[24] It is a notorious fact that very few graduates, when they leave college, are able to read Latin from an author they have not specially studied, with ease or pleasure. For this melancholy fact there are several reasons. The range of reading is miserably meagre. Only a few authors are read, and almost every sentence of these is cumbered with such an amount of annotation as to render progress and literary appreciation alike painful. Composition in Latin absorbs far too much time: the first duty of the teacher ought to be to turn out pupils who can read Latin with fluency. No amount of grammatical detail or laborious composition, as at present practised, will ever make up for the lack of wide reading. Professor Phillimore's recent suggestion that the less-known authors should be read more than they are, is wise and opportune. The authors he mentions would furnish a welcome relief from the unspeakable dreariness of over-annotated texts. HOWLERS. Almost every schoolmaster I have met, either in the Highlands or Lowlands, has his budget of anecdotes, usually dealing with children's answers or the droll eccentricities of the local School Board. The answers of children are invariably entertaining; and I wish the Educational Institute of Scotland would appoint a committee to codify the howlers that come under the notice of its members. A collection of genuine howlers would be no unimportant service to the science of juvenile psychology. Let it be remembered that the eminent Professor Sully considered it in no way derogatory to his philosophical status to write on the subject of _dolls_. In bi-lingual districts children's answers would have a special value. Children are everywhere, of course, more or less bird-witted and inattentive. Here is a story which illustrates what Latin scholars call _contaminatio_. A teacher had given a lesson on the geography of Kent, laying special stress on Canterbury, as giving a title to the Anglican primate, and on Greenwich as the place through which, on the map, the first meridian is made to pass. At the close of the lesson, he wished to test the scholars, and asked one of them what Canterbury was famous for. At once came the glib reply: "Canterbury is the seat of an _archbishop through whom the first meridian passes_." The difficulty young pupils have in concentrating their ideas, is largely accountable for many of the diverting essays we have all heard and seen. On a recent visit to the romantic shores of Skye, I was shown the following essay on Water: "Water is a liquid, but in winter you can slide on it. In all kinds of water, little beasts occur to a greater or to a less extent. Even a great amount of heat cannot kill these curious little animals. _Hence some people prefer spirits._" From the same quarter I procured this nugget on patriotism. "Patriotism is love of country such as we see in Burns or Sir Walter Scott.