planted at different times in the lunar month, and no appreciable difference in their qualities was discovered.

There are some traces of a principle adopted by the South American agronomes (farmers), according to which they treat the two classes of plants distinguished by the production of fruit on their roots or on their branches differently; but there are none in the European aphorisms. The directions of Pliny are still more specific: he prescribes the time of the full moon for sowing beans, and that of the new moon for lentils. "Truly," says M. Arago, "we have need of a robust faith to admit, without proof, that the moon, at the distance of two hundred and forty thousand miles, shall, in one position, act advantageously upon the vegetation of beans, and that in the opposite position, and at the same distance, she shall be propitious to lentils."

Dr. Lardner gives numerous and extended illustrations of the supposed influence of the moon on the growth of grain, on wine-making,* on the color of the complexion, on putrefaction, on the size of shell-fish, on the quantity of marrow in the bones of animals, on the number of births, on mental derangement, and other human maladies, etc., etc.

The influence on the phenomena of human maladies imputed to the moon is very ancient. Hippocrates had so strong a faith in the influence of celestial objects upon animated beings, that he expressly recommends no physician to be trusted who is ignorant of astronomy. Galen, following Hippocrates, maintained the same opinion, especially of the influence of the moon. The critical days, or crises, were the seventh, fourteenth, and twenty-first of the disease, corresponding to the intervals between the moon's principal phases. While the

* On this subject the prevailing opinions in different countries disagree, as they do also on some of the others.

doctrine of alchemists prevailed, the human body was considered as a microcosm, or an epitome of the universe, the heart representing the sun, and the brain the moon. The planets had each his proper influence: Jupiter presided over the lungs, Saturn over the spleen, Venus over the kidneys, and Mercury over the organs. of generation. The term lunacy, which still designates unsoundness of mind, is a relic of these grotesque notions, and is defined by Dr. Webster as "a species of insanity or madness, formerly supposed to be influenced by the moon, or periodical in the month." But even this term may now be said, in some degree, to be banished from the nomenclature of medicine; it has, however, taken refuge in that receptacle of all antiquated absurdities of phraseology-the law-lunatic being still the term for the subject who is incapable of managing his own affairs.

Sanctorius, whose name is celebrated in physics for the invention of the thermometer, held it as a principle that a healthy man gained two pounds' weight at the beginning of every lunar month, which he lost toward its completion. This opinion appears to have been founded on experiments made upon himself, and affords another instance of a fortuitous coincidence hastily generalized.

For all the progress that has been made in this country toward the removal from the popular mind of the numerous corrupting and debasing absurdities which have hitherto enslaved it, we are indebted to our enlightened and chastened systems of popular education; and to these, and to these only, may we confidently look for entire freedom from the thraldom.

EDUCATION INCREASES THE PRODUCTIVENESS OF LABOR.

Education has a power of ministering to our personal and material wants beyond all other agencies, whether excellence of climate, spontaneity of production, mineral resources, or mines of silver and gold. Every wise parent, every wise community, desiring the prosperity of its children even in the most worldly sense, will spare no pains in giving them a generous education.-HORACE MANN.

The best educated are always the best paid.-Foreign Report.

The desirableness of education is manifest, view it in what light we may, and whether as affecting individuals or communities. We have already seen that education, and that alone, will dissipate the evils of ignorance. We now propose to discuss the equally tenable proposition that education increases the productiveness of labor.

That knowledge is power has become a proverb. If it be asked why the labor of a man is more valuable than the same amount of physical effort put forth by a brute, the ready answer is, It is because man combines intelligence with his labor. A single yoke of oxen will do more in one day at plowing than forty men; yet the oxen may be had for fifty cents a day, while each of the men can earn a dollar. Physical exertion.in this case, combined with ordinary skill, is eighty times more valuable than the same amount of brute force. The strength of the ox is of no account without some one to guide and apply it, while the power of man is guided by intelligence within.

In proportion as man's intelligence increases is his labor more valuable. A small compensation is the reward of mere physical power, while skill, combined with a moderate amount of strength, commands high wages. The labor of an ignorant man is scarcely more valuable than the same amount of brute force;

but the services of an intelligent, skillful person are a hundred fold more productive. I will pause and illustrate, for I wish to have every person who arises from the perusal of these pages do so with the fullest conviction that mental culture is of the highest importance even in the ordinary departments of human industry. It is, indeed, hardly less important for the man of business, the farmer, or the mechanic, than for statesmen, legislators, and members of the so-called learned professions.

An intelligent farmer of my acquaintance having a piece of greensward to break up, and having three work-horses, determined to employ them all. He hence, possessing some mechanical skill, himself constructed a three-horse whipple-tree, by means of which he advantageously combined the strength of his horses. A less intelligent neighbor, pleased with the novel appearance of three horses working abreast, resolved to try the experiment himself. But not possessing the skill requisite to construct such a whipple-tree, he waited till his better-informed and more expert neighbor had got through with his, and then, borrowing it, tried the experiment with his own team. Early one morning, and full of expectation, aided by his two sons and a hired man, he harnessed his three horses to the plow. But one of them, for the first time, refused to draw. After several fruitless attempts to make the team work as first harnessed, the relative position of the horses was changed, when, la! although this horse would draw as formerly, one of the others would not. By and by another change was made, and the third horse, in turn, refused to draw. The farmer could not understand it, nor his sons, nor his hired man. His three horses, for the first time, were each fickle in turn. And, what was most surprising, they would all work

in either of two positions, but in the third none of them would draw. The honest farmer thought the age of witchcraft had not yet passed. At the conclusion of the forenoon he gave up the undertaking in disgust, and, carrying the whipple-tree home, told the story of his unsuccessful and vexatious experiment.

"And how did you harness the horses to the whippletree?" inquired the more intelligent farmer. "Why, one at the short end, and two at the long end, where there is the most room for them, to be sure !" was the frank reply.

The power at the short end, I need not say, should be twice that at the long end; whereas he had it reversed. One horse drew against two with a double purchase. He then would have to draw twice as much as both of them, or four times as much as one of them. The fickleness of the horses, then, instead of being the result of witchcraft, as he was inclined to believe, was chargeable solely to the ignorance of their hardly more intelligent master. A knowledge of the first principles of mechanics, or, in the absence of this, an ordinary. degree of active, available common sense, would teach the proper use of such a whipple-tree. For want of this knowledge, the farmer suffered much chagrin, lost the time of four men, and did great injury to his team.

After mentioning this circumstance on a certain occasion, a gentleman present gave a parallel case, that occurred under his immediate observation. His neighbor had a yoke of oxen, one of which was large, strong, and beautiful. One day, as the neighbor was passing the residence of the gentleman, the latter remarked to him, "You have one very fine-looking ox." "Yes," replied the neighbor, with apparent satisfaction, "and a bonny fellow he is too. He can carry the long end of the yoke, and grow fat under it." Here, again, the weak