She only believed what the Whitby folk, I understand, have some of them believed for many hundred years.

And no one can be blamed for thinking as his forefathers did, unless he has cause to know better.
Surely she might have known better?
How?
What reason could she have to believe the Ammonite was a shell?
It is not the least like cockles, or whelks, or any shell she ever saw.
What reason either could she have to guess that Whitby cliff had once been coral-mud, at the bottom of the sea?
No more reason, my dear child, than you would have to guess that this stone had been coral-mud likewise, if I did not teach you so,--or rather, try to make you teach yourself so.
No.

I say it again.

If you wish to learn, I will only teach you on condition that you do not laugh at, or despise, those good and honest and able people who do not know or care about these things, because they have other things to think of: like old John out there ploughing.

He would not believe you--he would hardly believe me--if we told him that this stone had been once a swarm of living things, of exquisite shapes and glorious colours.