A SCHOOLBOY'S COMPOSITION.
A little lad six years of age in the primary grade of Knox Institute, Athens, Ga., attended rhetoricals in which several pupils read compositions on the subject of America. He was greatly impressed, went home, and wrote without supervision the composition below. Although he has put the raccoon, lion and tiger among the birds, it is certainly a pretty good composition for the first one written by a child six years of age. Could any of the children six years old to whom THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY may come do better than this little black boy?
AMERICA.
America is a large country, and it has many large rivers, and it has many animals, and has wild creatures.
America is a most important country. And many a people like to go there. And it has many wild birds—mocking birds, nightingale, raccoon, and also the opossum and lion, tiger, elephant, and the rhinoceros.
And in America there are lakes, seas, and the bushes are so thick that you can hardly tell when a human is beside them.
The States in America are so large that ten hundred can get in these. But if one of the animals was to seize you once you would never want to go there any more, for if one of them get hold of you you would hollow like anything. It would settle your hash. It would frighten you so much you never would want to see one of them.
HALL JOHNSON,
Age 6, December 16, 1894.
[pg 108]