MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
97 
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SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS. 
The Superintendent of our city schools ad¬ 
vertises in the daily papers the dates of the so- 
called second quarterly examinations, which 
are now in progress, and adds :—“ Parents, 
Guardians, and all interested in the Public 
Schools, are earnestly invited to attend the 
examinations.” 
The examinations at Nos. 7, 11,16 and 17, 
are half a day each, and the remainder of the 
schools each one day. The idea of examining 
a school employing eight teachers, as Nos. 6 
and 14 do, or even of six teachers, as are em¬ 
ployed in Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 9, in one day, is an 
an erroneous one. It is true that four ex¬ 
aminations a year, of seventeen schools, even 
of a day each, is quite an onerous duty for a 
Superintendent; as it would require an annu¬ 
al devotion of sixty-eight days to examinations 
alone. No one at all conversant with school 
exercises, can fail to see that a day’s examin¬ 
ation must of necessity be confined to one or 
two of the principal departments, and to the 
leading branches even in these, leaving out of 
sight the less efficient classes of the upper de¬ 
partments, and most if not all in those below ; 
the very ones in fact, which ought to receive 
especial attention and encouragement. Such 
a course is unjust both to the younger pupils 
and to their teachers . 
Would it not be better to reduce the num¬ 
ber of examinations to two a year, and then 
devote a couple of days to them, thus enabling 
all the departments to pass in review before 
the Superintendent and the School authorities ? 
This is usually the course pursued in the best 
of our higher institutions, with satisfactory 
results. Nothing encourages a pupil more 
than to think his efforts are observed and ap¬ 
proved, and the Superintendent’s endeavor to 
call out those interested in the prosperity of 
the schools, is worthy of high commendation. 
It is only the manner of the examinations, and 
the division into too frequent and too brief 
periods, which seems to us to be capable of 
improvement. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
REGULAR ATTENDANCE AT SCHOOL. 
The children of our Commonwealth are 
regarded as public property, and that, too, 
without reference to any castes or conditions 
of society. And why not ? Boys become 
men in our country, under the fostering genius 
of our institutions, without any necessary re¬ 
gard to wealth, or “noble ancestry.” Spirit 
and energy guide the youth up the steeps of 
fame and usefulness. The son of the poor me¬ 
chanic may reach the President’s chair. The 
youth who labors with his hands at the plow, 
to acquire means with which to prosecute his 
studies, will be very likely to arrive at some 
position of eminence in the world. 
Our law-makers know this. They likewise 
know that the most economical and safest way 
to take care of poor children, is to provide 
means for their education. There is another 
fact in close connection with this, which has 
been hitherto very generally disregarded.— 
Money may be raised, and means abundantly 
provided for the education of children, and yet 
if nothing more be done, the grand result will 
not be realized. There is, in fact, too much, 
or too little, being done. Too little, if it be 
an important fact in our governmental policy 
that children should be educated, and too 
much, if it be a matter of common indifference 
whether or not the young mind be trained up 
properly in the ways of usefulness. For what 
avail schools and teachers, unless children be 
brought under their influence ? There are 
thousands of children running in the streets 
of our towns and villages, subject to the mer¬ 
ciless influence of this cold and wicked world, 
without being made a whit the better for all 
the State hath done for them. It is true, that 
to every child there is apportioned a certain 
amount of money to pay the expense of teach¬ 
ing him, but that money cannot be applied for 
his benefit while he is running in the street. 
According to the recent report of the State 
Superintendent, it appears there is the great 
number of 233,252 children who do not attend 
school, and yet draw public money, or one out 
of every five of the whole number of children 
in the State. Now there is the round sum of 
more than $200,000 of the moneys of this State 
either thrown away, or evidently misappro¬ 
priated. 
