Though America's contribution to children's literature of an enduring type has been limited, it is gratifying to know that America's most finished artist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, has given to that literature two books that every boy must know, "Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys" and "Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys; a Second Wonder-Book." That every boy who is going to become a mature reader of good books needs to know the myths of Greece and Rome, goes without saying. Now he had better learn these from a book having a literary touch than from the ordinary telling of text-books. For this reason he should completely master these two books by Hawthorne. The illustrated edition of the former by Walter Crane and George Wharton Edwards' illustrations of the latter are both fine. Not so good as these two, yet necessary, is Charles Kingsley's "Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children." And the telling of the story of the Odyssey by Charles Lamb in his "Adventures of Ulysses" is good to read, but rather difficult before the last year of the grammar grades. The wonderful exploits of the heroes in the Iliad should be familiar to every boy, and he can get them about all in Bulfinch's "Age of Fable" as well as anywhere else. This book he must surely own, and whether it is called merely a text-book or not, it is the best work that has yet appeared on the mythology of the world as it is found in classical allusions of English books. If he learns the story of the siege of Troy and the return to Ithaca from this book, he may want to hear Chapman speak out loud and bold a few years later. Does any schoolboy from a home other than one in which Puritan notions yet prevail read "Pilgrim's Progress"? If he does not, the fault is not in the book. It is as interesting as it is vitally true, and has been positively helpful. According to Macaulay, it has been loved by those too simple to admire it. There is really no such thing as an uninteresting great book. There are uninterested people, though there should not be an uninterested normal boy. If there is, he is a victim of the emasculating process of sugar-coated teaching, parental indulgence, and vaudeville amusement. Or maybe he has the habit of the boy's series, that cuts all characters to the same fashion, the fashion of prudery. In either case he will never be a pilgrim. Of course it would be foolish to insist on a boy's reading many such books, even if there were more like it written. You might as well insist on seven sermons a week for a man. One in seven days seems often enough to be effective; and one great book like this one, if well mastered, is all that the boy needs. In mature years he can again read it and marvel at its intrinsic greatness and find it something of a reflection of his own experiences in life. And by having done this he may chance to read such great poetical allegories as the "Faerie Queene" and the "Divine Comedy."