"What is commonly called a politician, boys, is a person who is always reading in newspapers about the government of the country, and talking a great deal about the President and Congress, and the laws that are made, and all such things: but the real politician is one who studies the different kinds of government which have been in the world, and endeavours to find out which is good and which is bad, and why they are good or bad. He reads, too, a great deal of history, to learn how other nations have done, what kind of laws they made, and why they made them, how they became great nations, or how they became very poor; and he thinks, too, a great deal, that he may find out what will be best for his own nation. It requires hard study and thought, boys, to make a good politician."
"Then, Uncle Philip, a man cannot learn how to be one out of the newspapers."
"No, boys; not out of newspapers alone: but still he will read them, and very often learn from them things very useful to him in his business. Newspapers are valuable things, and I think it is always best for a country to have a great many of them spread about in it. But they will not, of themselves, make a man a politician; and if you should ask the persons who print them, whether they expect them to teach men all about governments, they will tell you, No: but they will teach people what is doing in all the governments in the world. No good government, boys, will ever be afraid to let the people have newspapers. They are always fewest where the government is hardest upon the people. But let us go back to the birds. Can you tell me now why some people call the fly-catcher a politician?"
"Oh, yes; because he has so many bits of old newspapers about his nest."
"That is the reason, boys. There is another kind of fly-catcher, called the hooded fly-catcher, and it weaves its nest of flax and strings pulled from the stalks of hemp: but the best weaver in this country is the Baltimore starling. This bird chooses the ends of high bending branches for his nest, and he begins in a forked twig, by fastening strong strings of hemp or flax around both branches of the fork, just as far apart as he means the width of his nest to be: he then with the same kind of strings, mixed in with pieces of loose tow, weaves a strong, firm kind of cloth, which is like the hatter's felt in appearance, only that you can see that the nest is woven, not felted. In this way he makes a pouch, or purse, six or seven inches deep, and lines it on the inside with several soft things, which he weaves into the outside netting, and finishes the whole with horse-hair. Mr. Wilson describes one of these nests which he had. He says that it was round like a cylinder. Do you know what a cylinder is?"
"No, Uncle Philip."
"A smooth round pillar to hold up a porch is a cylinder; my walking-cane is a cylinder; so is the straight body of a tree. When these are of the same size all through their whole length, they are perfect cylinders; and any thing in that shape is a cylinder."
"We understand you, Uncle Philip; a gun-barrel is a cylinder, and there is a cylinder in your garden."
"What is it?"
"The heavy stone roller that you let us pull over the walks."