of a carefully phrased request for coöperation. Few things are more delicate to handle than neglected duties, and the fathers and mothers who shirk all responsibility for the mental training of their offspring must be approached as if they jealously tried to leave nothing in this line for any teacher to do. The most common fault of young people to-day in connection with reading is the neglect of books altogether or the devouring of fiction of a poor quality. To urge boys and girls to read good books or to admonish them to avoid poor ones is seldom likely to effect much. Such direct and general appeal is sure to seem to them part of the teacher's professional routine work, and not to alter their inclinations or to make any especial difference with their practice. Children are led to care for good reading only by being made acquainted with books that appeal to them; and they are protected against poor or injurious reading only by being given a taste for what is better. This summing-up of the situation is easily made, but how to make children acquainted in a vital and pleasant fashion with good books and how to cultivate the taste is really the whole problem which we are studying. This is the aim and the substance of all genuine teaching of literature, and everything in these talks is an attempt to help toward an answer. When the problem of voluntary reading has been satisfactorily solved the work of the teacher is practically done, for the pupil is sure to go forward in the right direction whether he is led or not. All that treatment of literature which for convenience I have called "inspirational" is directly in the line of developing and raising the taste of young readers, and beyond this I do not see that specific rules can be given. Personal influence is after all what tells, and the most that can be done here is to call attention to the fact that in so far as a teacher can influence and direct the voluntary reading of a pupil he has secured a most efficient aid to his school-work in literature. XVIII IN GENERAL Throughout these talks I have tried to deal with the teaching of literature in practical fashion, not letting theory lead me to forget the conditions actually existing. To consider an ideal state of things might be interesting, but it would hardly help the teacher bothered by the difficulties of every-day school-work. I have intended always to keep well within the field of ordinary experience, and to make suggestions applicable to average teaching. How well I have succeeded can be judged better by teachers than by me; but I wish in closing to insist that at least I believe that what I have said is every-day common sense.