Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/185

Rh them blush, poor little things, when they make a mistake. And they write, too, without ink. They write on a thick, hard sort of paper with a metal bodkin, which makes a great many little hollows, grouped according to a special alphabet. These little punctures stand out in relief on the other side of the paper, so that, by turning the paper over and drawing their fingers across these projections, they can read what they have written, and also the writing of others; and thus they write compositions: and they write letters to each other. They write numbers in the same way, and they make calculations; and they calculate mentally with an incredible ease, since their minds are not diverted by the sight of surro'unding objects, as ours are. And you should see how passionately fond they are of reading, how attentive they are, how well they remember everything, how they talk among themselves, even the little ones, of things c'onnected with history and language, as they sit four or five on the same bench, without turning to each other, and converse, the first with the third, the second with the fourth, in a loud voice and all together, without losing a single word, so acute and prompt is their hearing.

“And they attach more importance to the examinations than you do, I assure you, and they are fonder of their teachers. They recognize their teacher by his step and his odor; they perceive whether he is in a good or bad humor, whether he is well or ill, simply by the sound of a single word of his. They want the teacher to touch them when he encourages and praises them, and they feel of his hand and his arms in order to express their gratitude. They love each other, and