AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
27 
For the American Agriculturist. 
ANOTHER CHAPTER ON SCHOOLS. 
I now wish to address a few words to children 
and youth, whose age entitle them to the privi¬ 
lege of attending schools in those States, where 
funds are provided for that important subject. 
Perhaps there may be some who never think or 
reflect upon the happy condition in which your 
lot is cast; a land (our constitution says,) in 
which all men are born free and equal; and it 
depends entirely on yourselves what rank you 
will take in society or in the government of the 
State in which you live, or in that of the United 
States. I was once asked by an English gentle¬ 
men at a public dinner-table in the city of New- 
York, who had made a tour through Lower and 
Upper Canada, and thence through the towns, 
villages, and cities bordering on the lakes and 
rivers on the American side, what was the cause 
of the apparent want of enterprise; the low 
price of land and produce on one side, and the 
high price and progress of every thing on the 
other side ? I said to him, “ Sir, you have 
doubtless seen, as you have passed through the 
States, school-houses, at distances from one to 
three miles apart, built some of logs, some frames 
and weather-boarded, others of stone or brick, 
and as you enter the villages or cities, you 
must have observed large, handsome three story 
buildings; and if you happened to pass one of 
these at the hour of recess, you have seen these 
buildings surrounded by children all apparently 
cheerful and happy.” “ Yes,” replied he, “ I 
have noticed all this.” “ Well sir,” I continued, 
“more or less of all these boys expect to be 
President of the United States, and some of the 
little girls expect that they will preside at the 
levee at the White House. Now how many of 
the children in Canada expect to be Queen of 
Great Britain ?” “ I understand the application,” 
said he, “ it is your institutions which make the 
difference; and I now view a republican govern¬ 
ment in a light I never did before.” 
But my dear young friends, privileges unim¬ 
proved will benefit you very little. You may 
have the best of masters to teach, yet they can 
never learn you ; this you must do for yourself 
Some of you have not your whole time, even 
during the months allotted for you to attend 
school; but although your hands may be em¬ 
ployed morning and evening in work which is 
indispensibly necessary, your minds may be 
working out a mathematical problem, or pars¬ 
ing a difficult sentence in rhyme, blank verse, 
or prose, and this very work which you are com¬ 
pelled to perform, tends to invigorate the mind 
as well as the body ; and by forming systema¬ 
tical habits, you may far outstrip the sons of 
gentlemen who have their whole time for study, 
and who often become surfeited with their books! 
and when you appear side by side in your class, 
you will often be found excelling them in your 
clear conception of your lessons. These want 
to be digested as well as committed to memory. 
A partial knowledge, will do but little good to 
the intellect of the individual, who adds nothing 
further to it. Reading wants to have the mean¬ 
ing of every word understood; hence the im¬ 
portance of having a dictionary by your side 
when learning your lessons, in order to get the 
full sense of every word. 
But I am not going to usurp the place of a 
teacher, my object is to instil within your breasts 
a love for sciences, in order to make you useful 
in this world and happy in the next. Not that 
learning is absolutely necessary to our becom¬ 
ing Christians, but an intelligent Christian has 
much and many advantages over an illiterate 
one. The Bible does not teach the sciences, 
but it teaches our duty, and the more our intel¬ 
lect is cultivated, the better we understand our 
duty, and the more closely we live up to it, the 
more happy we are. If you want to know what 
your duty is, you may find it clearly revealed 
in the 20th chapter of Exodus, and it is this 
portion of scripture which you are required to 
obey, and which if you do obey, you will also 
obey your parents; and if you obey your pa¬ 
rents at home, you will obey your teachers at 
school. "Without implicit obedience, very little 
progress can be made in your studies, and op¬ 
portunities unimproved can never be recalled, 
and consequently a degraded station in society 
will be your lot.. 
Almost an Octogenarian. 
Don’t be Extravagant. — If the poor-house 
has any terrors for jmu, never buy what you 
don’t need. Before you spend three cents for a 
jewsharp, my boy, ascertain whether you can’t 
make just as pleasant a noise by whistling, for 
which nature furnished the machinery. And, 
before you pay seven dollars for a figured vest, 
young man, find out whether your lady-love 
wouldn’t be just as glad to see you in a plain 
one that costs half the money ! If she wouldn’t 
let her crack her own walnuts! and buy her 
own clothes. AVhcn you see a man paying five 
dollars for a Frenchified toy, that a philosophic 
baby will pull all to bits in five minutes, the 
chances are five to one that he will live long- 
enough to realize how many cents are in a dollar; 
and if he don’t, lie’s pretty sure to bequeath 
that privilege to his widow. AVhen a man 
asks you to buy that for which you have no 
use—no matter how cheap it is—don’t say yes ! 
until you are sure some one else wants it in ad¬ 
vance. Money burns in some folk’s pockets, 
and makes such a pesky hole, that every thing 
that is put in, drops through, past finding.— 
Lima Visitor. 
