"I am informed y^t you have advanced a notion y^t the soul is material and keeps w^th y^e body till y^e resurrection. As I am a profest lover of novelty you must alow me to be much entertained by this discovery. 1^st. I w^d know whether this material soul keeps w^th in ye Coffin, and if so whether it might not be convenient to build a repository for it in order w^ch I w^d know w^t shape it is of whether round, triangular or foresquare or whether it is a number of long fine strings reaching from y^e head to y^e foot, and whether it does not live a very discontented life. I am afraid when ye Coffin gives way ye Earth will fall in and crush it, but if it should chuse to live above Ground and hover above y^e Grave how big it is, whether it covers all ye body, or is assined to y^e Head or Breast, w^t it does when another Body is laid upon it. Souls are not so big but y^t 10 or a dozen of y^m may be about one body whether yy will not quarrill for y^e highest place." His paper on spiders, written when he was but twelve, has become famous as a bit of childish composition. It shows great habits of observance, care in note-taking, and logical reasoning; and bears no evidence of youth either in matter or manner. A typical example of the spirit of the times in regard to juvenile education is found in the letters of Mrs. Pinckney. She writes to a friend:-- "Shall I give you the trouble my dear Madam to buy my son a new toy (a description of which I inclose) to teach him according to Mr. Locke's method (which I have carefully studied) to play himself into learning. Mr. Pinckney (his father) himself has been contriving a sett of toys to teach him his letters by the time he can speak. You perceive we begin betimes for he is not yet four months old." This toy may have been what is known to-day as a set of alphabet blocks, a commonplace toy. Locke speaks of a game of dice with letters with which children could play a game like "royal-oak," and through which they would learn to spell. He was not the inventor of these "letter-dice," as is generally asserted. It was a stratagem of Sir Hugh Plat, fully explained and illustrated in his _Jewel House of Art and Nature_, printed in London in 1653, a portion of a page of which is shown here. The toy seems to have been a success, for the following year Mrs. Pinckney writes to her sister:-- "Your little nephew not yet two and twenty months old prattles very intelligibly: he gives his duty to you and thanks for the toys, and desires me to tell his Aunt Polly that if she don't take a care and a great deal of pains in her learning, he will soon be the best scholar, for he can tell his letters in any book without hesitation, and begins to spell before he is two years old."