responded a little fellow; "you are hired to teach
us."

Giving a reading lesson to his class in the presence of an inspector, a
teacher asked his boys what was meant by conscience--a word that had
occurred in the course of the reading--and the class having been duly
crammed for the occasion answered as one boy--"An inward monitor." "But
what do you understand by an inward monitor?" put in the inspector. To
this further question, only one boy announced himself ready to respond,
and his triumphantly given answer was--"A hironclad, sir."

Their definitions are at all times interesting, if not constantly
reliable. After a reading of Gray's "Elegy" by a fourth standard class,
the boys were asked what was meant by "fretted vaults," and one youth
replied--"The vaults in which these poor people were buried; their
friends came and fretted over them." Asked what he understood by
"Elegy," another boy in the same class answered--"Elegy is some poetry
wrote out for schools to learn, like Gray's 'Elegy.'"

Asked to describe a kitten, a boy, after a moment's thought, replied--"A
kitten is remarkable for rushing like mad at nothing whatever, and
stopping before it gets there."

Another boy's definition of a lie was probably the fruit of good
experience. "A lie," said he, "is an abomination in the eyes of the
Lord, but a very present help in time of trouble."

Asked to define the expression, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof." "It just means," responded a little fellow, "that the evil
committed at the present day is quite sufficient without any more."

In a sixth standard examination, a vacuum was recently described as "an
empty space without anything in it;" and a compass, at the same time,
was explained as "a tripod with a round or circular box surmounting it,
which always points due north."

A Government inspector not long ago gave the following in a list of
historical and other "facts," elicited from boys under examination:--

"Of whom was it said 'He never smiled again'?" "William Rufus, and this
after he was shot by the arrow."

"My favourite character in English history is Henry VIII., because he
had eight wives and killed them all."

"The cause of the Peasants' Revolt was that a shilling poultice should
be put on everybody over sixteen."

"Henry VIII. was a very good king. He liked plenty of money, he had
plenty of wives, and died of ulcers in the legs." "Edward III. would
have been king of France if his