Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1884 — Talk to the Children. [ARTICLE]

Talk to the Children.

A family named Edwards, trie most prominent citizens of Mason county, West Virginia, are endeavoring to establish their title to the Trinity church property in New York, now valued at 164,000,000. John L. McMillan, who is making a type-setting machine at Hion, N. Y., with which he expects to set 5,000 ems an hour, says that $500,000 was spent on the Alden type-aetting and distributing machine before it was given up as. impracticable, and that $1,000,000 was wasted on the Page machine, whose patent right was subsequently sold for SIO,OOO. Dubuque is the envy of her sister cities who have no buried fortunes and Captain fcidd stories to tell aboutContractor Morgan, of Dubuque, has a letter from an official in Madrid, Spain, to the effect that a resident of that city, while stopping in Dubuque some time ago, buried his fortune, amounting to 1,000,000 francs, in a zinc box in a lonely spot in the outskirts of that city. A diagram of the burial place was sent with the letter.

At a recent meeting of the Industrial Home, of Boston, Mr. Robert Swan expressed the hope that industrial education for girls might be carried one step further, by the, introduction of classes in cooking. A central kitchen could be established, >to which the girls of the public schools might go on certain days. One, and perhaps the chief, reason why young women choose to work for a mere pittance in stores when they could earn large wages at cooking, is that they actually do not know anything about cooking, and have no opportunity, nor in the years which they have now reached, time to learp the art. '". 2~22. 2 ; Employes of the New York Herald printed the words “The Herald, price two cents,” in big letters on the walls of Fort Lafavotto, in Now York harbor. The government immediately ordered the impertinent defacers to remove the advertisement at once. The employes tried to do so, but the painter had used his white lead with no unsparing hand, and the deep srtain could not be removed. The Herald was told to remove it even if it was necessary to cut a foot deep into the stone. The latest report saf s that stone-cutters have gone twelve inches into the stone without being able to destroy the deface-

mcnt. In the memoirs by Davis of Aaron Burr the of the latter to his daughter Theodosia are quoted, in one which reference is made to the marriage of the elegant and accomplished Sarah Duer to John Witherspoon a young lawyer of great promise and. excellent character, about 1806. The lady referred do is now entering on her 101st year, ' She is the daughter of Col. Wm. Duer, of the revolutionary army, and a Representative of New York in the first Congress of the United States. She is also a of William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, a Major-General of the revolutionary army, on whose staff James Monroe served as an aide-de-camp. An English parliamentary return recently issued shows that over $250,000,000 have been invested in gas undertakihgsin- Great Britain and Ireland, the authorized capital being, nearly $90,000,000 more. Local authorities are gradually increasing ttheir hold on this necessary of life, for nearly one-third of the whole is in their hands. In this, as in other respects, Ireland lags behind, for while English local authorities own, roughly speaking, $72,500,000 and Scotch $12,250,000, the Irish corporate bodies have only $2,500,000. It is a striking coincidence that the three Capitals are still dependent upon private companies, so that Edinburg and Dublin, equally with London, are be-, hind the more vigorous provincial cities, such as Manchester and Birmingham, Glasgow and Dundee, and Belfast and Limerick.

We read that a recognized authority in agricultural affairs has written the following, which seems no exaggeration of facts: “In view of the formation, ex•ient, richness and importance of the vegetable mold of our Northwestern prairies, it is established to t certainty that the United States is in possession otf one of the greatest treasitfes in existence, which is not surpassed in value and importance by all the pneeious metals in the bowels of the earth,* To provide for the real necessities of man there is no comparison between the value «f such earth and mineral treasures, and yet Darwin has shown that to the common earth worms we are indebted for all such rich mold; for they have been years ahead of man in plowing it, turning it over, and* mixing its constituents intimately so that it will require a great many bountiful crops to

