of reading. Even
considering only the respective duration of advantage, one would have to
decide for reading if a choice must be made, for girls generally give up
music when they marry, and at some not quite so definitely fixed period
dancing is renounced by both sexes, while books remain appropriate to
every age and condition of life.

Happily, however, there is no need to choose: reading may be cultivated
side by side with more florid accomplishments. To provide an interesting
book and appoint an hour for its perusal may just as easily be done as
to set apart an hour for the piano,--indeed, in some cases more easily,
since there would be no bills coming in for the reading-lessons. And who
will say that a child might not learn to like reading, might not
insensibly get into the spirit of the art, by this simple method when
duly insisted on? Perhaps it would fail sometimes; there may be persons
absolutely incapable of the prolonged attention required for reading;
but one cannot help thinking that in most minds this power of attention
could be aroused and fostered, and that, therefore, if a child does not
like books at the start, that need not be accounted a fatal sign. People
who have detested their music-lessons at first have been known to come
finally to the enjoyment of music through those very means.

When children should begin to read, and how they should learn, are
questions which lie rather outside the scope of this paper and concern
those who "take to reading" as well as those who "like to be read to;"
but, stating the case broadly, one might say that they can begin at any
time and learn anyhow. It has been seriously advocated that children be
not taught to read until they are ten years old; and certainly it would
be quite possible to prevent their reading before then. On the other
hand, as an actual fact, they do read at seven and eight years of age,
and used to read at five or even earlier. Regarded by the light of
modern theory, what they used to do was, of course, deplorable; still,
the fact remains, and is mitigated by circumstances, for the children
were not considered prodigies at that time, and a due proportion of them
lived to grow up, and may be seen to-day, as men and women, walking
about the world in tolerable health and spirits.

With respect to methods of learning to read, the difference must appear
even greater to one who has ever seen or who dimly remembers an
old-fashioned _primer_. There was t