a young
girl;" and, as seen to her, the proceedings of the school are sketched.
Most of the persons and places have fictitious names; Mr. Alcott is
called "Venerablis;" Concord, "Harmony;" the school, "the Acadame." Mr.
Emerson retains his real name; the girl, who observes and writes, is
"Eudoxia."

One who opens the book will be apt to read it through, not as much for
its real value as for its quaint style and sometimes beautiful
expressions.

* * * * *

EDITOR'S TABLE.

Of all the nearly two-score states together forming the American Union,
no one surpasses the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the extent and
variety of her historical resources. Two hundred and sixty-five years
ago the Mayflower and her companion craft sighted the rock-bound coast
of New England as they sailed into Massachusetts Bay. That event marks
the beginning of a history which, to us of the present generation,
stands unequalled in the richness of its coloring. While the history of
the Colonial period is cold and unpoetic in many of its aspects, it also
contains an element of romance not to be overlooked. Truly, it is not
the romance of ancient Rome, nor of the castle-bordered Rhine, nor of
Merrie Old England; it is a romance growing out of a life in a new
world; a life attended--almost made up, even, of conflicts with a
strange race of savage people, and conflicts with hunger, cold, and
sometimes famine. The events of this early Colonial life, tragic as they
often are, carry with them an interest which is almost enchanting.

When, as children, we read those tales from the old school reading book,
or heard them recited as we sat at grandfather's knee, what pictures
impressed themselves on our eager minds! The log meeting-house, and
before it the stacked muskets and pacing sentinel; the dusky savage
faces hiding behind every tree; the midnight assault: the lurid fire,
and the brandished tomahawk--these are pictures that have sometimes come
with startling vividness to our youthful imaginations. And then our
fancies have seen the so-called witches of Salem, the sudden arrest, the
hurrying to the jail and perhaps to the gallows.

To the older mind, these realities of the past have a deep and
ever-growing interest. The later periods of the Colony, the period of
the Revolution and the period immediately following, are increasingly
fertile in materials for the historian, the essayist, and the novelist.
To br