148 OUT OF DOOMS. 



in the apple tree, and make rope-ladders out of clothes- 

 lines — not only, in fine, did we reduce to practice any 

 practicable event in our favourite books, and 'make 

 believe ' fervently in all impracticable cases, but we 

 pursued the same system with severer studies, and 

 acted in turn every historical person of whom we read, 

 though the originals might have found some difficulty 

 in recognising their representatives, or the localities in 

 which the particular adventure occurred. For us, how- 

 ever, the result was perfectly satisfactory. If we pushed 

 each other out of the stable-loft window, the Tarpeian 

 rock was sufficiently indicated ; and if the representative 

 of the criminal happened to hurt himself by the fall it 

 only made things look more real. And so, whether we 

 gained our kingdoms by seeing flights of vultures, 

 killed our brothers for jumping over the wall, got killed 

 ourselves by an arrow in the eye at an imaginary Hast- 

 ings, or one through the heart in an equally imaginary 

 New Forest (the rocking-horse being of great service 

 in the latter catastrophe), we certainly contrived to 

 impress on our minds a tolerably vivid idea of the cir- 

 cumstances. 



Children thus learn at the earliest years to dis- 

 tinguish one plant from another, to know a flower from 

 a weed, and to learn something of their various pro- 

 perties ; while, with regard to the animal kingdom, 

 they gain a fund of practical experience that is sure to 

 be valuable in after life. 



It is no small matter for them to get rid of a fear, 



il 



