60 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY JOURNAL 
BY L. WETHERELL. 
EIGHT EDUCATION. 
To train a child, implies something more 
than to instruct him how to read, write and 
cipher. Yet one might suppose from what 
is said and written by many, that a knowl¬ 
edge of these arts constituted the ultimatum 
of education. There is no necessary connec¬ 
tion between mental culture and piety. — 
This being a fact, it follows that educators 
have a higher work to perform than the 
mere sharpening of the intellect 
There is a heart and hand to educate and 
train, as well as a head. If the latter be 
cultivated and exercised while the former 
two are neglected, the child will grow up 
to prey upon society. 
The increase of crime among us is not to 
be stayed by intellectual cultivation alone. 
No! It is to be done, if at all, by the union 
of all three. The hands were made to serve 
the mind. Now, if the mind be developed, 
while the moral affections are permitted to 
remain dormant, the hands, the mind’s in¬ 
struments are quite as likely to be employ¬ 
ed in evil works as in good—aye, more so. 
In order then that the child shall grow up 
a perfect man, he must be trained to labor 
and early accustomed to habits of industry, 
as well as to habits of mental application. 
There is more crime caused by the neglect 
of teaching the child how to do some kind 
of business whereby he may be able to sup¬ 
port himself and such as may be dependent 
upon the fruit of his toil, than by ignorance 
of books. If you would make industrious, 
economical and trustworthy men, educate 
completely and harmoniously, the head, the 
heart and the hands. 
PUBLIC DOCUMENTS FOB SCHOOL UBRARIE3. 
Mr. Editor :—I have been favored with 
the reading of the mechanical portion of 
the Patent Office Report, and am so well 
pleased with it, that I think it ought to be 
within the reach of every individual. It is 
a valuable production, and reflects great 
credit on the Patent Office department. If 
the agricultural portion is as valuable to 
the farmer as this is to the artist, it is in 
our agricultural county above price. They 
only need be read, to convince every one in 
our country of their importance—to silence 
every objection in Congress, and ensure 
their annual publication. 
The history of past annual improvements, 
seems to deal in small matters compared 
with the achievements of the present day. 
The world is all alive to improvement. It 
is but a few years since the thought of ta¬ 
king passage on a steamer from New York 
to Liverpool would have been considered 
visionary in the extreme; but at this time 
the hope is fondly cherished, that either 
locomotive balloons or kites will in a short 
time be traversing the earth at the bidding 
of an engineer. 
In this world it seems that hope is never 
swallowed up in victory, but that every new 
acquisition is the parent of new hopes, 
which are ever the moving power that drives 
on the car of improvement. The rapid 
succession of announcements of great dis¬ 
coveries, proves that we are yet far from 
the zenith of man’s earthly destiny. Dr. 
Franklin’s patriotic wish “ that he, togeth¬ 
er with a few of his friends might betorpi- 
lied and kept 100 years, and then restored, 
that they could see the condition of their 
country,” could it have been granted would 
not only have placed him here in a world 
of strangers, but also in a strange world. 
Being stimulated by the spirit of the 
times, I would suggest an improvement 
which, although it is wholly original, and in 
itself valuable, yet I have no idea of taking 
letters patent for it, that being selfish, but 
give it to the world, pro bono publico. 
The improvement is this, to make the 
District School Libraries of this State the 
receptacle for all public documents belong¬ 
ing to this State, whether published at 
Washington or Albany, instead of having 
them distributed as they now are by the 
members of Congress and of the Legisla¬ 
ture. Then they would come out as they 
went in, public property. As it is now, 
they are paid for out of the public treasury; 
but, by some transgression, they come out 
private property —no one having a right to 
them, except by the grace of a member of 
Congress or the Legislature. The present 
system was much better adapted to the 
monarchial aristocracy of England, at the 
time of the secession of the States, than it 
is in an improved democratic republican 
form of government. With us every man 
is a ruler and possessed of sacred rights. 
The man with us who helps pay for the 
Patent Office Reports, the reports of the 
different departments of the General Gov¬ 
ernment, the Transactions of the American 
Institute, the N. Y. State Agricultural So¬ 
ciety, and other valuable publications from 
our State Government, for fifteen or twenty 
years, without ever receiving the first script 
for his money, unless more tame than Yan-' 
kees usually are, gets jealous of his rights, 
and feels as though it was a poor invest¬ 
ment. 
