by the way, is a delusion common enough
among school-visitors.  The next class of school-
visitors are those whose coming is a matter
of indifference, who are mostly chance visitors,
and rarely enter the school a second time.
People who happen to be in the neighbourhood,
and have plenty of time to spare— those
who read the Times' educational leaders, and
thereby become possessed of very hazy notions
of national education—those who have read
Mr. Dickens's delineation of a national
schoolmaster, and are anxious to inspect the curiosity
(and who, after all, will probably be
disappointed)— those who have, or think they have,
nothing better to do, and particularly those in
quest of a new sensation, form our chance visitors.
They are mostly amiable and harmless
people, who know no more of what a national
school really is than they do of the moon's
geography.  These are the people who imagine
you teach Greek and Latin, who ask questions
after the manner of a professor of history, who
take notes of the proceedings for future edification,
and are either very much pleased or very
much disgusted.  They often mistake a tall
and well-grown pupil-teacher for the master,
to the master's manifest discontent, or, at any
rate, patronise the biggest pupil-teacher as the
senior, which is a still more serious matter.
Sometimes one of these visitors turns out to be
rather more than you expected.  I well remember
a queer-looking figure invading the school
where I was pupil-teacher.  He coolly seated
himself on our ink-stained table, put up his
glass, swung his legs, and looked about at
everything.  As I looked at him I thought,
"Well, you beat Lord G., and he has about
the queerest way of coming into this school of
anybody I know."  But presently, while still
seated on the table, he began to ask a set of the
best questions I ever heard any one ask in a
school, and we afterwards discovered he was
the noble lord, the author of the most amusing
book of travels lately published.

Sometimes when too many of these visitors
drop in together, they become annoying.  If a
duke and duchess and a dozen lords and
ladies enter together, and the master is not of
a very cool nature, he is apt to be a little
bothered—particularly if her grace takes upon
herself to give a lesson.  As a matter of course, the
children do badly.  I well remember such an
occasion when, a small boy of ten, I was in the first
class at L. Her Grace of S. asked the question
(after hearing us read), "What is an
implement?"  No doubt several others as well as
myself could have answered that question
perfectly well; but the awe of the aristocracy was
upon us, and we missed that opportunity of
covering ourselves with glory.  I must do her
grace the justice to say that she explained the
word clearly.  At the same school, a class under
the senior pupil-teacher was in the lobby one
afternoon.  The outer door would not latch, so
must be locked; and when locked, it had a great
objection to the unlocking process.  While so
fastened, somebody knocked, and followed up
the knock by attempting to open the door.
Of course the pupil-teacher went at once to
open the door, but it proved a regular case of
"sesame" won't open.  The pupil-teacher tried
again and again, till the patience of the unknown
on the other side of the door was exhausted, and
he tried also.  This was too much for the
teacher; he shouted out in no very mild tone,
"Can't you wait a bit? don't be in such a hurry."
When at length the door yielded, imagine the
discomfiture of our friend, when in walked the
Marquis of G., with a broad grin on his face.
The poor pupil-teacher was so confused, that
he could offer no word of apology, neither was
it necessary.

Almost the only fault that can be found
with such visitors is that they take up too
much time; but they teach this lesson also,
that one should never presume on the ignorance
or indifference of school visitors. Other people
have eyes and ears as well as schoolmasters; and
it must not be forgotten that although angel
visits are very few and far between, they are
none the less real on that account.

We now come to the last class of school
visitors, viz. those who help and encourage.

It would be easy enough to write a good deal
on this part of our subject, but not so easy to
get schoolmasters to agree as to the kind of
people who do help and encourage.

OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.

BALLOON ASCENTS.

FRIAR BACON, following the Arab writers in
science, believed it possible for man to fly, but
the idea remained for centuries as dormant as
the wonderful friar's first hint of the steam-
engine.

In that restless hopeful age of experiment,
the reign of Charles the Second, Bishop
Wilkins, the founder of the Royal Society,
professed his belief that the time would come when
a man would just as naturally call for his wings
as for his boots.  He revived the flying idea,
and struck out some suggestions as to filling the
vessel required to float in the clouds with "fire
or ethereal air."  At the very same time the
Jesuit, Francis Luna, proposed to construct a
globular copper vessel for the same purpose,
which, when exhausted of air, he believed
would carry passengers some way towards the
moon.  In 1709 (Queen Anne), the thought
grew a little.  A Portuguese friar projected a
huge hollow paper or silk bird, that was to be
moved by a combination of sails and bellows.
The Portuguese king pensioned this ingenious
friar handsomely, and gave him a professorship
and several hats full of reis, the result of
which was that, in 1736, he is said (by means
of witchcraft) to have raised a wicker basket
covered with paper two hundred feet in the air.
In 1766, Dr. Black made several experiments
with bags and bladders filled with inflammable
air; and in 1782, the Brothers Montgolfier,
paper-makers at Annonay in the south of
France, after several experiments with bags of