hear my father say again, as in that far-off time, “John Stuart Mill began studying Greek when he was only three years old.” CHAPTER V THE DISTRICT SCHOOL In the last chapter I intended to write about the district school; but I lingered so long over old remembrances that I could not get to school in time, so now I will go straight there without delay. The first school that I remember was not in the little town near which we lived, but about half a mile away in the opposite direction. Our house must have stood just outside the limits of the little village; at any rate, I was sent to the country school. Every morning we children were given a dinner-pail packed full of pie and cake, and now and then a piece of bread and butter (which I always let the other children eat), and were sent off to school. As we passed along the road we were joined by other little boys and girls, and by the time we reached the building our party contained nearly all the children on the road travelling in the direction from which we came. We were a boisterous, thoughtless crowd,—that is, the boys; the girls were generally quieter and more reserved, which we called “proud.” Almost as soon as the snow was off the ground in the spring, we boys took off our shoes (or, rather, boots) and went barefooted to the school. It was hard for us to wait until our parents said the ground was warm enough for us to take off our boots; we felt so light and free, and could run so fast barefooted, that we always begged our mother to let us leave them off at the very earliest chance. The chief disadvantage was that we often stubbed our toes. This was sometimes serious, when we were running fast and would bring them full tilt against a stone. Most of the time we managed to have one or more toes tied up in rags; and we always found considerable occupation in comparing our wounds, to see whose were the worst, or which were getting well the fastest. The next most serious trouble connected with going barefoot was the necessity for washing our feet every night before we went to bed. This seemed a grievous hardship; sometimes we would forget it, when we could, and I remember now and then being called up out of bed after I thought I had safely escaped and seemed to be sound asleep, and when my feet were clean enough without being washed.