we spent hours on the Corsican coast, mm 
what joy, then, would the call be heard by suffer¬ 
ing communities, “fire up: wood up/' Without 
assuming any but a subaltern's post, we take the 
liberty of raising the cry in our rauks, “ E ire- 
up; wood up.” 
Light and truth are as needful to the teacher as 
fire and fuel to the engine. Neither can carry 
forward either muu or humanity without proper 
attention. Therefore, while veritable engineers 
“fire up” and “ wood up,” let teachers “read up” 
and “study on” at every interval of their labors, 
ness on the one hand, and of wickedness and 
cunning on the other. In all of these stories, 
there is always a certain point where the feelings 
of the reader are worked up to the highest pitch 
possible, and then comes a combination of hap- 
py circumstances which cause them to turnout 
most beautifully, and in a manner every way 
agreeable to the reader; and this is as it must 
necessarily be in order to fulfil the writer's inten¬ 
tion, for, were it otherwise, they would cease to 
be popular; and it is but too apparent that the 
object of all this trash is to gratify the natural 
Craving of the mind for pleasure and excitement; 
j hence it must, require no effort of the intellect, 
hut, as it does, the simply placing the Imagina¬ 
tion captive, and thus following the writer 
through with the various scenes of his story. As 
a consenuenoo, therefore, a mental indolence and 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
OUR ADVANTAGES. 
To the yonng searcher after wisdom, the pres¬ 
ent age is one of peculiar interest. The past is 
brilliant with the deeds of the learned, but our 
own period eclipses their mightiest efforts. Our 
Universities and Colleges are mines of knowl¬ 
edge, glittering with massive and precious ores. 
selves with suitable books, maps, charts, and 
other means of instruction and improvement; 
and should seek to kindle their zeal and quicken 
their interest in the objects of their profession by 
study, meditation, and intercourse with their fel¬ 
low laborers. Teachers thus provided, and im¬ 
proving their means of usefulness, acquire, during 
the lapse of years, great energy of character and 
power of propulsion, often reminding one of the 
steam engine; and they bear about the same com¬ 
parison with improvident, unimproving teachers, 
that a powerful locomotive does to a hand car. 
In employing this figure of speech, we need not 
guard against misapprehension. Though the 
steam-horse goes snot ting through the country, 
and, as a signal to parties interested, utters a 
The whole aspect of the intellectual field bespeaks 
a guiding band richer in wisdom, and more royal 
in learning. The accumulated experience of ages, 
expressed in characters of living light, is here 
centered, free to the ardent gaze of millions. 
Everywhere is to be seen the fruits of minds ma¬ 
tured after years of deep and profound study. 
The flames enkindled upon the altar of Education 
burn with brighter lustre and increasing bril¬ 
liancy, dispelling the gatlieiiug darkness and 
threatening gloom. The thoughts of the learned, 
the heroic deeds of the great, the victories of the 
good and just, are. garnered as into one common 
store-house, to feed and nourish the youihful 
mind. There is spread out before our vision a 
picture of which the world has never Been the 
precedent. 
Knowledge is everywhere diffused, radiating in 
all directions, and, like the sunlight, visiting the 
poorest. Its genial light, emanating from a free 
press, cheers the pathway and illumines the dwell¬ 
ing of the lowliest, elevating their condition, dig¬ 
nifying their characters, and sweetening their 
lives. The plodding husbandman may pass bis 
leisure hours in hoarding up Intellectual riches. 
Though his body is bowed earthward by the hard¬ 
ships of his lot, and his immoitalmind is in com¬ 
parative darkness, unhewn and shapeless, void 
now a third variety, tne isiaua uecaou, | 
Wgrteotlis,) a very beautiful species, which ia 
fouud iu Chili, the Falkland Islands, the River 
Platte, and other parts of South America. It Is 
distinguished by a black-neck, which finely con¬ 
trasts with the snowy whiteness of the rest ol its 
plumage. The bill is red, and the legs llesli- 
color. Our engraving is a representation of two 
bequeathed by the Earl of Derby, from his cele¬ 
brated collection, to the Zoological Society of 
London. 
USEFUL EFFECTS OF LIGHT, 
was drifting, and resolved to let the stuff alone. 
