Weekly Trinity journal. [volume] (Weaverville, Calif.) 1857-1972, 1864-11-12

| FOOD gulQeS ana CONDUCTORS OF those great
| terests that God has entrusted to womanhood.
Now say, and say with regret, that there are
certain tendencies in our California life-girls
! am speaking to you-certain tendencies in our
California life which not favorable to the
harmonious, delicate influences Of womanhood.
There is a coarsening influence in your air.
You know and see, and hear much that it we're
we'll you should not. You are too eager to get
forward in life not contented enough to be little
girls, or any kind of girls, but woman. You
press forward too eagerly and proudly into places
which you ought to shrink to take. You reed
to cultivate, in short, more of reserve, more of
that shrinking from the world, more of that del
icate retirement modesty of spirit which is
the true robe and grace of womanhood. know
how it has been in this country; how woman
here has had to buckle on and contend with the
fierce necessities of life, and become almost a
man. and to do a mans work, in a large part OF
the country And if that necessity is laid upon
woman, it is her duty and her honor to rise to
the occasion, and do whatever Divine Providence
has gil, en- her to do. But do not let us come to
think that women are merely men in petticoats.
Laughter Let us keep up at least the fiction
that Divine Providence has assigned different
place, different sphere, and different duties to
your sex. And California needs all the tender
ness, all the delicacy, all the discipline, that
comes from a gentle, affectonate, reserved,
modest race of young women
tell you this-that the domestic life Of Cali
fornia is the most unprOmising thing here that
YOU have not yet established it, nor even the
foundations of it that you do not yet know
what the true domestic life is. And nothing in
the world impresses itself upon the stranger so
painfully as that one thing, that domestic life
here is not yet fifty developed-is not yet upon
high plane standard, and there is much-oh,
how much Ito learn. There is one thing about
your climate that is q great calamity. lsuppose
you think it a privilege to be able to do without
fires to u considerable extent but oh do you
reflect what it is to be without fire on the
hearth to be without a Preside, and have no
Preside habits? Do you remember all the joys
connected with that sacred flame? Next to the
holy flame of pety, perhaps the most precious
that ever burns on any altar in the world is the
flame enkndled upon the family hearth. Now
you cannot change your climate, and you do not
want to, l suppose; but do strive to cultivate
more and more the home influence. And it falls
to you, young women, more than to any one
else, to do it it is your shoulders, girls that
the burden rests, to study what you can do to
make home more happy, more sacred, more re-
fined, more all it ought to be, and what | am
sure it is in your blood to make it, if you will
Applause.
has been mentioned, do understand that this is
the first school in which that has been attempt
cd in San Francisco -?
The Superintendent.-Th first public school.
The first public school in which it has been at
tempted in San Francisco
DR.. Bellows.-Well, as one who has long been
an observer in matters of education, | am glad
of the experiment l think it will succeed, and
it ought to. 1t falls exactly into the line of my
thought in regard to this community and its
wants. We do not want the sexes mixed too
early in this community we want to keep our
boys and girls in separate parcels for awhile
and believe you will find great advantage in it.
1t is deporable to me to hear that there are
SO many children who 60 to neither private nor
public schools. | declare, | think it would be
well to have the law of Prussia enforced here,
making it compulsory to send all children to
school. | think an enlightened community
would enforce such law. A man has no bust
ness and no right to grow up in ignorance If
he does, he is nuisance and peril to society.
He is a barrel of gunpowder in the midst of
lueifer matches, liable to 60 off at any moment.
1Laughter] Society has right to insist that
she shall not be annoyed by murderers, by
drunkards, and by every other form of evil and
peril that springs from ignorance, and especially
by men who know nothing of the duties of citi-
zenship, and have not intelligence enough to ap-
preciate the value of schools and churches, and
colleges and all the institutions of An enlight-
ened Government. Therefore, when the Gov
eminent comes to understand its duties, believe
it will in this country at least, make it impara-
tive upon every parent to send his children to
school wish it were a penal offense to bring
up child in ignorance. These two thousand
more boys, now running IDLY about your
streets-their precise number do not know
but know there is enough of them to fill my
mind with much solicitude and anxiety. As
have heard and seen them around the streets
and squares perhaps with cigars in their mouths,
talking disgusting profanity and obscenity,
have said to myself, what is to become of a city
in which hundreds of q -hoys," as they call
them in New York, are suffered to grow up in
ignorance, idleness, and vice, to be hereafter let
loose to undermine the foundations Of social and
political order?
Build school-houses, in Gods name, as the
greatest of all social economies. Tax your citi-
zens, no matter how much, for education. I say
every dollar a man pays for education, puts a
dollar in his own pocket. 1t insures his house ;
it insures his life it insures his property it is
the cheapest kind of insurance he can effect.
And therefore, all this idle, ridiculous talk about
the cost of schools, the cost of churches, and
the cost of whatever regulates, stimulates, and
eevates the mind and heart of man, is the alb
surd and superficial gable of persons without
hearts or minds of intelligence. Let US never
listen to it, hope the Board Of Education will
make the cars of the city ring, if there are any
complaints about the demands that may be made
upon the city, for the cause of education. Not
tuat ShiC muSu ioE tuc Uchuty Vi CuuICucb VI
school-houses care great deal more for con-
venience, and ventilation, and ampleness Of
room, than for mere architectural beauty. Let
us have them built at any rate, and then, if we
can, let us beautify and adorn the temples of re-
ligion and education, for they deserve all the
honors we can give them. They are the pillars
Of the State, and let their columns be wreathed
with flowers carved with beautiful shapes, and
decorated and adorned with all that skill and
taste, and genius can impart to them. ZAP
plapse]. But if we cannot have the ornaments
let us have what is all-essential, room enough,
air enough. light enough, and what 10 more i'm
portant than all else. yise earnest, apt teachers
Let have in schools men and women
who are apt to teach. Aptness to teach 10 not
in proportion 70 knowledge. Some men are
like full bottles, 90 fAsd Nth knowledge that
you cannot get anything out of them. Aptness
is the especial faculty and fitness Of the teacher
have been in colleges where. perhaps, one
young man would be ths only inspiriag profes-
sor engaged in teaching, and ID the others would
be SO scholastic, such mere bookworms, and 20
! absorbed in learning, that to them teaching