minds are now being turned to the work of providing them. Within
a few months such honored names in the world of letters as those
of Hamerton and Higginson have been added to the list which
contains those of "Peter Parley," Jacob Abbott, "Walter Aimwell,"
Elijah Kellogg, Thomas Hughes, and others who have devoted their
talents, not to the amusement, but to the instruction and culture
of youth. The names of some of the most popular writers for young
people in our day are not ranked with those mentioned above, not
because their productions are positively injurious, but because
they lack the positively good qualities demanded by our
definition.

There is a danger to youth in reading some books which are not
open to the charge of directly injurious tendencies. Many of the
most popular juveniles, while running over with excellent
"morals," are unwholesome mental food for the young, for the
reason that they are essentially untrue. That is, they give false
views of life, making it consist, if it be worth living, of a
series of adventures, hair-breadth escapes; encounters with
tyrannical schoolmasters and unnatural parents; sea voyages in
which the green hand commands a ship and defeats a mutiny out of
sheer smartness; rides on runaway locomotives, strokes of good
luck, and a persistent turning up of things just when they are
wanted --all of which is calculated in the long run to lead away
the young imagination and impart discontent with the common lot
of an uneventful life.

Books of adventure seem to meet a real want in the minds of the
young, and should not be entirely ruled out; but they cannot be
included among the books the reading of which should be