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MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY JOURNAL. 
rational. 
BY L. WETHER ELL. 
] VISIT TO A MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL. 
\ We were invited while in Massachusetts 
) to attend the examination of a summer 
j * school, which we did with pleasure, and 
i profit, though profit was spelled with two 
> fs. — subsequently, however, after the class 
> was dismissed, corrected by the examining 
) committee who exercised the class. The 
< same authority pronounced the word col- 
l umn, as if it were written ccA-yume instead 
j of kol-im; tra-dition was pronounced trae?- 
I ition, and the same “powers that be” talked 
; about “sums” in Arithmetic, instead of ex- 
i amples, exercises, questions, or problems. 
While sitting and listening to the exer- 
} cises, as conducted by the officials, we were 
; struck with the thought that a man may be 
) a good minister, and yet come very far short 
| of being a good school-examiner. Then to 
; think that every town in the State has a 
! similar committee, and that these several 
| committees are clothed with power to say 
what books shall be used in school, and 
! what shall not, as well as who shall teach, 
! one could scarcely refrain from asking him¬ 
self the question, When will the people 
learn wisdom? When will parents resume 
their right to conduct the education of their 
own children ? and cease to trust it to the 
superintendence of poorly paid officials 
whose qualifications are even more meagre 
than the compensations received for doing 
what in many cases better be left undone. 
— The school appeared to be under good 
discipline—it was remarkably still. The 
School-Register showed the whole number 
of children to be 23. Only one of this 
number had been perfect in attendence 
through the term which consisted of G6 
days. He had not been tardy once, and 
for good behaviour and application to his 
studies, he had also the highest mark. All 
the others excepting six, who had the same 
mark in deportment, were imperfect in 
attendance, had the mark of mediocrity— 
none below this, showing a good school in 
deportment. 
The public schools over the Bay State, 
out of the cities and large towns, are infe¬ 
rior to what they were in the Empire State 
three years ago, before the change was made 
in the mode of supporting schools. The 
public school system is yet far from perfec¬ 
tion everywhere, notwithstanding the valu¬ 
able mental cultivation which has been fur¬ 
nished to many through its organization.— 
Parents should have more direct agency in 
carrying on the schools, and officials, as such, 
less. The more parents have to do, the 
greater will be their interest in having a 
good school as a general thing; therefore, 
interest parents by requiring them to do all 
they can in the work of organizing and sus¬ 
taining public schools. 
THE STEAMSHIP ATLANTIC. 
STEAM NAVIGATION. 
| to laugh and jeer, were extorted cheers and 
1 acclamations, before the Clermont had pro- 
Only forty-four years ago, the waters of ceec i e( j a hundred yards from her berth.— 
no river, lake, sea, or ocean, were disturbed | From that mo ment steam navigation has 
by the paddles of a single steamboat—nei¬ 
ther the adamantine palisades of the Hud¬ 
son, nor the solitary forests of the Missis¬ 
sippi, uttered a single response to the shrill 
putf of the steam-pipe, or the roaring surge 
which follows in a steamer’s wake. 
In 1806, Robert Fulton, after patiently 
and vainly pressing upon the French Di¬ 
rectory, with his model under his arm, the 
practicability and benefits of steam naviga¬ 
tion, turned away from foreign shores, 
where he had long been a wanderer, and 
came back to his native land. This was in 
December. In the spring of 1807 he had 
his steamboat constructed, fitted with an 
engine made b} T the great Watt, and named 
the Clermont, in honor of Chancellor Liv¬ 
ingston, his patron and friend, that being 
the name of the Chancellor’s residence. In 
the month of August, Fulton had the sat¬ 
isfaction of seeing his vessel move by her 
machinery from New York to the Jersey 
never been suspended, and its advancement 
in every respect, since then, is one of the 
J wonders of the present age. 
The accompanying engraving is a view 
of the Atlantic, the pioneer steamship of 
“ Collins’ United States Mail Line.” The 
hull of this ship was built by William 
Brown, of New York, and the engines 
were planned and constructed by Allen 
and Stillman, of the “ Novelty works.”— 
Her length is 276 feet; breadth of beam, 
45; across the paddle-boxes, 75; depth of 
hold 31 feet 7 inches; and the diameter of 
her wheels is 36 feet. Her burden is 2,860 
tons; about 500 more than the largest of 
the English Cunard Line. Her form is 
peculiar. She has doffed the bowsprit as 
a useless appendage, and her paddles are 
placed as far behind the middle of the hull 
as those of other steamships are, in general, 
before it Her figure-head is a huge beard¬ 
ed Triton, blowing a sea-horn. Owing to 
ALL - EVERY - EACH - EITHER. 
All is used in a collective sense—mean¬ 
ing the whole; every, separates and indi¬ 
vidualizes; and each means one of the two, 
and should be thus restricted in its use. 
