The master’s great business was to mend the pens—a delicate task, not without danger for inexperienced fingers—and then to trace at the head of the white page a line of strokes, single letters, or words according to the scholar’s capabilities. When that is over, keep an eye on the work of art which is coming to adorn the copy! With what undulating movements of the wrist does the hand, resting on the little finger, prepare and plan its flight! All at once the hand starts off, flies, whirls; and lo and behold, under the line of writing is unfurled a garland of circles, spirals, and flourishes, framing a bird with outspread wings; the whole, if you please, in red ink, the only kind worthy of such a pen. Large and small, we stood awestruck in the presence of such marvels. The family, in the evening, after supper, would pass from hand to hand the masterpiece brought back from school:— “What a man!” was the comment. “What a man, to draw you a Holy Ghost with one stroke of the pen!” What was read at my school? At most, in French, a few selections from sacred history. Latin recurred oftener, to teach us to sing vespers properly. The more advanced pupils tried to decipher manuscript, a deed of sale, the hieroglyphics of some scrivener. And history, geography? No one ever heard of them. What difference did it make to us whether the earth was round or square! In either case, it was just as hard to make it bring forth anything. And grammar? The master troubled his head very little about that, and we still less. We should have been greatly surprised by the novelty and the forbidding look of such words in the grammatical jargon as substantive, indicative, and subjunctive. Accuracy of language, whether of speech or writing, must be learnt by practice. And none of us was troubled by scruples in this respect. What was the use of all these subtleties, when, on coming out of school, a lad went back to his flock of sheep!