f what is in them!'"

Colonel Higginson's neighbor went on to say that from that day she was
no longer haunted by the fear that her sister, because she did not read,
would grow up ignorant. Are many of us in that same condition of feeling
with respect to the children of our acquaintance, even after we have
provided them with as excellent a library as had that other child in
which they may be "exposed to books"? On the contrary, so solicitous are
we that, having furnished to the best of our knowledge the best books,
we do not rest until we are reasonably sure that the children are, not
simply getting something from them, but getting it at the right times
and in the right ways. And everything and every one conspires to help
us. Publishers issue volumes by the dozen with such titles as "The
Children's Reading" and "A Guide to Good Reading" and "Golden Books for
Children." The librarian of the "children's room" in many a library sets
apart a certain hour of each week or each month for the purpose of
telling the children stories from the books that we are all agreed the
children should read, hoping by this means to inspire the boys and girls
to read the particular books for themselves. No effort is regarded as
too great if, through it, the children seem likely to acquire the habit
of using books; using them for work, and using them for recreation.

Certainly our labors in this direction on behalf of the children are
amply rewarded. Not only are American children of the present time fond
of reading--most children of other times have been that; they have a
quite remarkable skill and ease in the use of books.

A short while ago, spending a spring week-end with a friend who lives in
the country, I chanced to see a brilliant scarlet bird which neither my
hostess nor I could identify. "It was a redbird, I suppose," I said, in
mentioning it later to a city acquaintance.

"What _is_ a redbird?" she asked. "Is it a cardinal, or a tanager, or
something still different?"

"I don't know," I replied. "Perhaps," I added, turning to her little
girl often who was in the room, "_you_ know; children learn so much
about birds in their 'nature study.'"

"No," the child answered; "but," she supplemented confidently, "I can
find out."

Several days afterward she came to call. "Do you remember _exactly_ the
way that red bird you saw in the country looked?" she inquired, almost
as soon as we met.

"Just red, I think," I said.

"Not with