VOL III
OXFORD, N. C, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1877.
NO. 8.
HASTE ?«©T—KEST NOT.
“Witlioiit haste ! without rest!”
Hind tlie, motto to tliy breast!
Hear it witli thee as a spell;
Storm or suiisliine,, guard it well!
Heed not flowers that round the bloom,
Hear it onward in to the tomb!
Haste not—let no thoughtless deed
Mar for e’er the spirit’s speed;
Ponder well and know the right,
Onward then, with all thy might;
Haste not—years can ne’er atone
h’or one reckless action done !
Best not! life is sweeping by,
J)o and dare before you die;
Something mighty and sublime
Heave behind to coinpier time ;
Glorious ’tis to live for aye
When these forms liave i)assed away.
Haste not! rest not! calmly wait,
Jteekly bear the storms of fate;
Duty be thy polar guiile—
Ho the right, what’er betide!
Haste not—rest Jiot—^conflicts past,—
God shall (jrown thy work at last.
NOKITIAE SC'SIOOES.
Mr. Noil Gilmour’s Annual Ee-
port as Superintendent of Public
Instruction in this State contains
the following valuable inforuia-
tion and suggestion:
“ During the past year 6,352
pupils were instructed in these
schools, 2,848 of whom were in
the normal departments. The
number of normal graduates for
the year was 282, and the whole
number of pupils who have been
graduated since the establish
ment of the normal school system
in this State is 3,463.
Our first venture was made in
1844, when the State Normal
School at Albany was establish
ed, as an expeiiment. The ex-
pei'iinent worked so well that, a
few years later, the institution
was made, by legislative enact-
nieut, a permanent school for the
instruction t)f teachers, and for
upwards of thirty years it has had
a successful career, having been
presided over by some of the
most eminent educators of our
State, and having graduated near
ly 2,000 pupils, besides sending
out hundreds of ungraduates who,
while probably not as well qual
ified as those who were able to
take the whole course, were yet,
as teachers, far in advance of the
great majority of those who be
came teachers without special
training. In 1863 the training
school at Oswego was recognized
as a State institution, and it has
done good work since that time,
having graduated nearly 600 pu
pils. Three j'ears later the act
was passed authorizing the es
tablishment of four additional
normal schools, which, by a com
mission in charge, composed of a
board of State officers, were
severally located in the villages
of Brockport, Cortland, Fredonia
and Potsdam.
A year or two later acts were
passed establishing normal schools
in the village of Geneseo and the
city of Butfalo, and so for several
years wo have had in successful
operation eight normal schools,
instructing annually more than
6,000 pupils, of whom somewhat
less than one-half, how’ever, have
been in the normal departments.
The other pupils have been in the
schools for practice and in the
academic departments, the latter
being, in some instances, author
ized by law, and in others tolera
ted on account of an alleged orig
inal understanding between the
State and the local authorities, a
policy which I have acquisced in,
because it was handed down to
me by my j)redecessors in office,
andis strongly urgedupon the De
partment by those who aie charg
ed with the local management of
the schools, and because, the at
tention of the Legislature having
been repeatedly called to the
matter, no action has been taken
by the two Houses indicating a
disposition to change the line of
policy which has been pursued
for so many years. For myself,
I am free to say that I would
greath" prefer to have our normal
schools what they profess to be
—institutions simply' and solely
for the training of teachers for the
common schools of the State.
They ought to be mainly schools
where those in attendance should
be taught Jiow to teach, having
previously' acquired a reasonably'
fair understanding of what to
teach. The young person who
is appointed a pupil in a State
normal school is required to pos-
possess a good English education.
As I understand it, the function
of the normal school is to teach
this young person how to suc
cessfully impart to others the
knowledge which he or she may'
posses.s, how to govern a school,
how to win the confidence of pu
pils, and how to instruct them to
obtain from books knowledge of
an .order far higher than that
which the teacher possesses. It
ought not to be expected that the
State should, in a few localities,
support liigh schools and colleges.
The normal school system should
not be weighted dowu with such
dejuirtments.
