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V 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AfiRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER 
FREE 1IICII SCHOOLS. 
The true idea connected with providing the 
means for educating the rising generation, is 
that all are entitled to the privileges, as an 
inherent right; that property ought to be 
taxed to afford these means, and that no dis¬ 
crimination should be made as to whether or 
not the person owning the property has kith 
or kin dependent upon him directly or indi¬ 
rectly for support. The best and truest safe¬ 
guard against ignorance, improvidence, pauper¬ 
ism and crime, is a good intellectual and moral 
education; and hence the owner of property 
is all the more secure in its possession, and all 
the less liable to be taxed for the support of 
criminals and paupers, just in proportion to a 
general diffusion of knowledge. 
New England has long acted upon this 
principle, and most of the cities of our own 
State support their schools upon similar 
grounds. The Common Schools we mean, for 
not many of them, we regret to say, have gone 
so far as to erect higher seminaries of learn¬ 
ing, where the more advanced studies can be 
pursued without cost to the parents or guar¬ 
dians of the students. It is true that most of 
those attending such institutions have the 
pecuniary means of doing so, but it is equally 
true that many others would attend if free to all 
who have not the means of paying the expenses 
as at present existing. New York city, and per¬ 
haps some others in the State, have a system of 
free High Schools in successful operation, and 
most other cities aud large municipal commu¬ 
nities, ours included, have talked the matter 
over, but have made no movement further. 
The surest and most effectual way of making 
democratic progress, and breaking down the 
strong barriers of exclusiveness is to throw 
open the highest paths of intellect to the tread 
of humble feet. Theories of equality are in¬ 
dulged in vain, the doctrines of common right 
and common privileges are a dead letter, and 
the elevation of the masses to the standard of 
dignified and honorable humanity are idle 
dreams, so long as the lights of science and 
literature are shut out from the majority of 
men. The natural eye cannot see without 
light, nor the natural ear hear without sound; 
and the intellectual being is weak and unde¬ 
veloped also, in proportion to the absence of 
the pabulum on which it feeds. Men rise from 
low estates because the means to do so are 
placed within their reach, and men in high 
places go down because they neglect these 
means. Women have been deemed intellectu¬ 
ally inferior to men, and that doctrine has 
proved triumphant whenever and wherever 
females have been denied the privileges of in¬ 
tellectual cultivation commensurato with those 
of men. 
Municipal reform is greatly needed in most 
of our cities, and economy in expenditure 
ought to be especially enforced; but that i3 
poor economy which starves the intellect, and 
makes mental paupers of immortal men. G rcat 
praise is due to those cities wh ; cli have created 
a system of free Common Schools, but the 
work stopping at that point, is only half per¬ 
formed, and will not be completed until the 
highest seats of learning are thrown open 
without cost to whomsoever chooses to occupy 
them. The step now most needed to accomp¬ 
lish this desirable end, is the establishment of 
free High Schools in all our cities. 
THE LOG SCHOOL HOUSE. 
Between the Ausable Forks and Franklin 
Falls, as I said to you, is a high region of 
country, cold and uninviting for agricultural 
purposes, desolate by nature as a place of resi¬ 
dence, but covered with a large growth of 
timber. This timber is a mine of wealth to 
the manufacturers of iron, furnishing them with 
charcoal for their furnaces and forges. Occa¬ 
sionally you find a city almost of coal pits.— 
Hundreds upon hundreds of them clustered 
around. Some smoking in the slow progress 
of combustion, some just covered, and some 
just being piled ready'for covering, and some 
already burned, from which sooty, and charred 
men, 1 had almost said, are raking away the 
coals, and loading them for the forges. As a 
matter of fact, it requires people to chop the 
wood, build and burn the pits, and carry away 
the coals; and they are to be found in plenty, 
in log houses along the road. As a corrollary 
from these facts, it follows that children will be 
born to them. And you will see the sturdy, 
knotty, and hardy looking little wilderness- 
born chaps, swarming in what you and I might 
consider inverse ratio, so fur as numbers are 
concerned, to any apparent necessity for their 
presence, or provision for their support. Now 
in this country, as a general thing, wherever 
you find a dozen children, you will find a school 
mistress and a school-house. These throe in¬ 
stitutions seem to bo inseparable, growing 
along up together, and it is a glorious thing 
that it should be so. It develops the native 
energy of the American character, and brings 
forth its inward might. 
