MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY JOURNAL 
Cfritcaliotiftl. 
BY L. WETHERELL. 
“ Having light, we seek to impart it.” 
THE SCHOOL ROOM. 
There arc relatively few teachers who 
enjoy good and pleasant rooms in which 
children are assembled to be taught. As 
rr uch as this is to be regretted, there are 
other things, and such as come directly un¬ 
der the control of the instructor, that might 
be made pleasant and attractive, which are 
stiff-red to remain far otherwise. If the 
Trustees do not furnish a good school house, 
it may be because the district refuses to 
provide one. Such as it is, the teacher 
can always do much, notwithstanding the 
inconvenience and uncomeliness of the old 
house, to render it a place where the chil¬ 
dren and youth of the district, will love to 
resort and spend the hours- of the school 
session. 
In the first place, keep the school-room 
clean and well ventilated. This every 
teacher can, and therefore should see faith¬ 
fully attended to. If the floor be carpeted 
with mud, and the seats and desks covered 
with a thick coat of dust, it will be impos 
sible to keep good order under such disad¬ 
vantages. Scolding and flogging combined 
can never do it. 
In the second place, never allow the 
children to make a play-house of the school¬ 
room. Always require of them to come 
in orderly, and to remain so whether the 
teacher be present or not 
Never permit a boy to wear his hat or 
cap in the room where he is to study and 
recite and receive instruction from his mas¬ 
ter or mistress. Observation and experi¬ 
ence both enforce the importance of this doc¬ 
trine. If a boy, however rude and bois¬ 
terous he may be, on entering the school¬ 
room on a cold morning, finds it swept, gar¬ 
nished, warmed and ventilated, and the 
teacher there ready to greet him with a 
hearty and sympathetic, “good morning, 
my boy —I am real glad to see you here so 
early with a cheerful face,” he will be very 
likely to obey his teacher, and love to go to 
school. But reverse all these circumstan¬ 
ces, and the teacher has more than he can 
do to make that boy mind,—for lie has no 
regard for the place, no reverence for any¬ 
body in or about it 
— When a boy, it was required of us 
and of every pupil on entering the school¬ 
room, that he should make his obeisance to 
his teacher, and the same order was to be 
observed on leaving. We believe this was a 
good custom, and that it had a good influ¬ 
ence on the character of the future indi¬ 
vidual. Much of the roughness, and want 
of reverence pertaining to the rising gen 
oration, is owing in a measure to the neg¬ 
lect of little things of the kind named.— 
The titles, Mr., Miss and Mrs. were then 
employed, especially in speaking of elder 
persons, and it was also common to use the 
little words, “ sir ” and “ ma’am ” after the 
monosyllables, yes and no. But habits have 
very much changed concerning these little 
amenities of life, and greatly for the worse, 
we think. 
Good behavior, agreeable and pleasing- 
manners, true politeness, regard and rever¬ 
ence for age and elevated station, all spring 
from the goodness of the heart. Their coun¬ 
terfeits may be, and are learned and ac¬ 
quired to be employed as a mask for 
certain occasions, but they are valueless 
when heartless. 
Every teacher should seek to make his 
school-room the most attractive place, next 
to home, that the child visits, and himself 
the most endeared one to the child’s heart, 
after that first place, which should be filled 
with love for mother and father whom he 
should honor and obey. A log school 
house with a true teacher, one every way 
qualified to adorn his vocation by his labors, 
is more to be desired by a parent, than a 
palace with a heartless, indifferent sort of a 
person for instructor. An apt teacher, one 
who loves his profession, will succeed in his 
noble work under almost every combination 
of untoward circumstances, while the in¬ 
apt one will fail of success, no matter how 
propitious the influences by which he is 
surrounded. As the light and heat of the 
sun make this a productive, cheerful, and 
beautiful world, so does the light beaming 
from the face of the real teacher, send joy, 
peace, happiness and rejoicing to all hearts 
that come within its genial and life-giving- 
power, though these be confined in what 
would otherwise be an unpropitious place. 
THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OPINIONS. 
