and the child is solicited to reflection when he is only capable of sensation and emotion. In infancy the attention and the memory are only excited strongly by things which impress the senses and move the heart, and a father shall instil more solid and available instruction in an hour spent in the fields, where wisdom and goodness are exemplified, seen, and felt, than in a month spent in the study, where they are expounded in stereotyped aphorisms. "No physician doubts that precocious children, in fifty cases for one, are much the worse for the discipline they have undergone. The mind seems to have been strained, and the foundations for insanity are laid. When the studies of maturer years are stuffed into the head of a child, people do not reflect on the anatomical fact that the brain of an infant is not the brain of a man; that the one is confirmed, and can bear exertion -the other is growing, and requires repose; that to force the attention to abstract facts-to load the memory with chronological and historical or scientific detail-in short, to expect a child's brain to bear with impunity the exertions of a man's is just as rational as it would be to hazard the same sort of experiment on its muscles. "The first eight or ten years of life should be devoted to the education of the heart-to the formation of principles, rather than to the acquirement of what is usually termed knowledge. Nature herself points out such a course; for the emotions are then the liveliest, and most easily moulded, being as yet unalloyed by passion. It is from this source that the mass of men are hereafter to draw their sum of happiness or misery; the actions of the immense majority are, under all circumstances, determined much more by feeling than reflection; in truth, life presents an infinity of occasions where it is essential to happiness that we should feel rightly; very few where it is at all necessary that we should think profoundly. "Up to the seventh year of life very great changes are going on in the structure of the brain, and demand, therefore, the utmost attention not to interrupt them by improper or over excite ment. Just that degree of exercise should be given to the brain at this period as is necessary to its health; and the best is oral instruction, exemplified by objects which strike the senses. "It is perhaps unnecessary to add that, at this period of life, special attention should be given, both by parents and teachers, to the physical development of the child. Pure air and free exervelopment of the child. Pure air and free exercise are indispensable, and wherever either of these is withheld, the consequences will be cer tain to extend themselves over the whole future Give us free air and of these innocent victims should ascend, 'trumpet- 66 66 FRANKLIN AND THE IDLER. "One The following story told of Franklin's mode of treating the animal called in those days "Lounger," is worth putting into practice occasionally, even in this age and generation:-One fine morning while Franklin was busy preparing his newspaper for the press, a lounger stepped into the store, and spent an hour or more looking over the books, &c., and finally, taking one in his hand, asked the shop-boy the price. dollar," was the answer. "One dollar," said the lounger, "can't you take less than that?" No, indeed: one dollar is the price." Another hour had nearly passed, when the Lounger asked, Is Mr. Franklin at home?" "Yes he is in the printing office." "I want to see him," said the Lounger, The shop boy immediately informed Mr. Franklin that a gentleman was in the store waiting to see him. Franklin was soon behind the counter, when the Lounger, with book in hand, addressed him thus: "Mr. Franklin, what is the lowest you can take for this book?" "One dollar and a quarter," was the ready answer. "One dollar and a quarter! Why your young man asked only a dollar." "True," said Franklin, "and I could have better afforded to take a dollar then than to have been taken out of the office." The Lounger seemed surprised, and, wishing to end the parley of his own making, said, Come, Mr. Franklin, tell me what is the lowest you can take for it." "One dollar and a half." dollar and a half! why, you offered it yourself for a dollar and a quarter." -"Yes," said Franklin," and I had better have taken that price then than a dollar and a half now." The Lounger paid down the price and went about his business, if he had any, and Franklin returned into the printing office. HARVESTS WITHOUT PREVIOUS SOWING. In the Schnellpost of Wednesday, we find an account of a method of compelling the wheat plant to become perennial, like grass, and to perfect its grains annually without annual sowing of seed, which has been successfully practiced at Constance in Germany. It was discovered by the steward of an estate named Kern. His method, after ploughing and manuring the land, and sowing it with Summer or Winter wheat, is to mow it in the Spring before the ear makes its appearance. This process is repeated several times in the season, and the product is used as hay. The plant is then allowed to grow and be cut in the ordinary manner. year it ripens earlier, and bears more abundantly than wheat treated in the ordinary manner. It is manured in the autumn like grass in the meadows, and in Spring cleared from weeds. In this manner, from one field four successive harvests have been gathered. PHOSPHORESCENT FUNGUS. One dark night, about the beginning of December, while passing the streets of the Villa de Natividade, I observed some boys amusing themselves with some luminous object, which I at first supposed to be a kind of large fire-fly; but, on making inquiry, I found it to be a beautiful phosphorescent fungus, belonging to the genus Agaricus, and was told that it grew abundantly in the neighbourhood on the decaying leaves of a dwarf palm. Next day I obtained a great many specimens, and found them to vary from one to two and a half inches across. The whole plant gives out at night a bright phosphorescent light, of a pale greenish hue, similar to that emitted by the larger fire-flies, or by those curious soft bodied marine animals, the Pyrosomoœ. From this circumstance, and from growing on palm, it is called by the inhabitants "Flor du Coco." The light given out by a few of these fungi, in a dark room, was sufficient to read by. I was not aware at the time I discovered this fungus that any other species of the same genus exhibited a similar phenomenon. Such, however, is the case in the Adolearius of De Candolle; and Mr. Drummond, of Swan River Colony, in Australia, has given an account of a very large phosphorescent species occasionally found there.