MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
(^huatbitaL 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
IMPROVEMENT IN COMMON SCHOOLS. 
An article recently appeared in the Ru¬ 
ral. entitled, “Details in Teaching Gram¬ 
mar,” which I read with no little satisfaction 
and profit- It is deserving of attention, 
and should be adopted as the method of im¬ 
parting correct views ot Grammar to the 
young beginner. 
Our Common Schools are not what they 
ought and might be, for many reasons, sev¬ 
eral of which I shall state as the most 
prominent. 
It is a lamentablo fact that, although no 
pains have been spared in a pecuniary point 
of view to endow our schools with appro¬ 
priations, which afford all necessary exter¬ 
nal moans of making them infant colleges, 
thore is a great lack of interest, philanthro¬ 
pic interest, on tho part of those upon whom 
their public interest, as well as private suc¬ 
cess depend. 
Among tho first great obstacles which 
tend to retard the progress of our schools, 
and withhold from them that vitality which 
is so essential to intellectual improvement, 
especially in tho young, is an almost total 
want of real, energetic action on the part 
of parents themselves. Wo all talk largely 
—contribute freely — publicly discuss the 
principles of our Common School System— 
devise plans—recommend books—and make 
great public displays of a kind of momen¬ 
tary zeal; and hero tho matter rests. Now, 
a spacious school room, furnished with maps, 
globes, charts, blackboards, and all necessa- 
ry apparatus, with a teacher competent to 
demonstrate all tho principles that may be 
taught therefrom, are all merely tools , to 
perform or execute what the simple judg¬ 
ment and untutored minds of inexperienced 
boyhood actuate it to undertake. 
Now if parents would have their children 
fully appreciate their advantages, they must 
do something more than to merely furnish 
the tools to work with; they must visit the 
school themselves, and that often too—thus 
manifesting heartfelt interest for their in¬ 
tellectual progress and future good. Speak 
encouraging words—congratulate them up¬ 
on their success—have them know that 
your interest in their intellectual good, 
ceased not at the public polls, or in the 
political struggles of the day. 
Parents, by thus visiting the school room, 
you stimulate your children to action—to 
close application to study: and while they 
are thus urged to baffle and overcome every 
obstacle, the teacher, by the same encour¬ 
agements and congratulatory words, togeth¬ 
er with the enthusiastic ardor of his pupils, 
redoubles bis vigor, and is more keenly sen¬ 
sible of his great responsibility—is more ac¬ 
tive, more zealous, and more dutiful. 
If there could be appointed in each school 
district, a committee of eight, ten, twelve, 
or oven twenty persons, consisting of males 
and females, for the purpose of visiting the 
school, every week, it would contribute in a 
superlative degree, to the good of that 
school. I would not, by any means, have 
the mother excluded from this commit¬ 
tee. Think, fathers and mothers, how 
the eyes of your children would beam with 
delight, as they viewed their parents, as 
inspectors of their scholarship ! What an 
inducement to study !—What attempts to 
excel!—and what rivalry ! 
Our Common Schools might bo mado 
Academies; and instead of looking to our 
higher institutions of learning, for loading 
politicians—for profund philosophers—for 
statesmen — for ministers and poets — we 
might rear in the humble school house our 
Websters, and Clays, and Franklins, and 
Newtons, and Beechers, and Bryants. 
Our youth, instead of being practically 
educated, are, as a too general thing, in¬ 
structed in theory alone. Teachers confine 
themselves to the text book, when in fact it 
should be dispensed with at every recitation. 
How often have I heard the schools recite 
from beginning to end, the rules of Gram¬ 
mar, and give promptly and correctly the 
definitions of different parts of speech, and 
their relations, and yet not bo able to write 
ono simple sentence correctly ! How many 
will repeat all tho rules of Arithmetic, ver- 
, batim, and yet not bo able to compute sim¬ 
ple interest, without access to tho book !— 
How many can spell from morn till night— 
perhaps all the words in Webster’s Diction¬ 
ary—still not be capable of writing throe 
sentences, the orthography of which 6hall 
be correct! 
