but a little way into real life. But it docs seem 
to us that our teaching might well be more prac¬ 
tical,— that it ought to show the young how to 
do, at leasi the most common things, to apply 
the most common principles in every-day life. 
Our educator* may plead rightly, that their great 
work is to tench how tolearn; hut let them not for¬ 
get the ultimate object in training children should 
be to teach them those things they icill need to 
know when they become men. Then our teachers 
must be practical men and women; (both, to 
make the work complete,) no novices in common 
affairs, apt in showing how to do what they 
teach. 
THE SEASONS OF CALIFORNIA. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
ENCOURAGE YOUR TEACHERS. 
Nowhere in all the earth are the phenomena 
of day and night ushered in with such splendor 
as in this Valley that lies so closely on the con¬ 
fines of the occidental sea. Nowhere does the 
beautiful sun—manifest type of God—so drape 
himsolf in bannered clouds, so grandly fit to bo 
the couch of all magnificence, as he does in this, 
our Palestine. A poet and a dreamer would say 
that when the sun so clothed himself in such 
array of billowed beauty, It was a grand prayer 
and a benediction, a terrestrial adoration swelling 
from nature’s heart to nature’s God. May tho 
sunset of Time be as gorgeously painted and as 
auspicious of hope! The seasons of California 
are varied and lovely. In this Valley, during 
the Warm days of summer, our eyes rest on snow¬ 
capped hills that surround us at the North, while 
the ocean breezes from the South fan us into 
pleasantness. During our warmest months night 
comes to our relief, cold and exhilarating. Then 
woarofavored bylhedolightful season of autumu. 
Could more* he asked on earth, so far as weather 
is concerned, than has been presented the past 
fow weeks? The husbandman lias been enabled 
to harvest his golden erops, while the miner lias 
been allowed to delve in the sands of tho rivers 
for hidden treasures, unmolested by early rains. 
Soon we will reach the season of winter, when 
the heavens will commence their weeping, inter¬ 
spersed by clear skies and bright sunshine. We 
pass through the season of rain and of sunshine, 
to be conducted into Hie season of spring, when tho 
lilies will spring from the mountain side, the 
floods be withdrawn, and tho plain covered with 
flowers. Verily, we dwell in pleasant places, 
and while peace is by our firesides, we are fur¬ 
nished with plenty, and should consider ourselves 
the most happy and prosperous people on tho 
the face of the earth .—Marysville Appeal. 
It has often been said, and very truly, that “a 
school is what the teacher makes it.” May it not 
as truly be said that the teachers are what the 
patrons make them? 
Many parents seem to think that when they 
send their children to school, provide books for 
them, and pay the teacher, their whole duty is 
done. We think they can do much more by way 
of encouraging the teacher. All know some¬ 
thing of the duties of a teacher; yet none but a 
teacher can know the weight of care and respon¬ 
sibility which every true teacher feels. None 
but a teacher can know the weary, midnight hours 
speut in anxious thought as to how they may 
win the heart and cause some rough, ungoverned 
one to yield quietly to wholesome restraints—or 
trying to devise some new method of explana¬ 
tion by which they can bring abstract truth to 
the comprehension of some poor, neglected mind. 
You who sometimes feel that to lead your own 
little ones aright is more than you can do, have 
you no encouraging word for the teacher who 
has not only the mental, but, for the time, the 
moral and physical faculties of a score or more 
to develop? 
CHILDHOOD, 
TWO PATHS IN LIFE. 
Titkse contrasted pictures fur¬ 
nish texts for a whole volume of 
sermons upon human life and des¬ 
tiny. The Child stands at the 
parting of the ways, and he may 
run through in succession all the 
phases depicted in either series of 
portraits. The essential elements 
of either course of development lie 
alike in those smooth features. 
