With this boy the writer retired, having agreed to call them again together at a public meeting, as soon as he was ready. This at the time he did not doubt would have been on the very next day;--but he was disappointed. He had not been five minutes with his pupil, till he found, to his great mortification, that he had little or no intellect to work upon. The boy was twelve years of age, and yet he was perfectly ignorant of all the days of the week, except one, the market day, on which he was in the practice of making a few pence by holding the farmers' horses. He could in no case tell what day of the week went before or followed another. He could count numbers forward mechanically till among the teens; but by no effort of mind could he tell what number came before nine, till he had again counted forward from one. The most obvious deduction from the simplest idea appeared to be quite beyond the grasp of his mind. For example, though repeatedly told that John was Zebedee's son, yet, after frequent trials, he could never make out, nor comprehend who was John's father. Yet this boy,--one certainly among the lowest in the grade of intellect of our species,--by a rigid application of the principle of individuation, was enabled to overcome a great part of the drudgery of learning to read, by exactly eight hours' teaching. This boy, who at the preliminary meeting on Wednesday, knew only "the round o," read correctly in the Court-House on the following Monday, a section of the New Testament, to the Rev. Dr Duncan, minister of Ruthwell, before the Sheriff, clergymen, teachers, and a large assembly of the inhabitants of Dumfries. To ascertain that he had in that time really _learned to read_, and that he did not repeat the words of the section by rote, he was made to read before the audience, in a chapter of the Old Testament, and then from a newspaper, the same words that he had read in his lesson. This he did readily, and without a mistake. FOOTNOTES: [14] For some practical information and directions connected with the subjects in this chapter, see Note M. [15] Note N. [16] Note H. CHAP. V. _On the Means by which Nature may be imitated in Applying the Principle of Grouping, or Association._