ow, raised his arm in a
defensive attitude, and whined, "Oh, please, sir, it wasna me."

"What is meant by faith?" was one day asked of a class. "Faith,"
responded a thoughtful youth, "is the faculty which enables us to
believe things that we know to be not true."

In the lesson of a class of country boys not long ago, the words "above
the average" occurred, and the lady teacher asked if any one could tell
what the word "average" meant. There was no response for a time, and she
passed the question from one to another until a more than average
specimen eagerly responded, "It's a thing that hens lay on." The teacher
was dumb-founded, and asked for an explanation. "Well," drawled the
budding Solomon, "my mother says that our hens lay each four eggs a
week--on an average."

It is a teacher's business to observe that his scholars are clean as
well as clever, and the Rev. David Macrae, in his entertaining little
book of _Quaint Sayings of Children_, tells how a teacher, after
glancing round the class one day, said to a boy, "I'll let you off if
you can find a hand in all the school as dirty as that one," indicating
the boy's own grimy exposed paw. The youth promptly brought forth and
showed his other fist, which was certainly dirtier still, and the
master, in view of his pledge, had no resource but to let the offender
go for that time any way.

An old story, which has had a lively currency, tells of how a boy when
he returned from school was always asked where he stood in his class,
and whose invariable answer was, "I'm second dux." For the regular
holding of this excellent position he received many fine things in the
shape of sweets and biscuits, and pennies, etc., until at length it
occurred to one of the family to ask him how many were in his class. It
was then the gilt fell off the ginger-bread. "Oh," said he, "there's
just me and anither lassie."

Dean Ramsay tells of a very practical answer given by a little girl who
had been asked the meaning of "darkness," as it occurred in Scripture
reading--"Just steek your een." In the same place, he says, on the
question, "What is the pestilence that walketh in darkness?" being put
to a class, a little boy answered, after consideration, "Oh, it's just
_bugs_."

Our friend, Dr. John Ker, has often told of an occasion when he was
examining a class in mathematics, and put the question to a boy--"If a
salmon weighed 16 lbs., and was to be sold at 2d. per lb., what would it
be