Morning journal and courier., 1881-09-08
farm laborers have never been as well of as they are now, in spite of the high prices.

man in Port Jervis, New York, died in
 consequence of eating one hundred and fifty
 baked clans, and as this event might be
 taken as an imputation upon the good name
 and fame of the bivalve, whose healthfulness
 has been proved by abundant experience to
 be concomitant only with the limitations of
 the stomach, the Providence JournaJ feels
 called upon to defend the clam, the
 pride and glory of Rhode Island It says :
 ''In all the long and glorious history of
 Rhode Island the individual who died of a
 surfeit of baked clans is unknown, and daily
 piles of clam shells beside the plates of the
 native and the stranger to which the meagre
 meal of the Port Jervis ascetic would appear
 but a lunch or preliminary whet to the appe-
 tite for the real dinner. Upon reflection.
 however, we remember that in the benighted
 province of Manhattan everything bearing the shape of clam, long neck, mussel and
 quahaug, is called a clam, and that among
 these monsters of the beach specimens could
 be found capable of staying the strongest man. But even were they properly cooked
 which is also nearly an impossibility outside of Rhode Island, death from their effects should no more be attributed to the harmless clam of the pure breed than poison by toad stools allowed to cast blight on the fair fame of the genuine mushroom. We are obliged to take this Port Jervis decedent as myth or to conclude that he fed on razor fish or half baked quahaugs, in which case his death, though deplorable, would be en- tirsly natural, Until some thing more is shown the Rhode Island clam may be con sidered perfectly healthy up to bushel o, so, beyond which the ordinary individuaI should not go." Those who have eaten clans in Rhode Island will not be surprised by the statements and the earnestness of the Jour- ndl.
 Superintendent Luckey of Pittsburg calls attention to the fact that how best to teach children the correct use Of the English Ian guage is one of the unsolved problems of the age and adds that children in the primary de partments should be required to talk much and their errors should be carefully corrected by the teacher. He suggests that each pupil should be required to give a short descrip tion each day of something he has seen on his way to or from school, or to repeat in his own words short story previously read aloud by the teacher. Mir. Lucksy thinks that the grammar department pupils should be obliged to write great deal, especially letters. And with great good sense he sug gests that in the upper grades the teaching ot and history be conducted in con- nection with current events. ''For example, he says, ''let the daily paper be judiciously ,ulled by the teacher, and the principal tems of local, national and foreign news placed on the blackboard and discussed by he teacher, while the pupils locate upon their maps the several places referred to. By this ! means the pupil is familiarized with the main vents transpiring in the great world that ies outside and beyond all textbooks and ! play grounds. The pupil who has traced out I lpon this map the proposed route | if the Nicaraguan Canal finds an interest in geography which does not sually attach to a cape, an isthmus, or an rchipelago, and so on. This exercise brings | nto play all the mental faculties of the pu- 'il; his powers of observation are trained is thinking becomes accurate; he begins to orm opinions, and, grasping generalities, he not confined to details his faculties for cquiring information are no longer circum- | cribed by the four walls of the schoolroom, | ut he reaches out, and in his acquaintance 7ith the world becomes 8 cosmopolitan The use of the daily paper textbook, in he hands of the teacher. cannot, in my pinion, be overestimated."