ems to me, is so transparent, so easy to understand that I am not
surprised to learn that the rising generation shows signs of
lawlessness.

Boys to-day do not use the respectful language and large, luxuriant
words that they did when Mr. McGuffey used to stand around and report
their conversations for his justly celebrated school reader. It is
disagreeable to think of, but it is none the less true, and for one I
think we should face the facts.

I ask the careful student of school literature to compare the following
selection, which I have written myself with great care, and arranged
with special reference to the matter of choice and difficult words, with
the flippant and commonplace terms used in the average school book of
to-day.

One day as George Pillgarlic was going to his tasks, and while passing
through the wood, he spied a tall man approaching in an opposite
direction along the highway.

"Ah!" thought George, in a low, mellow tone of voice, "whom have we
here?"

"Good morning, my fine fellow," exclaimed the stranger, pleasantly. "Do
you reside in this locality?"

"Indeed I do," retorted George, cheerily, doffing his cap. "In yonder
cottage, near the glen, my widowed mother and her thirteen children
dwell with me."

"And is your father dead?" exclaimed the man, with a rising inflection.

"Extremely so," murmured the lad, "and, oh, sir, that is why my poor
mother is a widow."

"And how did your papa die?" asked the man, as he thoughtfully stood on
the other foot awhile.

"Alas! sir," said George, as a large hot tear stole down his pale cheek,
and fell with a loud report on the warty surface of his bare foot, "he
was lost at sea in a bitter gale. The good ship foundered two years ago
last Christmastide, and father was foundered at the same time. No one
knew of the loss of the ship and that the crew was drowned until the
next spring, and it was then too late."

"And what is your age, my fine fellow?" quoth the stranger.

"If I live till next October," said the boy, in a declamatory tone of
voice suitable for a Second Reader. "I will be seven years of age."

"And who provides for your mother and her large family of children?"
queried the man.

"Indeed, I do, sir," replied George, in a shrill tone. "I toil, oh, so
hard, sir, for we are very, very poor, and since my elder sister, Ann,
was married and brought her husband home to live with us, I have to toil
more assiduously than heretofore."

"And by