read; these childish compositions she would read over with us,
correcting all faults of spelling, of grammar, of style, of cadence; a
clumsy sentence would be read aloud, that we might hear how unmusical
it sounded, an error in observation or expression pointed out. Then, as
the letters recorded what we had seen the day before, the faculty of
observation was drawn out and trained. "Oh, dear! I have nothing to
say!" would come from a small child, hanging over a slate. "Did you not
go out for a walk yesterday?" Auntie would question. "Yes," would be
sighed out; "but there's nothing to say about it." "Nothing to say! And
you walked in the lanes for an hour and saw nothing, little No-eyes?
You must use your eyes better to-day." Then there was a very favourite
"lesson," which proved an excellent way of teaching spelling. We used
to write out lists of all the words we could think of which sounded the
same but were differently spelt. Thus: "key, quay," "knight, night,"
and so on, and great was the glory of the child who found the largest
number. Our French lessons--as the German later--included reading from
the very first. On the day on which we began German we began reading
Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell," and the verbs given to us to copy out were
those that had occurred in the reading. We learned much by heart, but
always things that in themselves were worthy to be learned. We were
never given the dry questions and answers which lazy teachers so much
affect. We were taught history by one reading aloud while the others
worked--the boys as well as the girls learning the use of the needle.
"It's like a girl to sew," said a little fellow, indignantly, one day.
"It is like a baby to have to run after a girl if you want a button
sewn on," quoth Auntie. Geography was learned by painting skeleton
maps--an exercise much delighted in by small fingers--and by putting
together puzzle maps, in which countries in the map of a continent, or
counties in the map of a country, were always cut out in their proper
shapes. I liked big empires in those days; there was a solid