[Written for Moore’s Rural .New-Yorker.] 
PIETY INDISPENSABLE TO THE TEACHER. 
Opr profession, ray fellow teachers, is indeed 
one of the most important. In comparing it 
with that, other sacred and divine calling, the min¬ 
istry of the gospel, we are sometimes almost led 
to say ours Is the holier. Fraught with the most 
weighty responsibilities, demanding the greatest 
patience, charity, and justice, in all our acts.it 
behooves us to Bee to it that we are well prepared 
for the station. 
It is well that we attend schools and institutes, 
and thereby store our minds with useful knowl¬ 
edge; knowledge which is, as it were, the main 
spring of all our success in after life; hut there 
is a fountain whose bitter stream must first be 
sweetened, whose corrupted effaaions must, first 
bear the marks of our own cleansing, before we 
can meet with perfect success. That fountain is 
the heart—the secret foe of man, whose constant 
errings lead him into many paths, winding and 
dangerous. 
Many of those who take upon themselves the 
responsibility of teaching a common country 
school, never once ask themselves the most, the 
all-important question—'“ Am I prepared in heart 
for this duty?'' Carelessly they take the souls of 
the young under their charge, and mold and 
fashion them after their own image. Oh, teacher, 
beware! There is a GOD, whoso ever watchful 
eye rests upon all thy labors, and shall lie say 
concerning them, “ It shall not be done”? 
Do you wonder, then, my fellow teachers, who 
trusts not in God, that you meet with ill success 
—that your.days seem long and wearisome, and 
your labor unrewarded? We, too, often forget 
that wo are dealing with immortal spirits, whose 
destinies are sealed in other worlds. We are 
heedless of tho fact that wo are inscribing in 
deathless characters our words, looks, and actions, 
opon an immortal soul. Oh, had we these thoughts 
beford pur minds, think yon wo would so often 
err? Shall wo recommend piety, then, as useful 
to the teacher? 
Why is it that industrious, persevering chil¬ 
dren, so often speak of school with 3 dread? Be¬ 
cause it is a happy place?—becauao they there 
expect to find one who will take the place of a 
parent in kindness, patience, and love? Ah, no; 
but rather because it is an unpleasant place—be¬ 
cause they expoct to meet there one who employs 
force to bring submission—one who despises 
youthful fancy, and delights in teaching only for 
money. But with what delight, think yon, would 
children go to a teacher whose heart is filled 
with love to God and man—one whom they sec 
teaches because ho loves to teach—whom they 
think loves them? Shall we not, then, say that 
piety is useful—shall we not say it is indispensa¬ 
ble to the teacher? As well might a teacher 
instruct without thin as a bird fly with clipped 
wings. Truly, he may ascend above the common 
level of t.ie people, but ho will never reach tho 
station of a perfect teacher. If, then, it is good, 
let us have It—if it is profitable, let us possess It, 
both in our hearts and lives. a. j. w. 
Racine, WJs., 1860. 
[Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 1 
“WELL DONE." 
“ Whatever is worth doing at all, la worth doing well." 
No matter what vocation in life a person may 
choose, or be obliged to follow, his success and 
prosperity must mainly depend upon the merit of 
hie work. What a tuau does, and how he does it 
—these arc the things which determine character 
and give position In society. Although his 
business be to scour knives and black boots, or 
even to sweep the streets, if he performs it faith¬ 
fully, soon will it be said to him, “well done; 
come up higher.” 
But by how much soever the teacher’s vocation 
is more exalted than that of the boot black, by 
so much the more should ho endeavor to merit 
the plaudit—well done. The teacher’s vocation 
is emphatically the one in which there iB some¬ 
thing to be done—and no mere pretension, nor 
half-way work, will answer the purpose. The 
development and discipline of the youthful mind 
is a work that must be done, and well done. To 
this end it is essentially necessary that the teacher 
understand his business well, and then enlist in 
its performance all of the highest and best powers 
of both head and heart. 
Teachers are too apt to overlook the fact that 
the work of education has relation to the heart 
as well as to the head of the pupil. And hence 
comes their sal neglect of moral training. With 
regard to this matter of moral training, teachers 
should be “ wise as serpents and harmless as 
doves.” Lessons of moral instruction may be 
derived by the judicious teacher from many 
.•things connected with the every day exercises of 
-the school room, especially from the reading les¬ 
sons. Stories, too, such as are calculated to 
touch the heart and rectify the principles, should 
occasionally be read. But, above all, and with 
this end in view, should the school be opened 
each day with the reading of appropriate selec¬ 
tions from the Bible, followed by the use of the 
Lord’s prayer. 
