HUMOUR IN THE SCHOOLROOM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2588, 30 November 1893, Page 4

HUMOUR IN THE SCHOOLROOM.

CANADIAN JOKELBTS. The following selection of unconscious humour are pickings from the private note book of a school inspector in Canada, where (says a London correspondent of a contemporary) the youngsters seem quite equal to our own youngsters in naivete aud smartness :

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BAB'S AND SUCKLINGS. " Who made you V asked a primary teacher. The little girl addressed evidently wished to be accurate in her reply : " God made me so long"—indicating the length of a short baby—" and I growed the rest."

" Who were the foolish virgins ?" brought the prompt answer from a wise little girl: " Them as didn't get married." " Boys," Baid a teacher, " can any of you quote a verse from Scripture to prove that it ib wrong for a man to have two wives ?" He paused, and after a moment a bright boy raised his hand. " Well, Thomas," said the teacher encouragingly. Thomas stood up and said solemnly : "No man can serve two masters." The questioning ended there. The words " His Satanic Majesty" occurred in a story read in one of the Toronto public schools. " How many know who His Satanic Majesty is ?" said the teacher. Several hands were raised, aud the first pupil named promptly replied : " The inspector." It is encouraging to know that she was a very young child. History and Scripture were never more] thoroughly mixed than by the boy who wrote: " Titus was a Roman Emperor, supposed to have written the Epistle to the Hebrews. His other name was Oates." SCHOOLBOY SCIENCE. Here are a few answers culled at random:— " The food passes through your windpipe to the pores, and thus passes off your body by evaporation through a lot of little holes in the skin called capillaries." "A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle. " Things which are equal to each other are equal to anything else." "In Austria the principal occupation is gathering Austrich feathers." " The two most famous volcanoes of Europe are Sodom aud Gomorrah." " Climate lasts all the time, and weather only a few days." " Columbus knew the eaith was round, because he balanced an egg on the table." " Mrs Browning wrote poetry to the pottery geese." This was not complimentary to the Portuguese, nor to the teacher's method of teaching literature " The blood is purefied in the lungs by inspired air." POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY. " Who was- the first man ?" said a Chicago teacher. " Washington," promptly snswered the young American. " No," said the teacher, " Adam was the first man." " Oh, well, I suppose you are rj Mlt," replied the undaunted patriot, "if you refer to furriners." " Bow did that blot come on your copy-book, Sain ?' "I think it is a tear, Miss Wallace." " How could a tear be black; Sam ?" "It must have been a coloured boy who dropped it'" suggested the reflective Samuel. " What made the tower of Pisa lean?" "The famine in the land." " Now, children," said the teacher, " we have gone through the history of England —tell me in whose reign would you live if you could choose for yourselves." "In the reign of King James," said phdosophic Alec, " because I read that education was very much neglected m his time." " Count twenty when you are angry before you strike," said the teacher. "Please, I think it is better to count forty if you can't lick the other fellow, wisely added the cautious Hmold, " Susan, if I were a little girl I would study my lessons," said the teacher reprovingly. "Then I guess vou're glad that you ain't a little girl," shrew.ily answered Susan. "If you wish to be good looking when you grow up you should go to bed early," was the advice of a lady teacher to her class in hygiene. Isabel rather rudely ventured to say in reply: " I 'spect you set up late when ymi was a girl."