PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2685, 30 August 1905, Page 75

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

: . I To-night I am making a selection of scraps to fill up my column, though the first heading coveis a condensation of a ! review article. Following that comes a couple of paragraphs on what boys can do and -what they should learn. How to I make a compass of a -natch gives direci tions applicable to the northern hemisphere, but a little gumption will tell the observer what the points are in the southern. Weighing the world seems to be a comparatively simple rnatt-er if oue has the delicate balance referred to. The other pieces tire lighter in their nature. — A Revolution in Egypt. — Rather a startling heading, isn't it ? One is inclined to glanccttowri trie column to find details, not being patient enough Ito read through. But this revolution is a peaceful on&. The heading is from an article in the Contemporary Review. The writer sets out by saying that "a revolution is a growth, not a cataclysm." " The seeds of this revolution were sow n in the autivmn of 1901, when Miss Amina Ilafiz Maghrabi was admitted to the Stockwell Road Training College for Teachers" (England) ; and it consists in tho emancipation of women. And this is v hat the writer has to say of women : "No revolution can be a success until

■vromen take it up, and it is the womea who aie goino' to turn E^ypt upside down. ... In every land, with every race, in all religions, we are what our mothers make us. While the women stand still, the men will not progress." That is pleasant reading for a girl or woman, isn't it? The article is interesting, for it shows that, though it is only seven or eight yeai*s since we commenced, to educate Egypt-, we are getting on famously. — Tlie Boy and His Acre. — The boy was given an acre of fairly; good land to work, he to have what ha could raise on it. What did he do witli it ? He worked mornings and evenings until he had put 20 loads of manure on the land as a starter. He then ploughed and harrowed it down until it was in as good condition as a garden. He then planted one-half of it -nitb the very earliest maturing potatoes he could find, and the other half he put into blackseed onions. The potatoes he cultivated! thoroughly with a horse cultivator, the onions with a hand cultivator, hiring some boys to help him weed out the latter crop. The season was favourable, and he sold 60 bushels of early potatoes at Idol a bushel and 250 bu&hc'.s of onions later at 45c a bushel, receiving- for his crop a total of 172.50du1. less 15dol for help and 7dol for set-d. He aa ill take in the World's Fair this year and do the Pike to a finish. Other boys might do just as well if they would. — Boys Should Learn. — To laugh, to run, to swim, to be neat, to make a fiie, to be jmnctual, to do an. errand. tr> cut kindlings, to sing, it" they can ; to help their mothers, to hang up their hats, to respect their teachers, to hold their heads -erect, to sew on their own buttons, to v. ipe their boots on the mat. to speak pleasantly to older persons, to put every garment in its proper place, to remove iheir hats upon enteiing a house, to attend strictly to their own business, to be as kind and helpful to their sisters as to othei boys' sisters. — To Make A Compass of Your Watch. — - (Jet the number of hoius from midnight, divide by two and point the hour at the sun so that the shadow of a match or lead pencil falls directly across tlu centre of the watch : 12 o'clock will he north, 6 south, 9 west, and 3 ea^t. Suppose ifc is 3 p.m. ; number of hours from midnight is 9 ; one-half is 4£ : point 4.30 ;ifc the sun so the shadow of a match or lead pencil falls across the centre of watch, and 12 is north, 6 south, 5 east, and 9 west. Suppose it is 6 a.m. ; number of hours from midnight 18 : one-half. 9 : point 9 at sun, and 12 is noith, 6 south, 3 east, and 9 west. — Weighing the Woild. — There are various methods of finding the weight of ihe earth, but -they are all based on the law of attraction. The following illustration of how the weight of the earth is found i.« from Professor Poynting. "Suppose you hang a weight of 501b from a spring balance a few feet above the earth. Then the pull of the earth, whose centre is 20,000,000 ft away, is 501b. Now suppose you bring a second weight — this time let us say a w-eigkt of 35Glb — to a. position lft from the first one, andS between the latter and the earth. Then, if your balance is sufficiently sensitive you 1 will find the smaller mass no longer weighs 501b, but a" little more— w fact, about 1.250 th of a grain more. That is to say, tho pull of the 350V0 weight at the distance of lft is equal to the 1.250 th of a grain. From this information with the help of a little arithmetic we can find that the earth weighs about 12,500,000,000.000.000,000,000,0001b. — Hans Christian Andersen. — ■ The following, adapted from a notice of this fairy-tale writer, will interest soma of you. Hans Christian Andersen, whose centenary has just been celebrated in Europe, was inordinately vain. From London, where he was lionised,. he wrote to a friend, iv Copenhagen— "Hera I am regarded as a Danish Walter Scott, while in Henmark I am degraded into a sort of third-clas* author, far below Hertz the classical and Heiburg the infallible." He was eternally complaining of the "contemptible meanness" of the Danes, who would never recognise his genius ; and it is on record that ho once shouted to a friend across the broadest street in Copenhagen, "Hi, there! What do yen think? I hear they are reading my books in Spam!" We mention this harmless foible, which was displayed in countless ways, because it supports a theory which we wish we had spaco to enlarge upon — that to write for children you must he a child yourself. Andersen was. all his life long, a greet, vain, simple, lovable child. -The UglyDuckling," perhaps the best-known of all his stories, is a bit of. autobiography, and another instance of his vanity— his own kinship with the swans he never doubted, whatever the tribe of ducks might say or think. He wn.s happy in b a ing able to weave the record of his own hard and squalid youth into an exquisite fairy tale ; but, indeed, there was nothing over \vhicli he could not cast the glamour of fairy-