All comprehends the whole; as, “ all 
have sinned”—“We must all appear be¬ 
fore the judgment seat of Christ, that every 
one may then receive the things done in 
his body” —not each may receive, &c.— 
mark the distinction. Every, individuali¬ 
zes a collection or the whole; as, every per¬ 
son must attend to his own business—not 
each person, unless speaking of only two. 
Pope says: 
“ And if each system in gradation roll 
Alike essential to the amazing whole, 
The least confusion but in one, not all, 
That system only, but the whole must fall.” 
Every system, not each, must obey law, 
or else confusion pervades all, the whole— 
not one, if the other become disorderly. 
Bentley says—“ It is observable that 
each one of the letters bear [bears] date 
after his banishment.” It should read 
every one of the letters bears date, <fcc.— 
not each nor every one hears date. There 
is another and much more common error 
connected with the use of each and every; 
as, e. g.; “Every one must take care of 
their own affairs.” “ Each may go to their 
home.” His should be used instead of 
“ their.” 
All is sometimes improperly used for 
every, as, the word tree, is applicable to 
“ all individual trees,” whether pine or oak, 
pear or plum. It should read, “ every in¬ 
dividual tree,” because taken separately. 
shore; and, on that occasion, Fulton and i the absence of the bowsprit, and her great 
Livingston having invited many of their ’ bulk out of the water, she looks clumsy, 
friends to attend the trial, nothing could at the (irst sight, but a closer inspection 
exceed their surprise and admiration at the will soon undeceive the observer. Her 
success of the experiment. As the boat interior arrangements and decorations are 
moved from the wharf, those who had j unique, convenient, and luxurious. There 
looked upon the undertaking as “ Fulton’s ! is a pastry-room and barber’s-shop on board 
folly,” were struck with astonishment; and | replete with every convenience. There is.. 
from those who came to witness its failure,! a great saloon, 67 feet long; and the dining 
saloon is 60 by 20 feet broad. These sa¬ 
loons are fitted up in superb style. Some 
of the table-covers are of beautiful varie¬ 
gated marble, and the panels around are 
finely decorated with emblems of the vari- 
rious American States. The cabin win¬ 
dows are of beatitiful painted glass, embel¬ 
lished with the arms of various American 
cities. There are large circular glass ven¬ 
tilators reaching from the deck to the lower 
saloon. There is a rich and elegant ladies’ 
drawing-room near the chief saloon, and 
there are berths for 150 passengers. . Each 
berth has a bell-rope communicating with 
one of Jackson’s patented American An¬ 
nunciators. The convenience, elegance, 
and comfort for passergers, are unsurpassed 
by those of any other steamship whatever; 
to cross the ocean in such a vessel is no 
cross at all. 
The engines are huge machines; the 
cylinders are 96 inches in diameter, each, 
and nine feet long, for length of stroke.— 
They look like monster mash-tuns. There 
are four large tubular boilers; a peculiar 
combination, it is stated, of Mr. Collins’, 
whereby a great amount of fire surface is 
obtained, and a great saving of fuel effected. 
The engines without steam, are but masses 
of cold iron —steam is the animating spirit 
which gives life and action to the huge iron 
arms, “ cranks, and cams, and battering- 
rams, which give the waves such pound¬ 
ing.”— Robert Macfaiilain, in the Phre¬ 
nological Journal. 
All is also used by Milton as a conjunc¬ 
tion ; as, 
“All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear, 
All intellect, all sense.” Book VI. 
Milton is here speaking of spirits, which 
though destitute of corporeal organism, 
possess all the attributes of bodily organs- 
Every is sometimes improperly employed 
for any; as, “ The wall is in danger of be¬ 
ing overthrown by every earthquake.”— 
“ The weakness of the wall was such that 
it was in danger of being overthrown by 
any earthquake.” The former is a distri¬ 
butive epithet, the latter an elective, which 
should be used in all similar language. 
Either, is wrongly substituted for each; 
as, “On either side of the river was the 
tree of life,”—i. e., on one side or the oth¬ 
er, not on both, though this is what it un¬ 
questionably means. “ They crucified two 
others with him, on either side, one, and 
Jesus in the midst;” i. e. if a thief was 
not on one side, behold him on the other. 
Each, other, either, neither and whether, 
indicate when properly used, that two per¬ 
sons or things are implied; as, e. g., “ Each 
of the two brothers will in turn, help his 
sister, whether directed to do so by parents 
or not.” He will either go or stay; he will 
neither go nor stay; the other will come if 
John does not. 
