pect of his ever bettering his condition. Now, the main object of education should be, in my opinion, to teach men to think, and not depend upon books for every thing to be known. Now, here is the great book of nature open before us, full of every kind of knowledge for those who can think. Then, don't you see the advantage which a man who can read that has over one who can only read the books of men, which are so liable to contain errors?”

"I certainly agree with you in much you have said, sir; but if you intend to say that book learning, as you would term it, is useless, I must wholly dissent," observed Locke.

"I don't say or think so," said Bunker. "No, it gives one great advantages in knowing what others in different parts of the world have found out, and may be, if rightly used and understood, a great help to him in thinking and making discoveries for himself. No, I don't think so of learning; for I am half bothered to death for the want of it myself, as you have to-day seen. And all I want of you is, to find out whether you have it; and, if so, whether it has made you a good thinker, and one who can teach others to be so, as well as to teach them the books.'

Very well, sir," responded the other, "I am quite willing you should satisfy yourself, and in your own way.”

“I will,” replied Bunker. "And first, let us see how you stand in arithmetic. What will twenty-seven multiplied by twenty-three produce? Don't look round for a slate or paper, but work it out in your head, as I do all my reckoning."

This sum, as soon as the answer was given by the one and pronounced correct by the other, was followed by more questions in each of the other fundamental rules of the science under consideration. Then came questions requiring, first, the aid of two of these rules, then three, then all, each

question being more difficult and complex, till the whole ground-work of common arithmetic was passed over by the questioner; in all of which he showed himself a proficient in mental arithmetic to a degree that perfectly astonished our hero, who, though he was, from his former habits of working sums in his head while at work, uncommonly ready at this exercise, was yet often put to his best powers in furnishing answers as soon as they were obtained by the proposer.

"Well, well, young man," said Bunker, with a look of approbation, as he brought his questions in this branch to a close, "it is not every one that can do what you have done. But we will now see if you can do as well in other matters. We will take geography, which I rank next to arithmetic in usefulness. Boys, will one of you step into the house, and bring us my maps?"

The boy despatched soon returned with a full and valuable set of maps, with which, to the surprise of Locke, the owner soon showed himself perfectly familiar; he, it appeared, having purchased them, some years before, for himself and children, with whom he had studied them, always keeping a boy by his side, when thus occupied, to read him the names of rivers, lakes, &c., as, one by one, he traced out each on the map with his finger, till he had mastered the whole.

A thorough and critical examination was now commenced, and, for some time, carried on by Bunker, in a series of novel and ingenious questions, well calculated to detect any deficiency in the examined.

"Very well, very well, sir," said the interrogator, good humoredly, as he finished this part of his examination, "I don't see but what you understand geography nearly as well as a man who can neither read nor write. There is one general question more, however, that I will ask you-which do you call the largest river in the world?

"The Amazon is so accounted,” replied the other.

"Yes, I know it is so laid down in the books; but do you think it so yourself?"

"I had supposed that to be the case, sir.”

"Why?"

"Because it discharges the most water in a given time." "You have got hold of the right manner of testing it, if it was only capable of being reduced to practice; and what you assert of this river may be a fact; but the question is, how it can be ascertained."

"Why, sir, it is the widest river, certainly."

"Widest! There again is one of your book rules, and see where it will land you, sir! Don't these fools of bookmakers know, that one river may be twice as deep, and run twice as fast as another; and consequently, that one river of a mile wide may discharge as much water as another of double that width, in the same time?

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"I had concluded that all these circumstances had been taken into the account, when comparing the size of this river with that of the Mississippi, or other large rivers, before the fact in question was put down as established."

"Some guess-work of the kind may have been had on the subject, probably enough. But that is all; for do you suppose anybody has ever measured the depth or swiftness of the currents of these rivers? No! No! Why, it would take a board of engineers two years, and at the cost of millions, to do this with any accuracy. They would have to go, foot by foot, through the constantly-varying currents from one side to the other; and even then, how would they ascertain whether the water at the surface did not move twice as fast as at the bottom? No, sir, this never was or will be done. We must depend on other methods for ascertaining facts of this kind." "What other method would you then propose?”

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Why, I have been able to think of no method so good as to ascertain the number of square miles which is drained by

see.

a river whose comparative size you wish to know; and when the quantity of surface thus drained is found, take another river, find the surface that drains also, compare the results, and you have the relative size of the two. Now here is a very simple method, which I practise for this purpose," continued the speaker, spreading open the maps of North and South America. "Both these are on the same scale, you Now I will place this piece of white paper over that part of South America which is drained by the Amazon, and then cut it down with the scissors, so that its outline shall just cover the extreme points, or sources of all the tributaries of this great river. Then we will cut the paper, thus made to represent the required surface on the same scale with the map, into triangles, or such other figures as can be put together again in some square shape, for measurement in square miles. In this manner, if the map be correct, you get the surface drained by the Amazon. You then can go through the same operation with the Mississippi, obtain your result, compare it with that of the former, and you will have the difference between the sizes of these two king-rivers of the new world. And whenever you do it, you will find that difference much less than is generally supposed; you will find that our Mississippi of a mile wide, when it meets the tide-waters, is more than three-fourths as large as the mighty Amazon, which is put down in the books to be from fifty to one hundred and eighty miles wide at its mouth. And if the maps could be corrected, so as to show the exact truth, I am not so sure but one would be found as large as the other."

"Your method is new to me, Mr. Bunker," observed Locke, "and I shall probably be indebted to you for a new idea. I will think of it.”

“Ay, think

that's the way to get true knowledge." "Have you any questions to ask me in the other branches, sir ?

"Not many. There is reading, writing, grammar, &c., which I know nothing about; and as to them, I must, of course, take you by guess, which will not be much of a guess, after all, if I find you have thought well on all other matters. Do you understand philosophy? It is not often required of our common schoolmasters, I know, but it is a grand thing for them to understand something of it; for then they will naturally, on a thousand occasions, be putting new ideas into the heads of their scholars, and in that way set them to thinking for themselves.”

"To what branch of philosophy do you allude, sir? "To the only branch there is."

"But you are aware, that philosophy is divided into different kinds, as natural, moral, and intellectual?

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"Nonsense! philosophy is philosophy, and means the study of the reasons and causes of the things which we see, whether it be applied to a crazy man's dreams, or the roasting of potatoes. Have you attended to it?

"Yes, to a considerable extent, sir.”

"I will put a question or two, then, if you please. What is the reason of the fact, for it is a fact, that the damp breath of a person blown on to a good knife, and on to a bad one, will soonest disappear from the well-tempered blade ? ”

"It may be owing to the difference in the polish of the two blades, perhaps," replied Locke.

"Ah! that is an answer that don't go deeper than the surface," rejoined Bunker, humorously. "As good a thinker as you evidently are, you have not thought of this subject, I suspect. It took me a week, in all, I presume, of hard thinking, and making experiments at a blacksmith's shop, to discover the reason of this. It is not the polish; for take two blades of equal polish, and the breath will disappear from one as much quicker than it does from the other, as the blade is better. It is because the material of the blade is