No sooner had he heard that than he began to say, "Noun, adjective, pronoun, adverb, preposition, noun, adjective, pronoun, preposition," as before. I then got afeard the child was clean crazy, and when I was in the act of rising to catch hold of him, says he, "Father, the earth is not flat, it is a round ball and goes round." "Och, och," says I, "that spalpeen of a school master has driven my son mad."... So I calls a meeting, and my two colleages, Thomas Ginty and Edward Crawford, and myself, met at the school house and dismissed the rascal. When the leader of education of school section No. 5 ---- stopped, I turned to my companions, not knowing what qualifications were expected of me. The trustee continued:--"Can you read?" "Yes." "Can you cipher?" "Yes." "Do you know how to count by long division?" "I do." "You don't know grammar?" Here was the crucial test. I resolved, however, to get out of it the best way possible, and replied:--"I don't like grammar, and don't know much about it," which was true. "Good." The trustee smiled sweetly and said:--"The school is yours; but, remember, no grammar or jography, or out you go." I was taken to the other trustees, and in their presence I was put through the same examination as above recorded. The bargain was struck there and then. I was promised fifteen dollars a month board from house to house, with the condition that I should put on the fires in winter, and keep the school house clean--a herculean task in those days. On the morning that I was to assume my pedagogic duties, I arrived at the school house about 8 a.m., and at once proceeded to build a fire. I never can forget the feeling of utter loneliness which came over me, as I stood opposite a fireplace wide enough to accommodate an ox. On the walls of the building were three maps, of what countries I do not now remember, because geography was proscribed during my _regime_. Daylight was seen through the walls. The seats were of the most primitive character, while my own desk resembled more the top of a toboggan slide than the rostrum of one who was teaching the young idea how to shoot. There was no fence round the building, the play ground being illimitable in its dimensions and capacities. In short the whole of the surroundings of this rural academy congealed all literary aspirations, and it was little wonder that the boys and girls meeting there, and pretending to be drinking at the fountain of knowledge, grew up utterly destitute of the first principles of a rational and suitable education.