-Gardner's Travels in Brazil. MOSAIC GLASS FLOORING-NEW INVENTION. Mr. P. Hewins, of this city, has made a highly important discovery. It is a composition, cheaply obtained, with which he makes glass plates for flooring a substitute for marble, being stronger and more beautiful, and full fifty per cent. cheaper. He has made a discovery in the process of coloring, by which the plates are made to partake of every variety of colour, which forms a part of the glass, and can never be eradicated or lessened in freshness. Hartford Times. SHAMEFUL IGNORANCE OF NATURE. At present, many a man who is versed in Greek metre, and afterwards full of law reports, is childishly ignorant of nature. Let him walk with an inteliigent child for a morning; and the child will ask him a hundred questions about the sun, moon, stars, planets, birds, building, farming, and the like, to which he can give very sorry answers, if any. Or, at the best, he has but a second hand acquaintance with nature. Men's conceits are his main knowledge. Whereas, if he had any pursuit connected with nature, CHRISTIAN CALMNESS DISTURBED. We watched by the side of the tranquil stream, INFLUENCE. What if the little rain should say, What if a shining beam of noon Should in its fountain stay, Doth not each rain drop help to form, And beautify the flower? MARRIED, On the 6th inst., at Friends' Meeting House on 12th Street, GEORGE RANDOLPH to REBECCA, daughter of Jasper Cope, all of this city. West Town School. The Committee to superintend the boarding school at West Town, will meet there on Sixth day morning, the 15th inst. at 10 o'clock. The Committee on Instruction, to meet the preceding evening at 7 o'clock. The Visiting Committee to attend the semiannual examination, commencing on Third day morning, the 12th inst. THOMAS KIMBER, Clerk. Phila. 10th mo. 2d, 1847.-2t FRIENDS' REVIEW. VOL. I. A RELIGIOUS, LITERARY AND MISCELLANEOUS JOURNAL. PHILADELPHIA, TENTH MONTH 16, 1847. EDITED BY ENOCH LEWIS. Published Weekly by Josiah Tatum, PHILADELPHIA. Price two dollars per annum, payable in advance, or six copies for ten dollars. This paper is subject to newspaper postage only. For Friends' Review. LIFE OF WILLIAM ALLEN; With selections from his Correspondence. 3 vols. 8vo. * No. 4. fourteen, he constructed a simple refracting telescope, probably the cheapest that ever was formed since the glasses fixed on a board in the shop of a spectacle maker exhibited their magnifying power to the admiring spectators.* William Allen purchased an eye-piece and object-glass, for which he paid a shilling; and formed his tubes of pasteboard, which cost him two pence. With these materials (which cost about twenty-eight cents of our money) and his own ingenuity, he constructed an instrument which brought into view the satellites of Jupiter; objects which had never been visible to human sight, until Gallileo applied his telescope to the heavens. A biographical work with the above title has been issued from a Philadelphia press, since In his puerile years the choice of a profession the commencement of the current year. It was not made without much thoughtfulness, and describes, with considerable minuteness, the an earnest desire for right direction. "In him," diversified pursuits, the private reflections, says his biographer, "mental cultivation and and the religious engagentents of one of the philosophical attainments were happily united with sound Christian principle; he was ever most extraordinary men of his time. In a diary which he commenced in the eighteenth watchful lest the allurements of science should year of his age, and continued with some inter- beguile his heart from love to God, or adherence mission through great part of his active ca- to the simple truths of the gospel; and his exreer, we are presented with an unvarnished ample is an encouraging evidence of the efficacy narrative of his youthful studies, and the means of that grace by which he was enabled, through by which, with slender opportunities of instruc-a long course of years, steadily and consistently tion, he was qualified to take a respectable sta- to pursue the path of piety and usefulness." tion among the philosophers of the day and The first entry in his diary manifests his conthe exercises through which he was led pre-cern to guard against evil thoughts; and the paratory to his extensive engagements in the religious society to which he belonged. second, his apprehension of the danger of unprofitable conversation. The observations of ministering friends, and the reflections which The subject of this memoir was born in London in the year 1770, and enjoyed the advantage of a religious and guarded education; • One account of the invention of the telescope is, his pious parents, who were members of the So- that the children of a spectacle maker in Middleburg, in Zealand, while playing in their father's shop, observed ciety of Friends, endeavouring during his early that two of the glasses being held in such a position years not only to impress his susceptible mind that the vane of a neighbouring steeple could be seen with a just sense of the value of the Holy Scrip- through them, it appeared larger than when viewed by tures, and of the benefits to be derived from the naked eye; and that their father, to facilitate the observation, attached the glasses to a board by means associating with religious persons, but also of of brass rings, so as to increase or diminish their disthe necessity