in. 



THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 



January, 1862. 



WHILE the great question of Agricultural Schools is continually 

 urged upon- our legislatures, and, as yet, continually put off' 

 with fau' words, let us see if there' is not room for great imprbvement 

 in another way — ^for the accotnplishment of which the farming com- 

 munity need ask no assistance. 



Our thoughts are turned to the subject of home education. It 

 is, perhaps, the peculiar misfortune of the United States, that the 

 idea of 'education is always affixed to something away from home. 

 The boarding-sdhool, the academy, tile college— it is there alone we 

 suppose it possible to educate the yoimg man or the young wom^. 

 Home is only a place to eat, drink, and sleep.' The parents, for the most 

 part, gladly shuffle off the whole duties and responsibilities of training 

 the heart, and the social nature of their children — ^believiiig that«if 

 the intellect is properly developed in the schools, the whole man is 

 educated. Hence the miserably one-sided and incomplete charactei? 

 of so many even of our most able and talented men: — ^their heads 

 haVe been educated, but their social nature almost utterly neglected. 

 Awkward manners and a rude address, are not the only evidences 

 that many a clever lawyer, professional man, or merchant, offers to 

 us continually, that his education has been wholly picked up away 

 from home, or that home was never raised to a level calculated to 

 give instruction. A want of taste for all the more genial and kindly' 

 topics of conversation, and a want of relish for refined and innocent 

 social pleasures, mark such % man as an ill-balanced or one-sided 

 man in his inner growth and cultm-e. Such a man is often success- 



