MARCH 13 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER 
89 
ite 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
“IRREGULAR ATTENDANCE AT SCHOOL.” 
Eds. Rural:—H aving noticed in the Educational 
Department of your valuable paper, an article on 
“ Irregular Attendance at School,” over the signa¬ 
ture of an acquaintance and townsman, in which 
the writer attempts to point out the cause and rem¬ 
edy of that truly deplorable evil; and happening to 
entertain a somewhat different opinion on the sub¬ 
ject from that presented by him, I beg leave to offer 
a few thoughts, in addition to what has already 
been written, upon that somewhat hackneyed 
theme. 
That the habit referred te is a great evil, and one 
for which we should seek to lind a cause and a 
remedy, I heartily agree with him in saying. That 
it is greatly owing to the incompetency of our 
Schools, as fountains of mental nourishment, to 
create in the mind of the child a love for intellec¬ 
tual improvement, I also freely admit; but to at¬ 
tempt to argue that parents have no direct respon¬ 
sibility in the matter, that the defects in our 
common schools may be traced to other sources 
than to their apathy and indifference, when it may 
easily be seen that the parent stands at the very 
fountain head of influence and authority, appears 
to me as not only erroneous, but bordering closely 
upon absurdity. 
’’’he parent has not only the care and guidance 
ol the pupil during the impressible season of youth 
and childhood, and therewith the power of influ¬ 
encing his thoughts, directing his habits and mold¬ 
ing his opinions and aspirations, but he it is that 
establishes and maintains the school which he at- 
ten*s, and by the riglitexercise of his influence, may 
render it attractive or not, as he pleases. 
We are told that “the cause of irregularity of at¬ 
tendance is the reluctance of the pupil to attend,” 
that “ parents do not like to drive their children to 
school,” and that on the other hand “ but few parents 
would prohibit going to school, against an earnest 
desire of the child to attend.” 
He makes the reluctance of the child the cause of 
his irregularity, and again his irregularity becomes 
in return the cause of his reluctance. This reminds 
us of the negro, who told his master that the hoe 
was with the rake, the rake with the hoe, and when 
asked where they both were, replied that they were 
both together. 
Now why is this reluctance on the part of the 
pupil? The writer tells us that “knowledge is 
mental nourishment,” and that “the mind has an 
instinctive resistless desire for it. If this is so, why 
does not the same hand that furnishes the child 
with proper food for its physical wants see to it that 
wholesome provision is made to appease this intel¬ 
lectual appetite. 
Is it because the teacher is incompetent that the 
pupil feels a repugnance towards the school room? 
Does he there meet, instead of the kind, zealous, 
faithful friend of youth, possessed of those qualities 
of mind and heart, so essential to success, a rough, 
unfeeling, tyrannical botch-work-man, who, finding 
himself unable to succeed in any other employ¬ 
ment, turns his hand alternately to school-keeping 
and digging ditches to obtain a livelihood? One 
whose only idea of school government is an ability 
to stamp and threaten, scold and ferule his pupils 
into obedience to his arbitrary wishes—by making 
them tremble in anticipation of his despotic sever¬ 
ity? Who dees not possess tact and knowledge 
of human nature enough, to appeal to their self- 
respect, or awaken a love for study and improve¬ 
ment? 
There are many of this class of self-styled masters 
engaged in the business of teaching at the present 
time, who seem to think that the only avenne to 
j the brain is by beating knowledge in through the 
hide, and who think, like Buckthorne’s father, that 
children should be collected into flocks and driven 
in droves along the highways of knowledge at the 
end of the whip. If this is so, I ask, who is it that 
employs these persons, and entrusts them with the 
delicate task of instruction? 
The famous Barnum facetiously tells us, that so 
long as the people throng the market, and offer a 
tempting premium for the article of humbug, there 
will be found plenty of persons who are ready to 
bring forward a supply; and so long as the public 
will offer a reward for these “wooly-horses ” in the 
educational line, they will continue to occupy the 
place of those who, with their hearts in their hands, 
are ready, for a reasonable compensation, to devote 
their lives, their talents, and their energies to the 
work of instruction. 
