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Ir has been justly objected, with regard to the public idea of the means of literary culture in our country, that we are too fond of building our colleges of brick and stone, instead of laying their more solid foundations in professors and students. We certainly do practically give our assent to the vulgar notion that showy buildings are of the first importance in our seminaries of learning, able teachers only of the second. Funds that would bring talent from another hemisphere, or call it into action within our own borders, are often buried in monstrous fabrics, which wait useless for years until new means can be raised for filling them with the teachers and pupils who are their ultimate object; and state pride is strangely gratified by gazing at these memorials of one of the many blunders of our materialism.

But there is a class of educational edifices to which no such objection can be made. The log schoolhouse in the deep woods, is a far nobler proof of intellectual aspiration than any huge empty college building of them all. Its grotesque outline has, for the eye of the thoughtful patriot, a grace that mere columns and arches can never give-the grace of earnestness, of a purpose truly lofty in its seeming humility. A log schoolhouse is the veritable temple of learning and religion, without the remotest idea of paltry ornament; devoted, in naked simplicity, to an idea which is its consecration and its beauty. "Do the people need place to pray, and calls to hear His word?" says Ruskin, in that delightful latest book of his, then it is no time for smoothing pillars or carving pulpits; let us first have enough of walls and roofs"-and no doubt a truer dignity attends the roughest erection that has a truly high purpose, than can be expressed in the richest

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The Seven Lamps of Architecture.

material and the most elaborate forms that mere pride and vanity can compass or devise.

And this is not mere empty talk or æsthetic dreaming. The higher and more perfect the cultivation of mind and taste which the American traveller carries with him into the western country, the more of true and touching beauty will he see in the log schoolhouse that greets him, in some little unexpected clearing, as he takes his solitary way through the forest. He has passed, it may be, many a noble farm, with its fenced fields and ample barns, its woodlands resounding with the axe, and its chambers vocal with the spinning-wheel; he has seen the owner amid his labourers, sharing or directing their profitable toil; he has sat at hospitable boards, spread with the luxury of rural comfort thus provided, and inspected mills and factories, promising as Californian rivers; but all this had reference only to the material and the perishable. This was only the body whereof that uncouth log schoolhouse typifies the soul. The soul can do without the body, but the body becomes a loathsome mass without the soul. Indeed all this smiling plenty, this warm industry, this breathing quiet, is the fruit of the log schoolhouse, for did not public spirit, general intelligence and piety emanate from that humble source?

We will not say that as soon as the settler has a roof over his head he thinks of a schoolhouse in which public meetings may be held, for in truth he ascertains the probability of such a building, before he selects a site for his homestead. As soon as a tree is felled, a schoolhouse is thought of, and the whole neighbourhood are at once, and for once, of one accord in erecting it. It is a rough enough thing when it is done, for your backwoodsman looks only to the main point in everything, and dreams not of superfluity. He means that the roof

shall shed rain, and the piled sides keep the wind out, and the floor afford dry footing. He puts in windows for light, and benches to sit upon, and a pulpit or rostrum from which a speaker may be well heard. Then there is a great stove for the long winter, and sometimes, -not always, unfortunately, some shelter for waiting steeds. But a thought of symmetry, of smoothing, of decoration-never intrudes. Architecture, which begins after every purpose of mere use in a building is provided for, is out of the question here. Whoever would admire the log schoolhouse, must bring the beauty in his own mind.

