READING. 
119 
us ? Alas ! wliat with foddering the cattle and tending 
the store, we are kept from school too long, and our 
education is sadly neglected. In this country, the vil¬ 
lage should in some respects take the place of the 
nobleman of Europe. It should be the patron of the 
fine arts. It is rich enough. It wants only the mag¬ 
nanimity and refinement. It can spend money enough 
on such things as farmers and traders value, but it is 
thought Utopian to propose spending money for things 
which more intelligent men know to be of far more 
worth. This town has spent seventeen thousand dol¬ 
lars on a town-house, thank fortune or politics, but 
probably it will not spend so much on living wit, the 
true meat to put into that shell, in a hundred years. 
The one hundred and twenty-five dollars annually sub¬ 
scribed for a Lyceum in the winter is better spent than 
any other equal sum raised in the town. If we live in 
the nineteenth century, why should we not enjoy the 
advantages which the nineteenth century offers ? Why 
should our life be in any respect provincial? If we 
will read newspapers, why not skip the gossip of Bos¬ 
ton and take the best newspaper in the world at once ? 
— not be sucking the pap of “neutral family” papers, 
or browsing “ Olive-Branches” here in New England. 
Let the reports of all the learned societies come to us, 
and we will see if they know any thing. Why should 
we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Bedding & Co. 
to select our reading ? As the nobleman of cultivated 
taste surrounds himself with whatever conduces to his 
culture, — genius — learning—wit—books — paintings 
•— statuary — music — philosophical instruments, and 
the like; so let the village do, — not stop short at a 
pedagogue, a parson, a sexton, a parish library, and 
