Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. V, October, 1850, Volume I. — John Shaqi
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. V, October, 1850, Volume I.
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. V, October, 1850, Volume I.
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
During the whole American revolution, indeed, the Indians, though incited
by the whites to kill and scalp the enemy, never molested the Friends, as
the people of Father Onas, or William Penn, and as the avowed opponents of
all violence. Through the whole war, there were but two instances to the
contrary, and they were occasioned by the two Friends themselves. The one
was a young man, a tanner, who went to his tan-yard and back daily
unmolested, while devastation spread on all sides; but at length,
thoughtlessly carrying a gun to shoot some birds, the Indians, in ambush,
believed that he had deserted his principles, and shot him. The other was
a woman, who, when the dwellings of her neighbors were nightly fired, and
the people themselves murdered, was importuned by the officers of a
neighboring fort to take refuge there till the danger was over. For some
time she refused, and remained unharmed amid general destruction; but, at
length, letting in fear, she went for one night to the fort, but was so
uneasy, that the next morning she quitted it to return to her home. The
Indians, however, believed that she too had abandoned her principles, and
joined the fighting part of the community, and before she reached home she
was shot by them.
A SHILLING’S WORTH OF SCIENCE. (FROM DICKENS’S HOUSEHOLD WORDS.)
Dr. Paris has already shown, in a charming little book treating
scientifically of children’s toys, how easy even “philosophy in sport can
be made science in earnest.” An earlier genius cut out the whole alphabet
into the figures of uncouth animals, and inclosed them in a toy-box
representing Noah’s Ark, for the purpose of teaching children their
letters. Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, have been decimated; “yea, the
great globe itself,” has been parceled into little wooden sections, that
their readjustment into a continuous map might teach the infant conqueror
of the world the relative positions of distant countries. Archimedes might
have discovered the principle of the lever and the fundamental principles
of gravity upon a rocking-horse. In like manner he might have ascertained
the laws of hydrostatics, by observing the impetus of many natural and
artificial fountains, which must occasionally have come beneath his eye.
So also the principles of acoustics might even now be taught by the aid of
a penny whistle, and there is no knowing how much children’s nursery games
may yet be rendered subservient to the advancement of science. The famous
Dr. Cornelius Scriblerus had excellent notions on these subjects. He
determined that his son Martinus should be the most learned and
universally well-informed man of his age, and had recourse to all sorts of
devices in order to inspire him even unthinkingly with knowledge. He
determined that every thing should contribute to the improvement of his
mind—even his very dress. He therefore, his biographer informs us,
invented for him a geographical suit of clothes, which might give him some
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