The next day it happened that there was an examination of several primary classes in the chapel. It was not a public occasion, but merely an exercise designed to test the progress made, and to accustom the young pupils to be questioned in presence of the whole school. Several of the classes least advanced had been thus examined the preceding week, and these came next in order.

At eleven o'clock we seated ourselves in front of the platform which occupies the east end of the spacious chapel. The seats rise one above another from the front to the rear, being constructed with special care to secure for each of the spectators — we can not say audience — an unobstructed view of the platform and the array of wall-slates behind it. The principal was present to conduct the examination, and also the various professors and teachers.

The primary department embraces pupils who are in Part First of the Course of Instruction. This portion of the course requires from two to three years. The ages of the pupils examined ranged from nine or ten years up to fourteen. Each instructor furnished a brief report of the ground that had been gone over by his class.

In order to give some idea of their advancement, I quote one or two statements of a similar nature from the annual report for 1870. They refer to classes of about the same standing with these. Here is an outline of the attainments of a class two years in school: "They have learned between three and four hundred words, embracing names of familiar objects, qualities, and actions, and can use them in many simple sentences; . . . .have been taught the singular and plural of nouns, the actual and habitual present tenses of the verb, a few adverbs, and the conjunction and; . . . . can count and write numbers to 100; . . . have committed to memory the first section of Scripture Lessons [on the attributes of God], and the Lord's Prayer."

Another, further advanced, had studied "Elementary Lessons from 130th to 213th, embracing the definite article; the tenses of the substantive verb, is, has been, will be, etc.; classification of names according to sex; pronouns, with their cases and numbers; the preposition of, denoting property, parts of a whole, etc.; the verb to have, in the two senses of property and possession; impersonal verbs; auxiliaries can, may, must; the infinitive mood, and the conjunction that. . . . Elementary geography from a map, without text-book, and elementary arithmetic. They write letters to their friends about once a month, besides writing little narratives, etc. . . . .Scripture Lessons, sections 5th to 7th."

Various interesting exercises were written upon the wall-slates by successive classes, only one of which I will detail as a specimen. It was a lesson on certain forms of verbs. The teacher, a deaf-mute gentleman, wrote upon a wall-slate, in a fine, bold hand, the rather startling direction, "Go and ask Mr. Cooke if he likes apple-pie." Possibly the little folks standing upon the platform, beneath the gaze of five hundred pairs of eyes, were somewhat embarrassed by this unexpected command; and a little girl who was dispatched to put the question to the professor, made a mistake in changing its form from indirect to direct. Upon this, a bright boy named Eckhard, leaving the platform, approached Professor Cooke, and spelled with his fingers, "Do you like apple-pie?"