284 APPENDIX. 



of his nature that he would never have found out if 

 left to himself; because he would never aim at 

 the perfection on the sight of which the pleasure 

 depends, but would work slovenly, hating the labour 

 as well as the look of what he leaves behind. 



The wire riddle makes a rule for itself, and is 

 admirable for giving exactness of idea to the worker, 

 as well as of finish to his work. You want a piece 

 of ground made fit for small seeds, and you give 

 orders to have it well cleared of stones. But your 

 words do not convey your idea the boy takes his 

 notions from a clover field. Show him the riddle 

 and say that the soil to a given depth must pass 

 through its wires. They have no latitudinarian 

 notions, and your boy so furnished is as perfect a 

 workman as the first in a palace garden. The work 

 is a masterpiece, and never did hand of thrifty wife 

 print with more pleasure her store of new-made meal 

 than you will a mould of such aptitude, whether for 

 receiving the fine fibres of a flower or the fairybeads 

 of the amaranth. At such a work your boy is a 

 treasure; you have him at any rate, and the work, 

 though slow, is sweet to the eye when done; but it 

 might lose some of its sweetness on settling ac- 

 counts with other hands at the rate of two shillings 

 per day. 



I shall notice little more than one other sort of 

 work, to exemplify the methods of turning your 

 boy's hands to good account. I allude to one which 

 he can do perfectly which will never fail in sup- 

 plying fair-weather employment, and by the perse- 