Since then I have kept, my purpose, though it of 
course required self-denial, and will continue to, 
for the craving is still strong. But it. was not 
till I turned my attention elsewhere that 1 fully 
realized Its pernicions influence. In the pursuit 
of my regular studies, it was with great difficulty 
that I could bring down and fasten uiy mind on 
them, and give them their proper attention. 
Biography and history were prosy in the extreme, 
while the “book of hooks” was a mass of dry¬ 
ness and insipidity. It now requires labor at a 
ilisail vantage to repair the mischief thus done. 
Sin Jambs Wtlir, late physioian to the Em¬ 
peror of Russia, attentively studied the effects of 
light as a curative agent in the hospitals of Bt. 
Petersburg; and he discovered that the number 
of patients who woro cured is roomB properly 
lighted, was four times greater than that of those 
confined In dark rooms. Tills led to a complete 
reform in lighting the hospitals iu Russia, and 
with the most beneficial results, in all cities 
visited by the cholera, it was universally found 
that the greatest number of deaths took place in 
narrow streets, and on the sides of those having 
a northern exposure, where the salutary beams 
of the sun were excluded. The inhabitants of 
the southern slopes of mountains are butter 
FRIGHTENING CHILDREN. 
tion, especially when they are attended by some 
gossipiug nurse, whose head being empty ol good 
sense, has been filled bnm full of ghost legends 
and black letter reeolleetions. We have even 
now, while wo write, a dim, shuddering recollec¬ 
tion of those appalling horrorH which make the 
blood chill, creep aud cardie about the heart — 
even after the Auger of time has planted furrowB 
ou the brow and sown silver threads in the hair. 
It was the practice of a full-grown boy of nineteen 
or twenty years of age, (we are ceitain he never 
became a man,) to take the writer upon hm knees, 
(then three or four ycarB old,) when the twilight 
was gradually fading into darkness, veil his face 
with a black handkerchief, and then for our spe¬ 
cial edification, affirm that he was the unmention¬ 
able personage who is supposed to be no better 
than he should he. Then would follow a long 
dissertation upon witches, ghosts, hobgoblins, a 
whole family of horrible monstrosities, by way of 
giving tone to the infantile imagination. The 
lessons operated upon the young mind like a po¬ 
tent spell; soon it became as much as the life was 
worth to attempt to cross a dark entry alter night- into them, 
fall. It left alone in a sleeping apartment, the built with narrow, 
avenue to the eye was carefully barricaded by the glass, until late yeai 
pillows and bed clothes; there, panting, trees tion to windows 1 
USE OF TEXT-BOOKS IN SCHOOLS. 
should be done for a reform in this respect. 
Livonia, N. Y , I860. 
We would not depreciate the value of text- 
j books in school; ou the contrary, we appreciate 
them at their true worth, and consider them valu¬ 
able assistants to the teacher, when properly used. 
What wo would protest aguinst is their abuse. 
Text books are good in their proper sphere, 
but, like other good things, they are often mis¬ 
used. We have frequently seen teachers, iu hear¬ 
ing a recitation, take toe text-book and read the 
I questions from it, in the tegular order in which 
they occurred; the class, in the meantime, an¬ 
swering, pari ot-llke, the questions propounded, 
while he who could give the answer In the exact 
words of the author was pronounced the best 
scholar. There were no explanations asked or 
given as to principles involved In the subject un¬ 
der consideration; and there was no effort made 
10 arouse or cultivate any faculty of the mind 
save that of memory. Ask a child for the why 
or the wherefore of the thing affirmed, aud he 
SPRING AND AUTUMN, 
Tine year is divided into four seasons—Spring, 
Summer, Autumn, and Winter—each having 
charms peculiar to Itself. This pleasing variety 
of seasons is occasioned by the annual revolution 
of the earth around the sun, together with the 
Inclination of her axis to the plane of her orbit. 
