Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

bond of this stamp, and endeavoring to entice him to come to school with the bribe of a baked potato."

5. His methods of tuition were somewhat original. He collected all sorts of refuse hand-bills and scraps of printed and written paper, which he found lying anywhere uselessly about, and with these he contrived to teach reading and spelling. With the younger children his manner was particularly pleasant. He would ask them the names of different parts of their body, make them spel the words, and signify their uses. For instance, taking hold of a child's hand, he would say, “What do you call this?" and, having received his answer, direct him to spell the word. Then, giving the hand a playful slap, he would ask, "What do I do?" and teach him next to spell the word expressive of the

act.

6. Should this remind any one of Mr. Squeers's analogous method of teaching a boy to spell "horse," and then, by way of emphatic illustration, sending him to rub such an animal down, that he might the better remember his lesson, it will be proper to recollect the different pretensions of the parties, and not to confound an ignorant charlatan with an honest and benevo lent person, who performs his work with conscientious considera tion, and according to the extent of his ability and means.

7. Writing and arithmetic were taught by John Pounds to the elder pupils, in a manner to give them a creditable degree of skill in those branches. Many of the boys he taught to mend their shoes, to cook their food, and perform a variety of useful services for themselves and others. Not only did he superintend their sports and personal habits, but the generous and considerate teacher likewise exerted himself in curing their bodily ailments, such as chilblains, and coughs, and the manifold cuts and bruises to which the children of the poor are continually exposed. Often he shared his own scanty and homely provisions with destitute and forsaken" children. He acknowledged universal kinship with the neglected and unhappy.

8. The sort of education which John Pounds was enabled to give was doubtless very imperfect; but it was infinitely preferable to none at all. He had ample assurances that his steadfast labors, adhered to through a long life, were not fruitless. Coming home from foreign service or a distant voyage, often would some tall soldier, or rough jovial sailor, now grown up out of alı remembrance, call to shake hands with him, and confess the benefits he had received from his instruction. These were proud occasions for the poor and modest cobbler. Other recompense than this he had scarcely any. So quietly and unobtrusively had he all along pursued his purpose, that comparatively few

persons, of the respectable sort in the world's estimation, knew anything of his proceedings.

9. It was the wish of John Pounds that his labors might terminate only with his life. The thought of lingering out any portion of his days uselessly and helplessly was a painful one for him to entertain; and it was his hope to go off suddenly, in the way, as he said, "in which a bird drops from his perch." The desire of his soul was granted. On the first of January, 1839, he expired suddenly, from a rupture of one of the large vessels of the heart, at the house of a gentleman whom he had called upon to thank for certain acts of kindness recently rendered to his establishment.

EI

10. A little boy who was with him at the time carried the intelligence to his assembled school-fellows, who were all instantly overwhelmed with sorrow and consternation. Some of the younger ones returned to the house for several successive days, looking painfully about the room, and apparently unable to comprehend the reality of the loss they had sustained. Old and young, in a numerous and motley assemblage, followed his body to the grave, and saw him to his rest with tears and blessings.

A

11. One cannot sufficiently admire the heartiness and generosity of this poor man's labors. Patiently from year to year he went on, quietly performing these daily acts of charity and mercy, without needing or expecting anybody's approbation, or even conceiving that he was doing anything remarkable. good man and a true one, he flung the benefits of his sympathy, and of such talents as he possessed, over all that seemed to need them; finding a joyful satisfaction in being useful to such as had no helper, and leaving, with an assured heart, the results of his endeavors to that universal Providence which heeds and nurtures whatever seeds of goodness are sown anywhere in the world. No slightest service to humanity can be lost, but successfully proclaims itself, or works silently to some benefit.

[blocks in formation]

1. AWAY to that snug nook! For, the thick shower
Rushes on stridingly. Ay, now it comes,
With its first drips glancing about the leaves
Like snatches of faint music. Joyous thrush!
It mingles with thy song, and beats soft time
To thy exulting measure.
Pattering, like the far voice of leaping rills;
And now it breaks upon the shrinking clumps
With a crash of many sounds. The thrush is still.

Now it falls

[ocr errors]

2. There are sweet scents about us: the violet hides
On that green bank; the primrose sparkles there;
The earth is grateful to the teeming clouds,
And yields a sudden" freshness to their kisses.
But now the shower slopes off to the warm west,
Leaving a dewy track; like falling pearls
The big drops glisten in the sunny mist.
The air is clear again, and the far woods
In their early green shine out. Let's onward, then,
For the first blossoms peep about our path,
The lambs are nibbling the short, dripping grass,
And the birds are on the bushes.

