The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stuyvesant, by Jacob Abbott

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Title: Stuyvesant
A Franconia Story

Author: Jacob Abbott

Release Date: May 12, 2009 [EBook #28776]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Stuyvesant

_A FRANCONIA STORY_

BY JACOB ABBOTT

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK AND LONDON

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1904

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by

HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York.

Copyright, 1881, by BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT, AUSTIN
ABBOTT, LYMAN ABBOTT, and EDWARD ABBOTT.

[Illustration: THE BOYS AT THE MILL.]

PREFACE.

The development of the moral sentiments in the human heart, in early
life,--and every thing in fact which relates to the formation of
character,--is determined in a far greater degree by sympathy, and by
the influence of example, than by formal precepts and didactic
instruction. If a boy hears his father speaking kindly to a robin in
the spring,--welcoming its coming and offering it food,--there arises
at once in his own mind, a feeling of kindness toward the bird, and
toward all the animal creation, which is produced by a sort of
sympathetic action, a power somewhat similar to what in physical
philosophy is called _induction_. On the other hand, if the father,
instead of feeding the bird, goes eagerly for a gun, in order that he
may shoot it, the boy will sympathize in that desire, and growing up
under such an influence, there will be gradually formed within him,
through the mysterious tendency of the youthful heart to vibrate in
unison with hearts that are near, a disposition to kill and destroy
all helpless beings that come within his power. There is no need of
any formal instruction in either case. Of a thousand children brought
up under the former of the above-described influences, nearly every
one, when he sees a bird, will wish to go a