The children do not look so far ahead, but when the actual day is fixed they catch the infection, and weary their mothers with speculations of probable success, possible failure. The eve of the awful day brings a half-holiday, on which the school floor has its annual wash: but the children hang about the playground and the school gate; for even blackberrying has lost its charm to-day. Do they lie awake at night? I doubt it, but I have no knowledge. Certainly they rise early, and clamour for early breakfast. Do they, like Falkland at Newbury, “put on a clean shirt to be killed in”? There, again, I have no information; but I know that it is a day of best frocks, of ribbons, above all of BOOTS. And the Inspector? The children, nay, possibly the youngest teachers, think (like Poor Peter Peebles), “I have not been able to sleep for a week for thinking of it, and, I dare to say, neither has the Lord President himsell.” Alas! at Llangastanau the inspector wants yet ten years to teach him the most needful lesson, that what to him is “Wednesday’s job” is the day of the year to them. He sleeps a solid eight hours’ sleep, and dreams that he is playing football with Harry and the Druid. In 1871 school inspection was, as a science, still in its infancy. The chief function of H.M. Inspector was to assess the amount which the Treasury should pay; and this was done by rapid examination of every child above seven years of age who had attended 250 times in the school year. Those who had made less than the specified number usually came to school to see the stranger; but in most cases they were rewarded for their habitual truancy by being sent home as soon as the great man arrived. Whereby they got a holiday, with the additional relish of thinking that the good children were on the rack. The children under seven were, and are, called infants. There was a grant of 8_s._ (or 10_s._ if the teacher was certificated) for these sucklings, _if they were present_. If the weather was so bad that they could not come, or if they got measles, whooping cough, chicken-pox, scarlet fever, or any other of the dreadful list, and were unable to appear, the grant for the absentees was lost. The principal function of the Inspector in an Infant School was to call over the names of the children on the Schedule. He might go on to hear them sing; and, if he were an enthusiast, he might carry his enquiries to any length. The instructions issued by the Department advised that “every fourth child in the first class should be called out and strictly examined.” But even in my greenest days I cannot remember that I was so green as to obey that recommendation. A little experience taught me that infants should be left in the hands of their own teachers, and that the inspectors should look on. My Lords had not discovered this in May, 1871, when they issued Circular 11.