If the teacher be of a sour and sullen temper, a 
severe and unconciliating deportment, and for¬ 
bidding aspect, the pupil will find associated with 
all his ideas of school, the feelings of fear and 
tyrannical restraint, which will render the pursuit 
of knowledge irksome, and his attendance at 
school almost useless. Perhaps he works cheaper 
by a few dollars on the month, than a more com¬ 
petent person is willing to do— or, perhaps, the 
parent has never visited the school, and knows 
little, and cares less, what amount of good influ¬ 
ence he is actually exerting. Yet the same parent 
if he had a valuable horse in the hands of a farrier* 
being trained or fattened for market, would not 
allow a day to pass without ascertaining what 
amount of care the animal was receiving. How 
unnatural that parental neglect, that pays less 
regard te the training of an immortal mind than 
to the welfare of an unintelligent brute; and how 
miserable that economy which, while it furnishes 
the child with the comforts, and even the luxuries 
of life, allows, for the consideration of a few dol¬ 
lars, the young mind to become dwarfed and 
stunted in its growth, by a process of intellectual 
starvation. 
Again, it is evident that at no period of life, are 
we so entirely affected by the appearance of objects 
around us, as in childhood and youth; and hence 
it becomes the duty of every parent, guardian, and 
educator to look well to the condition of the place 
where his children are sent to be instructed. There 
should be assembled around it all that can promote 
health, cheerfulness, and love of regularity and 
order, and that ean serve to elevate and refine the 
youthful mind. How often, instead of this, do we 
see the little creatures sent to some old, dilapi¬ 
dated, patched up structure, with leaky roof, broken 
windows, sunken floors, and clanging clap-boards, 
Tub Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian 
Church, in the city of Auburn, Cayuga Co., N. Y., 
is one of the oldest and largest institutions of the 
kind in the Union. It is owned by the Presbyteries 
which make up the Synods of Utica, Susquehanna, 
Onondaga, Geneva and Genesee. These Presby¬ 
teries annually elect Clerical and Lay “Commis¬ 
sioners,” who hold their meetings in May, in con¬ 
nection with the. Anniversary Exercises of the 
Institution. With this “Board of Commissioners” 
is lodged the power of appointing Trustees, over 
whose acts it possesses the right of review and 
control. 
This institution was projected in 1818, and was 
opened for Students in 1820. A high and rigid 
standard of Scholarship has always been maintain¬ 
ed in the Seminary. Since its commencement be¬ 
tween 800 and 900 ministers have been connected 
with it as students. Of this number many have 
finished their earthly work; others are scattered 
through Asia, Africa, Europe and the Islands of the 
Pacific, as Missionaries—while in our own country, 
North and South, they are found from the Atlantic 
to the Pacifio. 
When we remember the vast influence which 
must have been exerted by this host of educated 
men, to elevate the morality and advance the edu¬ 
cation of the various communities in which they 
have been settled—and when to all this we add the 
situated on the angle of a street, or on the brow of 
some bleak hill, where it is rendered almost inac¬ 
cessible by snow and ice, and exposed to the cut¬ 
ting winds of winter—or, perhaps, where the laud 
is cheap and unfit for any other purpose, near some 
unwholesome marsh or swamp, or on the border of 
some sluggish, pestilential stream, with no play¬ 
ground but the muddy or dusty highway, and 
provided with no conveniences for the necessities 
of life, without the most revolting violation of 
propriety and decency. And the school-rooms, too, 
how many of them are equally ill-adapted to the 
development of the unvitiated tastes, and intellec¬ 
tual pleasures of childhood? Let one of these in¬ 
different parents put himself in the place of his son 
or daughter for just one day; let him confine him¬ 
self to a narrow board, and sit bolt-upright for the 
space of six hours, in a room with low, dark, 
discolored walls, surrounded by the vitiated at¬ 
mosphere of a score of lungs; with no object of 
beauty or interest to render the place attractive; 
with a red-hot stove near him, sending forth its 
burning rays in an attempt to drive back the cold 
blast which plays in upon his head from the un¬ 
stopped crevices; the unplastered spot in the ceil¬ 
ing overhead; the broken window sash, or door, 
and he will not wonder that there exists a natural 
repugnance to the confinements of the school¬ 
room, or that there is a disposition to absenteeism, 
and irregularity of attendance. 