of careful attention to the convic-tance from each other. These glasses, being afterwards tions of truth upon his mind; and their labours in these respects were frequently reviewed with filial gratitude in maturer life. His propensity to scientific pursuits was manifested at an early period. At the age of The work was published by Henry Longstreth, No. 347 High Street, from the London edition. placed in a tube, formed a telescope. Whether this instrument was actually first made in this way or not, it is agreed that the use of magnifying glasses was discovered by accident, and that Gallileo, hearing of it, was led to investigate the laws of refraction, and thus on scientific principles he at length constructed a telescope, which, increasing the apparent dimensions of an object thirty times, brought into view the satellites of Jupiter and other celestial phenomena not previously observed.Vide Bossut's History of Mathematics. arose in his own mind, are frequently noted in its early pages, evidently with the design of rendering their impression as permanent as possible, The abominations and cruelties of the African slave-trade, which were brought, about the time when this diary opens, very prominently before the British public, early attracted the earnest attention of William Allen. In the Second month, 1789, when in his 19th year, the following record was made. "When I reflect upon the tyranny and oppression exercised by my countrymen towards the poor Africans, and the many thousands yearly murdered in the disgraceful slave-trade, I can but be a zealous opposer of slavery; and indeed, I have been so for a long time, as far as lay in my power-yet one step further may be taken by me, which is wanting to complete my testimony in this respect, and which, if universally adopted, would inevitably put a stop to this enormous evil; and that is, disusing those commodities procured by the labour of slaves. And as sugar is, undoubtedly, one of the chief, I resolve, through divine assistance, to persevere in it until the slave-trade shall be abolished." This was about two years before the pamphlet of Fox, advocating the abstinence from West India sugar and rum, was published. To this determination, we are informed, he continued to adhere until the abolition bill was passed-after which he resumed the use of sugar. The following notice, in the same year, may perhaps excite an inquiry, whether the zeal of our fathers, in relation to the interests of the free coloured race, is inherited by Friends of the present day."This morning John Pemberton informed the Yearly Meeting, that the three Monthly Meetings of Philadelphia had appointed committees to visit the families of the black people, resident among them, (amounting to 245 families,) and that they found them, with very few exceptions, an industrious, sober people, maintaining their families comfortably." and his own, to be openly professing an interest in the abolition of this traffic which he did not actually feel. From the majorities which commonly supported his parliamentary measures, it was inferred that this might have been carried much sooner than it was, if he had given it his zealous concurrence. William Allen, from his observations at the time, arrived at a conclusion similar to that which Clarkson maintains. They both gave him credit for entire sincerity. It is indeed well understood, that there was an influence near the throne, which neutralized his efforts on this subject as a member of the cabinet. At some time between 1789 and 1793, he was introduced by Joseph Gurney Bevan into his extensive chemical establishment at Plough Court, where his talents and integrity soon procured for him a responsible station. Of this concern he ultimately became the proprietor. On a review of the year 1793, during which he was much engaged, in addition to his usual business, with literary and chemical pursuits, he says, "Much depressed during part of this year with doubts and fears whether I was in my right place; but after a season of great conflict, I was permitted to feel the consolations of the spirit of God in a manner marvellous to myself; the clouds disappeared, the tempest ceased to assail my habitation, and quietness and confidence possessed my soul. For this and other touches of his love, vouchsafed to me, who am so unworthy of the least of his mercies and of his truth, I desire to be ever grateful.” Under the Third month, 1794, we find the following judicious and impressive observations. "Oh! the beauty of pleading for the truth in a Christian spirit, and keeping the creaturely warmth and zeal, under foot! Endeavour to convince the party that it is love for them which induces us to persuade them, joined to a conviction of the rectitude of the cause we advocate; in such case, by no means strike at or wound them, or unnecessarily lift up the The interest which he took in the proceed- voice of censure, either obliquely, by inference, ings of Parliament in relation to the African or in a more open manner; this is not likely to slave-trade, is manifested by the copious detail convince, but to confirm in error, there being a which he gives of the motions and speeches of perverseness in human nature which tends to the members. Clarkson's history of the abolition reject and oppose a proposition, however good of that traffic, in which the proceedings of Par-in itself, which is maintained with obstinate liament are related in a connected order, having been long before the public, very little further information was to be expected from the pen of a youthful observer: and perhaps the interest which readers of our day may take in this biography would not have been diminished by the omission of these details. It may, however, be remarked, that these memorandums furnish evidence that the imputation of insincerity in his advocacy of this cause, was early cast upon W. Pitt. It is well known that this influential minister was believed by many in this country tenacity, and urged with indecent obtrusion. If the spirit of love fail to convince, we are hardly