CHAP. I.


CHARLES'S PROGRESS IN LEARNING.

You have heard a great deal about Charles in the Seeds of Useful
Knowledge; perhaps you would like to hear a little more about him; for,
as he was never tired of learning good things, I might fill many books,
if I were to speak of every thing that his papa and mamma taught him.
But I dare say all the boys and girls who read this, have kind parents
or friends who teach them, as well as Charles's papa and mamma taught
him; so I will only mention such things as they may not perhaps yet have
heard.

But first of all, I must tell you what Charles has been doing, since you
heard of him last. He was now a year older than he was then, and he was
also wiser, for he could write pretty well, and read without spelling
the long words; he knew the multiplication table, and the pence table
too; and could do sums in multiplication without a mistake, when he took
pains; but sometimes, when he was careless, or in a hurry, the sums were
wrong: however, I am happy to say that did not happen very often.
Besides all these things, Charles learned grammar, and geography, and
could decline many Latin nouns; which was very well for a little boy not
quite seven years old. But of all his lessons he liked geography best,
he liked to find out places in the maps, and to know whereabouts the
different countries were that he heard people talk of; and then his papa
was often kind to tell him amusing stories about the inhabitants of
those countries, and he also told him what things are brought from them:
for instance, Charles knew that tea grows in China, which is in Asia;