No. 2. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL. 



31 



ocminaries arc made to bear the blame of " inconside- 

 rate fathers ;" but I tbink, if she keeps on, she will 

 come round to the right point jet, and find that in the 

 family circle the mutJirr is the law and tesimony, and 

 that " like mother like child" will still be the motto. 



I wonid not pretend to say that there are not avari- 

 ciouB, penurious men, whoee tceaUli coneietsin the ac- 

 cumulation of their possessions, and not in the enjoy- 

 ment of ihcm, and who would deprive their families 

 of the comforts of life, that they may compound their 

 interest or add farm to farm, to be considered rich in 

 the eyes of the world, — or that there are not indolent 

 and inefficient men, who, if they can be fed and 

 clothed from day to day, care not how or whither. 

 There are procrastinating men, too, who arc never 

 ready to do any thing in its proper time; but these I 

 consider the exceptions to the general rule, and not 

 " that a majority of the farmers of our country, en- 

 joying a competency," are of cither class. But admit 

 they are, — the mother, seeing these traits in the father, 

 has the sole power of correcting it in her children; 

 and if she is a judicious mother, and understands the 

 philosophy of human nature, she can do it without ever 

 destroying the confidence of her children in their 

 father. 



It is from the mother children receive their first im 

 pressions of right and wrong. It is her voice tha 

 cheeks their wayward steps during the day, and hush 

 es them to sleep at night. If sickness comes, mother 

 always has a remedy — the natural qualities of ever 

 mother ensure to her an unbounded influence over her 

 children. Their character must also be formed 

 childhood. If they are to be virtuous, the seed must 

 be sown in the spring-time of life. It is then the oc- 

 cupation is selected, taste is formed, habits contracted 

 and principles planted — " as the twig is bent the tree's 

 inclined;" — but it needs not the strength or power of 

 a syllogism to prove the assertion — the fact is self ev 

 dent— that these must be imbibed in early life, planted 

 and nurtured by the hand of a mother. Her e.'sample 

 ie written indelibly upon the table of their memory, 

 and her peculiarities must serve as an infallible stan- 

 dard. Now, think ye, if the daughter has been edu- 

 cated to be industrious, and to bear her part in the du- 

 ties of the family, and to be contented with such things 

 as she may have, " working diligently" to improve 

 her condition, whatever it may be, — that there is no- 

 thing "icilhin or around" that home to make it 

 " lovely or attractive," and she, nevertheless, un- 

 happy ? 



AVe will take a most extreme case. Take an un- 

 educated man, devoid of a refined taste, an avaracious, 

 penurious man, and, if you please, let him be a pee- 

 vish and a fretful man, who wants nothing but what 

 will bring dollars and cents. He has a wife and 

 daughters of refined taste, who like to blend the orna- 

 mental with the useful. Let the daughter go outfor- 

 ly in the morning when she sees her lather planting 

 beans or cucumbers, and say. Father, I will drop your 

 beans for you, if, when you get through, you will help 

 me put out a beautiful rose bush I got yesterday. 

 Why, child, what is the use of all these rosies and po- 

 sies around the house ? they wont pay our debts or 

 buy bread. I know they wont, father, but it wont 

 toke you but a minute to do it, and then it helps make 

 the old house look so much better, and makes mother 

 and the children so much happier when they see every 

 thing around looks cheerful and pleasant; and this lil- 

 little Burgundy rose is mother's favorite, you know. 

 I do not believe the most clownish, peevish, fretful 

 man, could resist such an appeal from on affectionate 

 daughter; for "soft words will turn away wrath," 

 and love will beget love; and the unconscious father 

 will not only set out the rose bush, but enjoy its fra- 

 grance too. 



We will take a still more important case. Say they 

 want a new fence around the house, and the house 

 painted. I'he mother and daughters now say, — If fa- 

 ther will let us have ihe butter and cheese we make 

 this summer, we will paint the house and have a new 

 fence, &c. But says the indolent, inefficient, procins- 

 tinating man, — Oh I we can't afford it; besides I wnnl 

 all the butter and cheese you can make, to pay for the 

 new wagon and harness we have been getting. But 

 says the doughter, — Father can have all the avails of 

 the farm for that, only let us have the butler and 

 cheese, and we will do without a hired girl, and do the 

 work ourselves. He must be something lees than a 

 man, and a man with a covipetenof too, who would not 

 only yield to such wishes, but rouse from his indolence 

 and procrastination, and do all he could to aid them; 

 and I am confident that in nine cases out of ten, An- 

 nette will find, if there is nothing " within or around 

 a country home calculated to please the mind, or de- 

 light the eye of an intelligent daughter," it is the mo- 

 ther 'sown fault. She has not brought up that daugh- 

 ter to industrious, frugal, and economical habits. She 

 has sat her down In the parlor, a dressed up automaton, 

 living and dressing upon the hard earning of somebo- 

 dy; and whatever may have been her school educa- 

 tion, her /lome education has been all wrong; and not 

 possessing energy of character sufficient to rise from 

 her indolent habits, she siis down to enjoy her ennui, 

 dissatisfied with herself and every body else, and con- 

 sequently unhappy. And if she were thirsting for 

 knowledge, and the faiher unwilling to furnish her the 

 means of allaying that thirst, there is not o lite'fary 

 gentleman in all the region, that would not delight to 

 open his store-house of literature to feed a starving in- 

 tellect; for in these reading days, nothing is more rare 

 than an exclusive library. 



