As a result of this particular training, I may say here, that, while I do not often mix metaphors, I am to this day almost as ignorant of what is called “grammar” as Dean Swift, who, when he went up to answer for his degree, said he “could not tell a subject from a predicate;” or even James Whitcomb Riley, who said he “would not know a nominative if he should meet it on the street.” The best practical lesson in the proper use of at least one grammatical sentence was given to me by my elder brother (not two years older than I) one day, when I said, “I done it.” “You done it!” said he, taking me by the shoulder and looking me severely in the face; “Don’t you ever let me hear you say _I done it_ again, unless you can use _have_ or _had_ before it.” I also went to singing-school, and became a member of the church choir, and in this way learned many beautiful hymns that made a lasting impression on the serious part of my nature. The discipline our work brought us was of great value. We were obliged to be in the mill at just such a minute, in every hour, in order to doff our full bobbins and replace them with empty ones. We went to our meals and returned at the same hour every day. We worked and played at regular intervals, and thus our hands became deft, our fingers nimble, our feet swift, and we were taught daily habits of regularity and of industry; it was, in fact, a sort of manual training or industrial school. Some of us were fond of reading, and we read all the books we could borrow. One of my mother’s boarders, a farmer’s daughter from “the State of Maine,” had come to Lowell to work, for the express purpose of getting books, usually novels, to read, that she could not find in her native place. She read from two to four volumes a week; and we children used to get them from the circulating library, and return them, for her. In exchange for this, she allowed us to read her books, while she was at work in the mill; and what a scurrying there used to be home from school, to get the first chance at the new book! It was as good as a fortune to us, and all for six and a quarter cents a week! In this way I read the novels of Richardson, Madame D’Arblay, Fielding, Smollett, Cooper, Scott, Captain Marryatt, and many another old book not included in Mr. Ruskin’s list of “one hundred good books.” Passing through the alembic of a child’s pure mind, I am not now conscious that the reading of the doubtful ones did me any lasting harm. But I should add that I do not advise such indiscriminate reading among young people, and there is no need of it, since now there are so many good books, easy of access, which have not the faults of those I was obliged to read. Then, there was no choice. To-day, the best of reading, for children and young people, can be found everywhere. “Lalla Rookh” was the first poem I ever read, and it awoke in me, not only a love of poetry, but also a desire to try my own hand at verse-making.