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during which Mr. Squeers looked very profound, as if he had a perfect apprehension of what was inside all the books, and could say every word of their contents by heart if he only chose to take the trouble, that gentleman called up the first class.

7. Obedient to this summons, there ranged themselves in front of the schoolmaster's desk half-a-dozen scarecrows, out at knees and elbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath his learned eye.

8. "This is the first class in English spelling and philosophy, Nickleby," said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to stand beside him. "We'll get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you. Now, then, where's the first boy?"

"Please, Sir, he's cleaning the back parlor window," said the temporary head of the philosophical class.

9. "So he is, to be sure," rejoined Squeers. "We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-i-n, win, d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy knows this out of book, he goes and does it. It's just the same principle as the use of the globes. Where's the second boy?"

10. "Please, Sir, he's weeding the garden," replied a small voice.

"To be sure," said Squeers, by no means disconcerted. "So he is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun substantive, a knowledge of plants. When he has learned that bottinney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows 'em. That's our system, Nickleby: what do you think of it?' 11. "It's a very useful one, at any rate," answered Nicholas, significantly.

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"I believe you," rejoined Squeers, not remarking

the emphasis of his usher.

horse?"

"Third boy, what's a

12. "A beast, Sir," replied the boy.

"So it is," said Squeers. "Ain't it, Nickleby?" "I believe there is no doubt of that, Sir," answered Nicholas.

13. "Of course there isn't," said Squeers.

"A horse is a quadruped, and quadruped's Latin for beast, as everybody that's gone through the grammar knows, or else where's the use of having grammars at all?"

14. "

Where, indeed!" said Nicholas, abstractedly. "As you're perfect in that," resumed Squeers, turning to the boy, "go and look after mine, and rub him down well, or I'll rub you down. The rest of the class go and draw water up, till somebody tells you to leave off, for it's washing-day to-morrow, and they want the coppers filled."

15. So saying, he dismissed the first class to their experiments in practical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, half cunning and half doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain what he might think of him by this time.

"That's the way we teach school here, Nickleby," he said, after a pause.

CHAS. DICKENS.

NOTE. In the above lesson, and in all succeeding lessons where provincialisms, colloquialisms, or dialect, occur, the teacher should call the attention of the class to all errors in grammar, spelling and pronunciation, and have them corrected. This course will obviate all danger of false impressions on those subjects, and render the exercises of real value to the student. While literature of this kind should not be too fully represented in a School Reader, we are inclined to think that the insipid primness affected by some authors is founded in a mistaken idea.

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LISTEN, shover,

ISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

2. He said to his friend-"If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church tower, as a signal-light,-
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

3. Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,

Till in the silence around him he hears

The muster of men at the barrack-door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead.

4. Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,

Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;

5. But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely, and spectral, and somber, and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

6. A hurry of hoofs in a village street,`

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, thro' the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by the steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

7. It was twelve by the village clock,

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
It was one by the village clock,

When he rode into Lexington.

He saw the gilded weathercock

Swim in the moonlight as he passed,

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,

As if they already stood aghast

At the bloody work they would look upon.

8. You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load,

9. So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,--

A cry of defiance, and not of fear,

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,

In the hour of darkness, and peril, and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.

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