—An Irishman, on being made "ganger," Jpished to show Ms authority to those under him on the first morning of his promotion. "Now, look here, boys," fiaid he; "when X say commince, you have all to commince ; sJid them that don't comminoe when I say Dommmco won't oommince.. So com-

— Miss Gushleig-h : "I'm sure, professor, I'm immensely flattered that you should leave that learned crowd and come over and talk to poor little me I" Professor Chumpleigih: '"Well, you see— or— the fact is I'm tired of their clever talk, and I thought I'd come and listen to you and rest my mind for a while."'

hind. "I -wonder,"' usVd Thoi-va'd^en. the

sculptor, "if you could Vi rile a fauy talc a'ooai a darning needle?'' vtlureupnii An-dcr.-en f-ot doMn and ■«rotr his faint i.s story, ''Tho Darning Needle."' His gur.us was nkin to ihnt of Dean S^ift, who. ns one of the women who loved him sa d, could write beautifully about a bronmsLck. To be the besl-bcloved of all children's writers — that is much ; but Andersen is more than that. The grown-up reader must be very old or very dull who fails to bo charmed by such beautiful ?nd tender and delicate imagining"*, or who fails to droov-er in the writer of theje tales a philosopher and a p<~et. ■ — Her Lesson i;i Diminutive* — Dimini'tives ara v.-c^d-s that end in. "Jirg," or "kin,"' or ''Let" . Tlie book-i says tba 1 , I b'heva, but I can't understand it yet. A lam\m is a lilile^lamb — I've often licaid of ill at— But catkin does not seem the word to use lor little cot. And though a little tiny owl is always called an owlet, Yet sively yen would never call a, little calf a cowlci! The welkin that they talk about — is it a little well ? Are pi'inpkirss little pumps! Oh, clear! Howcan I ever tell? A duckling, is a littls duck, a gosling, little goose, But liios'ing doe? noi sound quite right to call a little moose. Doea Inni'let insan a lutle ham, wallet a little wall' And is a triplet a iliori tr.p — Oh, I don't know it all. AVligii I a=ked father, lie Just laughed, aiid faid : "Oh, inn and play, Yoa're sorus diminutives yourself," and that was all he'd say. I s'po.-e he incut I'm little, but — they end m "let,'' "kin," "ling"' — I know! Why, ye 3! My name is Yi&-lat Bus-km Anuers-lmg! > —The Kind That Sulis.-s Slie doesn't cram with verses ISTor give ten-minutes' t-\lks. But the way she springs a fellow Makes him careful how he valk3 Ths day Jce stoned the blackcaps, 'Twas, '"Joseph, if you please, You may hang these 'bits of suofc For our birds upon the trees." When Bill has pointed c.bows, And .icogles more than's fai^, 'Ti-», -Send this boy the Golden Rulej f To measure on his share." A T cd a::d l\ T at, they had a set-to One recess. Guess what she said: "Change seats. We'll have a jolly sons, Nat, you may sit with Ned." Eate spills and spoils, and spatters, And borrows of the others; Says Teacher, "Poor school houseke-&S$£S Just advertise their mothers." ~ She doesn't keep a-nagging, (Some teachers do, you know.), "With Washington ancl Lincoln, They never acted so." She doesn't tack a moral That points straight to you ax m» On the end of every story. (Some teachers do, you see.) JST'ever you think she's a tame one I She can fly higher'n a, kite; And the teacher who can, but doesn't, Is the teacher we boys vote right. — A. C. ScammelL