Now it is a very easy matter to account 
for this lack of genuine knowledge. Theory 
without practice is little better than total 
ignorance. When any branch of science is 
being pursued, it should be practically stud¬ 
ied ; we should then have more practical 
scholars, more practical men. “ An ounce 
of practice is worth a pound of theory.”— 
Let, for instance, the scholar write his 
spelling lesson upon the slate; he can then 
see how each word looks, when written right 
or wrong. Every scholar who is pursuing 
tho study of Grammar, should write com¬ 
position at every recital — thus practising 
what he is gaining in theory. Let the 
teacher, at each recitation in Arithmetic, 
givo his pupils practical problems to solve, 
coming under rules with which they are fa¬ 
miliar. Gather every book from the class, 
and have a practical investigation of the 
lesson. More would be accomplished by 
this mode of instruction, with the combined 
aid and interest of a whole district, tenfold 
more than is effected by tho formula- recitals 
which cliarcterize most of our schools. 
Parents, wake up!—visit your schools 
often !—make them what they ought, and 
can be, by being co-workers with teacher 
and scholars. S. K. Whiting. 
North Greece, N. Y., June, 1853. 
A FAULT IN CONVERSATION. 
It is extremely common in free conversa¬ 
tion for one person to make a remark, and 
another to say ho had thought of the very 
same thing himself- Ono will offer a sug¬ 
gestion of improvement, and another sec¬ 
ond it by saying that the same idea had been 
in his mind for some time. Oiten when 
persons are criticised, it is a chance if you 
can toll them anything that they were not 
aware of full well before. There is evident¬ 
ly a propensity in human nature to bo too 
wise to be taught. Lot any ono watch his 
own tongue and see how it slips out before 
he knows it, that ho finds himself none the 
wiser for what he hears from other’s mouths. 
The ways are many and subtle in which this 
claim contrives to assert itself. But it is a 
great discord in conversation. Any one who 
loves tho “flow of the soul” as well as the 
“ feast of reason,” in conversational inter¬ 
change, will study to avoid it. The simple 
rule, “do unto others as you would they 
should do unto you,” would correct this fault. 
If vou mark an observation, and another 
say's he had thought of that before, it 
amounts to an insinuation that it was need¬ 
less for you to speak ; which does not strike 
you very pleasantly. 
But this habit is not only impolite ; there 
is more or less insincerity in it. If you bring 
out a clear idea, well digested and practical, 
the elements of the same idea may be in 
another person’s mind in a crude, unorgan¬ 
ized state, and he may imagine that what 
you say is the reproduction of his own 
thoughts. But it is not so. He is just as 
much indebted to you for tho birth of that 
idea, as though ho had never had a shadow 
of it in his mind. His egotism deceives him. 
This represents the truth in thousands of 
instances, where persons say without any 
conscious hypocrisy, that what they hear 
agrees exactly with their own reflections 
and experience .—Brooklyn Circular. 
PRACTICAL ELOQUENCE. 
Jlaiitrai pstorg. 
ODD FISHES. 
Tho following very brief and decidedly 
pithy speech of Oliver Cromwell, will doubt¬ 
less bo new to many of our readers. It was 
delivered by the great Englishman, on dis¬ 
solving tho long Parliament. It is a perfect 
specimon of the rude, vigorous and hardy 
stylo of this singular character : 
“ It is high time for me to put an end to 
your sitting in this place, which ye have dis¬ 
honored by your contempt of all virtue, and 
defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye 
are a factious crew, and enemies to all good 
government. Yo are a pack of mercenary 
wretches, and would, like Esau, sell your 
country for a mess of pottage, and like 
Judas, betray your God for a few pieces of 
silvor. Is thero a single virtuo now remain¬ 
ing among you ? You have no more re¬ 
ligion than my horse. Gold is your God. 
Which of you has not bartered away your 
conscience for bribes ? 
Is thore a man among you that has tho 
least care for tho good of tho common¬ 
wealth ? You sordid prostitutes! Have 
you not defiled the sacred place, and turned 
the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves ? 
By your immoral principles and wickod 
practices ye have grown intolerably odious 
to tho whole nation. You who were dep¬ 
uted here by the people to get their griev¬ 
ances redressed, are yourselves become the 
greatest grievance. Your country, there¬ 
fore. calls upon me to cleanse this augean 
stable, by putting a final period to your in¬ 
iquitous proceedings in this house, and 
which, by God’s help and the strength He 
has given me, I now intend to do. I com¬ 
mand you, therefore, upon the peril of your 
lives, to depart immediately out of this place. 