That a man has a right to change his 
opinions when convinced that they are not 
founded on truth, who will question, or 
deny ? That men do change their opin¬ 
ions, and that not very unfrequently, history, 
observation and experience abundantly 
show. This fact is most clearly set forth in 
the Biography of the Sacred Scriptures. 
Every honest Christian man who believes 
that his opinions are sound, labors to lead 
and convince others to adopt them. But, 
if in the mean time lie learns from further 
and fuller investigation, observation, inter¬ 
change of opinions with those whom he 
meets, and reflection, he becomes convinced 
that his opinions, concerning a point of doc¬ 
trine, whether pertaining to civil, moral, or 
religious polity, are wrong, — not being 
founded in equality, justice and truth, —un¬ 
less a bigot, he will change them, at what¬ 
ever sacrifice it may be to himself, and fol¬ 
low with honesty of purpose, the light of 
truth as revealed to his understanding by 
knowledge, sanctioned by the authority of 
reason. 
— We have been led to make these re¬ 
marks from the course we have been ac¬ 
cused of “inconsistency,” by a contempo¬ 
rary, from the fact that we have pursued 
toward the Free School Law of this State. 
The Rural New-Yorker was first pub¬ 
lished soon after the approval of the new 
school law by the popular vote of the State. 
The publisher invited us to aid and assist 
him in conducting the paper, and more 
especially the “Educational Department,” 
which has been under our charge from the 
beginning. Having had our birth and early 
mental culture in a State whose schools had 
been free from its earliest colonial history, 
our sympathies and opinions were all on 
the side of free schools. And we did not 
hesitate, as the early readers of the Rural 
know, to advocate to the best of our ability, 
the Free School Law of this State. From 
investigation, observation and reflection, we 
became fully convinced in our own mind 
that there were serious objections to the law. 
We stated these, as they presented them¬ 
selves to our mind, in numbers 31, 32 and 
33 of vol me 1, published Aug. 1, 8, and 
15. In the last of the aforesaid numbers 
we remarked, that “ the doctrine here 
taught with that of the two former articles, 
conflicts with the views and doctrines before 
maintained in this department of the Rural, 
relative to Free Schools.” After inviting 
the readers of the Rural to show that the 
objections which we presented were not 
well founded, we closed by saying, “ If, 
after a full and free discussion, these objec¬ 
tions shall prove to be well founded, then 
there are good and valid reasons for op¬ 
posing the establishment and support of 
Free Schools by the State.” 
The aforesaid objections were not re¬ 
moved, were not answered, though attempts 
to do so were made. So it is true, as our 
contemporary says, “ that we warmly ad¬ 
vocated the Free School Law until August, 
last, when we warmly opposed it. But it 
is not true, as he says, that we did this, 
“ without a word of explanation as to the 
reason for such a change.” We have, as 
above, quoted the reasons for the change in 
our opinions concerning the Law in ques¬ 
tion: these can be found more fully stated 
in No. 33, p. 260, Vol. I. We are frank to 
confess that in our opinion, the arguments 
in favor of the fr ie. school law contained in 
the first half of the aforesaid volume are 
amon<r the best that can be made on that 
o 
side of the question —while at the same 
time we deem the objections to the law, and 
the reasons for its repeal, unanswered and 
unanswerable. 
— We will ask our contemporary one 
question concerning another point to which 
he alludes. We will preface it by stating 
that the last Legislature made a Law au¬ 
thorizing a direct tax to raise $800,000 on 
the property of the State. This sum is to 
be collected into the State Treasury, and to 
be disbursed therefrom to the several dis¬ 
tricts within the State. The question is 
this: Is it any more equitable toward the 
property holding citizens of this State, or 
economical in the manner of collecting and 
disbursing, to raise $800,000 under the 
present law, than under the one which it 
supersedes? If not, then what financial 
advantage has the present law over the one 
which it displaces? 
NEVER TOO OLD TO LEARN. 