Which shall be actually realized, 
depends mostly upon the influ¬ 
ences brought to bear upon him 
from without A few years of 
training in our schools upon the 
one hand, or in the streets upon 
the other, will make all the differ¬ 
ence, in the Youth, between the 
characters that stand opposed to 
each other in these opposite pic¬ 
tures. A youth of study and 
training in a few years moulds 
lineaments of the face into the 
resemblance of the first, picture of 
Manhood; while, by a law equally 
inevitable, idleness and dissipation 
bring out all the lower animal fac¬ 
ulties, which reveal themselves in 
the depressed forehead, the hard 
eyebrow, tho coarse mouth, and 
the thickened neck of the opposite 
pictvue. The short-boy, and rowdy, 
and blackleg, if he escapes the State 
Prison and the gallows, passes, as 
he reaches the confines of Middle 
Aoe, into the drunken loafer, sneak¬ 
ing around the grog-shop in the 
chance ol securing a treat from 
Borne one who knew him in his 
flush days; while ho who has cho¬ 
sen the other path, as he passes 
the “mid-journey of life,” and 
slowly descends the slope toward 
Aoe, grows dally richer in tho love 
and esteem of those around him; 
and in the bosom of the family that 
gathers about his hearth, lives over 
again his happy youth and earnest 
manhood. What a different pic¬ 
ture is presented in the fate of 
him who has chosen the returnless 
^ downward path, another and al- 
j most the last stage of which is por¬ 
trayed in Lhu companion sketch of 
1 Aoe. The shadows deepen as he 
descends the hill of life. lie has 
been successively useless, a post, 
and a burden to society, and when 
ho dies there is not a houI to wish 
i) that his life had been prolonged. 
' Two lives like these lie in possi¬ 
bility enfolded within every infant 
born into tho world. 
True Education'. —Educate your children to 
activity, to enterprise, to fearlessness in what is 
right, and to cowardice in what is wrong. Edu¬ 
cate them to make for themselves the noblest 
purposes of life, and then to follow them out. 
Educate them to despise Buffering that stands in 
the way of the accomplishment of many aims, 
and count it as a little thing. Make them free by 
lifting them up into the arms of life, and not by 
covering them with soft and downy plush. 
YOUTH 
YOUTH. 
Schools not Governed by Rule. —It is dif¬ 
ficult if not impossible to lay down definite rules 
by which the teacher, following as a ritual, can 
govern or instruct a school. There are certain 
qualifications, certain kinds of talent and of tact, 
certain qualities of the head and of the heart, 
necessary for such a task; and as the teacher pos¬ 
sesses or acquires, develops and uses those qual¬ 
ifications, or is wanting in the possession and use 
of them, success or failure will follow.— Massa¬ 
chusetts Teacher. 
A parent may watch and toil through long 
years, and then be fully repaid by seeing the 
rich fruit of their labor? Not so, usually, with 
teachers. They must, labor, sowing the seed, 
and then leave the field, not knowing but their 
successors, in seeking to root up the remaining 
tares, will root up the wheat also. Their future 
reward is only in approving consciences. 
But, perhaps, you say our teachers are ineffi¬ 
cient: many of them are mere school girls who 
engage in teaching as a pastime, or for the pay. 
Even if there are many such, can you not en¬ 
courage them for the sake of your children? 
Let your children see that you have little or no 
confidence in their teachers, and they will soon 
lose all respect for them: then, of what use is 
their instruction ? When you have teachers who 
possess little interest in their work, show them 
that you feel deeply interested in their success, 
and thus you may awaken to greater exertion for 
the pupils. If a teacher does well, why should you 
withhold due praise? If one errs in government or 
instruction, reprove gently, if nf all. Few teach¬ 
ers, we think, are spoiled by undue praise, while 
many fail for want of proper encouragement 
from the parents. n. 
Murilla, N. Y., 1863. 
MANHOOD 
MANHOOD. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
FANNY’S BIRD. 
BY MRS. E. J. METCALF. 
SUGAR AS FOOD, 
Little Fanny Mayfield was the dainty 
fairy of “Mayfield Lodge,” tho only daughter 
among a host of unruly boys. Mayfield Lodge 
was a sunny place—a rare, old-fashioned house, 
surrounded by ancestral trees and clustering 
shrubbery, but in no wise shrouded with foliage 
like some gloomy houses, whose owners drape 
them with mouldering vines 'till not one ray of 
Biinshino steals Us way through door or lattice. 
The little gay twitterers spring brings flitted from 
bough to bough, c>r poised themselves on the irou 
railings of the lawn fence. All the summer 
long, which seemed an age of delight to little 
Fanny, the robins sat on branches of tho elm 
tree that stretched its graceful arms close to her 
chamber window, and seemed to sing, in the 
dewy morning, 
“ Twitt.or, twifter, little Fanny. 
Cornu and gather dewy flowers; 
Como, the morn i* very sunny, 
Bird* like us sing in your bowers.” 
