GETTING READY FOR SCHOOL.

Waikato Times, Volume XII, Issue 967, 3 September 1878, Page 3

GETTING READY FOR SCHOOL.

" The cause of education bb hanged !" he muttered, as he sat down on the kerbstone on Shelby-street. He was a lad of thirteen. He spat through his front teeth and spat often. His pants were sapported by a piece of wire clothesline girted round his waist, his hat was ancient and creasy, and his big flat feet seemed to be waiting for a thunder-shower to wash them clean. " That's what ails me !" he went on, as he pushed his toes into the wet sand. " I don't believe in a fellow dipping in and learning all there is to learn, and not letting other fellows have a chance. There's lots of other folks in the world besides me, and T ain't going to be a hog and try all there is to learn." After a minute he went on : " Don't I know a 'nuff; now % Three times two are six, and four times five are twepty, an four and four are eight. Thats as correct as I could get 'em if I went to school for a hundred years. And don't I; know how to spell C-a-t * cat' the iwoild over, and I'll bet on it every time. H-e-n spells ' hen ' and I know it as well as it I weighed a ton." He rose up to throw a stone at a dog across the street, and after resuming his seat he went on : " Jogerfy kinder wrestles down, but I don't go much on jogerfy. What'do I care whether an island is entirely surrounded by water, or whether there ain't any water within ten miles of it ? S'pose I am going to buy and sell islands for a living ? I don't care which is the'highest mountain on the longest river, do 1 1 I'm going to keep a feed store, and when I'm rolling bales of hay round, what will I care about hills and rivers? I've heard the boys go on about exports and imports, and straits, and seas, and capes, and what's them to me? If a feller wants a bag o' oats, is he going to wait and ask me when the Island of Madagascar was discovered?" He carefully examined the big toe of his left foot, and the heel of his right foot, and gloomily observed : " The old folks are making ready to push me into a school, and I've got to make ready to keep out. I can t take to school somehow. I could sit here and study all day, but the minute I get into a schoolhouse I'ni nervous. Something is going to happtrato me this week. I'll be taken honmin av. wheelbarrow with a big gash in this heel, or this toe almost cut off. That will mean four months on a crutch, and they don't allow lame boys to go to school and crutch up and down the aisles. Or, s'posing I go home with palpitation of the heart ? The old lady has had it, and I won't more than get into the house before she'll have me tucked up on the loungp, the. camphor bottle down, currant jelly and sponge cake in the distance, and she'll call out to the old gent: "Father, its no use of thinking o"

sending this boy to school. He looks stout and healthy, but he's a mere shadder. The close atmosphere ot tho schoolroom will kill him before the snow flies." The boy rose up. There was a grin all over his face, and he chuckled : " Palpitation in the keynote! A sore toe can be seen; a palpitating heart is hidden away under hide, and fat and ribs. Now then—oosh, woosn, u-m-m-m—hold your breath, roll your eyes, kick out your left leg, and make her bob around like a fly on a hot stove cover;

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