INTRODUCTION. 5 
reading lesson in which to teach a child that the hard 
things of life are to be grappled with and overcome. 
A mistake also, I think, is that toilsome process of 
explanation which I sometimes find teachers following, 
under the impression that it will be “ parrot work” 
(as the stock phrase of the “institutes” has it) for 
the pupils to read anything which they do not clearly 
and fully comprehend. ‘Teachers’ definitions, in such 
ceases, I have often noticed, are no better than dic- 
tionary definitions, and surely everybody knows that 
few more fruitless things than dictionary definitions 
are ever crammed into the memory of a child. Bet- 
ter far give free play to the native intelligence of the 
child, and trust it to apprehend, though it may not yet 
comprehend nor be able to express its apprehension 
in definition. On this subject I am glad to quote so 
high an authority as Sir Walter Scott: “ Indeed I 
rather suspect that children derive impulses of a pow- 
erful and important kind from reading things which 
they do not comprehend, and therefore that to write 
down to children’s understanding is a mistake. Set 
them on the scent and let them puzzle it out.” 
From time to time I have allowed my pupils to give 
me written reports from memory of these essays, and 
have often found these little compositions sparkling 
with pleasing information, or full of that childlike fun 
which is characteristic of the author. I have marked 
the errors in these exercises, and have given them 
back to the children to rewrite. Sometimes the sec- 
ond papers show careful correction — and sometimes 
the mistakes are partially neglected. Very often the 
child wishes to improve on the first composition, and 
so adds new blunders as well as creates new interest. 
There is a law of self-preservation in Nature, which 
