"And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself: 'Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and my temper?' And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of, being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit and learning; your smelting furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author's meaning without those tools and that fire; often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing, before you can gather one grain of the metal." It is not the dreamy, hammock-soothing, vacation idling with pleasant stories that we are now considering. This happy lotus-land has also its fitting season, in the sultry heats of summer, when tired people put their minds out to grass. Any study will grow dull and sleepy that lacks energy. Teachers who shrink back with anxiety lest works such as Irving's "Sketch Book," "Evangeline," "Merchant of Venice," and "Marmion," are too hard for children in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, should consider for a moment what classical preparatory schools for centuries have required of boys from ten to twelve years of age, the study of "Cæsar," "Eutropius," and "Virgil," of "Herodotus" and "Xenophon," in unknown languages extremely difficult to master. Yet it has been claimed for ages, by the best scholars, that this was the true strength-producing discipline for boys. It would hardly be extravagant to say that the masterpieces of literature now used, in our intermediate and grammar grades, are not a quarter so difficult and four times as appropriate and interesting as the Latin and Greek authors just cited. It seems obvious that we are summoned to a more energetic study and treatment of our masterpieces. This struggle to get at the deeper undercurrent of thought in an author is the true stimulus and discipline of such studies.