MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL. LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
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THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER. 
The fifth annual catalogue of the officers 
and students of the above-named institution, 
has just been issued from the press, from which 
it appears that the whole number of students 
in attendance is 118, divided as follows, viz., 
two Resident Graduates, fifteen Seniors, twenty- 
five Juniors, thirty-two Sophomores, and forty- 
four Freshmen. The Grammar School recently 
connected with the University, has been re-or¬ 
ganized on a separate, self-supporting basis, 
under another name; the students in this insti¬ 
tution now numbering seventy-five. 
The Rochester University ranks as high, 
and is probably as successful, as any one of the 
many late established seminaries of learning, 
the professors being competent, active, and 
earnest men. Still, the cramped position and 
temporary arrangements resorted to in lieu of 
those ample grounds, permanent buildings, and 
other accommodations so important to the 
successful prosecution of a great and noble 
literary enterprise, cannot but act as a clog 
upon the rising genius of this promising insti¬ 
tution. A splendid site is in possession of the 
trustees, on which the college buildings will be 
located at a future time. 
Colleges cannot, and ought not to be made 
self-supporting; for in that event, none but the 
wealthy classes would be able to avail them¬ 
selves of their advantages. The only way to 
render colleges essentially democratic, and to 
open the paths of learning to the tread of hum¬ 
ble feet, is to make them free from any onerous 
pecuniary burdens. Perhaps a college entirely 
free from charges upon the student, might not 
be desirable; but at all events the expenses 
ought to be so low as to place them within the 
reach of the sons of ordinary mechanics and 
tradesmen. This cannot be the case unless the 
institution be supported by the State, or by 
the munificence of private individuals. The 
latter seems to have generally been adopted, 
and the noble endowments of some of the New 
England colleges arc more enduring mementos 
of the liberality of the donors, than monuments 
of brass or marble. 
There are many and serious objections to the 
multiplication of colleges beyond the means of 
liberal support. A sickly, half dead institu¬ 
tion, low in the number of its students, ability 
of its professors, and the standard of its educa¬ 
tional requirements, does more to bring the 
cause of liberal learning into disrepute than 
all other causes combined. It is not to be 
hoped or expected, that American colleges will 
assume the position of the grand old universi¬ 
ties of European countries, where all the 
branches of learning, both literary and profes¬ 
sional, are united under one head, and which 
number their students by the thousand. Edu¬ 
cation is too generally diffused throughout a 
vast extent of country, and a comparatively 
sparse population, for such a result here ; but 
that is no argument in favor of running into 
the opposite extreme. We have established in 
the different States colleges sufficient to meet 
the demand for years to come, and the main 
point now is to endow them respectably in 
order to render them efficient and permanently 
useful. Who is prepared to say that Hobart 
College at Geneva, the Genesee College at 
Lima, and the Rochester University here, are 
not sufficient to answer the present require¬ 
ments of Western New York?—and who will 
deny, that if they were more liberally endowed, 
and better provided with all the requisites of 
first class institutions, they would be vastly 
more beneficial? Rochester University will 
undoubtedly be sustained, and improve in its 
educational facilities. Situated in the midst of 
a populous and wealthy community, it would 
be a lasting reproach, and an irreparable injury 
to the rising generation, for such a noble enter¬ 
prise to fail; and the endowments already ob¬ 
tained place it above the possibility of such a 
contingency. But it is a fit object for the 
liberal donations of the wealthy, and a large 
increase of its permanent funds would be highly 
advantageous. Monroe county ought, from 
the numbers of its youth, to furnish twenty-five 
students to every class, whereas it now show's 
but little over that number upon the whole 
catalogue of the institution. 
-- »>-* 4 « > 4 - 
Talk to a wayward boy of manly honor, 
beg him to scorn a falsehood, abhor to do a 
wrong, and if he loves you not, you mark upon 
the sand. But if your words are bitter, if you 
scourge the vicious, bind, imprison, banish, can 
you thus separate his soul from evil and de¬ 
stroy the sin ? It may not now appear, but 
forced back, and in the “ heart’s hot cells shut 
up,” it burns with fiercer fire, which love alone 
can quench. 
-- 
Love. —Love is the power that reforms the 
vicious or reclaims the erring, a necessity in all 
moral training. We may preach “ Honesty is 
the best policy ’ from youth till hoary age; and 
with no other teaching the child will be a man, 
the man grow old and die, and not once feel the 
throbbing of an upright heart. 
