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MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
145 
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SCHOOLS IN NEW YORK CITY. 
New York city ig gigantic in everything— 
wealth and poverty, splendor and squalidness, 
intelligence and ignorance, virtue and vice, all 
manifest themselves upon a scale of magnitude 
unapproached and unapproachable, at least on 
the occidental side of the Atlantic. Men may 
moralize, and very properly, upon the enormi¬ 
ty and the amount of crime in New York ; 
but they ought not, at the same time, to lose 
sight of the activity of her citizens in every 
good work. 
Among the noble institutions of that city 
must be reckoned the ^Common Schools, of 
which, according to the recent report of the 
Superintendent, there are, including the Pri¬ 
mary, Grammar, Evening, Colored, Normal 
School, and the Free Academy, the number 
of two hundred and sixty-two. The whole 
number of pupils taught in these institutions 
during the past year is 146,590 ; and the ag¬ 
gregate of money expended for this object, 
including the cost of new buildings, furniture, 
repairs, &c., was $775,973,38. Two hundred 
thousand of this sum was applied to the pur¬ 
chase of sites and the erection of ten new 
buildings at an average cost of $20,000.— 
Fifty of the school houses are capable of seat¬ 
ing each two to three thousand pupils, and are 
divided into three departments, Male, Female 
and Primary, the departments occupying sep¬ 
arate stories. In each of the Primary schools 
three or four hundred of the younger pupils 
are instructed preparatory to entering the 
Grammar schools. 
Five or six hundred teachers assemble each 
Saturday at the Normal School, where they 
receive lessons on instruction and discipline, 
and are thus continually improving and per¬ 
fecting themselves in their own peculiar de¬ 
partments of science. 
Seven hundred thousand dollars is a large 
sum for one city to raise in a single year for 
educational purposes, but it is only one dollar 
for each inhabitant, and less than one-half of 
the Alms House and Police expenses during 
the same time. The Board urge an increased 
expenditure the coming year for the establish¬ 
ment of a Free Academy for girls, similar to 
the one now in operation for boys, where the 
female portion of the rising generation can 
receive instruction free of cost in the higher 
walks of literature and science, as well as in 
music, drawing, painting and designing, which 
is a consummation devoutly to be wished.— 
The report complains of the great multiplicity 
of books (a very common complaint every¬ 
where) in use in the schools, of which there 
are 50 Spelling-books, 25 Geographies, 20 
Grammars, 10 Algebras, 20 Histories, 115 
Readers, and other books in proportion. On 
this subject the report says: “ Where so large 
a number of teachers are employed under the 
same jurisdiction, a diversity of taste, judg¬ 
ment and strong preferences oftentimes might 
be expected. Yet, where a large population 
is crowded densely into a few square miles, 
and scholars frequently remove from one part 
of the city to another, this is a question which 
must sooner or later occupy the attention of 
the Board. Perhaps it would not be advisa 
ble to adopt arbitrarily the books of a few 
authors, to the rigid exclusion of all others, 
but there should be some limit placed to the 
introduction and frequent changing of our 
text-books.” 
WORDS BY MISS M. F. MORGAN. 
Not too Slow. 
MUSIC T H. BOWEN. 
3 4 
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1. Ban-ish sad - ness, sing with gkd-ness; Mu-sic from a 
thou-sand rills. 
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Light-ly trip-ping, Gai-ly skip-ping, Gash-es out a -, mong the hills. 
2. Birds are sing-ing, na - ture springing, Beams with beai-ty 
teems with health; 
See! the ze-phyrs’ wings are span-gled With the or-chard’s snowy wealth. 
3. Through the heath-er, haste to - ge 
Sing-ins* of tli« dayy While tha snowy buds are glisf zing, In the ros - y mists of May 
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§ 
THE BEAUTIFUL AND TASTEFUL IN ED¬ 
UCATION- 
“ Why should not the interior of our school 
houses aim at somewhat of the taste and ele¬ 
gance of a parlor ? Might not the vase of 
Bowers enrich the table, the walls display not 
only well executed maps, but historical pic¬ 
tures or engravings ; and moralist or sage 
orator or father of his country ! Is it alleged 
that the expenses thus incurred, would be 
thrown away, and the beautiful objects de 
faced ? This is not a necessary result. 
