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Show t ENGLISH AS SHE IS TAUGHT. studied Greek and Lady Jane Grey Her hat is contiguous because she Latin and was beheaded after a few wears it on one side. d&ySa You should take caution and be "Lord James Gordon Bennett instivigated the Gordon riots. The supercilious girt acted with faJulius Caesar is noted for his time cissitude when the perennial saw . pre-cario- I English as She Is Taught is a little book containing genuine answers to some examination questions, asked in the public schools,' collected by Caroline Le Row. The introduction is by Mark Twain, and the following is the story as he sees it: Some time ago I fell upon a darling It was this little literary curiosity. book, the manuscript of which was sent to me by the compiler with the request that I should say whether I thought it or not. ought to be ; published I said yes but as I slowly grow wise, I briskly grow cautious; and so, when the publication was imminent, it seemed to me that I should feel more comfortable if I could divide up this responsibility with the public by adding them to the court. Therefore I printed some extracts from the book, in the hope that they judgment might make converts to mywhich entithat the volume had merit tled it to publication. As to its character. Every one has sampled English as She Is Spoke and "English as She Is Wrote; this little volume furnishes us an instructive aras She Is ray of examples of English of schools the in public Taught well, this country. The collection was made by a teacher in those schools, and all the examples in it are genuine; none of them have been tampered with, or doctored in any way. From time to time, during several years, whenever a pupil delivered himself of anything peculiarly quaint or toothsome In the course of his recitations, this teacher and her associates privately set that thing down in a memorandum book, strictly following the original as to grammar, construction, spelling and all; and the result is this literary curiosity. The contents of the book consist mainly of answers given by the boys and girls to questions, said answers besomeing given sometimes verbally, touched in writing. The subjects times ' I. Etyupon are fifteen in number. mology; II. Grammar; III. Mathematics; IV. Geography; V. Original; VI. Analysis; VII. History; VIII. "Intellectual; IX. Philosophy; X. Physiology; 'XI. Astronomy; XII. Politics; XIII. Music; XIV. Oratory; XV. Metaphysics. You perceive that the poor little young idea has taken a shot at a good many kinds of game in the course of the book. Now as to results. Here are 'some quaint definitions of words. It will be noticed that in all of these instances the sound of the word, or the look of it on paper, has misled the child: Alias, a good man in the Bible. Ammonia, the food of the gods. "Auriferous, pertaining to an orifice. Emolument, a headstone to a grave. "Eucharist, one who plays euchre.din- -' Ipecac, a man Who likes a good ner. Here is one where the phrase publl- cans and sinners" has got mixed up in the childs mind with politics, and the 'result is a definition which takes one in a sudden and unexpected way: Republican, a sinner mentioned in the Bible. And in the Democratic newspapers now and then. Here are two where the mistake has resulted from sound assisted by remote fact: Plagiarist, a writer of plays. Demagogue, a vessel containing beer and other liquids. I cannot quite make out what it was that misled the pupils in the following Instances; it would not seem to have been the sound of the word, nor the look of it in print: Asphyxia, a grumbling, fussy temper. Quarternions, a bird with a flat beak .and no bill, living in New Zealand. Sibilant, the state of being idiotic. Here is one which well, now, how often w? do slam right into the truth without ever suspecting it: The men employed by the gas company go round and speculate the me: 1 -- ter. Indeed they do, dear; and when you grow up many and manys the time you will notice it In the gas bill. In the following sentences the little people have some information to convey, every time; but in my case they failed to connect; the light always went out on the keystone word: The coercion of some things is re- -: markable, as bread and molasses. -- 9 . I i us. committees and trustees are th- - er target for it. All through book one detects the signs of a probable fact that a large pari pupils instruction consists in ming him with obscure and thi-u- d ml iain ; the ram- wordy rules, which he does not und fdand and has ho time to understat'd it w'ould be as useful to cram him with brickbats; they w'ould at least st . iQ a town In the interior of New York-few' years ago a gentleman set forth a mathematicol problem and propov.,M to give a prize to every public school pupil who should furnish the convef soof the brightlution to it. Twenity-tw- o est boys in the public schools entered the contest. The problem was ivt a very difficult one for pupils of their mathematical rank and standing, yet they all failed by a hairthrough one trifling mistake or another. Some searching questions were asked, when ought mosaic: the it turned out that these lads were as in circumstances: following any divulged