76 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



March 



produce heaves in horses. The idea is false as 

 well as preposterous. It possesses no greater 

 agency in producing such an effect upon horses, 

 or any other animal, than is possessed in common 

 by any other article of food. If broken wind is 

 produced by an article of food, it certainly is not 

 from the food, but from the quantity that is given. 

 In like manner heaves may be caused by too great 

 a quantity of water, oats, corn, or any kind of hay 

 whatever, given at an improper time, as when the 

 animal has a journey to perform. In a word, it is 

 the person's fault in giving too much food at an 

 improper time, and not the character of the food 

 that thus produces heaves in the horse. The man 

 who, when feeding a horse, would fill its manger 

 with oats and corn, would not be considered a 

 very fit man to feed and care for horses, neither 

 is that man who would fill a large rack full of 

 clover hay; as the animal will not stop eating un- 

 til it has hurt itself, or has eaten every blade of 

 clover before it ; as every horse is fond of it, and 

 as before stated, sick' horses will eat it when they 

 will not eat anything else. Without another word 

 the argument is complete. 



Good clover hay contains forty-five per cent, 

 more fattening matter than timothy hay, and 

 about forty per cent, more than the English rye 

 grass hay ; about ten per cent, less than dried 

 lupins or vetches, which are now extensively used 

 in Europe for the feeding of both horses and cat- 

 tle. Such is a brief statement of the peculiar, 

 profitable, and I may as well say palatable advan- 

 tages accruing from the feeding of horses, as well 

 as other animals, on clover hay in preference to 

 any other hay in use in feeding and fattening. 



for the New England Farmer. 



THE SCHOOL. 



How can time be saved, in the Common School, for the intro- 

 duction of studies which shall expressly prepare for the labors 

 and duties of active life '. 



The most important thing done in any school 

 is learning to read. He who learns to read and 

 to love reading opens a path to all knowledge, all 

 philosophy, all wisdom, and an inexhaustible foun- 

 tain of delight and improvement for the whole of 

 his life. Learning to read is, at the same time, 

 the most difficult thing that is ever attempted ; 

 so difficult that good reading, in the pulpit, in 

 the lecture room, or in the parlor, is one of the 

 rarest as it is one of the most delightful of all ac- 

 complishments. This ought not to surprise us, 

 when we consider thit, to make a perfectly good 

 reader are required, as gifts from nature, a quick 

 eye, a clear, strong, sweet, flexible and melodious 

 voice, and strong sense, together with good judg- 

 ment, taste and feeling. To these must be added, 

 by the care of the teacher, delicate and exact enun- 

 ciation, full utterance, correct pronunciation, and 

 a knowledge of accent and emphasis ; in short, the 

 perfect management and modulation of the voice, 

 and the power of giving full and natural expres- 

 sion to the various emotions. To this end, the 

 good sense and power of judging must be highly 

 educated, improved by thought and knowledge, 

 and the taste must be rendered delicate and re- 

 fined by long-continued and careful cultivation. 



With all these attainments, to read, with pro- 

 priety, any particular passage, there are necessar- 

 ily required a complete understanding of the sub- 

 ject, the circumstances and the occasion to which 



it relates, sympathy with the purpose of the writ- 

 er, and a delicate sense, at opce of the pathetic 

 and the ludicrous, the humorous and the witty. 



It is with reason, therefore, that for the attain- 

 ment of an end so desirable, a costly apparatus 

 should be employed and a vast deal of time ex- 

 pended. The cost of reading books is, in many 

 cases, one of the largest items in the expense of 

 the common school, — and the time devoted to this 

 branch is much longer than that spent in any oth- 

 er exercise. 



If the end were attained, this expenditure would 

 be well made. If the time devoted to reading 

 gave the knowledge, the maturity of judgment, 

 the cultivation and refinement of taste of which I 

 have spoken, the time would be most profitably 

 spent. It is notorious that it does not. The end 

 is not attained. In the circumstances of the pu- 

 pil, it is usually unattainable. 



These powers can be highly educated only by 

 resolute, long-continued, voluntary study ; by the 

 study of subjects which require close attention, se- 

 vere thought, careful comparison, and by extensive 

 reading, and giving a great variety of knowledge. 

 It is commonly found that the best readers in 

 school are among those who are most highly edu- 

 cated at home, by those in whom the love of read- 

 ing has been most successfully cultivated, and 

 who are, in consequence, eager devourers of poe- 

 try, romance, biography, travels, history. Such 

 readers raise themselves to the power of compre- 

 hending and appreciating the beautiful selections 

 in which our school reading books abound. For 

 many of the text-books for reading, prepared for 

 our common schools, are admirable as selections 

 of the finest things in the language. The objec- 

 tions to them are that they are not suited to the 

 object aimed at, they are far too high for the 

 average attainments of the pupils, and the vol- 

 umes are two or three times too numerous. For 

 the mere art of reading, one or two volumes, 

 made completely familiar, would do more than 

 the five or six or seven volumes now do. 



As it now is, a boy reads, in his class, a few of 

 the lessons in a volume, and looks over, without 

 perfectly understanding, other pieces. He goes 

 goes into another class, and gives up his old book 

 and gets a new one, to be abandoned, at the end 

 of the year, in the same manner. — If the old book 

 were continued until each pupil could read very 

 well each lesson it contains, much better reading 

 would be attained than can be by the present prac- 

 tice of giving up, year after year, volumes very im- 

 perfectly understood and learned, and going to 

 new ones. 



it is true that an accomplished teacher, who 

 has the knowledge and can give the time necessa- 

 ry for it, may, by diligent instruction, qualify his 

 class to understand and to read any of the choice 

 passages in the selections contained in his read- 

 ing book. And this is sometimes done very sat- 

 isfactorily and with beautiful effect. 



But it is a sad fact that many of our teachers 

 have not the requisite knowledge, nor the books 

 which would supply it. And it is certain that 

 very few of the teachers of the country schools 

 can, in the press of many pupils and many les- 

 sons, find the time to consult the books, if they 

 have them, or can often manage to make the op- 

 portunity to give the necessary instruction, if 

 they have the knowledge. If they can do this 