Happiness hap no locality, it is not the city or the 

 country, the brick or the wood house, the mahogony 

 or the pine furniture, the Brussels or the rag carpet, 

 that can make a discontented mind happy, or a con- 

 tented unhappy. Home, to a contented mind, will be 

 home, and have its chorms be it ever so humble. — If 

 Annette will go with me, I will show her a happy 

 country home — not a thousand miles from a city — 

 where dwelt a father, mother, brother and sister. 

 Thot home was truly attractive, and that daughter was 

 a happy one. "She had much to gratify her taste, 

 and call into exercise those faculties which afforded her 

 the highest kind of enjoyment." She had " the fra- 

 grant rose, the climbing honey-suckle, the shady 

 bower and the vine-clad arbor;" but her own hand 

 watered and trained them. And when she would 

 "luxuriate on nature's chauns," she would ramble 

 o'er her native hills, by the winding brook, the shady 

 grave, where she could 



"Converse wiih nature, and commune 

 With nature's God." 



and never was she less alone than when alone. 



There was much around that country home " cal- 

 culated to please the mind and delight the eye." The 

 birds from the forest came at her call; an old wren for 

 years built her nest in a gourd shell that siie bung in 

 the well-curb, ond her favorite robin when moltsicd 

 olways knew that in her she found a friend to drive 

 away her foes. She could feed the chickens or milk 

 the cow; the could wash, or bake, or iron; all of 

 which did not prevent her thumbing the piano, or 

 "tripping the light fantastic toe," nor exclude her 

 from the most refined circle in the city; and nonoen- 

 joyed her rural home more than did her city friends. 

 And there was much "within" to make that home 

 delightful — there were happy hearts and cheerful 

 voices, and the hospitable board that ever made wel- 

 come both the stranger and the friend — iJiat home was 

 Iruty attractive ; but not more from the wearied and 



care-worn faiher, than from the mother and their only 

 daughter; and that daughter was none other than 

 Your humble servant, FANNY. 

 Walnut Grove, Jan. 11, 1841. 



The Educatiouol Females, -The proper train- 

 ing of Fanners' Daughters. 



I like your correspondent Annette, much better 

 than I do her antagonist " Home-spun Farmer ;"be. 

 cause, like a true woman, her errors are not of the 

 feudal age. She says, "public sentiment, and the 

 .■spirit of the age, now require that females of the 

 rising generation, should receive a higher degree of 



education than was formerly deemed necessary." 



In the depth of her sympathy with her sex, sha 

 might perhaps relieve them a little too much from 

 the wholesome drudgery and petty details of do- 

 mestic life, and suffer them to go a little too far into 

 the more expensive refinements of the age ; while, 

 on the other hand, her antagonist, and his exponent, 

 of the jEgis, " Franklin," seem to forget that "man 

 lives not by bread alone." They appear very much 

 to dread that a female should be educated abovo 

 her condition in lifi; but it docs not seem to have 

 entered their phdosophy, that educalion, and a pi. 

 ous one too, can alone fit a woman to bear aright 

 those ills which "flesh is heir to." Is it reserved 

 alone to the wealthy to indulge in intellectual plea. 

 sures 7 Does not the honey suckle clamber ai 

 gracefully, and bloom as fragrantly, on the rough 

 exterior of the log cabin, as on the piazza of th» 

 gayest cottage of art ? Must every poor widow 

 100, stifle the yearnings of a mother's heart, and 

 compel her fatherless daughters to live in somebo. 

 dy's kitchen; to be hourly reminded, by unqualified 

 command from the mushroom daughters of her 

 mistress, of her hopeless servile condition ? Did 

 Franklin ever read the story of Cinderilla 7 If ha 

 has, does he blame any fair, delicate young female 

 for shrinking from Cinderilla's wrongs, even if sha 

 were certain of Cinderilla's final reward ? Frank' 

 lin is so much a man of the past linsy woolay age, 

 that he seems to forget that the revolution which 

 those modern improvements, the btea,>i engi.nb, 

 SPINNING JENNY, and TOWER LOOM, have made in 

 mechanics, calls for a correspondent social and mo 

 ral improvement, and modification of labor and era 

 ployinent. He even limits woman's reading to fiv» 

 books, including the B.ble. Annette might possibly 

 err on the other hand; but wc want to hear from 

 her again on the subject of the proper training Of 

 farmers' daughters. Woman alone can do this ua- 

 derstandingly — she is less an animal than man. It 

 has bnen beautifully said of woman, " that in her 

 rich heart, Goi more generously sows the divino 

 germs of his holy religion;" though '; she will 

 sometimes sell her birthright for tinsel and tha 

 ADMIRATION of DECEITFUL LIPS." Yct in the main, 

 her purity of heart is " her strength, her loveliness, 

 her primal excellence." Is she not therefore the 

 only safe and legitimate teacher of her own sex ? 



LUBIN. 

 SONNET. 



WINTtR. 



The scene, how changed! The winds of winter, wage 



Eternal warfare witli the leafless trees ; 

 And morn and even, the elemental rage 



Duils the cold hcan, as springs their ch.innels freeze I 

 %Vhere arc the children of the woods? the Lees — 



The songs of birds that wake the woodland train ? 

 All, all are gone, and like tlic lucks of age 



Tlie pendant icicle the woodman sees, 

 And feels the blood run chill in every vein. 



Season of cold ; when round thcingle cheek 

 Young children gather, and the hoary sire 



Looks o'er the as=emMed group, and feels the bleai: 

 Cold hand of death upon him, which the fire 



Of youth no more will come, its icy spell to break 1 

 London, U.C.,Dtc.i\.\>iVi. J.N 



