loved offspring." How glad those boys must have been to get back to school! Yet they court disaster by asking so many questions. All the children in our great-grandmothers' story-books ask questions. All lay themselves open to attack. If they drink a cup of chocolate, they want to know what it is made of, and where cocoanuts grow. If they have a pudding for dinner, they are far more eager to learn about sago and the East Indies than to eat it. They put intelligent queries concerning the slave-trade, and make remarks that might be quoted in Parliament; yet they are as ignorant of the common things of life as though new-born into the world. In a book called "Summer Rambles, or Conversations Instructive and Amusing, for the Use of Children," published in 1801, a little girl says to her mother: "Vegetables? I do not know what they are. Will you tell me?" And the mother graciously responds: "Yes, with a great deal of pleasure. Peas, beans, potatoes, carrots, turnips, and cabbages are vegetables."
At least the good lady's information was correct as far as it went, which was not always
