NOV. 1. 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
$>jf$ fbucatup. 
Written for the Rural New-Yorker. 
THE SCHOOL MEETING. 
Did you ever attend a “ School Meeting,” as 
it is called—a meeting of the inhabitants of a 
school district, to elect trustees and transact 
such other business as may come before them ? 
If not, you had better step into the nearest 
school house, at the appointed time, and see 
human nature under a new guise, and learn 
something of our far-famed school system.— 
Just permit yourselves to be enticed into one, 
and take notice of the events of the evening. 
At “early candlelight” the crowd begins to 
assemble, and, grouped around the stove, they 
discuss politics, religion, the crops, or some bit 
of village or (district gossip which may, just 
then, be rife in the neighborhood. Back in the 
corner, a crowd of boys are noisily disputing 
concerning the, to them, important subject, of 
the next teacher, who shall have the “back¬ 
seat,” and other kindred matters of the “boy 
politics ” of the neighborhood. A few tallow 
“dips,” stuck in blocks at various points, com¬ 
plete the picture. 
Some one of the trustees calls the meeting to 
order, and nominated a worthy neighbor as 
Chairman, who is, of course, elected, all being 
willing to expedite business as much as possi¬ 
ble. ’Squire Magnate is, as usual, chosen Clerk 
of the District. P. Foggkr, Esq., the smart law¬ 
yer, moves that hisworthy friend and neighbor, 
Tite Purse, be succeeded as trustee by his 
other worthy friend and neighbor, A. S. Flint. 
The president calls for the vote, and it is car¬ 
ried, on the old principle of “ hurrying up,” 
although it is too often true here, as elsewhere, 
that most haste is worst speed. 
Some body happens to think that it is neces¬ 
sary to elect a Librarian, just for form’s sake, 
and so one is elected. One thinks that the 
school house needs some repair, but another re¬ 
marks that they have no time for that now,—so 
the repairs wait for “a more convenient sea¬ 
son,” and the children, meantime, shiver on 
through the winter. Money is voted for fuel, 
the trustees are exhorted not to hire too dear a 
teacher,and the meeting harmoniously adjourns 
for one year. 
And now let us glance at the practical work¬ 
ing of the system. A teacher applies for the 
school, and the first question asked is pretty 
sure to be, “ What is your price ?" The second 
may be, “ What can you teach ?” As a conse¬ 
quence, teaching becomes a mercenary busi¬ 
ness. The price demanded, and not the know¬ 
ledge, regulating the standard of eligibility, 
the teacher must regulate himself accordingly, 
and beiug poorly paid, settles the balance with 
the district by neglecting the scholars; they 
become everything that the parents do not 
wish, and thus another source of vexation and 
annoyance—all of which must eventually fall 
upon the devoted head of the teacher. 
All these, and many other evils, arise from 
the same mercenary spirit which demands 
cheap teachers—that spirit, which measures a 
person’s education, not by the amount of know¬ 
ledge possessed, but by the dollars and cents 
expended in its acquisition. This spirit seems 
to be far too prevalent in the community at the 
present time—too prevalent for the good of the 
scholars, and consequently for the good of the 
parents and the district. There should be an 
awakening of the public mind on the subject. 
Let trustees remember that in hiring a teacher 
they are choosing one who will influence the 
minds of the children more, during his stay, 
than the parents, if it were possible. He will 
exercise over them a stronger sway, for weal or 
woe, than any one else. Not only will this in¬ 
fluence be conveyed in the recitations of the 
scholars, but in the words, looks, and habits of 
the teacher. Can this, then, be made a mere 
question of dollars and cents ? Is the future of 
most of the children of a district to be compared 
to a few dollars, more or less, per month of a 
teacher’s compensation ? Certainly not. Then 
let a more enlightened policy be adopted. Let 
the fact be appreciated, that it is better to pay 
any price asked to a good teacher, than to have 
a poor one for nothing. Aliquis. 
Genesee Co., N. Y,, Oct., 1856. 
EDUCATION. 
