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From the Monthly Religious Magazine.]

Home, The Residence.

be used at no waste of temper, time, or strength. Utility should be the Alpha and Omega in a home.

Man is the only animal who, in the construc- I know that some of the most home-ish (lo tion of a home, has ventured to disregard the use a word you will not find in the Dictionary) great law of fitness. He has builded for every looking places in the country-the farm-houses purpose but that of utility. The cell of the which have been the true homes and nurseries bee, the nest of the bird, the burrow of the fox, of New England character-have wanted not the web of the spider, are exactly suited to the only the graces, but the conveniences, of more wants of the inhabitants. Each builder knows modern days. The house is not large, not what he requires, and at once, with the utmost wholly occupied or even finished, poorly areconomy and ingenuity, sets himself to his task. ranged, and not over tightly built, while the Instinct does no less for man, and the home of well is in the yard, and in long row stretch out the savage, the wigwam of the Indian, the hut houses and barns. The architect to-day brings of the Esquimaux, the tent of the Arab, are just all these things into a snugger compass; but what the condition of the occupant demands. the architect of to-day omits one element of The house is the type of the civilization of the the old home which made amends for all this, inhabitants. It is only as you come to the more which the taste, the advance, or the mistake of advanced stages that there is a departure from the present generation compels him to omit. I this law of fitness, an intrusion of other things mean the large, cheerful, generous old kitchen, into the idea of a house. When wisdom and the place where many a man and woman of culture supplant instinct, when the intellect as-silks and fashion was brought up-the true serts and attains its mastery over the animal," keeping" or "living room," redolent of the when society is formed and convention rules, mother's brown-bread and pies, fragrant with the hours begins to lose the simpler, more nat- quiet domestic virtues, the work-place of ural characteristics of fitness and use, the ad- mothers and daughters in the days when vancing man content only when he has grafted mothers and daughters worked-the centre of on some whim, or followed some fashion, or the family circle when the day was done, and made some display, converting his home, not father and the boys gathered round the evening into a reflection of his own thought and want, table to read or cipher, or play a game, or mend but into an undigested mass of rooms and ap- this or that which had been broken about the pliances, windows, doors, gables, piazzas, farm; when neighbors dropped quietly in, and without meaning and without value and with- were welcome to the chimney-corner, and cider out beauty. It is about a house as it is about a and apples closed the visit; when even lovers dress. Everything should mean something, must sit in the kitchen and with the family, exeven the ornaments. Nothing is more mean- cept on Sundays. I do not believe in everyingless than the larger proportion of the dresses thing that is old, but I do believe we have made one sees. They have no beauty, no substantial no gain in surrendering these homely ways and value; they do not add to, but subtract from, virtues which clustered about that dishonored your idea, of the wearer. They encumber with- place. The kitchen was the home in those out adorning, they conceal where they were golden days ere its sacred economies were meant to enhance, they caricature where they handed over to the wasteful mercies of ignoare supposed to ennoble. So it is with a house. rant domestics, and though there were no If you want merely to show that you can spend modern labor-saving appliances, yet because money, or have the ambition to attract atten- the labor was not bought, but each had his post tion, or be unlike your neighbors, that is one and duty, the home went on more wisely thing; if you want to build a home for your-and happily than now. The kitchen was then self and your children, one which they and you the blessing of the house. Now it is too freshall love, where you wish the household vir- quently the curse, and the troubles it entails tues to take root and grow, that is quite ano-have much to do with this rapid filling of hotels ther. If your house is to be a mere show place, and lodging-houses by those who rather fly and your ambition to excite a vulgar approval from than seek to remedy the evil. Perhaps, or envy, you may neglect or banish the useful as society is, we cannot reinstall the kitchen. I parts of the house, you may sacrifice utility to do not believe the idea would be very palatable appearance; but if you are going to build a to those who associate the place with the stuhome, the homely, common, ever-wanted things pidity of Irish cooks, or regard the toil as a must be close by, compact, and convenient, to disgrace to their position, or as injuring the

Moral Culture.

COMMUNICATIONS for this Department should be addressed to GEORGE A. WILLARD, Warwick Neck, R. I.

complexion and marring the delicacy of the hand. The kitchen was the sanctum of the home, and homes have gained nothing by deserting it. It was the nursery of the character, of the health, the moral and mental strength of the old and middle-aged of to-day-of virtues which have seemed to wane with the coming (either original or selected) which give practical illusin of carpets and curtains and conveniences, trations of moral principles, are invited. and that utter respectability which would gladly forget that a kitchen has a necessary connection with a house.

Communications on this subject and also incidents

Actual occur

rences, when accurately presented to view, always con

vey an impressive lesson, and we shall feel greatly obliged to all who will contribute such to this department.—

ED.

