One day Channing took up a theme and
held it up and called out, X. X. came to the chair by the
Professor's side, and the Professor read, in his shrill voice:
"'The sable sons of Afric's burning coast.' You mean negroes,
I suppose." He admitted that he did. The Professor took
his pen and drew a line over the sentence he had read and
substituted the word "negroes" above the line, much to X.'s
mortification.
I was guilty of one practical joke of which I have repented
all my days, but for which the poetical justice of Providence
administered to me, many years afterward, a punishment in
kind. There was a classmate who sat next to me in the recitation
in the sophomore year, whom everybody knew and liked, but
who was not very much interested in study. He got along as
he best could by his native wits and such little application
as he found absolutely necessary. One day we were reciting
in Lowth's Grammar. The Bishop says that in English the substantive
singular is made plural for the most part by adding s. Professor
Channing called up this classmate of mine, who stated this
as follows: "The author says that the distinction between
nouns in the singular and plural is that the latter end in
s.
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