Well, some three or four miles south of 
Franklin Falls, in the “ coal formation,” as ge¬ 
ologists would say, stood a log house. There 
were some fifteen or twenty healthy-looking 1 
boys and girls playing, and scampering, and 
shouting around the door, and I wondered at 1 
the evidences of a prolific reproductiveness, 1 
which seemed to characterize whoever inhabit¬ 
ed it. While we were some distance from it, 
however, 1 heard a loud rapping on the win¬ 
dow sash, and the little ones disappeared with 
a rush into the house. That sound was too 
full of old memories, recollections of long ago, 
not to explain the problem that had puzzzled 
me. That log house, standing there all alone 
in that little: clearing was a school house, a 
“seminary,” a small branch of a great system, 
that has thrown and is throwing this country 
forward, with a rush of progress such as finds 
no parallel in the world’s history. As we 
passed it, the door stood open, and I took an 
observation of the inmates. There was the 
plain but neatly dressed mistress, with her clean 
calico dress and black apron, her white neck¬ 
erchief over her shoulders, and crossed grace¬ 
fully over her bosom; her hair combed modestly 
and smoothly from her forehead, and fastened 
in a knot on the back of her head, standing 
with book in hand, and a class of little girls 
before her, about hearing them read. One 
chubby little fellow, of, say eight or nine years 
of age, was standing by himself in the middle 
of the floor, with a paper cap on his head, his 
pantaloons rolled half way to his knees, his 
right hand iu his mouth, and his face down in 
a ludicrous-sheepish, and shame-faced fashion. 
There was no mistaking his position. He was 
undergoing punishment for some sin against 
the laws of the school, demonstrating the great 
truth that reaches from the cradle to the grave, 
that “ the way of the transgressor is hard.”— 
There was something so old-fashioned, so l'u- 
miliar to me in all this, that I was tempted to 
laugh and cry at the same time, as the present 
and the past stood out so palpably before me. 
l)o not think me capable of ridiculing these 
primitive people, or primitive schools. They ; 
are too important, too essential to the prosperity 1 
and progress of tills country, in my estimation 
for that. I remember with feelings of pro¬ 
found veneration, tho log school-house of my 
own boyhood days. It was the foundation of 
the small progress I have made in life. Tho 
teachings begun in these log school-houses, 
have given direction to, and roused tho latent 
energies of many a great and good man of our 
country, whose names have passed into the 
history of these States, who will live in the 
world’s memory, when thousands of graduates 
of the Colleges and Universities will have per¬ 
ished. Blessings on that log school-house in 
the Saranac woods, on its school mistress, and’ 
the little children whose “young ideas” she 
was “ teaching how to shoot .—State Reg. 
SKETCH FROM LIFE. 
(Mr».- T.tl-iht-Childrcn-do-as-thcy-please, end hire. Find- 
fauU—Mrs. FindfauU's hopeful present ) 
Mas. L.—Good afternoon, dear Mrs. Find- 
fault; walk right in and take off your bonnetl 
we will have such a nice chat together. By 
the way, how do you like our school teacher? 
Mrs. F.—There, just what I was going to 
say, I can’t think of anything else. Why, 
she punished neighbor Q-'s little boy yes¬ 
terday; ’twas shocking! 
Mrs. L.—You don’t say so! why what conld 
the little fellow have done? 
Mrs. F.—Way, he only laughed and played’ 
aud would not study. 
Mrs. L.—Impossible! just as if wo sent our 
children to school to study, or to bo governed* 
we send ’em to get ’em out of our way to be 
sure! 
Mrs. F.—Of course, and—I am so out of 
breath I can’t hardly speak (?)—Mrs. Q- 
just sent her word she should not have her 
child punished, and she called it impertinence, 
the minx! 
Mrs. L.—La! what is the world coming to? 
As if we are not to say whether our children 
shall be punished or not. 
