T. J. Macnamara

“ Two days after a teacher gave her class (Standard VII.) an essay to write on "An Election." The essay which follows is a complete and word-for-word copy of the effort of one of the girls in the class: "An election means two things. First, the voice of the people spoken by choosing the most eligible person or persons to represent their creed, requirements, or grievances. Secondly, an election means lies, treachery, hypocrisy, drunkenness, anxiety, disappointment, and glorification. God save us from having another for twelve months." ”

“ The inspector asked for a reply, which was: "Cast out a devil, sir!"
A Baste but not a Bull.—The following occurred in a Dublin school during the Scripture lesson:—"What does the Bible say will happen to the proud?" asked the examiner. "Please, sir, they will become animals," replied one bright little chap. "Oh, that's a curious answer. What text have you to prove it?" queried the interrogator. "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted, and he that exalteth himself shall be a baste!" promptly replied one of the youngest of Ould Oireland's hopefuls. ”

“ Baby is the pet of the family, especially mother, who if the baby is a boy he becomes her darling boy in after [pg 157] years. When baby is about four years old it is briched if it is a boy, but if a girl she remains in her same clothes. To look after a baby is very awkard if you ain't used to it, for they jump and kick and have to be carefully handled. It is crisined when it is old enough to eat solid food. Some babies are very tiresome and have to be nutritiously looked after. ”

“ The curious workings of the child-mind are nowhere more conspicuously illustrated than in the little essays and "pieces of composition" which they are set to write. Of course many of the children in the poorer elementary schools possess only a very limited and very primitive vocabulary. Hence, when they adventure upon rather long and unfamiliar words—conscientiously trying to reproduce what they have just heard the teacher say in the general verbal description of the [pg 39] story to be committed by them to paper—they often achieve fantastic results. ”

“ If we nearly always succeed we always is getting on, but if we don't succeed, we should try till we dose and then we should do it again which is a very wise way to persever. People who sits down never gets on and People who gets on dont sit down. We should all get on because it is the best thing to do at all times. We will have trails (trials?) but we must try again until them trails is gone."
Touching Bread.—The exercise was, "Write an essay on Bread." The following was the result: "Bread is made with flour and barm and is very useful. It is used for the people to eat and feeds them right. ”

“ They abound in birds of beautiful plumage and of no song, such as the elephant and the camel."
"A table-land gets its name from its steep sides and flat top. It's all right when once you are up on the top, but it's no joke getting up." ”

“ About the Interjection.—"An interjection is a shout or something said by a person too surprised or pained or frightened to make a sentence of his thoughts. It is not quite a human language. The lower animals say nothing else but interjections. Accordingly, ill-natured and cross people by their interjections come very near to beasts." ”

“ Then there is the classic answer to the question: "What proof have we from the Bible that it is not lawful to have more than one wife"—"Because it says no man can serve two masters!" No child ever said that. And belonging to the same category is the following. The teacher asked: "If one man walking at the rate of three miles an hour gets half an hour's start of another man walking at the rate of four miles an hour, when will the second man overtake the first?" The allegation is that the small boy replied: "Please, sir, at the first public-house!" ”

“ What I may, for lack of a better definition, describe as an oblique method of applying what those very learned and very dull people the Psychologists call "the Principle of Association of Ideas" is another fruitful source of laughable errors. ”

“ The teacher asked if any child knew the meaning. Only one child raised his hand, and, with a ring of triumph in his voice, gave the answer: "A door what a soldier comes out of."
[pg 29] "What they Call a Watershed."—Asked to write a definition of "A Watershed" one potential Christopher Columbus wrote: "A watershed is a thing that when the soil in part of a river stands straight up on one side and slants tremendously the other side, the water is obliged to go up the soil on one side and come slanting down the other side—that is what they call a watershed." ”

“ Now when you are smoking people say they have a stinging taste on their tongue if they only knew what this taste is I am sure they would never smoke again for if you was to tell them the number of gases which contained in tobacco they would immediately take out their tobacco and pipe or cigarettes and throw them away. ”

“ Our country allways comes first, whoever you like to ask."
Babies.—"Write me a piece of composition on Babies," said the teacher. Here is a boy's effort on, to him, an obviously uncongenial topic:—"Babys are little red things without bones nor teeth. They have various sises, but just after they are borned, they are called bypeds; their bones are grisle. They are 2 sects, male and female; and are also very fat. When very young they do not have much hair; so you cannot tell wether they will turn into boys or girls until their hair grows. They are always asleep only when crying. ”

“ A real gentleman ought to know his manners, and also not to swear. A gentleman might be walking along a street and meet a young lady, he would go up to her and raise his hat, and say, good evening dear come along a me she would and when he left her he would say good night darling, and ask her to meet him at so-an-so. ”

