r 
MOORE'S RURAL NEW- YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
YOUR HAND I TAKE IN MINE. 
KT GBORGK V. MOBIUH. 
Yobr hand I take in mine, Willie, 
And fancy I've the art 
To read, while gazing on your thee, 
What’s passing' in your heart; 
'Tis joy an honest band to hold, 
That gem of modest worth, 
By me more prized than all the gold 
Of all the mines of earth, Willie, 
Of all the mines of earth. 
I’ve marfcefl your love of right, Willie, 
Your proud disdain of wrong; 
I know you’d rather aid the weak 
Than battle for the strong. 
The golden rule— religion’s stay— 
With constancy pursue, 
Which renders other's ail that they 
Gan ever render you, Wi’dio, 
Can ever render you. 
A conscience void of guile, Willie, 
A disposition kind, 
A nature, gentle and sincere. 
Accomplished and refined, 
A mind that was not formed to bow, 
An aspiration high, 
And beaming on your thoughtful brow. 
And in your cheerful eye, Willie, 
And in your cheerful eye. 
I never look at you, Willie, 
But with an anxious prayer 
That you will ever be to me 
What now I’m sure you are. 
Ido not find a fault to chide, 
A foible to annoy, 
For you are all your father’s pride, 
And all your mother’s joy, Willie, 
And all your mother’s joy. 
You’re all that 1 could hope, Willie, 
And more than I deserve; 
Your pressure of affection now 
I feel in every nerve. 
I love you—not for fashion’s sake, 
But for yourself alone; 
And this is why your hand I take 
80 fondly in my own, Willie, 
So fondly in my own. [Nome Journal. 
[For Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
SenOOL DISTRICT LIBRARIES. 
Eds. Rural: —The great interest you take 
in the subject of common schools, devoting in 
your paper every week a column or more to 
that subject, is the inducement for asking the 
publication of the following observations: 
There can be no doubt but that School Li¬ 
braries have been and are exerting great and 
marked influences on the rising generation, 
and are important auxiliaries in the great 
scheme of Free schools and general education; 
for there is no greater truism than that School 
Houses are better national defences than for¬ 
tifications, and the general diffusion of knowl¬ 
edge, the best security of our free institutions 
against the propagation of religious or 
political- errors and fanaticism. 
With all the advantages accruing from the 
introduction of Libraries in school districts, 
there has arisen a trouble which is yearly 
increasing—one that is difficult to provide 
againat, without injuring the institution and 
system now established. In most of the dis¬ 
tricts of any magnitude, the number of vol¬ 
umes vary from two to three hundred, and the 
libraries become so bulky and unwieldy, that 
no portable book-case, convenient for moving 
from one elected Librarian to his successor, 
can contain them,—and no one is willing to 
take the very onerous charge for more than 
one year in succession. If located in the 
school-house, subject to the teacher’s super¬ 
vision, no Librarian is safe, the law is so strin¬ 
gent, making him responsible for every infrac¬ 
tion and loss, and being liable during vacation, 
relieving the Library of useless incumbrances 
and, lasing out the avails in new and valuable : 
productions—start de novo vith an improved 
catalogue. 
The views of your readers are solicited on 
this subject. The idea is nor- new, having 
been a good deal agitated in private circles; 
but not iu the public prints, as far as observed- 
Librarian. 
EDUCATIONAL DESTITUTION IN GEORGIA. 
Georgia is a magnificent State. She has a 
larger territory-than either England,Scotland, 
or Ireland. She can furnish land sufficient to 
j make five such Stales as Maine, New Hamp- 
| shire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connect!-" 
j cut, and have something left besides. She 
| can muster acres enough for over two thou- 
i sand nations of the size of the Republic of San 
| Marino. By liberal legislation and appropri- 
| (itions she has led the van among the Southern 
| States in t he march of material progress. Ed- 
ucation—so far as it affects her towns, and her 
more wealthy and densely populated country 
communities, has wonderfully advanced, 'i ’iiese 
are matters of general congratulation; but 
they have stimulated our self-complacency into 
undue growth—into proportions so ample as 
to hide another fact of an opposite character. 
