like to go with dirty hands and clothes to
fetch the books, and a wife never felt so proud
of "making her old man smart," as when he
was setting out to fetch the next volume "of
the book that Tibby was a readin' every
night." Again, there was a sort of respectability
in being allowed to call at the vicarage
on such an errand. It was not a begging
affair, for they paid for the privilege—little
enough, to be sure, and that little was
returned, indirectly, in an augmented form—
but still they paid; and to belong to the
Book Club became a point of social position,
especially among the Babbletonians.

A few, upon whom the hand of poverty
pressed less severely, and whose families were
smaller, began to buy a book now and then
themselves. It was a proud moment for
Job Thwaites, who used to spend evenings
and money at the Bear and Gridiron, when,
having been to the next town to buy some
hay for the vicar, he brought back a History
of England, so large, and so full of plates and
portraits, that the gude wife wondered how a
year and a half's savings could ever have
compassed such a treasure of literature and
art. To tell how carefully it was done up in
brown paper, and how ostentatiously it was
displayed by Mrs. Thwaites would almost
call a blush into Job's face. So we will be
silent. At all events, Job Thwaites used to
be ominously spoken of as a "scollard"
among some of his less literary neighbours;
and Mrs. St. John took one of his little
daughters, whose English was marvellously
pure for Babbleton, as under nursemaid at
the vicarage.

Not a few good servants were produced by
this system of moderate and judicious instruction.
When a lad showed some sharpness at
emancipating himself from the pronominal
interchanges and eccentric conjugations
common in Babbleton, he had a fair chance of
becoming something better than a mere field
labourer; and, although the vicar well knew
that there must be field labourers as well as
other labourers, he could not see why
persevering attempts to better a disadvantageous
condition should not be abetted and
encouraged. And with the girls it was equally
important. Few people, even of the lower
order among the middle classes, wish their
children to be committed to ignorant servant
girls. Babbleton furnished a class of girls,
who, sufficiently poor to find even a second-rate
place an improvement in their condition,
were still educated enough to be less
barbarous companions for children than the
average, without possessing knowledge
calculated to render them vain and idle.

But it was not the mere fact that there
was a Book Club in Babbleton, which worked
all this good. There were deeper reasons at
bottom. One was, that people were taught
to love reading, in the hopes of arriving at
something which they were vexed at not
possessing. It is all very well to say that
religion ought to be the only motive under
which popular education is to be administered,
It is a good thing, no doubt, to declaim upon.
the number of thousand copies of ''What
am I? or, the Child's Funeral;" or "The
Converted Kaffir," which have been given
away in omnibuses, or while riding across a
common on horseback. It is a good thing,
no doubt, to compel a child to repeat verses
of Scripture, with a minute statement of the
chapter and verse (which many of the clergy
themselves could not remember); but there
is something wanted besides this.

Our vicar looked upon reading, not as the
combination of certain letters, sounds, and
syllables, nor as the mere vehicle for conveying
abstract precepts or sentiments. He
knew that the objects of the outer world are
those which first take hold of the mind, and
he sought to raise the mind up to higher
objects through their medium, not to pounce
upon it with dogmatism which it was unprepared
to understand. He gave a thousand
reasons for the being of a God, and for his
beneficent treatment of the human race; but,
while he ever had the Bible in view, he at
the same time taught the senses to look
around, and learn for themselves. He had
lived in manufacturing towns, and had seen
how little protection dogmatism, however
well supported by chapter and verse quotations,
would really avail against the insidious
and off-hand scepticism of those who appealed
to nature as an apology for unbelief. He
taught a nobler use of nature, and, shunning
the bigotry which treated plain everyday
knowledge as the special antagonist of
dogmatism, he left healthier, though less
superstitious conviction in the minds of the young,
in whose instruction he had taken so deep an
interest.

Nor was less care and good sense shown
in the selection of books, and in their arrangement.
The works were classified, and whoever
wanted a book on a particular subject,
could get a hint what to ask for. A moderate
number of books of reference served to give
such general information as was enough to
satisfy the inquisitive, without expanding into
superfluity.

People wondered at the quiet, comfortable
management of our Book Club, but their
opinions still remained various, and, we
believe, do remain so to this day. Muggs,
the tailor, who is a dreadful vestry politician,
and has never read anything but a volume or
two on the Poor Law Commission, remains
unconvinced, and believes that education
and ruination are one and the same thing.
Scripshorn, the barber, who has not been
drunk for the last day and a half, echoes the
belief; and the Book Club Association smiles
at the opposition, and bids the people read on
and understand.

Both the vicar of Babbleton and his Iady,
and, with them, all the thinking people within
miles around, gain daily strength in the belief