Geography was learned by painting skeleton maps--an exercise much delighted in by small fingers--and by putting together puzzle maps, in which countries in the map of a continent, or counties in the map of a country, were always cut out in their proper shapes.

I liked big empires in those days; there was a solid satisfaction in putting down Russia, and seeing what a large part of the map was filled up thereby.
The only grammar that we ever learned as grammar was the Latin, and that not until composition had made us familiar with the use of the rules therein given.

Auntie had a great horror of children learning by rote things they did not understand, and then fancying they knew them.
"What do you mean by that expression, Annie ?" she would ask me.

After feeble attempts to explain, I would answer: "Indeed, Auntie, I know in my own head, but I can't explain." "Then, indeed, Annie, you do not know in your own head, or you could explain, so that I might know in my own head." And so a healthy habit was fostered of clearness of thought and of expression.

The Latin grammar was used because it was more perfect than the modern grammars, and served as a solid foundation for modern languages.
Miss Marryat took a beautiful place, Fern Hill, near Charmouth, in Dorsetshire, on the borders of Devon, and there she lived for some five years, a centre of beneficence in the district.