Every teacher Bhould constantly strive to exalt 
his ideas of education; for, just in proportion as 
this is done, will there be a corresponding eleva¬ 
tion in the nature and style of his instructions. 
The affections! part of the child's nature will 
receive an equal share of attention with the in¬ 
tellectual, and its mind will no longer be literally 
crammed with indigestible material, nor left to 
starve for lack of nourishment adapted to its 
't state and capacity, any more than its body would 
A be thus imposed upon. 
MOOSE’S EU&AL WEW-YO&KER. 
SING THIS SONG WITH ME. 
[From Mason’s Normal Singer, by permission.] 
2 . 0, sing ye tho merry, merry song, so bold! 
And sing of days of old; 
When the stars of the night, sparkled bright as now, 
And we pledged to continue for ever true, 
As when first our chorus rolled. 
8 . O, Bing ye tho merry, merry song to-night! 
And sing the hour’s swift flight I 
Sing of Him who together has brought us here, 
SiDg of Him who 1ms made us to each bo dear; 
0 , sing the glad song to-niglit. 
No teacher should consider Ida work well done 
as long as he has it in his power to do it better. 
“ Excelsior ” should be his motto, and the animus 
of this motto should bo impressed on the work 
of each day. And then, at its close, may the 
faithful teacher hear the still, small voice within, 
saying, “ well done.” Wm. M. Russell. 
Bowling Green, 0., 1860. 
EDUCATION OF THE HEART. 
• ___ 
Wk commend the subjoined judicious remarks, 
from the London Quarterly Review, to tho dis¬ 
criminating attention and regard as well of 
parents as of teachers. They contain an impor¬ 
tant principle in reference to the education of 
tho young, and one which cannot be too carefully 
heeded: 
“ It is the vice of the age to substitute learning 
for wisdom—to educate the head, and forget that 
there is a more important education necessary 
for the heart. The reason is cultivated at an ago 
when naturo does not furnish the elements neces¬ 
sary to a successful cultivation of it; and the 
child is solicited to reflection wheu he is only 
capable of sensation and emotion. In infancy, 
the attention and the memory are only excited 
strongly by things which impress tho senses and 
move the heart, and a father shall instill more 
solid and available instruction In an hour spout 
in the fields, where wisdom and goodness are 
exemplified, seen and felt, than in a month spent 
in the study, where they are expounded in stereo¬ 
type aphorisms. 
“No physician doubts that precocious children, 
in fifty cases for one, are much worse for the dls 
ciplino they have undergone. The mind seems 
to have been Btrained, and the foundations for 
insanity ate laid. When the studies of maturer 
years are stuffed into the child’s head, people do 
not reflect on the anatomical fact that tho brain 
of an infant is not the brain of a man; that tho 
one is confirmed and can bear exertion—the 
other is growing up, and requires repose; that to 
force the attention to abstract facts—to load tho 
memory with chronological and historical or 
scientific detail—in short, to expect a child’s brain 
to bear tho exertion of a man’s, is just as rational 
as it would be to hazard the same Bort of experi¬ 
ment on its muscles. 
“The first eight or ten years of life shonld be 
devoted to tho education of the heart—to the 
formation of principle rather than to the acquire¬ 
ment of what is usually termed knowledge. 
Nature herself points out such a course: for the 
emotions are the liveliest, and most easily mould¬ 
ed, being as yet unalloyed by passion. It is from 
this source that the mass of men are hereafter to 
draw their sum of happiness or misery; the 
actions of the immense majority are, under all 
circumstances, determined much more by feeling 
than reflection; in truth, life presents an infinity 
of occasions whore it is essential to happiness 
that we should feel rightly; very few where it 
is at all necessary that we shc-nld think pro¬ 
foundly. 
“ Up to the seventh year of life, very great 
changes are going on in the structure of the 
brain, and demand, therefore, the utmost atten¬ 
tion not to interrupt them by improper or over¬ 
excitement. Just that degree of exercise should 
be given to the brain at this period as is neces¬ 
sary to its health, and the best is oral instrnc- 
tion, exemplified by objects which strike the 
senses. 
“It is perhaps unnecessary to add that, at this 
period of life, special attention should be given, 
both by parents and teachers, to the physical 
development of the child. Pnre air and free 
exorcise are indispensable, and wherever either 
of these are withheld, the consequences will bo 
certain to extend themselves over the whole 
future life. The seeds of protracted and hopeless 
Buffering, in innumerable instances, have been 
sown into the constitution of tho child, simply 
through ignorance of this great fundamental 
physical law; and the time has come when the 
united voice of these innocent victims should 
ascend, ‘ trumpet-tongued,’ to the ears of every 
parent and every teacher in the land. 'Give us 
free air and wholesome exercise—leave us to 
develop our expanding energies in accordance 
with the lawB of our being—and give us full 
scope for the elastic and bounding impulses of 
our young blood.’” 