The above hints are thrown out hoping 
that the people of the State of New York 
may send their petitions in to the present 
Legislature, that the Legislature in modify¬ 
ing, amending, or altering the School Law, 
shall make provisions for the publishing and 
distributing of all public documents which 
are of sufficient interest to the citizens of 
this State, and pay for the same out of the 
library moneys which are now appropriated 
to the purchase of books. The effect I 
think would be to create interest in the li¬ 
braries; it would enrich them and make 
them, what in too many instances they are 
not at present, a powerful engine of im¬ 
provement. A. Stone. 
Hinmanville, N. Y. Feb., 1851. 
Education is the training of the mind, 
and the formation of character. Character 
is the impress which training makes or 
leaves upon the mind. This, when right, 
entitles the person to what is called a good 
character—when bad, to a character cor¬ 
responding therewith. A person may then, 
as is often the case, have a good character 
and a bad reputation, or a good reputation 
and a bad character. 
TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. 
One meets at times with the most laugh¬ 
able typographical blunders, which, not¬ 
withstanding the greatest carefulness on 
the part of the proof reader, fail of being 
corrected. There is a small Bible, publish¬ 
ed at Concord, New Hampshire, in which 
the “ sluggard” is directed to go to his 
“aunt” as a pattern of industry. We recol¬ 
lect to have seen sometime since an error 
made by some careless or perhaps truthful 
compositor, who, by omitting the letter x, 
in the last word of an advertisement to some 
quack medicine, made it read thus: “ to be 
efficacious it must be applied internally and 
eternally.” An English paper says that a Rus 
sian General was found dead with a long word 
sticking in his mouth. In the description of a 
battle-field between the Poles and Russians, 
the same paper states “that the conflict was 
dreadful, and the enemy was repulsed with 
great laughter .” A gentleman is said to 
have been “ accused of having eaten a stage 
driver for demanding more than his fare.” 
And again, at a certain celebration, “ none 
of the poultry were eatable except the owls.” 
If the following circumstance be true, which 
is gravely described in a Western paper, 
navigation upon their waters must be far 
more dangerous than we had ever imagined: 
“A rat (raft) descending the river came in 
contact with a steamboat, and so serious 
was the injury to the boat, that great ex¬ 
ertions were necessary to save it.” We are 
not at all surprised, nor disposed to be 
querulous, when we meet with occasional 
blunders of this sort; our wonder is that 
they are not of far greater frequency. It 
is owing only to the proof-reader, so essen¬ 
tial a personage in every printing establish¬ 
ment, whose labors, however, are but little 
appreciated because so little known. — Liter¬ 
ary American. 
Prof. Chase of Dartmouth College, is 
dead. His death is a loss to the profession. 
Studious, ardent and persevering, at the age 
of 37 he had placed himself in the first rank. 
His decease will be severely felt in the col¬ 
lege and in the whole community. There 
are few such in the country. His memoiy 
is precious. 
Rev. Mr. Dewey, in a letter, remarks:— 
“ The schoolmaster often says, 4 Well, I can 
put such a scholar through Virgil,’ whereas 
he had better consider how he can best put 
Virgil through the scholar.” 
Contentment consisteth not in adding 
more fuel, but in taking away some fire. 
WINTER EVENINGS AT HOME. - (NO. 6.) 
Thomas. —Well, father, have you made 
up your mind to account where the first 
carbon came from, to produce the first veg¬ 
etables at the creation of the world ? 
Father. —It is rather a difficult question. 
Electricity or miracles I suppose you will 
not admit; as all things are now produced 
by natural causes, it is philosophically just, 
to suppose the same laws govern now, 
that were in force at that period. 
T. —Why yes, I shall be unwilling to ad¬ 
mit miracles; except at the first creation, 
and as you have undertaken to explain ef¬ 
fects by natural causes, I hope you will not 
recede. 
F. —By no means; I believe that every 
effect is produced by the unchangeable laws 
of the Creator, which are as immutable as 
himself, and never have, nor ever will be 
changed. But to recur to your inquiry; I 
suppose that the carbon required, may have 
been absorbed from the atmosphere. 