Mrs. F.—And she won’t let them whisper, 
nor laugh, nor look out of the window, and if 
they miss only three or four words in spelling, 
she makes ’em get it over. For my part, 1 
won’t bear it, and I told her so. Just as tho’ 
she has come here to do as she has a mind to, 
with our children! The other day my little 
Peter, here—you know he is only thirteen— 
laughed in school, and she made him stay in 
at recess; and I have charged him, if she does 
it again, to take his books and come home. ' 
Mrs. L.—That, is right; 1 am glad you show 
a proper spirit. W r e will learn her % lesson if 
she stays here. 
Aye! you will teach her a lesson—and a 
lesson that young heart never learned before. 
Stay not your venomous tongues. Slander 
her! Is she a stranger? so much the better; 
she has no friends near to defend her. Never 
mind if those bitter words wound a too sensi¬ 
tive heart — she is a woman; and you would 
not dare speak so of a man. Teach your chil¬ 
dren to speak disrespectifully to, and of her. 
Teach them to break her rules; and in after 
years, when you shall shed tears of agony over 
the downward course of a loved child, and, 
perchance, see him chained in a convict’s cell, 
you will remember with bitter regret, when 
you taught his young heart that first lesson, to 
disregard laws. 
Repay all her efforts with ingratitude; plant 
thorns in her pathway; make her realize but 
too well, she is a “s tranger in a strango land.” 
He, who alone reads the heart, knows of the 
yearning, the intense longing for home, the 
sad, weary hours, the tears crushed back, the 
suffering, the misery. The plain, black dress 
speaks of death. Some near one, dearly loved, 
is sleeping beneath the sod; she came to you 
with a heart laden with sorrow. What care 
you? Strive by every word and act, to shroud 
it in a deeper darkness. 
And God be merciful unto you in your time 
of woe—for “ with what measure ye mete it 
shall be measured to you again, good measure 
pressed down and overflowing.” Retribution! 
tis a law of God. Every bitter word of slan¬ 
der, every tear you have caused to start, shall 
return to you many fold.— Olive Branch. 
Give children a sound moral and literary 
education—useful learning for sails, and in¬ 
tegrity for ballast—set them afloat upon the 
sea of life, and their voyage will be prosper¬ 
ous in the best sense of the word. 
THE FRESNEL LIGHT 
THE LIGHT - HOUSE. 
Nothing evinces the ameliorating and hu¬ 
manizing influence of civilization on man’s evil 
propensities more than the care bestowed up¬ 
on all matters tending to reduce and mitigate 
the perils of the sea. In the infancy of com¬ 
merce, the wrecks of foreign vessels upon any 
coast were considered a God-send by the 
inhabitants, and even the government itself 
not unfrequently came in for a portion or the 
whole of the spoils. The hardy mariner, and 
the adventurous trader, had to encounter 
not only the hostility of the winds and waves, 
but they were considered lawful subjects of 
extortion and plunder on every shore; aud the 
greater the peril—the more they stood in need 
of a helping hand—the more were their goods 
regarded 03 lawful prizes. 
Peace between two nations did not exempt 
shipwrecked goods from confiscation, and even 
stratagems were sometimes resorted to by the 
people of a dangerous coast, to lure ill-fated 
ships upon the rocks. Thus on the coast of 
England, at one time, undulating lights were 
displayed from the cliffs in imitatien of those 
of a ship at sea, in order to deceive vessels in 
the vininity, and entice them upon the coast.— 
Foreigg and domestic, friend and foe, met with 
no mercy at the hand of these worse than pi¬ 
rate wreckers, who would leave the crews and 
passengers to perish while they seized upon 
whatever of the stranded cargos might float 
within their grasp. These savage codes have 
been gradually softened down under tho influ¬ 
ences of an enlightened international luw, until 
the shipwrecked mariner has come to be regard¬ 
ed as the special ward of the government, and 
hia goods are looked after and protected from 
plunder with the utmost vigilance and care.— 
No act receives a more spontaneous and hearty 
approval from the whole civilized world, than 
that of a brave and generous ship’s crew, who 
delay their own voyage and imperil their own 
safety for the sake of affording succor to the 
helpless tenants of a wreck at sea. 