likely to succeed." In the year 1796 he was united in marriage with Mary Hamilton, who was to him an object of sincere affection; he declaring a few months. after their union, that she was, next to divine consolation, the greatest comfort he enjoyed. But a year had not passed before this beloved companion was called to her everlasting home, leaving a daughter only about five days old. Though this afflictive dispensation was felt by In the spring of 1799 we find him attending no less than twelve lectures in a week, on anatomy, physiology, &c., yet he could find time to devote to the relief of the poor, and the duties devolving upon him as an active member of religious society. Besides, we must necessarily suppose that the oversight of his own extensive establishment occupied no inconsiderable portion of his attention. The secret of accomplishing so much seems to have been, that no time was wasted in idleness, and very little allotted to sleep. William Allen in all its weight and bitterness, | to silent retirement for the renewal of spiritual and the prospect of a long continuance in this strength. state of mutability became an object of dread rather than desire, yet he still found the hope and promises of the gospel an anchor to his soul: and the effect of this painful bereavement was to drive him to a more earnest pursuit of those things which belonged to his permanent peace. The consolation which, according to his own account, he frequently received from the sympathy of his friends, furnishes an intimation to such as can feel for the afflictions of others, not to forget those who are similarly tried: but to remember that the language of sympathy is sometimes like a cup of cold water to the thirsty soul. Towards the end of 1797, we find William Allen taking a leading part in the preparation and execution of a plan for relieving the distress of the poor, many thousands of whom, in the vicinity of London, were reduced to destitution by the stagnation of trade and the high price of provisions. A society was formed, subscriptions were opened, and an establishment made, (upon a plan similar in some respects to that tried by Count Rumford in Bavaria,*) by which the poor were daily supplied with nourishing soup, at a penny a quart. Amidst the cares of an extensive and increasing business, and the labours of philanthropy in his attention to the poor, we find him still pursuing the study of chemistry, philosophy, botany, and mathematics; but with some significant intimations of the danger which he felt himself in, of allowing his mind to be improperly absorbed by the pursuits of science. On one occasion he observes, "If I am preserved from falling a victim to the world, its knowledge, its honours and its friendships, I shall be inclined to consider it a miracle of mercy." He evidently felt, as every religious man who has become ardently attached to scientific inquiries has probably often felt, that the pursuit of knowledge, no less than the pursuit of the world, requires the curb of religious restraint. Whether or not, in his labours for the acquisition of knowledge, he always kept within the limits which his religious duty enjoined, we cannot resist the conviction that he maintained, notwithstanding his multifarious avocations, a lively concern to follow the path of manifested duty: and that, besides the attendance of religious meetings, he was accustomed to allot a portion of each day It may, perhaps, be interesting to some of our readers to understand that Count Rumford, (Benjamin Thompson,) was a native American; and that, though a military man by profession, a large portion of his time was employed in devising and carrying into execution the means of improving the condition of the poor. His philosophic experiments on the communication of heat, and their application to the economical preparation of food for the poor at Munich in Bavaria, are highly interesting. In 1800 and 1801, the family of William Allen was again visited by the messenger of death; his father being removed in the former, and a brother in the latter year. He was tenderly attached to them both, and in the record which he made of their decease, we may readily discover the sensibilities of the brother and son, mingled with the resignation and hopes of the Christian. In the summer of 1801, provisions being exceedingly dear, partly in consequence of the war with France, and partly from the failure of the harvest, Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting raised by subscription a considerable sum, which was remitted to the Meeting for Sufferings in London. William Allen, being then a member of that body, notices the remittance with appropriate acknowledgements; but considering the donation as designed for the relief of indigent Friends, he intimates a belief that their American brethren had apprehended their condition worse than it actually was, for the Society was still able to take care of its own poor. The writer of this article, however, from his recollection of the time, is clearly of the opinion that the contributions of American Friends were designed and applied to the relief of the suffering poor, without limitation to our own Society. By the time to which we have arrived (1801,) William Allen had become known to men of learning and science for his extensive and varied acquirements; and particularly for his accuracy and skill in the performance of chemical experiments. And about this time he undertook to deliver, gratuitously, a course of lectures at Plough Court, chiefly for the benefit of a society which was established a few years before, for the improvement of its members in the various branches of experimental philosophy. The subjects illustrated in these lectures were chemistry, and the theory and practice of mechanics, elucidated by appropriate experiments. The lectures began with about sixty, but the audience soon increased so that the room was completely crowded. It appears he got through these lectures to his own satisfaction; and a mind so replete with information, and so ardent in the |