14 MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER i AN AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
UNION SCHOOLS. 
The superior advantages arising from the 
consolidation of districts in the form of Union 
Schools are not sufficiently appreciated by 
those who have never made the subject a mat¬ 
ter of special attention. Take for instance 
a town with a village centrally located, and 
not difficult of access from suburban districts, 
and observe the workings of the two systems. 
Under the old regime the village has a tolera¬ 
ble school-house, with one, or it may be, two 
teachers, one male and the other female. The 
former teaches the more advanced scholars in 
Arithmetic, Grammar, and other kindred 
studies, and possibly has small classes also in 
the higher mathematics and Philosophy. The 
latter is engaged in superintending the studies 
of the younger pupils, from those first com¬ 
mencing with an unsteady footstep to tread a 
path, the termination of which is lost amid the 
clouds, up to those of perhaps a dozen years 
who have made tolerable progress in reading 
and spelling. 
Neither department of the school is over 
crowded, but the talents and proficiency of the 
pupils are so varied and diverse that a very 
large number of classes must be heard by both, 
the time appropriated to each class must be 
reduced to the shortest possible limit, explana¬ 
tions must be hurried and general, some of the 
pupils must be kept back and others pushed 
forward beyond their abilities of comprehen¬ 
sion, in order to bring even a tolerable class 
together. 
But how does it fare with the suburban dis¬ 
tricts during the same time? Each possesses 
a school-house of the most primitive construc¬ 
tion and of venerable antiquity, standing at 
the junction of a couple of roads, unprotected 
by a tree or shrub, and generally even by a 
fence. The school during the winter term 
numbers perhaps thirty scholars, and warrants, 
it may be, the hiring of a male teacher for 
three months. He is usually a young acade¬ 
mician driven to teach by his pecuniary neccsr 
sitics, and too often goes into it with some¬ 
thing of the feelings of a foraging party which 
makes an excursion for the purpose of obtain¬ 
ing forced supplies from an enemy’s country, 
lie is a stranger to the scholars, and unac¬ 
quainted with their abilities and proficiency, 
consequently much time is lost before the win¬ 
ter school is fairly under way. Many of the 
scholars recite alone, have no opportunity of 
measuring their intellectual strength with their 
equals, and therefore one of the most powerful 
stimulants to exertion is utterly wanting. In 
summer the matter is still worse ; the school 
dwindles down to a handful of the smallest pat¬ 
terns of humanity, looked after by the cheapest 
female teacher that can be found, and of course 
the most incompetent; or it may be, the school 
is discontinued entirely until next winter, giv¬ 
ing an interval so long that the pupils must go 
again over the same ground trodden by them 
before. 
N-ow let the four suburban districts on the 
four sides of the village be consolidated with the 
central one, and let the joint means of the five 
districts be appropriated to the erection and 
adornment of a single house, instead of being 
w:i d in the building of five. A noble struc¬ 
ture v\ Ah ample grounds soon greets the eye, 
and makes an attractive feature in the rural 
s<'one. The teachers’ wages of the separate dis¬ 
tricts are jointly sufficient to pay a complete 
corps of permanent instructors, and instead of 
half a dozen transient and unsettled schools, 
v e have a single one infinitely more valuable. 
A teacher can instruct a class of twenty schol¬ 
ar.- just as well as two, and this union of the 
disl ricts gives an opportunity for classification, 
which, under the old system, is impossible. 
The school law, as now existing, discourages 
rather than stimulates the consolidation of dis¬ 
tricts—-and its workings arc forcibly illustrated 
1 >y the following passage from the recent report 
of the Superintendent of Public Instruction : 
“Great irregularities result from the distri- 
In ion under the existing law, of 8351,261 64 
-renong all the districts without regard 
population. It offers a premium for 
u'ther division of districts already too 
) secure the greatest economy and the 
:„sc classification in the schools. It induces 
continued efforts on the part of those who Buf¬ 
fi ■: by i t, to secure special legislation to cure 
the evil in their own localities. Thus, the 
Poughkeepsie charter authorizes the counting 
of every 75 persons of school age as a district; 
■ bile Utica, which is now one district would, 
upon such a basis, be counted as 93 districts, 
and would gain over $2,700 per annum.” 
The spirit of liberty is not as multitudes 
imagine, ; jealousy of our own particular 
•mills, but a respect for the rights of others, 
s o an i .iwillingness that any man, whether 
hi: h or low, should be wronged and trampled 
under foot.— Charming. 