Abraham Lincoln was born in Wales glib as parrots with the rules. but There are a good many donkeys in in 1599. could not reason out a single rule or theological gardens. In the chapter headed Intellectual Some of the best fossils are found explain the principle underlying It. I find a great number of most inter- Their memories had been stocked, but in theological cabinets. The chapter on Mathematics is full esting statements. A sample or two not their understandings. It was a case of brickbat culture, pure and of fruit. From it I take a few sam- may be found not amiss: Snow Bound w'as written by Peter ples mainly in an unripe state: A circle is a round straight line with Cooper. a hole in the middle. The House of Seven Gables was Before the end of this year the world each to are which written equal by Lord Bryant. Things will begin to learn such things .about other are equal to anything else. Ben Johnson survived Shakespeare the chasms of the deepest seas as it To find the number of square feet in in some respects. never dreamed of in its wildest dreams. a room you multiply the room by the Chaucer was the father of English The United States, Great Britain, number of the feet. The product is the pottery. Germany and Denmark are all result. Chaucer was succeeded by H. Wads. France, the point where their approaching Right you are. In the matter of Longfellow an American writer. His scientists are ready to begin systematic geography this little book is unspeaka- writings were chiefly prose and nearly publication of results attained in the bly rich. The questions do not appear one hundred years elapsed. various deep sea exploring expeditions to have applied the microscope to the George Eliot left a wife and chilwere sent out in the last few years, that subject, as did those quoted by Prof. dren who mourned greatly for his ge- says the Washington Post. Ravenstein; still, they proved plenty nius. these The most remarkable difficult enough without that. Sir Walter Scott Charles Bronte Al- reports will be those tellingamong work of the miThese pupils did not hunt with a fred the Great and Johnson were Valdivia German of the expedition, croscope; they hunted with a shotgun; great novelists. w'hich recently explored the seas off this is shown by the crippled condition Thomas Babbington Makorley gradAmerican, African, Indian and of the game they brought in: uated at Harvard and then studied law, the Chinese coasts; the final reports of the on the he w'as raised to the peerage as Baron . The Rocky mountains are Agassiz expedition through the Pacific western side of Philadelphia. in 1557 and died in 1776. ocean, the final reports of the German waCape Hatteras is a vast body of Here are twro or three miscellaneous members the Challenger expedition, ter surrounded by land and flowing into facts that may be of value, if taken in which are ofbeing published now in Gerthe Gulf of Mexico. moderation: in a many magnificent edition with Mason and Dixons line is the EquaHomers writings are Homers Es- colored and the reports of the tor. the Aneid and paradise lost, various plates, says of the Prince of expeditions One of the leading Industries of the some Virgil people say that these poems were Monaco. United States is molasses not written by Homer but by another Twenty-fiv- e years ago the deep sea numbers gas teaching lumber manufac- man of the same name. an world. Here and unknown w'as g tures publishers coal. A sort of sadness kind of shone in there, scattered in museums far apart Hindoostan flows through the Gan- Bryants poems. gazed at with amazement and igges and empties into the Mediterranean Holmes is a very profligate and and norant w'onder and unavailing speculaSea. writer. amusing were tion, forty or fifty monstrous Ireland is called the Emigrant Isle When the public school pupil wrestles shapes. They were deep sea forms that, because it is so beautiful and green. with the political features of the Great driven upwrard from their eternal night "The two most famous volcanoes of Republic, they throw' him sometimes: some by Sodom are and Gomorrah. fatality, had been picked up Europe A bill becomes law when the Pres- dead on the surface or washed ashore. We come now to his historical mat- ident vetoes It. a ters, historical remains, one might say. taught the world nothing. Men The first Conscientious Congress They did not even know that they were deep As one turns the pages, he is impressed met in Philadelphia. forms. It was believed then that with the depth to which one date has "The Constitution of the United sea been driven into the American childs States was established to ensure do- there was no life below a depth of 1000 feet. Those forty or fifty uncanny creahead 14921 The date is there, and it is mestic hostility. And it is always at there to stay. represented no more to the world, Truth crushed to earth will rise again tures scientific and lay, than did the bodies hand, always deliverable at a moas follow's: of the ments notice. But the Fact that bestrange red men which, accordThe Constitution of the United to the is with it? That another longs quite tradition, were washed on disStates is that part of the book at the ing matter. shores the old of before world