When the winter came, ami the trees were 
bare, and tho hedge was white with the fallen 
Fanny would assemble the wrens, the 
In the last number of tho British and Foreign 
Medical Review, there is an interesting paper on 
“Sugar an Food, and as a Product of the Organ¬ 
ism.” In alluding to the uses of sugar in 
assisting assimilation, the reviewer quotes Mr. 
Bridges Adams:—“I know by experience tho 
difference in nutritious effect produced by the 
flesh of tired cattle on a march, and those slain 
in a condition arising from abundant food and 
healthy exercise. In the former case any amount 
might bo eaten without tho satisfaction of hun¬ 
ger, whilst in the latter a smaller amount re¬ 
moved hunger. But 1 discovered that certain 
other food of a different quality, such as grape- 
sugar and fruit, would help the tired meat to 
assimilate, and thus remove hunger.” Puddings 
and fruit tarts are not, therefore, simple flatter¬ 
ies of the palate, but digestive agents, provided 
always they are not themselves of vehelliously 
indigestible materials, which, in English cookery, 
is too frequently the case. The reviewer alludes 
to the fondness of artisans for confectionery, and 
of patients just discharged from tho hospital 
asking for “sweets,” iu preference to good sub¬ 
stantial food, aa examples of a correct instinct. 
There is no doubt that in children, in whom the 
requirements of growth call for a rapid and effi¬ 
cient transformation of food into tissue, tho de¬ 
mand lor sweets is very imperious, and parents 
should understand that tho jam pot will dimin¬ 
ish the butcher’s bill and increase the amount of 
nutrition extracted from beef and mutton. 
MIDDLE LIFE 
MIDDLE life 
SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS 
We commend to the attention of tho reader, 
the sound and practical views of the following 
article, from the New Hampshire Journal of 
Educaliotu at the Fame time suggesting that 
Learning* ike Charity, should begin at home: 
A practical man once remarked to us, “I was 
provoked the other day. My James came home 
from our district school, and Raid he had done 
studying Arithmetic. He had been through 
three times, could perform all the example?, and 
the teacher told him he would do. He needn't 
study it any more. Now I was, of course, 
pleased with this announcement. James is six¬ 
teen years old. But I thought 1 would try him. 
So I said, ‘James, there is a wood-pile. I paid 
$3.00 per cord for it. Now take this measure, 
and find its contents, and tell mo how much it 
cost me.’ Now, do you think, ho could not do it 
He couldn’t begin to do it. Ho hadn't learned 
how. I say, I was provoked. James had been 
in school, teacher was popular; he was reported 
doing well, and was costing me some money out 
of pocket, besides his lime. I had hoped some 
return. But now he could not perform one of 
the simplest operations of practical life. And 
yet his teacher said he woubl do. I began to 
think our common schools a humbug.” 
Our common schools were established to edu¬ 
cate the people for all the ordinary duties and 
responsibilities of parents, neighbors, citizens; 
to make accurate business men; trustworthy 
public officers. Do they do It? We want facts, 
aud ask our sober, observing men, to bring them 
forward. Let ns question our men aud women, 
old and young, “who have received all of their 
education” in these schools. Let ns see their 
hand-writing; let us see their spelling; let us 
hear them read; let us see their letter of business 
or friendship; let us ask them to make out the 
town taxes, draft a bond or deed, cast the inter¬ 
est on a note running three or four years, and 
complicated by several partial payments. Do 
in good shape?” 
snow. 
little gray snow-birds, on the lawn iu front of 
the dining-room window, and cast far and wide, 
from her rosy palm, crumbs begged from the 
cook. But Fanny soon wearied of the pets who 
sang at her chamber window in spring, and of 
the little wrens that shared her winter morning 
bounties. Little girls, and little boys, too, are 
apt to desire some new pleasure when they 
become accustomed to the old, so little Fanny 
fancied if she had only a wren caged to feed and 
care for, she would be perfectly happy. She 
thoughL she would place the cage on her dress¬ 
ing-table, and Betty, the maid, should assist her 
iu providing for its wants, and the bird would 
sing for her. and be very grateful fur her foster¬ 
ing care. 
Fanny forgot that birds were more grateful 
than little girls, who often poorly repay their 
friends for their bounties; especially in captivity. 
