When boys and girls can read the first seven volumes of this set intelligently and with pleasure they are thinking for themselves. Their tastes are forming rapidly, and they have learned how to read nearly everything that comes to them. They know how to use reference books, and can "make out the meaning" of difficult passages. They are reading for information and culture. What they lack is experience in life, and so they are unable to interpret what they read as fully as can those who have lived longer, seen more of the world, enjoyed more, suffered more. Where they are liable to fail and go astray is in the lack of judgment. They know right and wrong, but they cannot always see the difference. They are apt to be misled by their feelings and to be ruled by their emotions. The studies and selections of the last three volumes are varied and highly suggestive. They will open new lines of thought and prompt to wider reading in many directions. The contents vary in difficulty as in character, but are not graded in a strict sense of the term. They are meant for independent readers, readers who are governed by mood or purpose and no longer rely upon outside guidance. Accordingly, lists of books suitable for readers of these volumes will cover every department of literature and lead into the reading favored by adults. The majority of these lists deal with literature. They contain the names of those books which are distinctly helpful, and from which young readers may derive nothing to corrupt taste or give false impressions of life. They are the standard books of the language. The lists might have been longer; they do contain, however, the names of those best books that every cultured person should know. For convenience in reference the arrangement is the alphabetical order of authors' names. Fiction AINSWORTH, WILLIAM HARRISON: _The Tower of London_, the story of Lady Jane Grey, and the plots and intrigues that centered about her. ALCOTT, LOUISA M.: _Little Men_ and _Little Women_, two interesting and thoroughly wholesome books for boys and girls. AUSTEN, JANE: _Pride and Prejudice_, an old-fashioned story, interesting, but liable to be called dull by those who read only the lively stories of the day. BLACKMORE, R. D.: _Lorna Doone_, a delightful romance, the scene of which is laid in Exmoor, England, in the beginning of the eighteenth century. BULWER-LYTTON, SIR EDWARD: _The Last Days of Pompeii_, the author's greatest novel; _The Last of the Barons_, the story of the Earl of Warwick; _Harold, The Last of the Saxons_, a tale of the Norman Conquest of England. DOYLE, A. CONAN: _The White Company_, an exciting fourteenth century story.