He is
sleepy and discouraged. Words which in the freshness of the morning he
would have learned in a very few moments with ease, it is now simply out
of his power to commit to memory. You, if you are not superhuman, grow
impatient. At eight o'clock he goes to bed, his brain excited and wearied,
in no condition for healthful sleep; and his heart oppressed with the fear
of "missing" in the next day's recitations. And this is one out of the
school-year's two hundred and sixteen days--all of which will be like
this, or worse. One of the most pitiful sights we have seen for months was
a little group of four dear children, gathered round the library lamp,
trying to learn the next day's lessons in time to have a story read to
them before going to bed. They had taken the precaution to learn one
lesson immediately after dinner, before going out, cutting their out-door
play down by half an hour. The two elder were learning a long
spelling-lesson; the third was grappling with geographical definitions of
capes, promontories, and so forth; and the youngest was at work on his
primer.
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