It was at the end of the last century that a philosopher discovered that reproducing anecdotes was not educative: it gave no play to the imagination: what we wanted was original thought. Now the stories required attention, concentration, accuracy, and considerable knowledge of the laws of composition; and the better course would have been to add what required originality, retaining what required accuracy. But in education, as in other things, it is the man of one idea who moves and gets his way. My stock of stories became waste paper. The search for originality was too often pursued in a remarkable manner. No one reads Campbell now, and no boy could retaliate with the lines-- “For there’s nothing original in me Excepting Original Sin.” but it was easy to offer passive resistance, and to let the teacher do the originating. The latter began by providing “heads,” accompanied with copious comments; then he supplied rough scribbling-books, in which the children wrote their crude attempts. Then he wrote on the blackboard a jejune essay, which the class copied verbatim into their show-books. These were offered to us as the first fruits of original thought. Occasionally we got the real article, and I treasure the following essay (faithfully transcribed from the MS.) as 18 carat gold: My Favourite Hero. A good while ago I heard of a man called Arthur Wellesley. His first school he went too was in France. He was called the Duke of Wellington. He was a grand speaker, and spoke about a great man named Napolean. He was captured by the Romans and took to prison. They let him off iff he would not go back to the Britons. Wellington was sent to an island and he escaped in a punt and went back to his own country. There he stayed for a long while when he died. He was a very strong and healthy man. That is genuine. The following Essay I give as it was told to me, without further warranty. A boy was told to write an essay on the Seven Ages of Man. Not having read _As you like it_, he evolved this out of his inner consciousness: “When he is young, he thinks of the bad things he will do when he grows up: this is the age of innocence. “When he is grown up, he does some of them: this is the prime of life. “When he is very old, he is sorry for what he has done: this is dotage.” CHAPTER XXVII NEEDLEWORK ‘Domi mansit: lanam fecit.’--_Roman epitaph._ “Domestic Economy and plain needlework.”--_Code._ “It was I,” said Dominie Sampson, “who did educate Miss Lucy in all useful learning--albeit it was the housekeeper who did teach her those unprofitable exercises of hemming and shaping.”