The difference between our school and the public grammar school of the period lay in the fact that our instruction was principally religious and industrial, while in the other it was mainly secular and physical. The aim of the Guardians appeared to be the making of commonplace farmers, tradesmen, and mechanics, and instead of the gymnasium, our muscles were practised in spade industry, gardening, tailoring, and joiner’s work. Our outdoor games were of a gentle and innocent kind, and only pursued when the weather prohibited the use of the hoe and spade. We instinctively chased humble-bees, daddy-long-legs, we played with cowslip-balls, wove chains of dandelion flowers, and made chaplets of buttercups. The oldsters, through some mysterious connection with the outside boy-world, became acquainted with spring-tops, tip-cat, kite-flying, hop-scotch, and marbles, leap-frog, hen-and-chickens, and follow-my-leader. Through some means, the art of telling the time by thistledown, and of divining by blowing the tassel, had been introduced among us. We sometimes played hide-and-seek, and excited ourselves by mild gambling with stones. At rare intervals we blackened one another’s eyes, but, from fear of consequences, our quarrels were more often settled by wrestling, when the victor might indulge his spleen by thumping the fallen without marking the face. We were firm believers in nocturnal visitants, and in the magic of the rhyme, ‘Rain, rain, go to Spain, Sun, sun, come again.’ The mimetic power was early developed in me. The school-teacher, and various country persons, the old porter even, were mimicked well enough to draw the applause of my school-mates. We joyfully looked forward to the coming of May, which always preceded the season of sunshine and outdoor play on the lush green plats outside of the walls. We faithfully observed St. Valentine’s Day, the 29th of May, the 5th of November, and the 30th of January, for the names of Guy Fawkes, and Charles I and II, were well known to us. Good Friday was always a gloomy day with us, and Easter was solemn; but Christmas became associated with pudding, toffee, and apples, and was the most welcome day in the year. We were Church folk, and were swayed by her festivals. Most of us could repeat the Morning Service from memory, a few knew the Collects and Psalms by heart, for they had been given to us so frequently as tasks because of their sub-divisions, and because it was deemed necessary to keep us constantly occupied; and as, morning and evening, we performed our devotions, we grew marvellously familiar with Sacred History.