The public money thus appropri ted, is call¬ 
ed the “ children’s money.” And ; can scarce¬ 
ly be considered just to give fv> one child the 
money appropriated to anothfr. Now, it ap¬ 
pears to me that there is a want of discrimina¬ 
tion on the part of our law-makers in this re¬ 
spect. Ought not the basis to be, in the ap¬ 
propriation of money, how many do, and not 
how many may, attend school ? This would 
seem to be the most common sense and busi¬ 
ness-like way of distributing money. The 
very idea of our government interesting itself 
in the education of children, presupposes that 
parents or guardians either will not, or cannot 
interest themselves practically in the matter. 
But school-houses are built, and teachers are 
employed; then if children are inclined that 
way, they can go to school, or (under our pres¬ 
ent rate-bill system) if they stay at home, they 
may save perhaps a shilling a week. 
But the design of this article is merely to 
call the attention of the reader to this propo¬ 
sition. Before any more money is expended 
for children, would not a little legislation for 
the benefit of parents be of great utility ?— 
something to make them feel more deeply the 
importance of appreciating the munificence of 
government. The importance of a punctual, 
general and regular attendance in our schools, 
cannot be overrated. J. W. Barker. 
Brockport, N. Y., 1S55. 
FROM THE COUNTRY. 
There is one neglected class in community, 
a class which rarely gets the indulgent ear of 
the public. It isn’t the deaf, the dumb, the 
blind, the poor, or the inebriate; none of all 
these, but far worse; it is the country peda¬ 
gogue, the presiding genius in a thousand 
poor, old, dilapidated buildings, posted on a 
thousand bleak, wind-shorn corners, through¬ 
out all this great State of ours. He is not suf¬ 
fering the winter of physical want, though he 
does sometimes find it his disagreeable lot to 
dispute possession of an airy cottage garret, 
with the snow and the rats, and now and then 
is forced to dry the accumulated dampness of 
six months out of the good wife’s “ best bed 
not at all. The best the house affords is his 
everywhere, and he often finds himself in a dis¬ 
pute solus as to which he should prize most, 
the knick-knacks of the farmer’s wife, or the 
lavish smiles of the rosy lasses who fill the 
chimney corner. His troubles are of a differ¬ 
ent cast, but, nevertheless, bitterly real. 
Within the past winter, thousands of 
schools in our State have commenced under 
entirely new auspices, and as many teachers 
find themselves “ strangers in a strange land,” 
utterly unknown to patrons and pupils, re¬ 
commended by a dubious exterior, and an in¬ 
significant slip of paper, commencing, “ This 
is to certify,” and closing with the pompous 
flourish of a town functionary, who often 
knows as little of the proper qualifications of 
the teacher as he does of Sanscrit, he submits 
himself to the Argus-eyed scrutiny of Young 
America, who is on the qui vive to know 
whether the incoming administration is to pave 
the jagged sides of the hill of science with en¬ 
ticing smoothness, or present to the youthful 
mind the sharp dilemma of birch or knowledge. 
The “ first day” decides the result of four 
months’ long, weary toil; and the momentous 
answer to the maternal formula, “ Well, sonny, 
how d’ye like the new master?” shapes the 
predilections of anxious mammas for the same 
length of time. But though this day is his 
destiny, it only begins his tribulations. Call¬ 
ed upon to teach all ages and sizes, from the 
urchin in molasses and a b c’s, to the miss who 
has spent a fraction of a term at the neighbor¬ 
ing academy, and tormented with every variety 
of text-book, from an old sermon to the latest 
“ New School Reader in arithmetic, from 
Daboll to Lawrence, and the same variety on 
each subject; added to this the difficulties of 
discipline resulting from distrust of a stranger 
—the utter impossibility of suiting, even with 
“ moral suasion,” the ferule and the rod, the 
multitudinous shades of tenderness in the ma¬ 
ternal heart, what wonder is it that the teach¬ 
er sometimes shrinks from the annoyances 
which hedge up his way so thornily ! 
