For Our Young Readers.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 26, 29 October 1897, Page 19

For Our Young Readers.

CHILDHOOD'S DAYS

A boy was asked to compose a little poem upon his childhood, and this is what he is said to have produced — •' How dear to my heart is the school I attended, And how I remember, so distant and dim ; Bullet-headed Bill, and the pin that I bended, ' And carefully put on the bench under him I Ami how I recall the surprise of the master, When Bill gave a yell and sprang up from the pin, So high that his bullet-head smashed up the plaster, And all the scholars set up such a din 1 That active boy, Billy, That high-leaping Billy ; That loud-shouting Billy, That sat on a pin 1" TWELVE MAXIMS FOE SUCCESS.

The president of the London Chamber of Commerce gives 12 maxims for success, which, he says, he has tried through 23 years of business experience : 1. Have a definite aim. 2. Go straight for it. 3. Master all details. 4. Always know more than you are expected to know. 5. Remember that difficulties are only made to be overcome. 6. Treat failures as stepping stones to further efforts. 7. Never put your hand out further than you can draw it back. 8. At times be bold ; always prudent. 9. " Men say." What do they say ? Let them say. 10. Make good use of other men's brains. 11. Listen well ; answer cautiously ; decide promptly. 12. Preserve by all means in your power " a sound mind in a sound body."

Let the boys paste the above rules in their hats and follow them, and they will ever be grateful that a kind Providence brought them to their notice. children's ideas of life and death. An Italian savant has written an article in which he gives the results of an examination into children's ideas concerning life and death. He went to an elementary school at Rovigo, and questioned a number of young children on these subjects. The definitions given of life were not altogether clear. One little philosopher of nine described it as a sea of troubles, which one may cross well or with great unhappiness. A little girl of eight, in spite of her poverty, thought life was a paradise, whilst others of well-to-do families thought life ugly. Death was too serious a subject for most of the girls to tackle, but some of the boys ventured suggestions as to the phenomena that attend it. To the question '* Are you afraid to die ? " the answer came more glibly. Most replied in the affirmative, but over sixty expressed no fear. Amongst the?e, one little minx of ten said she was not afraid of dying because she was tired of living. There was something touching in the answers given by the orphans. They were not afraid because after death they would see their parents again. One little thing, with a simple resignation that is quite charming and almost precocious, was not afraid to die because death was a thing sent by God. Some of the boys were evidently too well content with life to want to leave it. One feared death because it would prevent him playing with his sister, whilst another shrank from what would prevent him seeing " the men gathering the harvest of grapes and so many nice things." Many of the girls characteristically objected to growing old for fear of losing their good looks. Questioned as to how they would like to die, many of the lads expressed a wish to have their mother by their bedside. Some, of more martial spirit, thought it would be a fine thing to fall on the battlefield. Others weie more religiously inclined. " I should like," said one, '• to die kneeling before God," whilst another, looking further into the beyond, answered, " I should like to die and go with my Lord and with the angels of piradise with my hands crossed on my breast." This youngster had evidently been impressed by pictures of heaven.