Let the above reasons for honest pride in 
our noble State give us the nerve manfully to 
face the grim facts of a darker hue, which 
make up a part of the current history of cdu- 
j cation in Georgia. The cry of educational 
destitution among our poor rings out from the 
I census figures. Wherever-copies of that cen- 
| sus have been deposited iu < he libraries of 
j England, of the continent of Europe, of the 
civilized world, there the record is against us 
that we had, in 1850. a mighty host of 41,000 
entirely uneducated freemen, whose ranks are 
yearly swelling. They are nearly all native i 
born Americans. Let us not soften the un¬ 
palatable truth, by pointing to the ignorant 
masses of the Old World. They are not free¬ 
men; they are not sovereigns. Nor let us try 
to take the edge from the sad fact by saying 
that many of this multitude were born iu other 
States of the Union. Wherever they were 
born they are Georgia citizens now. True, it 
is too late to educate this 41,000. But can we 
do nothing (except what the meager poor 
school system is doing) towards arresting the 
evil in those now growing up? The history of 
the past and of the present show that “ the poor 
school system,” which we have so long adhered 
to, will not meet our wants. Is it not a hu¬ 
miliating fact, as stated by the first editor of 
this journal, that by the last census “less than 
one-third of our children and youth were in 
school at all, while the whole number a ttending 
school of every grade were about equal to the 
number of adultswho could not read and 
write." Since the year began we have, in por- 
THE LATE ASfDEEW J. DOWNING. 
The portrait at the head of this article is a 
correct likeness of the late lamented A. -I. 
Downing, who perished in the summer of 1.8f>2, 
at the time the Henry Olay, one of I he 11 ad- 
son River steamers, was destroyed by fire.— 
Mr. Downing had himself reached the shore 
in safety, but swam back in the hope of aiding 
in the rescue of other of the ill-fated passen¬ 
gers, and in so doing lost his own life—a life 
{Written for the Rural New-Yorker.] 
DEATH. 
Comb not unto me, O Death ! 
In the spring’s young rosy hours, 
When smileth earth, 
In the joyous birth, 
Of her childern the flret born flowers; 
Nor yet when the spring of life, 
Hath fanned with its fjuickuing breatn, 
The fair young buds of hope, till they skirt, 
Into life and bloom, in the bounding heart; 
Come not to me then, O Death ! 
Come not w hen tho summer eun, 
Hath deepened the tender hue. 
Of the lovely rose, 
And the green tuvf glows, 
’Neath a sky more intensely blue ; 
Nor yet in the summer of life, 
When the golden light of faith ; 
Giveth brighter lines unto hopeB still dear. 
And the visioned future seems yet more near; 
Come not to me then, O Death I 
But come when the autumn wind 
Sit-ays sadly the old oak tree; 
And its brown leaves spread, 
0‘cr my lowly bed, 
Shall be covering meet for me; 
And O! when the leaves of life, 
Iii the bleak world’s chilling breath, 
Are faded, and withered, and one by one 
O’er the gravo where- hope lieth dead are strove, 
Gome then unto me, O Deatli I 
And I'll greet thee with calm content, 
For wt-il could I hear to die, 
In those mournful hours. 
When on all the flowers, 
Thy withering spelt shall lie ; 
Nor yet would I care to live 
When all that is dear to-day, 
The trusting faith of the heart yet pure. 
The high resolve, and the hope so sure. 
Alike shall have passed away. 
Adrian, Michigan, 1S54. 
ViOLA. 
WHEN WE ARE DEAD. 
gaged to superintend the laying out aud adorn¬ 
ment of the Government grounds in that city; 
but in an unexpected moment, in the full vigor 
of his intellect and the manly powers of lusty j 
life, he was called away at the period of his j Whhx we are dead there will be some lion- 
greatest usefulness. But his memory and bis : eat sorrow. A few will be really sad, as we 
, I are robed tor the grave. Fewer, probably, 
works remain tor the benefit oi posterity. , ” . r . % 
3 1 1 j than we now suppose. We are vain enough 
The family of Mr. Downing were on board j to think our departure will produce considera- 
the steamer at the time of tho catastrophe, 
pre-eminently useful to the country and to the j but were conveyed by him to a place of safety 
on shore previous to the philanthropic effort ^ a jj 
which cost him iiis life. 
There is at this time a cause on the calen¬ 
dar of the Ciicuit Court of Orange county, 
turns only, of four counties of our State, been j attention to those subjects which occupied his 
world. 
