SOME EDUCATIONAL FACTS.

The public-school system of the village was reorganized during a recent summer; and in consequence of a considerable enlargement of the single school-building and the great increase of the number of scholars, it was determined to engage an additional woman-teacher in the girls’ department.  Accordingly, the board of directors advertised for a suitable person, instructing applicants to call upon Judge Twiddler, the chairman.  A day or two later, Mrs. Twiddler advertised in a city paper for a cook, and upon the same afternoon an Irish girl came to the house to obtain the place in the kitchen.  The judge was sitting upon the front porch at the time reading a newspaper; and when the girl entered the gate of the yard, he mistook her for a school-mistress, and he said to her,

“Did you come about that place?”

“Yes, sor,” she answered.

“Oh, very well, then; take a seat and I’ll run over a few things in order to ascertain what your qualifications are.  Bound Africa.”

“If you please, sor, I don’t know what you mean.”

“I say, bound Africa.”

“Bou—­bou—­Begorra, I don’t know what ye’re referrin’ to.”

“Very strange,” said the judge.  “Can you tell me if ‘amphibious’ is an adverb or a preposition?  What is an adverb?”

“Indade, and ye bother me intirely.  I never had anything to do wid such things at my last place.”

“Then it must have been a curious sort of an institution,” said the judge.  “Probably you can tell me how to conjugate the verb ‘to be,’ and just mention, also, what you know about Herodotus.”

“Ah, yer Honor’s jokin’ wid me.  Be done wid yer fun, now.”

“Did you ever hear of Herodotus?”

“Never once in the whole coorse of my life.  Do you make it with eggs?”

“This is the most extraordinary woman I ever encountered,” murmured the judge.  “How she ever associated Herodotus with the idea of eggs is simply incomprehensible.  Well, can you name the hemisphere in which China and Japan are situated?”

“Don’t bother me wid yer fun, now.  I can wash the china and the pans as well as anybody, and that’s enough, now, isn’t it?”

“Dumb! awful dumb!  Don’t know the country from the crockery.  I’ll try her once more.  Name the limits of the Tropic of Capricorn, and tell me where Asia Minor is located.”

“I have a brother that’s one, sor; that’s all I know about it.”

“One?  One what?”

“Didn’t ye ask me afther the miners, sor?  My brother Teddy works wid ’em.”

“And this,” said the judge, “is the kind of person to whom we are asked to entrust the education of youth.  Woman, what do you know?  What kind of a school have you been teaching?”

“None, sor.  What should I teach school for?”

“Totally without experience, as I supposed,” said the judge.

“Mrs. Ferguson had a governess teach the children when I was cookin’ for her.”