It was certainly a strange and cruel infatuation which constrained our grandfathers to think that the proper position for a boy or girl at school was upon a narrow perch, without back or arm support of any kind, and with the feet dangling some six or eight inches above the floor. The picture of the old school bench would not be accurate without reference to the warping of the plank which was pretty sure soon to take place, with the result of raising one or other of the diagonal legs an inch or two from the floor, thus converting the seat, when filled with its living, aching load, into a tilting board, provocation of many a trick from the omnipresent mischievous boy of the school, and resulting in many a blow from the palm or cane of the irate master, which would, of course, generally descend upon innocent ears or shoulders. What a picture did the wooden desks and walls of those old-time school houses present, worn smooth with the elbows, smeared with the jackets, variegated with the ink, carved with the jack-knives and stained with the tears of boisterous and blubbering boys and rosy-cheeked, hoydenish or timid girls. What burlesque, too, upon every intelligent idea of education were the processes carried on in them. From nine o'clock to twelve, and from one till four, six long hours, as marked by the sun's shadow on the rude dial marked out on the windowsill, did the work go on. Murray's Reader, and in the most ambitious districts his Grammar, Walker's Dictionary, Walkingame's Arithmetic, Goldsmith's Geography and somebody's spelling-book, with slate and pencil, a scanty supply of paper and ink, and pen shaped with a keen pen-knife from a quill picked up from the wayside or plucked ruthlessly from the wing of some reluctant "squawking" goose, would complete the scholar's outfit. It is the hour for preparation of the reading lesson. The school room resounds with the loud hum of a score or two of boys and girls all "studying aloud" with a most distracting din, and all the heads and bodies swaying constantly and simultaneously back and forth as an accompaniment to the voice. This voice in the case of perhaps a majority would be modulated without the slightest relation to the contents of the printed page, while the thoughts of the ostentatiously industrious student would be busy with some projected game or trick for the coming recess. And yet how often would the Scotch school master's eye gleam with pride and pleasure when he had, by dint of persuasion or threat, succeeded in getting every boy and girl engaged in the horrible, monotonous chant.