but, on the contrary, I got very much worseso much worse that I could not venture to face my young wife. I accordingly walked about for an hour or perhaps two, till I felt so much better that I thought I might go home. I was unsuccessful in several attempts to get the key into the keyhole. Succeeding at last, I turned the bolt and closed the door as noiselessly as possible, and hung up my greatcoat in the lobby. And now to get upstairs. Steadying myself for the effort, I began the ascent carefully and quietly, hoping to get into bed without awaking my wife, for though I was better I was not quite well. I had only got half-way up when, to my horror, I saw light shining below the bedroom door. My wife was evidently reading in bed, awaiting my return. There was nothing for it now but facing the difficulty boldly. On opening the bedroom door I found, to my delight, that she was sound asleep. She had been reading, and had not blown out the candle. I began to undress as quickly and quietly as I could, and was just about to blow out the candle when a voice reached my ears that I shall never forget as long as I live, 'John! John! surely you are not going to bed with your hat on.'"

A good many years afterwards I met Lord

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Inverclyde at a dinner-party, and reminding him of the story, asked him to repeat it. He declined, saying that he had made up his mind never to tell it again. The reason he gave was that on one occasion when he was telling it at a dinner-party, and had got to the point where the clergyman was undressing before blowing out the candle, the hostess, evidently fearing that he was getting on to dangerous ground, made a signal to the lady at the other end of the table and said, "Now, ladies, shall we go to the drawing-room? "

CHAPTER XXII.

INFANT-TEACHING MUCH IMPROVED-WHEN SHOULD IT BEGIN"D-N THE CAT!"- GREAT IMPROVEMENT IN READINGBOOKS READING THE MOST VALUABLE SCHOOL PRODUCTCORPORAL PUNISHMENT-DR MELVIN-LEATHER-THOMAS FRASER OF GOLSPIE-AN EQUESTRIAN INCIDENT.

In my pretty long retrospect of school work and school appliances I know no respect in which there are greater changes and improvements than in infant-class teaching. Till within comparatively recent years the school-life of infants was absolutely unrelieved by anything in the shape of amusement or healthy admixture of work and play. The alphabet, and nothing but the alphabet, was their daily food for a month or six weeks, or even longer. When the lesson was over, they had to go to their seats, and either sit quiet or make a disturbance, according to the teacher's idea of discipline. Drill or the various manual exercises that now brighten the child's life were not thought of, and, if they had been thought of, would have

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been considered a sheer and silly waste of valuable time. In this respect there has been a marvellous and beneficent change, especially in large town schools, and also, though to a smaller extent, in country schools, where the teachers for fertility of resource in devising plans combining amusement and instruction deserve the highest praise.

On my visit in 1884, at the request of the Department, to schools in London, Cambridge, and Manchester, I was much struck by the superiority of the infant schools as compared with those in Scotland. In the management there was more repose of manner and gentleness on the part of the teacher, and greater refinement and politeness on that of the pupil, than with us. This was due partly to a pretty general prejudice in Scotland at that time against children being sent to school before six or seven years of age, and partly to the infant grants in England being graded according to merit, while in Scotland there was one uniform grant on the simple condition that the infants were taught "suitably to their age." There was therefore no encouragement for the development of new and superior methods. The prejudice against infant-training has to a large extent broken down since the introduction, more

commence.

or less fully, of Kindergarten methods, and a Scottish infant school now need not fear comparison with its English rival. There are, however, a good many parents whose opinions are still divided as to the most suitable education for young children, and the age at which it should Some years ago the subject turned up in the course of a conversation I had with a well-known lawyer. He told me that he once held very strongly that no child under six years of age should break educational ground in anything demanding fixed attention or effort of any kind; that the mind should be left to the free play of spontaneous observation of what was said and done around him. He said, however, that he had changed his mind from what he had observed in dealing with his only boy. He had carried out his theory rigidly till his son was six. Being an only child the boy was almost constantly with his parents, and from listening to their conversation his general intelligence was well developed. "As soon as he was six," said his father, "we began to teach him the alphabet. This he found most distasteful, just because he was so intelligent. He knew all about so many interesting things, that to grind up the names of letters seemed cruel and unmeaning trifling. I am quite sure," he