rit of
education into entertainment. If he was to test the progress of the
three boys, this advertisement would appear in their little manuscript
paper:--"Notice: The Professor of Engineering in the University of
Edinburgh intends at the close of the scholastic year to hold
examinations in the following subjects: (1) For boys in the fourth class
of the Academy--Geometry and Algebra; (2) For boys at Mr. Henderson's
school--Dictation and Recitation; (3) For boys taught exclusively by
their mothers--Arithmetic and Reading." Prizes were given; but what
prize would be so conciliatory as this boyish little joke? It may read
thin here; it would smack racily in the playroom. Whenever his sons
"started a new fad" (as one of them writes to me) they "had only to tell
him about it, and he was at once interested, and keen to help." He would
discourage them in nothing unless it was hopelessly too hard for them;
only, if there was any principle of science involved, they must
understand the principle; and whatever was attempted, that was to be
done thoroughly. If it was but play, if it was but a puppet-show they
were to build, he set them the example of being no sluggard in play.
When Frewen, the second son, embarked on the ambitious design to make an
engine for a toy steamboat, Fleeming made him begin with a proper
drawing--doubtless to the disgust of the young engineer; but once that
foundation laid, helped in the work with unflagging gusto, "tinkering
away," for hours, and assisted at the final trial "in the big bath" with
no less excitement than the boy. "He would take any amount of trouble to
help us," writes my correspondent. "We never felt an affair was complete
till we had called him to see, and he would come at any time, in the
middle of any work." There was indeed one recognised play-hour,
immediately after the despatch of the day's letters; and the boys were
to be seen waiting on the stairs until the mail should be ready and the
fun could begin. But at no other time did this busy man suffer his work
to interfere with that first duty to his children; and there is a
pleasant tale of the inventive Master Frewen, engaged at the time upon a
toy crane, bringing to the study where his father sat at work a
half-wound reel that formed some part of his design, and observing,
"Papa, you might finiss windin' this for me; I am so very busy to-day."

I put together here a few brief extracts from Fleeming's letters, none
very important in