rk, for the purpose of teaching children their
letters. Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, have been decimated; "yea, the
great globe itself," has been parceled into little wooden sections, that
their readjustment into a continuous map might teach the infant conqueror
of the world the relative positions of distant countries. Archimedes might
have discovered the principle of the lever and the fundamental principles
of gravity upon a rocking-horse. In like manner he might have ascertained
the laws of hydrostatics, by observing the impetus of many natural and
artificial fountains, which must occasionally have come beneath his eye.
So also the principles of acoustics might even now be taught by the aid of
a penny whistle, and there is no knowing how much children's nursery games
may yet be rendered subservient to the advancement of science. The famous
Dr. Cornelius Scriblerus had excellent notions on these subjects. He
determined that his son Martinus should be the most learned and
universally well-informed man of his age, and had recourse to all sorts of
devices in order to inspire him even unthinkingly with knowledge. He
determined that every thing should contribute to the improvement of his
mind--even his very dress. He therefore, his biographer informs us,
invented for him a geographical suit of clothes, which might give him some
hints of that science, and also of the commerce of different nations. His
son's disposition to mathematics--for he was a remarkable child--was
discovered very early by his drawing parallel lines on his bread and
butter, and intersecting them at equal angles, so as to form the whole
superficies into squares. His father also wisely resolved that he should
acquire the learned languages, especially Greek--and remarking, curiously
enough, that young Martinus Scriblerus was remarkably fond of gingerbread,
the happy idea came into his parental head that his pieces of gingerbread
should be stamped with the letters of the Greek alphabet; and such was the
child's avidity for knowledge, that the very first day he eat down to
_iota_.

When Sir Isaac Newton changed his residence and went to live in
Leicester-place, his next door neighbor was a widow lady, who was much
puzzled by the little she observed of the habits of the philosopher. One
of the Fellows of the Royal Society called upon her one day, when, among
other domestic news, she mentioned that some one had come to reside in the
adjoining house, who sh