44

In a different way, if you would have peace, you must still regard the kitchen. It is now MORAL CULTURE is a subject so important in the tyrant of the house, and he who builds his itself that we propose to make it a distinct dehouse without a prime regard to that; who partment in our journal. An occasional paraplans the rest liberally and leaves that to graph, or article even, is not all that is required chance; or, when he finds the cost exceeding on a subject which is fundamental in its charhis ability, lets the pinch come there, may at acter. The Great Teacher said to his followers, once give up the thought of a comfortable The life is more than meat, and the body than home. Let the pinch come in your parlors, raiment." The moral powers may properly be your furnishings,-the things for your own considered the life of the character. Where luxury, or the eye of your visitor; but in a these are not in a healthy and vigorous condihome, the kitchen, the cellar, and the closet tion, the character, even when moulded by an must stand before these. No house can be a accomplished education, is too much like a statehome which is stinted in useful things, that is ly ship without a rudder, or a splendid mansion narrow and mean in its arrangements for work, without light or warmth. --and that is one reason why these things all over towns with "To Let" hanging in the dows can never become genuine houses. J. F. W. Ware. POLITENESS.-It is a graceful habit for children to say to each other," will you have the One of the first inquiries to be made, in degoodness ?" and "I thank you.". We do not ciding on the qualifications of a teacher, is like to see prim, artificial children; there are whether his moral character is good, and this few things we dislike so much as a miniature ought to imply much more than simply whether beau or belle. But the habit of good manners he is free from positive immoralities. The quesby no means implies affectation or restraint. It tion should be, whether he will exert a good is quite as easy to say, "Please give me a piece moral influence. In short, what he will be able of pie," as to say, "I want a piece of pie." The to do for the moral culture of his scholars. idea that constant politeness would render It is a reasonable expectation, that the insocial life too stiff and restrained, springs from struction in our public schools should tend to a false estimate of politeness. True politeness the moral culture of our children, and it will is perfect ease and freedom. It simply consists be readily admitted that it is the province of in treating others just as you would like to be THE R. I. SCHOOLMASTER to aid in this object. treated yourself. A person who acts from this principle will always be said to have "sweet, pretty ways with her." It is of some consequence that your daughter should know how In a recent conversation with a gentleman of to enter and leave a room gracefully; but it is intelligence and large experience in connection of prodigiously more consequence that she with public schools, he made a remark which should be in the habit of avoiding whatever is was in substance as follows: "There was a beaudisgusting or offensive to others, and of always tiful theory advanced some years ago and prepreferring their pleasures to her own.-Home sented to the people in educational lectures, to Journal. the effect that right is, in itself, so desirable DEATH comes to a good man to relieve him; and attractive that if only fairly presented to the it comes to a bad man to relieve society, mind it must of necesssity be adopted in prefer

Other things being equal, the teacher of good win-moral culture, accomplishes much more and does his work much better than the one whose moral powers have been but imperfectly cultivated.

From the Massachusetts Teacher.

School Ethics.

