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SCHOOL EXAMINATION
Various other questions were then proposed in history and chronology; after which, an examination in the Old and New Testaments commenced—the interrogatories being still propounded by the boy: " Who was the man that climbed up into the tree, to see Jesus pass?" " Zaccheus."—" Where did Moses die?" inquired a pretty little girl. " On Mount Pisgah," was the answer. A tall, rather grim-looking boy, started up, and, in a sepulchral-toned voice, asked—" What is the difference between Pisgah and Nebo?"—" Nebo appears to have been a point, or pinnacle, of Mount Pisgah," replied a shrimpish boy by his side. An excellent map of the world was then brought, and attached to the stand in the middle of the apartment, so that the eyes of the whole school could rest upon it. The greater and lesser circles were then pointed out, the meaning of longitude and latitude defined, the form and divisions of the earth mentioned and descanted upon, and the sun's path through the ecliptic described. The question was then proposed to the school—" Would you like to sing?"—" Yes," from every lip. "You must promise to sing very soft and sweet," quoth the master. " Soft and sweet," reverberated from the whole of the scholars, like the tongue of an echo. Then came the " soft and sweet," as they termed it ; and if the burden of a song could give melody to the lips, it would have been more sweet than " the breath of the south wind upon a bed of violets," as Avon's favoured bard once sang ; for it was all about our dear little Queen Victoria. To the tune of this loyal ditty they marched round the room, each class divided by their several teachers, carrying a pile of books, and then formed into semicircles, to be exercised in reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, and grammar. Their spelling was very fair; many of them wrote a good hand ; they all appeared conversant with the four first rules of arithmetic; and as for grammar, they talked about present tenses, and perfect participles, nouns, adverbs, and conjunctions, définîtes and indefinites, until I began to think they must have been born