Yet it is hardly fair to say so, either. Letting the inside go, with its cave-like roughness, the outer aspect is not altogether devoid of the beauty which the artist loves. As to colour, nothing can be finer, after a year's mellowing. When the tender spring green clothes the trees around it, its rich brown and gray earthy tints make the most delicious harmony, and its undulating outlines no discord. If log houses have not yet come well into pictures, it is because no artistic imagination has yet been warmed by them. We remember one, in a picture of Cole's, but it was the poorest, nakedest thing that could be, more literal than reality itself. It was as different from the true-i. e. the ideal log house-as a builder's draught of the Parthenon from a Raffaelesque picture of it. Such cold correctness is death to typical beauty, for it does not recognise a soul in the inanimate. The painter had only seen log houses, he had never felt them, as he had the woods and waters that he painted so well. A Daguerreotype representation of a log house would be, to all intents and purposes, a libel, for every tint of earth and sky has peculiar business in a true picture of this exquisitely characteristic and interesting object in western scenery. Ruskin talks of Paul Veronese's painting, not, like Landseer, a dog "wrought out with exquisite dexterity of handling, and minute attention to all the accidents of curl and gloss, which can give appearance of reality, while the hue and power of the sunshine, &c., are utterly neglected"-but "the essence of dog;" now we want a painter who can give us the essence of log house, and particularly of log schoolhouse, or we would as soon see a wood-pile painted. That the Swiss chalet should have proved more inspiring to American painters, shows the blinding power of prejudice, or the illusion of strangeness; though, to be sure, we have not Alps to tower above our primal edifices.

The enmity felt by the backwoodsman against trees too often exhibits itself in the vicinity of the schoolhouse, which ought to be shaded in summer, and shielded in winter, by the pon

derous trunks and green embracing arms in the midst of which it generally stands. But, accepting literally the poet's idea-"the groves were God's first temples," we cut down the grove to make our temple, yet inconsistently “clear" the space about it, partly for the sake of the necessary fuel, partly to make the place look civilized! It is hard to get a few trees left for the children to sit under in the summer noon-spell. There is a savage rudeness in this, but it is in accordance with the leading idea of "subduing" the country, and there is no surer way of putting a western settler in a passion, than talking to him about sparing a few trees, for any purpose. He will plant them, perhaps, but he will never consent to leave them standing where nature placed them. When he sits in the schoolhouse on Sunday, listening to the sermon with his ears, while his mind, perhaps, strays off into that unseen which the week's cares and toils are apt to banish, or finds itself still entangled in those cares and toils, he loves to look through the windows, or the chinks, at the distant woods. Distant, they please and soothe him; he feels, if he does not hear, their soft music; he sees their gentle waving, and appreciates in some degree the power of their beauty; but near, the association is unpleasant. His hands yet ache with the week's chopping, which must be forgotten that Sunday may be Sunday; and the vicinity of huge trunks is suggestive only of labour. A wide bare space about the building has, to his imagination, the dignity of a field of triumph. It seems to afford sanction to the Sabbath repose.

Within, neither paint nor plaster interferes with the impression of absolute rusticity. Desks of the rudest form line the sides, making a hollow oblong, in the middle of which stands the stove, surrounded by low, long benches for the little ones. On week-days these are filled with pinafored urchins, who sit most of the time gazing at the pieces of sky they can discern through the high windows, or playing with bits of stick or straw, too insignificant to attract the keen, stern eye of the master, who would at once pounce upon a button or a marble. One by one these minims are called up to be alphabetized, or spell "c-a-t, pussy," in the picture-book. Spelling and arithmetic are decidedly the favourite studies in most district schools; writing is troublesome, and reading is expected to come by nature. A half wild, half plaintive sound fills the air, the sound of recitation, which is generally an irksome business on both sides, the teacher too often conscious of utter incompetency and hating the task, the pupil feeling the incompetency of the teacher, at least enough to be certain that he himself is in hopeless circumstances as far as “book-larnin'” is concerned.

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Girls and boys usually wear an equally sad | rather prejudiced against books, like other uncountenance, for there is too wide a chasm be- educated people. We lately heard an intellitween the home occupations and those of the gent Russian say, that children are sent to the school-room, to allow any familiarity with the public schools in Russia because the Emperor themes of the latter. With the greater part of wishes it; the parents saying that they consider the scholars it is such up-hill work, that both what is learned, beyond counting and signing they and their parents deserve much credit for one's name, rather a disadvantage than a good. persisting in efforts, the result of which is dis- The rough, hard-working American forms the tant, at least, if not uncertain. A few happy, same estimate; and this is the less to be wonbright spirits flash out in spite of the dull in- dered at, when we see highly instructed people, fluences, and they are apt to absorb the atten- who may be supposed to have full knowledge tion of the teacher, leaving still less hope for of the benefits of cultivation, adopting these the unready. unenlightened sentiments. It will hardly be believed that men, not only of education but of learning, once transplanted to the woods, and forced into the hard struggle for the ordinary comforts of life which occupies both head and hands there, are found to let their children grow up without even the cultivation within their reach; so that among the most boorish of western youth, we see the sons and daughters of those who possess the power of imparting the best instruction. This is more particularly the case with transplanted Europeans, certainly, but it is not inapplicable to many of our own countrymen from the Eastern States.