[Written for Moore’s Rnral Now-Yurker.l 
PURITANIC SLANDERS REVIVED. 
Tret are, of course, to bo refuted again. For, 
though this was done long ago by distinguished, 
writers, the slander# AtA still supposed by many 
to be actual truth. Tho last refutation is in tho 
“History of New England,” by Dr. Palfrey of 
Boston, in the second volume, lately published. 
Tho first of these 1« the “Blue Laws of New 
ITaveu” or of Connecticut. Though great re¬ 
proach has been cast upon our l’uritan fathers for 
this code, it never had any actual existence; 
never was passed by the New Haven Colony, nor 
by any other; and no prosecutions were ever 
commenced before any court for violations of 
such laws. No man, acquainted with tho facts, 
could believe in the enactment of the “Blue 
Laws,” because the absurdity was obvious. 
Some years since, tba volume, so called, was re¬ 
printed in our country, and I purchased a copy, 
that 1 might know the real character of tho laws. 
I found the same as are mentioned by Dr. Pal¬ 
frey, viz.:—That “no one shall travel, cook 
victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair or 
shave on the Sabbath day;” nor on that day or a 
Fast-Day, might a “woman kiss her child;” nor 
might any one “read Common Prayer, keep 
Christmas or Saint’s-days, dance, play cards,” and 
the like. 
The little volume, entitled tho “ Blue Laws of 
Now Haven,” was first printed at Loudon in 1781, 
and has been several times reprinted. It was the 
fabrication of Samuel Peters, a tory in our 
Revolution, who fled to England, and was distin¬ 
guished for bis disregard of truth in the state¬ 
ment of facts. Peters was a clergyman, as well 
as a tory refugee, who designed by the work to 
caricature our countrymen as Puritans, because 
they had such ail innate love of liberty that he 
could not dwell among theta In peace, lie was 
characterized by a poet of that day, as that “ fag- 
end man, Parson Pjstbub.” He wrote a history 
of Connecticut, which was published In England, 
and in which I read long ago, that Connecticut 
River is so compressed at Bellows Falla " that no 
iron can be forced into it; here, iron, lead, and 
cork, have one common weight.” This presents 
adequate proof of Peteb.s’ imagination being 
equal to the fabrication of the “Blue Laws,” 
without any history to support him. 
The other slander of tho Puritans is, that they 
agreed to adopt tho “Divine” code of the Is¬ 
raelites, till they could “establish a bitter.” This 
I heard stated also, long since, by an Intelligent 
man, as sober fact. The nearest known proposi¬ 
tion to this end ou record, and this directly re¬ 
futes the charge, was the ordering by the New 
Haven Colony, that “the judicial laws of God, as 
they were delivered by Moses, and as they aro a 
fence to tho moral law, being neither typical nor 
ceremonial, nor having any reference to Carman, 
shall be accounted of moral equity, and shall gen¬ 
erally bind all offenders, and be a rule to all the 
courts In this jurisdiction in their proceedings 
against offender.-, till they shall be branched out 
into particulars hereafter.” 
This ordering embraced only the civil part of the 
Mosaic code, and excepted all of those law3 that 
had any reference to Canaan, or to the ceremonies 
and types of their religion and ils sacrifices; it 
contained only tho civil laws for the Israelites as 
members of society, which havo ever been held 
to be judicious and beneficial to the people above 
those of any other ancient nation. These were to 
be in force till the principles of them should be 
developed in particular legislative enactments. 
The Puritans held, with all the Christian world 
at that day, that all men were bound to worship 
God and to keep sacred his Sabbath; and of course, 
that these two laws were not local, or confined to 
any people or age. If this is error, it was the 
error of the age, and deserves to be of every age. 
The impiety, Implied In the slander, Is contra¬ 
dicted by their constant adherence to the Bible 
and all their devout religious lives. 
Let there be light spread among the people, till 
no one, educated in tho Common School, shall dis¬ 
honor tho Puritan fathers by attributing to them 
such egregious folly, or render doubtful his 
sense and knowledge by believing such refuted 
slander. o. d. 
-— - 
CREEPING THINGS. 