Kirkiiam, in his grammar gives six “thats’’ 
in succession, so as to make good sense, as 
follows:—“the tutor said, in speaking of 
the word that, that that that that that lady 
parsed, was not the that that that gentle¬ 
man requested her to analyze.” He says, 
“this sentence, though rendered inelegant 
by a bad choice of words, is strictly gram¬ 
matical. The first that is a noun, the sec¬ 
ond a conjunction, the third an adjective 
pronoun, the fourth a noun, the fifth a rel¬ 
ative pronoun, the sixth an adjective pro¬ 
noun, the seventh a noun, the eighth a rel • 
ative pronoun, the ninth an adjective pro¬ 
noun.” 
THE OCEAN AND THE EARTH. 
Hugh Miller, a celebrated Geological 
writer, in his late work on “ England and 
its People,” has the following reflections on 
the power and agency of the ocean in pro 
ducing physical changes on the Globe.— 
They were suggested by the evidences of 
a former Ocean channel, met with in his 
rambles near the Clent hills, and are full of 
the truest sublimity.— Eds. Rural. 
O, that hoarse voice of Ocean, never si¬ 
lent since time first began,—where has it 
not been uttered! There is stillness amid 
the calm of the arid and rainless desert, 
where no spring rises and no streamlet flows, 
and the long caravan plies its weary march 
amid the blinding glare of the sand, and 
the red unshaded rays of the fierce sun.— 
But once and again, and yet again, has the 
roar of the Ocean been there. It is his 
sands that the winds heap up; and it is the 
skeleton remains of his vassals—shells, and 
fish, and the stony coral—that the rocks 
underneath enclose. 
There is silence on the tall mountain-peak, 
with its glittering mantle of snow, where 
the panting lungs labor to inhale the thin ! 
bleak air,—where no insect murmurs and 
no bird flies,—and where the eye wanders 
over multitudinous hill-tops that lie far be¬ 
neath, and vast dark forests that sweep on 
to the distant horizon, and along long hoi- 
low valleys where the great rivers begin.— 
And yet once and again, and yet again, has 
the roar of Ocean been there. The effigies 
of his more ancient denizens we find sculp¬ 
tured on the crags, where they jut from 
beneath the ice into the mist wreath; and 
his later beaches, stage beyond stage, ter¬ 
race the descending slopes. 
Where has the great destroyer not been 
— the devourer of continents,— the blue 
foaming dragon, whose vocation is to eat up 
the land ? His ice floes have alike furrow¬ 
ed the flat steppes of Siberia and the rocky 
flanks of Schehallion; and his nummulites 
and fish line embedded in great stones of 
the pyramids, hewn in the times of the old 
Pharaohs, and in rocky folds of Lebanon 
still untouched by the tool. So long as 
Ocean exists there must be disintegration, 
dilapidation, change; and should the time 
ever arrive when the elevatory agencies, 
motionless and chill, shall sleep within their 
profound depths, to awaken no more,—and 
should the sea still continue to impel its 
currents and to roll its waves,—every con¬ 
tinent and island would at length disappear, 
and again, as of old, “ when the fountains 
of the great deep were broken up,” 
“ A shoreless ocean tumble round the globe.” 
ILL-BRED TALKERS. 
There is no better evidence of ill-breed¬ 
ing than the practice of interrupting anoth¬ 
er in conversation while speaking, or com¬ 
mencing a remark before another has fully 
closed. No well-bred person ever does it, 
nor continues conversation long with a per¬ 
son who does do it. The latter often finds 
an interesting conversation abruptly waived, 
closed, or declined by the former, without 
even suspecting the cause. A well-bred 
person will not even interrupt one who is 
in all respects greatly his inferior. If you 
wish to judge the good-breeding of a per¬ 
son with whom you are but little acquaint¬ 
ed, observe him, or her, strictly in this re¬ 
spect, and you will not be deceived. How¬ 
ever intelligent, fluent, or easy one may ap¬ 
pear, this practice proves the absence of 
true politeness. It is often amusing to see 
persons, priding themselves on the gentility 
of their manners, and putting forth all their 
efforts to appear to advantage in many oth¬ 
er respects, so readily betray all in this 
particular.— Harper's Magazine. 
Keep Moving.— Miserable is the man 
who slumbers on in idleness! Miserable 
the workman who sleeps before the hour of 
his rest, or who sits down in the shadow, 
while his brethren work in the sun. There 
is no rest from labor on earth. There are 
always duties to perform and functions to 
exercise—functions which are ever enlarg¬ 
ing and extending, in proportion to the 
growth of our moral and mental station.— 
Man is born to work; and he must work 
while it is day. “ Have I not,” said a great 
worker, “ all eternity to rest in ?” 
