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The Sewing Machine.

PRAY, have you seen,
The Sewing-Machine,

Jogging, and jogging, and jogging all day,
Pecking, and peckig, and pecking away,
Very much like a steam-chicken at play?

Oh, if you have n't, just listen to me!

Oh! if you have n't, you've something to see;
Useful, perhaps, but decidedly queer,

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Yes, and you'll find that you've something to hear; right.
Clickety! Clickety! Clickety! Click!
Ever and aye, till you're weary and sick.

Bring your work with you, dear ladies, and come
Lay over the hem with your finger and thumb;
Don't be afraid, though the needles look spiteful,
And sting it to death with an insolent air;
There! it has finished one side! how delightful!
And now-oh! it's pecking away at the air!
It's work is all done,

And it's now making fun!

It does n't care what, and it does n't care which-
So it's stitching like mad, without ever a stitch!
You may be weary, or you may be sick,
But still it goes on with its clickety, click!

No longer "in poverty, hunger and dirt,"
Hood's mournful maiden shall sing of the shirt.
But "wearily" O!

Shall be cheerily O!

For our blithe machine, if you properly watch it,
Will not fall asleep o'er your linen or botch it;
But O! if you don't-

!

(And there's many that won't,)
Lock-stitch will lock up your waistbands and hem-
ming,

Start off with a fury there's no hope of stemming.
And body and sleeves will be stopped in a minute;
So that when it is done you can never get in it,
And you'll have to unpick it, and once more begin it.

But there's this to be said:
You have only to find

The end of your thread,

Should you be so inclined,

And pulling it gently, a wavelet will run

In proof of this let us note some of the "wrongs," which the teacher, if fit for his work - knows ought to be righted. First, then, no sane or sensible man, needs to have it provto him, that habitual tardiness and irregularity of attendance, are evils in themselves sufficient to sap the thrift from any school. Scores of our schools are yearly crippled, and rendered nearly worthless, from this cause. How shall this wrong be righted?

-

To take a case. A band of strays come lounging in, mayhap, in the midst of a recitation. The teacher asks: "Moses, why are you late?" With a prodigious longitudinal extension of the face, Moses whines out: "I come as soon as I coo-ud;" and an equally gratifying response comes from Sam and Bill and Mary Jane and somebody's "dear Mehitable." I think I hear some one say who knows all about it,why don't you demand excuses from the parents? I can call spirits from the vasty deep," said a famous brag, of whom we read, to which, you will recollect, the shrewd rejoinder was, will they come when you do call for them!" " Aye, there's the rub!" Will the excuses come when called for? It is one thing to demand them, quite a different to get them. It is a mournful fact, to which every teacher of experience can bear witness, that parents are often too indifferent to the welfare of the school even to write excuses for their children. Here, then, is one reason why the school "goes wrong."

But

Through the length of the seam till the whole is The teacher cannot correct the evil," where's undone!

TO CLEAR THE EYE OF DUST.- When the eye is irritated by dust, or intrusive particles of any kind, the proper practice is to keep it open. as if staring; a sort of rotary movement of the ball takes place, the surface becomes cover ed with water, the particle is gradually impell ed to the corner of the cye, and is there floated out, or can be easily removed, without any of the disagreeable consequences that attend shutting and rubbing.

the blame?"

Habitual absence is another evil equally fatal and common, and for which the parent is wholly responsible. As a general rule, the parent has no moral right to keep his children from school a single day. A term of school is like a ladder, of which each day is a round. When you have struck one-half the rounds from your child's ladder, do you expect him to climb ?

Again, if the teacher is fit for his work, his constant aim will be to transform disorder and sloth into strictest order and cheerful work.

How shall this be done?

