If, said the magpie, we could only manage to put a stop to the cursed parading of his tail, there would soon be an end of his beauty; for what is not seen is as good as what does not exist.

But where, as in this your happy land, national history is the elementary basis of educationwhere the very schoolboy is better acquainted with the history of his country than in monarchies almost the professors arein such a country it would be indeed but a ridiculous parading of vanity for a stranger to dwell upon facts which every child is better acquainted with than he can be.