in which the daily papers do not contain allusions to some simple little lines dear to our childhood. They are not to be sneered at: they are to be loved in babyhood and childhood, understood in youth, and treasured in middle life and old age. 5. Discussion of Each Volume

UR Journeys Through Bookland contains a wealth of material and a host of studies and helps. It is not an easy matter to get even the plan of it into one's mind in a few minutes. The object of this volume is to guide the parent, teacher or student in a skilful way and to show as many of the important phases of Journeys as is possible. In other chapters we take up different methods of reading or show ways in which the books can be used to accomplish certain definite purposes, and how to select the material needed for any occasion. By means of cross references to the other books this volume serves as a key to them all.

Volume One. The first fifty-six pages of this volume are given over to the best known of the old nursery rhymes. That they are old is one of their great merits. That all cultured people know them is proof of their value and interest. The words are old words but the pictures are new. Every one was drawn expressly for Journeys and all show the conception of artists who have not lost the appreciation of childhood. Little children love the rhymes and will learn them and

repeat them at sight of the pictures long before they can read. Elsewhere in this volume are suggestions which show how the rhymes may be used profitably.

Journeys does not pretend to teach reading in the sense in which it is understood in the kindergarten and the early primary grades. Rather it begins to be of service as a reader only after the child has been taught how to read for himself. Children in the third grade will read many stories for themselves; from the fourth grade on they are nearly all independent readers. Every teacher knows, however, that children like to listen to stories which it would be utterly impossible for them to read, and that later they best love to read the things which they have heard from the lips of parent or teacher. Therefore, the literature of the first volume forms a treasure house from which the parent may draw many a good story to tell, and where he may find more that will be excellent for him to read aloud. The taste for the best literature is often formed in early childhood. So no child is too young for Journeys and no child is too old. The real things we read over and over with increasing interest as the years go on. Elsewhere in this

volume are directions for story-telling, and many especially good selections are named. What the parent shall read is best left to him to determine; at first he will do well not to read aloud any of the comments with which the books are fitted. If he finds that the interest warrants it he can use the comments for himself and ask questions that will

lead to thoughtful consideration of what is being read, even by very young children. The only thing necessary is that the reading should be taken seriously and that the parent should be as much interested as the youthful listener.

There are stories and poems, fairy tales and folk lore, biography in simple anecdotes of the great favorites of children and toward the end of the volume a few rather difficult selections for older children. In this volume as in all of them it is hoped that parents will look over the table of contents again and again, select the things that seem best and suit them to the occasion. How beautiful the lullabies are for the babies, and how much the older boys and girls will enjoy them when read at baby's side! When the children are interested in the whimsical rhymes of Stevenson, his biography should be read; and Eugene Field's life is interesting when his sweet poems are lending their charm to the evening by the fireside. Some of the fables contain deep lessons that may be absorbed by the older children while the younger ones are interested in their story only.

Volume Two. The selections in the first part of the second volume are intentionally simpler than the last ones in the first volume. It is a good thing for a child to handle books, to learn to find what he wants in a book the greater part of which is too difficult for him. Oliver Wendell Holmes thought it was an excellent thing for himself that he had had the opportunity to "tumble around in a library" when he was a

youngster. Every student who has had the opportunity so to indulge himself has felt the same thing. There are so many books published every month and so much reading to be done that a discriminating sense must be cultivated. No one can read it all or even a small part of it. Older people will discriminate by reading what they like. Children must learn to handle books and to find out what they are able to read. To put into their hands all they can read of the simple things they like is not wise. Most children read too much. Fairy stories are all right in their way, but to give a child all the fairy tales he can read is a serious mistake. Hundreds of pretty, inane, senseless stories in attractive bindings with pretty, characterless illustrations tempt the children to vitiate their taste in reading, long before they are able by themselves to read the best literature.

Because they are valuable, there are fairy stories in Journeys; because their use may be abused, there are few of them; because something else should be read with them, they are not all in one volume nor in one place in a volume. The same rule of classification applies to other selections than fairy tales.

This is the volume in which the myths appear in the form of simple tales: three from the northland, four from Greece. Each story is attractive in itself, has some of the interest that surrounds a fairy tale and serves as the foreshadowing of history. That they are something more than fairy tales is shown in the comments

and elementary explanations that accompany

them.

Little poems, lullabies, pretty things that children love are dropped into the pages here and there. Children seem to fear poetry after they have been in school a little while, largely because they have so much trouble in reading it aloud under the criticisms of the teacher and because the form has made the meaning a little difficult. It is, however, a great misfortune if a person grows up without an appreciation of poetry when it is so simple a matter to give the young an abiding love for it. A little help now and then, a word of appreciation, a manifestation of pleasure when reading it and almost without effort the child begins to read and love poetry as he does good prose.

The beginnings of nature study appear in the second volume in the form of beautiful selections that encourage a love for birds and other animals, and Tom, The Water Baby, is a delightful story, half fairy tale, half natural history romance.

Volume Three. A glance at the table of contents in the third volume shows the general nature of the selections. Fairy stories or tales with a highly imaginative basis predominate. There are some that are humorous, as for instance the selections from the writings of Lewis Carroll, and one or two of the poems. The finest story in the book is The King of the Golden River, perhaps the best fairy story ever written. The best story of a little child and one that may be read or told to the little folks is Wee Willie