use them at their good discretion. Every youth who aspires to manliness ought to get and carry a revolver.

A boy ought to cheat the penurious father who does not give him as much money as he finds necessary, and ought to compel him to pay. A good way to force him to pay liberally, and at the same time to stop criticising his son's habits, is to find out his own vices (he always has some) and then to levy black-mail on him. Every boy, who does not want to be 'green' and 'soft,' ought to 'see the elephant.' All fine manly young fellows are familiar with the actors and singers at variety theaters, and the girl waiters at concert saloons. As to drinking, the bar-room code is taught. The boys stop in at bar-rooms all along the street, swallow drinks standing or leaning with rowdy grace on the bar. They treat and are treated, and consider it insulting to refuse or to be refused. The good fellows meet every one on a footing of equality-above all in a bar-room.

Quiet home life is stupid and unmanly. Boys brought up in it never know the world or life. They have to work hard and to bow down to false doctrines which parsons and teachers in league with parents, have invented against boys. To become a true man, a boy must break with respectability and join the vagabonds and the swell mob. No fine young fellow, who knows life, need mind the law, still less the police. The latter are all stupid louts. If a boy's father is rich and he has money, he can easily find smart lawyers (advertisement gratis) who can get the boy out of prison, and will dine with him at Delmonico's afterward. The sympathies of a manly young fellow are with criminals against the law, and he conceals crime when he can. Whatever good or ill happens to a young man he should always be gay. The only ills in question are physical pain or lack of money. These should be borne with gayety and indifference, but should not alter the philosophy of life.

As to the rod, it is not so easy to generalize. Teachers and parents, in these stories, act faithfully up to Solomon's precept. When a father flogs his son, the true doctrine seems to be that the son should run away and seek a life of adventure. When he does this he has no difficulty in finding friends, or in living by his wits, so that he makes money, and comes back rich and glorious, to find his father in the poor-house,

These periodicals seem to be intended for boys from twelve to sixteen years of age, although they often treat of older persons. Probably many boys outgrow them and come to see the folly and falsehood of them. It is impossible, however, that so much corruption should be afloat and not exert some influence. We say nothing of the great harm which is done to boys of that age, by the nervous excitement of reading harrowing and sensational stories, because the literature before us only participates in that harm with other literature of far higher pretensions. But what we have said suffices to show that these papers poison boys' minds with views of life which are so base and false as to destroy all manliness and all chances of true success. How far they are read by boys of good home influences we are, of course, unable to say. They certainly are within the reach of all. They can be easily obtained, and easily concealed, and it is a question for parents and teachers how far this is done. Persons under those responsibilities ought certainly to know what the character of this literature is."

WHAT SHOULD OUR BOYS READ?

Teachers can largely determine the reading of their scholars' out of school. It is important not only to awaken a love of books, but to guide in their selection and form a taste for profitable reading. Scholars should be encouraged to have some good book always at home, in which they read a little every day. In school they should be invited to tell what they have read. To give an epitome of one's reading is an admirable school exercise. The pupil will peruse a book with ten-fold greater interest, when expecting to epitomize his author before the school. As a drill of memory and in language it iș a most useful exercise, and is one that is sure to interest as well as profit the school. Having experienced these advantages in my own teaching, and witnessed them in many schools, I strongly recommend this practice, already adopted by some, to all the teachers of Connecticut. Instead of giving here a list of books for all the youth of the State, I advise teachers to recommend well known works in adaptation to the age, taste and advancement of individual pupils, usually those which they themselves have read, that they may the better appreciate and criticise the epitomes of the same by the pupils.

