In a former chapter I have told at some length of the scourge of the jigger, and how the discipline of the school was concentrated in an effort to make the boys keep them out of their feet. A boy who had jiggers got no food until his feet were clean. It was hard discipline, but it would have been cruel to have done otherwise. The whole of the morning recess was spent in examining their feet. Without exception the boys who had been long in the school kept themselves perfectly clean from jiggers, and they in turn were willing to examine the other boys’ feet and report to me. It was a measure of self-protection; for one boy whose feet were full of jiggers would scatter thousands of them. Sometimes in the dry season, when they are worst, I had the boys haul barrels of salt water from the sea and flood the house with it. The program of daily studies covered the subjects usually taught in primary schools, besides French and the Bible. With the help of a missionary friend I translated into Fang a simple catechism of fifty questions and answers and a number of hymns. They committed to memory both catechism and hymns. These they invariably taught in their towns upon their return home. Some few of the boys are very bright in all their studies and learn fast—as fast as American boys; others are stupid in everything—as stupid as some American boys. The average African schoolboy, however, is not as clever as the average American boy. In the acquisition of a foreign language the African boy far surpasses the American. Yet this is not now regarded as a high order of faculty. It rather belongs to the elementary mind and the highly civilized nations tend to lose it. I have never known an American school in which there was better order and so little exercise of discipline as in my African school. There was no flogging at all. The entire matter of discipline was confined to the jigger-palaver. Yet these boys were not by any means dull or lacking in humour. Indeed, the humour of the Negro is far more keen than that of any Asiatic race, and is nearest to our own. But even in the best-ordered schools there will be an occasional lapse of discipline, and my school was no exception. One day in the class I called on a certain boy, Toma, to read. A knife had been stolen from my room that morning—probably by a workman—and the boys had been talking about it and wondering if any of their number could have done it. Toma was one of the larger boys and was dull at his books. Moreover, he was conscious of being backward and was easily embarrassed when he was reciting. This day as he rose to recite, a certain smart boy, Esona, whom I have already mentioned, said in a loud whisper: “Now, if anybody can’t recite his lesson that will be a sign that he has stolen Mr. Milligan’s knife.”