibe contagion, whs^re 

 no moral test can detect it, and yield unconsciously 

 to the power of elective affinities, which it may be 

 impossible ever to dissolve. Would you plint the 

 barherry bush in your wheat field, or the deadly vpas 

 under your nursery window ? Would you pay any 

 one for planting them, or even suffer it to be done 

 for nothing? And can you wittingly expose the 

 tenderest part of yourselves to infinitely greater 

 hazards in the school roam ? No. If the highest 

 intelligence, "niin'd," were to " transform himself 

 into an angel of light," and you could be sure he 

 never would disclose his true character, but would 

 mmeasurably e.xcel all other teachers, in every 

 branch of instructio.n, you would shudder with hor- 

 ror at the bare thought of employing him. 

 (To be continued.) 



MoRUS MuLTicAtJLis — A few days ago a coun- 

 tryman from Bucks county came into the Northern 

 Liberties, with his wagon loaded with Multicaulis 

 trees, thinking he could sell them, as he did last 

 fall, for a good price. As he neared Callowhill 

 street the boys gathered, mobbed him, and dozens 

 at a time shouted "hurrah for MulticaTilis !" and 

 repeated the shout as often as fresh reinforcements 

 arrived, until the street was filled. The country- 

 man finalV got permission from the owner of a va- 

 cant lot, to throw his very valuable load on it, and 

 drove off in a full trot, leaving his tormentors to 

 amuse themselves wit!i multicaulis switches. The 

 poor fellow had seen the humbug Germantown sale, 

 as published in the multicaulis papers. Silk Socie- 

 ty's Journal, Baltimore Silk Manual, &c. &c., all of 

 which papers were got up hy {he pairiolic silk society 

 to >nill and deliide the unsuspec'.ing and ignorant 

 farmer, to obtain a dollar for a tree which can be 

 raised forone cent, with profit.— PW/arf. Ledger. 



.Association, even where only " two or tlirec are 



fathered together," is more potent than individual 



eff-ort alone : the experience of several collected is 



when he takes no particular pains lo mourn uie.i [.gjjg^ tha,, the experience of one. Where much 



characters, there will go out from him a silent and j ^.^^^^ .^ ^^^^ consumed— where too much expense is 



,i;„.^ ir,Hiipnrp which will be nonetheless . . , ,.,i,.-,„ tin. ahndow is not srasned for 



pervading influence, which will be none the less 

 potent, for being unseen and unsuspected. The 

 price of such a teacher is " above rubies." Many, 

 in after life, will " rise up and call hirn blessed." 



But suppose him, on the other hand, to be a man 

 of loose and depraved moral principles — a plausi- 

 ble and insinuating infidel, or a bewildered and- va- 

 cillating skeptic. Suppose he disbelieves, or even 

 doubts the truth of the scriptures, or the certainty 

 of future rewards and punishments. Is such a man 

 fit to keep school ? If he had the talents of a Vol- 

 taire, or a Bolingbroke, would you employ hiin ? 

 Would any thing tempt you to expose your chil- 

 dren to such a deadly influence, for a single month 



Dlv irKsome, will oe pieasani; we uiuus.inu ..1...^. u.>,.. w .. ' . . .. i- u ., r.htlo 



annoyances and perplexities which every teacher Some may suppose, that it is a matter of but little 



not incurred-where the shadow is not grasped for 

 the substance— where a passion for extended ex- 

 periments does not outstrip and leave common sense 

 behind -we may expect to derive much benefit 

 from the efforts of .agricultural societies. There 

 are counties and districts of New England much in- 

 debted to them for the superiority which they have 

 attained. Berkshire in Massachusetts, was the first 

 f, institute, and has been the longest to persevere 

 in fier agricultural society: her mountain region 

 can find at this time no superior in tiie United 

 States infertility and production. Ten thousand 

 fleeces are taken from her hills, and her valleys 

 >rroan with their crops.-Gof. Hill's Address. 