I have been informed by teachers who had 
made the greatest advances towards appro 
priate aud elegant accommodations for their 
pupils, that it was not so. They have said it 
was easier to enforce habits of neatness and 
order among objects whose taste and value 
made them worthy of care, than amid the 
parsimony of apparatus, whose pitful mean 
ness operates as a temptation to waste and 
destroy. 
Let the communities, now so anxious to 
raise the standard of education, venture the 
experiment of a more liberal adornment of 
their dwellings. Let them put more faith in 
that respect for the beautiful which really ex¬ 
ists in the young heart, and requires only to 
be called forth aud nurtured to become an ally 
of virtue, and a handmaid to religion.— 
Knowledge has a more imposing effect on the 
young mind, when it stands like the Apostle 
at the beautiful gate of the Temple. Memory 
looks back to it more joyously, from the dis- 
■ tant or desolated tracks of life, for the bright 
scenery of its early path. 
I hope the time is coming when every iso¬ 
lated village school house shall be an Attic 
temple, on whose exterior the occupant may 
study the principles of symmetry and grace. 
Why need the structures where the young are 
initiated into those virtues which make life 
beautiful, be divorced from taste and comfort. 
Do any reply that the “ perception of the 
beautiful” is but a luxurious sensation, and 
may be dispensed with in systems of education 
which this age of utility establishes ? Is not 
its culture the more demanded to throw a 
healthful leaven into the mass of society, and 
to serve as some counterpoise for that love qf 
accumulation, which pervades every rank and 
preads even in consecrated places the tables 
of the money-changers. 
In ancient times, the appreciation of what¬ 
ever was beautiful in the frame of nature, was 
accounted salutary by sages and philosophers. 
Galen says, “ he who has two loaves of bread, 
let him sell one and buy flowers, for bread is 
food for the body, but flowers are food for the 
soul." If the “perception of the beautiful” 
may be made conducive to present and future 
happiness, if it have a tendency to refine and 
sublimate the character, ought it not to re¬ 
ceive culture throughout the whole process of 
education ? It takes root, most naturally and 
deeply, in the simple and loving heart; and 
is, therefore, peculiarly fitted to the early 
years of life, when, to borrow the words of a 
German writer, “every sweet sound takes a 
sweet odor by the hand, and walks in through 
the open door of the child’s heart.”— Mrs. 
Sigourney, in Com. School Journal. 
Jiricutifit. 
dragging of the paper by it. If the touch is 
instantaneous, it makes a dot only upon the 
paper. A combination of these dots and 
marks make up the telegraphic alphabet. 
Now for its action. The operator, say at 
Albany, touches a key which unites the 
circuit. The electric fluid passes along the 
wire, and at Rochester converts the U-shaped 
piece of iron upon the registering instrument 
into a magnet. This draws down by its at¬ 
traction one end of the lever, throwing up the 
point of the oilier end against the paper, mak¬ 
ing a dot if the action is instantaneous, but a 
mark if the connection is kept up long enough 
for the paper to drag past the marking point. 
The operator releases the key and breaks the 
circuit, whereupon the U ceases to be a 
magnet, the lever is pushed up by the spring, 
the point at the other extremity dropping at 
the same time from the paper. The following 
is the alphabet of the Morse telegraph, with 
a key: 
'mtiji’s Cornu. 
For Moore’s Rural New-Yorkor. 
GEOGRAPHICAL ENIGMA. 
I am composed of 20 letters. 
My 7, 19, 3, 1 is a lake in New York. 
My 15, 19, 19, 14, 2 is a river in N. America. 
My 10, 9, 16, 7 is a sea in Asia. 
My 5, 19, 15, 4 is a city in New York. 
My 6, 11, 11 is a cape in the United States. 
My 8,10, 17,19, 4 is an island west of Europe. 
My 7, 19, 18, 5, 2 is a river in France. 
My 14, 2, 20, 4, 12 is a county in Ohio. 
