"The Arctic regions are neither hot nor cold. They abound in birds of beautiful plumage and of no song, such as the elephant and the camel."
"A table-land gets its name from its steep sides and flat top. It's all right when once you are up on the top, but it's no joke getting up."
"The tides are a fight between the earth and the moon. All water tends towards the moon, because there is no water in the moon, and Nature abhors a vacuum. Gravitation at the earth keeps the water from rising all the way to the moon. I forget whether the sun joins in this fight."
"What divides England from Ireland?" asked the inspector, who was elderly and deaf. The teacher trembled with apprehension as she heard a boy answer: "The Land of Goshen, sir." The inspector was obviously pleased, and said approvingly: "Quite right! Quite right! The Atlantic Ocean!"
Some time ago the Stella, a South-Western Railway packet, struck on a rock near one of the Channel Islands. In an examination on General Knowledge I asked the name of the rock. A boy replied: "Rock of Ages."
Some History Lesson Blunders.—Now let me turn briefly to the History lesson and note the curious blunders and anachronisms that a modern rendering or a juvenile misapprehension of old-world facts reveal. Let me set out a few instances:—
"The cause of the Peasants' Revolt was that a shilling poultice was put on everybody over sixteen."