402 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
JUNE *5 
In writing of Middleboro, in a former let¬ 
ter, I neglected to mention an interesting 
statement made to us concerning the acoustic 
properties of buildings. We were taken into 
a church of which the acoustics was perfect, 
and of which the proportions were, width 
half the length, and hight half tne width—a 
bit of information which may be of value to 
unscientific builders. 
From Fall River we sailed for home and 
our first New England summer outing was at 
an end. It was the middle of September, and 
Anaximander said with a business air, 
“Courts open.” “School begins;” said the 
laddie. “ Peaches and tomatoes to can, and 
the fall house cleaning,” sighed madame. 
belief, however, that he is at a disadvantage in 
the race causes him to make greater effort, 
and ere long he finds himself away ahead of 
all competitors. 
REALIZING TRUTH. 
OLIVE E. DANA. 
ceed so much more nobly than others in these 
directions, may be that they but give more 
freely of their own more abundant life. 
CITY vs. COUNTRY BOYS. 
J. H. Or. 
N OTHING could be further from the truth 
than the feeling so prevalent among 
country boys-that farme s’ sons have no 
chance in the “race of life.” The fact is, the 
men who are leaders in both mercantile and 
professional life were, as a rule, brought up 
on a farm. It may be said with truth that 
their success depended upon the fact that they 
left the farm and entered college or business 
life It will be found, however, that the men 
who have achieved the greatest success are 
those who did noc leave the farm until they 
had acquired the habits of industry and fru¬ 
gality which can be learned nowhere else so 
well as on the farm. A model course of train¬ 
ing either for the professions or for business 
would be 20 years on the farm and 10 years 
in college or in acquiring business experience. 
The Office says that country boys have no 
conception of the advantages they possess 
over their city cousins. For the most part 
the idea seems to prevail that the city boy has 
all the opportunities, while the country oy 
has only privations and disappointments. 
And yet, when we come to look the business 
of the city over, we find that among the suc¬ 
cessful men those of city birth and training 
are in the minority, while those who spent 
their boyhood in the country, and commenced 
the race apparently handicapped, are m the 
majority. . . , 
New York City is a striking instance of 
this fact. The merchant princes, so called, 
and the railway magnates, as they are com¬ 
monly termed, together with the bankers, 
brokers, lawyers, doctors, manufacturers 
judges, editors, inventors, and accountants, 
with hosts of others too numerous to name, 
who have achieved the most distinguished 
success in their special fields of labor, are not, 
as a rule. New Yorkers by birth and educa 
tion The leading men, with very few excep¬ 
tions, in all the walks of life in the metropolis 
were educated outside of tne city, and not a 
small proportion of them were country boys 
a very few years ago. The reasons for th« 
are not very bard to discover. In the first 
place the procession of events before the gaze 
STctt 3 rboyi*»= «... b ; h " r "“ e t 
to seize upm any one.thUig for himself. If t 
be only a book or a paper that comes in his 
way, it is not prized, because of necessi „y it 
must make way for its successor of the mor¬ 
row. Again, business is conducted on so large 
a scale that as observer or apprentice he 
can only become acquainted with a subor¬ 
dinate part. He seldom has the opportunity 
to study a given business in its entirety. Op¬ 
portunities for amusement are so many, an 
the habit of indulgence formed in childhood 
is so hard to break, that much valuable time 
is lost in that direction; and so we might go on 
enumerating many other things equally unfor¬ 
tunate for the training of the city boy for the 
active responsibilities of a successful business. 
Last, but not least, the average city boy has 
not the physical stamina that hard work, the 
only method of attaining success m tne busi¬ 
ness world, so imperatively demands. On t e 
other hand, the country boy has leisure He 
has few amusements, and he prizes, and there¬ 
fore studies, the books and papers that fall in 
his wav. He finishes one thing before he takes 
up another, it he learns any business while 
in the country, it is one so small in extent, and 
of so few details, that he comprehends every 
feature of it. If he has decided ability for 
management, it is not at all strange to find 
him in the direction of affairs long before h.s 
city cousin of the same age has left school. 