"By moral sua- the scholar, you cannot fix the degree of severision, of course," our wiseacre replies. But ty of the master. Severity should be continued does not everybody know, that in most schools, until obstinacy be subdued and negligence be there will always be some scholars whom per-cured."

suasion and argument fail to reach; and to When the long-looked-for Millenium dawns, whom all your words, kindly or otherwise, are 1 suspect corporal punishment may be properly but "mouthfuls of spoken wind?" Such cases dispensed with. But, inasmuch as that delectnot unfrequently occur. Reluctantly and sor- able period would seem to be at least several rowfully, the teacher punishes some gross of- years distant, is it not, on the whole, best to fender; straightway what a fluttering in the follow Solomon and common sense a little longfamily roost! er? Let me not be misunderstood. That teacher Down comes the enraged paternal, breathing is not fit to teach who relies mainly upon the rod out threatenings and slaughter, it may be, and to secure obedience. He should rule rather in after spewing out enough of his ire to afford the hearts of his scholars, than over them. He temporary relief, and having frightened (?) you should be a kind and genial man, ever ready to considerably with such phrases, as -"put you speak a pleasant word, to his pupils, but he through," -"extent of the law," and the like be an inflexible man, too, not allowing his reverbal trash, away he stalks, larding his con- quirements to be departed from "the ninth part science with the pious reflection that he has of a hair," with impunity. When compelled to "done the district a great service." punish, none will sorrow more than he. The In vain the teacher urges, that he only de- moral-suasion heresy not unfrequently breeds manded obedience to some reasonable regula- in this wise. A school has happened to be kept tion. Thenceforth, this man is the teacher's without the striking of a blow. It may or may foe, and will do him and his school what harm not have been a good school. Suddenly the he can. Of course, the school goes wrong. conclusion is drawn that corporal punishment Where's the blame? Illustrations might be is a relic of barbarism;" and that all schools multiplied showing how schools do sometimes can and ought to be governed by the sovereign "go wrong" in spite of the teacher. But power of love. "Lame and impotent concluenough. The fact is, the school should be a sion!" Domine Sampson would say, " Prodi"company concern," not a mill, where the teach-gious!" What successful teacher has not someer is hired and left to grind alone. times kept a school "without striking a blow?" The truth is, the teacher must be a man of

Parents are, equally with the teacher, respon

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A. H. D.

sible for a good school; and there are communi- expedients. With one end in view, — the welties in which a really good school would scarce- fare of those committed to his charge, he must ly be tolerated. For instance, a good school can-wisely vary the means of accomplishing it, acnot be kept where the rank heresy prevails, that cording to the circumstances of the case. Coma teacher should not chastise the scholar. mitted to any special hobby of school governWhat treatment do these reformers suggest ment, he will speedily run off the track. for offenders? for it must needs be that offen- Switches are as necessary in school economy, ces come." One offers expulsion; but, is it not as in railroading. Finally, if you would have better to save a limb than to amputate it a good school, get a teacher of ability, pluck Would you set this wilful lad or that silly miss and energy, work cordially with him, and the school won't go wrong." -just emerged into the awful dignity of teensadrift, when Solomon's receipt might save them? Another very wise man thinks "a school should Ir is the proud prerogative of noble natures be made so attractive that the discipline will take that they retain their influence after death. The care of itself." I have heard men who were lamps which guided us on earth become stars doubtless partially sane talk thus; but, if, as to light us from above, and the beneficent may Solomon says, "much study is a weariness of still claim our aspirations as the blessed- -a the flesh," I confess myself puzzled to see how species of apotheosis equally honorable to the it can be so fantastically tricked out, as to be- living and the dead. come pastime for lazy boys and girls. There is much nonsense talked in relation to this matter. Hear Dr. Johnson:

Ir is a pretty saying of an old writer, that men, like books, begin and end with blank

"Until you can fix the degree of obstinacy of leaves - infancy and senility.

From the Independent.
The Lily of the Feld.

BY REV. HENRY S. OSBORN.

since returned to the dust; the very empire whose glory they extolled has crumbled and perished; but that "short-lived lily" still decks the fields and perfumes the air of Italy with un

ed fragments of ruined halls and temples, which in its unaltered beauty it has survived. These bright lilies, quietly blooming around the scattered ruins of the East, seem like constant though feeble stars, shining out unceasingly upon the dark night of desolation which has followed the sunset of Roman grandeur.

