port! excellent. Yes, I'll teach him the vocabularies in rhyme, and set
them to lively music--that will do; he'll like it nearly as well as if
it were nonsense. I'll lead him on to the knowledge of principles, by
means of beautiful experiments: he'll think I am amusing him, when I am
gravely in earnest in the work of instruction. I will set rewards before
him, to impel him onward: I will excite his curiosity, and make it a
favor to gratify it; and then the boy will swallow knowledge as if it
were cake."

"Come with me, Rudolph, I have something pretty to show you." "That I
will: I love to see pretty things, dear lady." "Call me mamma, Rudolph:
you are now my son." "Indeed I cannot: nobody is mamma but my own dear
mamma who loves me so--oh, I do _so_ wish I could see her!" "Hush,
child, that's silly. Now keep very quiet in this dark room, and you'll
see something. What is this I hold in my hand?" "A great glass jar, like
one of mamma's preserve jars, only much larger." "Do you see any thing
in it?" "Yes, ma'am, ever so much iron wire twisted round and round."
"Is there any thing else in the jar?" "Nothing at all." "Nothing you can
see, but there is a kind of gas we call oxygen, which will burn when I
put in a lighted piece of stick, very carefully. Look!" "Oh, beautiful,
beautiful! how the wire burns! only look at the sparks! that is very
pretty indeed, ma'am. Now it has all burnt out--what a pity!" "Now,
Rudolph, I want to tell you about it. You must know that the air we
breathe is made up of this oxygen, of nitrogen, a very little carbonic
acid gas, and a small quantity of water. If the oxygen was taken out of
the air, you could not live for one moment: I'll show you. You see this
jar? It is full of nitrogen--of air with the oxygen taken out." "But
what are you putting into it? A little mouse, I declare!" "Yes: but you
see it dies instantly; it cannot live because there is no oxygen in the
air." "Poor little mouse, how I wish you had not killed it! It is a
shame! If _I_ did such a cruel thing, my mamma would punish me." "Don't
talk so, child! it's silly. The mouse died without any pain, and if one
principle of science is fixed in your head, it is well worth the
sacrifice of its insignificant life. There will be less cheese eaten in
the world--that's all. Now, do you understand about oxygen and nitrogen,
which chiefly make up the atmospheric air?" "I know that oxygen made the
wire burn beautifully, and I know that horrid