subtle delicacy of true
womanhood has not the charm for them now it will have later. Yet it is
part of the priceless dower of motherhood to so share in the daughter's
life through sympathy and understanding that, to "be like mother" will
embody all the aspirations of a girlish heart.

"THE READING CRAZE"

The flame of hero worship is fed from two sources--the life of some one
near to the child and the passionate delight in reading which
characterizes the years from about ten to fifteen and is especially
marked from twelve to fourteen. The choice of books will naturally be
governed by the strongest interests. We are not surprised, therefore,
that every page must teem with life and chronicle some achievement,
preferably in the physical realm, for in the thought of the junior,
"Greater is he that taketh a city than he who ruleth his own spirit."

Toward the latter part of this period the sentimental novel, with all of
its froth and perverted ideals of life, appeals to the girl, and it is
an open question which is more pernicious, "Deadwood Dick and the
Indians" or "Love at Sight."

When it is remembered that during these years the desire for reading is
so great that it will be satisfied, surreptitiously if not openly, that
the heroes and heroines strengthen ideals of their own type in the soul
of the child, that these are the years in which taste is being formed,
not only in reading but in living, nurture again has a great task
outlined. "What is the best way to keep a boy from eating green apples?"
a prominent Sunday School worker often asks in a convention. The answer
never varies: "Give him ripe ones to eat." The child who has plenty of
well-selected, wholesome literature will have no appetite for the
baneful. Biography of the heroic type, exploration, adventure and
charming romances like the "Waverley Novels" will help to lay sane and
pure foundations of character. The missionary boards are now putting out
books as thrilling and stirring in their situations as any yellow-backed
novel. These the children devour and the spiritual heroism makes its
silent appeal along with the physical.

This delight in reading makes comparatively easy the formation of the
habit of daily Bible reading. If the life is more than meat, then the
time taken by the father or mother to select fascinating Bible
biographies and stories, and tactfully to supervise the reading, is at
least as wisely expended as that used in training a grape v