- - 4 -—♦- 
Kind : ad benevolent propensities were the 
origi nal growth of the heart of man ; and, how- 
; i checked and overtopped by counter in- 
eihations that have since sprung up within us, 
have still some force in the worst of tempers, 
and a considerable influence on the best. . 
T H K I > A T lb P A Li M. 
The Palm embraces quite a variety of trees .- 
and is widely scattered over the countries of* j 
the torrid zone. Among the most valuable of j 
these trees is the date palm of the East, which j 
flourishes in great perfection on the banks of j 
the Nile, in Arabia, and other kindred locali- j 
tics. It is regarded by the Moslem as a sa-, 
cred tree, and in many instances furnishes the 
inhabitants with materials for food, raiment, 
cordage, baskets, fuel, timber, roof, and screen. 
Its fruit, leaves, and bark, its trunk and roots, 
all come in play for valuable purposes, and it 
grows spontaneously and profusely wherever 
amid the arid sands of the desert a spring of 
water or a rivulet burets forth, giving beauty 
and fertility to a little spot amid the wide¬ 
spread desolation. 
The date palm grows to the height of sixty 
or eighty feet, without a leaf or limb to the 
top, and then spreads out into a tufted crown 
of long drooping leaves, that bend downward j 
towards their extremities in graceful curves; 
peculiar to the tree, The fruit hangs in thick | 
clusters around the trunk close to the point; 
where the leaf adheres, and is gathered by the ! 
hands of the natives. Nature seems to have I 
made provision for this purpose, as by sue-! 
cessive removal of the leaves as the tree in- j 
creases in height, regular notches or steps oc¬ 
cur on the trunk, from the ground to the top, 
by means of which it is easily ascended. 
We are all familiar with the date, as cured, 
and exported. It is a sweet and pleasant fruit 
something like the fig, and comes to us closely 
packed in sacks woven from its own leaves ; 
but like the fig it is as much inferior to the 
fruit in its fresh and ripe perfection, as a dried 
apple is to its luscious and uumutilated proto- 1 
type. In warm countries, where flesh is un-1 
wholesome diet, the profusion of fruits that 
grow spontaneously, supplies the human race 
with food. There is no spot so sterile, no 
country so desolate, but that provision is made 
to meet the wants of its inhabitants; and in 
many instances, as in that of the palm, the 
exigency seems to be met almost by a special 
interposition. No wonder then that it is look¬ 
ed upon by the recipients of its bounties as a 
sacred tree, vouchsafed to the Faithful by the 
merciful favor of Allah and the Prophet. N o 
wonder that the wandering Arab of the desert 
sings in his own language, as Bayard Taylor 
has imagined him to sing in ours : 
“ If I wore a king, 0 stately tree, 
A likone w, glorious as might be, 
In the court of my palace I’d build for thoe ! 
With a shaft of silver, burnish’d bright, 
And leaves of beryl and malachite ; 
With spike3 of golden bloom a blaze, 
And fruits of topaz and and chrysoprase ; 
And there the poets, in thy praise, 
Should night and morning frame new lays— 
New measures sung to tunes divine : 
But none, O palm, should equal mine !” 
A wanderer of the desert once having lost 
his way amid the burning sands, at length, 
when nearly famished and perishing with thirst, 
fortunately came across one of those little 
green oases where a fountain wells out amid 
the sterile waste. After having quenched his 
thirst and returned thanks to Allah and the 
Prophet, his eye fell upon a little bag lying on 
the ground, which had been dropped by a pass¬ 
ing traveler. 
“ Perhaps,” said the wanderer, taking it up 
hastily, “ these are dates whereby I may ap¬ 
pease my hungerbut opening the bag he 
added in a tone of the most bitter disap¬ 
pointment and regret, “ Alas! alas! they are 
nothing hut pearls /” 
RUINS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY, SINGULAR FEATURE IN LUNACY. 
It is stated in the London News, that Cap¬ 
tain Newnham, an Admiralty agent on the 
Southampton station, who has just returned 
from Alexandria, visited, while there, the ruins 
of the Alexandrian Library. A large mound 
in Alexandria has been believed for ages to 
mark the spot where once stood the famous 
library which was burned by the Caliph Omar. 
