at that time in many countries,
especially in Italy, religious dramas were presented--plays such as
Everyman and Saint George and the Dragon. Hence such scenes were
constantly before the people, and they were very familiar with them. The
small image-prints served to perpetuate to a great extent things which
they liked and knew; and the picture books, which gave not only these
scenes in other form, but also reproduced stories from the Bible, did
the same. No text was necessary. The picture told the tale to a people
who could not read, just as the stained-glass windows and mosaics in the
churches did. Everywhere the feeble literature of the period took the
form either of verbal minstrelsy, drama, or pictured representations.
You will recall how most of the early races first wrote in pictures
instead of letters. There were hieroglyphics in Egypt; 'speaking
stories' in Assyria; and picture-writing in Turkey, China, and Japan.
The picture book of the time was merely an attempt to put into simple
outline, by means of woodcuts, the religious drama, or dumb shows of the
day. The city of Florence did much for this form of work, its
_rappresentazioni_ being printed as early as 1485. Albrecht Duerer of
Germany was one of the later and most skilful woodcut artists. What the
ballad was to literature the woodcut was to art--simple, direct,
appealing."

The man paused.

"The printed story awaited several necessary factors to bring it into
being. One was a public that desired to read--which this one did not;
another was a means by which to print reading matter; a third was
suitable paper on which to print; and the fourth, but by no means the
least important, a good and proper quality of ink. One after another
these difficulties were done away with. If they had not been," concluded
Mr. Cameron, "you would not now have been publishing such a thing as the
_March Hare_."

CHAPTER VII

A MAD TEA PARTY

It was amazing to see how the general interest in the _March Hare_
increased as the months went by. So successful was the magazine that
Paul ventured an improvement in the way of a patriotic cover done in
three colors--an eagle and an American flag designed by one of the
juniors and submitted for acceptance in a "cover contest", the prize
offered being a year's subscription to the paper. After this innovation
came the yet more pretentious and far-reaching novelty of the Mad Tea
Party, a supper held in the hall of the school wi