T. —But how came it in the atmosphere, 
if it is only the product of the decay and 
destruction of vegetation ? 
F. —I don’t see but I must admit that it 
must have been a part of the original crea*- 
tion, and some geologists have supposed, 
that the entire atmosphere was once, and at 
the period of the formation of the sediment¬ 
ary rocks, entirely composed of carbonic gas. 
T. —From what facts do they draw that 
inference ? 
F. —From the immense strata of the car¬ 
bonated rocks that cover the globe, partic¬ 
ularly the limestones. It has been esti¬ 
mated that if the lime was removed from 
the rocks forming the Alps in Europe, the 
carbon, or coal, would be a half a mile in 
depth. When they were first deposited in 
a soft and unctous state, they absorbed im¬ 
mense quantites of carbonic gas. 
T. —Well, father, you are getting along 
swimmingly with this theory; but it seems 
to me, that, as the atmosphere only contains 
one thousandth part of carbon, it could 
hardly have been so reduced by the attrac¬ 
tion of the rocks in the soft state. 
F. —It has been supposed by some, that 
a state of things existed at the period of the 
formation of coal, when a decomposition of 
the mineral carbonic gas took place, the 
carbon was deposited and formed the coid 
beds, and the oxygen remained as a constit¬ 
uent of our present atmosphere. 
T .—Now, father, that won’t do; you 
must not tell me about a state of things ex¬ 
isting without you can give some explanation. 
F .—Well, electrical action. 
T. —You are in the clouds again. 
F. —No, the whole globe was a great 
electro-magnet, charged to bursting, and a 
comet, or other wandering body, passed so 
close that tremendous explosions was the 
result, decomposing and radically clanging 
its surrounding medium. 
T '.— That is all supposition, with no facts 
to support it; but let it pass. While I think 
of it, what do you mean by sedimentary 
rocks ? 
F. —Those that are stratified, or are 
formed in layers, and are horizontal or 
nearly so, with occasional disturbances, and 
are formed of particles that might have 
been deposited by water. 
T. —And is not this the case with all 
rocks ? 
F. —By no means. The primitive rocks 
—those that form the centre, the great 
mass of the globe—are without any form 
of stratification, a confused, mixed and semi- 
chrystaline mass, and and are evidently the 
result of the melting of the materials by a 
tremendous heat. 
T. —Well, father, you are getting into 
deep water again, so I think I had better 
go and read Robinson Crusoe, or finish the 
Rural. Good night. « 
__ 
Electrical Clock.— We may begin to 
take Time into our houses and pay for it as 
we do for gas and water—for a Mr. Peyrot 
of St Etienue, has arranged an electrical 
clock, which at small expense and by means 
of communicating wires, will indicate the 
same moment upon a myriad of clock facea 
In this manner one clock will serve a whole 
city. What a vista of pleasant possibilities 
this discovery opens! No more inaccuracy 
in dinner arrivals—no more being caught at 
home by difference in clocks, at hours ar¬ 
ranged for friends or creditors to call. De¬ 
cidedly there is no end of the things of 
which our philosophy has not dreamed. 
MY GRANDMOTHER’S RING. 
BY MRS. J.INR E. DAVIS. 
How blest, how doubly blest are those whose minds 
Are oft refreshed by memories of loved ones; 
Time’s tide may bear them on, and sorrow’s cloud 
May o’er them tower, and youth’s bright visions vanish, 
Yet oft some slight memento of a friend 
Will scatter cloud and darkness, cause the bovr 
Of Hope to fling afar its cheering rays. 
Gilding the future with its hallowed light. 
And such thy mission is, thou antique ring. 
Old relic, by which now, on fancy’s wing 
I journey back to other scenes, and act 
Again a part in dramas of the past. 
Now 1 behold the sainted form of one 
Whose voice seemed like an angel’s, as she spoke 
Of heavenly things, and strove to draw away 
My thoughts from fixing on the earth and earthly. 
And at her feet I sat and listened oft 
Those tones of kind instruction, while her hand— 
The hand whose finger bore this glittering ring— 
Lay on my brow, she with meek eye3 upraised 
To Heaven’s king most fervently would pray 
That He would guide and stay my youthful feet 
While traversing the rugged path of life. 
That voice is hushed in death, and that kind hand 
Has mouldered back to kindred dust again. 