No teacher will say that I have hinted at 
half the perplexities we of the “ rural districts” 
are striving with to-day, which you of the 
cities and villages in your well-arranged schools 
know nothing about. You have had, from 
time immemorial, some sort of a system. We 
are annually called upon to make a system out 
of chaos, and we drag through four months of 
each winter more dissatisfied with the result 
of our own labors than our patrons can po&si- 
bly be. Thinly scattered over the hills and 
dales, hearing and seeing little of each othe”, 
and, of course, entirely without concert of 
action, each one is compelled to “ live and 
learn” for himself; but while we are slowly 
acquiring the experience so necessary to a 
teacher, the unfortunate subjects of our exper¬ 
iments—the young—are losing half their time, 
and what is our gain is wofully at their expense. 
N ow we want a reform — in the superin¬ 
tendency—in the “esprit du corps” among 
teachers—in text books, so that we may have 
uniformity—in arrangement of studies, and in 
school architecture. I suppose we must work 
this reform ourselves; so let us go about it. 
Let us stir up the teachers through the Teacher, 
and the people through the press, and if we set 
ourselves to work right manfully, we shall soon 
grasp the “ good time coming,” when no poor 
pedagogue like your humble correspondent will 
be seen on a Monday morning peregrinating 
the streets of his district, with a pack of dirty 
linen and a pair of stockings—a la Franklin 
—in obedience to the request of his trustees, 
that he should “ have his washing done where 
hespent the week!” —Rusticus, inN. Y. Teacher. 
Value op a School Master.— There is no 
office higher than that of a teacher of youth, 
for there is nothing on earth so precious as 
the mind, soul and character of the child. No 
office should be regarded with greater respect. 
The first minds iu a community should be en¬ 
couraged to assume it. Parents should do all 
but impoverishing themselves to induce such 
to become the guardians of their children. 
They should never have the least anxiety to 
accumulate property for their children, pro¬ 
vided they can place them under influences 
which will awaken their faculties, inspire them 
to bear a manly, useful, honorable part in the 
world. No language can express the folly of 
that economy, which, to leave a fortune to a 
child, starves his intellect and impoverishes his 
heart.— Cbanning;. 
_ Time, well employed, gives that health and 
vigor to the soul which health and retirement 
afford the body. 
aMratji HTusings. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
IN MEMORIAM. — MY BROTHER.® 
BY n. N. F. LEWIS. 
THE FABER, OR JOHN DORY. 
The above-named singular fish, called in the 
common English parlance the John Dory, is 
found in great abundance off the coast of Corn¬ 
wall and Devonshire. The derivation of the 
English name is uncertain, but some ascribe 
it to a corruption of the French word doree — 
i. e., golden, from the peculiar yellow golden 
color of its scales. 
The form and appearance of the Dory is 
something like the common sunfish of our 
fresh-water lakes, except that its fins termi¬ 
nate in a hairy, fibrous substance, which upon 
the dorsal fin extends to great length. There 
is a peculiar round spot upon each side, which 
traditions among the ignorant inhabitants has 
ascribed to various causes, one of which is that 
they are the thumb and finger marks of St. 
Peter, who caught one of its progenitors, and 
took the tribute money from its mouth—an 
exp anation undoubtedly as rational as very 
many so-called scientific solutions of the mys¬ 
teries of nature. Why the spot made by St. 
Peter on one ol the tribe, is continued down 
through all successive generations of John 
Dories, the advocates of this solution do not 
pretend to say. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
WHAT CAUSES THE GULF STREAM. 
In the Rural of February 10th, the opinion 
is expressed that “ the Gulf Stream is nothing 
more nor less than the waters of the River 
Amazon.” A correct explanation of this 
current is important, from the fact that ques¬ 
tions about it are so frequently asked, and 
remain unanswered, or are answered incor¬ 
rectly. 
There have been efforts to explain the ex¬ 
istence of this current in several ways, but I 
am not conscious of the fact that the follow¬ 
ing explanation has ever been offered before. 
It has been supposed that it was caused by 
the Mississippi and other streams which enter 
directly into the Gulf of Mexico ; but Lieut. 