Could legislative interference effect anything 
towards the remedy of this evil, it might earnestly 
be wished that its power should be evoked; but 
when the impulses of natural affection — the in¬ 
stincts of paternity planted by Heaven in the 
human breast—fails to accomplish what it certainly 
has the power to do, there is little hope of any 
legal enactments being of any avail. 
Show me a neighborhood where the people feel 
a proper amount of interest in the cause of educa¬ 
tion, and I will show you a comfortable school¬ 
room, with its neat furniture, library and apparatus; 
where a person having no mental or moral qualifi¬ 
cations cannot long occupy a teacher’s situation, 
or a worthless, unprofitable school exist And I 
will also show you a school which the scholars 
love to attend, and where parents are not compelled 
to 11 drive their children from profitable labor at 
home, with no prospect of immediate or ultimate 
advantage.” c. u. n. 
Marcellus Falls, N. Y., January, 1858. 
HALF-EDUCATED INSTRUCTORS. 
It is a common mistake to suppose that those 
who know little, suffice te inform those who know 
less; that the master, who is but a stage before the 
pupil, can, as well as another, show him the way; 
nay, that there may even be an advantage in this 
near approach between the minds of the teacher 
and the pupils; since the recollection of recent dif¬ 
ficulties, and the vividness of fresh acquisitions, 
give to the one a more lively interest in the pro¬ 
gress of the other. Of all educational errors, this 
is one of the gravest. The approximation required 
between the mind of the teacher and of the taught, 
is not that of a common ignorance, but of mutual 
sympathy; not a partnership in narrowness of un¬ 
derstanding, but thorough insight of the one into 
the other, that orderly analysis of the tangled skein 
of thought, that patient and masterly skill in de¬ 
veloping conception after conception, with a con¬ 
stant view to a result, which can only belong to 
result of their direct labors for the spiritual good 
of mankind—there is perhaps no educational in 
stitution of which Western New York has reaeon 
to be so proud, or for which she has such cause of 
gratitude to Goi>, as the establishment of this Au¬ 
burn Theological Seminary. We believe there are 
but two institutions of the kind in America which 
have done more than this one in furnishing an 
educated ministry; and they are both older and 
more liberally endowed. When the present plans 
for the complete endowment of the Seminary at 
Auburn shall be consummated, it is believed that 
no institution in the land will surpass it in the 
numbers of those who will seek its advantages. 
Auburn is one of the most beautiful cities in the 
State. The Seminary buildings (an engraving of 
which we present above) are so situated within the 
city limits, that two minutes walk is sufficient to 
reach the business streets, while in the other 
direction an equal walk takes one to the freshness 
of country fields and meadows — thus combining 
city and country in a pleasing manner. 
Three years ago the Seminary was temporarily 
closed. Since that time it has re-opened with its 
present Faculty; and, although the classes had to 
be newly constructed, it has in that time graduated 
15 young men, and now has 52 students in regular 
attendance. Not only is it thus increasing in its 
number of students, but the interest of its friends 
through the country is deepening. We are in¬ 
formed that within the last month, in these times 
of unexampled embarrassment, one of its old and 
tried friends has presented $3,000 as a permanent 
fund for the increase of the Library. 
The catalogue presents the following Faculty, 
whose talents, urbanity, and Christian integrity are 
causing a strong and favorable tide to set towards 
the institution : 
Rev. IIenry Mills, D. D., Emeritus Professor of Biblical 
Literature. 
Rev. Edwin Hall, D. D., Richards Professor of Christ¬ 
ian Theology- 
Rev. J. B. Coxdit, D. D., Bellamy and Edwards Profes¬ 
sor of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology. 
Rev. Samuel M. Hopkins, D. D., Professor of Ecclesias¬ 
tical History and Church Polity. 
Rev. E. A. Huntington, D. I)., Taylor Professor of Bib¬ 
lical Criticism. 