The following well-authenticated facts 
will illustrate the principle that man is nev¬ 
er to old to learn: 
Socrates, at an extreme old age, learned 
to play on musical instruments. This would 
look Ridiculous for some of the rich old men 
in our city, especially if they should take it 
into their head to thrum a guitar under a 
lady’s window, which Socrates did not do, 
but only learned to play upon some instru¬ 
ment of his time, not a guitar, for the pur¬ 
pose of resisting the wear and t< ar of o’d age. 
Cato, at eighty years of age, thought 
proper to learn the Greek language. Many 
of our young men, at thirty and forty, have 
forgotten even the alphabet of a language, 
the knowledge of which was necessary to 
enter college, and which was a daily ex¬ 
ercise through college. A fine comment 
upon love of letters, truly ? 
Plutarch, when between seventy and 
eighty, commenced the study of the Latin. 
Many of our young lawyers, not thirty years 
of age, think that nisi prius,fieri facias, Ac., 
are English expressions; and if you tell 
them that a knowledge of the Latin would 
make them appear a little more respectable 
in their profession, they would reply that 
they are too old to think of learning Latin. 
Boccacio was thirty-five years of age 
when he commenced his studies in polite 
literature. Yet lie became one of the three 
great masters of the Tuscan dialect, Dante 
and Petrarch being the other two. There 
are many among us, ten years younger than 
Boccacio, who are dying of ennui, and re¬ 
gret that they were not educated to a taste 
for literature, but now they are too old. 
Sir Henry Spelman neglected the sci¬ 
ences in his youth, but commenced the stu¬ 
dy of them when he was between fifty and 
sixty years of age. After this time he be¬ 
came the most learned antiquarian and 
lawyer. Our young men begin to think of 
laying their seniors on the shelf when they 
have reached sixty years of age. How dif¬ 
ferent the present estimete put upon ex¬ 
perience from that which characterized a 
certain period of the Grecian republic, when 
a man was not allowed to open his mouth 
in cases of political meetings, who was 
under forty years! 
Dr. Johnson applied himself to the Dutch 
language but a few years before his death. 
Most of our merchants and lawyers of twen¬ 
ty five, thirty and forty years of age, are 
obliged to apply to a teacher to translate a 
business letter written in the French lan¬ 
guage, which might be learned in the tenth 
part of the time required for the study of 
the Dutch; and all because they are too 
old to learn. 
Ludovico Monaldesco, at the great age of 
one hundred and fifteen, wrote the memoirs 
of his own time; a singular exertion, notic¬ 
ed by Voltaire, who was himself one of the 
most remarkable instances of the progress 
of age in new studies. 
Franklin did not fully commence his phil¬ 
osophical pursuits till he had reached his 
fiftieth ) ear. How many among us of thirty, 
forty, and fifty, who read nothing but news¬ 
papers, for the want of a taste for natural 
philosophy! But they are too old to learn. 
Accorso, a great lawyer, being asked 
why he began the study of law so late 
answered; that indeed he began it late, but 
that he should, therefore, master it the 
sooner. This agrees with our theory, that 
healthy old age gives a man the power of 
accomplishing a difficult study in much less 
time than would be necessary to one of 
half his years. 
Calbert, the famous French Miuister, at 
sixty years of age, returned to his Latin and 
law studies. How many of our college- 
learned men have ever looked into their 
classics since their graduation? 
We could go on and cite thousands of 
examples of men who commenced a new 
study, and struck out into an entirely new 
pursuit, either for a livelihood or amuse¬ 
ment, at an advanced age. But every one 
familiar with the biography of distinguished 
men, will recollect individual cases enough 
to convince him that none but the sick in¬ 
dolent will say, I am too old to study. 
Teachers for the West. —Gov. Wil¬ 
liam Slade, Corresponding Secretary of the 
Board of National Popular Education, states 
in a recently published circular that the 
Tenth Class of Female Teachers for the 
West under the patronage of that Board 
will assemble at Hartford on the 8th of 
August, and after spending six weeks in a 
course of preparatory studies, under the 
charge of a competent female Superinten¬ 
dent, will be sent to their destination on the 
18th of September. Ladies who desire to 
join the class should apply to Miss Nancy 
Swift, Northampton, Mass., on or before the 
4th of July.— Tribune. 
