its obligations, they will be far better qualified for the same situation twenty years hence, than they are to-day.
The metamorphosis of
| “books of stature small, |
| Which, with pellucid horn secured, are” |
into Dictionaries, and volumes on Science, is quite as striking as the change from old to young, in the instructors. The very name of a horn-book is never heard to-day, and perhaps there are not half a dozen persons in an American country school district who know its meaning. In this respect, our children of the present day have greatly the advantage over their predecessors; few things are cheaper and more common now than books. Possibly fingers are also more clean, and do not need the sheath of horn to protect the paper; though, upon consideration, it seems by no means certain that the hands of modern little folk are so much better washed than those of their grand-parents, since it will be remembered that the dame's little troop for “unkempt hair,” were “sorely shent,” and where the hair was required to be nicely combed, it is but natural to suppose that faces and hands were well washed.
The flock that came tripping out of the Red Brook school-house this afternoon was composed of boys and girls, varying in ages and sizes from the little chubby thing, half boy, half baby, to the elder sister, just beginning to put on the first airs of womanhood. Different codes of manners are found to prevail in different school-houses about the country: sometimes, when the children are at play before the door, or trudging on their way to or from home, the little girls will curtsey, and the boys bow to the passing stranger, showing that they have been taught to make their manners;
