Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1861-05-11

'SoNhVio AHub tNOty v
himself anything that he really chooses t.
make. They resort to this theory to rous'
the ambition Of their more sluggish pupils
and thus get more study out of them
have known entire schools instructed to ain
a. the highest places in society, and the
most exalted Offices of life. have knowt
enthusiastic old fools who made it tbeiI
principal business to go from school tc
school, and talk such stuff to the pupils a:
would tend to unfit every one Of humble
circumstances and slender possibilities for
the life that lay before him. The fact is
peFsistently ignored, in many Of these
schools, established emphatically for the
education Of the people, that the majority
Of the people, that the majority of the pla.
ces in this world are subordinate and low
places. Every boy and girl is taught to be
something in the world, which would be
very well if being something were being
what God intended they should be but
when being something involves the trans.
formation of what God intended should be
a respectable shoemaker into very indit-
ferent and o very slow minister of the g os-
| pei, the harmful aud even the ridiculous
character Of the instruction becomes ap-
parent @ sH.Fr
There are two classes of evil results at
tending the inculcalion of these favorite
| doctrines of the school teachers-frst, the
uniting of men and women for humble
places, and second the impulsion of men
OF feeble power into high places, for
the duties of which they have neither nat
ural nor acquired fitness. There are no
longer any American girls who go out to
service in families. They went into mills
from the chamber and the kitchen, but now
they have left the mills and their places
are filled by Scotch and Irish girls Why
Is this Is it because that among the
American girls there are none of poverty,
and of humble pOwersY Is it because they
are not wanted ? Or is it because they
have become united for such services as
these, and feel above them Is it not be.
cause they have become possessed of no
tions that would render them uncomforta.
hIe in family service, and render any fam.
Iy they might serve uncomfortable An
American servant, who good-naturedly ac-
cepts her condition, and knows and loves
her place, who is willing to acknowledge
that she has mistress, and who enters in
to her department of the family life as a
harmonious and happy member, may exist,
but do not know her. People have ceas.
ed inquiring for American servants. They
would like them, generally, because they
are intelligent and Protestant, but they
cannot get them because they are unwilling
to accept service, and the obligations and
conditions it imposes. Where all the Anne
rican girls are, do not know. can re
member the time when thrifty farmers, me-
chanlcs and tradesmen took wives from the
kitchens OF gentlemen where they were EN-.
ployed d,-good, intelligent, self respectful
women they were, too-who became mod.
est mistrcsses of thrifty families afterward;
but that is all done with now. Under
the present mode of education nobody is
fitted for q low place, and everybody is
taught to look for high one.
1t we go into school exhibition, our
ears are dearened by defamation addressed
to the ambition The boys have sought
out from literature every stirring appeal to
effort, and every extraVagant promise of
reward. The compositions of the girls are
OF the same general tone. We hear of in.
finite yearnings,' from the lips of girls who
do not know enough to make pudding
and of being polished after the similitude of
palace from those who do not comprehend
the commonest duties of life Everything
is on the high pressure principle. The boys,
all of them, have the general idea that
everything that is Necessary to become great
men is to try for it +; and each one snppo
ses it possible for him to become governor
of the state, or president of the Union.
The idea of being educated to GIL humble
Office in lite is hardly thought Of aud every
pumpkin who has memory sufficient for
The words repeats the stunza - r...r
"Lives OF great men all remind US
We can make our live sublime,
And departing, leave behind US
Footprints Ou the sands of time"
There is fine ring to this familiar oua.
t ain of Mr.. Longfellow, but it is NOTHING
more than musical cheat. 1t sounds like |
truth, but it is q lie. The lives of great
men all remind us that they have made their
own memory sublime, but they do not as.
sure us at all that we can leave footprints
like theirs behind US. If you do not be.
Ile'0 ~ ~ W tuS C0h0tiJ yOuuef. 1here |
they lie-ten thousand upturned faces |
ten thousand breathless bosoms. There
was time when fire flashed in those vacant
orbits, aud warm ambitious pulsed 10 those
boSoms Dreams OF fame aud power once |
haunted those hollow skulls. Those little
piles of bones that once were feet ran swift. |
ly and dererminedly through forty, Gfty
sixty, seventy years Of live but where are |
the prints they left lie lived-he died
be was buried'-iS all that the headstone
tells u.s. We move among the monuments
we see the sculpture, but no voice comes to
us to say that the sleepers are remembered
for anything they ever did. Natural affec.
tiou pays its tribute TO its departed object
a generation passes by, the stone grows
gray, and the man has ceased TO be, and ia
TO the world as if he had never lived. Why
is it that no more have left name behind
them Simply because they were not en-. |
dowed by their Maker with the power to
do it, and because the Offices of life are
mainly humble requiring only humble DOW
ers for their ful6llment. The cemeteries of
one hundred years hence will be like those
of to-day. OF all those now 10 the schools
of this country, dreaming Of fame, not one
in twenty thousand will be heard of then,