These should be introductory to the best of Mr. Howells' novels and essays in the high school; for Mr. Howells, it need scarcely be said, is one of our few masters of style: his style is as individual and distinguished as it is felicitous and delicate. More important still, from the educational point of view, he is one of our most modern writers: the spiritual issues and social problems of our age, which our older high-school pupils are anxious to deal with, are alive in his books. Our young people should know his _Rise of Silas Lapham_ and _A Hazard of New Fortunes_, as well as his social and literary criticism. As stimulating and alluring a volume of selections may be made for high-school students as this volume will be, we venture to predict, for the younger boys and girls of the elementary school. In this little book of readings we have made, we believe, an entirely legitimate and desirable use of the books named above. _A Boy's Town_ is a series of detachable pictures and episodes into which the boy--or the healthy girl who loves boys' books--may dip, as the selections here given will, we believe, tempt him to do. The same is true of _The Flight of Pony Baker_. The volume is for class-room enjoyment; for happy hours of profitable reading--profitable, because happy. Much of it should be read aloud rather than silently, and dramatic justice be done to the scenes and conversations which have dramatic quality. PERCIVAL CHUBB. I ADVENTURES IN A BOY'S TOWN HOW PONY BAKER CAME PRETTY NEAR RUNNING OFF WITH A CIRCUS Just before the circus came, about the end of July, something happened that made Pony mean to run off more than anything that ever was. His father and mother were coming home from a walk, in the evening; it was so hot nobody could stay in the house, and just as they were coming to the front steps Pony stole up behind them and tossed a snowball which he had got out of the garden at his mother, just for fun. The flower struck her very softly on her hair, for she had no bonnet on, and she gave a jump and a hollo that made Pony laugh; and then she caught him by the arm and boxed his ears. "Oh, my goodness! It was you, was it, you good-for-nothing boy? I thought it was a bat!" she said, and she broke out crying and ran into the house, and would not mind his father, who was calling after her, "Lucy, Lucy, my dear child!"