The years have gone slowly by and nature in successive seasons has poured out of the bounties of an untrammelled heart the riches that have filled men's hearts with gladness, but the school-house has continued to be the prison-house where thought was never allowed to blossom, and where the possibilities of the human heart were crushed and cramped beneath an iron system that made the spirit of romance and fairy tale and adventure die out of the youthful manhood of the nation. At last the morning came to our scholar when the teacher began to explain the meaning of the strange old-world pictures that stood in columns down the pages of his books. Their names were all known and their faces were very familiar, for with many a sigh, and sometimes almost with breaking heart they had been read and reread, until every lineament in their wizened faces had been printed on the pupil's hearts. And what a revelation was the rendering made by the stern master who had simply been the corrector of wrong sounds, the cold, severe tyrant of the school who had never seemed to feel one touch of sympathy for the young hearts under his control. Many of the dry and colourless pictures under the touch of this stern and apparently cold-blooded teacher became instinct with life, and human faces peered through them, and the voices of men that lived ages ago could be heard speaking in the language of to-day, exhorting the scholars to a noble and a virtuous ambition. Others, again, exhaled the fragrance of the fields and the perfume of flowers, whilst one could hear the rustling of the corn as the breeze swept over it, and could see in imagination the mountains with their sun-crowned summits and the shadows chasing each other like school-boys along their rugged sides. The whole of Chinese history that had lain within the cold and lifeless grasp of these square little puzzles which he had looked upon with unutterable loathing for five years, now under the magic touch of the teacher's hand began to tell the story of the past. He now heard for the first time of the great revolutions that had changed the destinies of proud dynasties, and listened to the clang of battle, and the mighty heroes who had figured in the nation's life centuries ago now seemed to march by, and he appeared to be able to catch a glimpse of their faces and to compare the pictures of them that he had imagined in his mind with the reality now before him.