Jacob's Dream.—There is an amusing and, I believe, a true story concerning that wonderful dream of Jacob's and the angels going up the ladder to heaven. "Please, sir," asked one of the boys in the class to which the story was being rehearsed, "why did the angels want to go up the ladder when they had wings?" This nonplussed the teacher, who took a strategic movement to rear by saying, "Ah, yes! Why? Perhaps one of the boys can answer that." And one did. "Please, sir," said he, "because they was a-moulting."
W.H.S.B.—I am told that an inspector of schools recently asked a boy attending one of the West Ham School Board's schools what the letters W.H.S.B. carved over the door meant, and was at once informed "What Ho! She Bumps."
A Successful Failure.—The following amazing and amusing attempt at composition was the actual effort of a boy who was being examined for a "full-time" exemption certificate. The inspector had told the children to write in their own words the substance of any story they had ever read in their own reading-books. This is what the budding "full-timer" produced: "A Fox and a Crow in porse I well no, many Good Things are request a Crow having venchurd a Dairy too go found a nice peace of chease which she flew in her beek to the top of a tree. A Fox just dined for chease felt inclined. She saw her fly." Poor chap! he had tried to reproduce the following:—
The fox and the crow,
In prose I well know,
Many good little girls can rehearse.
I think it will tell,
Pretty nearly as well
If we try the same fable in verse.
In a dairy a crow
Having ventured to go,
Some food for her young ones to seek,
Flew up in a tree,
With a fine piece of cheese,
Which she joyfully held in her beak.
A fox who lived by,
To the tree saw her fly,
And to share in the prize made a vow,
For having just dined,
He for cheese felt inclined,
So he went and sat under the bough.
"'Tis a very fine day."
Not a word did she say.
"The wind, I believe, ma'am, is south
A fine harvest for peas."
Then he looked at the cheese,
But the crow did not open her mouth.