who occupy the other. Education has created the difference. The christians, who dwell in the one, have used their present natural advantages, although comparatively inferior, to far better effect, than the savages who dwell in the other. And why is it, that you behold so marked a difference, as is often seen between two neighboring villages in the same State. Why is one neat, temperate, influential,—with no paupers supported by the parish, except such as are old and infirm, and therefore unable to support themselves; while the other is unadorned, unimproved, immoral, intemperate, without influence, and struggling with taxes to support its own poor? It is because information, moral and intellectual, is spread over the mass of population in the one, while ignorance, moral and intellectual, is brooding over the people of the other.

The country village in which education prevails, will display to you its effects, wherever you may tread within its precincts; just as we have already seen it to be the case, with a well informed, individual farmer. Every stream, every hillock, every rock within it, that is at all capable of any improvement, will be turned to some immediate and profitable use. Its inhabitants will feel it to be their duty, not only to man, but to God, to avail themselves of every natural advantage. Thus, go where you will, in places where christianity has blessed society by her hallowed presence, and education, which always walks hand in hand with her sister piety, has reared her schools and her seminaries of learning, and you shall see the barren waste literally becoming a fruitful field; the sails of commerce flapping in the breeze; the hand of industry laying diligent hold of every natural advantage within its reach. Wherever these inseparable companions bend their beautiful footsteps, flowers of industry spring up and flourish around them. The poor man's cottage assumes a new air of neatness; his children, once perhaps, ragged and filthy, are clothed and clean; the garden of the sluggard is tilled and flourishing; the cup of the intemperate is cast to the ground, and broken to atoms; the once poor, and unimproved, and uninviting village, becomes rich, and cultivated, and pleasant, the abode of happiness, and peace, and plenty.

Education renders the inhabitants of a village domestic.

The mind of man is active; it must be constantly employed; and the consequence is, that it is ever searching after novelty. The educated man, seated by the fireside, and surrounded by a smiling and happy family, satiates this thirst for novelty, by receiving the new ideas continually presented to his mind by the

book which he is reading, or the meditations which he is indulging; and when his heart requires to be soothed by the intercourse of social life, he finds it in the bosom of his family, or in occasional interviews with friends, who can appreciate the occupations in which he delights, and the scenes in which he loves to mingle. Seldom, if ever, do you find this to be the case with him who is ignorant. Occasionally, indeed, you may find an unlettered individual amid the mass of his fellow beings, who, from torpor of mind, or of body, or perhaps of both, desires to keep within the boundaries of his own abode, without making frequent excursions to the company of others. But as a gen

eral fact, ignorance still retains all the natural activity of mind, which we have just seen to be the attendant of knowledge. But ignorance can never satisfy this thirst for novelty, at the same streams. Ignorance cannot love to read; it is equally averse to meditation; nor does it love to remain long in the same circumstances, surrounded by the same objects, and the same persons. The mind thirsts, as we have seen, for novelty, and it will have it. The consequence is, that in an ignorant community, you witness but little of the comfort and pleasure of domestic life. In such a community, men love to gather themselves in public places, and to be away from home. There is not novelty enough there, to gratify the insatiable curiosity of the human mind, and nature forces them to be absent.

In a reading community, this is seldom, if ever, the case with individuals, and never with the general mass; for, to well informed minds, retirement, and meditation, and books present more pleasing variety; and with an ancient philosopher, they feel never less alone, than when alone.

It is easy to see, then, what a mighty difference must be made by education, upon the domestic habits of a country village. We have only to look at facts-where are the social affections most cultivated?-Where are families most constantly found together around the fireside,-at home? Where is woman most exalted, and the wife most happy in the domestic attention of her husband, and the children most improved by constant and familiar intercourse with their parents? Who does not know, and who will not acknowledge, that it is in the well educated village? On the contrary :-where is it, that you witness the most frequent meetings for revelry and dissipation ?-Where do you find the father of a family seldom at home, and the mother often sitting in loneliness, and the children often vagrants from their father's house? Where are the evenings most commonly

lost in idle conversation, if they are not spent in the haunts of intemperance and vice ?-Where, I ask, if it be not in a village where useful books are seldom read, and where solid learning is in little, or in no repute?

DUTIES OF A TEACHER.

[From a View of the Livingston County High School, Geneseo, New-York.]