BOTANY. 
Vegetative Process — The. Necessary Agents — 
Effects of Darkness—The Immutable Law — 
Necessity of Light. 
There is truly a mystery surrounding the 
vegetative process, and though human in¬ 
genuity has tried its arts to fathom it, hith¬ 
erto the effort has proved unavailing. Facts 
however have been developed that mark a 
wonderful design. 
There are certain agents absolutely neces¬ 
sary to develop the vegetative power of 
plants. These are moisture, air and heat 
When existing in proper proportions, germ¬ 
ination will in every instance pass through 
its first stages without the aid of any other 
substance or property. The need of water 
seems to be, first, to soften the integuments 
of the seed and render soluble the nutri¬ 
ment of the albumen, and second, in a 
measure to supply oxygen for the, trans¬ 
formation of starch to saccharine matter. 
The air, however, is the great means that 
supplies oxygen for this purpose. Heat is 
alike as necessary to induce the develop 
ment of the vegetable as the animal embryo. 
But how it acts, and why it is, is one of the 
mysteries that remain unexplained. 
Though these three agents will pass the 
germination through its first stages, there 
are other things necessary to carry it for¬ 
ward to a successful issue. Most promi 
nent are soil and darkness. Though light 
is the health-giving principle to all growing 
plants, yet it is the reverse with germina¬ 
tion. A germinating seed parts with car¬ 
bonic acid that is evolved by the combined 
action of the three primary agenLs upon 
the carbon of the seed. This process dark¬ 
ness highly favors, whilst light would re¬ 
verse the operation and thus thwart the 
end. The office then of the soil is to fur 
nish the proper degrees of moisture and 
darkness, and to give nourishment to the 
root as it extends itself from the germ. 
It is from the simple knowledge of this 
law, that he who plants and sows may 
learn that to secure the healthy growth of 
his seed, it is necessary they should be 
properly covered by the earth; and the 
means that shall best do it, is the safest in- 
suiatice on the future growth and crop.— 
The same treatment would not suffice for 
all seeds, from the fact that they possess 
constitutions differently susceptible to the 
influence of the agents of germination, so 
that some come quickly, and without much 
trouble, while others are tender, tardy, and 
need watchful care. 
Within the embryo are two distinct parts.' 
One, the root or radicle fixes the location, 
and firmly anchors the plant to the soil, 
from which it draws a share of the nutri¬ 
ment that is to give life and growth to the 
whole. The other, the plumule, rises into 
the air and sunlight and becomes the stalk 
or trunk, ramified into branches, covered in 
their season with leaves that draw nourish¬ 
ment from the atmosphere, and elaborate 
the food of the whole plant. For their 
healthy development, the root demands 
darkness and the stem light. The one de¬ 
scends into the earth and the other shoots 
to the opposite extreme, and no art of man 
can contravene this great law of the vege¬ 
table kingdom, which is, maugre all the 
theories, as immutable and as unexplaina¬ 
ble as the law of attraction. Experiments 
made with germinating seeds upon revolv¬ 
ing planes and cylinders, have shed no 
light on the subject, for still would the 
growing points give obedience to the “ high¬ 
er law ” that governed them under all sorts 
of treatment. 
To the plant, light is essential to develop 
its vigor as well as its useful and ornamen¬ 
tal properties. Dr. Irvine observes, 
“ when deprived of light, all plants nearly 
agree in the qualities of their juices. The 
most pungent grow insipid; the highest 
flavored inodorous; and the most variega¬ 
ted colors become white.” Dry vegetables 
when consumed leave a residuum or ash. 
But a bud produced in the dark contains 
nothing inflammable. Without light the 
productive principle totally fails of develop¬ 
ment. From this one fact we may see how 
important the office it performs, for without 
its benign influence in the vegetable king¬ 
dom, the earth would be denuded of its 
gay covering in the short space of one veg¬ 
etable generation, and indeed in much les-; 
time than that. Strength of fibre and the 
thousand variations of color are also de¬ 
pendent on this agent for their existence. 