This mound is now in process of removal, and 
splendid houses are to be built on its site.— 
While Capt. Newnham was there, an immense 
stone of blue granite was dug out, which 
weighed several tons, and is covered with ap¬ 
parently Coptic letters. The Captain was 
unable to take a tracing of these letters. Be¬ 
neath the mound the remains of a building, 
something like a star fort, have been discovered, 
and masses of double columns—also signs of 
wells of water, and of places for heating. The 
brick work is of immense strength and thick¬ 
ness —the brick being not so thick as English 
ones, but longer and broader. An immense 
number of Arab boys and girls were engaged 
in carrying away the rubbish in baskets.— 
Capt. Newnham picked up many curiosities 
there, such as pieces of conglomerated brick, 
mortar and metal work, bearing evident marks 
of having been fused together by intense heat. 
The Captain learnt in Egypt that the French 
savant who discovered the buried city of Soca- 
rah, beyond Grand Cairo, was picking up an 
immense number of treasures for transporta¬ 
tion to France. 
Have you a wicked pupil, one whose con¬ 
science slumbers, whose soul is lost to sense of 
shame, whom you have vainly tried to teach 
the good, the true, the right; who fills your 
day with anxious care, your night with sorrow¬ 
ing thought, and whom you sometimes ques¬ 
tion if you really love? Yet don’t seek to crush 
him with your power. He has a mind and 
will as free as yours, distinct, unharmonizing. 
You can not lead him ! Must he then be sac¬ 
rificed ? No, better far that your relations be 
dissolved and he go free. If free to ruin, you 
have not driven him there ; restrain you could 
not. Perhaps another hand may gently touch 
the chord you could not find. Another heart 
may find some sympathy where you were hated; 
not by more care, but being of different nature 
may mold him to its will, may curb his fiery 
temper, cure his leprosy and build him up a 
man. Then would your heart rejoice, and so 
would Heaven.— Brownell. 
A writer in “ Church’s Bizarre” gives us 
some interesting facts and remarks concern¬ 
ing the unfortunates in a lunatic asylum.— 
A peculiar condition of lunacy is thus de¬ 
scribed. 
“ Tiiere are seasons when most of the pa¬ 
tients—especially those whose lunatic attacks 
are only intermittent—are dreadfully weary of 
their confinement, and would get away if they 
could. And why do they not get away? How 
is it that half-a-dozen attendants are able to 
control a hundred men, four-fifths of whom, 
perhaps, are physically as strong, if not strong¬ 
er, than themselves ? If the patients, or even 
a portion of them, could harmonize and com¬ 
bine, they might bind and gag every attendant, 
take their keys, unlock the doors, and escape. 
But the simple fact is, lunatics cannot combine 
for effecting a common end ; this is one of the 
most marked features of their malady. A sin¬ 
gle maniac may employ a great deal of cunning 
dissimulation, and is capable of carrying out 
a complicated and lengthened series of meas¬ 
ures for accomplishing some purpose of his 
own. But when two or more of them attempt 
to unite their forces and confer on some plan 
to be executed, they either cannot agree at all, 
or, if they agree for a short space, one or an¬ 
other is sure very soon to betray the rest, to 
disclose their intents, and, perhaps, help to de¬ 
feat them; so that, practically, each lunatic 
stands alone in opposition to the whole number 
of attendants, and cannot rely on the slightest 
aid from scores of his mad companions. So 
striking is this feature of lunacy, that we may 
well regard it a providential arrangement, 
which deprives of a terrible power of working 
mischief those who have lost their capacity of 
self-control. 
Something of the same conservative provi¬ 
dential arrangement is witnessed in the case of 
the criminal and vicious. They cannot rely on 
each other's fidelity, but are ever ready to be¬ 
tray each other, and rend in pieces the very 
schemes they have aided in forming, and have 
sworn to help execute. By this means society 
is preserved from the measureless evil which 
might be done by a combination of men, with 
all their intellectual powers in full vigor, on the 
alert, and totally free from restraints o con¬ 
science and principle, if at the same time they 
could hold together, and be as true to each 
other as the virtuous part of mankind. But 
evil is self-del eating, as well as lunacy; and 
Heaven be thanked for both these ordinations.” 
Those are f he hardest misfortunes which we The more, polished society is, the less fbr- 
allow to take us by surprise. mality there is in it. 
Useful ©Hr. 
[Written for Moore’s Rural Now-Yorker.J 
THE PYRAMIDS. 
