The style of reading which a child does when he is "looking for something" is very different from his reading when he is absorbed in the story. Suppose he is trying to find out what kind of a man is James, in _Rab and His Friends_. He forgets for a time the story, and reads rapidly along, merely running his eye over the pages, watching intently for the word _James_, or the word _carrier_. When either of the words appears he stops to read carefully. He may have to go back a few words, perhaps to the beginning of a paragraph, all the time with his attention fixed exclusively upon what is said about James. When he has read it on the first page, he skims along to the next one and stops again. This is reading intelligently for a purpose, and is really one of the most valuable kinds of reading, the kind he will use most frequently when he is a man, the one that will save time for him when in later years he most needs it. It is the style of reading, too, that is much neglected in the schools. To analyze the character of the hero of a story is as practical a lesson in life as any child can gain. In trying to discern the springs of action, in seeing how words and acts show character, and how dress and appearance indicate what a person really is, he is learning to understand his acquaintances and to judge whether they merit his trust and confidence, or are to be regarded with suspicion and disdain. This is the practical wisdom without which many a man has found himself the victim of misplaced confidence, or allowed himself to be led into temptations he could not resist by those who professed friendship for him. Again, when studying the scenes, a child is learning to picture vividly and exactly, and is training his mind to close discrimination. He is training himself to avoid the mistakes that the careless reader makes. Many a man has found himself paying for careless reading, because he did not see a thing exactly as it was described to him. At the risk of repetition we have argued again for the reading of stories in the different ways and for the different purposes suggested, for we know that the parent who will follow these plans will interest his children, will see them improve, and will find them growing nearer to him, while he will be more of a companion, less of a ruler. In so doing he may forget some of the cares of the day and find himself growing younger, more contented and happier as his family reaches the age when it can take care of itself. Then, later, when the long years of old age have come, it may be that the parents will discover that while they read and worked with their children they taught themselves to find in reading a solace for their loneliness.