e next edition of the
paper.

The editor began the examination with the alphabet. I said in
England we used twenty-six letters, and I named all of them correctly
except the last. I called it "zed," but the editor said it was
"zee," and I did not argue the point.

He then asked me to pick out the vowels, the consonants, the flats,
the sharps, the aspirates, the labials, the palatals, the dentals,
and the mutes. I was struck dumb; I could feel the very foundation
of all learning sinking beneath me, and had to confess that I did not
know my letters.

Then he went on to spelling and writing. My writing was barely
passable, and my spelling was quite out of date. I used superfluous
letters which had been very properly abolished by Webster's
dictionary.

At last the editor remarked, with becoming modesty, that he was
himself of no account at figures, but Mr. Sims would put me through
the arithmetic. Mr. Sims was the compositor, and an Englishman; he
put me through tenderly.

When the examination was finished, I felt like a convicted impostor,
and was prepared to resume work on the undershot water-wheel, but the
two professors took pity on me, and certified in writing that I was
qualified to keep school.

Then the editor remarked that the retiring teacher, Mr. Randal, had
advertised in the 'True Democrat' his ability to teach the Latin
language; but, unfortunately, Father Ingoldsby had offered himself as
a first pupil; Mr. Randal never got another, and all his Latin oozed
out. On this timely hint I advertised my ability to teach the
citizens of Joliet not only Latin, but Greek, French, Spanish, and
Portuguese. My advertisement will be found among the files of the
'True Democrat' of the year 1849 by anyone taking the trouble to look
for it. I had carelessly omitted to mention the English language,
but we sometimes get what we don't ask for, and no less than sixteen
Germans came to night school to study our tongue. They were all
masons and quarrymen engaged in exporting steps and window sills to
the rising city of Chicago.

When Goldsmith tried to earn his bread by teaching English in
Holland, he overlooked the fact that it was first necessary for him
to learn Low Dutch. I overlooked the same fact, but it gave me no
trouble whatever. There was no united Germany then, and my pupils
disagreed continually about the pronunciation of their own language,
which seemed, like that of Babel, intelligible to nobody.