Tue Bible is the only true guide to con¬ 
science. May neither the spirit or the letter 
of its teachings be excluded from our schools. 
Self-government should be a prominent 
feature in American education. 
THOMAS H. BENTON. 
No man now living is so closely identified 
w'ith the political history of our country as 
Thomas Hart Benton, whose portrait leads 
this sketch. He served for thirty years in the 
United States Senate, and was a cotemporary 
of most of those great men who headed the 
various political parties that have risen and 
fallen since the founding of the Republic.— 
Adams, Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, and Web¬ 
ster either joined hands or crossed weapons 
with him in the great political questions of the 
past, the settlement of which, either the one 
way or the other, seemed at the moment to in¬ 
volve the continuance or disruption of the 
Union. The establishment of the Missouri 
Compromise, the overthrow of the United 
States Bank, the building up of the indenend- 
ent treasury, the fluctuations in the tariff ques¬ 
tion, the removal of the Indians west of die 
Mississippi, the admission of Texas the acqui¬ 
sition and organization of the Mexican terri¬ 
tories, are a few of the great phases of polit¬ 
ical history of which Thomas H. Benton can 
say, in the words of the great AEneas, 
“Quseque ipse vldi, et quorum pars magna ful.” 
His whole history has been identified with 
the growth and prosperity of the West, which, 
under his own eye, has risen into gigantic pro¬ 
portions, and bids fair ere long to overshadow 
the land. It is not our purpose to eulogize or 
to defend his political career. Posterity must 
settle the question as to the soundness or un¬ 
soundness of his views, but he will go to his 
rest with the comforting assurance that the 
laurels he has won will not wither while those 
of the other great men mentioned above remain 
green above their graves. 
Combinations of hostile political elements 
succeeded in displacing Mr. Benton from the 
Senate in 1850, after he had served in that 
body for thirty consecutive years, a longer 
period than that of any other Senator, living 
or dead. ITe then represented the St. Louis 
district in the House of Representatives, which 
place he still holds. At the last election he 
was defeated in a re-election to that body by 
the same hostile elements, and retires to private 
life on the fourth of March next. But time at 
last sets all things even, and the avenging Ne¬ 
mesis does not forget to settle the account of 
wrong. Senator Atchison, the bitter oppo¬ 
nent and successor of Benton in the Senate, 
is likely to retire under a combination similar 
to that which displaced the latter and elevated 
him to the dignity of a seat at the Capitol. 
Mr. Benton was born in North Carolina in 
the year 1783, and is now consequently 72 
years of age. The fire of life is not yet dim, 
and ho has of late been deeply interested in 
forwarding the great national enterprise of a 
Pacific Railroad., and continues to urge its 
construction with a zeal that will not flag un¬ 
til either the work is accomplished or he him¬ 
self ceases from his labors. “ On the evening 
of Dec. 21st,” says the New York Evening 
Post, “ he addressed the largest audience ever 
assembled within four walls on this island.— 
The Academy of Music was crowded to its 
utmost capacity from floor to ceiling, full half 
an hour before the lecture was to commence, 
and all the aisles and standing places within 
eye or ear shot of the stage were filled with 
one dense mass of human beings. Between 
eight and ten thousand persons were present at 
the meeting, and immense numbers went away 
unable to obtain a standing place within the 
building.” He may not live to see the great 
work accomplished, but accomplished it will 
assuredly be, sooner or later, and much of his 
posthumous fame will be identified with its his¬ 
tory,—reversing the celebrated expression of 
Mark Anthony over the dead body of Cesar 
so as to make it read, 
“ The good men do lives after them.” 
MOTIVE, A STUDY FOR TEACHERS. 
I itave under my instruction a capable lit¬ 
tle fellow, who studies not from a love of 
knowledge, as, indeed, few do, hut that he may 
be first. After a while he grows remiss and 
in order to stimulate him in his pursuits, I say 
to him, Charles, I always expect to see you at 
the head of your classes. Poor fellow! In 
inciting him by such a motive, “ to go up 
higher,” I add my mite to the incubus which is 
destroying him; I ought instead of this, to show 
myself utterly oblivious to his elevation; I 
ought studiously to avoid all comparison be¬ 
tween him and others, and to show him that 
my estimation of wortli has nothing to do with 
place; I ought to teach him how beautiful a 
thing it is to know, and how doubly and di¬ 
vinely beautiful it is to be, instead of to seem, 
and thus I may hope, in time, to open his eyes 
to his own peculiarities, and to lead him to 
control them. 