Go ! Get you out! Make haste! Ye venal 
slaves, be-gono ! Take away that shining 
bauble there, tho Speaker’s mace, and lock 
up tho doors 1” 
Jfor % fffmtg. 
HAVE WE CHILDREN AMONG US? 
Mr. Hancock mentions a fish, (tho lorica- 
ria) -which creeps upon all fours in the beds 
of rivers. This little finny quadruped has 
a very singular appearance, moving upon its 
four stilts, which are produced by a bony 
ray in front of its pectoral fins, and of the 
next pair to thorn. Tho callichthys, a Bra¬ 
zilian fish, walks in this way for miles in 
search of water, when, as often happens, the 
pool in which it lives is dried up. The 
climbing perch (Perea scandens) not only 
creeps along the shore, but ascends trees, in 
search of the crustaceans upon which it 
feeds. It must have some difficulty in as¬ 
cending the fan-palms, if it were not provid¬ 
ed with numerous little spines or thorns upon 
its fins, by means of which it suspends it¬ 
self whilst climbing, using them liko hands. 
In addition to these peculiarities, it has the 
power of folding up both dorsal and anal 
fins, when not using them—and thus it liter¬ 
ally puts its hands in its pocket, for it do- 
posits them in a cavity in its body, provided 
by nature on purpose to receive them when 
they are not needed for progression. 
Tho perca scandens is not the only kind 
offish which ascends trees in search of food; 
several species are found in the Polynesian 
Islands, climbing the cocoa palms. The 
most remarkable of them is a kind of lob¬ 
ster of gigantic size, and of strength suffi¬ 
cient to open the cocoa-nuts, upon which it 
chiefly subsists. 
Nor are these tho only instances of tho 
inhabitants of the waters forsaking their na¬ 
tive element. Several varieties of fish in 
the Indian ocean and in the Mediterranean 
are adapted for a short flight; and those 
peculiarities of habit and movement are 
highly interesting, even when devoid of 
grace, for they are examples of a contrivance 
which displays the goodness of the Creator 
in furnishing them with tho means of pro¬ 
viding tfor themselves amid the accidents 
and difficulties that may fall to their lot. 
ItJbas been asserted that fish are quite deaf; 
but though they have no external organ of 
hearing, they are by no means deficient in 
this sense; and their faculty of smelling is 
so wonderful that they are guided by it 
through storm and darkness, and directed 
to their prey, or warned to escape from their 
enemies, at an immense distance. Lace- 
pede considers this so much the most acute 
of their senses, that he calls it their most 
valuable eye. 
Tho olfactory membrane of a shark oc¬ 
cupies several square feet. Fishes have the 
character of being remarkably stupid, and 
yet they are not wholly incapable of instruc¬ 
tion. in many parts of Germany, the trout, 
carp and tench are summoned to their food 
bv the sound of a bell; and in tho gardens 
of Versailles some fish were kept for more 
than a century which would come when 
thev were called by their names. 
§^m kg 
SHORT LESSONS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
Enterprise and Tact. —“ I don’t see how 
it is,” lolls out the merchant of the sloiv 
kind, “but I can’t make both ends meet; 
and yet the profits on every article I sell are 
very great. I cannot under stand it.” 
Well, let us tell you, for you have your¬ 
self betrayed the secret. Large profits 
never yet paid in tho end. Commence on 
a new tack, sir. Let your profits on each 
article be small, and, if your custom be suf¬ 
ficient to pay expenses for tho first year, 
you are very fortunate. But continue your 
small profits principle, mako yourself known 
to the public, and “ quick and constant 
sales” will join your “small profits.” Put 
the two together and you have the secret of 
success. 
The forms and ceremonies of politeness 
may bo dispensed with, in a measure, in the 
relations and intimacies of one’s own fire¬ 
side, but kind attentions never. 
Ants have regulai day laborers. 
Ants in the East Indies are horticulturists 
—they make musliroons, upon which they 
feed their young. 
Tho white ant maintains a regular army 
of soldiers. 
Bees live under a monarchy. 
Beavers are architects, builders and wood¬ 
cutters—they cut down trees and erect 
dams and houses. 
