P. From this you may learn something. Those nouns which are very general, and form a large class, are called common nouns; but those names which belong only to one in a class, or to a few in a class, are called proper nouns. Proper means particular. L. I can understand that. The word dog only belongs to a tribe in the class mammals. Is the word dog a proper name? P. No, the word dog is not particular enough; it belongs to a great many animals, instead of belonging to one or two in particular. When you speak of one of a large tribe, or of one of a large class, such a noun is generally common. But our dog has her proper name. Ion. To be sure; she is called Fan. "Fan" is her proper name, and "dog" is her common name; just as it is with me-I have the names Ion, and boy; one is proper and the other common. W. You have more than one common name, Ion; you have several. Some are more common than others. Shall I say them all to you? Ion. Yes. W. I will say them one after another; you will see that each is more common than the one before it. Ion, boy, child, person, animal, living thing, object. Now, you think about that! Object is a very common noun, for it not only belongs to Ion, but to stones, and clouds, which are not living things. Living thing is more common than animal, because it not only belongs to Ion, but to the flowers, scaweeds, &c. they are not animals; and so on. Thus, all things that have proper names have common names too. P. Yes. Sometimes when talking of any person we use both his proper and common name; and I may as well tell you now that we always distinguish the proper name by beginning it with a capital letter. Thus, Bonaparte, the soldier, died at St. Helena. Or, The soldier, Bonaparte, died at St. Helena. Or, The boy, Willie, is very good. Or, In the great city, Lisbon, there was an earthquake. Or, Darby, the Uran-utan, is a celebrated character at the Zoological Gardens. In the following exercise, when you parse the nouns, you may say, first, whether they are proper or common; secondly, say their gender; and thirdly, their number. I will take the first word; thus, DARBY, a proper noun-masculine gender singular number. No. 13. PARSING EXERCISE. DARBY, the Uran-utan, is a well-known animal in the Zoological Gardens. The great city, Babylon, [is destroyed]. Jane [is riding] on our old gray horse. Poor Peg! she is a very old horse. Buy me an apple, Mary. Tell our cook, Esther, [to roast] the largest turkey. I swam across the Thames. Stir the fire, if you please, and put on some fresh coals. Tell the children that their tea is in the parlour. 1 2 3 ## Your patience and prudence will not be in vain, They'll help you to Your prudence and patience will not be in conquer a gain and 10 gain. Your patience and prudence will vain, They'll help you to conquer a gain and a gain. Your AFTERNOON SONG.-(A ROUND.) ger in de lay. A JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTION FOR THE FAMILY AND THE SCHOOL. 10th Week. MONDAY. Moral Biography. INDUSTRY. THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE SPINNING-MULE. P. THE history of the improvements in the cotton-manufacture is rather interesting. Do you remember the names of the men who made machines for spinning? Ion. Yes. There was first ROBERT HARGREAVES, who invented the spinning-jenny; then RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, who invented the spinning-frame. P. And another useful machine was made by SAMUEL CROMPTON, who invented the spinning-mule. This man is as worthy of notice as the two former; his life does not contain any remarkable events, but he is worthy to be remembered for the good which his machine effected. He teaches us to think, and work, and to persevere. Samuel Crompton was the son of a farmer in Lancashire; he was only a village lad; and when he was young he was employed as a weaver. Perhaps he had often to travel from house to house to collect weft, like the weavers whom I told you about last week. It is very likely, too, that he also followed the business of farming, for the country weavers were frequently both farmers and weavers at the same time. When Crompton was sixteen years old he met with one of Hargreaves' spinning-jennies, and learned to spin upon it. While using it, he began to think about it; and as he did not feel quite satisfied with the sort of yarn the machine produced, he tried to improve it. Accordingly he set to work; like a wise man, he laboured patiently for five years. the end of that time he produced a machine which would spin a yarn suitable for very fine cotton-cloth, such as muslins. At When the machine was finished, he thought, like Hargreaves, that he would keep his invention a secret, so as to have the advantages of it for himself. His neighbours, however, heard of it, and they thought differently. They were like the neighbours of Hargreaves; they thought that they also would have the benefit of his invention. They at first suspected the secret by noticing that Crompton got a better price for his yarn than they did; they concluded directly that such good yarn must be made by some new kind of machine, and they attempted to