i8 Mr. Charles L. Barnes on 



way he can think of, stretches his line far back. "An old 

 man met a child. ' Good day, my son,' says he, 'may you 

 live as long as you have lived and as much more, and 

 thrice as much as all this, and if God give you one year in 

 addition to the others, you will be just a century old,' 

 What was the lad's age? " To prevent a needless waste 

 of exertion, I hasten to say that he was eleven. These 

 problems were current in the ioth and nth centuries. 



Some sciences were taught by dialogue, never a good 

 method even in our day, but it might have been given up 

 earlier with advantage if the following are fair samples. 

 To the question, " Where does the sunshine by night?" 

 the answer is returned that " it shines in three places : first 

 in the belly of the whale called leviathan, next it shines in 

 hell, and afterwards on the island called Glith, where the 

 souls of holy men rest till doomsday." 



Q. Where is a man's soul ? A . In his head, and it 

 comes out at his mouth. 



Q. Where resteth the soul of a man when his body 

 sleepeth ? A. I tell thee it is in three places, in the brain, 

 the heart, and the blood. 



Occasionally they degenerate into riddles. Q. What is 

 that from which if you take the head it becomes higher ? 

 A . Go to your bed and you will find it.* 



The "Popular Treatises on Science" above mentioned 

 comprise: I. A tract on astronomy in Anglo-Saxon, 

 abridged from Bede's De Natura Rerum, by an unknown 

 author, probably about 990. II. The Livre des Creatures, 

 by Philippe de Thaun. III. The Bestiary, by the same 

 author, in Anglo-Norman, about 1120. IV. A fragment 

 on science from the Metrical Lives of the Saints, about 

 1250, in English. 



In the astronomical treatise we find, of the sun, that 



* The head of the occupier is that which becomes higher. 



