“66.  At the break of day I rises from my own bed and finish my daily duty, then I employ myself till 8 o’clock, after which I employ myself to bathe, then take for my body some sweet meat, and just at 9 1/2 I came to school to attend my class duty, then at 2 1/2 P. M. I return from school and engage myself to do my natural duty, then, I engage for a quarter to take my tithn, then I study till 5 P. M., after which I began to play anything which comes in my head.  After 8 1/2, half pass to eight we are began to sleep, before sleeping I told a constable just 11 o’ he came and rose us from half pass eleven we began to read still morning.”

It is not perfectly clear, now that I come to cipher upon it.  He gets up at about 5 in the morning, or along there somewhere, and goes to bed about fifteen or sixteen hours afterward—­that much of it seems straight; but why he should rise again three hours later and resume his studies till morning is puzzling.

I think it is because he is studying history.  History requires a world of time and bitter hard work when your “education” is no further advanced than the cat’s; when you are merely stuffing yourself with a mixed-up mess of empty names and random incidents and elusive dates, which no one teaches you how to interpret, and which, uninterpreted, pay you not a farthing’s value for your waste of time.  Yes, I think he had to get up at halfpast 11 P.M. in order to be sure to be perfect with his history lesson by noon.  With results as follows—­from a Calcutta school examination: 

“Q.  Who was Cardinal Wolsey?  “Cardinal Wolsey was an Editor of a paper named North Briton.  No. 45 of his publication he charged the King of uttering a lie from the throne.  He was arrested and cast into prison; and after releasing went to France.

“3.  As Bishop of York but died in disentry in a church on his way to be blockheaded.

“8.  Cardinal Wolsey was the son of Edward IV, after his father’s death he himself ascended the throne at the age of (10) ten only, but when he surpassed or when he was fallen in his twenty years of age at that time he wished to make a journey in his countries under him, but he was opposed by his mother to do journey, and according to his mother’s example he remained in the home, and then became King.  After many times obstacles and many confusion he become King and afterwards his brother.”

There is probably not a word of truth in that.

“Q.  What is the meaning of ‘Ich Dien’?

“10.  An honor conferred on the first or eldest sons of English Sovereigns.  It is nothing more than some feathers.

“11.  Ich Dien was the word which was written on the feathers of the blind King who came to fight, being interlaced with the bridles of the horse.

“13.  Ich Dien is a title given to Henry VII by the Pope of Rome, when he forwarded the Reformation of Cardinal Wolsy to Rome, and for this reason he was called Commander of the faith.”