That spirit pure, has joined the blood-washed throng, 
Who wake their tuneful lyres in praise of Him 
Who ever lives, our Saviour and our God, 
And this dear treasured ring is left to form 
A link of precious worth in Memory’s chain. 
Wilson, Niagara Co., N. Y. 
WOMAN’S SPHERE. 
It was a graceful turn of speech in the 
gentleman who, when remarking that “ wo¬ 
man should keep her proper sphere,” was 
asked sharply by a lady—“ what is her pro¬ 
per sphere V ” “ Madam: ” replied the 
gentleman—“it is a celestial sphere!” 
This, though, at first sight, a mere com¬ 
pliment, is replete with truth. The sphere 
of a true woman is indeed a celestial sphere, 
and she is an angel if she properly adorns it. 
It is the peculiar province of woman to 
inspire love: and this love, to be lasting, 
must build itself on esteem. Surely, if 
there be a heaven, “ as is our trust,” it must 
be a sphere in which pure love is the atmos 
phere; and if there be an object more pleas¬ 
ant than another, or more fitted to inspire 
the purest energies of woman, it must be 
the attainment of that blessed station in 
which she shall be an angelic ministrant in 
this her native and peculiar sphere. 
The standard of a woman’s excellence— 
her value in the social scale—is in all 
civilized communities fixed by herself.— 
True, in remote ages, or among savage or 
barbaric nations, the female has been de¬ 
graded, and forced to occupy a position 
more or less subservient; but it is equally 
true that examples of woman’s higher attri¬ 
butes gleam brightly even through these 
clouded periods of her destiny. Semiramis, 
Zenubius, Cleopatra, Judith, Jael, Jezebel, 
and the lovelier characters of Ruth and Abi¬ 
gail, present themselves the more vividly 
because they are isolated proofs of the pow¬ 
er of woman to individualize herself even 
in the immensity of history. 
“ By what charm canst thou control thy 
husband thus?” was asked of the spouse 
of Scipio, if we remember rightly. “ I rule 
by obeying!” replied Cornelia. And it 
was this noble Roman matron who impatient 
of being known as the “ wife of Scipio,” 
exclaimed to her sons—“ when shall I be 
called the mother of the Grachii ?” Poster¬ 
ity answered that question, and posterity 
shows likewise the name of a Mary the 
mother of Washington. Say not, then, that 
woman hath not her reward. Let her be 
true to her sphere, exalting by her influence 
the sons and husbands and fathers of the 
nation, and to the latest epoch of time, “her 
children will rise up and call her blessed.” 
—Message Bird. 
A MOTHER’S INFLUENCE. 
For myself I am sure that a different 
mother would have made me a different 
man. When a boy, I was too much like 
the self-willed, excitable Clarence; but the 
tenderness with which my mother alwajs 
treated me, and the unimpassioned but ear¬ 
nest manner in which she reproved and 
corrected my faults, subdued my- unruly 
temper. When I became restless or im 
patient, she always had a book to read to 
me, or a story to tell, or had some device to 
save me from myself. My fathe rwas nei¬ 
ther harsh nor indulgent towards me; I chei- 
ish his memory with respect and love. But 
I have different feelings when 1 think of 
my mother. I often feel, even now, as if 
she were near me —as if her cheek were 
laid to mine. My father would place his 
hand upon my head, caressingly, but my 
mother would lay her cheek against mine. 
I did not expect my father to do more—1 
do not know that I would have loved him 
better had he done more; for him it was a 
natural expression of affection. Her kiss 
upon my cheek, her warm embrace, are all 
felt now, and the older I grow, the more 
holy seem the influences that surrounded 
me in childhood. — “ The Motherby T. S. 
Arthur. 
To say what good of fashion we can—it 
rests on reality, and hates nothing so much 
as pretenders;—to exclude and mystify pre¬ 
tenders, and send them into everlasting 
“Coventry,” is its delight 
HEAR, UNDERSTAND. REMEMBER AND 
PRACTICE. 
Hear. To be intelligent, useful to your¬ 
selves, your parents, those around you and 
the world at large, you must acquire the 
power of listening. Never allow that which 
is good to enter through one ear merely to 
pass out at the other, but fix in your mind 
and give the closest attention to that which 
you hear and see. In support of this we 
have the command by Him who is over all, 
God blessed for ever:—“ Hear, 0 heavens, 
and give ear, 0 earth.” 
