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THROUGH FRANCE
FRANCE IN SABOTS.

(See Preceding Pages.)

STRAWS SHOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS. In the haymaking season, the meadows of Normandy present a picturesque aspect. The hay is built into tall and enormous haycocks, and a-top of each is poised a big rooster, made of straw, which is both ornamental and useful, as it serves as a weathercock, turning lightly with every breeze. Both the young men and the young women of the peasantry work in the hay-field. They use great, odd rakes with teeth on both sides. Their dress is extremely neat and quaint, and they are a most merry and contented class of people.

NEW BROOMS SWEEP CLEAN. Everywhere in French towns one sees women and children out at all hours of the day sweeping the streets with rude brooms which are made of twigs bound together; and one's first impression of France is that it is the Land of Neatness. There seems to be no orders from city officers requiring that this work be done, no system, no surveillance, nothing at all but this domestic, independent sort of sweeping — yet the streets are uniformly clean and tidy.

A VISIT FROM HOME. Soldiers who have been drawn from the provinces arrange whenever it is possible that their home-folks shall come regularly to the city with provisions, or produce, to sell at the halles, or markets. Then, after business is despatched, the peasant mother, wife, or sister, may seek her soldier where he stands on guard, probably at the entrance of some public building. There she may chat with him as long as she likes, but not for one moment must he relax from his erect military bearing, not for one moment disturb the statue-like pose which is the aim and the pride of the French soldier.

SHEEP AT CHARENTON. Charenton is a pretty, Arcadian sort of place outside Paris. One goes there by the tiny steamboats which ply up and down the Seine. It is a favorite sketching-spot with artists, as the peasants are picturesque in costume, and the landscape dotted with sheep. It is also very quiet and beautiful up-river where the country-women wash clothes in the stream, and barges drawn by horses, pass up and down.

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BY SUSAN ANNA BROWN.

U young people hear a great deal about your "superior advantages," and how grateful you ought to be that you are not situated as your grandparents were, although you sometimes are told that in those good old times boys and girls were much wiser and better than they are now!

Nothing will make you realize more fully the changes which have taken place in education than a glance at the school books which were in use a hundred years ago. Now and then one of those curious old volumes has escaped destruction, and

been handed down to make you children of the present day

Thank the Goodness and the Grace
Which on your birth has smiled.

As all cannot have the satisfaction of seeing such things for themselves, WIDE AWAKE will give its readers a look at a very old and rare book which was used more than a hundred years ago. It is a copy of a famous spelling-book which was written by an Englishman named Samuel Dilworth, and which many of your great-grandfathers studied

in their childhood. In those days school books
were not changed every few years. A speller was
handed down through an entire family, and
was often the only book which the children pos-
sessed. You can hardly imagine, with your
multitude of stories, what a treasure the spell-
ing-book was considered. This one, in which
my grandfather took his first lesson, was used
by him for many years; indeed, it was his
school-reader long after he was so familiar with
it that he knew the entire book by heart, and
could repeat it forwards or backwards! How
would you like that, you who have such beauti-
ful reading-books full of charming stories, and
pictures ?

This book of Dilworth's is very differently arranged from the modern school books. The object was to crowd as much as possible into one volume.

Imagine some little toddler of three years old, starting for school with this precious book, which has this imposing title, A New Guide to the English Tongue. The first page is adorned with a picture of Mr. Dilworth, who must have been a humble-minded man, or he would never have been willing to have such a likeness handed down to posterity. Doubtless he thought the author of such a valuable book need not care for personal appearance.

The first lesson is "in words not exceeding three letters," and begins like the first lesson in Webster's Spelling-book: "No man may put off the law of God."

The next page is headed "Table IV. Lessons in four letters, viz., a vowel placed between two latter consonants." Then follows a page and a half of short words, not arranged in columns, but crowded together in paragraphs. How the little chicks must have labored over the spelling of these-bufk, hufk, mift, and so on! I can almost see the little chubby fingers following along the line, trying to keep the place, while the eyes, which have long ago beheld "the King in his beauty," were growing weary over those puzzling letters!

How glad the little scholars were when they had mastered this, and could go on to the readinglessons! "Hold in the Lord and mind his word," and so on, to "The Lord can tell what is best for me. To him will I go for Help." You see it was not

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A. Grammar is the fcience of letters, or the art of writing and speaking properly and fyntactically.

Q. What do you mean by English Grammar?
A. The Art of Writing and Speaking the English
Tongue properly and fyntactically.

