THE SCHOOL-MA'AM'S FUNERAL.

I have just returned from a visit to the place of my nativity, among the green hills of the dear old Keystone State. Some people talk of their New England homes, as thongh he who is guilty of having been born west of the Hudson, could have no sacred memories which twine with affection around the scenes of his childhood. Blessed New England, I love thee, for in one of thy sweetest vales, my dear Fathernow in Paradise-opened his eyes upon the light of this world; and upon a neighboring sunny hillside my incomparable Mother, upon whose head the weight of seventy years now rests heavily, first saw the beautiful sunlight.

But not there alone are home-circles and home-scenes pleasant. Hills as grand, mountains as towering, vallies, glens and dells as green and quiet, abound in Pennsylvania as can be found in our more eastern States.

"As the mountains are round about Jerusalem," so they encircled the lovely valley in which I spent the first fifteen years of my life. It was far away from any city or village-a neighborhood of honest and industrious farmers. The church to which we went on the Sabbath was away over the western hills, four miles distant. The store and the Doctor were to be found six miles away, and in another township.

There we lived in Arcadian quietness, as peaceable, as unambitious a community as could be found in all the wide, wide world. The only gatherings which the children then had were at our rural school, which was "kept" just three months in the summer, and the same time in the winter.

I have said that from that former home I have recently returned, having spent there my late vacation. I had not been there for ten years. Many things there excited my interest. My Mother rode with me to the churchyard, to visit my Father's grave. I wept as I listened to narrations of his conversation during his last days of earth. He was a noble Man, a true Christian, a kind Parent. He now dwells in the presence of "our covenant-keeping God," as he was wont to call our heavenly Father. And in that enclosure I found the names of scores of men and women whom I had known a quarter of a century ago. They rest from their labors the places which had long known them shall know them no more forever.

While tarrying in my native valley there came news that Mrs. Laura

Selden had died, and was that afternoon to be buried. Her late residence, and the place of her funeral, was distant ten miles from my Mother's, but I determined at once to attend. I had good cause for wishing to be present, and to weep with those who should weep beside her sepulcher. She was no relation of mine, and more than twenty years had passed since I had seen her. But once I had loved her with the ardent affection of a young boy's throbbing heart. She was my first School-ma'am. Thirty-five years ago last May, I had reached the age of five years, and Miss Laura Kingsbury was "hired to keep " our school.

My good brother Samuel hitched up his fine Morgan bays, and over the hills we made our journey to the town of Mendon, which we reached just as the funeral procession was entering the meeting-house. We entered, and taking a retired seat, I attempted to listen to the exercises. They sang, "Why do we mourn," etc., to the plaintive tune of China. The Minister read lessons from the bible, prayed and preached, but my thoughts took no part in the services. They were all away amid the scenes of my first summer's school. For an hour I lived over again those three months, thirty-five years ago. Oh! many tender and precious recollections came thronging into my mind, of my association with Miss Kingsbury, my first Teacher.

I was a slender boy, timid, exceedingly afraid of strangers. The morning came when school was to commence. My cousin Julia, three years my senior, called to accompany me. The school-house was a mile from my home, and I carried my dinner. As we went along, the birds sang sweetly among the beech and maple trees, the grass was green and the leaves were fresh and beautiful. May flowers bloomed, and the morning was as delightful as could be wished. But I was sad, for my timid spirit failed me at the thought of meeting the "School-ma'am." I had not seen her, and Julia told me not to be afraid that Miss Kingsbury would be good; but some of the large boys assured me that she would "lick me like fire-drive-it," and my poor little chicken-heart was inclined to believe what the boys said. Never a culprit entered a court with more distressing apprehensions than I experienced when I entered the school-room. But very soon all my fears took their departure, and before the time came for "the boys to go out," I felt quite at home there.

Miss Kingsbury was then about twenty years old, had taught school the previous summer. Her manner, though decided, was gentle and persuasive. She spoke with her pupils-about twenty-five in number -of her coming to teach them, of her hope that she should have a

pleasant school, how she wished them to be good children and to make improvement in learning. She then read in the bible and prayed with us. After that, she inquired our names and ages. She patted me on the shoulders, said I was her youngest pupil, a brave little fellow to come to school, and that she dared to say that I should be one of her best scholars. And that summer I gained a love for the school-room which has been an abiding affection with me ever since.

Days and weeks passed by, and soon came "the last day," as we used to call it. A happier summer I never spent, and "the last day" was one of grief and weeping with me. Oh! how much I loved that

good school-ma'am.

I will mention some of Miss Kingsbury's traits as a Teacher, as they now dwell in my memory. It is true that I was too young to judge very correctly in regard to qualifications for teaching, yet the impression which I received then remains with distinctness on my mind.

