hoolmaster in Skippack wrote one hundred rules of good
behavior for his scholars. This is perhaps the first book on good
manners written in America. But rules of behavior for people living in
houses of one or two rooms, as they did in that day, were very
different from those needed in our time. Here are some of the rules:

"When you comb your hair, do not go out in the middle of the room,"
says the schoolmaster. This was because families were accustomed to
eat and sleep in the same room.

"Do not eat your morning bread on the road or in school," he tells
them, "but ask your parents to give it to you at home." From this we
see that the common breakfast was bread alone, and that the children
often ate it as they walked to school.

The table manners of that day were very good for the time, but they
seem very curious to us. He says, "Do not wabble with your stool,"
because rough home-made stools were the common chairs then, and the
floors, made of boards that were split and not sawed, were so uneven
that a noisy child could easily rock his stool to and fro.

"Put your knife upon the right and your bread on the left side," he
says. Forks were little used in those days, and the people in the
country did not have any. He also tells them not to throw bones under
the table. It was a common practice among some people of that time to
throw bones and scraps under the table, where the dogs ate them.

The child is not told to wait for others when he has finished eating,
or to ask to be excused. "Get up quietly," says the schoolmaster, "and
take your stool with you. Wish a pleasant mealtime, and go to one
side." The child is told not to put the remaining bread into his
pocket.

As time passed on, Christopher Dock had many friends, for all his
scholars of former years loved him greatly. He lived to be very old,
and taught his schools to the last. One evening he did not come home,
and the people went to look for the beloved old man. They found their
dear old master on his knees in the schoolhouse. He had died while
praying alone.

STORIES OF WHALING.

In the old days, before petroleum or kerosene had been found in this
country, people had many ways of lighting their houses. A cheap light
was made by putting a little grease or oil in a saucer in which was a
little wick or rag lying over the edge of the saucer or drawn up
through a cork that floated on the grease. When this wick was burning,
it gave hardly as much light