An eminent teacher recently asked a class of fifty-seven boys, What is the last book you have read? One answered "I haven't read any lately," another, "I don't remember," "can't tell" said a third. But the great majority were able to give an account of their reading, which was most creditable to their teacher, evincing his wholesome influence over his pupils outside of the school room. Twenty-seven had been reading works of history and biography, including Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, Life of Prescott, Higginson's History of the United States, Irving's Washington, Lives of Cicero, Hannibal, Cæsar, Xerxes, Alexander, Ferdinand and Isabella. Three boys were reading Dickens' History of England and one was enjoying Bancroft's ten volume History of the United

States, another had just read three volumes of Macaulay's Essays. Shakespeare, Bunyan, Bulwer, DeFoe, Jules Verne and Oliver Optic had one reader each. What Career?, Avis, Marble Fawn, History of Propellers, Management of Horses, Seven Oaks, Miss Mühlbach's Empress Josephine, Ways of the World, Half-Hour Natural Science Series, American Explorers, Little Men, Speke's Sources of the Nile, Wide Wide World, Waverly, Fortunes of Nigel and Quentin Durward were also named. I invite our teachers to test their scholars in the same way during the present year, and to send me lists of the books read by their pupils. With the coöperation of teachers and school officers we may learn what the youth of Connecticut are reading. This effort will enlist the attention of parents and secure their aid in the selection of better books and periodicals for their children, and thus check a growing evil and accomplish great good. Teachers should foster a taste for such choice literature, that travels, histories and biographies, books of science, genuine poetry, essays and choice romances shall take the place of the "blood and thunder" stories and other emphatically weekly novelettes of the day.

The industry

Social reading should also be encouraged. in many a sewing circle has been enlivened by well selected reading by one of their number. The same genial influence should often cheer the circle around the family hearth. "Reading circles" ought to be maintained in every town, where selections in prose or poetry, often a play of Shakespeare, the several parts having been previously assigned, and made the subject of careful private study and drill, are rehearsed together. These Reading Clubs, where each thoroughly studies his part or selection till he becomes so possessed of its thought and spirit as to render it in the best style he can command, not only cultivate the art of elocution, but improve the taste and develop a higher appreciation of the best authors. Aside from the educational value of this class of evening schools, their social influence is happy. Divided as the residents of our rural districts too often are, by party or sect, by prejudice or neighborhood difficulties, every influence tending to fraternize the people should be welcomed; every association where they meet on common ground for mutual improvement, and where kindly

feeling and social amenities, are cultivated, should be encouraged.

The teacher cannot awaken love of books unless he himself continues to be a student. Any one who thinks he knows enough to teach even the humblest class, should never profane the school room by his presence. One who has ceased to be a learner cannot be a good teacher. The more one has discovered, the more he wants to know. The truly learned man feels the greatness of his ignorance and the littleness of his knowledge as but a drop out of the boundless ocean of truth. It has been well said, "the greater the circle of our knowledge, the greater the horizon of ignorance that bounds it. The pride of wisdom therefore is the proof of folly." Arrogance and assurance are not the fruits of true learning. Yet from the days of Johnson to Dickens "the school master" has been characterized in our literature as magisterial, opinionated and dogmatical. Associated as teachers are with beginners, or at least inferiors in attainments, seldom called to the grapple of mind with mind as in forensic contests with equals or superiors, there is great danger of imbibing the spirit of conceit and dogmatism, even when only getting deeper in the old ruts. What is dryer than an old, opinionated, self-satisfied, unprogressive school master? He despises "all your new-fangled notions." He glories in the "good old ways." His fluent routine feeds his complacency, though it really enervates his own mind and stupefies his pupils. Whoever either in the college or primary school has ceased to learn, should by all means stop teaching, for children need impulse even more than instruction. Any one who no longer thirsts for higher knowledge, cannot fitly lead even the youngest to its fountain. As a teacher, one must be progressive, or cease to be at all. The mind that stagnates must soon retrograde, and such a teacher would stultify rather than stimulate his class. Happily there are now many teachers worthy of their work, whose ideal is high, and who are enthusiastic in the life-long work of personal culture. The efficient coöperation of such teachers I confidently anticipate in the efforts now making to stimulate a taste for books, and aiding our youth in the selection of the best books. One who early acquires a taste for reading and a love of books, will realize that his education