A Boyhood in Scotland 



of the severest kind quickly set in, when for 

 every mistake, everjrthing short of perfection, 

 the taws was promptly applied. We had to 

 get three lessons every day in Latin, three in 

 French, and as many in English, besides spell- 

 ing, history, arithmetic, and geography. Word 

 lessons in particular, the wouldst-couldst- 

 shouldst-have-loved kind, were kept up, with 

 much warlike thrashing, until I had committed 

 the whole of the French, Latin, and English 

 grammars to memory, and in connection with 

 reading-lessons we were called on to recite 

 parts of them with the rules over and over 

 again, as if all the regular and irregular incom- 

 prehensible verb stuff was poetry. In addition 

 to all this, father made me learn so many Bible 

 verses every day that by the time I was eleven 

 years of age I had about three fourths of the 

 Old Testament and all of the New by heart 

 and by sore flesh. I could recite the New 

 Testament from the beginning of Matthew to 

 the end of Revelation without a single stop. 

 The dangers of cramming and of making 

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