Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1853-12-31
DULL CHILDREN.


No fact be palmer that this 1t is impossible
to judge correctly ofthe genius intellectual ability
Of the future man by the indications Of childhood.
Some Of the most eminent men Of oil ages were re-
markabe only for duness in their youth. Sir Isaac |
Newton nh his boyhood inattentive to his study,
and ranked very low in school until the age of
twelve. When Samuel Wythe, the Dublin school |
master, attempted to educate Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, he pronounced the boy ''incorrigible
Ounce" The mother of Sheridan fully concurred
in this verdict, and declared him the most stupid OF
her sons Goldsmith was dull in his youth, and
Shakespear, Gibbon, Davy and Dryden do not ap-
pear TO have exhibited in their childhood even the
common elements offuture success.
! When Berzellus, the eminent Swedish chemist
left sccoo for the univerity, the words, indifferent
in Behavior and Of doubtful hope" were scored
against his name and after he entered tho univer-
| sity, he narrowly escaped being turned back. On
one of his first visits to the laboratory when nine
teen years old, he was tauntcd with the inquiry
whether he understood the difference between
laboratory and Kitchen" Walter Scott had the
credit Of having 'the thickest skull in the school,
though Dr. Blair told the teacher that many bright
rays of future genius shone through that same
thick skull"
Milton and Swift were justly celebrated for stu
lpidity in childhood. The great Isaac Barrows fa-
ther used to say that if it pleased God to take from
him any Of his children he hoped it might be Isaac,
as the least promising. Clavius the great mathe-
that his teacher could make nothing of him till they
tried him in geometry. Carrac the celebrated
painter, napt in his youth, that his masters
advised him to restrict his ambition to the grinding
of colours.
"One ofthe most popular authoresscs of the pre-
sent day." says an English writer, 'could not read
when she was seven. Her mother rather un-
comfortable about it, but said, as everybody did
! learn, with opportunity, she supposed her child
would do so at last. BY eighteen, the apparently
slow genius paid the heavy but inevitable debts Of
her father from the profits of her first work. and be-
fore thirty, had published thirty volume" Dr. Scott
7 the commentator, could not compose theme when
twelve years old; and even at later age, DIR Adam
Clark, after incredible effort failed to commit to
memory poem of few stanzas only. At nine
Justice in this country, was, during whole winter,
unable to commit to memory the little poem found
q in one of our school-books
Labour and patience are the wonder-workers OF
c man-the wand by whose magic touch he changes
dross into gold, detormity into beauty, the desert
into garden, and the ignorant child into the vener
n able sage. Let no youth be given up incor
rigible dolt victim only to be laid upon the altar
Of stupidity, until labour and patience have strug
ged with him long enongh to ascertain whether hi
); is natura foo" or whether his mind is merely
. enclosed in harder she'll than common requiring
only little outward aid to escape into vigorous anC
!, symmetrical life-JourndI Of Education
e THE RAILWAY OF LITE-We were journeyinI
upon the railway crashing past the hamlets anC
fields following the terrible iron horse in his mac
If speed.
Y And presently arriving at tunnel scoopec
through the hollow rock, plunged into darkness
# stunned with roaring echoes, and enyeloped il
d flashing sparks.
Il Thus on, until we emerged, and then gaze,
r Ground me. to discover if the faces of my felloy
passengers were not white with fear.
But no one seemed shaken, and the convers
Il went on quietly as ever.
|, Then marveng, said to ono beside me:-
@ "Were you not afraid when we passed through
n the darkness and amid the p"
But he laughed, and answered: "The conducto
takes care of u.s. There is no more danger in tn,
. dark tunnel than on the open road" 10
u Then said secretly in my own bosom, GLOW, i
men have faith in this railroad conductor, shall
distrust my Heavenly Father? The Almight,
Conductor Is He who guideth us safely through th'
darkness and the roaring echoes Of adyersity intt
the broad light of day"