shcolarsip resultin meerly from rappidaty of
witing ort not to count agains a man, and
tho i sea it said in the repoart that dictashion
was first read over to show the sens of the
pasage, then dictaited sloly and then we wars
alowed time to look over an revis what we
had rwitten, this is only a subperfuge of
thares. For persons in the abit of corect
writing ar not acustumed to revis thare
othrorgpy except with a Jonson's Dictinary
which—wood you beleive it, sir—was not
alowed us! —and this is England! This they
call thare oportunity for revisen! After this
expoisure, ned i say more?

Furthermore [From this point we have
gone through our correspondent's letter with
a Johnson.—ED. H. W.], these unjust
commissioners, who declare that of the majority
of candidates for situations as scribes and
accountants to the nation, little or nothing
more is required than an assurance of their
ability to write, and spell, and cipher, these
unjust commissioners reckon me, I am told,
among the thirty-three rejected men who
cannot cipher any more than they can spell.
Cipher, sir! Was there ever an Englishman
who, whether he knew ciphering or not,
if put into a place of trust requiring calculations,
did not prove himself a man of business?
It is repugnant to the habits of this
nation to be obliged—or only allowed to
oblige itself—to educate itself. Has not
parliament declared it? Is not Lord John
Russell a despised man for suggesting that
we might be a little less ignorant than we
are if we did more than we are now doing in
the way of education? Sir, I am for the
voluntary principle. If I don't voluntarily
take to ciphering, why am I to be asked to
cipher? Depend upon it, sir, an Englishman's
liberty is his birthright. Why am I
to be compelled to know this and that?
Why am I to submit to an inquisitorial —yes,
sir, I say an inquisitorial and intrusive
attempt made on the part of a centralised—
yes, sir, a centralised—government board or
commission to find out whether I can keep
accounts before I receive public money for
the keeping of them? Depend upon it, sir,
the common sense of the nation is opposed to
anything of the sort. It may be theoretically
right to make this sort of inquiry; but we
are a practical people, sir, and we act practically;
and when we do act practically, it is
generally found to answer; whereas, when
we act theoretically, we become continental,
and adopt a system under which no plain
man's habeas corpus can be safe in his own
castle. Sir, I consider all these educational
tyrannies fit only for a revolutionary period.
A certain sort of education being a part of
the national character, has been found to
agree with it best; and if it doesn't, on the
whole, include a certainty in the matter of
spelling, a good handwriting, a faculty of
doing sums, a positive idea whether Stockholm
is in Denmark, Norway, or Sweden, or
whether Alexander the Great did well in
allowing Messalina to be killed, and whether
Cromwell didn't act too harshly by Jane
Shore—I say, sir, that if our education while
we are still youths does not enable us to
master fully any little difficulties of this sort,
the Englishman is happy who is so far ignorant
in his young days. The nation would
not be so robust as she is, if her sons had
not, in a great measure, to pick up what
they knew by their own many exertions.

But I deny that I am ignorant of ciphering.
I got a prize for it at the Reverend
Mr. Flail's school for two half years running,
and I send them to you as vouchers,—Little
Henry and His Bearer, and Paul and
Virginia, with the school-plate and certificate
in their fly-leaves. Mr. Flail was a Fellow
and Tutor of Porcus College, Oxen. Now,
sir, if that is not evidence enough, set me a
sum; but what I do ask is, that you show
yourself some knowledge of that about which
you make inquiry. I copy verbatim, sir, one
question put to me, precisely as these precious
commissioners have set it down:

" Add together 1/6, 21/7, and 13 3/10 ; divide by
13 1/14 and subtract the result from 5 3/70."

I was not to do that unless I liked; but I
did do it, having first brought it to sense.
For did any one ever see such a muddle of
big figures and little figures, some of them
actually written one on the top of another?
I felt it an affront to be examined by such
men. However, I put the figures properly
into a row, added together 16 217, and 13310;
that came, of course, to 1335313; then I
divided by 1314, which came to 102975 and a
lot more figures; and then— I was to
subtract that from 5370! Of course I could
only tell the examiners that if they knew
how to do that, they were cleverer than
myself. Well, sir, I haven't yet done with these
clever gentlemen, though I think I may spare
your readers any further exposure of their
ignorance in the most simple matters of
account. There were twenty-eight questions
in ciphering, of which we were required only
to answer any two. One was to turn a
quantity of odd money into farthings,—forty-
three pounds and more. What could be
more unpractical? Let any plain man walk
into whatever house of business you please,
and ask to have change given him for forty-
three pounds in farthings, where is the business
man who will do it, I should wish to
know? The only other question that I did
was this one:

"If 90s. will pay 5 men for 12 days' work,
how much will pay 32 men for 24 days'
work?"

My answer, of course, was 2s. 9d. And as
we were asked here to " Explain the principle
of the rule by which you proceed," I used up
all the rest of my time in doing so, after a
way simple enough to be comprehensible by
men so evidently backward. If, after all,
they didn't understand me, who is to blame?