ple."

"Why not old people also?" said he with a twinkle in his eye. "But," he
went on, "I can assure you our children learn, whether they go through a
'system of teaching' or not. Why, you will not find one of these
children about here, boy or girl, who cannot swim; and every one of them
has been used to tumbling about the little forest ponies--there's one of
them now! They all of them know how to cook; the bigger lads can mow;
many can thatch and do odd jobs at carpentering; or they know how to keep
shop. I can tell you they know plenty of things."

"Yes, but their mental education, the teaching of their minds," said I,
kindly translating my phrase.

"Guest," said he, "perhaps you have not learned to do these things I have
been speaking about; and if that's the case, don't you run away with the
idea that it doesn't take some skill to do them, and doesn't give plenty
of work for one's mind: you would change your opinion if you saw a
Dorsetshire lad thatching, for instance. But, however, I understand you
to be speaking of book-learning; and as to that, it is a simple affair.
Most children, seeing books lying about, manage to read by the time they
are four years old; though I am told it has not always been so. As to
writing, we do not encourage them to scrawl too early (though scrawl a
little they will), because it gets them into a habit of ugly writing; and
what's the use of a lot of ugly writing being done, when rough printing
can be done so easily. You understand that handsome writing we like, and
many people will write their books out when they make them, or get them
written; I mean books of which only a few copies are needed--poems, and
such like, you know. However, I am wandering from my lambs; but you must
excuse me, for I am interested in this matter of writing, being myself a
fair-writer."

"Well," said I, "about the children; when they know how to read and
write, don't they learn something else--languages, for instance?"

"Of course," he said; "sometimes even before they can read, they can talk
French, which is the nearest language talked on the other side of the
water; and they soon get to know German also, which is talked by a huge
number of communes and colleges on the mainland. These are the principal
languages we speak in these islands, along with English or Welsh, or
Irish, which is another form of Welsh; and children pick them up very
quickly, because their elders all know them; and besides