WILLIE F.--Your idea that time spent in the study of the dead languages is lost time, and that you would prefer to devote yourself wholly to your native tongue, is perhaps a natural one, but it is based on an error. Latin and Greek are dead languages in the sense that they are not spoken in any land by living people to-day. But they are not dead in the sense of having lost their vitality. They enter largely into our modern languages, and no one can be a precise and thorough scholar in English without some acquaintance with Latin at least. Study your Latin grammar patiently, as your teacher advises, and though you do not yourself see what good it will do you, believe me that after a while you will find yourself repaid. There are some things which we must acquire by way of discipline, for it is the disciplined mind which does the best work with ease, just as the trained soldier can march farther and fight better than the raw recruit.
The Postmistress is fond of looking up the history of words. Some common words have a very curious history. For instance, demijohn, a glass bottle covered with basket-work, is a sort of puzzler. Why is it demijohn? Why John at all? Or if John, why half-john? The truth is, it has nothing to do with John; but was first manufactured at a town called Damaghan, in Khorassan, a province of Persia, a place once renowned for its glass-workers.--Calico, which is so dainty and pretty, and which the little girls wear to school in summer, derives its name from Calicut in India, from which handsome cotton goods were once imported to England.
There are two articles in this paper that we want the members of the C. Y. P. R. U. to read, because they will add to the stock of solid and valuable information that the society is endeavoring to store away in eager, appreciative minds, viz., "The Waves at Work," by Mr. Charles Barnard, and "The Scullion who became a Sculptor," by Mr. George Cary Eggleston. But there are two others that we want the boys and girls to make the basis of prompt and energetic action. To begin with, we want the article "On Cigarette Smoking" to produce such an impression that the stoves and ranges in all houses inhabited by the coming men of the next generation shall have a grand smoke, consuming in the operation all the compounded horrors in the way of bad paper, bad tobacco, dirt, opium, etc., that we now see defiling lips and destroying the nerve and brain power of the gallant lads to whom the world will soon look for the wit, the wisdom, the sagacity and the command, that shall keep her moving in the right direction. Then we want nobody to omit the sketch of "A School Restaurant," with its pretty illustrations. Papas and mammas do not like to say no when their pets ask them for pocket-money, and the pocket-money is nearly sure to go to the confectioner's till. Suppose you all ask your parents and teachers to consider our idea of a school dinner nicely served every day. Most of you are sensible folk, and know just as well as your physicians, or the Postmistress does how much brighter, better, and rosier you would feel and look if you could have a hearty nourishing meal to sustain you through the labors and pleasures of the latter half of the day.