fficient reason for this: up to a certain point, the
Neapolitan children learn so rapidly and willingly that it can hardly
be other than a pleasure to teach them. After this, their zeal flags;
they know enough; and their parents and friends, far more ignorant
than they, are perfectly satisfied with their progress. Then the
difficulties of their teachers begin; but here, in these lowest grade
schools, they had not yet begun. The boys were still eager to learn,
and were ardently following the lead of their teachers. They were
little fellows, nearly all, and none of them had been in school more
than a year and a half, while some had been there only three or four
months. They rose up with "_Buon giorno, signori_," as we entered, and
could hardly be persuaded to lapse back to the duties of life during
our stay. They had very good faces, indeed, for the most part, and
even the vicious had intellectual brightness. Just and consistent
usage has the best influence on them; and one boy was pointed out
as quite docile and manageable, whose parents had given him up as
incorrigible before he entered the school. As it was, there was
something almost pathetic in his good behavior, as being possible to
him, but utterly alien to his instincts. The boys of these schools
seldom play truant, and they are never severely beaten in school; when
quite intractable, notice is given to their parents, and they usually
return in a more docile state. It sometimes happens that the boys are
taken away by their parents, from one motive or another; but they find
their way back again, and are received as if nothing had happened.

The teacher in the first room here is a handsome young Calabrian,
with the gentlest face and manner,--one of the most efficient teachers
under Mr. Buscarlet. The boys had out their Bibles when we entered,
and one after another read passages to us. There were children of
seven, eight, and nine years, who had been in the school only three
months, and who read any part of their Bibles with facility and
correctness; of course, before coming to school they had not known one
letter from another. The most accomplished scholar was a youngster,
named Saggiomo, who had received eighteen months' schooling. He was
consequently very quick indeed, and wanted to answer all the hard
questions put to the other boys. In fact, all of them were ready
enough, and there was a great deal of writhing and snapping of fingers
among those who longed to an