principles; I will argue the question with you on utilitarian grounds. What atom or iota of good have writing and printing done to the human race?"

“I rather think this library answers your question," said the Doctor, waving his hand to the long rows of nobly bound books carefully preserved behind glass. Russia and vellum and morocco had not been spared; there were finest editions of the most illustrious presses.

66

"When you are in Rome," said the Squire, you must do as do the Romans. My forefathers, or, to speak more accurately, foregangers, left me a fine library, and I have done my best to improve it. They also left me a good estate, and I have improved that, and should have done so even had I believed that property is robbery. Moreover, they left me as a legacy the arts of writing and reading --and I exercise them, and do my uttermost to exercise them wisely. If you find you have to

VOL. I.

3

do a thing, do it well: this need not prevent your asking whether the thing ought to be done. If I were a soldier, I would fight my hardest, though I believe war to be the absolute maximum of wickedness and folly. So, I have a library, and power of reading the books therein, and I exercise my power as well as I can. Still I would rather not have learnt an alphabet or seen a book."

"I know your theory of old," said Sterne, "and have always held that there is something in it. Indeed, there is always an element of reason in the most impracticable of notions. There is sublimity in the idea of teaching all things through poetry-in passing human ideas from mouth to ears, while the untired eye is left to gather its virgin impressions from the beauty that surrounds it. I am throwing back to you what I have heard from you, because we agree in a certain measure. But you cannot roll back the wheels of time; you can no

more abolish writing and printing than you can abolish money."

“You are quite right, my dear Doctor, and your illustration is apposite. I know it were vain to try to abolish money, but I think I can teach my girl and boy to understand that money is a mere representative of goods, and that a sovereign is no better than a pound's worth of dung in a cart. In like manner, I

have no desire to revolutionize the world and abolish writing and printing; but my children shall not be taught to read or write. I will teach them by the living voice. I will put theology and science in verse for them, when necessary; but I will in the first place make them learn from me the noblest poetry in English. Their eyes shall be taught, not to pore over type, though it were Baskerville's clearest, but to see the robin singing on its branch, the wren hiding in foliage, the heron fishing its pool, and suddenly astounded when the hawk swings into poise above it, the water

rat washing his wiry whiskers, the otter lying in the river like a stone for fear of dogs on the margin, all the beauties and excitements of nature. Put a poor unfortunate youngster to his

"As in praesenti perfectum format in avi,"

words whose meaning is beyond him, and flog him on a lovely summer afternoon for not remembering the miserable mnemonics, and in what temper or with what power of enjoyment will he run out upon the cool grass beneath the sunset sky?'

"I suspect, physiologically considered," said the Doctor, "that it does boys good to be flogged."

"I suspect, under all considerations, it does them more good not to be flogged. But that is not the question between us, Doctor. You attack me for reverting to ancient methods of learning, though you boast yourself to be a high Tory.

Neither Homer nor any of the

"Well, Squire," said the Doctor, holding up a glass of Madeira to catch a sunbeam which shot gaily through a stained window, "I throw up the argument. But are those two young folk never to learn what everybody else knows? They are about eleven and twelve now, are they not?”

"They are; and the world would call them uneducated: but are there any other two of the age in England who can give you As You Like It word for word? Are there any other two who, with a pointed stick upon the sea-sand, can prove that circles vary as the squares of their radii ?"