Again, I have a little girl in one of my 
classes, who is not particularly hopeful on any 
point, and who, being also peculiarly diffident 
of her own ability, yields easily to desponden¬ 
cy. She appeal’s at one recitation out of 
three, perhaps, fully assured that the recitation 
of the day is entirely beyond her power of 
comprehension; I know, however, that the task 
is not above her efforts, and perhaps with a 
slight superfluity of energy tell her so. 1 as¬ 
sist her somewhat; once, twice, half-a-dozen 
times, indeed, and then, with patience at an 
ebb, lower than that of her courage, I pro¬ 
nounce her to be the stupid creature she be¬ 
lieves herself. Thus, ten chances to one, un¬ 
der such a regimen, my declaration will even¬ 
tuate a prophecy. 
If, instead of this, I endeavor never to rep¬ 
rimand her in such a way as to aggravate her 
constitutional timidity, if I express always, an 
unwavering faith in her capacity, and prove 
myself right by calling out her slender stores 
in such a way as to make her know her pow¬ 
er, I shall probably bring about, at length, a 
happy result, and may rejoice in the assurance 
that through my instrumentality the soul of 
one human being, at least, will be the better 
fitted for the work assigned it by its Creator. 
Bat time is indispensable for this wcwk and 
tact. Not that base-born cunning which pre¬ 
fers to crawl, rather than to walk upright, but 
a tact born of sensibility and gentleness, a tact 
which shrinks through sympathy from laying 
too heavy a hand upon the unsound, or from 
probing a wound, except with kindly caution. 
We all know too well, 1 fear, a certain type 
of humanity, the individuals of which walk 
about among their neighbors like so many mi¬ 
grating nettle-bushes, and are unapproachable 
by ns except at the risk of reaping a plentiful 
harvest of smarting wounds. Such people do 
not intend harm; they are only practical Pan¬ 
theists, and launch their darts, apparently, on 
the principle that all mankind are gods, and 
cannot be pained by their little rude thrusts at 
human sensibilities and human weaknesses.— 
Well, well! life is, at best, to most of us, but a 
hardening process. But take heed, teachers, 
how you heedlessly crush out the sweetness 
from every one of those pleasant buds, that the 
“ Father above ” has given into your hand to 
foster into bloom and harvest.— Mich. Jour, 
of Education. 
Precept is instruction written in the sand; 
the tide flows over it and the record is gone. 
Example is graven on the rock, and the lesson 
is not soon l*st. 
Five of the sweetest words in the English 
language begin with II—Heart, Hope, Home, 
Happiness, and Heaven. 
LEAD MINING AT GALENA-CHANCES. 
The suddenness with which fortunes have 
been acquired in the mines equals the marvel¬ 
ousness of the tales of California or Australia. 
One or two of an amusing character we will 
relate: 
Several years ago a party of miners were at 
work not far from Galena, when they were ac¬ 
costed by a verdant specimen of the Coles 
coun y tribe, who, with pick and shovel in hand, 
and plenty of hayseed in his hair, inquired of 
them if they knew “ a place where he could dig 
and strike a lead.” The day was intensely 
hot; an August sun poured down with such 
intensity, that labor anywhere was almost be¬ 
yond endurance. Nevertheless the unsophisti¬ 
cated nature of the inquiry provoked the wag¬ 
gishness of the mining party to such a degree 
that they determined to test at least his capa¬ 
bility to withstand the melting influence of old 
Sol. 
Directing him by a cow-path to a dense alder 
thicket, in the centre of which was the dry and 
baked ted of a spring pond, where the heat 
was absolutely intolerable, they assured him he 
would find all he desired. With the utmost 
stretch of good faith in the honesty of their in¬ 
tentions, our Sucker friend did as he was bid¬ 
den, and commenced work on the spot indicat¬ 
ed. It was a sweltering place, and his tormen¬ 
tors chuckled as they thought of the funny 
trick they had played upon a greenhorn ; but 
he persevered; and when about four feet be¬ 
low the surface, he struck upon a chunk of ore 
several feet in diameter, which was, as explo¬ 
ration progressed, followed by another and 
another, until after a little time the fortune 
finder sold out his diggings and went back to 
Suckerdom, the envied possessor of $20,000 in 
gold, and fitted to be, to the end of his days, a 
country way-side nabob. It may be supposed 
that the practical jokers did not soon hear the 
last of their attempt to run a saw. 