Who has not heard of the pyramids, those 
mighty monuments of the strength and skill 
of the ancients, which rose up even while 
Pharaoh was oppressing the Israelites, and 
fluDg their shadows over a valley broad in ex¬ 
tent, and unequalled in the abundance of its 
productions ?—a valley that was covered twice 
a year with the waving and golden harvest, 
annually enriched by the outpourings of the 
“ father of waters,” and thickly dotted over 
with populous cities and flourishing villages;— 
where one of the greatest and most ancient of 
empires emerged from the darkness of the post¬ 
diluvian night, into the morning of civilization, 
and grew until in the noonday blaze of its 
splendor, it covered the whole earth with the 
glory of its arms, and became the instructor of 
nations in science and philosophy ;—where, too, 
was first exhibited the spectacle of a nation’s 
luxurious decay and final ruin, her cities sacked 
by barbaric hordes, her temples desecrated and 
pillaged, her monuments mutilated and de¬ 
stroyed, her lights of science extinguished by 
the ruthless conquerors, and her arts lost to the 
world in the vicissitudes which followed her 
disruption. 
But enough of the monumental edifices of 
the ancient Egyptians remains, to excite the 
wonder, and compel the admiration, even, of 
egotistical moderns. Looming up towards the 
heavens, the pyramids still watch the overflow¬ 
ings of the Nile. There they have stood for 
centuries, deriding alike the equinoctial heat, 
the desert storms, the wasting of time, and the 
force of man, without exhibiting any signs of 
decay. They are a history in themselves. At a 
glance, they explain the nature of the govern¬ 
ment under which they were reared. Absolute, 
it must have been. No gratitude of a people 
to one who had rendered eminent service,—no 
wish to commemorate a spot upon which a 
great action had been performed,—could have 
raisod those massive piles. Nothing short of 
the will of an absolute monarch, reigning over 
a country possessed of great wealth and popu¬ 
lation, combined with an extensive knowledge 
of the arts, could have built them. And to¬ 
day you may behold the sarcophagus which 
was, undoubtedly, destined to receive the body 
of the proud monarch after his dissolution. 
But where now are his ashes?—gone! long 
ago, and his very name forgotten, which he 
vainly thought to perpetuate e.eval with his 
tomb. 
The pyramids rose from a I utile soil, and 
looked forth on the garden of the East. Thirty 
centuries have passed by them, and harmed 
them not. They have beheld the stately mon¬ 
arch at whose command they rose, borne to his 
last resting place and sepulchered, and then his 
name pass away from the recollection of men. 
They have seen the desert gradually encroach¬ 
ing, until its barren sands have blown around 
their foundations, and covered up the last ves¬ 
tige of fertility. The tramp of armies and the 
shock of battle have awakened the echoes which 
slumbered within, and their lofty sides have 
reflected back the pomp and glitter of mighty 
conquerors. The Assyrian and the Egyptian, 
the Frank and the Moslem, have battled around 
their bases, and the bones of men led onby the 
greatest captain that the world ever saw, lie 
mouldering in their shadows. g. f. w. 
Periuton, N. Y., Jan., 1855. 
NOBLE SPIRITS. 
Stewart Holland, of the ill-fated Arctic, 
sent a thrill of admiration through the civili¬ 
zed world, because, unawed by the disasters 
about him, he continued to fire the signal gun 
of distress until eugulphed in the unsatisfied 
grave of the sea. Who still remembers the 
noble Richard Maun, who, upon the burning 
steamer Griffith, was asked if he would remain 
at the wheel, and his stern answer was heard 
above the increasing tumult—“ I will.” And 
nobly did he redeem his promise; amidst 
sheeted fire he directed the burning boat to the 
shore, aud as she struck, and thus announced 
to hundreds of shrieking women and children 
and appalled men that they were saved, the 
form of Richard Mann was seen for the last 
time as he sank into the fiery vortex below 
him—he perished nobly at his post! Yet 
Holland and Mann, as hundreds of kindred 
spirits, come up out of the class known as in¬ 
telligent, hard-working men. Noble spirits, 
who, without the advantages which should re¬ 
sult from refinement and wealth, are still na¬ 
ture’s noblest works. They are the kind of 
men who, in all ages, have performed the val¬ 
orous, self-sacrificing deeds of history, but yet 
are rarely remembered. 
The Wonders of Photography.— At a 
conversazione at the Polytechnic Institute in 
. Paris, a curious illustration was given of the 
capabilities of photography in experienced 
hands. Two photograplis were exhibited, one 
the largest and the other the smallest ever pro¬ 
duced by the process. The first was a portrait 
the full size of life, and the last was a copy of 
the front sheet of the London Times on a sur¬ 
face scarcely exceeding two inches by three.— 
Both pictures were exceedingly perfect, the 
portrait, it is said, being more pleasing and 
far more correct than those usually produced, 
while the copy, notwithstanding its exceeding 
minuteness, could be read without tho aid of a 
magnifying glass. 
THE HOUR OF PRAYER. 