Let me put a spider into a lady’s hand. She is 
aghast. She shrieks. The nasty, ugly thing. 
Madam, the spider Is perhaps shocked at your 
Brussels laces, and although you may be the 
most exquisite painter living, tho Binder h:ta a 
ri^htto laugh qfc yoar coarse dfp.iba as she runs 
over them. &W yonr crochet work 
when yon shriek at her. “llavo you *uenUialf 
your days,” tho spider, if she bo spiteful, may 
remark, “have you spent half your days upon 
these clumsy anti-macassars and ottoman covers? 
My dear lady, is that your web? If 1 were big 
enough, I might with reason drop you and cry 
out at you. Let me spend a day with you and 
bring my work. I have four llttlo bags of thread 
—such little bags! In evory bag there are more 
than 1,000 holes—sncli tiny holes! Out of ea h 
hole thread runs, and all the threads—more than 
4,000 threads—T spin together as they rnn, and 
when they are Bpun they make but one thread of 
the web I weave. I have a member of my family 
who is herself no bigger than a grain of sand, 
imagine what a slender web sho makes, and of 
that, too, each thread is made of <1,000 or .1,000 
threads that havo passed out of her four bags 
through 4,000 or .1,000 little holes. Would yon 
drop her, too, crying out about your delicacy! 
A pretty thing for you to plume yourself on your 
delicacy, and scream at ns.” Having made such a 
speech, wc may suppose that the indignant crea¬ 
ture fastens a rope round ouc of the rough points 
of the ludy’B hand, and lets herself down lightly 
to the floor. Coming down stairs is noisy, clumsy 
work, compared with such a way of locomotion. 
Tho creeping things we scorn arc miracles of 
beauty. They aro more delicate titan any ormolu 
clock, or anylady’a watch made for pleasure sake, 
no bigger than a shilling. Lyouot counted 4,011 
muscles in a single caterpillar, and these are a 
small part, only of her works, lluoke found 4,000 
mirrors In the eye of a bluebottle, and there are 
13,000 separate bits that go to provide nothing 
but tho act of breathing in a carp.— Dickens' 
Household Words. 
-- 
Central Heat op the Earth. —The rato of 
increase of heat is equal to one degree of Fahren¬ 
heit for every forty-five feet of descent. Looking 
to the result of such a rate of increase, it is easy 
to see that at seven thousand two hundred and 
ninety feet Horn the surface, tho heat will reach 
two hundred and twelve degrees, the boiling 
point of water. At twenty-five thousand five 
hundred feet, it will melt lead; at Heven miles it 
will maintain a glowing red heat; at twenty-one 
miles, melt gold; at seventy-four miles,cast iron; 
at ninety-seven miles, soften iron; and at one 
hundred miles from tho surface, all will be fluid 
as water—a mass of seething and boiling rock in 
a perpetually molten state, doomed possibly 
never to be cooled or crystallized. The heat here 
will exceed any with which man is acquainted; 
St will exceed the heat of the electric spark, or 
the effect of a continued voltaic current The 
heat which melts platina as if it wore wax, is as 
ice to it Could we visually observe its effects, 
our intellect would afford no mcanB of measuring 
its intensity. Here is tho region of perpetual 
fire, the source of earthquake and volcanic power. 
Recreative Science. 
Traces of Dreams.— Persons arc frequently 
at a loss to account for the reception of certain 
impressions, which are commonly a source of 
erroneous judgment Sir n. Holland observes:— 
“There are few who have not occasionally felt 
certain vague and fleeting impressions of a past 
state of mind, of which tho recolicctiou cannot 
by any effort take a firm hold, or attach them to 
any distinct points of time or place; something 
that does not link Itself to any part of life, yet is 
felt to belong to tho identity of the being. These 
are not improbably the shades of former dreams; 
the consciousness, from some casual association, 
wandering back Into that strange world of 
thoughts and feelings in which it has existed 
during Bomo antecedent time of sleep, without 
memory of it at the moment, or in the interval 
since.” 
[Writton for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker-l 
ANIMAL INTELLECT. 
Tub inquiry was mado some time since, by a 
correspondent of the Rural New-Yorker, wheth¬ 
er animals havo intellect. I answer: 
1st Animals have organized bodies,—they seo, 
hear, feel, tmte, nod smell. They have appetite 
for food, sexual love, affection for offspring, social 
attachments, courage,—a disposition to possess, 
to accumulate against want, to secrete, to con¬ 
struct, to build, to waste, and to destroy. These 
are social and selfish propensities. 
