"Here," he announced,
"is the first volume of a treatise on education."
"Plague take your books! You're as bad as Jemmy, yonder. I tell you
I'll not addle the boy's head with books."
"But this treatise has the advantage to be unwritten."
Dr. Beckerleg untied the ribbon, and holding out the book, turned
over a score of pages. They were all blank.
"Undoubtedly that is an advantage. But then, it hardly seems to me
to be a treatise."
"No: but it will be when you have written it."
"I?"
"Certainly, you intend to train Tristram in accordance with nature.
On what do we base our knowledge of nature? On experiment and
observation. For many reasons your experiments with the child must
be limited; but you can observe him daily--hourly, if you like.
In this volume you shall record your observations from day to day,
_nulla dies sine linea_. It is the first present I make to him, as
his godfather: and in doing so I set you down to write the most
valuable book in the world, a complete History of a Human Creature."
Captain Barker took the volume.
"But I shall never live to finish it."
"We hope not. The beauty, however, of this history will be that at
any point in its progress we may consult it for Tristram's good, and
learn all that, up to that point, God has given us eyes to see.
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