The great leading“error“of modern times is 
the mistaking of erudition for education. Edu¬ 
cation is the leading human souls to what is best 
and making what is best out of them ; and 
these two objects are always attainable to¬ 
gether, and by the same means ; the training 
which makes men happiest in themselves also 
makes them most serviceable to others. True 
education, then, has respect, first "to the ends 
which are proposable to the man, or attainable 
by him; and, secondly, to the material of 
which the man is made. So far as it is able, it 
chooses the end, according to the material; but 
it cannot always choose the end, for the position 
of many persons in life is fixed by necessity ; 
still less can it choose the material; and, there¬ 
fore, all it can do is to fit the one to the other 
as wisely as may be. Among all men, whether 
of the upper or lower orders, the^differences 
are eternal and irreconcilable, between one in¬ 
dividual and another, born under absolutely 
the same circumstances. One mantis made of 
agate, another of oak; one of slate,'(another of 
clay. The education of the first is t polishing; 
of the second, seasoning ; of the third reading ; 
of the fourth, moulding. It is of nonuse to sea¬ 
son the agate ; it is vain to try to polish the 
slate : but both are fitted, by the qualities they 
possess, for services in which "they may be 
honored. 
Now the cry for the education of the lower 
classes, which is heard every day more widely 
and loudly, is a wise and a sacred cry, provid¬ 
ed it be extended into one for the education of 
all classes, with definite respect to the work 
each man has to do, and the substance of which 
he is made. But it is a foolish and vain cry, if 
it be understood, as in the plurality of cases it 
is meant to be, for the expression of mere crav¬ 
ing after knowledge, irrespective of the simple 
purposes of the life that now is, and blessings 
of that which is to come. One great fallacy 
into which men are apt to fall when they are 
reasoning on this subject is, that light, as such, 
is always good ; and darkness, as such always 
evil. Far from it. Light untempered would 
be annihilation. It is good to them that sit iu 
darkness and in the shadow of death; but, to 
those that faint in the wilderness, so also is the 
shadow of a great rock in a weary land. If 
the sunshine is good, so also the cloud of the 
latter rain. Light is only beautiful, only avail¬ 
able for life, when it is tempered with shadow ; 
pure light is fearful, and unendurable by hu¬ 
manity. Therefore, in the education either of 
lower or upper classes, it matters not the least 
how much or how little they know, provided 
they know just what will fit them to do their 
work, and to be happy in it. What the sum or 
the nature of their knowledge ought to be at a 
given time or in a given case, is a totally dif¬ 
ferent question ; the main thing to be under¬ 
stood is, that a man is not educated in any 
sense whatsoever because he can read Latin, or 
write English, or can behave well in a drawing¬ 
room ; but that he is only educated if he is 
happy, busy, beneficent, and effective in the 
world ; that millions of peasants are therefore 
at this moment better educated than most of 
those who call themselves gentlemen ; and that 
the means taken to “ educate ” the lower classes 
in any other sense, may very often be productive 
of a precisely opposite result.— Ruskin. 
THE UNEDUCATED. 
Excepting those who are destitute of reason, 
there are none who are, in truth, uneducated. 
We talk of educating the masses, while the 
masses are educating themselves, either for 
good or evil. A person, unable even to read 
or write, has a claim to be called an educated 
person. He has ways, and manners, and habits 
all his own ; he has principles founded in truth 
or error ; and thoughts concerning the common 
things of daily life, which are inwoven with his 
very being. From his earliest boyhood, he has 
been busy educating himself, and the results of 
h : s work are seen in his character ; just as the 
skillfulness of an architect is exhibited in the 
proportions of the building that he planned.— 
The boy who runs in the street from morn till 
night, subject to no restraint, will surely edu¬ 
cate himself. He may indeed avoid the school 
room, and the influence of the teacher, but he 
will, nevertheless, prove a ready scholar. He 
will learn to be vulgar, by hearing vulgarity ; 
to be profane, by hearing profanity ; to be base 
in all his motives, by constantly associating 
with those whose motives are never right or 
laudable. Vice will be his teacher, and the 
bar-room, the saloon, or the hamlet 3 of the low 
and the vicious, his places of instruction. Un¬ 
less he listens to experience, and deserts his 
school at once, he will “graduate with honors,” 
thoroughly, though wrongly educated. 
The most important part in the training 
children receive at home or at school, does not 
consist in what is often designated “ book learn¬ 
ing,” because in after life, this “ book learning ” 
is discarded in part, and its place supplied 
by facts and thoughts drawn from experience 
alone. Thus the work of the teacher has ad¬ 
vanced, as this truth has become more evident, 
and while it is none the less arduous, it is more 
honorable and more useful, because it seeks to 
make lasting impressions upon the mind of the 
child. It becomes important then that child¬ 
ren have right examples placed before them. 