The disciplinary part has reference only to behaviour, delinquency in lessons being a fault which the teacher is usually too honest or too sympathetic to visit with much severity. High offences are biting apples, rattling nuts or marbles, singing, whistling, making faces, pinching and scratching. Cutting the desks and benches is nominally an offence, but not often punished, because it can be done without noise; once in a while, however, a confiscated knife diversifies the row of nuts and apples on the teacher's desk. Modes of punishment are ingeniously varied. To be put on the boy's side is a terrible one for the little girls; to hold up a slate, formidable to either sex. Standing upon the bench, or, in summer, on the stove, is equal to the pillory, especially when, as is sometimes practised, the whole school is enjoined to point the finger at the delinquent. Minor transgressions are occasionally atoned for by wearing a piece of split quill on the top of the ear, or across the bridge of the nose, saddle-wise; or carrying pinned to the back or shoulder, a piece of paper, on which a significant word is written. The rod is the last resource, unless the teacher gets a dislike to some unlucky boy, whose smallest fault ever after looms large on his jaundiced eye. As it is conscious weakness that instinctively has recourse to force, it might naturally be expected that female teachers would be fondest of the use of the rod, and experience proves the fact. It serves as a substitute for the mental power which commands respect. The master's brow being by nature more terrible, he can afford to reserve flagellation for great occasions.

If the absolute knowledge acquired under these circumstances could be ascertained, its amount would probably be so small as to seem disproportioned even to these simple means. But there are a thousand indirect advantages, both to children and parents, which make themselves evident in due season, so that the difference between children who go to school and those who do not, is as patent as if the teachers were Dr. Arnolds and Hannah Mores. This general result is all that the farmer expects or wishes; he is, on the whole,

In the Sabbath exercises the parents take their own personal share of the log schoolhouse, and it is a beautiful sight to see them assemble; hard, knotty, rough, bashful and solemn, all clean washed and dressed, though carrying the week's atmosphere of toil about them, even in their Sunday clothes. The sexes are divided, but sit facing each other, and the low benches, on week-days appropriated to bread-and-milk scholars, are in meeting occupied by mothers, with babies and younglings who enjoy the benefit of the open space for manifold evolutions more amusing than edifying. There is a curious mixture of extreme formality and familiarity on these occasions. Countenances wear an unconscious and forbidding gravity, as husbands and wives, parents and children, beaux and belles, look each other full in the face across the house; but if a baby is troublesome, the father will go and take it from the mother, and returning gravely to his seat, toss it and play with it awhile and then carry it back again. Children go into the passage for a drink; dogs sit gazing up at the preacher, and fall asleep like Christians if the day is warm; the speaker stops sometimes to give directions about matters that need attention, or even points his sermon directly at some individual whose connexion with it is well known.

We remember an occasion when the preacher began his discourse by a considerable dissertation on controversy, declaring his dislike to it, and appealing to his auditors for confirmation of his assertion that he had always avoided it.