THERE are no flowers which exhibit the vari- diminished beauty and fragrance. In that counous elements of beauty to greater perfection than try and further East it may be seen beside fallthose of the lily. Nor are there any wherein en blocks and pillars, the shattered and corrodthe mysteries of color are more remarkably developed. Imagine, if you can, that a few atoms are travelling upward to form the colored part of the petal of a lily flower. They start, perhaps, from the fibrous rootlets or from the bulb, and pass by the whorled or scattered leaves on their course; while other atoms, by the side of which they have hitherto travelled, part company, and run into nearer channels. But onward these tiny color-atoms move. Guided by some mysterious attraction, they turn neither to the right nor left, until, at the end of their journey, they have reached that destined spot, to form a circle or line of red or brown or black, just where, for a thousand years, their projenitors did the same for other flowers. There is a mystery in the coloring of all flowers, but of none more so than of lilies.

What has been said of the Latin word for lily may even more emphatically be asserted of the Greek word. There were two words in the Greek tongue for this flower, either of which was applicable to the white lily. One, however, designated the lily in general, the other the white lily particularly. The former was the word used by our Saviour in the sentence, "Consider the lilies of the field." This distinction was made use of before the commencement of the Christian era, as is seen in the writings of the celebrated Greek botanist, Theophrastus, (H. P. 6, 6, 3.) We may therefore reasonably infer that it was known in the time of our Saviour. In

There is no genus of plants under the Natural System which presents such seeming confusion of species as that to which the lily belongs. Yet the " Lily of the Field" may be identified with less difficulty than many other of the flow-lilies, and Pliny, the naturalist, says that in ers of sacred and classic writings.

LILIES AMONG THE ANCIENTS.

66

Syria there were red and purple as well as white

that land the white was held in less esteem than the red. In the passage making mention of this The word lily" is but an abbreviation of fact, he includes all the varieties under the generic term "lilia." So that the lily of the Latin lilium," used by Latin writers long before the included the red and purple as well as the white. Gospels were written. A Latin poet, Propertius, born before the commencement of the If it be asked how we know that the flower Christian era, calls them "the bright" and "sil- intended by our Saviour was the lilium" of ver lilies,” (“lilia lucida" and "argentea.") which we have spoken, we answer — first, that Ovid styles the same flower the "white shining the description of the flower by the Greek writlily," using an adjective (candentia) which was ers is more true to nature than even that of the applied to the light of the moon. (" candentia Latin writers; and, second, that when in early lunæ," Vitruvius.) Virgil calls it the " large years the Greek was translated into Latin, or or noble lily," ("grandia lilia," Ec. x. 24,) and the Latin into Greek, the two words were interspeaks of the lily as growing freely among thorns, changable. Thus, when Jerome translated into (Song of Sol. ii. 2,) and inviting the bees which Latin the passages in the Gospels above referred yielded delicious honey first to that farmer who to, he changed the Greek generic word into the Latin "6 had planted lilies upon a sterile farm. Georg. lilium," wherever it occurred, and in iv. 139-140.) Pliny says that one lily root in doing so he only adopted a rendering which had his time would bear fifty bulbs," than which," been used before. he thought, "no plant could be more fruitful," (N. H., Lib. 21, c. 5.) Horace writes of lilies We have said that the English word "lily" scattered upon the feast-tables in honor of a is derived from the Latin ་་ lilium." It is infriend returned to his home, and calls them teresting to know that the latter is derived from "the short-lived lily." The poets whose feast- the Greek word "leirion," the specific term in table were strewn with its flowers, have long that tongue for the "white lily." Homer, we