Bees are geometricians—their cells are so 
constructed as with tho least quantity of 
material to have the largest spaces, and 
least possible loss of interstice. 
Bears, Herons and Otters aro fishermen. 
Birds are musicians, whole tribes are mu¬ 
sical. 
Beavers in their communities present us 
with a model of republicanism. 
Caterpillars aro silk spinners. 
Dogs. Wolves, Jackals, and many other 
animals aro hunters. 
Elephants exhibit an aristocracy of elderfi. 
Indian Antelopes furnish an example of 
a patriarchial government. 
Tho Ant-Lion is a geometrician—the trap 
ho sets for insects is constructed on an ex¬ 
act mathematical principle. 
The Marmot is a civil engineer. He 
builds houses and constructs drains to koep 
them dry. 
Tho Mole is a meteorologist. 
Tho Mine killer is an arithmetician, so 
also is the crow, the wild turkey, and some 
other birds. 
The Monkey is a rope dancer. Man is 
not his equal in agility. 
Tho Nautilus is a navigator—he raises 
and lowers his sails, and also casts anchor 
at pleasure. 
The Electrical eel, the Ray and Torpedo 
aro electricians and shocking animals. 
The Prima is a tailor bird—he sews leaves 
together to mako his nest. 
The Sole. —This well-known and delicious 
fish is remarkable for one extraordinary 
circumstance ; they have been known to 
feod on shell-fish, although they are furnish¬ 
ed with no apparatus whatover in their 
mouth for reducing them to a state calcula¬ 
ted for digestion. The stomach, however, 
has a dissolvent power, which makes up for 
the want of masticating apparatus. But 
the most usual food for solos is the spawn 
and young of other fish. 
The Halibut, which weighs from ono 
hundred to three hundred pounds, is the 
most voracious of fishes, and has boon known 
to swallow even the lead which seamen 
mako use of for the purposo of sounding 
the depth. Its back is a dusky color; its 
belly pure white. The flesh is very coarse 
and indifferent food. It is tho narrowest 
fish in proportion to its length of any of this 
genus except tho sole. 
Are thero any boys now-a-days ? Wo 
have sometimes been inclined to doubt it. 
Real, child like, fun-loving boys, we mean; 
such as some we used to know in our early 
days; eager questioners upon subjects of 
natural history, and upon tho mysterious 
complicities of strange machines, and upon 
the wonders of the earth and the heavens ? 
Boys whose very immaturity of thought 
struck one as beautiful! It seems to us 
there aro very few such of late years. In 
times that we can remember, children were 
children, and were true to their childish in¬ 
stincts. Their genial frolicsomo ways soft¬ 
ened slowly into soberness; they grew grave 
gradually. The shadows of manhood stole 
over their young faces so imperceptibly that 
tho spiritual still seemed to preponderate 
over the earthly. There is not half so much 
flying of kites, trundling of hoops and play¬ 
ing at marbles, as there used to be. Even 
“ I spy,” “ prisoner’s base,” and “ hide and 
seek,” are fast falling into desuetude.— 
Whistling, the child’s earliest attempt at 
musical expression, we seldom hear now, 
either in city or country. Instead of whoop¬ 
ing, hallooing, and those shouts of merry 
laughter, which were wont to conjure up 
delicious reveries in aged bosoms, we have 
now an unchildlike thoughtfulness, or what 
is still worse, a chattering pertinacity. It 
is sorrowful to think that the accelerated 
progression of everything around us should 
have attached itself even to little children. 
The distance from long to short clothes, 
from jacket and pantaloons to coat and vest, 
has been so narrowed down that, while you 
still have a distinct remembrance of the 
teething coral with its silver bells, tho child 
for whose use they had been purchased, 
nudges your arm and quietly suggests the 
propriety of his wearing, in future, a long- 
skirted coat with a velvet collar. 
Boys have all tho appearance of imma¬ 
ture men, and are fond of imitating and 
even exaggerating man’s worst vices. They 
stand at the street corners, or parade the 
public avenues, in gangs, with their hats 
cocked knowingly on one side, making bold 
and impudent remarks upon passers-by, and 
not unfrequently puffing whiffs of vile to¬ 
bacco smoke into their faces. Boys scarcely 
higher than tho back of an ordinary chair, 
make it their great ambition to chew and 
drink and swear, to a degree that their 
constitutions are perfectly shattered before 
they reach tho age of maturity; while their 
swaggering and bravado, their bullying and 
fighting, is far more likely to lead them 
eventually to the house of refuge, than tho 
house of prayer. 
