long struggle with unruly boys and girls. This has perhaps brought about the opinion that mild, sloppy, intellectual fare may prove effectual in curbing healthy animal spirits. It is hard to say what merit may lurk in this dietetic policy. It may safely be assumed, however, that diet will have no effect of an appreciable kind in subduing the strong, natural and boisterous spirits of the healthy young. There are plenty of instances on actual record of very brave Arab warriors reared on nothing but rice and dates; Irish heroes fed chiefly on potatoes; Scottish soldiers on oatmeal; English men of might on beef and beer; and Boer fighters on biltong and water; so that no accurate forecast can be made of the future behaviour of a youth or maiden fed on bread and milk or tea and toast. As it is with the alimentary, so it is with the intellectual diet. A course of Sandford and Merton plus A Candle Lighted by the Lord, and similar pieces of morbid religious reading, will not model our Tom Sawyers, Stalkys, and Tom Browns, into the uniform bundles of obedient deference, so greatly prized by many teachers. It might be less trouble for the schoolmasters, but it would be very bad for the boys and girls if their reading or training turned them into milksops or prudes.
Many guides to the formation of libraries for the young have been issued, and the best of these have been compiled by practical librarians, and not by teachers. Usually, the schoolmaster's list is full of vapid, colourless and goody-goody stuff which children will not read. They cannot be
