literary celebrity, one of
the most admired of her generation.

Let us now refer to some other cases, this time to boys, where the
bringing-up happened to be accomplished without any aid, or
interference, of school-books or school-teaching. In some instances this
procedure was due to illness and delicate health on the part of the boy,
which made fresh air and freedom from confinement seem more important
than the benefits of mental training. In other cases, the parents
deliberately believed and decided it was better for self-development and
the formation of character to dispense with what they considered the
disadvantages of school methods.

As long as a boy does not know how to read, and is not taught how, it is
the most natural thing in the world for him to want somebody to tell--or
read--to him fairy-tales and verses and stories of every kind that he
can understand. And this want is sure to be supplied, when there are
loving parents to watch out for it. It may be the mother, the nurse, the
father, or an aunt, or an uncle, who take turns at it.

Sooner or later, as a result of this, the child is very apt to feel a
curiosity and interest and ambition to learn how to read stories for
himself. In the absence of any forcing, the more he thinks about it, the
more his heart becomes set on it. He asks questions about letters and
words in books--surprises his mother by showing how he can print his
own name, then her name and father's. Little by little, without
anybody's teaching him, almost without any one's realizing it, he has
learned to read. This might not happen, of course, in an unsympathetic
atmosphere--if there were no story telling, and no story books lying
about, to bring the inspiration. But as far as my experience goes, it
has always happened, somewhere between the ages of eight and ten, if not
before.

One boy I know, after learning to read for himself, in this way, in
rummaging through the bookshelves, came upon a queer little book of
Experimental Chemistry. It was very old and primitive and had curious
wood-cut illustrations in it. It had long ago belonged to the boy's
grand-father. It was easy to read and told about simple experiments that
any boy could try himself. The necessary ingredients for many of them
could be found at home, or be bought for a few cents at the drug-store.
It happened to arouse his interest.

The first experiment described how to take a little powdered sugar and
mix it with a littl