rally do, because they must. Many submit to it, as in some sort a degrading necessity; and they desire nothing so much on earth as an escape from it. This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system, under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and feasting. It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away. Ashamed to toil! Ashamed of thy dingy workshop and dusty labor-field; of thy hard hand, scarred with service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother Nature has embroidered mist, sun, and rain, fire and steam-her own heraldic honors! Ashamed of those tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity! It is treason to nature; it is impiety to heaven: it is breaking heaven's great ordinance. Toil-toil, either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand—is the only true manhood, the only true nobility! THANKSGIVING. OUR hearts are full of memories of the good old Christmas times, Ring out the merry Christmas bells, and sing the songs we sung When our hearts were ALL Thanksgiving, and we worshiped God in truth, Contented with the priceless boons of home, and health, and youth. THE DYING YEAR. Ring out the joyful Christmas bells!-the same true mother's prayor 207 God bless the rough old Granite Land, and Plymouth's sea-washed rock; God bless all wandering children of the hardy Pilgrim stock. New England's wealth lies treasured, not in golden stream or glen, We are ever drawn, New England, trembling, quivering unto thee! THE DYING YEAR.-ALFRED TENNYSON. RING out wild bells to the wild sky, Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring out the grief that saps the mind, Ring out a slowly-dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife, Ring out the want, the care, the sin, Ring out false pride, in place and blood, Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold, Ring out the thousand woes of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, STORY OF SCHOOL. THE red light shone through the open door, On the dusty floor were thrown, The mingled hum of the busy town And heard the cattle's musical low, And the rustle of standing grain. STORY OF SCHOOL. In the open casement a lingering bee And, from the upland meadows, a song, Had come on the air that wandered by, Our tasks were finished and lessons said, And waiting the word of dismissal, that yet The master was old, and his form was bent, But his heart was young, and there ever dwelt Like a halo over a pictured saint, On his face marked deep with care. His eyes were closed, and his wrinkled hands As wearily back in his old arm-chair He reclined as if to rest; And the golden streaming sunlight fell On his brow, and down his breast. We waited in reverent silence long, And silence the master kept, Though still the accustomed saintly smile Over his features crept; And we thought, worn out with the lengthened toil Of the summer's day, he slept. So we quietly rose and left our seats, And outward into the sun, From the gathering shade of the dusty room, Stole silently one by one For we knew, by the distant striking clock, It was time the school was done, 209 And left the master sleeping alone, With his eyelids and his withered palms And the mingled light and smile on his face, Nor knew that just as the clock struck five, A shadowy messenger silently bore From its trembling house of clay, OUR COMMON SCHOOLS.-DANIEL WEBSTER. NEW ENGLAND may be allowed to claim for her schools, I think, a merit of a peculiar character. She early adopted and has constantly maintained the principle, that it is the undoubted right and the bounden duty of Government to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which is elsewhere left to chance, or to charity, we secure by law. For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in proportion to his property, and we look not to the question whether he himself have or have not children to be benefited by the education for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property and life and the peace of society are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in an early age. We hope to excite a feeling of respectability and a sense of character by enlarging the capacity and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere, to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law and the denunciations of religion, against im |