It is proper te add that within three years past 
the buildings have been thoroughly repaired and 
re-painted; and through the efforts and contribu¬ 
tions of the ladies of Western New York, some 
fifty rooms have been nicely papered and carpeted, 
and furnished with new furniture, stoves and bed¬ 
ding—so that at the present time the institution 
probably presents a neater, more comfortable 
and home-like appearance than any other one in 
the United States attended by gentlemen students 
only. 
comprehensive knowledge and prompt affections. 
With whatever accuracy the recently initiated may 
give out his new stores, he will rigidly follow the 
precise method by which he made them his own; 
and will want that variety and fertility of resources, 
that command of the several paths of access to a 
truth, which are given by thorough survey of the 
whole field on which he stands. 
HOW WE AMERICANS LOOK. 
Some say the Americans have no physiognomy— 
a great mistake, I think. To me their physiognomy 
seems most strongly marked, bearing deep impress 
of that intensity which is the essence of their being. 
The features, even of the young, are furrowed with 
anxious thought and determined will. You read 
upon the nation’s brow the extent of its enterprise 
and the intensity of its desires. Every American 
looks as if his eyes were glaring into the far West, 
and the far future. Nay, his mental physiognomy 
is determined by the same earnestness of purpose. 
The American never plays; not even the American 
child.* He cares nothing for those games and 
sports which are the delight of the Englishman. 
He is indifferent to the play either of mind or 
muscle. Labor is his element, and his only relaxa¬ 
tion from hard work is fierce excitement. Neither 
does he laugh. The Americans, I imagine, are the 
most serious people in the world. There is no 
play even in their fancy; French wit is the sparkle 
of the diamond that dazzles a saloon; the Ameri¬ 
can’s imagination flashes its sheet-lightning over 
half a world. 
The same terrible earnestness is, I am persuaded, 
at the bottom of that ill-health which is so serious 
a curse to American life. No doubt other things 
contribute—climate, stimulants, sedentary occupa¬ 
tions, Ac.,—but the deepest-rooted cause of Ameri¬ 
can disease is that over-working of the brain, and 
over excitement of the nervous system, which are 
the necessary consequences of their intense activity. 
Hence, nervous dyspepsia, with consumption, in¬ 
sanity, and all its brood of fell disorders in its train. 
In a word, the American works himself to death.— 
Scotch Traveler. 
* The boys will open their eyes at this. 
MAKING LETTER ENVELOPES. 
Tuns of paper and barrels of mucilage are used 
in New York every month in the manufacture of 
an article so unpretending as letter envelopes.— 
Four firms are engaged in the business on a large 
scale and several others in a small way. It is es¬ 
timated that the number of envelopes made in the 
city every week is at least forty millions. Out of 
New York there is a factory in Worcester, Massa¬ 
chusetts, which manufactures to a large extent, 
and there is one doing a more moderate business 
in Philadelphia. 
The process of manufacture may be thus brief¬ 
ly described: — A ream of paper, or about five 
hundred sheets, is placed under a knife of a shape 
corresponding with an envelope when entirely 
opened, which is forced down by a powerful screw 
press, worked by a hand lever. The pieces cut 
out, slightly adhering to the edges from the action 
of the knife, resemble a solid block of wood until 
broken up. The flap is afterward stamped by a 
similar process. A boy is able to prepare fifty 
thousand per day in this manner, taking one, two 
or three envelopes at each movement of the hand. 
They are then taken by one hundred girls, seated 
at long tables, by whom they are folded and 
gummed. A single girl will apply the gum to 
sixty or seventy thousand in a day, and from five 
to seven thousand are folded in the same time.— 
In these processes the girls acquire great celerity 
and skill, being stimulated by the wages offered, 
which vary from twelve to thirty cents for each 
thousand. The envelopes are next counted, then 
branded and packed. Some varieties tire emboss¬ 
ed or otherwise decorated, requiring additional la¬ 
bor. The establishment of which we are now 
speaking, consumes not far from twelve tuns of pa¬ 
per per month in the sing e article of envelopes.— 
This quantity of paper, at ten cents per pound, 
would cost two thousand five hundred and eight 
dollars.— Selected. 