My 4, 5, 13, 2 is a county in New York. 
My whole, was in the American Revolution 
the dread of the loyalists. a. o. p. 
Genoa, Cayuga Co., N. Y. 
Answer next week. 
ALPHABET. 
THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 
In a late number of the Rural, containing 
an article on the subject of Electro-Magnetism, 
we promised to give a description of the tele¬ 
graphic instrument. 
This instrument is a compound arrangement, 
and depends for its efficiency upon two distinct 
aud separate powers ; first, the electro-mag¬ 
netic, which alternately raises and depresses a 
small lever described in the previous article, 
and secondly, a combination of wheel-work 
like a clock, which causes a small ribbon of 
paper to pass with a slow and uniform motion 
past the sharp point of one end of the lever 
before described. Either of these—viz., the 
electric lever or the wheel-work—may be in 
action without the other, but both must act 
simultaneously to produce the desired results. 
Let us then describe the Morse instrument, 
that being the most simple. It operates nearly 
like the striking part of a common clock, 
(minus the bell,) being driven by a weight, 
and regulated by a fan-wheel balance. Be¬ 
tween two rollers connected by cogs, a narrow 
ribbon of white paper is slowly unrolled from a 
reel; and this is all the clock-work has to do 
with telegraphing. 
Now for the lever. This is balanced in the 
centre on a fulcrum—one end of it is in near 
proximity to the U-shaped electro-magnet, 
and the other with a sharp point is close to the 
ribbon of paper as it passes from the reel over 
the roller. There is room for a slight motion 
of the lever, so as to permit it to be lifted from 
the magnet by a spring placed underneath; 
but when it is depressed so that one end touches 
the magnet, the point at the other end is thrown 
up against the paper. If the paper is in mo¬ 
tion, and the point remains any length of time 
a - 
b - 
c - - - 
d - 
e - 
/--- 
(T - 
O 
h - - - - 
i - - 
i - 
k - 
l - 
NUMERALS. 
2 - 
3 - 
4 - 
5 -- 
6 . 
W -9- 
4-- --- 
Many operators at length become so expert 
as to be able to read a despatch by the click 
of the instrument, without even looking at the 
paper. 
WHY THERE IS NO RAIN IN PERU. 
Written for the Rural New-Yorker. 
ARITHMETICAL QUESTION. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
“ COME UNTO ME.” 
Two Arabs having sat down to dinner, were 
accosted by a stranger, who requested to join 
their party, saying he could get no provisions 
in that part of the country. If they would ad 
mit him to eat only an equal share with them, 
he would pay for their whole dinners. The 
dinner consisted of 8 small loaves of bread, 
of them belonging to one of the Arabs, and 3 
to the other. Each having eaten a third part, 
the stranger presented them with eight pieces, 
saying, * ‘ This is what I agreed to pay you ; 
divide it in justice between you.” A dispute 
accordingly arose respecting the division be¬ 
tween the two Arabs. They agreed to submit 
the matter to the Cadi, who made a decision at 
which they were both greatly surprised, yet 
the Cadi decreed right. What was his decision? 
gW° Answer next week. 
In Peru, South America, rain is unknown. 
The coast of Peru is within the region of per¬ 
petual south east trade-winds. Though the 
Peruvian shores are on the verge of the great 
South Sea boiler, yet it never rains there.— 
The reason is plain. The south-east trade- 
winds in the Atlantic Ocean first strike the 
water on the coast of Africa. Traveling to 
the northwest, they blow obliquely across the 
ocean until they reach the coast of Brazil.— 
By this time they are heavily laden with va¬ 
por, which they continue to bear along across 
the continent, depositing it as they go, and 
supplying with it the sources of the Rio de la 
Plata and the southern tributaries of the Am¬ 
azon. Finally they reach the snow-capped 
Andes, and here is wrung from them the last 
particle of moisture that that very low tem¬ 
perature can extract. Reaching the summit 
of that range, they now tumble down as cool 
and dry winds on the Pacific slopes beyond. 
