Vermont telegraph. [volume] (Brandon [Vt.]) 1828-1843, 1843-07-05
UNCLE SAM ON pHRENoLoeY.

UNCLE SAM ON PHRENOLOGY.
This popular work. understood to be from the
pen of Fowler, the Psychologist, has chapter in
which l find the following admirable touches on
existing evils:
Please now 10 go back with US in idea
to the Fourth of July last, which came on
The fifth, as brother Erin would say.
The one vast sentiment was, GLORIOUS
day, aud Independence forever" Gun,
drum, trumpet, toast, and hurrah, sent
forth the annual boast of the nation, that
it was the most free, enlightened, virtuous,.
and happy on earth. Oar bosom, too,
filled up with the same swell of glory as
the powder thunder cracked the dayopeu.
We felt as mighty as the wind shaking
ten thousand banners, and as magnificent
as morning adniring its own image in all
the waters. But, alas our swell went
sadly down, our mightiness felt smal,a nd
our inagnihcence grew quite dim before
night. Ga, what sights did we behold
on that anniversary! This was the cause
of our detection. Similar spectacles we
had beheId on other days, and nnumera-
bic times before, but they never affected
US SO deeply as now. |! might have been
because the new moral impulses of the
age had quickened our conscience.
Our nature is peculiar, sui generis, as
| you are aware, and so, of course, are our
optics. They exercise that sort of eye
sight termed the ideal. BY this, though
our central spot and grand observatory
are at the capital. we can look the land
through as easily as Science can See thro'
its telescope. r. "-..
We will now put down some single
cases, the like oil which we observed by
the thousand; also some local and ind!-.
vidual spectacles, together with general
conditions fittings through the country.
Ga the aforesaid anniversary, we were
first panied by glimpse ola certain hus-
band and wife. We could not help hear
ing, likewise, unless we had stopped our
sense on purpose. They were Seeding
and swapping at each other like he and
she demons. 1t seemed as if Wedock
was purgdtory Of punishment for the
folly of not knowing each other before
they married. .=..:". .~..
Then we observed family of child
rem, the oldest more than half grown up,
who could not read the word rags which
was the name of their dress, nor even A
B G. The father was somewhat sinff-
larIy clad, and fully DIS iliterate. He
was swearing like fend at his second
son because he had been gone so long to
get" :ha! jug" filled. He had been wait
ing ten minutes for his frs. morning
dram. The wife looked as if her ear
was so accustomed to swearing, that she
thought no more of it than of the old
floors creaklng under the swearer's tread.
We next noticed a schoolroom this
was empty, however, as it was a holvday :.
but 1t sci US to contemplating the imper-
feet condition of education the country
through. We saw million oflhe young,
boxed up six hours in day, in bad air,
too, perhaps, TO learn not much more than
words, and large portion Of them words
conveying no more sense TO the learner
than this mornings connon-sounds con-
veVed sense TO their echoes. Here is the
great schoolhonse OF nature, full FITTINGS,
things, things, with life and without it,
and all arranged in an order that spelling
books and dictionaries are a chaos to;
yet they are mostly as unstudied as ifthere
were no fingers to touch or eyes to see
with. Then, again, morals, 10 their true
import and due extent, are almost entirely
neg lected in most OF these seminaries, lust
as if scholars should hear about them on
the Sabbath, with their clean shirts on,
and not put them ln practice with each
other on the rough-andtumble weekday.
! We even ventured our scrutiny upon
the lofty College and loflier Uoiversity.
, And what there2 A chasm as deep and
as dark as antiquity between official Dig
nIty and its subjects. DC one side ofthis
profundity, in particular spot, at a par
ucular Louf, was certain machine call
led a professor, or one very little small
er, called tutor, placed beside another
machine called timepiece; while this
tucked determinate number OF minutes,
1.-The other uttered a few formal words from
a sort of mouth and tongue it had, and
heard, in return. what are termed recita-
tions-or, rather, it appeared TO hear. as
, 1t had something like pair OF ears. One
:. would almost think it to be real man In
some respects, were it not SO unlike a
man in others. But when the automaton
lstopped, those reciters on the other side of
The gull. how they eapered away into nat
oral and genial life again, caring no more
tor that recitation machine over across