After spending some fifteen minutes on this topic, he announced that he had been requested by a person then present to preach from a certain text, which he forthwith read, and appealed to the person by name, as to whether it was the text he meant. An affirmative answer having been given by a deep bass voice in a far corner, the speaker read some twenty verses by way of context, adding that if any person present wished him to read more he would do so, and upon request he proceeded to read several verses more. Now preparing seriously for the work, by coughing, &c., he drew the attention of his hearers by saying that there were only two kinds of isms that he contended with-devilism and manism; but that if the gentleman who had selected the text found Universalism in it, he was willing, for truth's sake, to show him his error. He thought some people present would open their eyes, when they found how little of that doctrine the passage in question really contained. He did not mean to back up his text with other portions of Scripture; it could stand on its own legs. He came "neither to criticise, ridicule, or blackguard anybody," but thought he was right, and was willing to be shown if he was wrong. About half an hour had now elapsed, yet the sermon was not fairly begun. There was plenty of time yet, however, for he went on more than an hour longer, warming with a feeling of success, and ever and anon casting triumphant glances at the corner where sat his opponents, as he felt that he had given a home thrust to their theological errors. This sermon was much praised, and pronounced by the schoolmaster of the day the most powerful discourse he had ever heard.

This sketch, however, represents an individual, not a class. Ambition is not the pulpit vice of the woods, and sermons are usually of the hortatory character, delivered with great fervour. It must be confessed that doctrinal sermons win the most respect, and are most talked about; exhortation is deemed commonplace in comparison-mere milk for babes. A sermon on original sin, which asserted that infants of a day might be damned, and that souls in blessedness would be able to rejoice over the eternal misery of those they loved best, because it vindicated Almighty justice, gave great, though perhaps not general satisfaction. "Ah! wasn't it elegant!" we heard a good woman say, coming out; "I haven't heard such a sermon since I came from the East!"

The public taste turning thus toward knotty points of divinity, the preachers, whose employment depends upon their acceptableness, naturally make polemics a large part of their little reading-an unhappy result, considering the very little good likely to be accomplished among

uninstructed people by controversial preaching. The pulpit is the most efficient instructor of the people, on other subjects besides religion, and the advance in general intelligence must depend very much upon the competency of those who undertake the dispensation of ethical truth. It is therefore greatly to be desired that knowledge should be added to zeal, in those who go westward in the hope of doing good. Too many who go are deficient in both, and no one who has lived there will doubt that the harm done, directly and indirectly, by such, is incalculable; but there is another class whose persuasions to religion, though honestly meant, lead only to superstition and outward observance, too common everywhere, but especially destructive in their influence on true piety in unenlightened communities. A considerable portion of the religious teachers who officiate, self-elected, in the western wilds, are behind those they teach in general intelligence, and not much above them in familiarity with religious topics, though they may possess a great flow of words, which pass for signs of ideas, but are not such, as it regards either party. Some sermons are mere strings of Scriptural phrases and well-known texts, often curiously wrenched from their authorized meaning, to favour the purpose of the hour. The idea on these occasions seems to be, that the people are to be touched, moved, excited, frightened, or persuaded into an interest in religion, by any and every means that the Scriptures afford, and with so good a purpose it is lawful to make them afford whatever may promise to be effectual. Griesbach and Rosenmüller would stare at some of the glosses of our zealous preachers, and the learned Rabbi who has been lecturing among us would find his metaphysics far outdone in subtilty, by certain constructions of the Old Testament histories, which read with such grave simplicity and directness to the unlearned.

With all deductions, however, an immense amount of good is done in various ways. Even when the preacher is deficient, the hearers extract good in some shape from his blind teaching; that is to say, seeking for good, they find it whether it is brought them or not. Who can reckon the value of the rest, the change of thought, the neat dress, the quiet, the holy associations, which the Sabbath day brings with it in the country! A few persons are found who make it rather a point to be seen in their fields at work, or in the woods shooting, on that day; but there is a broad line between them and all good citizens, for these habits are invariably found associated with irregular ones in other respects. The best touchstone of valuable citizenship is found in the log schoolhouse. He who feels no interest in that, feels

THE LOG SCHOOLHOUSE.

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none in anything that concerns the welfare of from its crazy platform, and a rough-looking the community.

