English as She is Taught Page #3

As the greatest compliment that could be paid a writer would be the assumption that the material contained in this little volume was the product of that writer's ingenuity or imagination, it seems needless for the compiler to state that every line is just what it purports to be, - bona fide answers to questions asked in the public schools. Mark Twain, with his inimitable drollery, comments in the "Century Magazine" for April, 1887, upon "English As She is Taught." Even this master of English humor acknowledges his inability to comprehend how such

• Humour

								

  so that Columbus could discover America.

  The Indian wars were very desecrating to the country.

  The Indians pursued their warfare by hiding in the bushes and then
  scalping them.

  Captain John Smith has been styled the father of his country. His
  life was saved by his daughter Pochahantas.

  The Puritans found an insane asylum in the wilds of America.

  The Stamp Act was to make everybody stamp all materials so they
  should be null and void.

  Washington died in Spain almost brokenhearted. His remains were
  taken to the cathedral in Havana.

  Gorilla warfare was where men rode on gorillas.

  John Brown was a very good insane man who tried to get fugitives
  slaves into Virginia. He captured all the inhabitants, but was
  finally conquered and condemned to his death. The Confederasy was
  formed by the fugitive slaves.

  Alfred the Great reigned 872 years. He was distinguished for letting
  some buckwheat cakes burn, and the lady scolded him.

  Henry Eight was famous for being a great widower haveing lost
  several wives.

  Lady Jane Grey studied Greek and Latin and was beheaded after a few
  days.

  John Bright is noted for an incurable disease.

  Lord James Gordon Bennett instigated the Gordon Riots.

  The Middle Ages come in between antiquity and posterity.

  Luther introduced Christianity into England a good many thousand
  years ago. His birthday was November 1883. He was once a Pope. He
  lived at the time of the Rebellion of Worms.

  Julius Cæsar is noted for his famous telegram dispatch I came I saw
  I conquered.

  Julius Cæsar was really a very great man. He was a very great
  soldier and wrote a book for beginners in the Latin.

  Cleopatra was caused by the death of an asp which she dissolved in a
  wine cup.

  The only form of government in Greece was a limited monkey.

  The Persian war lasted about 500 years.

  Greece had only 7 wise men.

  Socrates ... destroyed some statues and had to drink Shamrock.

Here is a fact correctly stated; and yet it is phrased with such ingenious infelicity that it can be depended upon to convey misinformation every time it is uncarefully read:

  By the Salic law no woman or descendant of a woman could occupy the
  throne.

To show how far a child can travel in history with judicious and diligent boosting in the public school, we select the following mosaic:

  Abraham Lincoln was born in Wales in 1599.

In the chapter headed “Intellectual” I find a great number of most interesting statements. A sample or two may be found not amiss:

  Bracebridge Hall was written by Henry Irving.

  Snow Bound was written by Peter Cooper.

  The House of the Seven Gables, was written by Lord Bryant.

  Edgar A. Poe was a very curdling writer.

  Cotton Mather was a writer who invented the cotten gin and wrote
  histories.

  Beowulf wrote the Scriptures.

  Ben Jonson survived Shakespeare in some respects.

  In the Canterbury Tale it gives account of King Alfred on his way to
  the shrine of Thomas Bucket.

  Chaucer was the father of English pottery.

  Chaucer was a bland verse writer of the third century.

  Chaucer was succeeded by H. Wads. Longfellow an American Writer. His
  writings were chiefly prose and nearly one hundred years elapsed.

  Shakspere translated the Scriptures and it was called St. James
  because he did it.

In the middle of the chapter I find many pages of information concerning Shakspere’s plays, Milton’s works, and those of Bacon, Addison, Samuel Johnson, Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Smollett, De Foe, Locke, Pope, Swift, Goldsmith, Burns, Cowper, Wordsworth, Gibbon, Byron, Coleridge, Hood, Scott, Macaulay, George Eliot, Dickens, Bulwer, Thackeray, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, and Disraeli—a fact which shows that into the restricted stomach of the public-school pupil is shoveled every year the blood, bone, and viscera of a gigantic literature, and the same is there digested and disposed of in a most successful and characteristic and gratifying public-school way. I have space for but a trifling few of the results:

  Lord Byron was the son of an heiress and a drunken man.

  Wm. Wordsworth wrote the Barefoot Boy and Imitations on Immortality.

  Gibbon wrote a history of his travels in Italy. This was original.

  George Eliot left a wife and children who mourned greatly for his
  genius.

  George Eliot Miss Mary Evans Mrs. Cross Mrs. Lewis was the greatest
  female poet unless George Sands is made an exception of.

  Bulwell is considered a good writer.

  Sir Walter Scott Charles Bronte Alfred the Great and Johnson were
  the first great novelists.

  Thomas Babington Makorlay graduated at Harvard and then studied law,
  he was raised to the peerage as baron in 1557 and died in 1776.

Here are two or three miscellaneous facts that may be of value, if taken in moderation:

  Homer’s writings are Homer’s Essays Virgil the Aneid and Paradise
  lost some people say that these poems were not written by Homer but
  by another man of the same name.

  A sort of sadness kind of shone in Bryant’s poems.

  Holmes is a very profligate and amusing writer.

When the public-school pupil wrestles with the political features of the Great Republic, they throw him sometimes:

  A bill becomes a law when the president vetos it.

  The three departments of the government is the President rules the
  world, the governor rules the State, the mayor rules the city.

  The first conscientious Congress met in Philadelphia.

  The Contitution of the United States was established to ensure
  domestic hostility.

Truth crushed to earth will rise again. As follows:

  The Constitution of the United States is that part of the book at
  the end which nobody reads.

And here she rises once more and untimely. There should be a limit to public-school instruction; it cannot be wise or well to let the young find out everything:

  Congress is divided into civilized half civilized and savage.

Here are some results of study in music and oratory:

  An interval in music is the distance on the keyboard from one piano
  to the next.

  A rest means you are not to sing it.

  Emphasis is putting more distress on one word than another.

The chapter on “Physiology” contains much that ought not to be lost to science:

  Physillogigy is to study about your bones stummick and vertebry.

  Occupations which are injurious to health are carbolic acid gas
  which is impure blood.

  We have an upper and a lower skin. The lower skin moves all the time
  and the upper skin moves when we do.

  The body is mostly composed of water and about one half is
  avaricious tissue.

  The stomach is a small pear-shaped bone situated in the body.

  The gastric juice keeps the bones from creaking.

  The Chyle flows up the middle of the backbone and reaches the heart
  where it meets the oxygen and is purified.

  The salivary glands are used to salivate the body.

  In the stomach starch is changed to cane sugar and cane sugar to
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