WUY WE HAVE NO THUNDER IN THE WINTER.— 
Prof. Espy, in his fourth Meteorological Report, 
thus explains why we have no thunder in the win¬ 
ter:—“It is asked why we have no thunder in the 
winter, though the tops of the storm clouds rise 
even in this season to a region where the air is at 
least considerably charged with electricity. Per¬ 
haps the answer may be found in this — that the 
storm clouds in the winter are of great extent, and 
of course the tension of the electricity, being ex¬ 
tended over a very large surface, is very feeble; 
and the substance of the cloud being itself framed 
out of vapor much less dense than that of summer 
clouds, this tension may not be able to strike from 
one particle of the cloud to the next adjacent one; 
no general discharge can take place. Besides, even 
in the winter, during a very warm spell of weather, 
with a high dew point for the season, we sometimes 
have a violent thunder storm from a cloud of very 
limited horizontal extent, as the thunder clouds al¬ 
ways are in the summer. Such a cloHd is in reality 
an insulated pillar of hot air, mingled with con¬ 
densed vapor, having just given out into the air 
its latent caloric, causing the air at the top of this 
cloud, in many cases, to Vie 60° warmer at the top 
than the air on the outside at the same level” 
Mirth a Medicine.—I know of nothing equal to 
a cheerful and even mirthful conversation for re¬ 
storing the tone of mind and body, when both have 
been overdone. Some great and good men, on 
whom very heavy cares and toils have been laid, 
manifest a constitutional tendency to relax into 
mirth when their work is over. Narrow minds 
denounce the incongruity; large hearts own God’s 
goodness in the fact, and rejoice in the wise provi¬ 
sion made for prolonging useful lives. Mirth after 
exhaustive toil, is one of nature’s instinctive efforts 
to heal the part which has been racked or bruised. 
You cannot too sternly reprobate a frivolous life; 
but if the life be earnest for God or man, with here 
and there a layer of mirthfulness protruding, a soft 
bedding to receive heavy cares which otherwise 
would crush the spirit, to snarl against the spurts 
of mirth, may be the easy and useless occupation 
of a small man, who cannot take in at one view 
the whole circumference of a large one.— Amot’s 
Illustrations of Proverbs. 
Examine your aim in all you undertake. 
STUDYING NATURAL HISTORY. 
I suppose, Mr. Rural, that you don’t mean to 
confine the Young Ruralist column to the boys 
entirely. That would not be fair, for I am sure us 
girls love to read it as well as they; at any rate, I 
know of one little girl who does. But I am going 
this summer, if I live and have my health, to prac¬ 
tice some of the things I have learned to do by 
reading the Rural this year. Good Mr. Stauffer 
has made me real anxious to hunt the insects, but 
it seemed so cruel to kill them by sticking pins 
through them. I have been reading in our col¬ 
umn this week how to do it and not seem to give 
the poor things any pain. I know Mr. C. G. must 
be a good-hearted man both to us and to the in¬ 
sects; and if wise and learned men would do as he 
and Mr. Stauffer, and Mr. W. V. have done, and 
make things plain to us young people, giving us a 
plan, and a motive for action, they would be the 
means of a great deal of good. 
When the insects begin to come around this 
spring, I am going to get all my things ready, and 
I and my little brother will catch all the kinds we 
can find, and my older brothers will make boxes, 
and I mean to make some real pretty cases to 
hang up in pa’s library. And then when I get older, 
(I am only 12 now,) and have learned more about 
such things, I can give them their names. Won't 
it be nice? Perhaps you will give some pretty 
present to the little girl who gets up the best col¬ 
lection in every town. Ginevra. 
WHAT WILL THEY THINK? 
Eds. Rural: —Although I have had the privi¬ 
lege of reading your beautiful sheet only a few 
weeks, it has been to me a welcome visitor. I have 
read with interest and pleasure the Young Ruralist's 
column, and as I am one of that order, I thought, 
perchance, you would not scorn my first attempt at 
writing for Our Column. 
