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Alice Morse Earle, such as her “Home Life in Colonial Days.” In telling stories it is not possible to bring clearly before the reader all the little matters that made old times different from our own days, and yet we should have an idea of the old homes and their furnishings, of costume and of customs, so that we may see old scenes and incidents as they really were. Histories touch briefly on such matters, but these other books give us all the little details of daily life. Besides, they are charming and absorbing in themselves, as you will find.

The Lives of
Great Men

Perhaps the best way of reading history is to learn the lives of the persons most famous in each period. Scudder’s “Life of Washington,” once published as a serial in St. Nicholas, will give you more knowledge of the Revolutionary days in America than can be found in any of the smaller histories, and it is also the best sort of romance. What “boys’ book” has a more thrilling story to tell than that of this young Virginian, who became a surveyor, a scout, a soldier, general-in-chief, and President? Franklin’s career is a better romance than is made up by any of the popular writers for young people, and the adventures of John Paul Jones are more thrilling and more exciting than those of any of the heroes told about in so-called “stories of adventure.”

It is an old saying that truth is stranger than fiction—so old that we forget its wisdom; but compare the rise of the young Corsican lieutenant, Napoleon Buonaparte, from obscurity to an imperial throne with the most improbable story for young folks, and the truth seems more improbable than fiction. The life of Mahomet by Irving is as strange; and these are only the best known.

There is no need to go outside of history for thrilling stories. Did you ever read of Captain Tyson's drift on the ice-floe, or of the beginning of the Russian dynasty of the Romanoffs? You may choose your own sort of adventure, and history will supply you with the most wonderful examples of it.

Mutual
Mentors

How would it do for two young readers to make an agreement that each should send to the other, at the end of each month, an account of any important book read, with a brief opinion of it? This would be helpful to both, and might be a pleasant means of keeping up an interesting correspondence.

Letters used to carry news, but the news now is old before a letter can arrive, Besides, if you care about each other’s opinion, each can be a check upon her friend to prevent the reading of too many frivolous books or to encourage the reading of those worth while; and it also helps to a knowledge of good books.

The Fencer
John Milton

Some of our boy-readers may be interested in knowing that our great Puritan poet was very fond of athletics, always exercising every day, and taking care to keep himself strong and well and in good condition.

While at Cambridge he made himself an accomplished swordsman, and declared with the modesty that is characteristic of great men that he was quite able to protect himself from harm when he had sword in hand. It is pleasant to picture him engaged in a fencing bout, and to read of his confidence in his sword: “Armed with it, as he generally was, he was in the habit of thinking himself quite a match for any one, even were he much the more robust, and of being perfectly at his ease as to the danger of any injury that any one could offer him, man ta man,”

Reading about
English History.

Something was said in this department, not long ago, advising young students to read good fiction relating to whatever period of history they happened to be studying. A friend who read what we had said and who thought well of the suggestion writes to say that in Larned’s “History of England” there is, at pages 644~649, a well-selected list of books covering English history in thirty-seven epochs, there being as many as ten works named under some of these divisions.

The same friend also wishes us to recommend highly Kenneth Grahame's books to our young readers, but for books so well known as these we hardly think that this is necessary. Neither do we advise the reading of them at too early an age, since, while they are about children, by their method of treatment they are aimed mainly at older readers.