2d. They havo love of “life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness,” desire of approbation, pru¬ 
dence, fear, mildness, stubborness, perseverance, 
determination, and imitation, which aro selfish 
sentiments. 
3d. They havo the mental ability to take cogni¬ 
zance of facts, to appreciate dimensions and dis¬ 
tances. They have Ideas of space, bulk, wolght, 
resistance of bodies, perception of colors, posi¬ 
tion, calculation, arrangement, memory of facts, 
occurrences, duration, harmony, melody, and 
ability to acquire a knowledge ol signs, which is 
perceptive intellect. 
The difference In the dispositions of animals 
have a corresponding difference in their organi¬ 
zation, regarding sizo, activity, and texture; all 
of which arc common to all. 
The superiority of man consists in his endow¬ 
ment of additional and superior faculties, and tho 
conditions of texture. His superior faculties are, 
1st. The ability to trace tho relations of causo 
and effect; to digest, analyse and compare, which 
iB reflective intellect. 
2d, The moral faculties; a consciousness of jus¬ 
tice, veneration for the Bacrcd, hope of future 
good, faith or belief. 
3d. Texture, or superiority of organization. 
Without the faculties common to animals, there 
could be no manifestation of man’s superior in¬ 
tellectual and moral powers. 
Randolph, Pa., I860. O. T. Hobbs. 
- — ■ 
RAISING TURKEYS. 
Some turkeys’ eggs, of a goodly fame, a week 
ou our pantry shelf had lain, and neighbor B., 
when he sent them, said, “ Be sure to give them 
a good, warm bed.” 
Old White and Brownie had portly forma to 
hide their eggs from cold, spring storms, and in 
such a case were just the hens, for want of tur¬ 
keys to make amends. Ah ! you might have 
searched all heudom through, and never fonnd 
hens with vices so lew,—aud even like her of tho 
wondrous lay, they counted an egg for every day, 
and Sundays three! For this very virtue und 
others as rare, 1 promised those hens they should 
go to tho Fair—(hoping to bcc Major Plow- 
handle there.) 
Last April, on a sunny day, they said, ns plain 
as hens could say, “Our spring’s work is done, 
now let us each one a fumily bring, from tho 
egg 11 ,—tlio enriy eggs of spring. Their chicken- 
hood shall bo carefully tended, and when for 
them onr care is ended, white offerings tho best 
shall fill overy nest;” and with heaving bosoms 
and tear-dimmed eyes, they hinted at Christmas 
and chicken pies. 
Throe weeks went by; each wondering hen, 
hearing no peep, sat down again, simply saying, 
“It might havo been.” 
Ere long had dawned the twenty-eighth day, to 
the loft which had held the winter’s hay, where 
breaking shells and shells unbroken, of turkey- 
life were giving token. 
Six months have sped with Bwift-footod tread, 
and now as 1 look toward tho barn yard, I see, 
on the rail fence brown, that twenty-four turkeys 
are smoothing their dark, damp feathers down; 
hard by is a wide-spreading willow, to tho east 
an inclosure of boards, but the roosting place 
they have chosen more pleasure than either 
affords; and though on the point they are silent, 
I judge that if turkeys could voto, ’twould be 
for,—oh, well, ’tis no matter my foolish opinion 
to quote. 
Suffice it to say, on Thanksgiving, among the 
young innocents slain, that some from their ranks 
shall be taken to return to them never again. 
Genesee Co., N. Y., 1860. M. J. C. 
The Duties op Life. —If we would spend tho 
time, the nervous energy and mental fire, In doing 
tho duties of life, which wo often spend in dread¬ 
ing them, we and the world would bo stronger 
and better. All the severe tasks of life only grow 
more formidable as we look at them from a 
distance, while we grow weaker all the while, 
and less disposed to grapple with them. Wo 
should inquire, with an honest, brave heart, what 
are our duties here and now; and with what of 
mental energy wc enu summon at tho moment, 
we should go forward to perform them. In the 
very act of attempting to do them, we shall gain 
strength to do them. Not before, but at the time, 
the needed strength will come. Not while wo 
dread, but while we do the work of life, the Mas¬ 
ter helps us. 
— - ♦ » ■»- 
Genealogy of the Prince op Wales.— Your 
Genealogy of the Prince of Wales in a late Rural 
is erroneous. It should be as follows:—George 
the First was tho son of the Princess Sophia, who 
was the daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia, who 
was the daughter of James the First of England. 
—G., Fairmnunt , A’. V., 18L0. 
A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever en- 
victh the virtue of others; for men’s minds will 
either feed upon their own good, or upon other’s 
evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the 
other. 
