Taking the alphabet first and learning one letter a year for
twenty-six years he will be able to read and write as early in life as
he ought to. If we were more careful not to teach our children to read
in their childhood we should not be so anxious about the effects of
pernicious literature upon their adolescent morals. If I had my way no
one should be taught to read until after he had passed his hundredth
year. In that way, and in that way only can we protect our youth from
the dreadful influence of such novels as 'Three Cycles, Not To Mention
The Rug,' which dreadful book I have found within the past month in
the hands of at least twenty children in the neighborhood, not one of
whom was past sixty."

It was thus resolved that my education should proceed with due
deliberation and even as Aunt Jerusha had suggested, I was taught only
one letter a year for the first twenty-six years of my life, after
which I took up addition, multiplication, short and long division and
fractions. My father would not permit me to learn subtraction.

"It is a waste of time," said he. "Children subtract by intuition. Put
in all your time teaching Methy how to add and multiply."

My history was meagre, because as Aunt Jerusha had said, history
itself was meagre. There had not even been a flood, much less a first,
second, or third Punic War. Nobody in my time had ever heard of
Napoleon Bonaparte or George Washington or Julius Caesar, or
Alexander, save a few prophets in the hills back of Enochsville, in
whose prognostications few of their contemporaries took any stock; as
was indeed not unnatural, since when they attempted to prophesy as to
the weather they showed themselves to be rather poor guessers. If a
man prophesies a blizzard for to-morrow and to-morrow comes bringing
with it the balmy odors of Spring, no one is likely to set much store
by his prognostications concerning the possible presidential candidacy
of a man named Bryan six or seven thousand years later. Consequently
the only history with which I took the trouble to familiarize myself
was that which ante-dated my birth, and even that was somewhat hazy in
the minds of historians. My predecessors in the patriarchal profession
were a reticent lot, inherited no doubt from our original ancestor
Adam, who could never be got to talk even to members of his immediate
family on the subject of his early years. True, it is generally
believed that he had no early years, and that he was b