exhanst the soil. But this treasure, as well as the deep laid treasures of coal, gas and oil, man is doing his best to exhaust in the shortest possible time. The late Professor j Sophocles, of Harvard, was a short but finely-built man, with bushy, snow-white hair and beard, olive complexion, and piercing black eyes, and looked like some venerable Arab sheik. Reserved and shy in manner, he was yet [full of general humor. Once, in the class-room, he -asked a student: ‘‘What was done with the bodies of the Greeks who were killed at Marathon?” “They were buried,sir.” “Next?” “Why,they—they were buried.” “Next?” “T—l dont know, Professor.” ‘Right, Nobody knows!” He was never married, but lived alone in one of the college buildings and prepared his own food, getting up many curious, Turkisk dishes. He allowed servants to visit the room to make up his bed, but would endure no further disturbance, and the floor was unswept from October to June.

Isaac 8. Sprague, the living skeleton, who is 40 years old, and has been reduced by atrophy to' forty pounds weight, said to a correspondent, in regard to a rumor that he had given hip body, in the interest Of science, to the Harvard Medical College: “Yes, the story is true, and all the arrangements have just been completed. I have agreed that when I die they shall have my body; they will first cut it open and make a post mortem examination to find out, if possible, why I am so thin; then they will put the body in alcohol and place it in the museum of the college, ■where it will remain, l>ut I’m going to need it myself for the present; they can’t have it till I get through with it. My body will be preserved in the museum there as that of Calvin Edson is in the Albany museum. Edisondied at the age of 45, weighing only forty-five pounds. The doctors, when they cut him open, found that his thinness was caused by narrowing of the thoracic duct, a trouble with which 'other members of his family were affected. His face and neck were emaciated like the rest of his body, but niinearenof,soniythinhessTs”prolsably2 due to something else. • The physicians pronounce it to be an extreme case of progressivemuscular atrophy. It has ■been going on for thirty years, while the longest other case on record is that ■of a man who died after having the complaint for ten years.”

The question of corporal punishment was thoroughly discussed recently at a meetihg of the New York Super-intendents-of Public Schools, and some interesting facts were noted. Superintendent Smith, of Syracuse, said that there had not been a case of corporal punishment in the schools of that city for sixteen years, and that the schools are kept in as good, if not better order, tlian they were when flogging was allowed. Syracuse is a city of 60,000 people, and its public schools rank among the best in the East, and the result of the experiment there is important. In cases of minor offenses, simple means of discipline are effectual, and in grave cases, those in which it is commonly. supposed that nothing but severe flogging will suffice, the principal of the ward school where the trouble exists, promptly suspends the pupil and reports to the superintendent. The latter on examination of the case sustains the principal or reinstates the pupil. A board of three commissioners have general supervisory powers over all the school the. city,, and act as a court of highest appeal. This plan of discipline has proved very effectual. When pupils are suspecned, the burden of responsibility is placed upon the shoulders of the parents, and they are generally ready within a few hours to offer satisfactory pledges of good behavior in the future. No teacher is allowed to strike a blow, and yet deciplihe is maintained, and scholarship secured;' and that by methods which bring to bear other influences than a child’s susceptibility to physical pain. It will not the strange if many other cities' are disposed to give the Syracuse experiment a fair trial, and dihe result will undoubtedly prove as satisfactory.

•Children hunger perpetually for new ideas. They will learn with pleasure from the lips of parents from what they deem <&rudgery to learn from books; and, even if they have the misfortune to be deprived of many educational advantages, with such instruction they will grow up intelligent people. We sometimes see parents who are the life of every eonpany they enter, dull, silent and uninteresting at home among their ehildten. If they have not mental activity a®d mental stores sufficient for both, Let tikem first use what they have for their own households. A silent home is a dull place for young people—a place t fit»m which they will escape if they can. How much" useful information, and what unconscious but excellent mental training in lively, social argument! Cultivate to the utHe alone is an acute observer who can observe minutely without being ob* served.—Laixi ter.