The acts of 1866 and 1867,
authorizing the establishment of
six additional normal schools,
provided that the localities should
furnish the grounds, buildings,
furniture, apparatus and every
thing necessary to the mainten
ance of a school free of expense
to the State. Under these laws
sites- were selected and buildings
erected and furnished, and a clear
title given to the State. The
State now owns all normal school
property within its limits. It has
so improved this property by'
reason of liberal appropriations,
that the localities in which the
several schools are situated can
not complain if the State assumes
to say precisely how they shall
be conducted, irrespective of pre
vious understandings. I would
like to see all our normal schools
institutions whose main, if not
whose only object, should be the
training of those who intend to
become teachers.’—N. Y. Observer.
-—The Boston Traveler explains
the decadence of agriculture in
New England in this wise : “The
farms are deserted, not because
the sons of the old farmers are
too lazy to work, but because of
the small profit in cultivating
them. One goes to the West to
till the prairie; another to Cali
fornia in search of gold; and a
third to college and thence to the
city as a lawyer or physician,
because he can make more money
as a professional man than as a
farmer. (?) Unless some new and
industrious race shall set to work
to reclaim these farms, the land
will for many y'ears be given up
to the growth of trees.”
raOHAE INFETENCES OF ARCTl-
ITECTFKE.
On the same principle on which
scenery operates, the works of
art also affect the soul, and es
pecially the works of larger mag
nitude. Hence it is that the ar
chitecture of a country' tends to
reproduce the very same spirit
that produced it. If a magnifi
cent temple was reared, it must
first have existed in the feelings
and then in the conceptions of
those who built it. The ideal
preceded the real. In fact, the
ideal is the only real. The tem
ple was only the utterance of the
sentiment, having no value in
itself, but only valuable as it em
bodied an idea. It was only the
shell that contained the kernel,
only the chaff that enclosed the
grain. I’he expression of a sen
timent in language always com
municates it. Like touching a
burning flame to an unlighted
wick, the fire passes from one to
the other.
But if language is like a taper,
architectural expression is like a
Drummond light. Great and no
ble edifices have not sprung up
by chance on the surface of our
planet They were the offspring
of great and noble thoughts; they
came from the abundance of the
hearts of men whose souls were
filled with sublime emotions.
These emphatic utterings of lofty
sentiment were not wasted on the
air. It would be impossible to
witness these expressions without
being imbued bv them. Accord-
iiigly wo find, that wherever there
are great buildings there are
great men.
As in the hurry' and business
of every-day life men pass by the
great structures, it may be of a
former age, a sentiment will take
possession of them. It may be
indefinite, it may' be vague, but
nevertheless it is lofty. It must
impress them with the thought
that there is something great in
this world, and also that there
is something great out of it. They'
must feel that those vast combi
nations of the material are only
solidified emblems of the spiritual
—a fac-simile in granite of some
thing great in thought. They
learn that there is something else
to live for besides the mere
necessities of animal existence.
They see that those who have
gone before them have expended
vast sums, not for meat and for
drink and for raiment, but for the
ideal.
Thus their minds are lifted fiom
grosser things to those pure re
gions of thought where our spirits
ought to roam and find their
pleasures. Thus are they weaned
from meaner pursuits, and taught
to live for some higher and no
bler end than the mere sustenance
of animal life. Thus are they
elevated above the mere terres
trial, and fitted for the celestial.
Thus the tall shaft and the lofty
dome, or the piercing spire,
reaches towards heaven, more by
a figure than in literal height. It
carries the spirit of men with it,
as far as it goes, and then be
comes the stepping-stone whence
tlie spirit reaches higher.—H. H.
Tucker, D.D.
RAIN AVORTH $1,000,000 AN
INCH.
The San Francisco Chronicle
of Jan. 17th say’s; “An en
thusiastic citizen declared y’estei-
day that an incli of rain in this
State was worth a million dollars.
He certainly did not over-estmate
in this instance. The agricultu
ral products of this State were
worth last year not less than
$70,000,000. With no more
rain than has fallen this year up
to the 10th of January, only the
fruit crop would havo matured.
Grapes would have done tolerably
well, but the cereal crops would
have been a failure. Three or
four inches of rain, in addition to
what has fallen within the last
two days, will be sufficient to
mature most of these crops. Now
that the rain has come, it brings
also a promise of more. It has
has put heart into the whole far
ming community. They' will
shape all their operations for a
dry season—one with just enough
moisture to bring foward the crops
where the tillage is good.
