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15.

of the year, and all the people gather together to hear them
read. To give the reader some idea as to the contents of the Annals
I have taken a year from them:-

From 4th Month, 4th, 1870, to Fourth Month, 3D, 1871

"I ask you to join with me in self-congratulation upon the
circumstance of our having accidentally fixed this special period
as the commencment of our Lyceum year. It is very near about the
time which was used by our forefathers for centuries as the
beginning of the civil year; and, although some pestilent reformers,
just one hundred and twenty years ago, changed the old arrangements,
making New' Year's Day come near about mid winter (on the same
preverse principal by which day begins in the middle of the night),
still in this undeniable that nature has selected this particular
period in average season for beginning her year. It has been found
in most other neighborhoods with which I am acquainted, to be the
best season for business arangements connected with passing from
one year into the next. In the northern counties of this State, and
in some of the adjacent States, the first of April, as I am told, is
the peoples moving day, renting day, hiring day, and general settlement
day. It is considered for various good reasons a more convenient
period than midwinter; and the festive season of Christmas is
not clouded by thoughts of having to provide the next week for
certain pecuniary arrangements which the farmer has not yet had time
to meet. My purpose now in bringing these considerations forward
is merely to demonstrate that we happened to fall upon the true
and natural period for commencing our historical year, and with the
special purpose of making a simple, sensible, serous review of the
one just past. It is surely the part of wisdom to do so. I know it