As the editor of the Horticulturist , as the 
author of “Landscape Gardening," “ Cottage 
Residences,” “Fruits and Fruit Trees ot 
America,” and other works, as an active and ; instituted by the executors of Mr. Downing, 
practical worker in the field of rural economy : against the owners ol the steamer, tor the re¬ 
am! rural taste, the name of A. J. Downing is 
familiar to us all. He was born at Newburgh, 
N. Y., in the year 1815, and early turned his 
ble sensation. But we over estimate it. Out 
of a small circle how soon shall we be forgot¬ 
ten! A single leaf of a bouudless forest has 
No man Inis done more to difiuse a proper 
taste in the building and arrangement ol rural t 
pu 
people 
to be robbed or abused; which once 
pened to the writer of this article. 
hap -1 
in near sixteen neighborhoods where there i:, 
not even an old field school. These same 
counties have, probably, as many more neigh¬ 
borhoods iu the same predicament. One of 
these contains the Capitol. We have no rea¬ 
son to think that the great majority of our 
counties are any better off in this particular. 
As a collateral fact, pointing in the same di- | 
rection, the report of that noble institution, the 
American Tract Society, for the present year, i personally the laying out am 
shows that her colporteurs found in less than ! t j l0 grounds of many suburban 
one-third of the counties ef our State some 
five hundred families without a Bible in the 
house. Where is our patriotism, our State 
pride, our philanthrophy? What necessity for 
a mighty agitation in behalf of general educa- i 
cation? The public is asleep; editors are j 
alseep; politicians, judges, legislators, are [ 
asleep. We hope that the resolution of the j 
Teacher’s Convention, at its recent session, ! 
requesting every editor in the State to write | 
an article on the necessity for a system of gen¬ 
eral education will be promptly responded to. i 
To the press, with its immense power, must we j 
look to hold up before the public mind the ed- ! 
ucational destitution of from fifty t© a hundred ! 
thousand young Georgians, until it passes from j t] assure, 
a forgotten fact mto a public anxiety.— Soullt- i •< ■ 
ern School Journal. 
cowry of five thousand dollars damages on 
account- of his death. The suit was com¬ 
menced for the benefit of his family, and the 
result is awaited with a great deal ot interest 
pen and labors up to the time of his death.— ! and anxiety. A money verdict would aid 
1 those whose chief dependence was upon him 
for support, but the loss to them and to the 
cottages, and the evidences of the influence of | country at large by such a casualty as the 
his publications on the minds of the American j burning of the Henry Clay, is irreparable.— 
are visible in every town and hamlet | Downing was young in years, being but thirty 
The gay will laugh 
When thou art gone; the solemn brood of eare 
Plod on; and eatfli one, as before, will abase 
Ilis favorite phantom. 
The world will go on without us. We may 
have thought a very important wheel in the 
great machinery will bo ungeared when we are 
gone. But the world goes clattering on as if 
nothing had happened. If we filled important 
stations in society; if we have wondered what 
would, or could be done, if we were removed; 
yet how soon others will fill our stations!— 
The world will be a bustling active world 
without us. It was so before we entered it. 
It will be so when we are gone. 
When we are dead, affliction may erect a 
monument. But the hand that set it up will 
soon be powerless as ours, and for the same 
cause. How soon they that weep over us 
throughout the country. He superintended | eight at the time of his death; but he-had ; w m follow us! The monument itself will 
1 beautifying of! reached a venerable age, if good works are j crumble, and it will fall on the dust that cov-t 
«. und had i taken as the measure of life. A short and , « M- «marble or the. granite long on- 
’ . ! . . . , f i dures, yet the eye ol affection will not endure 
erected for himself at Newburgh a beautitul j aclive careens infinitely prelera > e to jeareo ^ reat ] the graven letters. Men will give a 
rural home. At the time of his death he was | imbecile and unproductive being. 
on bis wav to \V ashingtou, whore bo was on- j 
BUSINESS HABITS. 
It is an awkward thing to begin the world j 
without a dollar—and yet hundreds of indi- | 
viduals have raised large fortunes from a sin- { 
gle shilling. 1 know a gentleman, a builder, : 
in an extensive way of business, now well, 
worth 8100,000, who'was a brick-layer’s labor- j 
I er some six years ago, at $ 1 . per day. lie j 
became rich by acting upon principle. He ! 
me that even when he | 
'Virtue, not roiling suns, tho mind matures." 
SWEET SPECULATION. 
graven letters. Men will 
glance at the name of one they never Knew, 
and pass on with not the thought of the sluin- 
berer below! 
On my grassy grave 
The men of future time will earelosB tread 
And read my name upon the sculptured stone; 
Nor will the sound, familiar to their ears, 
Rdcall my vanished memory. 
