Our boys and girls have done nobly, and the nation which they have now become may well prove its greatness by new wisdom and care for the boys and girls who are yet to grow up men and women and become the nation that is to be. There are vital questions that meet us at the very outset of the discussion:--What are children? and what is the difference between them and grown people? and what should be the difference in the reading provided for the two? Some persons seem to think and speak of children as a distinct order of beings, and not as a part of mankind. The simple truth is, that they are men and women in _nature_, but not in _development_. All that is _actual_ in the mature mind is _potential_ in them, and there is no theory more absurd than that which affirms that the adult powers and dispositions are wholly factitious, and education makes us what we are, instead of simply bringing out what is born in us. The great human mind is in the little child as well as in the gray-headed sage; but it has not come forth into activity and consciousness. The most complete culture, instead of obliterating diversities of natural talent and tendency, does but develop them more effectually; and our great masters and schools are more memorable for the strongly pronounced minds and wills that go forth from them than for any monotony of mediocre scholars or uniformity of paragons of genius. True culture brings out the common human mind in all, and the rare gifts that are in the few, and vindicates the force of Nature by the perfection of its art. Our juvenile literature should proceed upon this idea, and treat its little readers as representatives of the great human mind on its way to its full rights and powers and quite true to its high birthright, as far as it puts forth its prerogative.