After this sadly neglected element of 
education is acquired, then you should en¬ 
deavor with all your might to 
Understand. Who can set a price on 
the treasure of hearing and understanding 
fully and aright? How important is it, not 
only in matters relating to every day life, 
but to things pertaining to eternity, that you 
should know the exact meaning, and give 
particular respect to what you hear.. Solo¬ 
mon’s opinion of understanding is, that it 
“is a well spring of life to him that hath it.” 
After the acquisition of hearing and under¬ 
standing, then how necessary to your men¬ 
tal enjoyment and power of usefuluess that 
you should 
Remember. Strive, then, earnestly and 
with determination while young, to treasure 
up the divine truths taught you either here, 
in the sanctuary, or at home. Think upon 
and about them, treasure them up in your 
mind, and imprint them upon your memory. 
Well will it be for you, in this life and that 
which is to come, to “ Remember now thy 
Creator in the days of thy youth.” 
And after these talents have been gained, 
and it were possible for you to possess all 
this earth can afford, how miserable your 
condition at that great and final day to 
which every one living is rapidly hastening, 
unless you 
Practice what you hear, understand, 
and remember. Unless you are converted 
and become as little children, yours will be¬ 
come the condemation of the unjust steward, 
who knew his Lord’s will and did it not. 
Even the heathen, who never heard of the 
Saviour, we are assured will rise up in judg¬ 
ment against you, and while they will be beat¬ 
en with few stripes, you will be beaten with 
many. 
Let it then be your constant aim, your 
great object, to hear, understand, remember, 
and practice. Then indeed will ye be fob 
lowers of the injunction of James: “ Be ye 
doers of the Word.” The combined effect 
of these upon your mind must be, to render 
it more intellectual and manly, more rich 
and productive, more active and powerful; 
to make you what you were designed to be 
—an intelligent, thinking, elevated, and no¬ 
ble being, on the march to immortality. 
- EVENING HYMN OF THE TYROLESE. 
My companions sung for me, again and 
again, the Evening Hymn of the Tyrolese 
peasants, beginning, “ The loved hour of 
repose is striking?” or, as our English bard 
has it, “ The curfew tolls the knell of parting 
dajr.” 
The burden of this song, or hymn, as 
they brokenly and imperfectly rendered it 
for me, is beautiful, the ideas poetical, and 
the lesson—content. E ven thus prosaically 
given, the reader will admire its beauty. 
« The loved hour of repose is striking; let 
us come to the sunset tree; let us lie down 
in the pleasant shade. Oh, how sweet is 
rest after labor! How I pity those who lie 
all day on the couch of down, and are fa¬ 
tigued with doing nothing! They know 
not the sweetness of rest like ours. Sweet 
is the hour of repose, and sweet is the re¬ 
pose of the Sabbath day; but sweeter will’ 
be the repose of that long Sabbath, when 
we all rest from our labors, in the presence 
of our Heavenlv Father! There will be no 
sun to burn us; there will be no toil, no pain, 
no poverty, no sorrow, no sin; but sweet 
and long will be our rest in 1 leaven.” 
The First Printed Book.— It is a sin¬ 
gular and beautiful fact in the l\ istory of tho 
art of printing, that the first b ok printed 
with moveable types was the Bible. There 
was no date to it, but it was commenced 
in 1450, and finished in 1460, thus requir¬ 
ing ten years for its execution. 
The Bible was first divided into chapters 
by Hugo de sancto Caro, a Roman Catholic 
cardinal, in 1240, and the Old Testament 
was subdivided into verses by Mordecai 
Nathan, a Jewish Rabbi, in 1440. Robert 
Stephens, a learned printer of Paris, sub¬ 
divided the New Testament into verses, 
during his leisure hours while on a journey 
from Paris to Marseilles, in 1503. 
• The web of our life is a mingled yarn, 
good and ill together; our virtue would 
be proud, if our faults whipped them not; 
and our crimes would despair, if they were 
not cherished by our virtues. 
Charity and good works are two distinct 
things, like willing what is good, and doing 
what is good. 
He shall be immortal who liveth till ho 
be stoned by one without fault. 
) 