During a short visit to the sea-shore of 
our State, some two years since, with a 
party of friends, it was proposed one bright 
afternoon that we should make up a party 
and go down the harbor on a fishing ex¬ 
cursion. We accordingly started, and after 
sailing about three miles, a young lady of 
the company declined going farther, and 
requested us to land her on one of the 
small islands in the harbor, where she pro¬ 
posed to stay until our return. My little 
boy, then about four years old, preferred 
remaining with her. 
Accordingly we left them, and proceed¬ 
ed about six miles farther. We remained 
out much longer than we intended, and as 
night approached, a thick fog set in from 
the sea, entirely surrounding us. Without 
compass, and not knowing the right direc¬ 
tion to steer, we groped our way along for 
some hours, until finally we distinguished 
the breaking of the surf on the rocks of one 
of the islands, but were at a loss to know 
which one of them. I stood up in the 
stern of the boat, where I had been steer¬ 
ing, and shouted with all my strength. I 
listened a moment, gnd heard through the 
thick fog and above the breaking of the 
surf, the sweet voice of my boy calling, 
“Come this way, father!’—steer straight 
for me—I’m here waiting for you! ” We 
steered by that sound, and soon my little 
boy leaped into my arms with joy, saying, 
“ 1 knew you would hear me, father,” and 
nestled to sleep on my bosom. 
The child and the maiden are both sleep¬ 
ing now. They died in two short weeks 
after the period I rHer to, with hardly an 
interval of time between their deaths.— 
Now tossed upon the rough sea of life, 
without compass or guide, enveloped in the 
fog, and surrounded by rocks, I seem to 
hear the sound of that cherub voice calling 
from the bright shore, “ Come this way 
father!—steer straight for me!” When 
oppressed with sadness, 1 take my way to 
our quiet cemetery; still, as I stand by one 
little mound, the same musical voice echoes 
from thence—“Come this way, father! — 
I’m waiting for thee! ” 
I remember a voice which once guided my way 
When, lost on the sea, fog-enshrouded I lay ; 
’Twas the voice of a child, as he stood on the shore 
It sounded out clear o’er the dark billows’ roar— 
“Como this way, my father ! steer straight for me; 
Here safe on the shore I am waiting for theel ” 
I remember that voice which once guided my way, 
Midst rocks and through breakers and high dashing 
spray; 
How sweet to my heart did it sound from the shore, 
As it echoed ont>clear o’er the dark billows’ roar— 
“ Come this way, my father ! steer straight for me; 
Here safe on the shore I am waiting for thee! ” 
I remember my joy when I held to my breast 
The form of that dear one and soothed it to rest; 
For the tones of my child as they echoed outclenr, 
“I called you, dear father! and knew you would 
hear 
The voice of your darling far o’er the dark sea, 
While safe on the shore I was waiting for thee! ” 
That voice is now hushed which then guided my 
way; 
The form [ then pressed is now mingling with clay; 
But the tones of my child still sound in my ear— 
“ I am calling you. father!—O, can you not hear 
The voice of your darling as you toss on life’s sea? 
For on a bright shore I am waiting lor thee! ” 
I remember that voice: in many a lone hour 
It speaks to my henrt with fresh beauty and power. 
And still echoes far out over life’s troubled wave, 
And sounds from loved lips that lie in the grave— 
“Come this way, my father, O, steer straight 
for mel 
Here safely in Heaven I am waiting for thee.” 
[ Waterville Mai 1. 
THE LORD’S PRAYER. 
Of the two portions into which the whole 
prayer thus resolves itself, the first half, 
beginning with the Father’s throne in 
Heaven, comes down, by the steps of its 
several petitions, to man as the servant of 
his father on the earth: “ Thy will be done 
in earth as it is in heaven.” The second 
portion commences with man and his lower 
and corporeal needs on earth, and climbs 
upward on its returning way to the skies, 
through supplications “ that respect, first, 
man’s bodily, and then his spiritual wants, 
and implore his deliverance from all pres¬ 
ent and eternal evil.” The prayer becomes 
thus like an endless chain in our wells.— 
Beginning in heaven and reaching earth, 
and then returning to heaven again, it is 
seen binding together the throne and the 
footstool—God the sovereign and man the 
dependent.— Williams' Lectures. 
Simplicity. —“ How admirable,” says 
Racine, “ is the simplicity of the Evange¬ 
lists. They never speak injuriously of the 
enemies of Jesus Christ, of his judges, nor 
of his executioners. They report the facts 
without a single reflection. They comment 
neither on their Master’s mildness when he 
was smitten, nor on his constancy in the 
hour of his ignominious death, which they 
thus describe:—‘And they crucified Jesus.’ ” 
When the good and the lovely die, the 
memory of their good deeds, like the moon¬ 
beams on the stormy sea, lights up our 
darkened hearts and lends to the surround¬ 
ing bloom a beauty so sad, so sweet, that 
we would not, if we could, d'spel the dark¬ 
ness that environs it. 
