their conversations for his justly celebrated school reader. It is
disagreeable to think of, but it is none the less true, and for one I
think we should face the facts.

I ask the careful student of school literature to compare the following
selection, which I have written myself with great care, and arranged
with special reference to the matter of choice and difficult words, with
the flippant and commonplace terms used in the average school book of
to-day.

One day as George Pillgarlic was going to his tasks, and while passing
through the wood, he spied a tall man approaching in an opposite
direction along the highway.

"Ah!" thought George, in a low, mellow tone of voice, "whom have we
here?"

"Good morning, my fine fellow," exclaimed the stranger, pleasantly. "Do
you reside in this locality?"

"Indeed I do," retorted George, cheerily, doffing his cap. "In yonder
cottage, near the glen, my widowed mother and her thirteen children
dwell with me."

"And is your father dead?" exclaimed the man, with a rising inflection.

"Extremely so," murmured the lad, "and, oh, sir, that is why my poor
mother is a widow."

"And how did your papa die?" asked the man, as he thoughtfully stood on