flowers, some after berries, some after butterflies; some knock the rocks
to pieces, some get up where there is a fine view, some sit down and copy
the stumps, some go into water, some make a fire, some find a camp of
Indians and learn how to make baskets. Then they all come back to the
picnic in good spirits and with good appetites, each eager to tell the
others what he has seen and heard, each having satisfied his own taste and
genius, and each and all having made vastly more out of the day than if
they had all held to the gravel-path and walked in column to the
Burgesses' well and back again.

This, you see, is a long parable for the purpose of making you remember
that there are but few books which it is necessary for every intelligent
boy and girl, man and woman, to have read. Of those few, I had as lief
give the list here.

First is the Bible, of which not only is an intelligent knowledge
necessary for your healthy growth in religious life, but--which is of less
consequence, indeed--it is as necessary for your tolerable understanding
of the literature, or even science, of a world which for eighteen
centuries has been under the steady influence of the Bible. Around the
English version of it, as Mr. Marsh shows so well, the English language
of the last three centuries has revolved, as the earth revolves around the
sun. He means, that although the language of one time differs from that of
another, it is always at about the same distance from the language of King
James's Bible.

[Footnote: Marsh's Lectures on the English Language: very
entertaining books.]

Second, every one ought to be quite well informed as to the history of the