discover what it was like. They did not like to imitate Hargreaves' neighbours by breaking into his house; but they all gathered round it in a crowd, and peeped in, to steal a glimpse of the wonderful apparatus. Crompton therefore took his machine up into a garret. But that step did not mend matters; the people procured ladders, and looked in at the window. This kind of annoyance was kept up by the neighbours for a long time, until, at last, poor Crompton was quite tired out by their inquisitiveness. He tried to get as good a reward for his invention as he could. He had not enough money to procure a patent; therefore he divided the secret of his invention amongst those of his tormentors who could afford to pay for it. He disclosed his secret to about fifty persons, each of whom gave a guinea for it. They then set to work themselves, and in time other improvements on the machine were thought of, so that yarn of a wonderful fineness was spun. Now, let us look at the result of Crompton's invention. How long a time did I say he took to produce his machine? W. Five years, papa. £12,000 before they were rewarded for their labour, so did Crompton patiently give up his time. It was a great deal of time for a poor villager to give, but he never would have done anything worth noticing if he had not been so patient. W. I think he must have had a great deal of confidence. Ion. Or forethought, Willie! He must have known well what he was going to do before he began. P. No. doubt he did. Still he could not feel quite sure that he should succeed. But I dare say he had learned this proverb, "Nothing risk, nothing have." W. I have heard that proverb before. P. And here is another, "What costs nothing, is worth nothing." So he worked on; he was not sure that he should succeed, but he depended upon his perseverance. He knew that to do great good he must take great trouble, and that no one will ever do good in the world without it. And he knew something else L. What was that, papa? P. That the longer time he took in preparing his machine the more quickly it would do good. This you will see by Ion. I think that is a long looking at the results. time. L. So do I. P. And so do I; but it was not too long a time to do the thing properly. Here is a lesson to learn from Crompton. Be patient! Just as Arkwright and his partners worked for a long time, and spent about A hank of yarn means a large skein, containing 840 yards; and when Crompton brought to market some "No. 80" yarn, the people were, as I told you, much surprised. I do not wonder at it, for No. 80 means that 80 hanks were produced from a pound of cotton. W. Eighty times 840! That is a great number of yards. P. And Crompton obtained two guineas a-pound for it. But his mule was so good a machine that it was very easy to make much finer yarn after a little improvement; and two years after he had made the secret known (in 1792), Mr. John Pollard, of Manchester, spun no fewer than 278 hanks of yarn from a pound of raw cotton. These hanks form a thread of 233,520 yards, or upwards of 132 miles! But since then the power of producing fine yarn on the spinning-mule has increased wonderfully. No less than 400 hanks per pound have been produced; these measure 336,000 yards, or nearly 200 miles! Such yarn, as you look at it, seems very little thicker than a spider's web! Ion. That seems a wonderful thing for a machine to do! P. Yes. And do you not think it was worth while for Crompton to labour five years to produce such a machine? But even greater advantages have been produced in another way. Cotton-cloth has become very much cheaper, so as to be within the reach of the very poorest people. How much did I say that Crompton received per pound for his yarn, No. 80? L. Two guineas per pound. P. That is forty-two shillings. But the price rapidly became cheaper, so that twenty years ago a finer yarn (No. 100) could be sold for 3s. per pound: thus you could buy more than fourteen times as much for the same money. P. The improvements in machinery which have effected this wonderful cheapness are, however, partly owing to other men, one of whom we will talk about next week. L. But, papa, you have not yet finished Samuel Crompton's history. Did he ever get any other reward for his machine than the fifty guineas which his neighbours gave him? Did he get on and become a rich man? P. Yes; he deserved to be rich, and he was. Everybody thought so. He was not only enriched by his own earnings, but by the good-will of his fellow-manufacturers. At the beginning of the present century some gentlemen of Manchester presented him with five hundred pounds. W. Oh, I am so glad! P. And what was more, as he had done good service to his country, a reward was presented to him ten years afterwards in the name of the whole nation. The Parliament presented him with no less than five thousand pounds! L. That was better still. P. So it was. Although he could not secure a patent, yet you see he had his reward! And so will every one be rewarded in some way or other, or at some time or other, if he will only be industrious, and will work hard in doing good. You may depend upon that. |