Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories Part 26

"What is meant by faith?" was one day asked of a cla.s.s. "Faith,"

responded a thoughtful youth, "is the faculty which enables us to believe things that we know to be not true."

In the lesson of a cla.s.s of country boys not long ago, the words "above the average" occurred, and the lady teacher asked if any one could tell what the word "average" meant. There was no response for a time, and she pa.s.sed the question from one to another until a more than average specimen eagerly responded, "It's a thing that hens lay on." The teacher was dumb-founded, and asked for an explanation. "Well," drawled the budding Solomon, "my mother says that our hens lay each four eggs a week--on an average."

It is a teacher's business to observe that his scholars are clean as well as clever, and the Rev. David Macrae, in his entertaining little book of _Quaint Sayings of Children_, tells how a teacher, after glancing round the cla.s.s one day, said to a boy, "I'll let you off if you can find a hand in all the school as dirty as that one," indicating the boy's own grimy exposed paw. The youth promptly brought forth and showed his other fist, which was certainly dirtier still, and the master, in view of his pledge, had no resource but to let the offender go for that time any way.

An old story, which has had a lively currency, tells of how a boy when he returned from school was always asked where he stood in his cla.s.s, and whose invariable answer was, "I'm second dux." For the regular holding of this excellent position he received many fine things in the shape of sweets and biscuits, and pennies, etc., until at length it occurred to one of the family to ask him how many were in his cla.s.s. It was then the gilt fell off the ginger-bread. "Oh," said he, "there's just me and anither la.s.sie."

Dean Ramsay tells of a very practical answer given by a little girl who had been asked the meaning of "darkness," as it occurred in Scripture reading--"Just steek your een." In the same place, he says, on the question, "What is the pestilence that walketh in darkness?" being put to a cla.s.s, a little boy answered, after consideration, "Oh, it's just _bugs_."

Our friend, Dr. John Ker, has often told of an occasion when he was examining a cla.s.s in mathematics, and put the question to a boy--"If a salmon weighed 16 lbs., and was to be sold at 2d. per lb., what would it be worth?"--and how the lad, who was the son of a fishmonger, hastily replied--"It wadna be worth a curse!" Salmon at that price, I should say, would nowhere in these days be esteemed above suspicion anyway.

And boys _will_ be frank even although their replies at times appear more smart than respectful. Once a c.o.c.kney manufacturer was taking part in a school examination and asked a boy pompously--"W'at's the capital of 'Olland?" "H," was the unconsciously smart reply given. And that recalls a good dialect story, under the early Board system, which tells how an English clergyman and a Lowland Scotsman entered one of the best schools in Aberdeen. The master received them kindly, and enquired--

"Would you prefer that I should spier (question) the boys, or that you should spier them?"

The English clergyman desired the master to proceed. He did so with great success, and the boys answered satisfactorily numerous interrogatories as to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The clergyman then said he would be glad to "spier the boys," and at once began--

"How did Pharaoh die?"

There was a dead silence.

In his dilemma the Lowland gentleman interposed.

"I think, sir, the boys are not accustomed to your English accent; let me try what I can make of them." And he inquired in broad Scotch--

"Hoo did Phawroah dee?"

Again there was a dead silence, upon which the master said--

"Noo, boys, fat cam' to Phawroah at his hinner end?"

The boys with one voice answered--

"He was drooned."

And a smart little fellow added--

"Ony la.s.sie could hae tell't ye that."

Not unlike the above is a story told by Dr. Ker. The venerable inspector was one day putting a cla.s.s "through its facings," and asked a boy where the River Dee was. The answer came correctly, "In Aberdeenshire."

"a.s.suming quite a serious look (says Dr. Ker), I asked him if he was not mistaken, adding that I thought the Dee was in Kirkcudbright, and flowed into the Solway Firth. He was a bashful boy, and made no reply. To give the cla.s.s a needed fillip, I appealed to them to settle whether I or the boy was right. To give a verdict against the inspector was, of course, not to be thought of, and there was silence for a time; but at last a boy put his hand to his mouth, and said to his neighbour in a stage whisper not meant for, but which reached my ear--'He disna ken there's twa Dees.'"

Once by way of stimulant, the doctor asked a somewhat sleepy history cla.s.s which of the four Georges wore the largest hat? and a boy who had not till then opened his mouth, replied--"Him that had the biggest heid."

In an Ayrshire town, immediately after the Whitsunday term a year or two ago, a female teacher asked her cla.s.s of little ones to be sure all of them and bring their new addresses to her on the morrow, as these were required for the re-adjustment of the register. "Please, mem," blurted out a wee fellow in petticoats, "my mither says I'm no' to get ony mair dresses. She's gaun to mak' a suit for me oot o' my faither's auld breeks."

Sunday school stories are not inferior to those of the week-day seminary in their irresistible fun and drollery.

A Sunday school teacher asked her scholars to learn an appropriate text to say as they gave in their pennies to the next collection. The first was--"He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord"; and all went right until it came to the last boy, who, reluctantly dropping his penny into the box, said--to the great amazement of teachers and scholars--"The fool and his money are soon parted!"