THE LILY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

243

believe, is the first classic author who made use " Plucking the fragrant white lilies on the soft meadowlands," of the word, (Hym. Hom. C'er, 427,) and this

is the earliest known record of the lily in any in which line more is told of the lily than in language, if we except the Hebrew, in 1 Kings, any other classic line of equal shortness. Anvii. 19, 26. In this chapter are described the other Greek writer, (Dionysius,) about the comcarvings for the capitals of two important pil-mencement of the Christian era, prettily delars, and for the rim of the "molten sea," which scribes the same flower in an epigram, as "the were made for Solomon's temple. The Hebrew white-skinned lily," using the same word for word translated "lily" appears to have origi- lily which is found in the Gospels. Other writnated in Persia, the land of the lily. In the ers abound in beauteous similes drawn from the title " Shushan," frequently used in the Book lily, or in interesting allusions to it. (Pind. N. of Esther in connection with "the Palace," 7, 116; Polyb. Crat. Matth. 1; Ar. Nub. 911.) which was the scene of the trials and triumphs

From all this it is evident that the same flow

of that queen, we have the very Hebrew word which is translated lily in other places. In Per-er which is so well known to us, was known

and valued in earliest times, but, as we have alsia, among the ruins of Susa, the ancient Shuready remarked, while the white was valued shan, the lily has lately been found carved up- most in other lands, the red and purple were on the remains of its marble palaces, or repro- better known and more highly esteemed in Syduced in the form of vases and other antique ria. The term used by our Saviour, it is plain, "Susiana and Chaldea.") ornaments.* (Lofius, referred to all lilies as a class, and the efforts to Now it is important to remember that, accordlimit its meaning to any particular variety of ing to two celebrated Greek writers, (Diosco- flower now blooming on the hills of Syria, esrides and Athenæus,) this "Shushan of the pecially of a kind not known as the lily, can Persians was the lily of the Greeks," and in only give rise to confusion. this announcent they use the very Greek word which, in the original, was used by our Saviour. FLOWERS SUPPOSED TO BE FIELD." It is noticeable that the Arabs of Syria call the various colored lilies, but especially the It may, however, prove interesting, in passwhite lily, "soosan," a name radically the same ing, to notice the opinions on this subject. Evas that by which, in the Hebrew, it was known en tulips, white, red, blue, and otherwise colorin the days of Solomon.

Thus we have an interesting series of links in the evidence which leads us to the conclusion, that the lily of the Old Testament and that of the New were the same.

THE PROBABLE "LILY OF THE FIELD." Of all writers, the Greeks were most explicit and eloquent in their description of the lily. The poet Mochus, who wrote 200 B. c., represents the beautiful Europa as

"THE LILY OF THE

ed, have been offered as "the lilies of the field," simply because they bloomed on the fields of Palestine, although their name has always been distinct, and they exhale no such fragrance as did the lilies of Solomon's imagery. (Song v. 13.) Sir J. E. Smith has urged a golden liliaceous flower, called, formerly, the Amaryllis lutea, now Oporanthus luteus. Professor Lindley thinks that it was a flower which now blooms in Palestine, (the Ixiolirion Montanum,) with

slender stem and clusters of delicate violet flowers, allied to the Amaryllis. Nor does the fact This is an entirly distinct form from the Egyp- that it is chiefly found upon the mountains lestian Lotus, (Nymphæa.) Herodotus (2, 92) describes "a kind of lily resembling roses," which sen the faith of that botanist in the supposed grew in the Nile. They resembled lilies in color, identity. The "Crown Imperial,” (Fritellaria being white; roses in form, being many-leaved. Imperialis), a large red and yellow pendant The carvings above referred to are distinctly in-flower, a native of Persia, seldom seen in Syria, tended to represent lilies, and are six-leaved and is supposed by others to be the lily in question. bell-formed. A beautiful variety of the Nymphæa Dr. Royle, in Kitto's Cyclopædia, feels confi(many-leaved) has lately been noticed by Rev. dent that it is the brilliant red flower, half the Frederick Knighton of Oxford, N. J., growing in size of the common "tiger lily," (supposed to profusion in the Musconetcong Valley in the north-be the lilium Chalcedonicum, or scarlet Martaern part of that State. It is invariably a plant of gon,) which blooms in April and May near the lowlands, or those which are partially submerged, Sea of Galilee, as seen by Dr. Bowring. which is not favorable to the supposition that it was the lily of Syria.

