Ford has given us a most interesting and historically valuable account of the oldest American schoolbook, _The New England Primer_, prepared and printed by Benjamin Harris of Boston, the second edition appearing in 1691. This was printed 44 years _after_ Massachusetts had passed a law requiring each town of fifty householders to “appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read.” Others have written of the first Arithmetic, prepared by Nicholas Pike of Newburyport, Mass., and printed in 1788; of the first American Geography, written by the Reverend Jedidiah Morse of Charlestown, Mass., and published at New Haven in 1784; of the first pedagogical and educational book, written by Christopher Dock, America’s pioneer writer on education, a second edition of which was published by Christopher Sower of Philadelphia in 1770. Much has been written concerning the world-famous Blue Back Speller, prepared by Dr. Noah Webster and printed at Hartford in 1793; of Peter Parley’s Geographies, the first of which was published in 1829. Dr. Henry H. Vail, formerly connected with the American Book Company, has written a most interesting history of the McGuffey Readers, of which the first two books of the four-book series were copyrighted in 1836 and the second two in 1837. Then there have been published such books as _The House of Harper_, which gives the history of a business concern now more than a hundred years old; a most charmingly written biography of Henry O. Houghton, the founder of the house now known as the Houghton Mifflin Company; a memorial volume giving in some detail the story of the life and activities of Henry Ivison, of the old firm of Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Company; a book giving a rather complete account of several century-old business houses, including that of Christopher Sower & Company of Philadelphia; a volume entitled _Fifty Years Among Authors, Books and Publishers_, by J. C. Derby; _Memories of a Publisher_, by Major George Haven Putnam; a book on the _Old Schools and School-books of New England_, by George E. Littlefield, and a brochure published by G. & C. Merriam Company that gives us some interesting glimpses into the history of their business and of the men who have published and distributed to the world the famous Webster dictionaries. There are also extant a great many valuable periodical, magazine and newspaper articles which set forth in some detail accounts of the founders of other nineteenth century publishing houses, which accounts, together with what has appeared in book form, make a rather inchoate but highly valuable mass of data that could and should be compiled and published as soon as a scholarly man of historical habit can be found to edit and prepare it for the press.