As an example of the error of talking figuratively to those who do not appreciate, and who are apt to take everything literally, a story is worth telling. The respected superintendent of a Sunday school had told his boys that they should endeavour to bring their neighbours to the school, saying that they should be like a train--the scholar being the engine, and his converts the carriages. Judge of his surprise when, next Sunday, the door opened during lessons, and a little boy, making a noise like an engine, ran in, followed by half-a-dozen others in single file at his back! He came to a halt before the superintendent, who asked the meaning of it all. The naive answer was--"Please, sir, I'm the engine, and them's the carriages."

A Sabbath school teacher, at the finish of a lesson on "The Fall,"

asked--"Now, children, what lesson can we learn from the story of Adam and Eve? Well, Johnnie?" Johnnie--"Never believe what your wife says."

A lady asked one of the children in her cla.s.s, "What was the sin of the Pharisees?" "Eating camels, ma'am," was the reply. The little girl who answered had read that the Pharisees "strained at gnats and swallowed camels." "In what condition was the patriarch Job at the end of his life?" questioned a teacher of a stolid-looking boy. "Dead," was the quiet response.

"What is the outward and visible sign in baptism?" asked a lady. There was silence for some seconds, and then a girl broke in triumphantly with, "The baby, please, mem."

The Rev. David Macrae tells that in a Brooklyn Sunday school a small boy was asked the question, "Who was the first man?" and, with characteristic American c.o.c.ksureness, he immediately replied, "General Washington." The teacher smiled, then asked--"Did you never hear of Adam?" "Why, yes," responded the child, "I've heard of Adam; but I didn't know you were counting foreigners."

Recently, in a Sunday school in Scotland, a little boy, who had been transferred to a new cla.s.s, was asked on arrival if he had had the Shorter Catechism. For a moment he looked puzzled, and then replied--"I'm no sure, mem, until I ask my mither; but I ken I've had the measles."

Elsewhere, a teacher had been carefully explaining the parable of the Prodigal Son, and that done, she proceeded to put questions. All went well until near the close, when she asked, "Now, tell me who was not pleased to see the prodigal son when he came home," and to her consternation got the reply, "Please, ma'am, the fatted calf."

In a Sunday school in Ayrshire, attended chiefly by miners' children, the lesson for the day had been the parable of the ten wise and ten foolish virgins, and the teacher asked--"Can any one of you tell me why the virgins' lamps went out?" "I ken," immediately responded the dullest boy in the cla.s.s; "it was the wicks that was needin' pykin'."

And the story is h.o.a.ry with age of how a teacher, when the lesson had been read which bore on Jacob's dream, invited questions from the cla.s.s, and how one little fellow asked--"Why did the angels need a ladder for ascending and descending when they had wings and could flee?" The teacher was nonplussed, but got out of the difficulty by saying--"Perhaps some of the other boys can answer." "I think I ken,"

ventured a little fellow, whose father was a bird fancier, "maybe they wad be moultin' at the time."

His solutions may be extraordinary, but nothing, you see, can baffle the young wit. It was again in a Sunday school that a teacher had been instructing a cla.s.s in the relative positions of man and the lower animals in the scale of intelligence, and wishing to test how the lesson had been imbibed, she asked--"Now, what is next to man?" and got the answer promptly--"His shirt."

"What is meant by a 'hireling'?" was asked of a cla.s.s in a day-school.

"You are a hireling," responded a little fellow; "you are hired to teach us."

Giving a reading lesson to his cla.s.s in the presence of an inspector, a teacher asked his boys what was meant by conscience--a word that had occurred in the course of the reading--and the cla.s.s having been duly crammed for the occasion answered as one boy--"An inward monitor." "But what do you understand by an inward monitor?" put in the inspector. To this further question, only one boy announced himself ready to respond, and his triumphantly given answer was--"A hironclad, sir."

Their definitions are at all times interesting, if not constantly reliable. After a reading of Gray's "Elegy" by a fourth standard cla.s.s, the boys were asked what was meant by "fretted vaults," and one youth replied--"The vaults in which these poor people were buried; their friends came and fretted over them." Asked what he understood by "Elegy," another boy in the same cla.s.s answered--"Elegy is some poetry wrote out for schools to learn, like Gray's 'Elegy.'"

Asked to describe a kitten, a boy, after a moment's thought, replied--"A kitten is remarkable for rushing like mad at nothing whatever, and stopping before it gets there."

Another boy's definition of a lie was probably the fruit of good experience. "A lie," said he, "is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, but a very present help in time of trouble."

Asked to define the expression, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." "It just means," responded a little fellow, "that the evil committed at the present day is quite sufficient without any more."

In a sixth standard examination, a vacuum was recently described as "an empty s.p.a.ce without anything in it;" and a compa.s.s, at the same time, was explained as "a tripod with a round or circular box surmounting it, which always points due north."

A Government inspector not long ago gave the following in a list of historical and other "facts," elicited from boys under examination:--

"Of whom was it said 'He never smiled again'?" "William Rufus, and this after he was shot by the arrow."

"My favourite character in English history is Henry VIII., because he had eight wives and killed them all."

"The cause of the Peasants' Revolt was that a shilling poultice should be put on everybody over sixteen."

"Henry VIII. was a very good king. He liked plenty of money, he had plenty of wives, and died of ulcers in the legs." "Edward III. would have been king of France if his mother had been a man."

"Doomsday Book.--A book signifying that each man should have seven feet of land for a grave."