How these books were crammed with noble thoughts! In them every virtue was extolled and every vice condemned. I wonder now how the book publishers could ever have printed such tales, or how they reconciled themselves to the hypocrisy they must have felt when they sold the books. This moral instruction concerned certain general themes. First of all, temperance was the great lesson taught. I well remember that we children believed that the first taste of liquor was the fatal one; and we never even considered that one drop could be taken without leading us to everlasting ruin and despair. There were the alms-house, the jail, and the penitentiary square, in front of every child who even considered taking the first drink; while all the rewards of this world and the next were freely promised to the noble lad who should resist. As I look back to-day, it seems as if every moral lesson in the universe must have grown into my being from those books. How could I have ever wandered from the narrow path? I look back to those little freckled, trifling boys and girls, and I hear them read their lessons in their books so long ago. The stories were all the same, from the beginning to the end. We began in the primer, and our instruction in reading and good conduct did not end until the covers of the last book were closed. It seems to me to-day that I can hear those little urchins reading about the idle lazy boy who tried to get the bee and the cow and the horse to play with him,—though what he wanted of the bee I could never understand,—but they were all too busy with their work, and so he ran away from school and had a most miserable day alone. How could we children ever stay away from school after we had read this lesson? And yet, I cannot now recall that it made us love our books, or think one whit less of the free breeze, the waving grass and trees, or the alluring coaxing sun. We were taught by our books that we must on all accounts speak the truth; that we must learn our lessons; that we must love our parents and our teachers; must enjoy work; must be generous and kind; must despise riches; must avoid ambition; and then, if we did all these things, some fairy godmother would come along at just the darkest hour and give us everything our hearts desired. Not one story in the book told how any good could ever come from wilfulness, or selfishness, or greed, or that any possible evil ever grew from thrift, or diligence, or generosity, or kindness. And yet, in spite of all these precepts, we were young savages, always grasping for the best, ever fighting and scheming to get the advantage of our playmates, our teachers, and our tasks. A quarter of a century seems not to have wrought much change; we still believe in the old moral precepts, and teach them to others, but we still strive to get the best of everything for ourselves.