When Winter retires before the direct rays of 
the Great Luminary, virgin Spring comes forth, 
clothed in beauty, with her thousand flowers that 
lade every breeze with fragrance, that sport over 
hill top aud glen, rejoicing amid the splendors of 
the new-horn year. Nature seems renewed, the 
i ear Is charmed with the gentle murmur of the 
streams, while the feathered songsters pour forth 
their “unpremeditated lays” from towering 
The health statistics of all civilized countries 
have improved greatly the past century, this 
may be justly regarded as dun to the superior 
construction of houses, by admitting more light 
The old-fashioned dwellings were 
dwutfi»b windows; and as 
i, was very dear, its applica- 
ing out at every pore, the (k-sh creeping all over 
with horror, the writer lay a full believer in all 
monstrous shapes and terrible delusions, at times 
but a single remove ftOm a maniac. 
Those terrible night-time solitudes, the dark¬ 
ness peopled by the imagination with spectres the 
most, terrific, how vividly do they come back even 
now in the days of ruaturer judgment and riper 
reason, never to be erased from the j-ecollection by 
the hand of time. If there is ft wotao condition 
on earth thau that into wh-ch this monstrous su¬ 
perstition plunges an imaginative child, we have 
no conception of its curdling horrors. Never to 
lay the head upon the pillow from the time it is 
two years of age, until seven, eight, or ten, with¬ 
out feeling the most, perfect assurance in his own 
mind of realizing his own prophecy, and seeing 
some hideous spectre before morning. This is 
the purgatory of early innocent, and otherwise 
happy childhood. 
These midnight horrors haunt the imagination 
even to old age. They may lose somewhat of 
their painful vividness, the appalling distinctness 
_Bometbing of their curdling horror, so potent 
iu its mystery and so terrific even in its impossi¬ 
bility—btttth se terrors linger in the imagination 
still, ready to be called up in every suspicious 
spot, awakened in every solitude, in spite of all 
the jadgment can do, or the reason can urge. For 
a moment at ceitain times —eveu to old age, the 
TEACHERS SHOULD STUDY, 
Some of the best lessons of life are learned from 
familiar objects, and we do not hesitate to seek 
instruction from the humblest sources. We have 
often watched with interest the management of 
steam engines on boats and on railroads. A 
goodly supply of fuel is provided at the outset, 
and so pi iced as to be couvenieut for u-e. Befoie 
the machine can be made to work, two thiugs 
have to be done. Afire must be made! u the furnace 
of the engine, and then must be duly supplied with 
fuel. The former of these operations is generally 
styled by engineers “firing up,” aud thu latter 
“ wooding up,” or “ coaling up,” according to the 
materials used. We have heard the chief en¬ 
gineer of an Atlantic steamship call out to a sub¬ 
ordinate, “coal up.” Recently on a railroad con¬ 
nected with this city, we heard the order given, 
“wood up.” And once in a miserable Btoamer, 
having been weather-bound for twelve hours in a 
Mediterranean port, we heard with joy the Cap¬ 
tain’s call, " fire up.” 
We have been led to reflect on the conse¬ 
quences that would follow if orders of this kind 
were either not given or not obeyed. Steamships 
would halt mid-ocean, and railroad cars would 
disappoint us more than when blocked up by 
“mountains of snow.” Indeed, the whole course 
of business would be seriously affected, and gen¬ 
eral indignation would be excited against the 
Bteamboat and railroad engineers. 
Now, we have educational crafts that are stop¬ 
ped in their career of usefulness by the ignorance 
and blunders of the managers more months than 
LIGHT READING. 
two ago there was a good deal Baid about the 
Great California Tree — Wellingtoni-a, I believe 
it was decided to call it It was cultivated in 
some of your Rochester nurseries. What has 
become of It? Has it succeeded or failed?— 
Youno Inquirer. 
The California Tree has succeeded here. We 
have specimens five feet or more in height grow¬ 
ing in the open ground. We may take an 
engraving of one before long. 
We may judge of a man’s character by what he 
In conciliating those we live with, it is most 
surely done, not by consulting their interests, nor 
by giving way to their opinions, so much as by 
not offeuding their tastes. The most refined part 
of ua lies in this region of taste, which is perhaps 
a result of our whole being, rather than a part of 
our nature, and at any rate is the region of our 
most subtle sympathies aud antipathies .—Friends 
in Council . 
How fortunate beyond all others is the man 
who, ia order to adjust himself to his fate, ia not 
obliged to cast away his whole preceding life. 
