“Mr. Fearon is such a nice man! I like him much (as I said to Miss Begbie, I have taken to liking people lately: Economics, I suppose). He knows what he is about; is quick without being abrupt; and most certainly taught me a good deal. It was really wonderful to see how rapidly he arrived at an estimate. The morning was spent in getting information out of me about the history, birth, growth, management, income, etc., of the school. “He went, however, to calisthenics, and also through all the rooms, counting those who were present, and comparing them with the registers. After lunch, he examined the upper third in arithmetic, dictation, reading, geography, requesting Miss —— to give a history lesson before him. “The children did the wildest things! I could have annihilated them over and over again. One young monkey said the ‘Artic’ Ocean was in some ridiculous place. He said, ‘What?’ She answered, ‘Artic.’ He said, ‘Spell it!’ To which, with the most graceful complaisance, she said ‘a-r-t-i-c.’ Was she not a wretch? Miss ——’s lesson was horrible—she dropped a few _h_’s, and asked foolish questions, which produced equally absurd answers. For instance, she asked some question about the death of Rufus, to which the reply was, ‘Oh, they carried him away in a dustcart!’ ‘William the Conqueror left the Holy Land to Robert.’ When corrected, the children said, ‘Oh, well, it was Canaan.’ “They were restless and fidgety, did not obey orders; and, in fact, were as dreadful as they could be. If the first class do not acquit themselves relatively better, our report will be a queer one. I have made an appeal to them. “The inspection has produced the pleasing result that our children are not _near_ the average of the same age in a National School. No grant under the revised code would be given to us. Charming, is it not? In spelling, for instance, the National School children are allowed only an average of one mistake in a class. Our little ones made eight and a half _each_ instead of _one_ each. In arithmetic, the standard is half a mistake, and ours made two and a half. The copy-books were reported as bad; everything was bad! But I do not mind, provided the elder girls come out well.” The next experience does not seem to have been much happier, for on July 7 she says— “I could not write yesterday. There were so many callers, and the fact is that, since the inspection of yesterday, I have collapsed, bodily and mentally!