And yet the mother seems to go at it in the right way She opens the stair door and insinuatingly observes, "Johnny." There is no response. "Johnny." Still no response. Then there is a short, sharp "John," followed a moment later by a long and emphatic "John Henry." A grunt from the upper regions signifies that an impression has been made; and the mother is encouraged to add, "You'd better be getting down here to your breakfast, young man, before I come up there an' give you something you'll feel." This so startles the young man that he immediately goes to sleep again. And the operation has to be repeated several times. A father knows nothing about this trouble. He merely opens his mouth as a soda bottle ejects its cork, and the "John Henry" that cleaves the air of that stairway goes into that boy like electricity, and pierces the deepest recesses of his nature. And he pops out of that bed and into his clothes, and down the stairs, with a promptness that is commendable. It is rarely a boy allows himself to disregard the paternal summons. About once a year is believed to be as often as is consistent with the rules of health. He saves his father a great many steps by his thoughtfulness. O! for boyhood's painless play, For, eschewing books and tasks, Mine, on bending orchard trees, O, for festal dainties spread, Of the pied frogs' orchestra; I was monarch; pomp and joy Cheerily, then, my little man! Quick and treacherous sands of sin. -John G. Whittier. The School Boy. WE bought him a box for his books and things, And a cricket bag for his bat; And he looked the brightest and best of kings We handed him into the railway train With a troop of his young compeers, And we made as though it were dust and rain Were filling our eyes with tears. M Maidenhood. AIDEN! with the meek brown eyes, In whose orb a shadow lies, Thou, whose looks outshine the sun, Standing, with reluctant feet Gazing with a timid glance Deep and still, that gliding stream, Then, why pause with indecision, When bright angels in the vision Beckon thee to fields Elysian! Seest thou shadows sailing by, Hearest thou voices on the shore, O thou child of many prayers! Life hath quicksands, life hath snares! Like the swell of some sweet tune, Childhood is the bow where slumber'd TWO Interpretation of The Term 66 Gentleman." 'WO great errors, coloring, or, rather, discoloring, severally, the minds, of the higher and lower classes, have sown wide dissension and wider misfortune through the society of modern days. These errors are in our modes of interpreting the word "gentleman.” Its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is, "a man of pure race," well bred, in the sense that a horse or dog is well bred. The so-called higher classes, being generally of purer race than the lower, have retained the idea and the convictions associated with it, but are afraid to speak it out, and equivocate about it in public; this equivocation mainly proceeding from their desire to connect another meaning with it, and a false one,-that of "a man living in idleness on other people's labor," -with which idea the term has nothing whatever to do. The lower classes, denying vigorously, and with reason, the notion that a gentleman means an idler, and rightly feeling that the more any one works the more of a gentleman he becomes and is likely to become, have nevertheless got little of the good they otherwise might from the truth, because with it they wanted to hold a falsehood—namely, that race was of no consequence; it being precisely of as much consequence in man as in any other animal. The nation cannot truly prosper till both these errors are finally got quit of. Gentlemen |