He early learns self-reliance. As a rule he is 
of robust health, and. having been thrown 
upon bis own resources, he is not abashed 
when some unexpected difficulty is encoun¬ 
tered in his business career. But, beyond all 
else he has been trained to work continuously 
the’year through. He has fixed habits of in¬ 
dustry. Accordingly, when he comes to the 
city to live, the odds are largely in his favor, 
although it is very possible that neither he nor 
his citylcousin appreciates the fact. The very 
I N Mrs Whitney’s “ Sights and Insights, 
when the travelers whose experience we 
share are comfortably established on the ocean 
steamer plowing its way across the rolling 
waters that separate and unite the continents, 
sue puts into the mouth of Emery Ann the 
characteristic wordsIt makes any one 
realize their geography, don’t it?” 
I suppose there is no experience that should 
not make us “ realize” some b fore unappre¬ 
hended fact as truth, or principle. There is 
ro gift a teacher might better covet and culti¬ 
vate than this—of making real to her pupils 
the lessons of the school-room, that the truths 
they receive may become realities in their 
lives. Is there not here an essential differ¬ 
ence between teachers, even between success¬ 
ful teachers? . „ . 
We all know so many things confusedly and 
superficially. There is so much we have 
heard and read which seems familiar, yet of 
which we have no definite, thorough, trust¬ 
worthy knowledge. “ Reading maketh a full 
man - ” said the quaint old writer. But full¬ 
ness does not imply thought or vigor or 
acumen. “Speech maketh a ready man; 
but readiness is not, we know too well, syn¬ 
onymous with accuracy. “ Writing,” he con¬ 
cludes, “ maketh an exact man.” But not 
even to the exact man are facts always reali¬ 
ties. To some they are fossils, quaint and 
precious; to some, tools; to some, living buds, 
which, as in the poet’s song, flower into 
beauty. , 
The vagueness and unreality of our knowl¬ 
edge may be due in part to a lack of early 
discipline. Here is the teacher’s opportunity 
for the new generation. And these faulty 
mental-habits of inattentiveness and lack of 
“grip” we have allowed to fossilize. We have 
indorsed these habits so often that we cannot 
repudiate them at will; they are a part of 
ourselves. 
All the best influences of modern education 
are tending to furnish the scholar, and there¬ 
fore the coming man and woman, with real 
knowledge, real skill, real motive and inspira¬ 
tion for the life-work that is among rugged 
realities. The child's education is begun 
among real things, he is taught to number, to 
use, to measure, to make real things. An 
for the older student, the pebbles, the plants, 
the stars, are some of the pages in bis text¬ 
books. And perhaps, too, the youth or maid¬ 
en is lured to the carpenter’s bench or the 
cooking class as a part of the curriculum, be¬ 
fore he or she can graduate from the school¬ 
room. 
It has been said, and not without reason, 
that “the effects of the school are apt to fade 
away on the farm and in the factory, and a 
separation, if not an antagonism, often takes 
place between study and daily life.” We need 
a bridge to carry the scholar with his habits 
of study and inquiry safely into the life of 
profitable labor, without obliging him to drop 
what he has taken so much pa.ns to gam. 
It is wont to be true of men who have won 
for themselves, in the teeth of obstacles, suc¬ 
cess, fame, wealth and the education or train¬ 
ing preliminary and attendant upon that at¬ 
tainment, that their knowledge was obtained 
by real struggle, by virtue of real, felt need, 
was sought, assimilated, used. It is a part of 
their life, not a shadowy abstraction; not a 
recreation or accomplishment. And it is 
urged that women fail too often from lack of 
definite and accurate information and grasp 
of facts and principles, more often, perhaps, 
than from any other cause. They have come 
short of thatownership of truth, which l-their 
prerogative. But there are other things be¬ 
sides geography and physics that we need to 
realize. More than a thorough and familiar 
acquaintance with history and literature, 
will it avail the pupil, when be or she is a 
man or woman, to realize the worth c£ truth 
and loyalty; of sincerity and nobility; to ap¬ 
preciate the value of kindness; to know that 
there are grander things to strive for than 
wealth or comfort or fame. 
