great many who believe that children should read nothing but facts, who frown upon the Santa Claus myth, and who would banish fairy tales from existence, forgetful that truth has her dwelling as surely in these as in the baldest scientific statements. There must be serious objections to any system of reading that draws hard and fast lines. Your true book-lover cannot read by rule; for books, like pictures or people, repel or attract us very much as our mood determines, and, according to this, largely help or hinder us.

We have had an era, happily passing, of decrying imagination as a weed to be carefully uprooted from the child-garden, lest it lead the young human being astray. There is no virtue known to humanity that, carried too far, may not become a vice; but speaking broadly, it is the unimaginative child who gets into mischief; the child whose undeveloped imagination cannot project itself into the consequences of an act. Equally it is the unimaginative mind that finds its stimulus in the exciting inventions, usually wholly lacking in the imaginative touch that gives the stamp of literature, of the weak novel. Imagination is the chief source of human activity, the very mainspring of human progress. If man's imagination did not. picture to him better moral and political condition, than he enjoys, we should have no effort toward reform.

It is very desirable, therefore, that the earliest literature brought to the child's mind should be of a sort to stimulate the imagination and to call out the judgment. Nothing is better adapted to do this than the fairy tale, with its poetic narrations and fancies, and its direct appeal to the young judgment as to the right or the wrong, the wisdom or the folly, of the acts recounted. Every time a child in his reading forms an independent opinion as to these; he adds something to his own power of discrimina

tion. The great world-epics and old ballads are an important part of childhood's rich literary heritage, and that child is sorely defrauded who is not early made acquainted with them. There is something in their simple directness and out-of-door freshness to which the child nature responds, and they are in line with the way the child looks at life.

The poetry that children love should teach us something about the young natures and their literary needs. Most of the verse written for them is very little to their liking, but we may early begin reading classic poetry to them. We do not find them caring particularly for those poems about childhood that are so popular to-day and popular to-day and so delightful to grown people; that which is boundless, mysterious, cosmic, pleases them more. They love stately, sonorous measures, and the swift, mighty action of heroic verse. Every child to whom they come before his taste is spoiled rejoices in the "Iliad," the "Odyssey," the "Nibelungenlied," and I have known a number of children for whom the "Inferno" had a great fascination.

The child whose taste receives an early bent toward the true in literary art will not be likely to care very much for the waste of printed commonplace that we call juvenile literature. The trouble is that to start the little one right takes more time and thought than most of us consider it necessary to give. Those of us who have the care of children, and who think we have their interests at heart, are largely to blame for the quality of the great mass of reading matter provided for them. Children should be read to, at the start, and most of us do not take the trouble to do this. Mothers spend hours in contriving personal adornment for their children, but have no time to read with them. Crowding temporal needs, self-multiplied, make us blind and deaf to the higher needs. The foundation for good taste is in every

"I am sometimes asked by young people to recommend a course of reading. My advice would be that they should confine themselves to the supreme books in whatever literature, or better still, to choose some one great author, and make themselves thoroughly familiar with him. For, as all roads lead to Rome, so do they likewise lead away from it, and you will find that, in order to understand perfectly and weigh exactly any vital piece of literature, you will be gradually and pleasantly persuaded to excursions of which you little dreamed when you began, and will find yourselves scholars before you are For remember that there is nothing less profitable than scholarship for the mere sake of scholarship, nor

aware.

anything more wearisome in the attainment. But the moment you have a definite aim attention is quickened, the mother of memory, and all that you acquire groups and arranges itself in an order that is lucid, because everywhere and always it is in intelligent relation. to a central object of constant and growing interest. This method also forces upon us the necessity of thinking, which is, after all, the highest result of all education. For what we want is not learning, but knowledge; that is, the power to make learning answer its true end as a quickener of intelligence and at widener of the intellectual sympathies." -JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: Opening the Free Public Library, Chelsea, Mass.

“ But,” objected the Queen, " where can we obtain two diamonds so large? really immense for diamonds. Would not smaller ones do? The Princess' eyes are not the size of goose eggs."

"No, quite true," admitted the Optician, "but allow me to explain. Spectacle lenses are prepared by grinding them in a peculiar manner, and there is much waste in fitting them up; there are also apt to be flaws in the diamonds which must be removed, so they should be that large to begin with."

The Queen took her crown from her head and setting it in her lap began to look it over carefully. There were quite a number of fine diamonds in it, as well as other beautiful gems, but not one as large as the Optician required. "There is nothing here that will do," she sighed, but as she replaced the crown wrong side before on her head, a plan suddenly occurred to her; she addressed the Optician.

"As nothing is impossible to a Queen I can of course, by an exercise of authority, overcome the difficulty; you may retire until I procure the diamonds for you," and she waved her hand to him as a sign of dismissal.

