Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
“A darling literary curiosity.... The collection ismade by a teacher ... and all the examples in it aregenuine; none of them have been tampered with, or doctoredin any way.”
English
as
She·is·Taught
BEING GENUINE ANSWERS TO EXAMINATION QUESTIONS IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS COLLECTED BY CAROLINE B. Le ROW
PUBLISHER’S NOTE.
It is to be noticed that there is a curious sympathyin point of error on both sides of the Atlantic, forseventeen of the mistakes quoted in this book as beingmade in the Public Schools of America appear insimilar or identical words in an Article on “Boys’Blunders” in the Cornhill Magazine of June,1886, which was written by a Master in an EnglishPublic School.
Dr. Blimber’s establishment was a great hothousein which there was a forcing apparatusincessantly at work. All the boys blew beforetheir time. Mental green peas were producedat Christmas and intellectual asparagus all theyear round. Mathematical gooseberries (verysour ones) were common at untimely seasonsand from mere sprouts of bushes underDr. Blimber’s cultivation. Every descriptionof Greek and Latin vegetable was got offthe dryest twigs of boys under the frostiestcircumstances. Nature was of no consequenceat all. No matter what a young gentlemanviwas intended to bear Dr. Blimber madehim bear to pattern. But the system offorcing was attended with its usual disadvantages.There was not the right taste aboutthe premature productions and they didn’tkeep well. When poor Paul had spelt out No.2 he found he had no idea of No. 1, fragmentswhereof afterwards obtruded themselves intoNo. 3 which slided into No. 4 which grafteditself on to No. 2; so that whether twentyRomuluses made a Remus, or a verb alwaysagreed with an ancient Briton, or three timesfour was Taurus a bull, were open questionswith him. But however high and false thetemperature at which Dr. Blimber kept his hothouse,the owners of the plants were alwaysready to lend a helping hand at the bellowsand to stir the fire.