Gardeners take advantage of this in heap¬ 
ing earth around their celery and other 
plants in order to blanch and make them 
tender. 
It is probable that light bestows its health¬ 
giving action by chemical process. But 
how, is beyond the present advance of hu¬ 
man reason. It stimulates the plant to ab¬ 
sorb carbonic acid, and exhale the oxygen, 
while the carbon is appropriated the forma¬ 
tion of fibre, Ac. The animal exhales car¬ 
bonic acid, the very matter needed by 
plants, whilst the oxygen exhaled by the 
plant is equally as necessary for the health 
and life of the animal. Hence it is worthy 
of remark, showing beyond a cavil the in¬ 
finite wisdom of the Great Architect, in 
thus making the action of both, mutually 
harmonious in removing those noxous qual¬ 
ities from the atmosphere, which if allowed 
to accumulate, would prove certain death to 
each. t. e. w. 
THE SPIDER AND THE WASP. 
In referring to the first volume of the 
Rural a few days since, for authority upon 
gardening, I found an article headed, “ a cu¬ 
rious fact in natural history.” It fully sus¬ 
tains the reputation of “an old rat” for in¬ 
genuity, which the experience of nearly ev¬ 
ery farmer will attest. 
It reminded me of another fact, to me 
equally curious, which happened some six 
years ago last summer, and possibly inter¬ 
esting to your readers. 
1 was writing at my table with-the door 
of my room standing open —when my at¬ 
tention was suddenly arrested by the hum¬ 
ming of a large purple or blue wasp, which 
flew about me w it!) greater freedom than I 
desired. I watched him while he took sev¬ 
eral turns round the room and finally flew 
to a corner where there was a large spider’s 
web, spreading out each way from the walls 
like an old-fashioned corn fan, having a 
hole or hiding-place extending down from 
the surface of the web into the corner of 
the room five or six inches, at the bottom 
of which the old spider—a very large one 
of the common house kind, — was safely en¬ 
sconced. The wasp flew under the nest 
and close to the spider, and examined her mi-, 
nutely through the covering tnat surrounded 
her. He then flew round directly over the 
web, and let himself fall upon it at the cen¬ 
tre, and there buzzed arid hummed, and 
seemed to struggle as if anxious to escape 
from its subtle meshes. 
The old spider came out in great haste to 
seize the entangled prey, but when she had 
approached within reach of the wasp, he 
snatched her up, and flew away to impris¬ 
on her in the mud walls of his nest, to make 
food for his growing family. 
Livonia, N. Y., 1851. L. C. S. 
THE BANANA. 
Of all the fruits of the torrid zone this is 
perhaps the most useful, universal and char¬ 
acteristic. Like the corn plant, it is re¬ 
markable for flourishing only under cultiva¬ 
tion. It is propagated, usually, by suckers, 
and yields its fruit in eight or nine months. 
Its stalk is herbaceous, rising from fifteen 
to twenty feet in height. At the surface 
its diameter is five and six inches, tapering 
gradually upward. Its leaves are large, 
growing in a cluster at the summit, from the 
centre of which, rises a spike of flowers to 
the height of four feet Its fruit forms rap- 
diy, turning yellow as it approaches matu¬ 
rity when it is filled with a nutritious pulp 
of an agreeable flavor. 
It is exceedingly proliGc—one plant of¬ 
ten producing above one hundred and fifty 
fruits, weighing, in all, seventy pounds or 
more. Humboldt calculated the produce 
of the banana from a given space, to be to 
that of wheat as 133 to 1, and to the pota¬ 
to as 4 to 1. But its nutritive matter, 
weight for weight, will not compare with 
wheat or even with the potato, yet its great¬ 
er quantity more than makes up for the qual¬ 
ity. Hence, the same author maintains that 
if a given piece of land cultivated in wheat 
will support one person—the same area 
planted with bananas would support twen¬ 
ty-five. This may be true in the warm re¬ 
gions, where the food of man is required to 
be of a light and simple nature, t, e. w. 
’There are nearly three thousand mus¬ 
cles in the common grasshopper. 
