are teaching the young idea how to shoot, but we should call it bad shooting!” Miss Beecher had no domestic buffaloes and no house-crushing anacondas in her book, and it seems to have been clear enough of inanities to displace that of Malte Brun in the city’s list of school books in 1834. It was a modest little book, but it represented a great deal of work. She begins with the simplest but clearest directions for drawing a map of the schoolroom and then leads up gradually to the subject of the cape, isthmus, continent, etc. There are pictures of interesting places, descriptions of the products of the countries, the manners, costumes, religions and laws of the people. The book is written like a story, with frequent affectionate addresses to the young learner and admonitions that are to encourage him on his way where the study seems difficult or dry. The personal character of the writer has an opportunity to show itself in a book like this, and, if the reprint of 1852 was a facsimile of the original work, as seems likely, that Harriet Beecher, the teacher in the Cincinnati school in 1833, in a very earnest chapter on the subject of slavery, has shown clearly what her opinion would be when that great subject should come up for discussion. She also clearly points out the part that the English bore in the early history of our country in forcing the system of slavery upon their colonial subjects on this side of the sea. She takes good opportunity to urge the reasons why the New England forefathers left their native land and sought the inhospitable shores of New England and speaks feelingly of their sufferings in the early years of settlement. None of these passages was toned down when the little book was reprinted in England in 1852 for the use of the English schools. CHAPTER XII THE SEMI-COLONS Soon after the Beechers were settled at Cincinnati the circle of old New England friends exiled together in this western land formed a literary club that met alternately at Uncle Samuel Foote’s and Dr. Drake’s. They called this society the “Semi-colon Club,” and gave the following explanation of the name: The Spanish name of Columbus was Colon; if the discoverer of a continent may be called a “Colon,” the discoverers of a new pleasure should at least be allowed the honor of being called “Semi-colons.” This new pleasure consisted in the delight they got out of the interchange of thought at weekly meetings.