the end which nobody reads. of the newr, hinting at the existOnly the date itself is familiar and And she rises orce more and un- covery ence of unexplored realms inhabited by sure: its vast Fact has failed of lodge- timely.here a limit to pub- unknown races but ment. It would appear that whenever lic schoolThere should be supplying no furit cannot be wise ther Information. instruction; you ask a public school pupils when a or well to let the young find out everyBut when the first groping wire arm thing anything, no mater what hap- thing. of is he and the first deep sea dredge vibrated on in he pened, doubt, always is divided into civilized, the bottom in the ooze of the black pits rips out his 1492. He applies it to every- halfCongress civilized and savage. of and those depths felt the thing, from the landing of the ark to Here are some results water, of Etudy in mu- thrill of the introduction of the horse car. Well, sic and human life for the first time oratory: after all, it is our first date, and so it is since was evolved from the world An In music is the distance formlessness at once a new right enough to honor it, and pay the on the interval into being, one piano to the and awrful from keyboard to to our schools teach children public page in the stupendous book next. honor it: of nature was unfolded, it was a xvesx means you are not to sln of revelation. George Washington was born in It. a chapter 1492. The writer often has heard Dr. Bean is putting more distress tell Emphasis wrote the Declaration the feeling of worshiping wonder Washington on one wrord than another. of Independence in 1492. and that overcame the two scientThe chapter on Physiology con- ists awe St. Bartholomew was massacred in when the trawl come up to the tains much that ought not to be lost to surface. 1492. He said: We were both science: The Brittains were the Saxon who standing by the mouth of the net Physillogigy is to study about your when, entered England in 1492 under Julius as the seaman lifted the end of bones, stummick and bertebry. Caesar. the two strange forms fell out on bag, "We have an upper and lower skin. The earth is 1492 miles in circumdeck. the A single glance was enough The lower skin moves all the time and to ference. us tell that the upper skin moves when we do. they were new to our To proceed with "History: fauna and probably unknown to The body is mostly composed of science. Queen Isabella of Spain sold her seemed like visitors They one-hais avaricious from watch and chain and other millinery water, and about another and none of the world, tissue. so that Columbus could discover forms strange since passed which have The chyle flows up the middle of the America.. our through has brought laboratory The Indians pursued their warfare backbpne and reaches the heart where half so much Interest and enthusiasm. meets it the oxygen and is by hiding in bushes and then scalping Now, looking back on the great harvest In the stomach starch is purified. them. to in changed the field of oceanic ichthyology cane-sugand cane-sugto .The Puritans found an Insane asywhich we have had the pleasure of lum In the wilds of America. to garner in the fifteen years helping "Inertia is that property of bodies which have The Stamp Act was. to make everyhappy body stamp all materials so they should by virtue of which It cannot change and eventful passed since that incredbe null and void. morning.it seems its own condition or rest or motion, in ible that American naturalists should "Washington died In Spain almost other words, it is the negative quality not then broken-hearteHis remains were ta- of passiveness enither In recoverable la- miles fromhave known that only a few the American coast there ken to. the cathedral in Havanna." tency or Insipient latescence. was a fauna as unlike that of our was a is If famous fair here, not the strug- shore as for being "Henry Eight laugh a great widower anything that could be found having lost several gling child nor the unintelligent teach- in the Indian ocean or in the seas of wives. er or rather the unintelligent boards, China. I mous telegram dispatch I came I CSrlllGa . senconquered. That last is a curiously plausible The only form of government In tence; one seems to know what it Greece was a limited monkey. means, and yet he knows all the time Socrates destroyed some statues that he doesnt. Shamrock. to drink had and Here is an odd (but entirely proper) a fhct deis Here correctly stated; and sudden most a use of a word, and with such ingenious scent from a lofty philosophical alti- yet it is phrasedcan be depended upon it that tude to a very practical and homely infelicity misinformation every time to convey illustration: read: exis it uncarefully to avoid We should endeavor By the Salic latvs no woman or detremes like those of wasps and bees. of a w'oman could occupy the scendant and And here with zoological throne. not ready geological In his mind, but To show how far a child can travel to his tongue the small scholar has inof in history with judicious and diligent nocently gone and let out a couple been never to have secrets which boosting in the public school, we select . ... the-firs- t book-cove- rs paper-makin- ; . lf ar d. 1 ar a |