■ - «®« - 
Marriage. — Marriage is the nursery of 
heaven. The virgin sends prayer to God; but 
she carries but one soul to him ; but the state of 
marriage fills up the numbers of the elect, and 
hath in it the labor of love, and the delicacies 
of friendship, the blessings of society, and union 
of hearts and hands. It hath in it more safety 
than single life; it hath more care, it is more 
merry and more sad; is fuller of sorrow and 
fuller of joys ; it lies under more burdens, but is 
supported by all the strengths of love and 
charity, which make those burdens delightful. 
Marriage is the mother of the world, and pre¬ 
serves its kingdoms, fills its cities and churches, 
and heaven itself, and is that state of good 
things which God hath designed as the present 
constitution of the world .—Bishop Taylor. 
AYiiat’s in a Name?— If anyone entertains 
the remotest doubt of this free and happy land 
being a great country, let him for ever keep 
silence after perusing the subjoined names of 
“ fellow-citizens,” who voted at the recent elec¬ 
tion-in Nebraska for a delegate to Congress. 
They are copied from the poll-book: — “Jane-e- 
tah-equah-growl, Os-si-e-mcn-e-men-he, Mah- 
men-wan-e-kah, Pe-shah-hah-me-quah, Muh-at 
tah-noh-noh-no-to, Kah-ku-noh-ne-we-to-to.”— 
Exchange paper. 
Newspaper. —Hoyden’s Dictionary of Dates 
says : In former times, (between the years 1595 
and 1730) it was a prevalent practice to put 
over the periodical publications of the day, the 
initial letters of the cardinal points of the com¬ 
pass, thus— 
N 
E x AY 
S 
N-E-AY-S—importing that these papers con¬ 
tained intelligence from the four quarters of the 
globe. From this practice is derived the term 
Newspaper. 
Pat Aiiead.—A Yankee and Irishman riding 
together, passed by a gallows : 
“Pat,” said the Yankee, “give that gallows 
its due, and where would you be?” 
“ Faith, that’s easily known, I’d be riding to 
town all by myself all alone, sure;” replied 
Pat. 
Yankee owned up to being beat. 
- © C • - 
A Sensible Boy.— A miserly old lady kept 
an inn. One day a famished soldier called on 
her for something to eat. Some bones, that 
had been pretty well picked, were placed before 
him. After finishing his dinner, a little son of 
the landlady noticing that the soldier found it 
very difficult to make out much of a dinner, put 
some money in his hand as he stepped out of 
the door. AYhen his mother came in he asked 
her how much it was worth to pick those old 
bones. 
“A shilling, my dear,” said the old lady, ex¬ 
pecting to receive the money. 
“ I thought so,” replied the boy, “and I gave 
the old soldier a shilling for doing it 1” 
A Pun. —A gentleman named Dunlop being 
present, at a party where one of the company 
had made several puns on the names of persons 
present remarked that he had never heard his 
name punned upon, and did not believe it could 
be done. “ There is nothing in the world more 
easy, sir,” replied the punster; “just lop off 
half the name, and it is Bun." 
-» ©- 
Another.—A Philadelphia judge and pun¬ 
ster, having observed to another judge on the 
bench, that one of the witnesses had a vegetable 
head. “ How so ?” was the inquiry. “ He has 
carroty hair, reddish cheeks, turnip nose, sage 
look.” 
-• e«- 
Death in Childhood. —-To me, few things 
appear so beautiful as a very young child in its 
shroud. The little innocent face looks so sub¬ 
limely simple and confiding amongst the cold 
terrors of death. Crimeless and fearless, that 
little mortal has passed alone under the shadow 
and explored the mystery of dissolution.— 
Dublin Magazine. 
-» • •- 
Themistocles being asked how he would 
marry his daughter—-whether to one that was 
poor but honest, or to one that was rich but of 
ill reputation—made answer : “ I would rather 
have a man without an estate, than have an es¬ 
tate without a man.” 
-* 0 0- 
Clergymen. —John Adams being called upon 
for a contribution for foreign missions, remarked: 
“I have nothing to give for that cause; but 
there are here in this vicinity, six ministers, not 
one of whom will preach in the other’s pulpit; 
now I will give as much and more than any one 
else to civilize these clergymen ?” 
Hath any wronged thee? be bravely re¬ 
venged ; slight it, and the work is begun; for¬ 
give it, and ’tis finished. He is below himself, 
that is not above an injury. AVas it not Plato 
who said, that when an injurious speech was 
offered to him, he placed himself so high that it 
I could not reach him ? 