“ It is the fact, and it is not altogether to be wondered at, that the Scripture lesson is a prime source of juvenile undoing. The proper names used are so hard and unfamiliar, and the scope of the subject is so often so far beyond the children's capacity, that the wonder is that the misconceptions and errors are so few. Then, again, the children mostly learn their Scripture texts and so on viva voce from the teacher. Many repetitions cause them to distort the words ”

“ Concerning the Horse.—Standard III. boy's essay: "The horse does not belong to the cat tribe, because its paws are hoofs. It breathes with its gills when it is young and chews the cud just like other people. There are many kinds of horses such as racer horses and hunters and worker horses and little welsh ponies. A mule is a horse with long ears and if a horse had long ears it would be called a donkey. ”

“ Here are a few cases in point:—
"A vacuum is nothing shut up in a box. They have a way of pumping out the air. When all the air and everything else is shut out, naturally they are able to shut in nothing, where the air was before." ”

“ We have a very good sample at our school, for we have a schoolmaster who is, as a rule, 'better in health than temper,' especially when we have Geography. To hear most schoolmasters talk you would think that they never did wrong in their lives ”

“ Dove.—The inspector was examining a class of Westcountry infants, and had asked: "When our Lord was baptised, what bird came down on His head?" One little Devonshire dumpling at once retorted: "Please, sir, a little yeller-hammer, sir!"
[pg 81] The Part that Never Dies.—During a Scripture lesson a teacher of little dots was greatly surprised upon asking: "What part of you is it that never dies?" to receive from an excited youngster, "The Holy Ghost." ”

“ On Government.—The exercise was an essay "On Government"—after, of course, a little disquisition by the teacher. The result:—"Our country has a King who can't do anything but what he ought to. There were Georges I., II., III., and IV., but there was eight Henrys. There is also houses called the Houses of Parliament. One of these is full of lords, called the House of Lords, but the other is only built for them gentlemen as perhaps you have seen some of them and it is called the House of Common. No gentlemen can get in there unless they know as he can make laws. ”

“ Girls like to wear rings and think they are ladies. They bob their hair on the top like mountains and wears a fringe to make us boys think they are pretty, but aint they just deceived. The young men have a hard job to find a good and hard working wife in these days. Girls are cowards and I never knew one to face danger. If a cow looks at them they run and cry. Boys go about with their eyes open and their mouths shut, just the opposite to girls. Boys are also strong and useful while [pg 153] girls are timid, frightened weak little creatures. ”

“ The English people took Gibraltar, and they placed a great many big guns there. There are a great many people at Gibraltar called apes. And the other people are very proud of them because they are the only apes in Gibraltar. ”

“ Girls are softer than boys, so they have to keep on wearing pettycoats, frocks, and &c., all their lives. Some babys have to be borned, and the doctor brings some, when the people have got plenty of money. Women and girls go silly over babys, and kiss them all over, and say silly things. That's why girls have dolls when they haven't any little brothers. ”

“ Words to express their pent-up knowledge failed most of them, but one more vigorous than the rest relieved himself thus: "Jonah just said, 'God, lat me oot o' this.'"
"When They're Running About."—It is the venerable old question, "What is a noun?" that [pg 107] has drawn out the hoary answer, "Name of an animal, person, place, or thing." Of course the inspector follows up with the almost equally antique "Am I a noun?" and the little fellow tumbles into the creaking old trap with a cheery "Yes, sir." "Are you a noun?" ”

“ Great was the delight of both teacher and [pg 33] class on receiving the following apt definition from one of their number: "Please, sir, it's like a donkey with a Kendal Hornet's jersey on."
"Jography."—"Well, little boys, and what is Geography?" beamed the inspector, after getting correctly some names of rivers, mountains, &c. No answer for two minutes by the clock. Then one timid hand is raised in answer to the question: "Please, sir, jography is a ball on which we live!" This recalls the story of the boy who was asked for a proof that the world is round. ”

“ Said I: "Now, boys, see that when I come again next Christmas I shall hear an excellent account of you, and shall not have to be told that you have got [pg 130] into any trouble or mischief. "Same to you, sir!" shouted the whole school with one accord. Whether this was quiet humour or a mechanical reply to the time-honoured "Merry Christmas, boys!" which they had taken my final words to imply I cannot say. But I am trying to live up to the injunction as this little book attests.
The Animal Kingdom.—Teacher: "Yes, children, we are animals. Quite right. How do you know we are animals?" ”

“ People sometimes think that when men are dressed in nice clothes they are gentlemen but that is not the case, a gentleman is a man who knows his manners. Down in the West End and City there are great swells, but people think that because they have nice clothes they are swells, but some are more like pigs. ”

