Animal Farm（30）

Muriel，the goat，could read somewhat better than the dogs， and sometimes used to read to the others in the evenings from scraps of newspaper which she found on the rubbish heap.  Benjamin could read as well as any pig，but never exercised his faculty.  So far as he knew，he said，there was nothing worth reading.  Clover learnt the whole alphabet， but could not pull words together. 

Boxer could not get beyond the letter D.  He would trace out A，B，C，D，in the dust with his great hoof，and then would stand staring at the letters with his ears back，sometimes shaking his forelock，trying with all his might to remember what came next and never succeeding.  On several occasions， indeed，he did learn E，F，G，H，but the time he knew them， it was always discovered that he had forgotten A，B，C and D.  Finally he decided to be content with the first four letters，and used to write them out once or twice everyday to refresh his memory.

Mollie refused to learn any but the six letters which she spelt her own name.  She would form these very neatly out of pieces of twig，and would then decorate them with a flower or two and walk round them admiring them.

None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter A.  It was also found that the stupider animals， such as the sheeps， hens， and ducks， were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart.