Concerning "Boys."—"Boys are mischievous and jolly ... some are gentle."—"They dress differently from each other.... Many boys are very lazy."—"Most boys are very clever.... They are very clumsy and clodhoppers."—"Some of the boys play very roughly and clumsily. They run about and step on each other's feet.... They do not very often agree."—"The boys talk more than the girls."—"Very few are gentle."—"Boys are male people."—"They are not much use to help their mothers in house-work."—"Their mothers put them nice and tidy, but some of them go and get ragged again."
Concerning "Girls."—"Most girls are very shy and angry."—"They sew and darn the boys' stockings."—"Their work is tidy and clean."—"They talk very silently."—"They have thin, weak voices."—"Girls dress up about mid-day, and go out, while the poor boys are hard at work."—"Girls have a kind of false pride about them. A girl will have feathers and flowers in her hat just to show off."—"Most of them are tall and delicate, and they have long legs and little tiny voices."—"Some girls have their hair frizzed up and some wavered."
The Whale (by a ten-year-old).—"The Whale is not called a fish, because it is so big, so it is called a creature. They eat cockles and worms and jellies, and people catches the whales with a fishing rod or a net, they have to let the rope out so the whale dies for loss of breath. The whales swim in shols [shoals] and they have a tarpoon at the end of their tails, when he moves his tail, with one blow he will smash the side of the ship. It has a very big head, and two fins or flappers, on one side of its body. Whales got to come up out of the water on to the land for to breath with their mouths, if he sees any people about he will swallow them up for he has very big jar bones, and strong teeth called whaleboners. Fishmongers catches whales an sail them. Some people eat whales with salt and piper and bread, and some with potatoes. If you keep a whales head under water he will die for want of breath. When they have finished with the whale they send it adrift to get some more spern oil."
A Pat Answer.—The following story was read to a class of girls to be reproduced as a composition exercise:—"A gentleman was out driving in a dog-cart with his coachman, who was an Irishman, when the horse took fright and bolted. The coachman did his best, but it was evident that the beast had got beyond his control. 'Pat,' said the gentleman, 'I'd give five pounds to be out of this trap.' 'Yer honour needn't be so extravagant; ye'll be out of it for nothing presently!' He had scarcely finished speaking when the wheel was caught by a heap of stones at the roadside, and both men were shot over the hedge into an adjoining field." "Now, girls," said the teacher, "three marks extra for the most suitable title for this story." Up went a forest of hands, and many and varied, if somewhat commonplace, were the titles suggested. But a comical twist on the face of a grey-eyed little Irish maiden in the front row took the teacher's attention. "Well, Norah, what title do you suggest?" "A cheap outing!" said Norah demurely.
On Smoking.—The following is an essay by a Standard V. boy. It was written after a lecture by Dr. —— on the Evils of Smoking: "Boys wish to be manly in their ways and habbits, this is right but in some ways it is wrong because in somethings which men does is not for boys to do. Somethings which men does might not hurt them but it would hurt boys. One thing is harmful to both men and boys or women that is bad language it is a dreadful thing to hear women children and men using bad language in all of the earth. But there is another bad habit of which boys follow the example of men and this is a very harmful habit to boys and to most men as well as boys. This habit is smoking with tobacco which in the British Isle is carry on very much both with men and children and sometimes women. Every time you go out if it is only just outside the door you see men or boys smoking. Now when you are smoking people say they have a stinging taste on their tongue if they only knew what this taste is I am sure they would never smoke again for if you was to tell them the number of gases which contained in tobacco they would immediately take out their tobacco and pipe or cigarettes and throw them away. For in the tobacco is a number of poisonous gases which when the smoke is indulge into the mouth the different poisons run to certain parts of the body, some gases go to lungs and others to liver and to the heart and nerves and brain and sometimes it iffects the mind and hearing. The names of some of these gases are hydrogen, prussic acid gas and carbonic acid gas and nicotine which is the most iffectable on the body and another of them called sulpherette carbonic gas. Smokers are always liable to indigestion which is brought on by these gases which is performed in smoking, besides these gases is another which is known as monoxine. If you ask a athlette if smoking was good for him he would tell plump no it is not for it shortens the wind and makes the muscles feeble. Another thing it deases your body and brings on heart desease. It is bad for a man to smoke but it is worst to a growing lad for it injures the growth and makes your limbs shakey. Boys who smoke when they are young never occasionully live a long life, nor never grow to height because it shivers (i.e. shrivels) up your liver and bye and bye you have none at all and then you die and it brings on cancer which is another dead desease."
What Constitutes a Gentleman. [Standard VII.]—"People sometimes think that when men are dressed in nice clothes they are gentlemen but that is not the case, a gentleman is a man who knows his manners. Down in the West End and City there are great swells, but people think that because they have nice clothes they are swells, but some are more like pigs. We might see a tramp walking along a street who as hardly no boots nor clothes but very likely he has his manners. A real gentleman ought to know his manners, and also not to swear. A gentleman might be walking along a street and meet a young lady, he would go up to her and raise his hat, and say, good evening dear come along a me she would and when he left her he would say good night darling, and ask her to meet him at so-an-so."