Any ono who has lived long in a largo city 
must have seen this “forcing process” going 
on, and many have, doubtless, wished to soe 
tho application of a remedy. That boys 
and girls of all social grados become imrna- 
turely mature, is beyond all question; but 
we fear tho ovil lies in the nature of our in¬ 
stitutions, and in the rush and whirl about 
us, quite as much as it does in the relaxed 
system of parental discipline. We regret 
this “progressive” tendency, especially in 
children; and, since it is impossible to 
check it, our duty is to guide it in the right 
direction as much as possible. If the old 
endearing graces of the infantile state are 
to lose some of their attractiveness, if be¬ 
tween boyhood and manhood is to bo but 
one brief step, it becomes us to set a good 
example to those who mimic our ways so 
early, and to exhibit, in our own persons, an 
abhorrence of those evils which we wish our 
children to shun .—Home Journal. 
“COULDN'T! COS HE SUNG SO!” 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
DEEDS OF TO-DAY. 
BY IDA FAIRFIELD. 
Time is bringing eternity near, 
And what hast thou done to-day, 
To lend to this plodding life a charm, 
To scatter its cloud away ? 
What gem of thought hast thou garnered up 
To hear to that “ bettor land 
What deed performed to link with love, 
Thy name, to the human band? 
Hast thou stretched thine hand to the poor and old, 
To lighten the burdens they bear— 
Or kindly given a soothing word, 
To the spirit oppressed with care ? 
Has the widow or orphan turned from thee, 
By thy bounty clothed and fed? 
Has the prayer of faith, a Heavenly calm 
O'er the face of the dying shed ? 
Have thy fingers passed with a lightened touch 
O’er the weary brow of pain, 
Or a blossom borne, to the sick one’s couch, 
To brighten its gloom again ? 
Hast thou gladdened the heart of the little child, 
Who in trouble turned to thee— 
Unchecking the voice of laughter wild, 
Or the song of sitdess glee ? 
Hast thou lifted the mourners sorrowing gnsce 
To the sin-freed soul above— 
Or warmed a heart which was cold and sad, 
With the balm of human lore ? 
If this thou hast done, and hast weekly striven, 
To render thy pathway rife, 
With that silent joy, which is born of smiles, 
And which malcetli the inner life,— 
Though the trumpet of fame, thy humble deeds 
To a Nations ear may not bear, 
Yet the angel, who kcepefh the records above, 
Hath joyfully written them there. 
For if “ from one of these little ones” 
Thou hast snatched the 'chalice of pain, 
Or given of joy to a single heart, 
Thou sure, hast not lived in vain. 
Walton, N. Y., June, 1853. 
TWO IN HEAVEN. 
Leaning idly over a fence a few days since, 
wo noticed a little four year-old “lord of cre¬ 
ation ” amusing himself in tho grass by 
watching tho frolicsomo flight of birds which 
wore playing around him. At length a beau¬ 
tiful bobolink perched himself upon a droop¬ 
ing bough of an apple tree, which extended 
to within a few yards of the place where tho 
urchin sat, and maintained his position, ap¬ 
parently unconscious of tho proximity to 
one whom birds usually consider a danger¬ 
ous neighbor. 
The boy seemed astonished at his impu¬ 
dence, and after regarding him steadily for 
a minute or two, obeying the instinct of his 
baser part, he picked up a stone lying at his 
foot, and was preparing to throw it, steady¬ 
ing himself carefully for a good aim. Tho 
little arm was reached backward without 
alarming the bird, and Bob was within an 
ace of danger, when lo ! his throat swelled 
and forth came Nature’s plea : “A link—a 
link—a 1 -i-n-k, bob-o-link, bob-o-link ! a-no- 
weot, a-no-weet ! I know it—I know it! 
a-link—a-link—a-link ! don’t throw it !— 
throw it, throw it,” &c., &c\; and ho didn’t. 