Let no man place himself in the chair of instruction, unless he is willing to submit to a life of unceasing labor and responsibility. Notwithstanding the honorable and useful nature of his employments, his path is encompassed with numerous difficulties. He must deal with dispositions as different as light and darkness; he must adapt himself to the peculiar moral and intellectual qualities of each individual under his care; he must become in a sense, 'all things to all men,' or his instructions will be ineffectual. Such a range of duty requires a cast of moral and intellectual character not often met with in the ordinary circles of society. No narrow attachment to system, no bigoted adherence to technical forms, no inveterate prejudices, no reverence for time-hallowed errors, no submissive obedience to opinions propped only by the authority of great names, ought to find a place in the mind of him who would discharge with happiness to himself, and advantage to others, the laborious and important office of training the minds of the young. Nothing but an earnest desire to disentangle truth from error, will enable him to address himself effectually to a variety of intellects. An entire willingness to follow the path of holy truth, wherever she may lead, a resolute perseverance to concentrate upon this grand object the scattered rays of light that beam from every source of knowledge, will alone fit him to meet successfully the different intellectual wants which he is required to understand. He must commune directly with mind; with mind not always in a highly cultivated condition, but often sunk in ignorance, and perverted by prejudice: he must not only guide the rapid course of awakened genius, but call forth the slumbering energies that lie concealed benenth apparent stupidity. How various then should be his modes of address! how accurate his knowledge of different motives on different characters! and, it

may be added, how absurd would it be for him to cling with obstinacy to any system, however strong by authority and venerable by age. We look upon intellectual freedom, though the gift is a rare one indeed, as the best qualification of an instructor. We conceive it a matter of deep importance that he should yield his dearest, his most fondly cherished prejudices to the voice of reason; or rather, we believe it to be his duty to extricate himself, as far as possible, from their thraldom before he assumes the responsibilities of his station.

A man who expects entire freedom from prejudice, and universal correctness of reasoning in any community, expects too much from human nature. There will always be wrong and narrow views afloat, which must be tenderly yet manfully encountered. So far as a liberal and generous course of education prevails, just so far will these obstacles be happily removed. Scantiness of information and limited ideas of the nature and extent of human intellect, the perverted notions of the social duties, an overweening persuasion of the importance of some things, and an unjust depreciation of the value of others, have ever tainted the springs of public sentiment, and will long continue to nerve the arm of error against the course of improvement. Those whose views have never been enlarged by a course of intellectual discipline are unable to comprehend the utility of certain branches of knowledge, which may, notwithstanding, be highly important to develope and strengthen the mental energies, to give firmness to reason and maturity to judgment. But are the interests of education to be sacrificed because these men cannot comprehend them? Certainly not. The opposition that springs from such a source, and the frivolous objections that are raised by such feelings, must be answered mildly, yet with an unyielding adherence to the plain dictates of sense and reason. Even then, the enlightened instructer must not expect to esHis motives will cape the censures of ignorance and self-will. be impeached, his judgment assailed, and perhaps his character charged with the very faults it is his most earnest desire to corBut if he has engaged in the cause with a proper feeling of its responsible duties, and a sincere purpose of discharging them justly and magnanimously, he may safely entrust his vindication to the cultivated minds of the few, and the increasing intelligence of the many.

rect.

HINT TO PARENTS.

The early instruction imbibed from a parent's life, has the strongest influence in forming the future character. Before the mind is mature enough to think for itself, we look to those whom nature has constituted our guardians, to correct and sanction our opinions. In this way the parental authority gains a hold upon the mind of children, that never can be annihilated. And happy indeed would it be if the result were always the formation of a noble and manly character. Intelligent and well educated parents exert a glorious and beneficial power; but those who are darkened by ignorance, and chained by prejudice, transmit their intellectual qualities, as well as personal features, to their unfortunate descendants. When an instructer has to deal with the children of such parents, he has a double difficulty to encounter. He must meet the ignorance and obstinacy of the one, and give a right direction to the perverted powers of the other. And after he has laboured with all the assiduity of an almost selfsacrificing zeal, he must consider it an instance of rare felicity to escape a torrent of bitter invective. How many worthy instructers have had their peace assailed by the unjust reproaches of discontented parents? How many parents have seen cause of deep and hearty repentance that they ever lent a credulous ear to the complaints of boyish pettishness? Have you a son? Beware how you make the idle effusions of an irritated temper, the ground of serious accusation against his intellectual guide. As you value the consciousness of having discharged your duty, as you regard the future respectability of your child; as you would have him improve the precious hours of youth in gaining those acquisitions that are to make him a worthy and useful member of society; beware of giving your parental countenance to his frivolous complaints. Are you a mother?-As you wish your son to fulfil the bright hopes of maternal affection, as you wish him to become the boast and support of your life, the pride of your family, the ornament of society, beware of suffering your solicitude to betray you into unjust censures on the apparent severity of an instructer, whose duty leads him to apply a wholesome discipline to your darling child.-Ib.