with a look of astonishment. Upon inquiry, it was found that _S----_
mistook the word _Greece_ for _Grease_!

It was explained to him, that Grecian statues and Grecian figures are
generally thought to be particularly graceful and well executed; that,
therefore, painters attend to them.

(Dec. 1st, 1795.) After dinner to-day, _S----_ was looking at a little
black toothpick-case of his father's; his father asked him if he knew
what it was made of.

The children guessed different things; wood, horn, bone, paper,
pasteboard, glue.

Mr. ----. "Instead of examining the toothpick-case, _S----_, you hold
it in your hand, and turn your eyes away from it, that you may think
the better. Now, when I want to find out any thing about a particular
object, I keep my eye fixed upon it. Observe the texture of that
toothpick-case, if you want to know the materials of which it is made;
look at the edges, feel it."

_S----._ "May I smell it?"

_Mr. ----._ "Oh yes. You may use all your senses."

_S----_ (feeling the toothpick-case, smelling it, and looking closely
at it.) "It is black, and smooth, and strong and light. What is, let
me see, both strong and light, and it will bend--parchment."

_Mr. ----._ "That is a good guess; but you are not quite right yet.
What is parchment? I think by your look that you don't know."

_S----._ "Is it not paper pasted together?"

_Mr. ----._ "No; I thought you mistook pasteboard for parchment."

_S----._ "Is parchment skin?"

_Mr. ----._ "Of what?"

_S----._ "Animals."

_Mr. ----._ "What animal?"

_S----._ "I don't know."

_Mr. ----._ "Parchment is the skin of sheep."

"But _S----_, don't keep the toothpick-case in your hand, push it
round the table to your neighbours, that every body may look again
before they guess. I think, for certain reasons of my own, that
_H----_ will guess right."

_H----._ "Oh I know what it is now!"

_H----_ had lately made a pump, the piston of which was made of
leather; the leather had been wetted, and then forced through a mould
of the proper size. _H----_ recollected this, as _Mr. ----_ thought he
would, and guessed that the case might have been made of leather, and
by a similar process.

_S----._ "Is it made of the skin of some animal?"

_Mr. ----._ "Yes; but what do you mean by the skin of some animal?
What do you call it?"

_S----_ (laughing.) "Oh, leather! leather!"

_H----._ "Yes, it's made the same way that the piston of my pump is
made,