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Neglected pear-tree-Pruning commenced.

a hop-trellis; and, in the midst of a bed of tansy hard by, stood a small, knotty, crooked pear-tree. It had stood there I know not how long. It was very diminutive in size; but, like those cedars which one notices high up the mountain, just on the boundary between vegetation and eternal frost, it had every mark of the decrepitude of age.

Why should this tree stand here so unsightly and unfruitful? Why had it escaped notice so long? Its bark had become bound and cracked; its leaves were small and curled; and those, small as they were, were ready to be devoured by a host of caterpillars, whose pampered bodies were already grown to the length of an inch. The tendrils of the hop-vine had crept about its thorny limbs and were weighing down its growth, while the tansy at its roots drank up the refreshing dew and shut out the genial ray. It was a neglected tree!

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Why may not this tree be pruned?" No sooner said, than the small saw was taken from its place and the work was commenced. Commenced? It was hard to determine where to commence. Its knotty branches had grown thick and crooked, and there was scarcely space to get the saw between them. They all seemed to deserve amputation, but then the tree would have no top. This and that limb were lopped off as the case seemed to demand. The task was neither easy nor pleasant. Sometimes a violent stroke would bring down upon my own head a shower of the filthy caterpillars; again, the long-cherished garden

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RESPONSIBILITY OF THE TEACHER.

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The pears ripen.-Chagrin and mortification.-A moral garden. exterminated, the hop-vine clipped, the bark rubbed and washed, the earth manured and watered. The time of fruit arrived. The Bartlet pear was offered in our market,—but my pears were not yet ripe! With anxious care they were watched till the frost bade the green leaves wither, and then they were carefully gathered and placed in the sunbeams within doors. They at length turned yellow, and looked fair to the sight and tempting to the taste; and a few friends, who had known their history, were invited to partake of them. They were brought forward, carefully arranged in the best dish the humble domicil afforded, and formally introduced as the first fruits of the "neglected tree." What was my chagrin and mortification, after all my pains and solicitude, after all my hopes and fond anticipations, to find they were miserable, tastelesschoke pears!

This pear-tree has put me upon thinking. It has suggested that there is such a thing as a moral garden, in which there may be fair flowers indeed, but also some neglected trees. The plants in this garden may suffer very much from neglect,-from neglect of the gardener. It is deplorable to see how many crooked, unseemly branches shoot forth from some of these young trees, which early might have been trained to grow straight and smooth by the hand of cultivation. Many a youth, running on in his own way, indulging in deception and profanity, yielding to temptation and overborne by evil influences, polluting by his example and wounding the hearts of his best

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