Confucius said, "Can you tell, under the whole sky, what fire has no smoke, what water no fish, what is it that is too long, what is it that is too short?"

The boy replied, "A glow-worm's fire has no smoke, well-water has no fish, a winter's day is not long enough, a summer's day is too long."

Then the boy, asking the sage, said, "How many stars are in the sky?"

Confucius said, "At this time ask something about the earth. We can know nothing sure about the sky."

The boy said, "Very well; will you, then, tell me how many houses are on the earth?"

The sage replied, "Come, now; speak about something that is before our eyes. Why must you talk of the earth and sky?"

66

"To please you," said the boy, "we will speak about what is before our eyes. How many hairs are in your eyebrows?"

Confucius smiled, but did not answer. Turning to his friends he said, "I will go home, now. I need not go about teaching the people, for by and by this child can teach them.”

Definitions. Quick, keen witted.

Spell: carriage, amongst, enough, scholar, younger.

Can you tell the meaning of these Chinese proverbs:

Stoop not to tie your shoe in your neighbor's melon patch."

"Lift not your hand to arrange your hair under your neighbor's plum tree."

Can you tell who gives this advice: "Abstain from all appearance of evil."

Read the story of "Washington and his Hatchet," of "Whittington and his Cat,” of “William Tell and the Apple." Read, also, “When I was a Boy in China."— Lee Phon You.

Teachings of Confucius:

1. A man should say, "I am not concerned that I have no place-I am concerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not known-I seek to be worthy to be known."

2. There is one precept that may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life: What you do not want done to yourself do not do to others.

Write the Golden Rule and compare it with this precept from Confucius, who lived about five hundred years before Christ.

California is the very Paradise of wild flowers, though poets have not yet written of the blossoms of this new land as they have of the primroses, and daffodils, and daisies of the old world.

From Christmas time onward to May, the valleys and foothills of California are gay with wild bloom and musical with the hum of bees. In no other land are there blossoms with so many attractions of nectar, color, and fragrance to entice these little friendly visitors, that, in their flight, carry the pollen dust from flower to flower,

* See note on Lesson 59, in Supplemental Notes.

to help each make seed to sow the earth for

the next year.

In the higher regions of the State

the flowers come later, after the snows have gone, and one who

wishes may

follow the spring from the valleys to the mountains and see, each year, a second blossoming.

The California wild flowers seem to delight in massing themselves in great patches of color, especially in yellows and purples, so that in flower-time the country often looks like a great crazy-quilt.

There is no part of the State where

one may not, in season, "consider the lilies of

the field, how they grow.' The tall and stately yucca-often called Spanish bayonet, on account of its long, sharp leaveswith its branches of pale lily-bells, sometimes two thousand on the towering stem, is best known in Southern California. The early Spanish named this beautiful flower Our Lord's Candlestick.

The noble Washington, or Shasta lily, white and fragrant-flowered, and as tall as a man, is best known in the north.

The Humboldt lily, of a deep orange color shaded to yellow in the center, and marked in browns, grows tall and graceful upon many mountainsides.

The purple cluster lily, with its many flowerets crowded

into one close head, the red and yellow checkered lily, with its nodding little cups, and the kitten ears, growing under the bushes, with nearly closed little swinging bells of white, yellow, and purple, lined inside with soft hair, are all favorites of the children who know them in their wild homes.

But the daintiest of all the California lilies is the Mariposa, sometimes called the butterfly tulip.

"Like a bubble borne in air,

Floats the shy Mariposa's bell,"

sings a poet who loves it.

This flower is found in purplish white, or purplish pink, or pale gold. The base of each of the three petals is marked in soft shaded colorings, or velvety spots, as if little finger tips had touched them before their paints were dry; these spots. and stripes being guides, in these as in all other flowers, to show the insect visitors the way to the flower's nectar stores.

Definitions. Nectar, the sweet liquid produced by flowers and made into honey by bees. Fragrant, sweet smelling. Massing, piling in bunches.

Spell: quilt, pictured, onion, candlestick, checkered, fragrant, purplish, daintiest, yucca, daffodils, Christmas, pollen.

Bring to school lilies of all the kinds you can find. Name two ways in which you can tell a flower of the lily family. Did you ever see a Mariposa lily? Did you ever see a bubble floating in the air? Can you fancy that the two look alike? Name three things that attract bees to the flowers? Of what service are insects to flowers? [See "How Plants Behave," p. 19.- Gray.]

Read the "Procession of the Flowers."-T. W. Higginson. Read, also, selections from "Riverby." -John Burroughs.