How often the inward monitor forces upon our 
minds the question, what will they thinkf We can 
do nothing without recurring to this unsolved 
problem. I concede that it is right to let such 
thoughts have an influence over our actions, if wo 
are inclined to do anything that will injure any one; 
but, if we act according to our serious convictions 
of duty, then let the world think what they will we 
should not waver. I think we should aim at a 
higher object than to please the world. Let us 
tread straight-forward in the path of duty, under 
all circumstances; and if I mistake not, we shall 
reap a true and lasting reward. What would this 
Republic have been if it had not been for the spirit 
of independence that came welling up in the hearts 
of our forefathers? Was not this country rescued 
from bondage and oppression by that spirit? Did 
George Washington ever falter in his proceedings 
| to inquire what folks think? No. His mind and 
I time was too much absorbed in the defence of right 
against wrong, to think of such trifles. Now, if we 
would achieve greatness and wisdom, we must pos¬ 
sess, in a degree, the spirit that controlled the 
Father of our Country. A young man entering the 
great road of life without an independent spirit is 
like the ship that goes out to sea without a rudder. 
It is driven here and there at the mercy of the 
waves with nothing to guide through storm and 
tempest—it must go to destruction. So with man 
without powers and independence of character, he 
is driven here and there with nothing to guide him 
through the storms of temptation, and is stranded 
on the rocks of temptation or vice. 
The above is but a farmer boy’s thoughts. 
Franklin, Ohio, Feb., 1858. O. F. II. 
Prairie Plows.— Perhaps some Eastern readers 
may like a description of our prairie plows. They 
are made with cast-steel mold-boards and shares, 
polished as smoothly as possible by use in a neigh¬ 
boring sand bank. Their weight is much less than 
the cast-iron plow, which cannot be used on such 
fine and adhesive soil, owing to their rusting so read¬ 
ily. The shares are kept sharp, so as to cut any root 
with which it may come in contact. 
The breaking plow is entirely of wrought iron, 
except the cast-steel share. Instead of a mold- 
board it has rods bent in proper shape, by which 
the stiff sod is raised and neatly inverted. They 
look little like a plow, and have frequently been 
mistaken for some Western contrivance of an en¬ 
tirely different character. Not long since a not 
over cautious Down Easter, on examining one, gave 
it as his opinion that it wa3 a machine with which 
to rake the bottoms of rivers. Young Ruralist. 
MYSTERIES OF A LUMP OF COAL. 
For years no one supposed that a piece of soft 
coal, dug from its mine or bed in the earth, pos¬ 
sessed any other quality than being combustible, 
or was valuable for any other purpose than as fuel 
It was next found that it would afford a gas which 
is also combustible. Chemical analysis proved it 
to be made of hydrogen. In process of time me¬ 
chanical and chemical ingenuity devised a mode 
of manufacturing this gas and applying it to the 
lighting of buildings and cities on a large scale.— 
In doing this, other products of distillation were 
developed, until step by step, the following ingre¬ 
dients or materials are extracted: 
1. An excellent oil to supply light-houses, equal 
to the best sperm oil, at lower cost 2. Benzole—a 
light sort of ethereal fluid, which evaporates easily, 
and combined with vapor or moist air, is used for 
the purpose of portable gas lamps, so called. 3. 
Naptha—a heavy fluid, useful to dissolve gutta 
percha, India rubber, etc. 4. An oil excellent for 
lubricating purposes. 5. Asphaltum, which is a 
black, solid substance, used in making varnishes, 
covering roofs and covering over vaults. 6. Parra- 
fine— a white, crystalline substance, resembling 
white wax, which can be made into beautiful wax 
candles; it melts at a temperature of 110 degrees, 
and affords an excellent light 
All these substances are now made from the soft 
coal of Kentucky, and manufactured by a company 
at Cloversport in that State. They have twelve 
retorts in operation day and night, cosuming eight 
or ten tuns of coal every twenty-four hours. One 
can hardly realize, as he takes a lump of heavy, 
smutty coal in his hand, that he holds, concentrated 
therein, all those different ingredients which a 
little heat properly applied will liberate. 
