th still greater ease, have read a second
nineteen verses, and perfected himself by practice in this important,
and supposed difficult art of reading, by this one lesson of less than
half an hour.

In a later experiment, made in Dumfries, in the presence and under the
sanction of Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, and the clergymen and teachers of
that town, the power of this principle was put to a severe trial, in a
very unexpected and extraordinary manner. The week-day teachers of that
town having heard of some of the above circumstances, and of the powers
of the Lesson System generally, in enabling children to read with but
little trouble, were desirous of having its powers tested in that town,
where the writer happened to be for a few days. He agreed; and Sir
Thomas Kirkpatrick, the Sheriff of the county, with the clergymen and
teachers, at his request, formed themselves into a committee for the
purposes of the investigation. A sub-committee of the week-day teachers
were appointed to procure a boy to be taught, which they did, and who,
on being closely examined at a preliminary public meeting of the whole
examinators, was found totally ignorant of words, and knew not one
letter from another, with the exception, of "the round o."

With this boy the writer retired, having agreed to call them again
together at a public meeting, as soon as he was ready. This at the time
he did not doubt would have been on the very next day;--but he was
disappointed. He had not been five minutes with his pupil, till he
found, to his great mortification, that he had little or no intellect to
work upon. The boy was twelve years of age, and yet he was perfectly
ignorant of all the days of the week, except one, the market day, on
which he was in the practice of making a few pence by holding the
farmers' horses. He could in no case tell what day of the week went
before or followed another. He could count numbers forward mechanically
till among the teens; but by no effort of mind could he tell what number
came before nine, till he had again counted forward from one. The most
obvious deduction from the simplest idea appeared to be quite beyond the
grasp of his mind. For example, though repeatedly told that John was
Zebedee's son, yet, after frequent trials, he could never make out, nor
comprehend who was John's father. Yet this boy,--one certainly among the
lowest in the grade of intellect of our species,--by a rigid application
of the principle of indiv