The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-09-03
DEFINITIONS BY CHILDREN.
The Mental Processes BY Which
They Evolve Them Passeth All
Understandings


Ambrose Bierce in the San Francisco
Examiner
The mental processes of. school children
are past finding out; their erroneous
views of life and language a theme worn
bright by handling and made fresh by
exposure to the light of attention. Here
in below are examples kindly supplied by
teachers in our public schools who. gift
ed with a sense of humor, are not only
s sS5noseriy tolerant OF their pupils funny
prioe IN them-as who would not? 1t
would be easy to compile enough more of
the set to make the Examiner a comic
paper, despite the pathos of Mr.. w Nye
Immediately following are two compost
tions:"
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.
Columbus first discovered America. and
the way he found it was, he got three
shlps from queen who had an awfully
stingy husband for a king. The boat
columbus was in was named the May
flower, and it landed on an island The
people on this island were natives, so
columbus called it America. When he
WAS there the natives would not give
MIN enough to eat, so he told them there
was going to be a eclipse, and that it
was going to take the light away from
them because they would not give him
they ran around and got all kinds of nice
things as fast as they could.
THE EX-PRESIDENTS VISIT TO X.
Harrison is a nice man, and he came to
" one evening, when all the school
children were to meet him. He went to
the springs and had a nice time. One
day he was hunting, and they say he
killed lots but l hope they treated him
good and gave him all the water he
could drink.
Following is a bright pupils demon
stration of the spher1city of the earth
which ought to convince even the Rev.
John Jasper and remove the last vestige
of doubt from the mind of Professor Hol-
den:
At first people thought the earth was
square, but Columbus tramped around it
till he knew it was round.
Here are some definitions, with Gin
some instances) examples of the correct
use of the defined words:
|. The snow line is a line built to keep
snow from falling on top of the railroad
cars and crushing people beneath.
A matron is a woman who buys vege-
tables for a boarding house.
Panic means to mourn with pain.
Suffocate means to feel unhappy.
Cringes means tangle up your feet.
]. Adams, Esq, means he is an Es-
quimau.
Legatee is one to whom legs are given.
Stimulated means moved. He stimulat-
ed the chair.
Decrepit means broken. The bread was
decrepit.
Inviolate means uninjured. He was in
Corps means a body of men, and core
the inside of the body of a man.
A husbandman is a man that's got
Vicissitudes means changes. She vicis-
STUDIES her seat every week.
Carnage means slaughter. He will car
mage the OK.
In each OF the following instances the
pupil was requested simply to write SEN
tence containing given word; The word
of Va
sentences, obvious TO the reader:
The panic was juicy. We sat beneath
the lugubrious trees. The soldiers loaded
their species. The girl was detached and
taken home Do not come near-he is
filed with craving! She had a compli-
ance. The rattlesnake is a poisoning ami
NAL. He looked sick in the romance n1,;
with agility. He WAS full Of disconsolate.
He had panes in his legs. He covered the
boy with allegory. A terrible frenzy pas
He did not have an existence. The ami
mails of Africa live in the tops of large
trees. The girl pranced and launched for
My notes were trifie wild at this point;
it is possible that the word italicised in
that sentence should be ''lunched." Let
Us proceed:
cite was the first man to decide to build
the Bunker Hill monument. and he car
ried it all the way from France. Smyrna
IS seaport, anu Is DullI OF OI1eu HSS
The Hottentots are Gases Of Asia The
dog amt got no virtue He broke his nos
trils. That is a breeze of great sobriety.
Savages are wild people that run with an
imals and don't know nothing. He sat
in the swarthy twilight. She gave him a
fog. The Indian bowls dismally. She
thrilled song. The err1ine was full of
queens. The millet sailed proudly away.
The dog had tranquil teeth.
Yes, dear, after the dog had -iled them
in the mans leg and forgotte: combi-
nation.
Soldiers often have rosin for food. The
girls cold curdled. Bittern is good feed
for horses. Polyp is a nick name given to
the people who live in Polynesia. The ar
my fiicl1ered when they heard the guns.
He was pyramidal shaped. The north
winds blew all the time in California, and
they come from japan. He was the NOR
rant with people. That is his paternal
mother. He fell asunder. The man died
rigidly. Her tears we're inanimate. That
old man is a swain. There is a violent
smell in the room. Twas unanimously
true. Two important exports of California
are telephones. His shoes fweaked on
the floor. He miraculously ran away.
The man acommuned the morning arr
The exports of China ere Chinese. The
COW is a native vegetable of North AM
erica.
Now if we have among us an adult
humorist who by taking thought can
equal the easy and eXtemporaneous per-
formances of these wee folk of the pub
lie schools let him bind about his brow
with a wet towel put his legs into sub
tabular confusion, evict his tongue and
in the sweat of his face earn bread.