Sooner or later, as a result of this, the child is very apt to feel a curiosity and interest and ambition to learn how to read stories for himself. In the absence of any forcing, the more he thinks about it, the more his heart becomes set on it. He asks questions about letters and words in books--surprises his mother by showing how he can print his own name, then her name and father's. Little by little, without anybody's teaching him, almost without any one's realizing it, he has learned to read. This might not happen, of course, in an unsympathetic atmosphere--if there were no story telling, and no story books lying about, to bring the inspiration. But as far as my experience goes, it has always happened, somewhere between the ages of eight and ten, if not before. One boy I know, after learning to read for himself, in this way, in rummaging through the bookshelves, came upon a queer little book of Experimental Chemistry. It was very old and primitive and had curious wood-cut illustrations in it. It had long ago belonged to the boy's grand-father. It was easy to read and told about simple experiments that any boy could try himself. The necessary ingredients for many of them could be found at home, or be bought for a few cents at the drug-store. It happened to arouse his interest. The first experiment described how to take a little powdered sugar and mix it with a little powder obtained by crushing up a tablet of chlorate of potash--such as people put in their mouths for a sore throat. That would make an explosive, as powerful as the powder used in guns. It could be set off by dropping on it from an eye-dropper one drop of a certain kind of acid, from the druggist's. The boy procured the necessary things, then ran to his mother, and asked her if he might try the experiment. She responded to his enthusiasm and only asked permission to stand by and look on. He dropped the acid on the powder--and sure enough, the powder went off with a big flash. Wonderful excitement and joy! The experiment had to be repeated again and again, for the amazement of the waitress and the cook--and especially for father, as soon as he came home. That was the beginning of a new interest. The boy kept the book by him and pored over it, and set his heart upon acquiring first one thing after another, as they became necessary. As he accumulated bottles and glass tubes, and chemicals and apparatus, he made shelves and stands for them with his carpenter tools. In due time, he got other books on the same subject and became the possessor of a very practical little chemical laboratory, which was all of his very own making. At the age of twelve, he was thoroughly at home in dozens of complicated processes and experiments.