A gentleman now of this city, whose place 
of business is on Main street, once commenced 
with a partner the labor of sinking a shaft on 
a range where they supposed the mineral could 
be found. They labored with commendable 
perseverance, drilling and blasting the tough 
and pockety rock, until spring; but not the 
glitter of a particle of ore encouraged them to 
proceed. At length, tired of their fruitless toil, 
and disgusted with the place, they abandoned 
the work. One Sunday in the April following 
one of the partners strolled from his cabin down 
to his old diggings, attracted by an idle curi¬ 
osity to sec tbe hole he had made. When there 
he went down by the 'windlass ; but when half 
way to the bottom he was met by an obstruc¬ 
tion—he could not tell what. Striking a light 
he found to his astonishment that the shaft was 
half full of the richest ore. In working down 
they had missed a large deposit of mineral in a 
conical cavity, by only an inch thickness of 
rock. The damp of the season had so softened 
this, that the weight of the ore broke dow r n the 
thin partition, with the result we have stated. 
Our Main street friend had for his share of 
the pile just $46,000. 
Early in March last, Mr. Marsdcn, well 
known in this vicinity, after an unsuccessful 
pursuit of fortune in California, purchased, 
within three miles of here, a farm of 160 acres 
for $1,600, with the determination to abandon 
mining forever. One day he set about cleaning 
out a spring, within a few yards of the house 
on his new place, intending to build a milk 
house over it for summer use. He had hardly 
commenced when he raked up a lump of min¬ 
eral, and then another and another. The 
search was continual, and to-day the lode that 
was then discovered is one of the attractions of 
the mining region, and is valued at $100,000 
cash!— Galena (III.) Jeffersonian. 
BIRDS AND SHIPS. 
A bird is a model ship constructed by the 
hand of God, in which the conditions of swift¬ 
ness, manageability, and lightness are abso¬ 
lutely and necessarily the same as in vessels 
built by the hand of man. There are not in 
the world two things which resemble each oth¬ 
er more strongly, both mechanically and phys¬ 
ically speaking, than the carcass and frame¬ 
work of a bird and ship. The breast-bone so 
exactly resembles a keel that it has retained 
the name. The wings are oars, the tail the 
rudder. That original observer, Huber, the 
Genevese, who has carefully noticed the flight 
of birds of prey, has even made use of the met¬ 
aphor thus suggested to establish a character¬ 
istic distinction between rowers and sailors.— 
The rowers are the falcons, who have the first 
or second wing-feather the longest, and who are 
able by means of this powerful oar to dart 
right into the wind’s eye. The mere sailors 
are the eagles, the vultures and the buzzards, 
whose more rounded wings resemble sails.— 
The rowing bird is to the sailing bird what the 
steamer, that laughs at adverse winds, is to the 
schooner, which cannot advance against them. 
— Ladies’ Repository. 
Fourth of March— Why Selected. — Do 
our readers generally know the reason why 
the Fourth of March was chosen as the day 
for the inauguration of the President of the 
United States? It was selected because the 
Fourth of March in every year commencing 
from the first inauguration, cannot come on 
a Sunday for at least three hundred years. 
This fact shows the great regard which the 
framers of our Government had for the Sab¬ 
bath. 
If men did but know what felicity dwells in 
the cottage of a virtuous poor man—how sound 
he sleeps, how quiet his breast, how composed 
his mind, how free from care, how easy his pro- 
vision, how healthy his morning, how sober his 
night, how moist his mouth, how joyful his 
heart—they would never admire the noises, the 
throng of passions, and the violence of unnatu¬ 
ral appetites, that fill the houses of the luxuri- ] 
ous and the hearts of the ambitious. 
TIME. 
Moiw CAU.irm fondly to a fair boy straying 
’Mid golden meadows, rich with clover dew ; 
She calls; but still he thinks of naught save playing, 
And so she smiles and waves him an adieu 1 
While ho, still morry with his flowery store, 
Deem3 not that morn, sweet morn, returns no more. 
Noon comkth— hut the hoy, to manhood growing, 
Hoed3 not the time; ho sees but one sweet form, 
One young, fair faco from bower of jasmine glowing, 
And all his loving heart with bliss to warm. 
So noon, unnoticed, seeks the western shore, 
And man forgets that noon returns no more. 