This probably completes the list, so far as

any intelligible description of flowers has been offered.

"CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD."

Our Saviour was sitting on the side of one of the hills near the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. These hills were on the southern border of a broad and fertile meadow, stretching inland for more than a mile. The red and purple lilies were well known there, as Pliny has told us, and they readily suggested by their colors, the robes which in those days were a part of the insignia of monarchs; whence the fitness of the allusion to the apparel of "Solomon in all his glory." There could have been 44 considered,"

no flower more appropriately
none more forcibly associated with Solomon
and the times of his "glory." It was at once a
royal and a sacred flower. It had been wrought
upon the molten sea, and carved upon the two
noted pillars of the temple porch. It was the fa-
vorite in the flower imagery of the Song of Solo-
mon, and now these lilies were blooming upon
the plains and fields before them.

Their grace

"

For the Schoolmaster.

The Race of Life.

BY ANNIE ELIZABETH.

LIFE is evermore retreating,

Hurrying on the shrinking soul;
Swiftly are its moments fleeting,
Pointing onward to the goal.

Friends are there, and gaily weave us
Garlands for life's starting place;
One by one, they sadly leave us,

In the dark and toilsome race.
If the heart with weary longing,

Looks back o'er the trodden vale,
'Tis to see them meekly thronging,

'Neath the marble, cold and pale.

Wrapped in clouds that know no setting,
Gloom without and doubts within,
Still we onward press, forgetting
Death at last will surely win.

In the way the tomb upriseth

Lone and drear, yet placed with care,
This to end the race sufficeth,
Death will pass, we enter there.
And within the silent portal,

Fades to night the earthly ray,
Let Hope die. Oh weary mortal,

Faith points to a rising day.

Then let life be still retreating.
Let it hurry on the soul,
And the moments swiftly fleeting,
Shall but haste us to the goal.

From the Pennsylvania School Journal. The Common School Teacher.---No. 1

TEACHING A PROFESSION.

and beauty were the more remarkable in that they grew so freely. They sprang up upon every field, shedding their fragrance upon every passing breeze, decorating the thorn as well as the olive, indebted to no one's care but God's, to his sunshine and his rains alone, for their existence and their beauty. They had survived the rending apart of the kingdom. They had remained upon the fiields, and been "clothed and renewed in their weakness, while strong ones had been carried into captivity, or scourged by sword and by pestilence. "Consider the lilies of the field." In all this, every lily had its duty to perform its place to fill in the cycles of the Creator's great and various purposes. Every lily-stalk was gifted with its minute chanTHE first question for a young man to deternels up which it drew the life-sap God had pro- mine, when the impulse to teach school presents vided it opened its petals in due season, and itself, is, Do I intend to make teaching my prolavishly gave to the passing breeze its grateful fession? The responsibility which rests upon a incense of fragrance, or it smiled in its beauty teacher is a grave one, and one that is not at under the warm rays of a spring-time sun. first fully realized by those who take it upon There it stood, quietly working out its duty and them. To lay the foundation, broad and deep, its history" toiling not nor spinning" -a of a healthy intellectual, moral, social and phynever-failing witness to God's condescending sical development of the hundreds or thousands care and mysterious Providence - a picture of of boys and girls who may be entrusted to his a sublime truth enfolded in its petal, that God's care, is the true mission of the teacher. The eternal power may be be felt and known in a manner in which that mission is to be fulfilled leaf as in a world, and that the footprints of will depend upon the answer to the question at God's loving presence may be very near us, the head of this article. while to find them we are wandering far away.

It is said there are two hundred schoolmasters in the Third Vermont Regiment of Volunteers.

If the young teacher is prepared to answer that question in the affirmative, it may be fairly presumed that he will enter upon his profession

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