My God, is any hour so sweet, 
From blush of morn to evening star, 
As that which calls me at thy feet— 
The hour of prayer ? 
Blest he that tranquil hour of morn, 
And blest that solemn hour of evo, 
When on tho wings of prayer upborne 
The world I leave ! 
For there a day spring shines on me, 
Brighter than morn’s etherial glow ; 
And richer dews descend from thoe 
Than earth can know. 
Then is my strength by thee renewed ;— 
Then are my sins by thee forgiven ; 
Then dost thou cheer my solitude 
With hopes of Heaven. 
Words cannot tell what sweet relief 
Here for my evory want I find, 
What strength for warfare, balm for grief, 
What peace of mind. 
Hushed is each doubt, gone every fear, 
My spirit seems in Tleavon to stay, 
And e’en the penitential tear 
Is wipod away. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
THE SORROWS OF CHILDHOOD. 
How often do we hear those in middlo life, 
or advanced age, speak of childhood as the 
brightest portion of their earthly existence, 
saying the life of a child is one without a care, 
and therefore one of unmingled happiness. 
But it is not so. Childhood has its moments 
of bitterness as intense as manhood knows, and 
he who declares it the happiest part of life, is 
either mistaken as to the fact, or has badly 
learned life’s lesson. 
Is it not a sore trial for the strong man, 
when after a life of toil in his country’s service, 
he goes down to the grave an outcast from 
society, with mockery applied to his noblest 
efforts, and the noblest feelings of his heart the 
butt of an unsparing raillery? And can any 
one have lived long enough to forget the con¬ 
temptuous look, the mocking laugh, the jeer¬ 
ing word, with which those older than himself 
repaid his declarations of noble truths, his ex¬ 
hibitions of childish love ? Can he have for¬ 
gotten the agony he endured till he learned to 
appear, perhaps, to be as heartless as those 
around him ? 
Does the strong man feel no pang, when lie 
finds the fruit of his labor grasped by some 
villainous swindler, whose tenderest. mercy is 
to call him “ fool ?” Yet the same man will 
mar the face of a doll, overturn a child’s “ play 
house,” hide or carry away her toys, and mock 
her grief. Meeting a little boy on the road, he 
will terrify him by pretended attempts to ride 
over him. Well might it be thought such a 
man had forgotten all his early sorrows, and all 
his early purity. 
To the proud man there is nothing so bitter 
as to submit to bend his will to that of another. 
Was he in childhood incapable of feeling, that he 
can cross the will of a child in all cases, even 
when it ought to be indulged, and still say 
childhood knows no sorrow ? Children suffer 
much from this mistaken opinion, the source of 
which I will try to show. 
Place a dark beside a bright object, and 
gradually increase the distance between them 
and the beholder. Long after one has become 
invisible the other will shine on in the far 
distance, almost as bright as ever, and from 
the want of the dark object with which to con¬ 
trast it, apparently more bright. As in the 
material, so is it in the moral world. In most 
cases the dark hours of childhood's sorrow fade 
more or less rapidly from memory, and after a 
time are no longer seen, save when recalled by 
an effort. The light spots on memory’s page 
still retain their radiance, and from the same 
want of dark spots with which to contrast 
them, seem gradually to become more bright, 
till at last they appear to cover the whole page. 
Theu men say their childhood was a life of 
uumingled happiness, and treat the young as 
though the child could feel no pain. 
Suissac. 
“Home Heathen.” —The Puritan Recorder, 
in commenting on the “ causes of the neglect 
of public worship,” as remarked upon by a 
contemporary journal, says: 
“ This is a great subject, and one on which 
every Christian should keep his eye with an 
inquiring and prayerful spirit, gathering light 
from all sources. In this way only can we 
hope to apply the remedy to this growing evil. 
The whole work of Foreign Missions is not 
more immense in its ranges, or more vital in 
its issues than the work—not as yet compara¬ 
tively begun—of evangelizing our home hea¬ 
then. The more thorough evangelization of 
the nations which are to send out upon heathen 
lands evangelizing agencies, must be secured, 
or it will be long before evangelizing influences 
will be effectual to overcome the darkness, 
degradation and corruption to be encountered 
in the heathen world.” 
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or 
duties, but of little things, in which smiles and 
kindness and small obligations, given habit¬ 
ually, are what win and preserve the heart and 
secure comfort. 
As ho that makes a bridge of his own 
shadow cannot but fall in the water, so neither 
can he escape the pit of hell that lays his own 
presumption in the place of God’s promises. 
BBUBBffl 