Along the coasts of all civilized countries 
various devices are resorted to for the purpose 
of warning vessels of sunken rocks, and direct¬ 
ing their courses in the safest channels. — 
Among the most efficient and common of these, 
is the light-house, usually erected upon points 
of land stretching outward from the shore, and 
perched upon a high rock so as to throw its 
rays as far as possible out over the waters.— 
The curvature of the earth’s surface renders it 
necessary to elevate them to a considerable 
height, in order that tho tarngential rays shall 
. touch the sea as far off as they can penetrate 
the gloom of night and storm. 
To any one sailing along our coast, ft3 for 
instance through Long Island Sound, these 
beacons are visible along each shore, casting 
their light, saHfed as the fires upon the altar of 
mercy, f'ariover the waves. Various expedi¬ 
ents, such as the revolving light, the alterna¬ 
ting colored light, Arc , are resorted to in or¬ 
der to signalize to the mariner what particular 
light he sees. One of the greatest obstacles 
to the perfect efficiency of the light-house is 
the fog, which oflen obscures its rays and 
makes them powerless to penetrate the gloom, 
thus rendering them comparatively useless at 
the very time when their friendly light is of 
the greatest value. 
M. Frksneh, a French philosopher, in the 
year 1819 invented a lanthorn composed of 
glass plates and prisms, which collect all the 
rays of light and perfectly reflect them in a 
narrow belt of intense brightness, that can be 
seen at a great distance out at sea. One of 
these costly lights was last season oil exhibi¬ 
tion at the Crystal Fulace, in New York, and 
i 3 thus described in the Peoples' Journal: 
Its exterior, composed of clear and polished 
crystal, supported on a small base, aud rising 
to a height of about twenty feet, presents the 
singular appearance of a tall monument, re¬ 
volving continually upon its base, and flashing 
out at intervals, rays of the brightest and 
purest light It is denominated a revolving 
Fresnel light, of the first order, and was man¬ 
ufactured by Lepantc, of l’aria, for the United 
States Government. It is designed to be 
placed on a light-house at Gape Ilatteras, 
which is now erecting. 
The principal part consists of a cylindrical 
belt of glass, which surrounds the flame in the 
centre, and by its action refracts the light in a 
vertical direction upwards and downwards, so 
as to be parallel with the foeal plane of the 
system. To near observers, this action pre¬ 
sents a narrow vertical band of light depend¬ 
ing for its breadth on the extent of the hori¬ 
zontal angle embraced by the eye. This ar¬ 
rangement, therefore, fulfills all the conditions 
of a fixed light, and surpasses in effect any ar¬ 
rangement of parbolic reflectors. In order to 
save the light which would be lost by passing 
above and below the cylindrical belt, catadi- 
oj/tric zones are employed. These zones are 
triangular, and act by total reflection; the in¬ 
ner face reffading, the second totally refect¬ 
ing , and the third or outer face, a second time 
refracting, so as to cause the light to emerge 
horizontally. 
Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but 
virtue consoles us even in our pains. — Cowper. 
“WHERE 13 YOUR HOME 1” 
Wuers is my homo ?— not here, 
Where angry winds are sighing ; 
Not where the flowers of Spring 
Are sadly drooping—dying ; 
Not where the diin old woods 
Are shrieking—wildly wailing— 
Nor where the spectre Death, 
Each rosy cheek is paling. 
Not where the dark storm cloud* 
In saure skies are looming— 
Not where the thunder's tones 
Are loudly, hoarsely booming; 
Not where the lightning, 
Within tho sky is streaking—• 
Nor where the tempest hoarse, 
Far, far around, is shrioking. 
But there in a “better land,” 
Where many a friend is dwelling— 
Where the low, gentle notes 
Of soft-toned harps are swelling; 
Where flowers bloom ever blight, 
And gales are softly blowing; 
Whore pure perennial streams, 
Thro' all tho lands are flowing. 
Yes! there —where oil is pure, 
Where sorrow cometh never, 
Where kind and loving friends. 
Death hath no power to Bever: 
And He, to whom we pray, 
At morn, at noon, and even, 
Forever dwelleth thore— 
Sweet fiiend, “ My Home’s in Heaven." 
