And it is
a mercy that I can send him to school, since the city provides him with
books and copy-books. Poor Luigino, who would be so glad to study!
Unhappy woman, that I am!"

My mother gave her all that she had in her purse, kissed the boy, and
almost wept as we went out. And she had good cause to say to me: "Look
at that poor boy; see how he is forced to work, when you have every
comfort, and yet study seems hard to you! Ah! Enrico, there is more
merit in the work which he does in one day, than in your work for a
year. It is to such that the first prizes should be given!"

THE SCHOOL.

Friday, 28th.

Yes, study comes hard to you, my dear Enrico, as your mother says:
I do not yet see you set out for school with that resolute mind and
that smiling face which I should like. You are still intractable.
But listen; reflect a little! What a miserable, despicable thing
your day would be if you did not go to school! At the end of a week
you would beg with clasped hands that you might return there, for
you would be eaten up with weariness and shame; disgusted with your
sports and with your existence. Everybody, everybody studies now,
my child. Think of the workmen who go to school in the evening
after having toiled all the day; think of the women, of the girls
of the people, who go to school on Sunday, after having worked all
the week; of the soldiers who turn to their books and copy-books
when they return exhausted from their drill! Think of the dumb and
of the boys who are blind, but who study, nevertheless; and last of
all, think of the prisoners, who also learn to read and write.
Reflect in the morning, when you set out, that at that very moment,
in your own city, thirty thousand other boys are going like
yourself, to shut themselves up in a room for three hours and
study. Think of the innumerable boys who, at nearly this precise
hour, are going to school in all countries. Behold them with your
imagination, going, going, through the lanes of quiet villages;
through the streets of the noisy towns, along the shores of rivers
and lakes; here beneath a burning sun; there amid fogs, in boats,
in countries which are intersected with canals; on horseback on the
far-reaching plains; in sledges over the snow; through valleys and
over hills; across forests and torrents, over the solitary paths