Ah 1 what tides of worldliness, what waves 
of care, what billows of trial, what winds 
laden with all potent and insidious tempta¬ 
tions, must beat upon all souls in the com¬ 
monest ways, the most prosaic occupations, 
the most sheltered lives I We ^eed a strong 
grip on certain actual truths and principles, 
a firm faith in God, and earnest aspiration, 
and unfailing love. These things cannot be 
too real to any of us. And we can nev er do 
much toward a thing real to others until it is 
intensely real to us. The best teaching is a 
sharing. The reason why some teachers suc- 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
Count the mercies, count the mercies! 
Number all the gifts of love; 
Keep a daily, faithful record. 
Of the comforts from above. 
Look at all the lovely green spots 
In life’s weary desert way; 
Think how many cooling fountains 
Cheer our fain’ing hearts each day. 
Count the mercies! Count th a mercies! 
See them strewn along our way! 
—Sirs. X. D James. 
Lavater says that everything may be 
mimicked by hypocrisy but humility and love 
united. The humblest star twinkles most in 
the darkest night. The more rare humility 
and love united, the more radiant when they 
meet. 
No man or woman, says Phillips Brooks, 
of the humblest sort can really be strong,pure, 
and good, without the world being better for 
it, without somebody being helped and com¬ 
forted by the very existence of that good¬ 
ness 
The true ideals and standards of life; says 
the Sunday School Times, are, in one sense, 
always unattained; though, in another sense, 
they are never unattainable. They are as 
the sbadow of a man’s head when the sun is 
low behind him. He marks where that 
shadow is, leaps toward it, and alights upon 
the spot where it lay. But the very effort to 
reach it has thrown the shadow still farthor 
forward. So of our ideals. We reach the 
point of a past, and only a past, ideal; but the 
very act of reaching it throw s the present 
ideal still farther forward. A man who con¬ 
siders that he has reached his present ideal is 
a man practically without an ideal, and there¬ 
fore without the power of high accomplish¬ 
ment. 
The Home-Maker says that the best of us 
make mistakes, and what wonder is it that 
our boys, with their high spirits and their ig¬ 
norance of the world, blunder and get into 
scrapes pretty often? But it is a cause of re¬ 
joicing if either father or mother can get hold 
on a young heart which leads it to them to 
open its worst recesses to their loving eyes.... 
Addison said that irresolution on the 
schemes of life which offer themselves to our 
choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are 
the greatest causes of all our unhappiness ... 
The Gospel Banner tells us the petition of 
a colored boy who was appointed to lead 
the prayer-meeting. “O Lord, I pray thee 
make thy servant conspicuous,” expresses the 
feeliDg not seldom manifest among those who 
serve in that office and who are supposed to 
be better qualified than the untutored colored 
youth. When selt is obtrusive the leadership 
is not so helpful as is desired in any service. 
Ease, says the S. S. Times, signifies waste 
power, or, at least, strength unused. Gen¬ 
erally, he who does any thing easily is doing 
less than his best. Not until we feel the bur¬ 
den of overcoming a difficulty can wei know 
that we are doing as well as we might do. It 
were better to have it said that you write well 
than that you write easily; for though you 
may write comparatively well with compar¬ 
ative ease, it would be a greater achievement 
to write better with comparative difficulty. 
Ofiffifstic €c0H0»uj 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES E. M. CARMAN. 
Heed, how thou livest. Do no act by day 
Which from the night shall drive thy peace 
away. 
In months of sun so live that months of ram 
Shall s'ill be happy. Evermore restrai n 
Evil and cherish good , so shall there be 
Another and a happier life for thee. 
—John G. Whittier. 
EXTRACTS FROM SUNDAY-EVENING 
TALKS AT THE RURAL GROUNDS. 
T HERE is nothing lovable, in a person who 
yields to every whim and fancy, and 
places himself at the head of all creation. It 
is only those that live for others that are rev¬ 
erenced and looked up to in this world. I 
came across this stanza in the Proverbs the 
other day. “Better is a dry morsel, and 
quietness therewith, than a house full of sac¬ 
rifices with strife,” and it instantly made me 
think of a mistake I am constantly making. 
Whenever I make a sacrifice I am sure to up¬ 
set it by a long face, a complaint or, if not 
that, I am so cross afterwards that I [destroy 
any good that it might have done me or any 
one else. 