Slowly the little arm subsided to its natural 
position, and tho despised stone dropped.— 
The minstrel charmed the murderer! We 
heard tho songster through, and watched his 
unharmed flight, as did tho boy, with a sor 
rowful countenance. Anxious to hear an 
expression of tho little fellow’s feelings we 
approached him, and inquired: 
“ Why didn’t you stone him, my boy ? you 
might have killed him and carried him 
homo ?” 
The poor little follow looked up doubting- 
ly, as though he suspected our meaning, and 
with an expression half shamo and half 
sorrow, replied : “ Couldn’t cos he sung so!’’ 
Who will say that our nature is wholly 
depraved, after that; or aver that music hath 
no charmes to sooth the savage breast ?— 
Melody awakened Humanity, and Humani¬ 
ty—Mercy ! The Angels who sung at tho 
creation whispered to tho child’s heart. 
The bird was saved, and God was glorified 
by the deed. Dear little boys ! don’t stone 
the birds.— Clinton Courant. 
“You have two children,” said I. 
“ I have four,” was the reply; “two on 
earth, two in heaven.” 
There spoke tho mother ! Still hers, only 
“ gone before !” Still remembered, loved 
:nd cherished, by tho hearth and at the 
board;—their places not yet filled; even 
though their successors draw life from the 
same faithful breast where their dying heads 
were pillowed. 
“ Two in heaven !” 
Safely housed from storm and tempest, 
no sickness there, nor drooping head, nor 
fading eye, nor weary feet. By tho green 
pastures, tended by the good Shepherd, 
linger the little lambs of tho heavenly fold. 
• Two in heaven !” Earth loss attractive. 
Eternity nearer. Invisible cords, drawing 
the maternal soul upwards. “ Still, small” 
voices, ever whispering, Como! to tho world- 
weary spirit. 
“ Two in heaven !” 
Mother of angels ! Walk softly !—holy 
eyes watch thy footsteps !—cherub forms 
bend to listen ! Keep thy spirit free from 
earth-taint; so shalt thou “go to them,’ 
though “ they may not return to thee !’ — 
Fern Leaves. 
WHAT HOPE DID. 
It stolo on its pioions of snow to tho bed 
of disease; and tho sufferer's frown became 
a smile—tho emblem of peace and endu¬ 
rance. 
It went to the liouso of mourning—and 
from tho lips of sorrow there came sweet 
and cheerful songs. 
It laid its head upon the arm of tho poor 
man which stretched forth at the command 
of holy impulses, and saved him from dis- 
graco and ruin. 
It dwolt like a living thing in tho bosom 
of the mother, whose son tarried long after 
tho promised time of his coming; and has 
saved her from desolation, and “ care that 
killeth.” 
It covered about the head of tho youth 
who had become the Ishmael of society, and 
led him on to the work that even his eno- 
mies praised him. 
It snatched a maiden from tho jaws of 
death, and went with an old man to heaven 
No hope ! my good brother. Have it.— 
Beckon it to your side. Wrestlo with it 
that it may not depart. It may repay your 
pains. Life is hard enough at best—but 
hope shall lead you over its mountains and 
sustain thee amid billows. Part with all be¬ 
sides—but keep thy Hope. 
THE CHEAPNESS OF GOODNESS. 
“Give me health of body, soundness of 
heart, as far as the heart of man can be 
sound, with tho freshness of nature around 
mo, and I may deem tho pomp of an Empe¬ 
ror ridiculous.” So saith an American 
thinker wisely and well. Cheap, too, is 
such glory and enjoyment, too cheap to be 
accepted by all—for with pleasures of tho 
heart and mind, as well as those of another 
kind, the higher price is thought to confer 
the highest value. What says tho poet 
Lowell ?— 
“ Earth gets its price for what it gives us ; 
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in ; 
We bargain for the graves we lie in. 
For a cap and bells our lives we pay ; 
Bubbles we earn with the whole soul's tasking ; 
’ Tis heaven alone that is given away : 
’ Tis only good may be had for the asking. 
There is no price set on the lavish summer, 
And June may be bad by the poorest comer.” 
Trust God.—I could write down twenty 
cases, says a pious man, when I wished God 
had done otherwise than ho did ; but which 
I now see, had I my own will, would havo 
led to extensive mischief. 
