St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1895-08-02
Correspondence.
A PREscRIPrroNFoR S SUMNER REST
[For THE CALEDoNIAN.]
20 ever wet and watery sea,
II ] could just write poetry,
I'd rattle off ode to thee,

"a rattle off ode to thee,
hully gee!'
If first impressions are best, perhaps
mine, gathered during a nine days visit
to a summer institute may be of value to
the readers of THE CALIFORNIAN. Still
more, because given by one somewhat
outside the sacred pale of teacherhood
AS simple nobody, was somewhat
ashamed to tell my friends was going
to Martha's Vineyard not to see sights,
not alone to battle in the briny ocean,
but to go to school.
ITO school, to school l did go one day."
and now, having been, not only tell the
whole world but urge to go as large
part of it as may, not especially that
part which nine months in the year is
interested in school work and life, but
the great "unsubmerged" those, who hav-
ing taste for some special department
OF study are too old, have not time nor
means, have family cares, or for any
reason are not able to enter college or
seminary.
Perhaps it is botany to whose fascina-
tions you have suddenly awakened. If
so, why not take your magnifer, your
tools and slides and go study with
others, in laboratory and field, the seven
hundred specimens of the island fora
recorded since 1881 the algae both of
the sea and fresh water, which together
make Martha's Vineyard the best of
collecting grounds?
Join the class in Nature Study and
possibly you will no longer think any
hour in the morning too early to re-
spond to the calls up and see Nature
put off her nightcap, do her sprinkling,
her ironing and donning of robes of
sweetest freshness" or away to the
fields and hear the boboinks sing at sun
rise
THE sweetest song of sweetest June,
Bubbling, doubling, brightly troubling,
BuDDnng rapturously, madly,
Maybe, it is scientific subject, which,
when you graduated twenty years ago
had little or nothing to show as a
department of study. Go then and learn
of the constant changes in scientific
thought. Go, if you gain only list of
the standard works Of the past ten
years, standard for year only may be-
Go, if you have taste for elocution or
oratory, which has never been cultivated.
lady seventy-tive years old was the
most interested and interesting in class
of seventy or more, of all ages and pro-
LESSONS. Go We preachers, that the
words, Come We to the waters, come
ye,' may tell the "old, old story" with
greater tenderness and power. Go We
lawyers, that your word of honest con.
viction may carry the truth to 1.-THE
twelve" who hold so much of destiny in
their hands.
Oh, to be able to interpret the thoughts
of others or to think on ones feet and
express those thoughts in winning, soul
stirring manner. For what higher gift
could one strive?
Go you who have no special interest.
Such lectures as those given the first
week by Prof. Palmer upon selfcultiva-
ton in English and The Moral Resources
of the Teacher would be helpful to every
man or woman in the land. The one
given by his wife, woman bubbling
over with mother and teacher love for
girls, upon The Present Opportunities for
College Trained Women, would wake up
the most giddy butterfly in society's
whirl to ask, For what am | fitting
myself"
To see how one may become so alb
sorbed in a study as to think no other
like it in interest will pay you for going.
When, at the opening session OF the insti-
tute, each professor spoke of his chosen
field of work it seemed as difficult to
decide which to study, as for the mother
in the little poem, (Which shall it be ?"
to decide which OF her children to give up
MARY, Robert or Willie"
Go YOU invalids, for whom life has no
Sweets, maybe you will find dyspepsia
nervous prostraton and neuralgia are
not the most interesting subjects of con-
versation in the world. Maybe they will
disappear as imaginations or even facts
in your life and you will be so ecstatical-
" happy that you will pass the prescrip-
ton along, and then what world of
gladness we shall have.
A prescription for summer rest don't
believe in such rest, you say. No, not
for those who have no need. Isn't
change from what one has been doing or
something added to, it the best rest for
those who have longings? Might not
investigation in an indoor or outdoor
school room, and sea bathing be the best
change for many?
Go where the waves are breaking,
Go while the schools in session,
Go where men wise are leading,
Go now and gain mission.
There. what better evidence of the
development which summer school can
give could be given She who pleads
never before uttered such lofty thoughts,
never spake with poets tongue. Pos
sibly l was "voceless" poet before, but
now, oh, what am /? X. Nj. ii.
St. Johnsbury, July 20.
N. b. | have not written in the inter
est of any summer institute but for those
who would have something new come
into their lives. have not said where
in Martha's Vineyard summer school
might be found. Oh, no.
| would add one word for the sake OF
advertising spiritual helps, namely, there
are Methodist and Baptist camp meet
ings to be held at Cottage City, Martha's