Fanny resolved in her little round head many 
schemes for catching birds,—finally Peter, tho 
serving man, kindly showed her how to make a 
horse-hair noose, which was to be fastened to a 
hoop. Fanny was in ecstaciea when she saw it 
placed upon the snow in front of the parlor win¬ 
dow's, and when a little unwary bird came to 
pick np the scattered crumbs, and got Us little 
black foot entangled in the noose, she actually 
clapped her fair hands and screamed with de¬ 
light Fanny ran out upon the lawn, aud 
securing the bird, hastened to show it to her 
mother. 
“Oh, mother, dear, see what a darling little 
birdie I’ve got. Peter made the trap, and I 
caught it, and it’s all min e by myself, and it will 
love roe so,” she exclaimed, rushing into her 
mother’s room, all out of breath. 
“Why, Fanny,” said her mother, “what have 
you there? Don’t you remember the little song 
in your primer, 
‘ Don’t harm the birds, the pretty birds, 
That come about your door.’ 
I did not think my little girl would be guilty of 
bird-trapping.” 
“But, oh, mama, I won’t hurt it; and I’ll feed 
it, and it will love me so well.” 
“ Yes, Fanny, dear; but the little bird would 
be separated from its mates, and be very lonely, 
—and, beside, does little daughter imagine she 
could be happy if some great monster should 
seize upon and cage her, even if the monster fed 
her on plum cake, her favorite dainty?” 
Fanny smiled at the mention of plum cake. 
Her mother continued, “ Does daughter think 
she could be gay away from papa, and mama, 
and brothers, and dear old home?” 
Fanny hung her head in silence. 
“ See how the little captive trembles,” said her 
mother. “Does Fanny remember how sorry 
she felt for the ‘homeless robin’ cousin Charley 
caught last spring? I know my Fanny would 
not amuse herself at the expense of the happi¬ 
ness aud Uberty of even a wren.” 
“Oh, no, dear mama,” cried Fanny, with tear¬ 
ful eyes. “Only kiss naughty Fan, and she’ll 
let it go.” 
Mrs. Mayfield kissed her daughter, and 
Fanny let the unhappy bird go out at tho win¬ 
dow. Poor Hung, it gave a cheerful, joyful ehir- 
up as it flew from her linger— away, away to its 
mates, who, no doubt, awaited it in great sus¬ 
pense. 
When Fanny had closed the easement again, 
Mrs. Mayfield called her to her side. “My 
dear child,” said she, “ in the world whose broad 
avenue lies before you, there are many snares 
and pitfalls, as subtly disguised as your bird- 
trap, therefore lie not too anxious to enter upon 
untried pleasures, lest beneath the luring surface 
lies a painful snare for your unwary feel,” and 
stroking tho little girl’s glossy curls, and imprint 
ing a mother’s blessed kiss on her upturned face, 
Mrs. Mayfield sent her to her governess, who 
awaited her in the school-room. 
Elkliom City, Nebraska, 1863. 
“ Then who told you to do this?” 
“ Nobody, sir,” replied the girl. 
“ Then why do you do it?” 
They appeared at a loss for an answer; but the 
stranger looked so kindly at them that at length 
tho eldest replied, as the tears started to his 
eyes: 
“ 0, we do love them, sir." 
“ Then you put these grass turfs and wild flow¬ 
ers where your parents are laid, because you love 
them?” 
“Yes, sir,” they all eagerly replied. 
What cun be more beautiful than such an ex¬ 
hibition of children honoring deceased parents? 
Never forget the dear parents who loved and 
cherished you in your Infant days. Ever remem¬ 
ber their parental kindness. Honor their memo¬ 
ry by doing those things which you know would 
please them when alive, by a particular regard 
to their dying commands, and carrying on their 
plans of usefulness. Are your parents spared to 
you? Ever treat them as you will wish you had 
done, when you stand a lonely orphan at their 
graves. How will a remembrance of kind, affec¬ 
tionate conduct towards these departed friends, 
then help to soothe your grief and heal your 
wounded heart 
THE YEAR OF NINES 
The present year, 1863, presents some curious 
combinations in regard to the figure 9. 
If you add tho first^ two figures together, thus 
1x8—they equal 9. 
If you add tho last two, 6x3—they equal 9. 
If you set the first two figures IS, under 63— 
and add them together, tho result la 81, the figures 
of which added together, bxl—9. 
If you subtract the first two from 63—tho re¬ 
mainder is 15, the figures ol which if added to¬ 
gether, '1x5—9. 