Practice and precept should join hand in hand, 
if we would save any from vice to virtue. Gen¬ 
tleness and love will teacli a child to distin¬ 
guish between the good and evil promptings of 
its own nature ; to follow the one, to avoid the 
latter. The great moral want of our country is 
not educated men, for of these there is no lack, 
but of men rigidly educated ; and the great 
work of the teacher who would benefit the 
present, and desire a good name in the future, 
must be to teach those under his influence to 
educate themselves aright.— Connecticut School 
Journal. 
Language. —Language is the amber in which 
a thousand precious thoughts have been safely 
embedded and preserved. It has arrested ten 
thousand lightning-flashes of genius, which, 
unless thus fixed and arrested, might have been 
as bright, but would also have been as quickly 
passing and perishing as the lightning. Words 
convey the mental treasures of one period to 
the generations that follow ; and laden with 
this, their precious freight, they sail safely 
across gults of time in which empires have suf¬ 
fered shipwreck, and the languages of common 
life have sunk into oblivion.— Trench. 
Hint to Teachers. — Our pupils, let us re¬ 
member, cannot receive from us a greater degree 
of excellence than we ourselves attain. Books 
and other influences may carry them higher, 
but no influence from ourselves can. The 
stream caunot flow higher than its fountain._ 
It is as impossible to communicate and estab¬ 
lish in the character of another, a Christian 
grace which we do not ourselves possess, as it 
is to preach what we do not ourselves know._ 
We must first acquire what we would impart, 
and be what we would have our pupils become. 
THE BANANA, OR PLANTAIN TREE. 
Tiie Banana, or Plantain, forms a principal | 
article of food to a great portion of mankind 
within and near the tropics, offering its pro¬ 
duce indifferently to the inhabitants of equi¬ 
noctial Asia and America, of tropical Africa, 
and of the islands of the Atlantic and Pacific 
oceans. Wherever the mean heat of the year 
exceeds seventy-five degrees of Fahrenheit, the 
banana is one of the most important and inte¬ 
resting objects for the cultivation of man. All 
hot countries appear equally to favor the growth 
of its fruit; and it has even been cultivated in 
Cuba, in situations where the thermometer de¬ 
scends to forty-five degrees of Fahrenheit. 
The tree which bears this useful fruit is of 
considerable size : it rises with an herbaceous 
stalk, about five or six inches in diameter at 
the surface of the ground, but tapering upward 
to the height of fifteen or twenty feet. The 
leaves are in a cluster at the top ; they are very 
large, often six feet long and two feet broad : 
the middle rib is strong, but the rest of the 
leaf is tender. The leaves grow with great 
rapidity after the stalk has attained its proper 
height. The spike of flowers rises from the 
centre of the leaves to the height of about four 
feet. At first the flowers are enclosed in a 
sheath, but, as they come to maturity, they drop 
off. The fruit is about an inch in diameter, 
eight or nine inches loi g, and bent a little on 
one side. As it ripens or turns yellow; and 
when ripe, it is filled with a pulp of a luscious 
sweet taste. 
The banana is not known in an uncultivated 
state. The wildest tribes of South America, 
who depend upon this fruit for their subsist¬ 
ence, propagate the plant by suckers. Eight 
or nine months after the sucker has been plant¬ 
ed, the banana begins to form its clusters; and 
the fruit may be collected in the tenth and 
eleventh months. When the stalk is cut, the 
fruit of which has ripened, a sprout is put forth, 
which again bears fruit in three months. The 
whole labor of cultivation which is required 
for a plantation of bananas is to cut the stalks 
laden with ripe fruit, and to give the plants a 
slight nourishment, once or twice a year, by 
digging round the roots. A spot of a little 
more than a thousand square feet will contain 
from thirty to forty banana plants. A cluster 
of bananas, produced on a single plant, often 
contains from one hundred and sixty to one 
hundred and eighty fruits, and weighs from 
seventy to eighty pounds. By reckoning the 
weight of a cluster only at forty pounds, such a 
plantation would produce more than four thou¬ 
sand pounds of nutritive substance. The cele¬ 
brated Naturalist, M. Humboldt, calculates 
that as thirty-three pounds of wheat and nine¬ 
ty-nine pounds of potatoes require the same 
space as that in which four thousand pounds of 
bananas are grown, the produce of bananas is 
consequently to that wheat as 132 to 1, and to 
that of potatoes as 44 to 1. 
ANIMALCULA. 
