The Project Gutenberg eBook, Madam How and Lady Why, by Charles Kingsley

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Title: Madam How and Lady Why
or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children

Author: Charles Kingsley

Release Date: April 19, 2005 [eBook #1697]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADAM HOW AND LADY WHY***

Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

MADAM HOW AND LADY WHY
or, FIRST LESSONS IN EARTH LORE FOR CHILDREN

DEDICATION

To my son Grenville Arthur, and to his school-fellows at Winton House
This little book is dedicated.

PREFACE

My dear boys,--When I was your age, there were no such children's books
as there are now. Those which we had were few and dull, and the pictures
in them ugly and mean: while you have your choice of books without
number, clear, amusing, and pretty, as well as really instructive, on
subjects which were only talked of fifty years ago by a few learned men,
and very little understood even by them. So if mere reading of books
would make wise men, you ought to grow up much wiser than us old fellows.
But mere reading of wise books will not make you wise men: you must use
for yourselves the tools with which books are made wise; and that is--your
eyes, and ears, and common sense.

Now, among those very stupid old-fashioned boys' books was one which
taught me that; and therefore I am more grateful to it than if it had
been as full of wonderful pictures as all the natural history books you
ever saw. Its name was _Evenings at Home_; and in it was a story called
"Eyes and no Eyes;" a regular old-fashioned, prim, sententious story; and
it began thus:--

"Well, Robert, where have you been walking this afternoon?" said Mr.
Andrews to one of his pupils at the close of a holiday.

Oh--Robert had been to Broom Heath, and round by Camp Mount, and home
through the meadows. But it was very dull. He hardly saw a single
person. He had much rather have gone by the turnpike-road.

Presently in comes Master William, the other pupil, dressed, I suppose,
as wretched boys used to be dressed fort