possibly thirty or forty. The very best books do not die young. The
books written about three hundred years ago that are read to-day--like
Shakespeare's plays--are as a rule the books that deserve to live
forever. And, "Gentle Reader," if you are wise you will see _why_ the
old books are best: they are the wheat, and the winds of time have
blown only the chaff away.

Is it not strange that in the olden times so few poems or books or
stories were written for children? The "Iliad," the stories of King
Arthur, the "Canterbury Tales," and "Gulliver's Travels" and "Robinson
Crusoe," were written for men and women.

But happily this is the children's age, and now nearly half of all the
books written are written for children. You must remember, however,
that all boys and girls are children--in the eyes of the law--till
they are twenty-one years old.

We know a little boy who read last week a very modern story. The book
was bound in red cloth. It had a gilt top and very modern pictures
drawn by a great artist and printed in three or four colors. How
different from the books of one hundred years ago, with their black
covers and queer pictures!

This story read by the little New York boy last week has been read by
many little boys in Iowa, and by many little girls in Georgia. It
tells about an orphan boy who was "bound out" to a farmer who treated
him cruelly. He ran away to the Rocky Mountain region, where he had
many adventures with robbers and Indians and blizzards. He was strong
and heroic; he could shoot straight and ride the swiftest horses, and
nothing ever hurt him very much.