The intellectual education which young Daniel received at home was as much out of the ordinary course as the book in which he studied at school. Robinson Crusoe had not yet reached Ingleton. Sandford and Merton had not been written, nor that history of Pecksey and Flapsey and the Robin's Nest, which is the prettiest fiction that ever was composed for children, and for which its excellent authoress will one day rank high among women of genius when time shall have set its seal upon desert. The only book within his reach, of all those which now come into the hands of youth, was the Pilgrim's Progress, and this he read at first without a suspicion of its allegorical import. What he did not understand was as little remembered as the sounds of the wind, or the motions of the passing clouds; but the imagery and the incidents took possession of his memory and his heart. After a while Textor became an interpreter of the immortal Tinker, and the boy acquired as much of the meaning by glimpses as was desirable, enough to render some of the personages more awful by spiritualizing them, while the tale itself remained as a reality. Oh! what blockheads are those wise persons who think it necessary that a child should comprehend every thing it reads! CHAPTER XV. P. I. THE AUTHOR VENTURES AN OPINION AGAINST THE PREVAILING WISDOM OF MAKING CHILDREN PREMATURELY WISE. Pray you, use your freedom; And so far, if you please allow me mine, To hear you only; not to be compelled To take your moral potions. MASSINGER. “What, Sir,” exclaims a Lady, who is bluer than ever one of her naked and woad-stained ancestors appeared at a public festival in full dye,—“what, Sir, do you tell us that children are not to be made to understand what they are taught?” And she casts her eyes complacently toward an assortment of those books which so many writers, male and female, some of the infidel, some of the semi-fidel, and some of the super-fidel schools have composed for the laudable purpose of enabling children to understand every thing.—“What, Sir,” she repeats, “are we to make our children learn things by rote like parrots, and fill their heads with words to which they cannot attach any signification?” “Yes, Madam, in very many cases.” “I should like, Sir, to be instructed why?”