ved an excellent way of teaching spelling. We used
to write out lists of all the words we could think of which sounded the
same but were differently spelt. Thus: "key, quay," "knight, night,"
and so on, and great was the glory of the child who found the largest
number. Our French lessons--as the German later--included reading from
the very first. On the day on which we began German we began reading
Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell," and the verbs given to us to copy out were
those that had occurred in the reading. We learned much by heart, but
always things that in themselves were worthy to be learned. We were
never given the dry questions and answers which lazy teachers so much
affect. We were taught history by one reading aloud while the others
worked--the boys as well as the girls learning the use of the needle.
"It's like a girl to sew," said a little fellow, indignantly, one day.
"It is like a baby to have to run after a girl if you want a button
sewn on," quoth Auntie. Geography was learned by painting skeleton
maps--an exercise much delighted in by small fingers--and by putting
together puzzle maps, in which countries in the map of a continent, or
counties in the map of a country, were always cut out in their proper
shapes. I liked big empires in those days; there was a solid
satisfaction in putting down Russia, and seeing what a large part of
the map was filled up thereby.

The only grammar that we ever learned as grammar was the Latin, and
that not until composition had made us familiar with the use of the
rules therein given. Auntie had a great horror of children learning by
rote things they did not understand, and then fancying they knew them.
"What do you mean by that expression, Annie?" she would ask me. After
feeble attempts to explain, I would answer: "Indeed, Auntie, I know in
my own head, but I can't explain." "Then, indeed, Annie, you do not
know in your own head, or you could explain, so that I might know in my
own head." And so a healthy habit was fostered of clearness of thought
and of expression. The Latin grammar was used because it was more
perfect than the modern grammars, and served as a solid foundation for
modern languages.

Miss Marryat took a beautiful place, Fern Hill, near Charmouth, in
Dorsetshire, on the borders of Devon, and there she lived for some five
years, a centre of beneficence in the district. She started a Sunday
School, and a Bible Class after awhile for the lads too old for the
sc