She was prompt and exact. Although it was before the time of clocks in school-houses, she always began and closed school at the precise minute appointed. Her watch-the first I ever saw-was her guide. And such was her influence over her pupils that while she remained our Teacher, we next to never had a tardy scholar. In all her exercises she was systematic and orderly. Her rule was "Just Right." She often told us that we should try to do exactly right, and then we should fail of perfection; but if we tried to do pretty well, we should do very badly.

She was exceedingly tasteful and neat in her "schoolhouse-keeping. Our school-house was a pitiful little shell of a thing, without an entry, with slab seats, a fireplace that reached almost across one end of the room, guiltless of paint or plaster, the floor full of knot-holes, and the ceiling composed of a few loose boards which had never known a plane or nail. But Miss Kingsbury induced the boys to bring, every morning, maple boughs with which the crater of a fireplace was filled, and its sooty blackness hidden. Not far off there was a rocky hill, where grew an abundance of laurel bushes, their deep-green leaves interspersed with most beautiful and delicate flowers of white and pink. These, every Monday, we brought to the school-house, and Miss K. arranged them in the corners, and hung them from the joists, and in various ways disposed of them so as to make our old shanty of a room look really beautiful. Not many of us wore shoes, and if one came with muddy feet, he was required to visit the "run," a streamlet just back of the house.

She was kind and cheerful. She was strict and, when necessary,

could punish with severity, as a saucy boy one day found out to his sorrow. But she really loved her pupils, and delighted in seeing them happy. How well do I remember how kindly she talked to me the day I fell from the fence and slightly bruised my arm,-how she bathed it in the cold spring-water, and encouraged me to bear the pain without crying. A more happy disposition never blessed a human soul. Out of school, and sometimes in it, she was mirthful, ready to tell us funny stories, and never so pleased as when she saw us happy. She was very much of a wit, and well understood how to set us all laughing, when she chose. And I have noticed that those Teachers and Clergymen in whom there is a vein of pleasantry and humor, are generally the most successful, and most beloved. They possess the warmest and most benevolent hearts, and are most prompt and earnest in all their efforts for doing good. Find a person who is forever grave as an owl, who thinks it a sin to laugh, and you have before you a cold-hearted and ungenial being, whose want of lively sympathies disqualify him for usefulness. I have ever found that those who are most ready to rejoice with the rejoicing, are also most ready to weep with the weeping.

And such was my first School-ma'am. Many an incident arose in school which her ready wit turned to good account, making that old room for a minute ring with laughter, which would soon subside into a happy expression of countenance and a joyousness of heart which made our school duties all pass along pleasantly.

After the services at the church, or meeting-house, as they call it there, the coffin with its inmate was borne by "devout men" to the grave. The precious dust was committed to that home where it shall rest till the “mortal shall put on immortality." I wept as I turned away from that burial scene, not so much in sorrow for her death, as in tender recollections of her kindness to me thirty-five years ago.

Many excellent Teachers I since have had in schools of all grades, and among them some of the noblest and best men in our land, and to whom I am deeply indebted; but not one of them all does my memory love as my first School-ma'am. If I have any good qualities as a Teacher, to her, more than to any one else, am I indebted for the bias in that direction. My first impressions of School were of the right character, and I do firmly believe that the Teachers of little children, standing as they do at the sources of human character, occupy a position which demands the best talent, the highest qualifications.

SEPTEMBER 10th, 1856.

A. M. B. H.

SELECTED ARTICLES.

ARISTOCRACY.

BY. JOHN G. SAXE.

Of all the notable things on earth,
The queerest one is pride of birth,

Among our fierce Democracy!'
A bridge across a hundred years,
Without a prop to save from sneers-
Not even a couple of rotten Peers,
A thing for laughter, sneers and jeers,
Is American Aristocracy.

Depend upon it my snobbish friend,
Your family thread you can't ascend,
Without good reason to apprehend
You may find it waxed at the further end
By some plebean vocation!

Or worse than that, your boasted line
May end in a loop of stronger twine,

That plagued some worthy relation!

Because you flourish in world affairs,
Don't be haughty and put on airs

With insolent pride of station!
Don't be proud, and turn up your nose,
At poorer people in plainer clothes,
But learn, for the sake of your mind's repose,
That wealth's a bubble that comes and goes!
And that all proud flesh, wherever it grows,
Is subject to irritation.

THE LOVE OF HOME.-It is only shallow minded pretenders who either make distinguished origin a matter of personal merit, or obscure origin a matter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life affects nobody in this country but those who are foolish enough to indulge in them, and they are generally sufficiently punished by the published rebuke. ▲ man who is not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition. It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised among the snow drifts of New Hamp. shire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hill, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist, I make it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the narrations and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for him who raised it, and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and through the fire and blood of seven years' Revolutionary war, shrunk from no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name and the name of my posterity be forever blotted from the memory of mankind.-Daniel Webster.