Meeting with no evaporating surface, and with 
no temperature colder than that to which they 
were subjected on the mountain tops, they 
reach the ocean before they become charged 
with fresh vapor, and before, therefore, they 
have auv which the Peruvian climate can ex¬ 
tract. Thus we see how the top of the Andes 
become the reservoir from which are supplied 
Converse not with a liar or a swearer, or a 
man of obscene or wanton language ; for either 
he will corrupt you, or at least it will hazard 
your reputation to be one of the like making ; 
and if it doth neither, yet it will fill your 
memory with such discourses that will be 
troublesome to you in after time ; and the 
returns of the remembrance of the passages 
which you have long since heard of this na¬ 
ture, will haunt you when your thoughts 
should be better employed. 
Children. —I remember a great man coming 
to my house at Waltham, and seeing all my 
children standing in the order of their age and 
stature, he said, “These are they that make 
rich men poor,” but he straight received this 
answer:—“Nay, my lord; these are they 
that make a poor man rich—for there is not 
one of these whom we would part with for all 
your wealth .”—Bishop Hall’s Life. 
In a lonely and desolate land, where there 
is no home to cheer, no hand to guide, no 
heart to bless, how sweet would be the voice 
of a kind and endeared friend, welcoming the 
wanderer to his arms, giving him, not only 
protection from the raging elements without, 
but assuring him of peace and quietness with¬ 
in. So in life’s dreary way, when the soul is 
oppressed with extreme anguish, and almost 
driven to despair, when moral darkness envel¬ 
opes it, and hope is well nigh gone, how 
charming is the sound of a Savior’s inviting 
voice, saying, “ Come unto me all ye that are 
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest.” With such a Friend at our side, no 
foes can harm, no fears annoy. The Sun of 
Righteousness illumines our hearts, the Prince 
of Peace gives us security, quietness, and joy, 
the Lord of Life affords us the cheering hope 
of a timely release from the power of death, 
and a glorious reception to the mansions of 
eternal rest. The mariner, tossed upon the 
boundless deep, his vessel shattered by the 
merciless storm, the lightnings flashing around 
his defenceless head, and his last earthly hope 
fast receding from his view, looks but in vain 
for human aid, and hears no friendly voice 
saying, “ come." 
But there is a voice that may be heard amid 
the raging billows, and above the thunder’s 
roar, it is the voice of mercy saying, “ Come.” 
And He who thus invites, is no less than the 
Son of God. The Everlasting Father. The 
Prince of Peace. In his kind embrace we may 
ever find a sure retreat, and a hearty welcome 
to the rich provisions of His grace. A heav¬ 
enly radiance adorns His brow, and in His 
presence there is fullness of joy. To Him the 
poorest may come, and be enriched by the 
treasures of His love, and those oppressed 
with earthly cares, may in Him find relief 
from all their anxious toil. But especially 
may the burdened soul receive from Him the 
sweet tokens of His pardoning grace. The 
voice of Sovereign mercy is kindly whisper¬ 
ing to each troubled heart, saying, “ Come, 
for I am the only Trust. In Me ye shall have 
peace even in this life, and when the billows 
of death would engulph thee, I will be thy 
Light, thy Deliverer, and thine Exceeding 
Great Reward. On earth, I will be thy dear¬ 
est, choicest Friend, and in Heaven, I will wel¬ 
come thee to the Brightness of the Father’s 
glory, and the mansions of eternal rest. 
University of Rochester, April, 1855. A. D. W. 
ANSWERS TO ENIGMAS, &c- IN No. 2 
H, 
Answer to Miscellaneous Enigma in No. 277. 
Horatio Seymour. 
Answer to Algebraical Problem in No. 277. 
28 feet the upper part; 42 feel the lower part —70 
in contact, it of course makes a mark by the ! the rivers of Chili aud Peru.— Lieut. Maury, feet whole. 
Piety is not an end, but a means, through 
the purest repose of the spirit, to attain the 
highest culture. Wherefore it may be re¬ 
marked that those who pursue piety as an end 
aud aim, are mostly hypocrites. 
A man cannot properly be said to live till 
he rejoices in the well-being of others. 
