and the Mayor was so much surprised that he sent for the girl and asked her what made her think of that number. Well," she said, "it was this way: I had a dream that No. 7 won it; and then I dreamt again that 7 won; and then a third time I dreamt that 7 won; and I said to myself 'three sevens is 23,' and I came here and got it."

And when I had got to the end, the whole class rose deferentially from their seats, and said, "Three sevens are 21."

Let me add two wholly irrelevant appendices-appendicitis is the disease of the story-teller: First, was it Huxley or Tyndall, who, after hearing this, said it was the only dream story that ever carried conviction to his mind? Secondly, I was told on the highest authority that the story is traditional in the Deanery of Westminster, because it was told there at the dinner table of Arthur P. Stanley; whose bent was not scientific and when it came to an end, all laughed except the Dean, who, after some thought, said he could not see the joke: but, after increased laughter of the others, hazarded the surmise that "perhaps three times seven is not 23?"

This irreceptivity caused me grave disquiet. Was it possible that by diligent practice a child should convert himself into a sort of "graph" or "phone," capable of reproducing a story with absolute accuracy without intelligent comprehension? Was it not possible to superadd a test? I tried the experiment thus: the story was of the usual type, and I told it to a large mixed class, boys and girls:

"A French officer, coming into a wineshop in Paris, heard an old soldier boasting of his battles, his wounds, and losses. I have lost my right arm,' he said, lastly,

'but it was for France and the Emperor; and for them I would gladly give the other arm.' That is all very fine,' remarked the officer; it is easy to boast when you are safe, but if it came to the real thing, it might be different.' The brave man rose from his seat, drew his sword, and cut off the other arm."

Now, children," I concluded, I concluded, "write that story, and at the bottom say what is wrong with it."

But the girls

The best of the boys were already chuckling: other boys joined in more slowly even the careworn teacher of the class, after staring hard at me for two or three minutes, came up, and confidentially informed me that he had got it, though at first it seemed a hard thing. sat dull-eyed and resentful of the novelty. twenty minutes they had reproduced the word; and the most intelligent of them had appended the criticism, “It was very wrong of the man to cut off the arm which God had given him."

Emboldened by success, I tried another :

At the end of story word for

"A Boer farmer wished to sell his cattle to a Scotch dealer. They met at the nearest hotel and agreed that the price should be £7 10s. a head: there were fifty of them, and, as the Boer said he was no scholar, the Scotchman made out the bill; fifty head of cattle at £7 10s.,' he said, 'just £350,' and he gave the farmer a cheque for the money, and rode off with the cattle. But the Boer did not feel quite sure it was right; and when he got to the next hotel, he borrowed a Ready Reckoner, which showed that the price should have been £375. Full of fury, he galloped after the Scotchman, caught him up, and charged him with cheating.

"Eh, man,' said the rogue, 'what makes you think it was £375?'

"I found it in the Ready Reckoner at Smith's Hotel,' said the Boer.

Pooh, pooh, man,' said the other, I know that Reckoner it is last year's.'

"And the Boer rode back content.

"There is the story. Write at the end What the Boer ought to have said."

It was at the end of the last century that a philosopher discovered that reproducing anecdotes was not educative : it gave no play to the imagination: what we wanted was original thought. Now the stories required attention, concentration, accuracy, and considerable knowledge of the laws of composition; and the better course would have been to add what required originality, retaining what required accuracy. But in education, as in other things, it is the man of one idea who moves and gets his way. My stock of stories became waste paper.

The search for originality was too often pursued in a remarkable manner. No one reads Campbell now, and

no boy could retaliate with the lines

"For there's nothing original in me
Excepting Original Sin."

but it was easy to offer passive resistance, and to let the teacher do the originating. The latter began by providing "heads," accompanied with copious comments; then he supplied rough scribbling-books, in which the children. wrote their crude attempts. Then he wrote on the blackboard a jejune essay, which the class copied verbatim into their show-books. These were offered to us as the first-fruits of original thought.

Occasionally we got the real article, and I treasure the

following essay (faithfully transcribed from the M.S.) as 18 carat gold:

MY FAVOURITE HERO.

A good while ago I heard of a man called Arthur Wellesley. His first school he went too was in France. He was called the Duke of Wellington. He was a grand speaker, and spoke about a great man named Napolean. He was captured by the Romans and took to prison. They let him off iff he would not go back to the Britons. Wellington was sent to an island and he escaped in a punt and went back to his own country. There he stayed for a long while when he died. He was a very strong and healthy

man.

CHAPTER XXVII

NEEDLEWORK

"Domi mansit: lanam fecit."-Roman epitaph.

"Domestic Economy and plain needlework."-Code

"It was I," said Dominie Sampson, "who did educate Miss Lucy in all useful learning-albeit it was the housekeeper who did teach her those unprofitable exercises of hemming and shaping."

The question that occurs to the professional mind, is whether Lucy Bertram's skill in plain needlework was really limited to hemming, which is the work allotted to girls of six or seven years of age; or whether the Dominie in his contemptuous ignorance used the term to include all varieties of stitches. By "shaping," I think he meant what we call "cutting out." That is high art, and a few years ago it was confined to quite the upper circles of an Elementary School. If Lucy really could not go beyond hemming, I fear she would have had some difficulty with the material when it was "shaped": unless, indeed, she made only pocket-handkerchiefs and towels. To be easily satisfied with a low standard of attainments was, in the estimation of My Lords, a mark of inefficiency. This is a pity, for Lucy shares with Rose Bradwardine the unenviable distinction of being the most insipid of Scott's heroines, and