Maury has shown that all these streams do not 
supply enough for evaporation, and that the 
Gulf Stream discharges three hundred times 
more water than the Mississippi. 
If this current is caused by the accumula¬ 
tion of water, whether entirely from the Ama¬ 
zon or other rivers, or by the trade winds, it 
follows that the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf 
of Mexico have a higher level than the Atlan¬ 
tic. The Gulf Stream is, then, like a river, 
descending from a plain to a lower level.— 
Now, by estimating the breadth and velocity 
of the stream at two different points, as the 
Florida pass and Cape Ilatteras, it will appear 
that the bottom of the stream, instead of de¬ 
scending, actually ascends an inclined plane, 
and this elevation is about ten inches to the 
mile. 
While the Gulf Stream is bearing north¬ 
ward a vast amount of warm water, cold cur¬ 
rents are running in the opposite direction, by 
the side of it, and in some places under it. 
But if this stream is not the effect of either of 
these causes, Avhat reason can be assigned for 
it. It is to be attributed to the revolution of 
the earth on its axis, and the difference in the 
temperature of the waters of the Tropical and 
the Polar regions, which render the specific 
gravity of the former less than the latter.— 
Let us take a vessel of water, and sprinkle over 
it some light substance as chaff, and give it a 
whirling motion, the light substance will tend 
to the centre of the vessel, where the motion is 
least, and the heavier to the side of the vessel 
where the motion is greatest. The earth is 
such a vessel, the warm waters of the Tropics 
are the lighter substance, the waters of the 
Polar region the heavier; at the Poles the 
earth lias no motion, while its greatest motion 
is at the equator, hence the constant tendency 
of the water from the equator. Where the 
motion thus generated will be rapid, and 
where imperceptible will depend on the shape 
of the continents, the bottom of the ocean, and 
other local causes, which our limits will not 
allow us to explain. A. M. W illiams. 
Curner. 
For Moore’B Rural New-Yorker. 
GEOGRAPHICAL ENIGMA. 
I am composed of 21 letters. 
My 14, 13, 6, 8, 4 is a cape in Europe. 
My 15, 13, 18, 14 is a cape in S. America. 
My 11, 10, 13, 14 is a town in Spain. 
My 8, 13, 11, 20, 21, 13 is a town in Spain. 
My 4, 5, 11, 11, 16 is a town in Germany. 
My 9, 10, 6, 17, 19 is a city in Asia. 
My 2, 13, 14, 12, 5 is a county in Michigan. 
My 20, 1, 2, 16 is a lake in North America. 
My 3, 13, 14, 3, 13, 7 is a city in the U. S. 
My whole was a celebrated King of England. 
Oak Grove, N. Y. E. C. 
gfY Answer next week 
CHARADE. 
I’m great, I’m small, I’m high, I’m low— 
All secrets learn, yet nothing know. 
Tho’ full of wit, most bright and burnish’d, 
In tli’ upper story badly furnished— 
For there’s no emptier thing than I, 
But then you shun my company. 
Sometimes with noise I roar and rave, 
Am sometimes silent as the grave. 
I’m kept by rich, I keep the poor, 
And ne’er was turned from any door— 
My goods oft pawn’d, and money spent, 
’14s hard, indeed, to pay my rent. 
I’m sometimes sick, with scarce a shred ; 
But better if I keep my bed. 
Oft where I am, the wretched pine. 
' I am where gold and jewels shine ; 
Tho’ I have eyes oft lovers gaze at, 
Yet the bright sun so shoots his rays at, 
I’m blinded and see nought that passes, 
Tho’ not without the use of glasses. 
Sometimes so mean, I’ve scarce a rag— 
Now so superb, I’m fashion’s brag. 
I shine by day, but more by night, 
And shut my eyes to let in light— 
Now turn me round, I’m darken’d quite. 
A man, and not a man—my birth, 
Primeval, and like his, of earth ; 
My wide domain small profit yields, 
My best revenues are my fields. 