If you divide the 63 by the 18, the quotient is 3, 
with 9 remainder. 
If you multiply all the figures together, thus 
1x8x0x3, the result is 114, the figures of which 
1x4x4—9. 
If you add all tho figures of the year together 
the sum is 18, and the sum, 1x8—9. 
If you divide 1863 by 3, the quotient is 621, and 
6x2x1—9. 
If you divide 1863 by 9, the quotient is 207, 
and 2x0x7—9. 
If you divide 1863 by 23, the quotient is 81, 
and 2x7—9. 
If you divide 1863 by 59, the quotient is 27, and 
2x7—9. 
There are other similar results. Tho year 1881 
will provide a large variety of similar combina¬ 
tions. 
they do these things readily and 
Veiy well, if they do. But did they acquire 
their skill in the common school, or in the severe 
school of active tile? Now let us question them 
in Geography, English Grammar and United 
States History. Are they “at home” in these 
important tilings? If they are, did they gain 
their aptness in the common school ? Now let 
us go to our men of influence in churches and 
political parties; to our skilU’ul men in our fac¬ 
tories, counting-rooms and banks; to our select¬ 
men and other town officers; to our best farmers, 
who know their soil and what to do with it; to 
cur master mechanics, who plan the work and 
execute it dextrously. Did they gain their 
knowledge and skill in the common school, or 
did they learn most of it afterward from other 
inasters — from the strong-minded parent, the 
professional teacher, the merchant, artisan, or 
public officer with whom they served? 
Many parents feel when they come to test their 
children, after their school-days are over, some¬ 
what as uur friend above felt And so do many 
feel, in after life, when they reflect how little of 
practical value they learned in the common 
school. But it is true, teachers cannot give 
brains to pupils. It is true that the teacher and 
HONORING PARENTS 
As a stranger went into the church-yard of a 
pretty village, he beheld three children at a 
newly-made grave. A boy about ten years of 
age was busily engaged iu placing plats of turf 
about it, while a girl, who appeared a year or 
two younger, held in her apron a few roots of 
wild flowers. The third child, still younger, was 
Kitting on the grass, watching with thoughtful 
look the movements of the other two. They wore 
pieces of crape on their straw hats, and a few 
other signs of mourning, such aa are some¬ 
times worn by the poor who struggle between 
their poverty and their ulllictions. 
The girl began by planting some of her wild 
flowers around the head of the grave, when the 
stranger thus addressed them: 
“ Whose grave is this, children, about which 
you are so busily engaged?” 
“ Mother’s grave, sir,” said the boy, 
“ And did your father send you to place these 
flowers around your mother’s grave?” 
“ No, sir, father lies here, too, and little Willie 
and sister Jane.” 
“ When did they die?" 
“ Mother was buried a fortnight yesterday, sir, 
but father died last winter—they all lie here.” 
DROPS OF WISDOM. 
The more we help others to bear their burdens, 
the lighter our own will be. 
Excellence is never granted to man but as 
the reward of lubor. 
Stones and idle words are things not to bo 
thrown at random. 
Ip you think your opportunities are not good 
enough, you had better improve them. 
Deliberate with caution, but act with decis¬ 
ion; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with 
firmness. 
A head properly constituted can accommodate 
itself to whatever pillows vicissitudes of fortune 
may place under it. 
By examining the tongue of the patient, physi¬ 
cians find out the diseases of the body—phi¬ 
losophers. of the mind. 
The dove, recollect, did not return to Noah 
with the olive branch till the second time of her 
going forth; why, then, should you despond at 
the failure of a first attempt? 
The First Cannon.— The first iron cannon is 
said to have been cast in Sussex, England, in 
1535. Bonds were taken iu after years from owners 
of charcoal furnaces, to the amount of $5,000, that 
no cannon should lie sold without a license. 
It was feared that the French would obtain 
them. 
Perfumes. —So perfect were the Egyptians in 
the manufacture of perfumes that {some of their 
ancient ointment, preserved in an alabaster vase 
in the Museum at Alnwick (England,) stills re¬ 
tains a very powerful odor, though it must be 
between 2,000 and 3,000 years old. 
Value no man for his opinion, but esteem him 
according as his life corresponds with the rules of 
piety and justice. A man’s actions, not his con¬ 
ceptions, render him valuuble. 