The recent astonishing discoveries of Ehren- 
burg, a Prussian naturalist, have given a new 
aspect to this department of animated nature, 
even in a geological point of view. He has de¬ 
scribed seven hundred and twenty-two living 
species, which swam almost everywhere, even 
in the fluids of living and healthy animals iu 
countless numbers. Formerly they were thought 
to be the most simple of all animals in their 
organization ; to be in fact little more than mere 
particles of matter eudowed with vitality ; but 
he has discovered in them mouths, teeth, stom¬ 
achs, muscles, nerves, glands, eyes, and organs 
of reproduction. Some of the smallest animal- 
cula are not more than the twenty-four thou¬ 
sandth of an inch in diameter, and the thick¬ 
ness of the skin o( their stomachs is not more 
than the fifty millionth part of an inch. In 
their mode of reproduction they are viviparious, 
ovicarious, and gemmiparious. An individual 
of the Hydatina senta increased in ten days to 
one million ; on the e’eveuth day to four mil¬ 
lions, and on the 42d day to sixteen millions. 
In another case Ehrenburg says that one indi¬ 
vidual is capable of becoming in four days'one 
hundred and seventy billions 1 Leuwenhoock 
calculated that one billion animalcula, such as 
occur in common water, would not altogether 
make a mass so large as a grain of sand. Ehr- 
enberg estimates that five hundred millions of 
them do actually sometimes exist, in a single 
drop of water. In the Alps there is sometimes 
found a snow of red color; and it has been re¬ 
cently ascertained by M. Shuttlewortli that the 
coloring matter is composed chiefly of infusoria, 
with some plants of the tribe of Algse. And 
what is most singular is, that when the snow 
had been melted for a short time, so as to be¬ 
come a little warmer than the freezing point, 
the animals die, because they cannot endure so 
much heat I A specimen of meteoric paper 
which fell from the sky in Courtlaud 1686, has 
been examined by Ehrenberg, and found to 
consist, like the red snow, of conferva and infu¬ 
soria. Of the latter he found twenty-nine 
species. Surprising as these facts are, it will 
perhaps seem still more incredible that the 
skeletons of these animals should be found in 
a fossil state, and actually constitute nearly the 
whole mass of soils and rocks, several feet iu 
thickness, and extending over areas of many 
acres. Yet this too has been ascertained by 
the same acu'e Prussian naturalist. 
THE DEAD SEA. 
Though in breadth not exceeding ten miles, 
the Dead Sea seems boundless to the eye when 
looking from north to south, and the murmur 
of the waves, as they break on its flint-strewn 
shore, together with the lines of drif wood ;>nd 
fragments of bitumen on the beach, give to its 
waters a resemblance to the ocean. Curious to 
experience the sensations of swimming in so 
strange a sea, I put to the test the accounts of 
the extreme buoyancy felt in it, and I was 
quickly convinced that there was no exaggera¬ 
tion in what I heard. I found the water almost 
tepid, and so strong that the chief difficutly 
was to keep sufficiently submerged, the feet 
starting up in the air at every vigorous stroke. 
When floating, half the body rose above the 
surface, and, with a pillow, one might have 
slept upon the water. After some time the 
strangeness of the sensation in some measure 
disappeared, and on approaching the shore I 
carelessly dropped my feet to walk out, when, 
lo ! as if a bladder had been attached to each 
heel, they flew upwards, the struggle to recover 
myself sent my head down, the vilely bitter 
and briny water, from which I had hitherto 
guarded my ht ad, now rushed into my mouth 
eyes, ears and nose, and for one horrible mo¬ 
ment the only doubt I had was whether I was 
to be drowned or posioned. Coming to the 
surface, however, I swam to land, making no 
farther attempt to walk in deep water, which I 
am inclined to believe is almost impossible.— 
Eastern Travel. 
Nothing succeeds so well as success. 
•aliliatji Dtainp. 
CHILDEEN IN HEAVEN. 
“ Who are they whose little feet, 
Pacing life’s dark journey through, 
Now have reached that heavenly seat 
They had ever kept in view ? 
‘Ifrom Greenland’s frozen land ;’ 
‘ I from India’s sultry plain ;’ 
‘ I from Afric’8 barren sand ;’ 
‘I from Wands of the main.’ 
‘ All, our earthly journey past, 
Every tear and pain gone by. 
Here together meet at last, 
At the portals of the sky ; 
Each the welcome ‘ Come’ awaits, 
Conquerors over death and sin 1’ 
Lift your heads, ye golden gates, 
Let the little travelers in.” \Edmiston. 
THE SABBATH. 
