If you want to see the good average English schoolboy in all his glory, make him write out a rule of French grammar, and tell him to illustrate it with an example. Nine times out of ten his example will illustrate the contrary to the rule. He has heard over and over again, for instance, that a French past participle, conjugated with the auxiliary _avoir_, sometimes agrees with its direct object and sometimes does not. This he thinks very hard upon him. Funny temper these past participles have! You never know when they will agree. It is not fair, now, is it? By consulting his grammar, he would be enabled to satisfy his master. But he does not do that. He trusts to his luck, and has a shot. After all, his chance is 50 per cent. He generally fails to hit. Is he not a most unlucky little creature? Ask this boy to give you the French for "this woman is good," he will answer you: "_Bonne est cette femme_." He has heard that _bon_ was one of those few adjectives that have to be placed before the noun, and that is very unfair to him, isn't it? * * * * * If you set an exercise to English boys, to be written out on the spot, they all set off quickly, the question being, as they look at one another: "Who shall have finished first?" This I hold to be due to the influence of athletics. "Please, sir, I've done!" will exclaim the winner triumphantly, as he looks at the rest of the class still busy scratching their paper. You generally like to know what boys intend to be, in order to direct your attention more specially to the subjects they will require to be grounded in for such or such an examination. Most boys from twelve to fourteen years old will tell you "they do not know," when you ask them what they will be. Many of them are undecided, many indifferent; some are shy, and afraid you will think it conceited of them to believe they are fit to be one day doctors, officers, barristers, clergymen, etc. A few answer "I don't know," on the tune of "What is that to you?" As it is always impolitic to take more interest in people than they do themselves, you do not insist. Once I asked a nice and clever little boy what he wanted to be. This little boy's papa was at the time enjoying the well-salaried _far niente_ of a chaplaincy attached to an old philanthropical institution that had not had any inmates for many years past. "Please, sir, I want to be like papa," he answered, ingenuously. * * * * * My young friend T. had no taste for languages, except, perhaps, bad language, if I am to believe certain rumors of a punishment inflicted upon him by the head-master not long ago.