A lesson in reading was now administered to a class of older children. For facilitating this achievement, generally so difficult, the master has introduced the phonic system, in some degree according to a mode of his own, by which means even the youngest children make remarkable progress. We need not discuss it here. The scene the schoolroom, during the reading lesson, presented, was remarkable. Groups of four or five little fellows were gathered in various parts of the room before a reading-card, one acting as monitor; who was sometimes a girl. It was a pleasing sight to see half-a-dozen children seated or kneeling in a circle round the same book, their heads almost meeting in the centre, in their earnestness to see and hear, while the monitor pointed quickly with the finger to the word which each in succession was to pronounce. All seemed alert, and the eyes of the monitors kindled with intelligence. Meanwhile the master was busied in passing from one class to another, listening to the manner in which the pronunciation was caught, or the correctness with which the rapid combination of letters and syllables was made. Sometimes he stayed a few minutes with a class to give aid, then proceeded to another; and occasionally, on finding by a few trials, that a boy was quite familiar with the work of his class, he would remove him to another more advanced. These transfers were frequent. In an adjoining room were assembled, under the care of the schoolmaster’s wife, some of the more advanced scholars. One class in this room was particularly interesting—a class composed of the monitors who receive extra instruction in order to fit them for their duties. After an interval the whole attended a class for general knowledge: in this the mutual instruction system was adopted. A pupil stood out on a platform—the observed of all observers—to be questioned and cross-questioned by his or her schoolfellow, like a witness in a difficult law case, until supplanted by a pupil who could answer better. A degree of piquancy was thus imparted to the proceeding, which caused the attention of the pupils not to flag for a moment. One girl, with red hair and bright eyes, weathered a storm of questions bravely. A sample of the queries put by these young inquisitors, will show the range of subjects necessary to be known about. What are the months of spring? What animal cuts down a tree, and where does it live? Which are the Cinque Ports? What planet is nearest the sun? What is the distance from Manchester to Lancaster? How high is St. Paul’s Cathedral? What are the names of the common metals? What causes water to rise and become clouds? One urchin who could scarcely be seen over the head of another, and who was evidently of a meteorological turn of mind, bawled out in a peculiarly sedate and measured manner, “What does the wind do?” To have answered the question fully would have taken a day, but a single answer satisfied the querist, and was of a sanitary character.