every va

ence to wrong. So if your pupils go astray, you perfections of his code and to avail themselves have only to keep 'right' in a drawer at hand, of every flaw in the indictment. How many a and on exhibiting it before them they will choose piece of mischief drives him to his wits' ends it without hesitation, and all will go well." This to discover the perpetrator and makes him feel remark suggested, by way of contrast perhaps, that nothing short of omniscience will meet the the declaration made once in our hearing by an demand made upon him. What a need for disOrthodox clergyman, who, being laid aside from cretion, that impartial justice may be meted out the practice of his profession, undertook the care and the penalty be duly proportioned to the ofof a district school in the winter. He averred fence. What firmness must be shown to the that if he had ever entertained any doubts of offender and what tenderness to the child. An the truth of the doctrine of total depravity, they experience of some years will perhaps be suffiwere entirely dissipated now. cient to convince him that if he would rear the Sad, indeed, are the developments of charac. fair temple of science, order and truth, so that ter daily and almost hourly revealed to one who it shall be a blessing to future generations as has to do with the discipline of a school num-well as a lasting monument to himself, its founbering one or two hundred pupils, of dations must be laid broad and deep in the morDistrust on the one riety of temperament, and coming from all sorts al sense of his pupi's. of home and street influences. The same in hand, eye-service on the other, and cross-purkind, if not in degree, is the experience of all poses on both,- this is most unhappy, most fatal to the welfare of a school. teachers. What sly cunning, what artful evasions, what deliberate deception, what down- How, then, shall the work of government be right dishonesty the teacher must meet, check, conducted, that the evils on either hand may be expose and, if possible, eradicate! What plaus- avoided, and the coöperation of pupils be seible arguments and subtle sophistries he is call- cured in maintaining the best discipline? Obed upon to refute! Who has not felt at times servation and experience may afford some sugthat the powers of darkness are arrayed against gestions. First, then, let the teacher not hesihim, and that he must fight, single-handed, tate, from any false delicacy or fear of being against all the growing and already giant evils suspected of cant, to take high religious ground of the human heart? at the outset. Let him say in words and in But courage! fellow teacher. Is not this the practice, "The Bible is my authority and last noblest aspect of our work, that we are striving appeal. 1 call upon you, my pupils, to do right to supplant false principles of action and to im- here in school that you may carry away with plant the true, the pure and the excellent in you into life the habit of right doing. I want their stead? In this work we cannot be single- you to be honest and conscientious in the dishanded, for the angels smile upon it and God charge of your duties because you are responsible to God. I want you to be obediert and The inexperienced teacher begins, perhaps, in faithful in school that you may each learn to be a hopeful mood. Kindness will do much and a good citizen and fulfil the duty of patriotism. persuasion much, and the work to be done is Here, as in every well ordered state, and as in faintly appreciated. A series of trials and dis- the moral government of the universe, obediappointments and perplexities convinces him ence to law secures the welfare and happiness that something in his theory is wrong. He finds of the subject; disobedience, whether detected that he cannot present the right in such an at- and immediately punished or not, brings an intractive aspect as to make it an efficient motive evitable punishment with it, for the offender sins power, for however clearly the right is seen, the against his own welfare." The devotional exwrong is as perversely followed. The theory ercises with which every day should begin, if ought to be true, but in this degenerate period engaged in heartily, may be the means of proand part of the world it is evidently impractica-ducing the most lasting and most beneficial imble. What can he do next but proclaim the pressions, lightening the labor of government terrors of the law? If right cannot be loved far more than the teacher can possibly know. it must be respected. But here arises a new In the next place there is always a portion of perplexity. The legislative, the detective, the the school upon whose sympathy and support judiciary and the executive functions are to be the teacher can depend in every effort to combat combined in one individual. What expert law-evil and elevate the moral sentiment of the yers must he meet, ready to detect all the im-whole. Thanks to our Christian firesides and

approves.

to Sabbath School teachings, there is always, that is very different. Cheating in recitation, among youth in New England, some leaven of cheating in self-reporting, denying a fault comgood, which, if enabled to work, is a blessing mitted, these are little things, and I would to all within its silent but potent influence. not tell of those." Little sins? Little in themHow dear to our recollection are the counte-selves? There are no little sins in the sight of nances of some pupils in every school we have God, and it is hardihood for us to pronounce taught, whose beaming looks betoken a hearty small what He has called great. Perhaps you approbation of every worthy sentiment, and as mean little in their consequences. Would that hearty detestation of those mean, unworthy all the consequences, in this life and in the othtricks so often exposed and condemned. er, of one act of dishonesty performed in youth Let the teacher cultivate this element in his could be disclosed to our view. We might be school, and encourage it to show itself openly profited by the disclosure. But is government on all fitting occasions, and it will become more worth anything? Is the existence of a school Would a school-room in and more the fashion to take high ground; and worth anything? those who always wait to go with the tide will, which anarchy and confusion prevailed be a deby and by, help to swell it in the right direc-sirable place to frequent for mental improvetion. When the way is suitably prepared, an ment? Do not the evils which we wish to eradexpression of opinion by means of a standing icate tend directly to this result? Are any vote is often a great present triumph for the thanks due to those scholars who habitually cause of good order.

trample on the rules and resort to deception to cover up their practices, that the school is not already broken up? Do not they consume a great deal of the time of the teacher which should be devoted to instruction, in watching them and in administering discipline for their delinquencies? Do they not thus rob the s*udious of much benefit which they would otherwise receive? Do they deserve to be spared and treated with so much tenderness?

Do

Again, there are certain traditional and universal fallacies which need to be met and put down, not by denunciation, but by candid yet ingenious argument. For instance: "It's mean to be a tell-tale, I would n't tell of a schoolmate for anything!" "A tell-tale!" what do you mean by the word? Is it one who goes about actuated by envy or malice, endeavoring to destroy his neighbor's reputation that his own may appear better by contrast? Is it one who Furthermore, are you consistent in always takes genuine delight in the sins and weakness sparing the reputation of your friends? of others, and gloats over the narration as if it you ever tell tales out of school? Do you ever were a choice morsel for the palate? Is it gos- injure any one in the estimation of others in sip, a sycophant, a slanderer? If this is the such a way that he will never know how the inthing, visit it with your contempt and vow never jury was inflicted? Which is more manly, more to be a tell-tale. Or is it a person who sees noble,- to give information when it is called that your home is being robbed and gives you for by the rightful authority, to be used for a information? Is it one who sees that his neigh- legitimate purpose, often when justice would be bors are being impoverished in body and soul defeated without it, to protect your own rights by strong drink, and gives information of the and those of your schoolmates, to save the moseller, causing him to be prosecuted. Is it one ney of your parents from, being squandered,— who sees that the weak are imposed upon by or to tell what you have seen to the disadvanthe strong, or the innocent made to suffer, and tage of some one, simply to gratify a love of who gives information that removes the cause tale-bearing? The grand difficulty, after all,—

of the injustice? Is it a man who has proof it must be spoken,—is cowardice. You are that his neighbor is in treasonable correspond- afraid that some guilty one whom you are the ence with the enemies of the government, and means of exposing will injure you in some way, lodges information of it in the proper quarter? or that there will be an opprobium excited by Ah! not at all; that is not what you mean by a your action.