“After the middle of January,
and in a dry season, we cannot
expect more than four or five
inches of rain at the most. If
this is well distributed we shall
get fair crops over a considerable
area. Except on irrigated lands
wheat and other cereals will be
a failure in the San Joaquin
Valley. Irrigating canals will
be pushed by' private enterprise,
and those who can turn water on
their lands this year will proba
bly find their account in high
prices for pasture, hay and grain.
There is little prospect that more
than twelve inches ot rain will
fall in any of the c a-t counfi( s or
in most of the interior valleys.
It is reasonably certain that it
will be relatively a dry season.
The present rains will revive the
pastures, which by frost and
drought had been nearly' ruined.
The grain crops will bo brought
forward. In many instances grain
sown late had not even sprouted;
'n others it had germinated and
died. Some fields will have to
be sown again. But in most
cases the rain will bring out
enough dorment seed to make a
Stood start.
“It is quite within bounds to
say that every inch of rain which
falls after this date will be worth
a million of dollars to the State ;
and every foot of snow on the
mountains will be worth nearly'
as much more to the miners.”
BALZAC’S START IN LITERA-
TFRE.
In the day when the Lord
shall pull up the four stakes of
your clay tent, and the last grain
ot sand shall be at the point of
falling down in your watchglass,
and the Master shall call the
servants of his viney'ard to give
them their hire, you will esteem
the bloom of this world’s glory
like the colors of the rainbow
that no man can put in his purse
and treasure. Your labor and
pains will then smile upon you.
Ah ! the feeding of Christ’s lambs
in private, in catechising, in pain
ful preaching, and fair, honest,
and free warning of the flock, is
a sufferer’s garland. Oh ! ten
thousand times blessed are they'
who are honored of Christ, to be
faithful and painful in wooing a
bride to Christ.—Butherford.
The first letter in the series is
address to his elder sister, Laure,
who afterward became Mme. de
Surville, and who, after her il
lustrious brother’s death, pub
lished in a small volume some
agreeable reminiscences of him.
For this lady' he had, especially
in his early' y'ears, a passionate
affection. He had in 1819 come
to Paris from Touraine, in which
province his family lived, to seek
his fortune as a man of letters.
The episode is a strange and
gloomy one. His vocation of
Literature had not been favorably
viewed at home, where monev
was scanty; but the parental
consent, or rathtr ihe parental tol
erance, was at last obtained for
experiment. The future author
of the “Pere Goriot” was at this
time but twenty years of age, and
in the way of symptoms of genius
had nothing but a very robust
self-confidence to show. His
family, who hud to contribute to
his support while his masterpieces
were a making, appear to have
regretted the absence of further
guarantees. He came to ' Paris,
however, and lodged in a garret,
where the allowance made him
by his father kept him neither
from shivering nor from nearly
starving. The situation had been
arranged in a way very charac
teristic of French manners. The
fact that Honore had gone to
Paris was kept a secret from the
friends of the family, who were
told that he was on a visit to a
cousin in the South. He was on
probation, and if he failed to ac
quire literary Renown, his excur
sion should "be hushed up. This
pious fraud did not contribute to
the comfort of the young scribbler,
who was afraid to venture abroad
by day lest he should be seen by
an acquaintance of the family.
Balzac must have been at this
time miserably' poor. If he goes
to the theatre, he has to pay for
the pleasure by lasting. He
wishes to see Talma (having to
go to the play to keep up the
fiction of his being in the South
in a lattice box.) T shall end
by giving in ... . My stomach
already trembles.” Meanwhile he
was planning a tragedy of “Crom
well,” which came to nothing,
and writing the “Heritidre do
Birague,” bis first novel, which
he sold for one hundred and sixty
dollars. Through these early
letters, in spite of his chilly cir
cumstances, there flows a current
of youthful ardor, gay'ety, and
assurance.—H. James, Jr., in Ihe
Galaxy for February.
—When Dr. James W. Alex
ander was on his dying bed,
some one said, “ I hope you are
able to .'ay, T know in whom I
have believed.’” “You do not
quote it right,” was the reply; .
“it is, ‘I know whom I have be
lieved.’ In an hour like this I
■would not have even a preposi
tion between me and my- Savior.”
It is only imperfection that
complains of what is imperfect.
Jbe more perfect we are, the more
gentle and quiet we become to
wards the detects of others.—
Fenelon.