Of course this is not to deny that there are gems in children's literature which they may be thankful to possess and we may be glad to share with them: indeed, the foregoing observations should be taken simply to the effect that there is room for a choice among juvenile books, and very little choosing. We started out with the happy idea that reading-lessons cost nothing, and are come round to the conviction that it is a pity they are not expensive, that there is not some one who, for a consideration, would take the children in hand,--not only those who are expected to read by and by, but also the born readers,--and, through a judicious selection of what is within their range, gradually educate them up to a correct literary taste. For there is something sadder even than being totally unable to read, and that is reading a great deal and never anything worth while. What is worth while includes, naturally, much besides novels; but, then, a person who appreciates a good novel usually reads other good things; and, at all events, children must begin with fiction, and, even were they to end there, that this should be excellent of its kind is a step in the right direction. It would not be a bad aim to have in view that they should come by degrees to a just appreciation of Thackeray and his compeers. And where parents are unwilling--or, by reason of being themselves no readers, unable--to plan a course of reading to that effect, why, in all seriousness, should they not place the matter in the hands of some sound-minded family counsellor, who would thenceforward look after the children's literary taste, as the dentist looks after their teeth? That would put an end to the singular anomaly by which parents, who doubtless mean to guard their sons and daughters from evil society as they would from the plague, know, as a matter of fact, nothing at all of their inmost companions. When the novel-devouring period is reached, this is especially remarkable: a mother may then look at her young daughter sitting apart, silent, entranced, drinking in what she takes for the true philosophy of life from some romance of modern society which has been recommended to her as "splendid" by the girls at school, and find no more appropriate reflection to make upon this spectacle than that "Mary is never so happy as when she is buried in a book." But one imagines the family counsellor, under similar circumstances, interesting himself or herself to discover what sort of a book it is that Mary is buried in, and, if it should prove to be a tissue of false sentiment, false pathos, and even false morals from beginning to end, directing her attention to that fact, and giving her as an antidote something which, whether grave or gay, amusing or affecting, should be written in good English and in sound taste. GRACE H. PEIRCE. MITHRA.