I.—LE HIGLIFE SCOLASTIQUE. Le recteur regardait avec un air égrillard le museau chiffonné de la jolie Madame COPPERFIELD, qui désirait lui confier son petit garçon comme élève dans l'institution la plus distinguée de tout Paris, une maison où chaque enfant devait apporter dans sa petite malle trois couverts en vermeille, et un trousseau de six douzaines de chemises en batiste fine; une... more...

APRIL DAYS. "Can trouble dwell with April days?" In Memoriam. In our methodical New England life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons reluctantly resign themselves to being decently happy in June, at least. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complained of the earlier months as cold, and so spent them in the city; and they will complain of the later months as... more...

I. SESSION OF OCTOBER 1, 1884. The Delegates to the International Meridian Conference, who assembled in Washington upon invitation addressed by the Government of the United States to all nations holding diplomatic relations with it, "for the purpose of fixing upon a meridian proper to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time-reckoning throughout the globe," held their... more...

OUR NATIONAL ANNIVERSARY. BY BENSON J. LOSSING. ON the morning of a brilliant day in October, 1760, the heir apparent to the British throne and his groom of the stole, were riding on horseback near Kew Palace, on the banks of the Thames. The heir was George, son of the deceased Frederick, Prince of Wales; the groom was John Stuart, Earl of Bute, an impoverished descendant of an ancient Scottish... more...

THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL RECORDS. The two principal causes of the loss of these records are, the abstraction of them by Edward I. in 1292, and the destruction of a great many others by the reformers in their religious zeal. It so happens that up to the time of King Robert Bruce, the history is not much to be depended on. A great many valuable papers connected with the ancient ecclesiastical state of... more...

THE GREAT CREATURE. Mr. Horatio Fitzharding Fitzfunk was a tall young man, a thin young man, a pale young man, and, as some of his friends asserted, a decidedly knock-kneed young man. Moreover he was a young man belonging to and connected with the highly respectable firm of Messrs. Tims and Swindle, attorneys and bill-discounters, of Thavies’-inn, Holborn; from the which highly respectable firm Mr.... more...

CHAPTER I. It was a warm June evening, and the family was taking the air on the back porch—father and mother, two stalwart young men, the elder sons, two slender girls, and a romping boy of nine—the little Benjamin of the tribe. It was a placid homelike group; father deep in the daily paper and his easy-chair, mother absorbed in chat with the girls even while keeping watchful eye on "the... more...

I. There are words which have careers as well as men, or, perhaps it may be more happily said, as well as women. Mere words breathed on by Fancy, and sent forth not so much to serve man's ordinary colloquial uses, apparently, as to fascinate his mind, have their débuts. their season, their vogue, and finally a period in which it is really too bad if they have not the consolation of reflecting... more...

THE FOUNTAIN OF HAPPINESS. The source and fullness of created good is the knowledge and enjoyment of God. "Give what thou wilt, without thee we are poor; and with thee rich, take what thou wilt away." The wicked are like a ship's crew at sea, carried by the winds upon unknown waters, without peace or safety until they can renew communications with the shore. A man alienated from his God is... more...

PREFACE What are the words most commonly misspelled by the average high school pupil? In an endeavor to solve this problem, two thousand letters, with five postal cards in each, were sent to representative high schools in every state in the United States, requesting the heads of the various departments to report the words most commonly misspelled in their classes. From the many thousand replies, this... more...