The Sunday-school is one of the most interesting of all the occupations of the schoolhouse, but it would require the graphic power of a Hogarth to describe it worthily. As there is no rod, and no authority but one founded on sentiment, the erratic genius of the West has full scope. The youth who would on week-days tell his teacher-"Scoldin' don't hurt nonewhippin' don't last long-and kill me you darsn't!" would not probably be very lamblike under the instructions of the Sabbath; and the very proposition to teach for love, and not for money, puts every one on his guard. They cannot exactly see the trap, but they are pretty sure there is one! Something very like bribery is necessary, in order to secure the attendance of the class of scholars whom it is most desirable to persuade the children of parents who do not frequent the schoolhouse. Some of these hardly know the Bible by name, and others have heard it only scoffed at. But religious teaching often exerts a wonderful power even over such, and they are apt to be converted to a faith in disinterested benevolence at least. The labour of teaching them is quite equal to that required for teaching in Ceylon, according to Dr. Poor; and the good missionary's whole description of the mission schools in that far land, reminded us very much of certain western experiences.

gentleman, in a plaid neckcloth, had during a whole evening thumped the teacher's desk till it quivered again, in his endeavours to prove all religion a device for the better subjection of the people. A Sunday-school had been maintained here for some time, at no small cost to the good laymen who conducted it; for they were obliged, in winter, to precede their scholars by at least an hour, and make the fire and arrange the room, lest some petty discomfort should prove an excuse for absence on the part of those whom they were most desirous of benefiting. Here, too, were singing-schools held, and spelling-schools, and other solemnities requiring space and benches; and the log schoolhouse, spite of its rough aspect, was, as usual, a building in much request and high esteem.

There was no "stated preaching" in it on Sundays, but clergymen of different denominations seemed to know by intuition or magnetism when it would be available, and their appointments dovetailed so nicely that its socalled pulpit was seldom unoccupied at the hours of divine service. Once only, within the memory of "the oldest inhabitant," did ten o'clock, Sunday morning, find the people assembled,-the wagons tied outside, with their seats turned down as a precaution against falling skies, and their patient steeds chewing "post-meat" for recreation-and no preacher forthcoming. A sort of extempore, self-constituted deacon, after much solemn whispering with the grave-looking farmers who sat near him, gave out a hymn, which was sung with a sort of nervous slowness, and much looking at the door. A restless pause followed, and then the deacon gave out another hymn, in six verses, with a repeat; this occupied a convenient portion of time, and then came another fidgety silence, during which, some of the lighter members slipped out, and several of the children went to the pail outside the door for a drink. The deacon then offered to read a chapter, and proposed if the clergyman did not arrive at that time, that some of the bre

Besides the uses we have mentioned, the schoolhouse is the theatre of the singing-school, so dear to country beaux and belles; of the spelling-school, as exciting as a vaudeville; of all sorts of shows and lectures, expositions and orations. Even the ceremonies of the Catholic Church are found possible within those rude walls, and incense has won its way through the chinks of warped oak shingles to the sky. The most numerous sects are the Baptists and Methodists; but there is hardly one unrepresented. We remember a Quaker sermon on a certain occasion, which produced perhaps as great a sensation as any doctrinal discourse of them all, though it partook very little of theo-thren should "make a few remarks." The logy.

We had occasionally met for public worship, in a lonely schoolhouse on the border of the forest, where four roads crossed, and where, in winter, a flooring of chips showed that the seekers after learning were not behindhand in consuming the woods as fast as their great stove would assist them. This primitive temple, with its notched desks and gashed benches, was used in turn by religionists of every shade of belief and no belief; even the Mormons had expounded their Golden Bible (by some of the neighbours, believed to have been typified by the Golden Calf which led the people astray in old times),

chapter was read, and the remarks duly invited; but this only made the silence deeper; indeed, it was such that you might have heard a pin drop.

Nobody belonging to the town seemed to have anything on his mind, and after a little pause, there were evident symptoms of a natural dissolution of the meeting; when a Quakeress, who was on a visit in the neighbourhood, laid aside her close bonnet, and standing up, presented to the view of the assembly a fair and calm face, on which sat the holy smile of Christian love and confidence. All was hushed, for such a look has an irresistible charm.

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