LXXII.-A CURTAIN LECTURE OF MRS. CAUDLE. 1. Bah! that's the third umbrella gone since Christmnas. What were you to do! Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. I'm very certain there was nothing about him that could spoil. Take cold, indeed! He doesn't look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he'd have better taken cold than taken our umbrella. 2. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear the rain? And, as I'm alive, if it isn't St. Swithin's day! Do you hear it against the windows? Nonsense: you don't impose upon me; you can't be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? O, you do hear it! 3. Well, that's a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle; don't insult me; he return the umbrella! Any body would think you were born yesterday. As if any body ever did return an umbrella! There, do you hear it? Worse and worse. Cats and dogs, and for six weeks-always six weeks; and no umbrella! 4. I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow. They shan't go through such weather, I am determined. No; they shall stop at home and never learn any thing (the blessed creatures!), sooner than go and get wet! And when they grow up, I wonder who they'll have to thank for knowing nothing: who, indeed, but their father. People who can't feel for their own children ought never to be fathers. 5. But I know why you lent the umbrella: O yes, I know very well! I was going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow. You knew that, and you did it on purpose. Don't tell me; you hate me to go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't you think it, I'll 6. You've got nice high notions at that club of yours! A cab, indeed! Cost me sixteen pence, at least. Sixteen pence!-two and eightpence, for there's back again. Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who's to pay for 'em; for I'm sure you can't, if you go on as you do, throwing away your property and beggaring your children, buying umbrellas! 7. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear it? But I don't care. I'll go to mother's to-morrow-I will; and what's more I'll walk every step of the way; and you know that will give me my death. Don't call me a foolish woman; it's you that's the foolish man. 8. You know I can't wear clogs; and with no umbrella the wet's sure to give me a cold-it always does. But what do you care for that? Nothing at all. I may be laid up for what you care, as I dare say I shall; and a pretty doctor's bill there'll be. I hope there will. It will teach you to lend your umbrellas again. I shouldn't wonder if I caught my death: yes, and that's what you lent the umbrella for. Of course! 9. Nice clothes I get, too, traipsing through weather like this. My gown and bonnet will be spoiled, quite. Needn't I wear 'em then? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear 'em. No, sir; I'm not going out a dowdy to please you or any body else. Gracious knows! it isn't often that I step over the threshold - indeed, I might as well be a slave at once - better, I should say. But when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go as a lady. O, that rain if it isn't enough to break in the windows. 10. Ugh! I look forward with dread for to-morrow. How I am to go to mother's I'm sure I can't tell; but if I die, I'll do it. No, sir: I won't borrow an umbrella: no; and you shan't buy one. Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another umbrella, I'll throw it into the street. 11. Ha! And it was only last week I had a new nozzle put to that umbrella. I'm sure if I'd have known as much as I do now, it might have gone without one. Paying for new nozzles for other people to laugh at you! O, it's all very well for you; you can go to sleep. You've no thought of your poor, patient wife, and your own dear children; you think of nothing but lending umbrellas. 12. Men, indeed! call themselves lords of the creation!pretty lords, when they can't even take care of an umbrella! I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me, but that's what you want; then you may go to your club, and do as you like; and then nicely my poor dear children will be used; but then, sir, then you'll be happy. O, don't tell me! I know you will, else you'd never have lent the umbrella. 13. You have to go on Thursday about that summons; and, of course, you can't go. No, indeed: you don't go without the umbrella. You may lose the debt for what I care-it won't be so much as spoiling your clothes; people deserve to lose debts who lend umbrellas! 14. And I should like to know how I'm to go to mother's without the umbrella. O, don't tell me that I said I would go; that's nothing to do with it-nothing at all. She'll think I'm neglecting her; and the little money we're to have, we shan't have at all: because we've no umbrella. 15. The children, too! (dear things!) they'll be sopping wet; for they shan't stay at home; they shan't lose their learning; it's all their father will leave them, I'm sure. But they shall go to school. Don't tell me they shouldn't; (you are so aggravating, Caudle-you'd spoil the temper of an angel) they shall go to school-mark that; and if they get their deaths of cold, it's not my fault; I didn't lend the umbrella. 16. "Here," says Caudle, in his manuscript, "I fell asleep and dreamed that the sky was turned into green calico, with whalebone ribs: that, in fact, the whole world revolved under a tremendous umbrella!" DOUGLAS JERROLD. LXXIII.-EDUCATED OBSERVERS. 1. This expression contains the key-note of all true educational principles. The habit of observation is, above all else, the educator, and the man or woman who accustoms himself or herself to observe closely will make sure work in the matter of acquiring information, whether the habit be accompanied by much or little of scholastic culture. All that we know of physical science we owe, of course, to observation alone. 2. In many ways the study of things is of even more value than the study of books. Indeed, the very books we use, if they be of any account at all, are more or less the immediate fruit of intelligent observation. All that we know has been learned originally by this very process. We observe a fact, and learn that it is a fact. From it and others we draw conclusions. And this is the genesis of all our knowing. 3. We get from books only the results of other people's observations; and while these are of great worth without doubt, we can not do a more foolish thing than to rest satisfied with them, and neglect the countless opportunities we have of questioning the things about us for information at first hand. As well might we refuse to look at Niagara because we have already seen pictures and read descriptions of the cataract, or to inhale the perfume of the rose because we have heard of its odor and seen the flower. 4. Training of precisely this sort - the cultivation of the habit of looking at and looking into the things with which we daily come in contact is one of the great educational needs of our time, as it has been of all other times. The only wonder is that professional educators in the past have been so slow to recognize the want and to supply it. 5. We observe facts, and we question them of their cause and meaning instinctively,— we do it in early childhood. Ordinarily this tendency in children is pretty effectually checked in our schools by the matter and methods of instruction,- and that, too, by those who ought rather to encourage its development, and to give it such direction as to insure abundant fruit. 6. But it is not merely the habit of observing that we need to cultivate. We must learn to observe intelligently to look at things with our wits about us, and to learn their causes and consequences as well as the facts themselves. Any body may see the bud, the blossom and the fruit all in their regular order, but if he sees no more than these, his observing is of little worth. 7. He must see in the bud the beginning of a blossom, in the blossom the promise, in the fruit the fulfillment, before his looking will have taught him even so small a thing as why the bud and the blossom are. We can hardly fail to be observers, to some extent, so long as we have eyes and ears; but we may, if we will, make ourselves educated observers, which is quite another thing. 8. We may learn to make a teacher out of every thing around us, and thus draw instruction from a hundred |