* * * 
The following little incident was told me 
by one of the college boys at home. When he 
left his home to attend college, his mother, in 
packing his trunk, put his Bible (one that she 
had given him) down at the bottom with a 
$10 bill in it. She thought in this way to 
find out whether or not he made a practice of 
reading it. Well, at the close of school he re¬ 
turned home to spend the summer vacation. 
His mother went to his trunk, got out his 
Bible and found the $10 bill still there, and 
just where she had placed it. 
* * * 
We are so constituted that labor of some 
sort is essential to health, and health to hap¬ 
piness. There is no such a creature in ex¬ 
istence as a happy indolent man , woman or 
child. There is a kind of inactivity, often 
mistaken for indolence, that is the effect of a 
feeble physical system. Such persons are en¬ 
titled to sympathy though they receive little. 
But the genuinely indolent man is entitled 
neither to help, consideration nor respect. 
God helps those who help themselves. Else 
what did Christ mean by the parable of the 
talents ? I look upon those as being the offers 
of just so many hobbies. Will you ride ? The 
man who returned his one talent which he 
had carefully stored away did not ride ,aud his 
master well rewarded bis indolence. 
We must work to be happy. If you can 
work with a heart ; that is, if you love your 
work, that work brings you joy. It becomes 
a pleasure. The affectionate mother who 
watches over her first-born babe night and day, 
has a hobby. Could you induce her (if she be 
a true mother) to give up that work? 
All worthy hobbies are of this kind. They 
absorb us; we cherish them; they are the last 
thought that rests in our mind as we goto 
sleep—the first that flashes upon us in the 
morning. We have an aim in lije. We are 
ready to has’en dressing; to hurry up the 
meal so that more time may be given to the 
hobby. „ , , 
Why is work a punishment? Simply be¬ 
cause it is not in accord with our tastes. To 
me mercantile life is hateful. To the so-called 
merchant prince it is glorious. To me prac¬ 
ticing upon the piano for four hours daily 
would be a severe punishment. To Miss 
it may be a pleasure. The practice of sur¬ 
gery to many is a pleasure-giving profession. 
I couldn’t amputate a leg or remove a tumor 
if I were to die for the failure. 
It is plain, therefore, that devotion to our 
work brings happiness. Let us see to it, 
therefore, that we endeavor to choose our 
work wisely; that we endeavor to guide our 
children so that they can determine what kind 
of an occupation they may take an interest in 
or make a honby of. It is the hobby-rider, 
my friends, that does the most good in this 
world, and he experiences the most happiness 
as well. God never intended that any one 
man should excel in all things. He did not so 
constitute us. Our mental powers are too 
feeble—our lives too short. Newton, Darwin, 
Pasteur, Edison, and all who have served 
mankind faithfully and well were specialists 
_merely another name for hobby-ridei s. 
Give me the earnest, persevering, vehement 
nature, and 1 will show you a hobby rider. He 
may ride well or ill. That depends. We may 
have vehemence without brains or conscience. 
In the one case he will probably run his horse 
into a ditch; in the other to the devil. Chil¬ 
dren, with hobby-riding proclivities, or ve¬ 
hement natures, are just the one3 that need 
the most careful guidance from parents, since 
they are inclined to persist in evil as well as in 
good projects. This is a view of the subject 
that would need a separate consideration. 
The fact still remains that if we would enj >y 
the greatest amount of happiness; if we would 
accomplish the greatest amount of good in 
this world, it must be through persistent work 
into which the heart as well as the head and 
hands enters Let us never forget that pleasure 
is Simply agreeable labor. There is absolutely 
no such thing as pleasure or happiness without 
aH effort—aud an effort means work. The 
more the affections are engaged in the work, 
the less arduous it becomes. From this point 
of view parents cannot be too carelul while 
roaring their children not to place before 
them work for which they are not fitted; 
work against which they may reasonably 
IttisscfUaiuoujis gitottsiinfl. 
When Baby was sick, we gave her Canton* 
When she waa a Child, she cried for Castorla 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castone. 
When she had Children. she gave them Castor* 