I strut the stage with jealous scowl; 
I brave the tempests as they howl ; 
Am much less given to fair than fowl. 
And when in moody fits I toss me, 
How few there are who love to cross me. 
HP Answer next week. 
Three Important Facts.— Never be Influ¬ 
enced by external appearance in forming your 
judgment of a person’s worth. This is an 
important rule, for many a noble spirit is cov¬ 
ered by habiliments of the worst kind. Dean 
Swift said that nature has given every man a 
capacity of being agreeable, though not of 
shining in company ; and “ there are a hundred 
men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by a 
very few faults, that they may correct in half 
an hour, are not so much as tolerable.” The 
world would be more happy if persons gave 
up more time to an intercourse of friendship. 
But money engrosses all our deference ; and we 
scarce enjoy a social hour, because we think it 
unjustly stolen from the main business of life. 
By different nations, every day in the week 
is set apart for public worship, viz., Sunday 
by the Christians, Monday by the Greeks, 
Tuesday by the Persians. Wednesday by the 
Assyrians, Thursday by the Egyptians, Fri¬ 
day by the Turks, and Saturday by the Jews. 
Of course each of these “ people and tongues” 
assign some reason for choosing their particu¬ 
lar day. 
UNCLE TOBY AND THE FLY. 
My uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate 
upon the fly. Go, says he, one day at dinner, 
to an overgrown one which had buzzed about 
his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner 
time, and which, after infinite attempts, he had 
caught at last, as it flew by him ; I’ll not hurt 
thee, says my uncle Toby, raising from his 
chair, and going across the room with the fly 
in his hand—I’ll not hurt a hair of thy head. 
Go says he, lifting up the sash, and opening 
his hand as he spoke, to let it escape ; go poor 
creature, get thou gone ; why should I hurt 
thee? This world is wide enough to hold 
both thee and me. 
I was but ten years old when this happened ; 
but whether it was that the action itself was 
more in unison to my nerves in that age of 
pity, which instantly set my whole frame" into 
one vibration of most pleasurable sensation, 
or how far the manner and expression of it 
might go towards it, or in what degree, or by 
what secret magic—a tone of voice and harmo¬ 
ny of movement, attuned by mercy, might 
find a passage to my heart, I know that the 
lesson of good will then taught and imprinted 
by my uncle Toby, has never since been worn 
out of my mind ; and though I would not de¬ 
preciate what the study of the humanities at the 
University has done for me in that respect, or 
discredit the other helps of an expensive edu¬ 
cation bestowed upon me, both at home and 
abroad since, yet I often think that I owe one 
half of my philanthropy to that one accidental 
impression.— Sterne. 
Answer to Illustrated Enigma in No. 11.— 
Death-watch. 
Thkre are phases of boauty in all the broad earth, 
There are seasons of joy to each heart; 
But the world’s varied charms, and the soul’s light¬ 
some mirth, 
All are transient, and soon will depart. 
The eye that enraptures soon beameth less bright, 
The dearly-loved friends pass away, 
And the soul groweth sad in the darkness of night, 
That succeedeth the splendor of day. 
In life’s early morning, when hope bounded high 
And thy future all brightness and bloom, 
Thou wert called from our midst to thy home in the sky, 
Away from earth-sorrow and gloom. 
We will not repine ; though thy body is dust, 
Thy soul hath been freed from its chains ; 
The God of the universe, gracious and just, 
In wisdom all infinite reigns. 
There’s a Heaven of boauty and radiance untold, 
Whose glories forever endure ; 
The friends whom we mourn our eyes shall behold, 
In that home of the holy and pure. 
♦John Newton Lewis, Pavilion, N. Y., JE. 18 yrs. 
7 months. 
PERSONALITY AN AWFUL GIFT. 