Q. How is Grammar divided?

A. Grammar is divided into four parts; Orthography, Profody, Analogy, and Syntax.

of ORTHOGRAPHY

Q. What is Orthography?

A. Orthography teacheth the true Characters and Powers of the Letters and the proper divition of Syllables, Words and Sentences:

t

Of EETTERS

Q. What is a Letter?.

A. A Letter is a fignificant Mark or Note of which Syllables are compounded.

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Then comes Part II. of the New Guide to the English Tongue. This consists of "A Table of words, the same in Sound, but different in spelling and signification." Mr. Dilworth's ideas of words which were "the same in sound" would shock schoolmasters of the present day, and his defini

A

to the English Tongue.

One good Turn deferves another.

FABLE IX. Of the Dove and the Bee

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Thirty Bee came to a Fountain to drink: but
being too hafty, fell in.

A Dove in a neighbouring Tree feeing the Bee ftruggle for Life, fet herfelf upon a Branch that hung over the Fountain, and by her Weight brought it into the Water, that the Bee might get upon it, and fo foved her Life.

Some fhort Time after, a Snare was laid for the Dove, and while the Fowler was drawing the Net together, the Bee (who at that Inftant was flying over) feeing her Deliverer in fuch Danger, ftung the Fowler fo feverely, that he was obliged to let the Net go again, by which Means the Dove efcaped.

The INTERPRETATION. Be helpful to thy Friend; and always return Thanks to those who deserve them

(ILLUSTRATED PAGE FROM "A NEW GUIDE.")

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Him, that Man.

Hymn, a Song.
I'll, I will.

Ile, the side of a Church.

Isle, an Island.
Oyl, of Olives.

Lineament, the Propor

tions of the face. Liniment, a Medicine.

Starling, a Bird.

Sterling, English Money.

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No explanation of this was given, as it was not the custom to explain lessons in those days. An old gentleman once told me that when he was a boy he used the dictionary for two winters as a reading-book, without knowing that what followed a word was the definition of it! He must have thought, as the Scotchman did, of what he read in his dictionary, that they were "braw stories," but "unco' short!"

Some of the wisest of these young folks of long ago found out before they were grown up that their lessons meant something more than a parrot

like repetition of the words; but scholars had to think out these things for themselves.

One Sunday, my grandfather was at home from church, and in turning over the pages of the New Guide, almost the only book in the house, he read what he had repeated carelessly so many times : "Accent denotes the tone or stress of voice to be upon one syllable, as, plenty." He saw for the first time what it meant ! It was the entering point of the wedge which opened a life of study. For the first time he realized that what he studied meant something, and how his boyish heart swelled with indignation at the schoolmasters who had let him remain in the dark so long! It was little wonder that his chosen life-work was teaching others, for he had learned how great were the opportunities of a faithful in

structor.

ple of idlers. Unless you are willing to give hours of hard work to your books, all their beauties are of no avail. If the children of that far-away time, when study was made so unattractive and uninteresting, were able to improve such poor advantages,

(rife wife.). Dofe (dole hofe lofe nofe role).
Ufe (ufe mule). Elfc. Bate date face gate
hate late mate pate rate.
Bite kite mite rite.
Dore mote note vote. Lute mute. Cave have
pave rave fave wave. Dive five hive (give live
five). Rove (dove love) (move). Gaze maze.
Size.

More eafy Leffans on the foregoing Tables, confifting
of Words not exceeding Four Letters.

LESSON I.

OD doth mind all that we fay and do.

GOD

This Life is not long; but the Life to come has no End.

We must love them that do not love us, as well as them that do love us.

On the principle of saving the best for the last, all the pictures in the New Guide to the English Tongue are at the end of the book. There are only twelve in all, illustrating as many fables. It is hard to make a selection, for they are all so remarkable, but I am sure those which have been chosen will make you appreciate the beautiful pictures which adorn your own books, upon which so much thought and genius are expended.

After all, there is no royal road to learning, and all the beautiful illustrations and attractive bindings of your school books will not make wise peo

We must pray for them that hate us.

(PAGE FROM "A NEW GUIDE.")

what may be expected of those for whom the way is smoothed and adorned by every art which love and skill can devise? Do not forget when you compare your own beautiful books with Mr. Dilworth's speller, that "To whom much is given, of him shall much be required."

THE SOAP BUBBLE QUESTION.*
(Two Open Letters.)

LETTER I.

PINE POND, Dec. 1st, 1883. MY DEAR AND VERITABLE THANKFUL HOLME: Although I cannot claim your actual personal acquaintance- having only held telephonic communication with you when listening (as a reporter) for the transmissions from Innerland - I am ventur

See "Buttered Crusts," by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Chap. II., WIDE AWAKE for Oct. 1883.

ing upon this direct appeal in the confidence that one whom I have so closely approached with a sympathy that has almost made us for the time identical, may suffer the liberty graciously, and give me, if possible, some response. I do not even know precisely how to address you; as since I last hailed and heard from you over the Innerland lines, it may easily have happened that you should have changed both abiding and name; but I risk this through the official centre, trusting that its

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