Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1870-03-24
The RUTLAND HERALD,
SATURDAY. MARCH 10, 1870.
The Educating Power of the News
paper in the Home.

ifications of the family, depend almost en-
tirely the comfort and happiness OF the
home. The denizen of the town or city
may find social enjoyment, quiet rest or
pleasant amusement outside the home cir
Gle The lyceum, lecture room, theatre
OF concert the well-lighted and cheerful
saloon or billiard-room the losfer's street
corner, or the inviting reception room of
a friend, furnish refuge from a disagree
able or prosy home, to which the dweller
in town or city can fly lat any time ; but
the 1oorld of the rural resident is home,
where instruction, comfort and amuse-
ment, or dullness, discomfort or misery
must be enjoyed or endured. Upon
the practical education of the home, espe-
cially the country home, therefore de-
ponds, in great measure, the happiness
or misery, the social elevation and intel
lectual advancement, of the great mass of
men who will rule the future destiny OF
the American people. The principles OF
right education in the home will be called
in almost daily use in all ones future life.
Where the homo education is rightly
directed there no lack OF subjects for
interesting and profitable conversation
are ever to be found, where the varying
changes of nature furnish subjects of
thought and investigation. The object
of early education should be to prepare the
mind for future requirements and were
the inmates of the home educated to seek
knowledge from every day surroundings,
the intelligence of the next generation
would be secured.
There is one great power of the educa-
ton of the home, little appreciated, the
home education of books, newspapers and
magazines. The value Of good daily or
weekly newspaper, and a good literary
magazine each month, as means of educa-
ton, can scarcely be estimated A child,
10 whom school privileges have been linn
tied or denied, but who each day spends
an hour or two in the perusal of news
prints and periodicals will far tstrip,
10 intelligence and practical knowledge,
one to whom a good academic education
has been given, but who has been depriv-
ed of these great helps to education. More
Geography would be acquired and remem-
bored by the daily reader of the news
paper, in the necessary search for the To- |
cation of places made interesting by pre-
sent transporting events, than by the |
student who learns without anything to |
impress the knowledge upon his memory.
Better use of language would be obtained
by one accustomed to reading the well |
studied language of our best writers, than
the study of abstract grammer for years. |
If the school teacher even were daily as |
sisted by the editor in his task of training
the young idea, the result would be a well |
developed mind, taught to use knowledge
as well as acquire it.
Where newspapers and periodicals are
read by family, no dearth of interesting |
subjects of conversation will be found. A |
home where true reciprocity of thought |
and feeling exist, and where topics of
thought and conversation, interesting to |
one, are understood and appreciated by |
all, presents more interesting picture
than that in which each member is in
formed only on those subjects, pertaining
to their own peculiar vocations where
business and politics aye discussed in one |
corner by the men, and domestic duties
and neighborhood gossip by the women
in another, and where there can therefore
be no true social union. The children of
the home should therefore be taught to
read the newspapers and periodicals reg
ularly, to understand the general and pc.
litical news as we'll as the literary por-
ton of the paper. In reading the
agricultural paper, the farm as well as
the garden should receive attention, and
though, of course, their greatest interest
will be given to those things which affect
their own occupations, children may,
with slight effort, become helpers and
advisers, and in any sudden emergency,
cake part in directing affairs as we'll as
will the household be practically educat-
ed to perform the duties of their POSITIONS
understandingly; to entertain friends
with intelligent conversation, md beauti-
fly home with cultivated taste, THUS is the
educating power of the rightly directed
and moral influence OF she public press
felt in all the relations and occupations Of
lie through the reading received by them
IN the home circle, silently but power
fully leaving its impress on the mind and
heart of the truly cultivated hnrna.