"tell-tale." You honor the man who, often at First settle with yourself whether it is right, great personal risk and for no personal advan- then ask yourself if you have courage to do tage, performs such a duty, and you would right when the time and occasion demand it. agree that he would be justly considered as an Can you respect yourself if you have not? Can accomplice if he withheld such information you be trusted to act a noble part, when God when in his possession. But in school,- -“ O and humanity look to you for action? where

would be the names of Martin Luther, of Tell, fair now in hand, and all similar ones, should of Wilberforce, of Washington, if all were as be properly settled. You cannot be neutral; timid and time-serving as you? Depend upon you help or hinder. Now, shall we have your it, no great reformer, patriot or benefactor of help?" An attempt was made, similar to that human kind ever grew in the natural order of above, to show the difference between tale-bearthings, out of a school-boy who measured and ing and testimony. The whole of the forenoon shaped all his actions by the standard of narrow and a considerable part of the afternoon were self-interest, and who shrank from an unplea-devoted to the discussion. The result was a sant duty because he feared his popularity would vote of one hundred and eighty to twenty, that suffer. Yet there are multitudes of scholars it is right and commendable for pupils to aid who flatter themselves that it is an honorable teachers in bringing offenders to justice, when feeling that actuates them. ordinary means fail. More than a year subse

It is time now to specify what the occasions quently, when a great change in the memberare which justify the teacher in requiring and ship of the school had taken place, the subject Evidently the pupil in giving information. was brought up again. By the voluntary testiwhen an individual has committed an offence mony of the pupils, it was apparent that the pewhich he refuses to acknowledge, another who riodical examinations, conducted in writing, was witness of the act may properly be called were fruitful occasions of dishonesty. The proon to testify. The teacher must be the judge as to the necessity of resorting to this method for obtaining information, recognizing it always as a last resort.

ing evil.

priety of disclosures by those who should witness cheating during examination, was discussed. Again it was voted, about one-tenth dissenting as before, that it is right to report those who will not report themselves, and that we will Precedents are often convenient, and the fol- do it if occasion requires. The matter was testlowing may be of value hereafter: In a school ed, and such disclosures made as were calculatnumbering about two hundred pupils, the ques-ed to impose a serious check upon a most alarmtion arose as to the perpetrator of a trifling piece of mischief, which it was thought desirable to We have heard of a work projected, on menstop before the evil grew more serious. Every tal science in its application to the work of one for himself denied participation in the matteaching. Would that some competent hand ter, yet the fact of the deed remained. The inwould prepare a work on moral science, espevestigation seemed effectually blocked, and all cially adapted to the school-room. Foremost looked on with curiosity to see whether the to receive attention in such a work should be thing would end there, or whether any discothe duty of the teacher to himself. Duty to his veries would be made. The question was then body, that he may not grow nervous, impatient put, "Does any one possess any knowledge and irritable. Duty to his mind, to keep it about it?" One scholar thought he did, but re-well-furnished. Duty to his spirit, to keep it fused to tell. This opened a new field. "Shall this individual be sustained by the sentiment of the school in disclosing all he knows about the matter, since the one originally concerned refuses to do so himself?" The prevailing opinion was, of course, opposed to anything like tale-bearing. A strong disposition was manifested in some quarters to frown down any argument on the subject. The school was accustomed to free discussion, and the teachers were too recently connected with the institution to

fresh, young, kindly and sympathetic. Our saddest self-reproaches are for the hasty words we have spoken and the unsympathizing spirit we have manifested. May the Great Teacher help us all to learn of Him and imbibe his spirit, that we may furnish to our pupils a better model and example.

L.

DUTIES are ours: events are God's. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only, can he securely lay down his head and close his eyes.

be sure of their ground. It was felt to be a
critical time, as the future government of the
school must depend greatly upon the turn af-
fairs should now take. This ground was taken:
"Are we, as teachers, to labor here in the gov-
ernment of this school single-handed, or with
your coöperation? Our efforts are intended for
your good; it is for your interest that this af- from nature.

THE best thing to be done when evil comes upon us, is not lamentation, but action; not to sit and suffer, but to rise and seek the remedy.

THE noblest function of art is to lift the vail

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