itself, but when many of the same kind come
together, they can do great deeds. A number
of them have assembled lately to build handsome
monuments to a great man, whose name
you all ought to know, who made the penny
loaf bigger than it used to be—do you know
what great man that was?  " Hands were
out, answers were ready, but they ran pretty
exclusively in favour of Prince Albert and the
Duke of Wellington. " I am sure," says the
teacher, " you must have heard who made all
the loaves larger without altering their price,
think again—who was it? " A confident
voice hazarded the suggestion that it was
"Guy Fawkes," and half-a-dozen voices cried
"Guy Fawkes." There are always some to
follow the absurdest lead if it be taken
confidently, in the great as in the little
world.

"Guy Fawkes!  nonsense, do you mean him
to be carried about in your heads all through
November and December." More inquiry
at length elicited, after a little uncertain
hovering about Louis Napoleon, the decisive
opinion that the man who made bread cheap
was Sir Robert Peel. " If you please, sir," said
an argumentative little fellow, " he did not
make the penny loaf bigger."  " Why not?"
—" He did not make the loaf: he made the
baker make it." The difficulty thus started
having been properly gone into, and further
statement of the riddle having been given, it
was at length fairly guessed, that the teacher's
object upon which he meant to talk with us
that day was a Penny.

We ascertained that it was round, that it
was hard, that it was brown, that it was
heavy—by which we meant, as some of us
explained, that it was heavier than the same
quantity of water—that it was stamped on
both sides, and so forth; also that it was
made of copper. Pence being next regarded
purely in the light of coppers, the name of
the metal, " Copper," was written at the top
of a black board, and a line was drawn, along
which we were to place a regiment of qualities.
We began easily by asserting copper to be
hard; and showed our penetration by
discovering that, since a penny would not do for
framing as a spy-glass, it must be opaque.
Spell opaque?  O dear, yes!  twenty hands
were out; but we were not all so wise as we
imagined. No matter; there are folks of
bigger size elsewhere who undertake what
they are not able to do. O-p-a-k-e ought to
be right; but, like not a few things of which
we could argue that they must be right, it
happened to be wrong, and so what was the
use of talking. We heard a little boy in the
corner whispering the truth, afraid as yet to
utter it too boldly. It was not the only
truth that has appeared first in a whisper.
Yet, as truth is great and shall prevail, it
was but fit that we all finally determined
upon o-p-a-q-u-e; and so we did; and we all
uttered those letters from all corners of the
room with the more perfect confidence as
they grew, by each repetition, more familiar
to our minds.

A young student in a pinafore, eight years
old and short for his age, square and solid,
who had been sitting on the front row, nearly
opposite the teacher, was upon his legs. He
had advanced one or two steps on the floor
holding out his hand; he had thought of
another quality, and waited to catch Mr.
Speaker's eye. But our eyes wandered
among the outstretched hands, and other
lips cried, " It is Malleable; " so Malleable
was written on the board. It was not the
word that still lurked in the mind of Master
Square, who in a solid mood kept his position
in advance, ready to put forth his suggestion
at the earliest opportunity. What Malleable
meant, was the question over which we were
now called upon to hammer, but we soon
beat the answer out among ourselves; and
then we spelt the word, and Malleability into
the bargain. Master Square uplifted his
hand the moment we had finished; but there
rose other hands again, and the young philosopher,
biding his time in sturdy silence, listened
through the discussion raised as to whether or
not copper might be called odorous. This
debate over, Square was again ready—but
an eager little fellow cried that copper is
tenacious, upon which there was a new quality
submitted to our notice, which we must
discuss, explain, and of which the name had to
be spelt. But Master Square's idea had not
yet been forestalled, and he, like copper,
ranked tenacity among his qualities. At length
he caught Mr. Chairman's eye, and said with
a small voice, " Please, sir, I know a quality."
"And what is that? " the teacher asked.
Little Square replied, as he resumed his seat,
"It's INORGANIC."

Here was a bombshell of a word thrown
among us by this little fellow, but we did
not flinch. Inorganic of course meant " got
no organs," and we all knew what an organ
was, and what a function was, and what
were the grand marks of distinction between
living and dead matter, and between animal
and vegetable life. So we went on, with a
little information about mining, and display
of copper ore: a talk about pyrites, and such
matters. Three quarters of an hour had
slipped away. The lesson ended, and there
was another re-arrangement of the classes.

There were copy-books to look at in the
central lecture-room, to which we then returned;
in some of which " Friends, Romans,
Countrymen," and other trifles from the poets
seemed to have been copied from dictation.
Around large maps, were little classes, each
with a young monitor in the middle,
demonstrating geography, and questioning with
tongue and finger. We joined one group,
but the small teacher faltered, and was
uneasy in the presence of so tall a pupil;
we passed to another group, and found
another monitor who clearly liked to be
observed, and put on the important tone of