Night TArPBiii gjwtly at- a casement gloaming 
With the thin fire-light flickering faint and low ; 
By which a gray-haired man is sadly dreaming 
Of pleasures gone, as all life’s pleasures go. 
Night calls him to her, and he ioavos his door, 
Silent and dark, and ho Teturns no more. 
RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. 
That professor of religion follows afar off 
in the footsteps of his Divine Master, who can¬ 
not be pointed at in matters of every-day life 
as an example worthy of imitation. It is a 
truth, and as sad as it is true, that innumera¬ 
ble men marked for their religious zeal and 
piety in the sanctury, are equally marked for 
their doubtful integrity in the street; just as 
ready as a non-professor to drive a sharp bar¬ 
gain, to turn the best side out of an article for 
sale, and the best side in of one to be purchas¬ 
ed, to amass wealth by doubtful expedients 
and to hold on to it with a grip that death it¬ 
self is scarcely competent to unclose. 
There is no argument more ready to spring 
to the lips of the caviler against religion, than 
the short-comings of its ostensible professors; 
and one unworthy member of a religious soci¬ 
ety is a far greater hindrance to its success and 
prosperity, than a hundred open and avowed 
enemies. Of what avail will it be to the man 
who fails in business and compromises his debts 
for the very purpose of making a fortune by 
the financial operation, that he and his family 
attend a fashionable church regularly, and ob¬ 
serve all the outward forms of religion ? Will 
the man who received twenty or fifty per cent, 
of an honest debt, when the debtor might have 
paid the whole, be likely to respect religion the 
more by these professions ? 
Men are too apt to estimate the value of any 
doctrine by the character of those who believe 
in it, forgetting that professions and practice 
are not unfrequently as wide apart as the poles. 
The more immaculate a genuine thing may be, 
the more repulsive does an imitation of it appear; 
and hence a counterfeit Christian is little if any 
better than an incarnate fiend. All men have 
their imperfections, and therefore Christians are 
not exempt from the common frailties of hu¬ 
manity; but a true follower of the Saviour, even 
if he does at times wander from the right path, 
is quite another thing from the wretch who 
covers himself with a thin cloak of religious 
profession, for the purpose of working out his 
own selfish and unhalowed purposes. 
It would be well to bear in mind, when an 
unworthy member of a religious society comes 
before us, that he is not a true and genuine 
representative of the church militant, and that 
the Head of the church himself has made the 
following explicit declaration — “Not every 
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter 
into the kingdom of heaven.” 
- m ♦ *- *-» —- 
A Fragment. — When I look upon the 
tombs of the great, every motion of envy dies 
within me; when I read the epitaphs of the 
beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; 
when I meet with the grief of parents upon a 
tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; 
when I see the tombs of parents themselvos, I 
consider the vanity of grieving for those whom 
we must quickly follow ; when I see kings ly¬ 
ing by those who deposed them, when I con¬ 
sider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy 
men that dividal the world with their contests 
and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and aston¬ 
ishment on the little competitions, factions, 
and debates of mankind; when I read the sev¬ 
eral dates of tombs, of some that died as yes¬ 
terday, and some six hundred years ago, I con¬ 
sider that great day when we shall all of us be 
contemporaries, and make our appearance to¬ 
gether. 
Hereafter. —As certainly as spring will 
return after the lapse of winter, so certainly 
will friends, lovers, and kindred meet again; 
they will meet again in the presence of the all- 
loving Father; and then first will they form a 
whole with each other and with everything 
good, after which they sought and strove in 
vain in this piece-meal world. And thus does 
the felicity of the poet, even here, rest on the 
persuasion that all have to rejoice in the care 
of a wise God, whose power extends unto all, 
and whose light lightens upon all. 
The Two Blessings. —He that loses his 
conscience has nothing left that is worth keep¬ 
ing. Therefore be sure you look to that. And 
in the next place look to your health; and if 
you have it, praise God, and value it next to a 
good conscience ; for health is the second bles¬ 
sing that we mortals are capable of, a blessing 
that money cannot buy; therefore value it, and 
be thankful for it.— Izaak Walton. 
_^ _ 
Moss will grow upon grave stones, the ivy 
will cling to the mouldering pile; the mistletoe 
springs from the dying branch; and God be 
praised, something green, something fair to the 
sight and grateful to the heart, will yet twine 
I around and grow out of the seams and cracks 
of the desolate temple of the human heart 
i 