With silent awe, I hail the sacred morn 
Which slowly wakes while all the fields are still, 
With soothing calm on every breeze is borne ; 
A graver murmur gurgles from the rill, 
And echo answers softer from the hill, 
And softer sings the linnet from the thorn ; 
The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill. 
Hail 1 light serene, hail I sacred Sabbith morn. 
The rooks float silent by, in airy drove ; 
The sun a placid yellow lustre shows : 
The gales that lately sighed along the grove, 
Have hushed their downy wings in sweet repose, 
The hovering rack of clouds forgets to move ; 
So smiled the day when the first morn arose. 
THE CHRISTIAN’S LIFE. 
From his spiritual birth to his natural death, 
the Christian’s life is a continual wrestling; 
from the hour when he first sets his face toward 
heaven till he shall set his foot in heaven, there 
is no condition wherein the Christian here be¬ 
low is quiet. Is it prosperity or adversity ?— 
Here is work for both hands—to keep pride and 
security down to the one, faith and patience up 
to the other; no place which the Christian can 
call privileged ground. No duty can be per¬ 
formed without wrestling ; the Christian needs 
his sword as much as his trowel. He wrestles 
with a body of flesh ; he cannot go on his jour¬ 
ney without it, and much ado to go with it. If 
the flesh be kept high, then it is wanton, and 
will not obey ; if low, then it is weak, and soon 
tires. He wrestles with a body of sin; this 
mutters and murmurs when the soul is taking 
up any duty ; sometimes keeps him from duty. 
It is true, indeed, grace sways the scepter in 
such a soul; yet the unregeuerate part takes 
advantage when grace is not on its watch to 
disturb its government, and shutout from duty ; 
and when it cannot shut from duty, yet, then, 
is the Christian woefully yoked with it in duty. 
Thus we see the Christian is assailed on every 
side by his enemy; and how can it be other¬ 
wise, when the seeds of war are laid deep in 
the natures of both, which never can be rooted 
up till the devil cease to be a devil; sin to be 
sin, and the saint to be a saint ? Sin will lust 
against grace and grace draw upon sin, when¬ 
ever they meet.— Gurnall. 
Going to a “ Better Country.” —A Christian 
does not turn his back upon the fine things of 
this world, because he has no natural capacity 
to enjoy them, no taste for them ; but because 
the Holy Spirit has shown him greater and 
better things. He wants flowers that will 
never fade ; he wants something that a man 
can take with him to another world. He is 
like a man who has had notice to quit his 
house, and having secured a new one, he is no 
more anxious to repair, much less to embellish 
and beautify the old one ; his thoughts are 
upon the removal. If you hear him converse, 
it is upon the house to which he is going.— 
Thither he sends his goods ; and thus he de¬ 
clares plainly what he is seeking.— Cecil. 
Charity. —Charity embraces the wide circle 
of all possible kindness. Every good act is 
charity ; your smiling in your brother’s face is 
charity ; an exhortation of your fellow-man to 
virtuous deeds is equal to alms-giving; your 
putting a wanderer in the right road is charity ; 
your assisting the blind is charity ; your re¬ 
moving stones and thorns and other obstruc¬ 
tions from the road is charity; your giving 
water to the thirsty is charity. A man’s true 
wealth hereafter, is the good he does in this 
world to his fellow-man. When he dies, peo¬ 
ple will say, “What property has he left behind 
him ?” But the angels will ask, “ What good 
deed has he sent before him ?”— Irving. 
The Affections. —Oh, man 1 fear not for thy 
affections, and feel no dread lest time should 
efface. There is neither to-day nor yesterday 
in the powerful echoes of memory ; there is 
only always. He who no longer feels, has nev¬ 
er felt. There are two memories—the memory 
of the senses, which wears out with the senses, 
and in which perishable things decay ; and the 
memory of the soul, for which time does not 
exist, and which lives over at the same instant 
every moment of its past and present existence. 
Fear not, ye who love. Time has power over 
hours, none over the soul.— Lamartine. 
Kind words are the brightest flowers of 
earth’s existence ; they make a very paradise 
of the humblest home the world can show.— 
Use them, especially around the fireside circle. 
They are jewels beyond price, and more pre¬ 
cious to heal the wounded heart and make the 
weighed-down spirit glad, than all other bless¬ 
ings the earth can give. 
There is nothing like courage in misfortune. 
Next to faith in God, and in his overruling 
Providence, a man’s faith in himself is his sal¬ 
vation. It is the secret of all power and suc¬ 
cess. It makes a man strong as the pillar of 
iron ; or elastic as the spring steel. 