“ The vicar lost the point of the answer; but the teacher, with keen appreciation, quoted softly to herself, "Arise, go to Pa-dan-aram," and she thought the boy was not wholly to blame for thinking that Dan Aram was a man, and ought to be paid.
Rough on the Deacon.—"Explain," said the teacher, "all you can about the words Bishop, Priest, and Deacon." "I never saw a Bishop," [pg 88] wrote one hopeful. "A Priest is a man in the Old Testament, and a Deacon is a thing you pile up on the top of a hill and set fire to it!" ”

“ Another was heard to plead: "And give us an eagle" (and deliver us from evil) . While a third after meals repeated: "Let manners to us all be given" (Let manna to our souls be given) .
Noah's First Task.—At a recent Scripture examination the examiner asked the following question in the infants' class: "What was the first thing Noah did when he came out of the Ark?" A tiny girl put up her hand, and on being asked, said: "Please, sir, he buried all the drownded people."
Why a Doorkeeper?—Teacher: "What did David mean when he said he'd rather be a doorkeeper of the House of the Lord?" ”

“ The answer he received and did not expect was: "Please, sir, suffin' red what you eat."
"He Hasn't To Eat Sweets."—"Now, Johnnie," said a teacher, "if I gave you a dozen sweets and you divided them equally between your brother and yourself, how many would you give him?" "Please, sir, none sir! Cos' mother says he hasn't to eat sweets when he has worms."
He Knew.—H.M. Inspector (examining village school) : "What is the opposite of a 'spendthrift?'" No answer. "Well, what would you call a man who sends you on errands and gives you nothing for going?" Boy: "Parson, sir." ”

“ Once a big lyner got upset with a mortal wound in her side but all the people was saved bar one and he got eat. Sharks and whales feed on dead bodies and sometimes they eat them alive. We should never eat fish what eat us because their canybals just like savages. ”

“ There are, I know, some curiously constituted people who find offence in the most ingenuous laugh if provoked by what they deem a sacred subject. I would respectfully yet firmly adjure them not to read the stories which immediately follow.
The Seventh Commandment—New Style.—In the first place the daily viva voce recital of the Commandments leads to quaint distortions when the youngster comes to commit to paper what he has been saying day by day for a year or so. Here are two startling variants on the Seventh of the selfsame Commandments—
"Thou shalt not kick a duckery." ”

“ He runs different to the horse because he lifts up two legs on one side of his body and then two on the other. He has about a hundred stumics and each holds about a quart so when his master kills him he can have a good drink. His hump is made of fat and he eats this when he cant get grass or hay. Some camels are not camels because he has two humps and his hair dont grow all over him and were it dont is called calluses [pg 67] [callosities] because it kneels down and wears away. ”

“ Concerning "Girls."—"Most girls are very shy and angry."—"They sew and darn the boys' stockings."—"Their work is tidy and clean."—"They talk very silently."—"They have thin, weak voices."—"Girls dress up about mid-day, and go out, while the poor [pg 57] boys are hard at work."—"Girls have a kind of false pride about them. A girl will have feathers and flowers in her hat just to show off."—"Most of them are tall and delicate, and they have long legs and little tiny voices."—"Some girls have their hair frizzed up and some wavered." ”

“ Fishmongers catches whales an sail them. Some people eat whales with salt and piper and bread, and some with potatoes. If you keep a whales head under water he will die for want of breath. When they have finished with the whale they send it adrift to get some more spern oil."
A Pat Answer.—The following story was read to a class of girls to be reproduced as a composition exercise:—"A gentleman was out driving in a dog-cart with his coachman, who was an Irishman, when the horse took fright and bolted. ”

“ The lion life on men and other things. When the lion is young it is called a cube. The lion are mostly found in woulds out in other parts of the world. There life are very unsafe because hunter go out killed them. ”

“ Up went the joyous hand again. "Well?" asked the teacher. "Another worm!" shouted Tommy in triumph.
The workings of the child-mind, the quaint, homely wisdom and shrewdness that it not infrequently displays, and the pathos that—so far as the working-class children are concerned—it so often discovers, are engrossingly interesting. Take the case of the reply to the Inspector who, putting a "Mental Arithmetic" question, asked: "If I had three glasses of beer on this table and your father came in and drank one, how many would be left?" [pg 18] "None, sir," at once replied a very small urchin. ”

“ Rough on the Barber.—Teacher (after class had read of St. Paul's adventures among the "barbarians of Melita") : "What is a Barbarian?" Pupil: "A man who cuts hair, sir!"
[pg 31] A New Axiom.—In the Euclid lesson the teacher asked, after explaining the meaning of An Axiom, if a boy could give one of his own. A lad replied: "When you are in the middle you are half-way over." ”