1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



543 



we may restore the lands that have become 

 nearly exhausted by (he want of a foresight 

 which it is singular we did not fully realize 

 many years ago. 



Machines akd Tools. — See, now, that 

 every farm machine and tool is housed in 

 some safe place. They should be put where 

 they will not be trampled upon and upset by 

 cattle and colts, where they will be dry, and 

 where the small ones will not be taken out by 

 the workmen, used a few times and then 

 thrown down in the Wiiy. One hand rake in 

 the barn-floor, through the winter, and one or 

 two pitchforks are enough. If more are 

 about they will be in the way, and are quite 

 sure to be broken. 



R member ihat "order is heaven's first 

 law," and that without it, on the farm, there 

 is little reason to expect profit in anything. 



WOMEN AND GIBLS SHOULD KEAD 

 NEWSPAPERS. 



If we were a teacher in any school where 

 the pupils could read, one of the most impor- 

 tant of the daily exercises should be reading 

 the Newspaper, and that should be one 

 •'With news from all nations lumbering at its back;" 

 not one with effeminate, sentimental stories, 

 but filled with the business of the moving 

 world, — accounts of floods and fires, earth- 

 quakes and cyclones ; letters from the tropics 

 and arciics, on politics, arts, religion, poetry and 

 prose, — from legislatures and congresses, — 

 from scientific and agricultural associations, — 

 letters from the library, kitchen and parlor, — 

 from the battle-field, and from all places 

 where human industry, thrift and progress 

 were lifting humanity into a higher scale of 

 being. 



The teacher should himself be familiar with 

 such moving events, and able to enforce, by 

 explanation or brief illustration, such princi- 

 ples of importance as are enunciated in its 

 columns. 



All the teachirg of all the schools, from 

 lowest to highest, would not give the mass of 

 the people an education at all comparable to 

 that which might be gained by these exercises. 

 After a fair reputation, what gives a person, 

 man or woman, a passport into intelligent so- 

 citty ? Is it the book teaching of the schools, 

 the deep mysteries of the scientist, or the lore 

 of sages ? These are all well for the few, but 

 the masses need other discipline and other 



mental food. In the battle of life, with them, 

 a general information, and a power of adapt- 

 ing themselves to numberless circumstances, 

 are essential to success. The most helpless 

 being among us is he who emerges from the 

 schools, buried in the lore of books, and igno- 

 rant of the ways of the world ; knowing little of 

 art or science, and who looks with surprise 

 upon the active industry every where about 

 him, and wonders what it all means ! 



We do not undervalue sound, practical 

 learning ; we would encourage it, and sustain 

 it when acquired. But a vast power is wasted 

 every day, even in the schools which, by the 

 popular voice, are considered the best. Thou- 

 sands of girls and bojs are engaged, term 

 after term, in studies which they will never 

 call into practice. They do not intend to be- 

 come teachers, yet spend more time upon 

 mathemattcs than many of our best educated 

 men and women did upon all their studies. 

 And yet, of the common affairs of life, of the 

 events and business which move the world, 

 they know less than the backwoodsman who 

 never attended a school of more than six 

 weeks at a time in his life. 



If a choice were obliged to be made, to ac- 

 cept the teachings of the common schools at 

 the present day, and not read or hear a news- 

 paper read, or to have the child peruse a 

 good one, and have its articles properly ex- 

 plained, — we certainly should choose the lat- 

 ter. The newspaper not only gives the best 

 portion of the books, but is constantly com- 

 menting upon what has been thought and done, 

 in every branch of human knowledge. Most 

 earnestly, then, do we commend to all, the 

 truths in the following paragraph, which we 

 find is going the rounds of The Nciospapers : 



Ladies Should Read Newspapees. — It is 

 a mistake in female education to kfcp a joung 

 lady's time and attention devoted to the fash- 

 ionable literature of the day. If jou would 

 qualify her for conversation, you must give 

 her something to talk about — give her educa- 

 tion with this actual world and its transpiring 

 events. Urge her to read the newspapers an^^ 

 become familiar with the present character 

 and improvements of our race. Our thoughts 

 and our concerns should be for the pretent 

 world, to know what it is, and improve the 

 condition of it. Let her have an intellgent 

 opitiicn, and be able to sustain conversation 

 according to the mental, moral and religious 

 improvements of our times. Let the gilded 

 annuals and poems on the centre table be k nt 

 part of the time cowered with weekly and da' 



