But if there is silence or scorn in great literature, there is plenty of expression in that minor literature which has sprung up, apparently, in the interest of childhood. It is here, in the books for young people, that one may discover the most flagrant illustration of that spurious individuality in childhood which I have maintained to be conspicuous in our country. Any one who has been compelled to make the acquaintance of this literature must have observed how very little parents and guardians figure in it, and how completely children are separated from their elders. The most popular books for the young are those which represent boys and girls as seeking their fortune, working out their own schemes, driving railway trains and steamboats it may be, managing farms, or engaged in adventures which elicit all their uncommon heroism. The same tendency is exhibited in less exaggerated form: children in the schoolroom, or at play, forming clubs amongst themselves, having their own views upon all conceivable subjects, torturing the English language without rebuke, opening correspondence with newspapers and magazines, starting newspapers and magazines of their own, organizing, setting up miniature society,—this is the general spectacle to be observed in books for young people, and the parent or two, now and then visible, is as much in the background as the child was in earlier literature. All this is more or less a reflection of actual life, and as such has an unconscious value. I would not press its significance too far, but I think it points to a serious defect in our society life. This very ephemeral literature is symptomatic of a condition of things, rather than causative. It has not nearly so much influence on young life as it is itself the natural concomitant of a maladjustment of society, and the corrective will be found only as a healthier social condition is reached. The disintegration of the family, through a feeble sense of the sacredness of marriage, is an evil which is not to be remedied by any specific of law or literature, but so long as it goes on it inevitably affects literature. I venture to make two modest suggestions toward the solution of these larger problems into the discussion of which our subject has led me. One is for those who are busy with the production of books for young people. Consider if it be not possible to report the activity and comradery of the young in closer and more generous association with the life of their elders. The spectacle of a healthy family life, in which children move freely and joyously, is not so rare as to make models hard to be found, and one would do a great service to young America who should bring back the wise mother and father into juvenile literature.