Page:A Few Hours in a Far Off Age.djvu/89

90 were called—and myth-men in their churches thanked their God for them. Tender innocent children were constantly undergoing scourgings and other barbarous punishments in their schools, for being unable to remember lessons containing names of those slaughters and the principal slaughterers."

I can attest the truth of this! When between six and seven years of age I have been kept standing on a form until my delicate limbs ached, and had frequently to undergo similar torture—to say nothing of sundry cuffings and other assaults—because my young mind refused to be saturated with knowledge of those bloody deeds. Rote lessons on unnecessary subjects have done, and are doing, immense harm to the young.

Her eyes wear the expression of looking back through intervening ages. Mournful, and so beautiful, in her large-minded pity! nobility—real nobility—stamped on every feature. Reflectively she continues:

"There are some, besides students, who think the deeds of those ignorant times ought to be consigned to oblivion—others are of opinion that human nature has not yet sufficiently advanced to lose memory of such deterrent examples. Indeed, it is scarcely 2000 years since a man was convicted of endeavouring to borrow money, and several teachers punished for striking their pupils. I fear it will be long ere our blood be quite safe from reversion; in which case we should have to re-commence all. Such deterioration occurred frequently within human knowledge in the early ages. Several times intelligence struggled as far as it attained in the twentieth century of the Age of Blood—when as often, the dreadful tiger taint threw all back again."

Frederick interrupts her, and there is real astonishment in his voice as he asks: