From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
There are no lessons in school this week. We just talk. Today we talked about England. England is famous for all its dead Kings and Queens and for all its dead writers. Miss Cashen asked us if anyone knew the name of England’s greatest writer. I said Beatrix Potter. Miss Cashen said no, although Beatrix Potters’ stories would make children happy for ever and ever. And then she went to the blackboard and wrote the name of England’s greatest writer in great big letters and she made us copy it into our notebooks. The name of England’s greatest writer is WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. She said that we are too young now but when we are older we must read every single word that he wrote. And we all promised that we would. Then she told us about England’s most famous Queen, Queen Elizabeth. She was just as smart as a man. She picked out all kinds of bright people to help her rule all over England and they always knew when to make a war and when not to. In those days Spain was a terrible nuisance on the sea. Her sailors were always sailing around stealing other people’s islands and other things. Her very favorite sailor was Sir Walter Raleigh, and he explored for her and went to America and discovered tobacco and potatoes. All of England’s famous people are buried in a big church in London that’s called Westminster Abbey. The very rich ones have statues of themselves right over their graves, and there are still others under the floor, but their names are on top of the places so you can always know who you are walking on. Queen Victoria was also a very smart Queen. She did many smart things besides pour tea into her saucer. She built the Suez Canal. Tomorrow we are going to talk about Ireland and Scotland. They sit right up on top of England.