_ The short verse—“ Every man shall bear 
his own burden,” opens to our consideration 
one of the deepest principles of our being.— 
It singles us out from all the multitude around 
us. It set us alone with our own spiritual and 
moral character, as we have fashioned it, and 
reminds us that we must bear for ourselves 
that burden. It bids us remember that great 
truth which the world is ever seeking to hide 
from us, that we are each of us One ; that we 
have that in us which does truly separate us 
from every other beside; that we are in reali¬ 
ty alone. There is something awful in this 
truth, in whatever light we look at it. Though 
this is, indeed, our greatness—though it is in 
this, in a great measure, that our likeness to 
God consists, yet it is an awful thought. Our 
very greatness is appalling to us—but we can¬ 
not shake it off. We may, indeed, strive, in 
our shrinking weakness, to break in upon the 
stillness of our solitary being by crowding 
others around us, but we cannot. We may 
forget our loneliness for a season, in the whirl 
of pleasure, or the fever of excitement, or the 
warm gushes of a loving sympathy.; but in all 
the pauses ol outward things, the solemn voice 
comes back again upon our ear; the multi¬ 
tude of shadows fade into nothingness ; and 
the great vision ol our single, proper, solitary 
being, again overshadows our spirits. We 
have each one this burden of a separate soul, 
and we must bear it. Even ordinary life ut¬ 
ters voices which add their witness to this 
truth, if we listen for them. How do all deep 
thinking people, in the inmost current of their 
spirits, live apart from others, and, more or 
less, even feel that they do so .—Bishop af Ox¬ 
ford. 
Religion.— Whatever of excellence is 
wrought in the soul itself, belongs to both 
worlds. Real goodness does not attach itself 
merely to the present life ; it points to another 
world. 
Political and professional fame cannot last 
forever, but a conscience void of offence before 
God and man, is an inheritance for eternity. 
Religion, therefore, is a necessary and almost 
indispensable element in any human character. 
There is no living without it. Religion is the 
tie which connects man with his Creator and 
holds him to His throne. 
If that tie is sundered and broken, he floats 
away, a worthless atom iu the universe, its 
proper attractions all gone, its destiny thwart¬ 
ed, and its whole future nothing but darkness, 
desolation and death. A man of no sense of 
religious duty is he whom the Scriptures de¬ 
scribe—in so terse but terrific a manner—as 
“ living without God iu the world.” Such a 
man is out of his proper being—out of the 
circle of all his happiness, and away, far away, 
from the purpose of his creation .—Daniel 
Webster. 
How Long Shall I Stay? —On one occa¬ 
sion, the late Rev. W. Blunt requested a lady, 
whom he thought qualified, to undertake some 
charge iu district visiting, or some kindred 
engagement. She answered him, rather de¬ 
clining the proposal, “ My stay here will pro¬ 
bably be too short for me to be of any use._ 
I do not know that I shall be here thr^e 
months.” His answer was brief, calm, and 
solemn. “ I do not know that I shall be here 
one.” He alluded to his time of life in th s 
present world. She saw his meaning, answer¬ 
ed no more, and heartily embraced the wor 
offered her to do. In God’s sight, time ha 
in reality no remnants, no shreds, no patche- 
to be thrown away ; and the habit of speed- 
and ready application of our faculties is on< 
of the most important acquisitions which can 
possibly be formed. 
Reminiscence.— When the summer of youth 
is slowly wasting away into the nightfall of 
age, and the shade of past years grows deep 
and deeper as life wears to its close, it is pleas¬ 
ant to look through the vista of time upo 
the sorrows and felicities of our earliest years. 
If we have a home to shelter, and hearts to rt 
joice with us, and friends have gathered to¬ 
gether round our firesides, then the rough 
places of our wayfaring will have been worn 
and smoothed away in the twilight of life, and 
the few sunny spots will grow more beautifu 
Happy indeed are they whose intercouse witl 
the world has not changed the tone of the 
holier feelings, or broken those musical chon 
of the heart whose vibrations are so melodm- 
so tender and touching in the evening air. 
Obedience.— What we do in obedience 
the command of God, and in faith, we our¬ 
selves shall have the comfort of, first or last 