[ Olive Branch. 
THAT LITTLE OLD BIAS. 
1 hkkr he goes—tripping along through the 
rain, as if he were trying to dodge the drops, 
as spry as a cricket. A little, short, crabbed 
old man, dressed in an old-fashioHi suit, with a 
broad-brimmed hat covered with shining glazed 
or India-rubber cloth: that is Grant Thor- 
burn! He is over eighty. And yet it troubles 
the young woman by his side—healthy, stout, 
blooming—it troubles her to keep up with him. 
Now they start to cross the street,—tho sea 
of mud—crowded with horses, carts and car¬ 
riages. The lady is timid—the old man rush¬ 
es ahead then lie turns back, bends.for ward, 
and stretches out his long arms coaxingly to¬ 
wards his young wife—for the lady is hia new 
bride—and of course, she seizes hold of them 
and comes on. Now they are safe on tho 
other side, hurrying along the sidewalk cozily 
together—the old man cheerful and bright, the 
young wife robust and fresh as a rose-bud— 
they trip along lovingly together. Hastily they 
turn to the right and enter a store of Sunday- 
school books, or something of that kind. 
Y es, that is old Grant Thorburn—once tho 
acquaintance and friend of Thomas Paine, the 
celebrated infidel, but always the very antipo¬ 
des of Paine on the subject of religion. 
He landed in this country, we believe, with 
only three cents in his pocket. He has been 
noted and successful as a seedsman; has writ¬ 
ten his own autobiography; has published 
much under the signature of Laurie Todd; has 
lately held a birth in the Custom House, from 
which he was discharged for carrying a lamp 
in a forbidden place; and, withal, has recently 
taken to himself a third, or a fourth wife. 
How few of us will live to see the years 
which he has seen! All,perhaps, expect to do 
so. But, one by one, we shall be summoned 
to the Silent Land, long ere we reach Grant 
Thorburn's age. Some will step out by 0110 
door and some by another, some willingly, 
some reluctantly, some with ample warning and 
after long illness, others suddenly and unpre¬ 
pared: but how few at his age, of all who live 
to-day, will be threading the streets of New 
York, as old Grant Thorburn glides about 
them now—and with a young bride!— JY. Y. 
Evening Post. 
CONSOLATION TO THE BEREAVED. 
Dr. J unsox thus wrote to a friend in the 
hour of trial: 
“So the light of your dwelling has gone out, 
my poor brother, and it is all darkness there, 
only as you draw down by faith some faint 
gleams of the light of heaven, and coldness has 
gathered round your hearth-stone; your home 
is probably desolate, your children scattered, 
and you a homeless wanderer over the face of 
the la:, i. YVe have both tasted of those bit¬ 
ter cups, once aud again; we have found them 
bitter, and we have found them sweet too. Ev¬ 
ery cup stirred by the finger of God becomes 
sweet to the humble believer. Do you re¬ 
member how our late wives and others used 
to cluster round the well-curb in the mission 
premises, at the close of day? I can almost 
see them sitting there, with their smiling faces 
as I look out of the window at which I am 
now writing. Where are ours now? Cluster¬ 
ing around the well-curb of the fountain of 
living water, to which the Lamb of heaven 
shows them the way; reposing in the arms of 
infinite Love, who wipes away all their tears 
with his own hand. Let us travel on and 
look up. We shall soon be there. As sure 
as I write and as you read these lines, wo shall 
soon be there. Many a weary step we may 
yet have to take, but we shall get there at 
last. And the longer und more tedious the 
way, the sweeter will be our repose.” 
The Secretary of the British Unitarian 
Association reports:—“Not only are there 
upwards of thirty of our congregations of 
some standing now in want of ministers, but 
the number of sqch vacancies is rapidly be¬ 
coming greater, from the removal of some of 
our brethren by death, and tho secession from 
the pastoral office of others, who seek in other 
professions and pursuits for employment more 
congenial with tlieir tastes, or for the means 
of a decent livelihood, which their ministerial 
sphere seemed unable to yield them.” 
He censures God who quarrels with tho im 
perfections of man. 
