It has been often told, but is worth repeating, how a pupil teacher was doing his level best to make the children remember Samson's mighty deeds with the jawbone of an ass, and, recapitulating, he asked, "What did Samson slay ten thousand Philistines with? Eh?" No reply came. Then, pointing to his jawbone, he asked, "What is this?" And at once the answer belched proudly from half-a-dozen throats in unison, "The jawbone of an ass."
In a country school the lesson was on "The Prodigal Son," and the question, "What were the husks that the swine did eat?" met with the prompt answer, "Tawtie peelin's."
In a city seminary a teacher asked her class, "Who knows everything we say and do?" when she received the unexpected reply, "The fouk that bides next door to us."
Expecting to get the answer "Carnivorous" (as it bore on the lesson), a teacher asked his class for an example of a bird of prey, and among other answers he got was "A yellow yite." The boy who responded so, on being asked to explain, continued, "Because it eats worms."
"What do you call the bird or beast that feeds on both animal and vegetable foods?" was the next question. The teacher anticipated "Omnivorous" this time, but it did not come. There was silence for a little. Then a boy, who evidently had been ruminating, responded nonchalantly, "A gutsy brute, sir."
In examining the boys in the composition of sentences, a master began: "If I ask you," said he, "what have I in my hand? you must not say simply 'Chalk,' but make a full sentence of it, and say, 'You have chalk in your hand.' Now I will proceed. What have I on my feet?" The answer came immediately, "Boots." "Wrong; you haven't been observing my directions," he rebukingly replied. "Stockings," another heedlessly ventured to answer. "Wrong again—worse than ever," wrathfully exclaimed the magister. "Well?" he continued interrogatively to a lad near him. "Please, sir," then he paused—perhaps he thought it might sound funny, but he felt it must be right, and so he recklessly gasped out—"Corns!"
But the answers are not always so stupid.
"Why is it," asked a teacher, "the sun never sets on the British possessions?" "Because," slowly responded an ingenuous youngster, "the British possessions are in the north, south, and east, and the sun always sets in the west."
During a recent School Board examination in the west of Scotland, the examiner asked a little girl to explain what was meant by the expression, He was amply rewarded. "Paid for't," was her instant reply. "No, no; you are wrong. Suppose you have to go into a baker's shop and buy a half-quarter loaf, and lay down fourpence, would you say you had amply rewarded the baker?" Unhesitatingly she replied "Yes." "Why?" "Because the loaf's only twopence-three-farthings," was the unlooked-for answer.