A few weeks passed by. Then, one morning, Alfred went into his mother's
room with a smiling, joyous face.
"Mother," he said, "will you let me see that beautiful book again?"
His mother unlocked her cabinet and took the precious volume from its
place of safe keeping.
Alfred opened it with careful fingers. Then he began with the first
word on the first page and read the first story aloud without making
one mistake.
"O my child, how did you learn to do that?" cried his mother.
"I asked the monk, Brother Felix, to teach me," said Alfred. "And every
day since you showed me the book, he has given me a lesson. It was no
easy thing to learn these letters and how they are put together to
make words. Now, Brother Felix says I can read almost as well as
he."
"How wonderful!" said his mother.
"How foolish!" said Ethelbald.
[Illustration]
"You will be a good monk when you grow up," said Ethelred, with a
sneer.
But his mother kissed him and gave him the beautiful book. "The prize
is yours, Alfred," she said. "I am sure that whether you grow up to
be a monk or a king, you will be a wise and noble man."
And Alfred did grow up to become the wisest and noblest king that
England ever had. In history he is called Alfred the Great.
"READ, AND YOU WILL KNOW"
"Mother, what are the clouds made of? Why does the rain fall? Where
does all the rain water go? What good does it do?"
Little William Jones was always asking questions.
"I want to know," he said; "I want to know everything."
At first his mother tried to answer all his questions. But after he
had learned to read, she taught him to look in books for that which
he wished to know.
"Mother, what makes the wind blow?"
"Read, and you will know, my child."
"Who lives on the other side of the world?"
"Read, and you will know."
"Why is the sky so blue?"
"Read, and you will know."
"Oh, mother, I would like to know everything."
"You can never know everything, my child. But you can learn many things
from books."
"Yes, mother, I will read and then I will know."
He was a very little boy, but before he was three years old he could
read quite well. When eight years of age he was the best scholar at
the famous school at Harrow. He was always reading, learning,
inquiring.
"I want to know; I want to know," he kept saying.
"Read, and you will know," said his mother. "Read books that are true.
Read about things that are beautiful and good. Read in order to become
wise.
"Do not waste your time in reading foolish books. Do not read bad
books, they will make you bad. No book is worth reading that does not
make you better or wiser."
And so William Jones went on reading and learning. He became one of
the most famous scholars in the world. The king of England made him
a knight and called him Sir William Jones. Sir William Jones lived
nearly two hundred years ago. He was noted for his great knowledge,
the most of which he had obtained from books. It is said that he could
speak and write forty languages.