When we are dead our influence will not be 
dead. We leave epitaphs upon indestructible 
materials. Our manner of life has been wri- 
I was in ill-paid employment, he continued to j 
| save 50 cents per day, and thus laid up $18 2 , 
the first vear. From this moment his fortune 
was made. Like the hound upon the light 
Some individual, having visions of sugar j 
floating through his brain, has ascertained the j 
amount of sugar consumed in this country da¬ 
ring the last year, and indulged in several 
speculations thereon. I be amount consumed ; j- ^j ienl ^y e i , av0 stirred up thought and 
was about TOo, 000,000 pounds of canc sugai, | awabene( j emotion. The wonderful machinery 
of mind has felt our presence. We have 
into the warm 
•ound us. Our 
places of business, our social resort, may know 
us no more; but livtng accountable being's feel 
the influence that involves our personal de¬ 
parture. 
and 
This 
, 000,000 pounds of maple sugar, 
gives more than 24 pounds ol cane and 1 pound < p resge( j fj ie stamp of character i 
of maple sugar to every man, woman am c hi. | wax 0 f our niora ] sensibilities arc 
If this sugar were put mto barrels holding 200 I 
pounds, and each barrel occupied the space ol 
3 square feet only, it yvould require 329 acres j 
/.(']->»/! if tn stnnrl unnn. The barrels, if! 
the Libr 
Sciently portable 
t® hmse ’ and °* luwu, 8 “ 11111 “F” 111 ' lllc j fute doubts passing 
books,—not being packed three or four deep, | the aunt 0 f j ames watt reproved the boy for , ... . . , , 
as is now the case, aud beilig obliged to turn his idleness, and desired him te take a book, cent, and swept the very shop wherein they j t ° 
of land for it to stand upon. The barrels, if 
placed in a row, would reach 220 miles. If! 
in paper packages of 5j 
yvould require 140,400,000 : 
paper, and if only a yard I 
_ _ to each package, there j 
koth these men c,„e to Now Votk without », wottU Jg&Xtfg j 
,.r . ° 5.... if wmtlrl rp„nir« erected. Dr. Cll 
out a bushel ot two on the Boor lo’fiud a Bob- i or to employ himself to some purpose usefully, j both afterwards made their fortunes, lake | ilfa'I^na' ycar^Tf 
inson Crusoe for some little apple munching I -™| »<* «•»* <? the lid of the kettle , the beM*, who m y j S$o#t °„°° „n £two oil a pout, 5 on this 
profits alone wottfd amount to 
urchin, it would result in a great convenience 
to Librarians, and benefit to readers. To ex¬ 
hibit the books in many districts properly, the 
cases would have to be quadrupled in size. 
It has been proposed, and with some show 
of advantage, that a law should be passed, al¬ 
lowing the Trustees to select, and sell at public 
auction, at whatever price, they would brimr, 
to the inhabitants of the district only, an 
amount not exceeding one-third of the number 
of books in their libraries, when exceeding one 
hundred volumes; selecting such as are dilap¬ 
idated and injured, and such as were badly se- 
how little was she aware that lie was investiga¬ 
ting a problem which yvas to lead to the 
greatest of human inventions! 
Never Too I. ate to Learn. —At the re¬ 
cent commencement of Wittemberg college, 
one of the graduates who received the highest 
honors of his class, was forty-two years of age. 
Having enjoyed no opportunities for education 
in his youth, lie commenced at the rudiments 
when twenty-five years old, and he soon ac¬ 
quired a deep thirst for knowledge, aud im¬ 
proved all his opportunities and intervals from 
labor for study. As is evident, he possesses 
lected for the purpose intended, as is often the ! great fixedness of purpose, and is deterred or 
case. The books sold would be distributed 
among adults and children in famalies by this 
process, and perhaps made more generally use¬ 
ful, than when doled out to children on stated 
days. 
No one on inspecting any School Library 
in the country, but will be struck by the great 
number of the books, which arc as fresh and 
unused as when purchased; never having been 
read, being works entirely unadapted to the 
capacities of the young mind, or on subjects 
entirely uninteresting to any one. All such 
works had better be disposed of at some price, 
discouraged by no difficulties. 
Tub “ Astou House.” —John Jacob Astor 
made provision in his will for an institution 
that should perpetuate his memory in Wald¬ 
orf, Germany, the place of his birth. It was 
recently opened, and dedicated with solemn 
ceremonies, and is intended to answer for an 
infant school, an educational institute for the 
young, and a retreat for aged and indigent per¬ 
sons. 
