For one thing Mr.Simon always, in anything done, took note first of the things that pleased him, and only after that proceeded to remark on the faults--most of which he treated as imperfections, letting Cosmo see plainly that he understood how he had come to go wrong.
Such an education as Mr.Simon was thus attempting with Cosmo, is hardly to be given to more than one at a time; and indeed there are not a great many boys on whom it would be much better than lost labour.

Cosmo, however, was now almost as eager to go to his lessons, as before to spend a holiday.

Mr.Simon never gave him anything to do at home, heartily believing it the imperative duty of a teacher to leave room for the scholar to grow after the fashion in which he is made, and that what a boy does by himself is of greater import than what he does with any master.

Such leisure may indeed be of comparatively small consequence with regard to the multitude of boys, but it is absolutely necessary wherever one is born with his individuality so far determined, as to be on the point of beginning to develop itself.

When Cosmo therefore went home, he read or wrote what he pleased, wandered about at his will, and dreamed to his heart's content.