The next day she issued a proclamation to the effect that every able-bodied man in the court household must set out immediately in search of two diamonds. as large as goose eggs.

A Page named Caramel, who served in a baronial castle near by, where he led a rather unhappy life in attendance. on the baron's wife's mother, also started in search of the jewels.

Instead of digging in the Queen's lawn directly in front of the palace as the court jester had done, or hunting up some charming spot in the woods in which to picnic, as many of the vassals did, he said to himself, "I will follow the telegraph wires, they lead to the factory of the Inventor and the Electrician; they deal in wonders and make

,,

all the magic that is used now-a-days. ''

He made his preparations and the next morning arose early, dressed himself in his red velvet suit, put on his hat with the longest feather and started on his journey.

As he was walking along under the palace walls, keeping in line with the telegraph wires, a rose fell at his feet as if it had dropped from the skies. The Princess was leaning from a window away up in the tower and smiled and waved good-bye to him. He stopped, picked up the rose and went on his way with a light heart.

He walked all day, resting occasionally under a tree by the side of the road, and late in the afternoon came to a great manufactory where the wires ended. On the wall of the building was painted in large letters "Inventing and Electrifying done promptly and in the best manner,' and he knew that this must be the place he was looking for. It was nearly the hour for closing the establishment, and the workmen were putting away their tools; but he entered the private office and approached a desk which had a sign "Inventions" on it. The Inventor, who was seated there working on a model of a bicycle, looked up enquiringly at the Page; he was apparently a very pleasant gentleman.

The youth, seeing how busy he was, explained in as few words as possible the circumstances of the Queen's proclamation and that he was looking for two diamonds as large as goose eggs, from which to make the Princess a pair of spectacles.

The Inventor listened attentively, softly tapping his desk with the calipers he had been using; and when the Page had finished he said: "It does you great credit, my dear sir, so willingly to undertake your Queen's errands; but I cannot understand why you should come here; this is not a diamond mine."

"No," said the Page hesitatingly,

"but this is a great factory, you employ a large number of workmen and have all the improved machinery; diamonds, you know, are made of charcoal, and I thought you wouldn't mind making me a couple of extra sized ones; I will furnish the charcoal." And he took from a paper bag which he had carried two large pieces of charcoal and laid them on the desk.

The Inventor looked sharply and doubtfully at the youth for a moment, made sure he was entirely sincere and then answered gravely:. "Well of course we could take in jobs of this kind, but we do not, as it is a tedious process and our time is too valuable to spend in that way." But noticing the Page's disappointed look he hastened to add, "Sit down; it is a long time since I saw a boy like you; perhaps I can fit you out after all.

How would a pair of diamond spectacles ready-made do?" "Just the thing!" said Caramel, eagerly.

"Well, we have a pair here, that is, the Electrician, my partner, has. He does not wear them any more really, if I recollect aright, he never wore them much-he would no doubt let you have them."

"They are not for me, but for the Princess," the youth gently reminded him.

"Hum, yes, of course; but it amounts to about the same thing: it would be a great honor to us to have her accept them, but that is all."

"May I see them?" asked the boy. "I cannot start home until to-morrow, but I would like to look at them."

But the Inventor shook his head. "I cannot get them at present; they are locked up in the Electrician's safe, and he went away yesterday for his summer vacation with the key in his pocket." The Page looked so downcast at this that the Inventor felt sorry for him.

"I might," he suggested, "shorten

the time somewhat; this is the Government Time Service station; we furnish the exact time which all the country goes by; I might condense it some to accommodate you."

"Shorten it as much as you can, please; the Princess is anxious to go on with her studies."

The Inventor took a letter from his pocket and figured for a moment on the back of the envelope. "I can reduce it to five days," he said; "that is positively the best I can do for you."

"Begin at once, please," said the Page; and the Inventor, taking a stepladder from the corner, went to a large clock which hung over the door. Mounting the ladder he opened the dial and began to turn the hands. Around and around went the hands of the clock, and being connected by electricity, there went with them the hands of all the other clocks in the kingdom, until all but five days of the Electrician's vacation had passed.

Caramel spent the five days of waiting as best he could. The Inventor was very kind, inviting him to stay at his house during the time, and even proposed to teach him the trade; but he thought there would be scarcely time to learn, and thanked him politely.

The first day he amused himself looking over the factory and examining all the curious machines the Inventor was experimenting on. The one that pleased him most was a perpetual motion engine; it was nearly finished: all that was needed to complete it was one wheel, a wheel that would move itself. The Inventor was still studying on this wheel, but he had the place all fixed where it was to go.

The second day he went fishing, but without much success.

The third he thought he would read some, and his friend took down from a shelf a stack of scientific magazines, but he did not find them very interesting.