uine are they, that the child enjoys them thoroughly,
while the most mature find them a profitable study. This peculiarity of
adaptation to all ages belongs to all the genuine myths of any nation,
its best modern master being Hans Christian Andersen. It is the royal
sign and seal of authority in stories. Ballad poetry belongs too to the
beginning of this stage. Scott comes in later, but Tennyson does not
belong in it at all. These examples will be sufficient to express my
meaning.

It would be a very valuable aid in the education of our girls at this
time, if some one who is capable would, out of her riches of wide
reading, give us a list, with publishers' names, of these books of all
time which ought to be read by every child; a list to which any mother,
anxious for the right guidance of her little girl's taste, and yet
ignorant of the best means, might refer with perfect confidence.

We must not, as has been well said, deprive books for children of the
"shadow-side" of life, because in that case they become artificial and
untrue, and the child rejects them. "For the very reason that in the
stories of the Old Testament we find envy, vanity, evil desire,
ingratitude, craftiness and deceit among the fathers of the Jewish race,
and the leaders of God's chosen people, have they so great an
educational value," and when we have purged the narrations of all these
characteristics, and present to the child an expurgated edition, we find
that they no longer charm her. Nothing disgusts a child sooner than
_childishness_ in stories written for her, and it is because very few
people can rightly draw the line between what is childish and what is
child-like, that we find so few who are able to write stories which are
really adapted to children, and that so many who address Sunday-schools
fail to interest. Every woman who has proved her power in this direction
may be said, in the dearth of valuable books for children, to owe a duty
to her country by giving them more. As the child grows towards
womanhood, tragedy will take the place of the epic poem and ballad, and
will lead, it may be unconsciously, to a deepening of the sense of
responsibility.

The question what the girl shall read belongs not at all to herself, but
to those who know the world better than she, and who, through the fact
that they are educated while she is not, know what and when to select.
Hence the immense importance, not only to the girl herself, but to the
whol