Study iu all things to conciliate, aud cher¬ 
ish continually that charity and forgiving spirit 
which you would have exercised towards you. 
the 
they possessed an . 
try, perseverence and frugality, and the first 
half-crown became iu coasequence the founda¬ 
tion of a million more. 
The world at large would call these individ¬ 
uals fortunate, aud asccribe their property to 
good luck; but the world would be very 
wrong to do so. It there was any luck at all 
in the matter, it was the luck of possessing 
clear heads and active hands, by which means 
multitudes of others have carved out their 
own fortunes, as well as those instances wc 
hare above cited. But the word “ business ” 
nearly 815,000,000. 
th may he despised - may oe opposeu, j lining parochial schools in Glasgow, 
it contains an imperishable germ of great-, ^ Chal .. but how manyi 
3 a « d of e T pire - u 10 a T U f 9 Eu I do you intend to talk about it? N 
Talking and Doing. —When Dr. Chambers 
wn executing his plan of establishing parochial 
schu ds in connection with St. John’s Farish, 
in Glu gow, a site which belonged to the col- 
d for the first school to be 
Chambers called on Dr. Taylor, 
the head of the college, in order to purchase 
the site. He expressed his hope of obtaining 
it on reasonable terms, iu consequence of the 
j novelty ami importance of the undertaking. 
“ The undertaking," said Dr. Taylor, “ is an 
important one, but is not a new one. Wo 
have been talking for twenty years of estab- 
“ Yes,” 
mere years 
and storms, its roots infix themselves more 
deeply in the earth, its branches extend, its 
rncaus habit Paradoxical as it may seen, ot I head towers upward, every year ad.la to its 
torihttasiuess is nothing in lire world ex - 1 ">"f '' ° 1 
4 i it 4 -Vin caiiI nf i <4 rprr ill aril v— , centuries, it stands tho fjxnei ot tho 
cept habit— thosoul o^ v ^ \ So religious truth may bo accounted contemp- 
tible; may he slow in its progress; may be 
often threatened with annihilation from the 
“ Great is Truth, and it will Prevail.— 
Truth may be despised — may be opposed; 
but 
ness »HU ui ^ TrZiZau: I do you intend to talk about it? Now we are 
ground, vegetates in the soil and presently a J tQ do tbc thingj and not talk about it; 
seedling plant appears, liable to destruction S ^ ^ ^ cven let the price be as mod- 
from every blast; but notwithstanding rosts j M poBS it ) i Cj seeing we are going to take 
the labor of talking and projecting entirely off 
your hands.” 
There is a great difference between talking 
and doing, though all men do not seem to be 
last keeps the motion of life steady and un¬ 
broken, thereby enabling the machine to do its 
work; without this regularity, your motions 
as a merchant may be capital but they never 
will bo profitable. 
Ik you don’t want lo fall in love with a girl, 
don’t commence flirting with her. This court¬ 
ing for fun is like boxing lor lun. \ ou put 
on the gloves in the most perfect good humor, 
with the most friendly intentions of exchang¬ 
ing a few amicable blows; you find yourself in¬ 
sensibly warmed with tho enthusiasm of the 
conflict, until some unlucky punch in tho “ yes- 
kit” decides the matter, and tho whole affair 
ends in a downright fight .—Lowell Joxir. 
sophistries of error, and rage of persecutors; j 
but, nurtured by an unseen aud almighty in-, 
i flucnce, its grasp of the human intellect ex- j 
! tends; its attributes of grandeur and beauty | 
I are unfolded; its head rises in triumph over all 
aware of it. In the case above alluded to, 
more was accomplished by the latter in six 
months than by the former in twenty years.— 
There are many persons who would be greatly 
profited by exchanging talking for doing- • 
Chris tain Adv. and Jour. 
Protestantism in France. — I’he General 
Some men are very entertaining for a first 
interview, but after that they are exhausted and 
interview, but alter that tney are exnausieaana ^ > ,■ f i , \ r / no leon by a 
run out; on a second meeting, we shall find a private audience of Louis N t po oon y 
X ““ d or - : i 
its rivals, and, ultimately, it appears enthroned | Pastoral Conference of France, at its late mi- 
the universally confessed monarch of the globe, j )ni al meeting, resolved to demand the appom - 
—Rev. YV. Urwick. \ ment of Protestant Chaplains for the brenen 
army and fleet in the Fast; also tbc reopening 
of places of worship belonging 'to Indepena- 
H UUU.V'H Ul >YUiOliA|/ r- * , 
nits, now shut by order of the autjhoritios; also 
