weak lungs," we have here the very thing
for a consumptive child; the more especially
as there are no vacations to compel return
into less wholesome air.

But now I talk about consumption, I must
in fairness remark that among other advantages
possessed by a large class of private
schools in our day, is the fact that they
monopolise all the most incontestably salubrious
sites in the country. Indeed, I was not
previously aware how many localities in this
island are "proverbial for salubrity," and it
is most interesting to remark how they are
now all occupied by schools. Thus, for
example, I am told that while at one school, I
may have the "highest references to parents,
guardians, and foreigners of distinction,
whose sons and connections are now doing
honour to their parents and principal, in the
various professions and callings of life, viz.,
army, navy, church, law, physic, merchant's
houses, Stock Exchange, bankers, agriculture,
&c. The situation is proverbial for health,
shaded, high and dry; and the scenery,
grounds, &c., for recreation, picturesque, and
beautiful." As for the picturesque, Dr.
Syntax need not have gone out of his chair
in search of it. A catalogue of the most
charming scenes in England could be made
any day out of the school advertisements.
Evidently nothing is easier than to have a
"sound, extensive, select, and guarded education,
imparted at" a "very commodious and
delightfully situate institution."

I am only puzzled in my choice. Knowing
the cost of bread and meat, I feel ashamed to
trespass on the generosity of the wedded
couple advertising "BOARD AND EDUCATION
for YOUNG LADIES AND GENTLEMEN (inclusive
terms—no vacations—from thirteen
to sixteen pounds per annum);" but, on the
other hand, I feel equal unwillingness to
obtrude a child who might prove unsuitable,
upon the lady who "as she chiefly desires to
secure suitable companions to two young
pupils now under her charge, would mention
forty-five guineas per annum." Mrs. and
Miss Wicks have care enough upon their
minds: how could I add the trouble of a
child of mine, when they announce that
already "the religious instruction, health,
and morals of the pupils are objects of
unceasing solicitude"? Nor would I at any time
consent that my son George should help to
weigh down to his grave "a literary gentleman
of high standing in society," who must
clearly be wearing his brain down at the top
of an establishment where, among other
things, "gentlemanly association, and a
climate of unequalled salubrity, are objects
of anxious parental solicitude." More than
enough care it is for this literary gentleman
to keep an anxious fatherly look-out upon
the weather, which must indeed have given
him, of late, much pain and trouble by its
numerous irregularities.

Shuddering as I always do at the sight of
a genteel boy, I am precluded, of course, from
putting myself in communication with the
"clergyman who is educating his own sons,"
and who "has an opening this Christmas for
two or three genteel Boys to study with them."
Do I misunderstand the offer of "a gentleman,
of very high attainments, as well as
great experience in tuition," who is "about to
proceed to his curacy" where "the neighbourhood
is beautiful and society of the aristocratic
rank"?   While I can put my daughter
in a "residence replete with every
comfort," or secure to my son, for twenty-two
guineas a year, emulative education with
"the table liberally supplied, and every
domestic indulgence afforded," (including,
of course, French-toast or sugar on his bread
and butter), what need I care whether the
society out of doors be composed of the
aristocratic rank or of the democratic file?

For my own part I wish myself a coal-merchant
and a widower, since I have met with a
special request from a first-rate schoolmistress
that A Coal-merchant would enter into a
reciprocal engagement with her, allow her to be
a mother to his daughter, and address to her
at the post-office, corner of Oxford-street.

Another offer of reciprocal terms I am
unable clearly to comprehend, namely, this
one:

TO SCHOOLS.—WANTED to PLACE the SON of a
Gentleman in an establishment where the
services of a Dancing Master will be required, on
reciprocal terms.

I suppose that the gentleman in question—
being perplexed, as I am, with the multitude
of eligible offers—has resolved to let chance
guide him in his choice of schools. Therefore,
as a man may say desperately that he will
marry the first maiden he sees if she will
have him, so this gentleman has offered his
son to the first school of which he hears that
it requires a dancing master.

This theory leaves the "reciprocal terms"
unexplained. I think, however, that the
brevity required in an advertisement may be
the cause of this and of much other obscurity.
Thus, when I examine schools as they are
described at length in their prospectuses, I
shall no doubt more fully understand their
respective characters and find it not so
difficult to make my choice.

Here, we have elegant mansions in copper-
plate, affectionate addresses and reports
presented to parents and friends of pupils.
Testimonials equal to anything in the repertoire
of Mr. Holloway or Mr. Rowland, and
such writing, interspersed with Latin, as the
schoolmaster alone is able to strike off. A
gentleman who lays much stress upon the washing
of his boys, beautifully says, that under
his system "Everything is in the youth's favour.
The vis vitæ acts with the greatest energy, while
nervo-electric currents are generated, not
only in quantities but in a high state of
tension. The body, at this period is in the