As pedagogue he struts hereafter, And trousers of the boys he pecks With bill, rewarded then with laughter, If naughtiness or prank detects; But yet for their protection striving, And serpents from the garden driving, And patiently will he comply When “Long-legs, come!” the children cry. Each eve from thatch so closely heeding, If they the psalms are nicely reading. * * * * * The art of reading is to skip judiciously. Whole libraries may be skipped in these days, when we have the results of them in our modern culture without going over the ground again. And even of the books we decide to read, there are almost always large portions which do not concern us, and which we are sure to forget the day after we have read them. The art is to skip all that does not concern us, whilst missing nothing that we really need. No external guidance can teach us this, for nobody but ourselves can guess what the needs of our intellect may be. But let us select with decisive firmness, independently of other people’s advice, independently of the authority of custom. In every newspaper that comes to hand there is a little bit that we ought to read; the art is to find that little bit, and waste no time over the rest.—_Philip G. Hamerton._ GARDENING AMONG THE CHINESE. Translated for THE CHAUTAUQUAN, from “Revue des Deux Mondes.” A French physician, M. Martin, who has for several years been an attaché of the French ambassador at Pekin, calls the Chinese the authors of the art of gardening. Since the earliest times their leaders have had the wisdom to have cultivated not only ornamental plants, but as well those which would increase the resources of the inhabitants. Their vast enclosures have often been the nurseries of the provinces, and to excite the ambition of their subjects, the rulers award prizes on many public occasions to those who present to them new flowers or fruits. Our societies of horticulture do no better. The annals of the Tsing dynasty mention mandarins whose business it was to care for the gardens of the emperor, and especially to look after the bamboos. The taste for flowers increased by the encouragement of the authorities gives an astonishing commercial value to certain plants. The _sambac_, whose flowers have at once the odor of the rose and of the orange, as blended in the common jasmine, is used to perfume tea, liquors, syrups and preserves; at Pekin a very small branch is worth from ten dollars to twelve dollars and upwards. An _asclepias_, which gives its perfume only at night, has been sold for twenty and thirty ounces of silver, and each year the viceroy of the province of Tche-kiang sends several cuttings of it to Pekin for the apartments of the emperor. In order to profit by so lucrative a taste, Chinese horticulture has been for the most part spent in trying to make the most of the treasures of their flora.