The Schoolboy: Saint-Leons 



there was one respect in which he did not 

 make progress: the knowledge of the alpha- 

 bet, which was indeed neglected for the 

 pigeon. Consequently neither the school- 

 master nor the spelling-book had much to do 

 with the earliest stage of his education. He 

 tells us how he learned to read, not at Mas- 

 ter Ricard's, but, thanks to his father, in the 

 school of the animals and nature: 



I was still at the same stage, hopelessly behind- 

 hand with the intractable alphabet, when my father, 

 by a chance inspiration, brought me home from the 

 town what was destined to give me a start along 

 the road of reading. Despite the not insignificant 

 part which it played in my intellectual awakening, 

 the purchase was by no means a ruinous one. It 

 was a large print, price six farthings, coloured and 

 divided into compartments in which animals of all 

 sorts taught the A, B, C by means of the first 

 letters of their names. 



I made such rapid progress that, in a few days, 

 I was able to turn in good earnest to the pages 

 of my little pigeon-book, hitherto so undecipher- 

 able. I was initiated ; I knew how to spell. My 

 parents marvelled. I can explain this unexpected 

 progress to-day. Those speaking pictures, which 

 brought me among my friends the beasts, were 

 in harmony with my instincts. If the animal has 

 not fulfilled all that it promised in so far as I 

 am concerned, I have at least to thank it for teach- 



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