[blocks in formation]

1. "Nor to myself alone,"

The little opening flower transported cries,
"Not to myself alone I bud and bloom ;
With fragrant breath the breezes I perfume,82
And gladden all things with my rainbow dyes.
The bee comes sipping, every eventide,

His dainty fill;

The butterfly within my cup doth hide
From threatening ill."

2. "Not to myself alone,"

The circling stars with honest pride doth boast,
"Not to myself alone I rise and set;

I write upon night's coronal" of jet

His power and skill who formed our myriad host;
A friendly beacon at heaven's open gate,

I gem the sky,

That man might ne'er forget, in every fate,
His home on high."

3. "Not to myself alone,"

The heavy-laden bee doth murmuring hum,

[ocr errors]

Not to myself alone, from flower to flower,
I rove the wood, the garden, and the bower,
And to the hive at evening weary come;
For man, for man, the luscious food I pile
With busy care,

Content if he repay my ceaseless91 toil
With scanty share."

4 "Not to myself alone,"

The soaring bird with lusty pinion sings,
"Not to myself alone I raise my song;

I cheer the drooping with my warbling tongue,
And bear the mourner on my viewless wings;

I bid the hymnless59 churl my anthem learn,
And God adore;

I call the worldling from his dross to turn,
And sing and soar."

5. "Not to myself alone,"

The streamlet whispers on its pebbly way,
"Not to myself alone I sparkling glide;
I scatter health and life on every side,
And strew the fields with herb and floweret gay.
I sing unto the common, bleak and bare,
My gladsome tune;40

I sweeten and refresh the languid air
In droughty June.”¤

6. "Not to myself alone:"

O man, forget not thou, earth's honored priest,
Its tongue, its soul, its life, its pulse, its heart, -
In earth's great chorus to sustain thy part!
Chiefest of guests at Love's ungrudging feast,
Play not the niggard; spurn thy native clod,
And self disown;

Live to thy neighbor; live unto thy God;
Not to thyself alone!

[blocks in formation]

1. THERE are two theories in regard to the origin of lan guage. One would put language on the same level with the vari ous arts and inventions with which man has gradually adorned and enriched his life. It might, I think, be sufficient to object to this explanation, that language would then be an accident of human nature; and, this being the case, that we should somewhere encounter tribes sunken so low as not to possess it; even as there is no human art or invention, though it be as simple and obvious as the preparing of food by fire, but there are those who have fallen below its exercise.

ΕΙ

2. But with language it is not so. There have never yet been found human beings- not the most degraded horde of South Africa Bushmen, or Papuan" Cannibals who did not employ this means of intercourse with one another. Man starts with language as God's perfect gift, which he only impairs and forfeits by sloth and sin, according to the same law which holds good in respect to every other of the gifts of Heaven.

30

3. The true answer to the inquiry, how language arose, is this that God gave man language, just as Hel gave him reason, and just because He gave him reason. Yet this must not be taken

to affirm that man started at the first 101 furnished with a fullformed vocabulary of words, and as it were with his dictionary and first grammar ready-made to his hands." He did not thus begin the world with names, but with the power of naming; for man is not a mere speaking-machine. God did not teach him words, as one of us teaches a parrot, from without; but He gave him a capacity, and then evoked the capacity which he gave.

40

4. Here, as in everything else that concerns the primitive constitution, the great original institutes of humanity, our best and truest lights are to be gotten from the study of the first three chapters of Genesis. You will observe that there it is not God who imposed the first names on the creatures, but Adam; Adam, however, at the direct suggestion of his Creator.

5. Man makes his own language, but he makes it as the bee makes its cells, as the bird its nest. How this latent power evolved itself first, how this spontaneous generation of language came to pass, is a mystery, even as every act of creation is a mystery. Yet we may perhaps a little help ourselves to the realizing of what the process was, and what it was not, if we liken it to the growth of a tree springing out of and unfolding itself from a root, and according to a necessary law; that root being the divine capacity of language with which man was created; that law being the law of highest reason with which he was endowed.

20

6. Language is full of instruction, because it is the embodiment of the feelings and thoughts and experiences of a nation, yea, often of many nations, and of all which through centuries they have attained to and won. "Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests."

7. The mighty moral instincts100 which have been working in the popular mind have found therein their unconscious voice; and the single kinglier spirits, that have looked deeper into the heart of things, have oftentimes gathered up all they have seen into some one word which they have launched upon the world, and with which they have enriched it forever, making in that new word a region of thought to be henceforward in some sort the common heritage of all.

[ocr errors]

8. Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved. It has arrested ten thousand lightning flashes of genius, which, unless thus fixed and arrested, might have been as bright, but would

98

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »