thor of boys' stories.
A. FREDERICK COLLINS, author of boys' books.
DON C. BLISS, educator.
BLISS CARMAN, poet and essayist.
SIR JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE, novelist.
WILLIAM CANTON, story-teller.
HERMANN HAGEDORN, poet.
ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS, writer of boys' stories.
ALFRED G. GARDINER, editor of "The London News."
FRANKLIN K. LANE, United States Secretary of the Interior.
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS, creator of "Uncle Remus."
ERNEST INGERSOLL, naturalist.
WILLIAM L. FINLEY, State biologist, Oregon.
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, writer of animal stories.
E. NESBIT, novelist and poet.
ARCHIBALD WILLIAMS, author of "How It Is Done," etc.
IRA REMSEN, former president of Johns Hopkins University.
GIFFORD PINCHOT, professor of forestry, Yale University.
GUSTAVE KOBBE, writer of biographies.
JACOB A. RIIS, philanthropist and author.
EMILY HUNTINGTON MILLER, story-writer and poet.
JOHN LANG, writer of children's books.
JEANIE LANG, writer of children's books.
JOHN H. CLIFFORD, editor and writer.
HERBERT T. WADE, editor and writer on physics.
CHARLES R. GIBSON, writer on electricity.
LILIAN CASK, writer on natural history.
BLANCHE MARCHESI, opera singer and teacher.
JOHN FINNEMORE, traveler and writer of boys' stories.
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, inventor of the telephone.
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY, poet.
CHARLES H. CAFFIN, author of "A Guide to Pictures."
JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS.
ANDREW F. CURRIER, M.D., popular medical writer.
HELEN KELLER, the blind and deaf writer.
OLIVER HERFORD, humorist and illustrator.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

* * * * *

Books are as much a part of the furnishing of a house as tables and
chairs, and in the making of a home they belong, not with the luxuries
but with the necessities. A bookless house is not a home; for a home
affords food and shelter for the mind as well as for the body. It is
as great an offence against a child to starve his mind as to starve
his body, and there is as much danger of reducing his vitality and
putting him at a disadvantage in his lifework in the one as in the
other form of deprivation. There was a time when it was felt that
shelter, clothing, food and physical oversight comprised the whole
duty of a charitable institution to dependent children; to-day no
community would permit such an institution to exist unless it provided
school privileges. An acute sense of responsibility toward children
is one of the prime characteristics of American society, shown i