298.  We wanted no stimulants of this sort to keep up our spirits:  our various pleasing pursuits were quite sufficient for that; and the book-learning came amongst the rest of the pleasures, to which it was, in some sort, necessary.  I remember that, one year, I raised a prodigious crop of fine melons, under hand-glasses; and I learned how to do it from a gardening book; or, at least, that book was necessary to remind me of the details.  Having passed part of an evening in talking to the boys about getting this crop, ‘Come,’ said I, ’now, let us read the book.’  Then the book came forth, and to work we went, following very strictly the precepts of the book.  I read the thing but once, but the eldest boy read it, perhaps, twenty times over; and explained all about the matter to the others.  Why here was a motive!  Then he had to tell the garden-labourer what to do to the melons.  Now, I will engage, that more was really learned by this single lesson, than would have been learned by spending, at this son’s age, a year at school; and he happy and delighted all the while.  When any dispute arose amongst them about hunting or shooting, or any other of their pursuits, they, by degrees, found out the way of settling it by reference to some book; and when any difficulty occurred, as to the meaning, they referred to me, who, if at home, always instantly attended to them, in these matters.

299.  They began writing by taking words out of printed books; finding out which letter was which, by asking me, or asking those who knew the letters one from another; and by imitating bits of my writing, it is surprising how soon they began to write a hand like mine, very small, very faint-stroked, and nearly plain as print.  The first use that any one of them made of the pen, was to write to me, though in the same house with them.  They began doing this in mere scratches, before they knew how to make any one letter; and as I was always folding up letters and directing them, so were they; and they were sure to receive a prompt answer, with most encouraging compliments.  All the meddlings and teazings of friends, and, what was more serious, the pressing prayers of their anxious mother, about sending them to school, I withstood without the slightest effect on my resolution.  As to friends, preferring my own judgment to theirs, I did not care much; but an expression of anxiety, implying a doubt of the soundness of my own judgment, coming, perhaps, twenty times a day from her whose care they were as well as mine, was not a matter to smile at, and very great trouble it did give me.  My answer at last was, as to the boys, I want them to be like me; and as to the girls, In whose hands can they be so safe as in yours?  Therefore my resolution is taken:  go to school they shall not.