“The plan is an ingenious one, and is carried out with spirit. It need not be said that the fine literary taste and critical acumen of Prof. Wilkinson are shown to much advantage. Only by a fair trial can the practical worth of such a series be proved. We have found pleasure in reading the volume.” In suggesting to Dr. Wilkinson the idea of this “After-school Series,” I requested him: 1. To give in two volumes the substance of what the college boy in his preparatory and college course would learn of Greek literature—not the language, but the literature; 2. To put into his books as far as possible the method and spirit of the college recitation room, discussing collateral topics, introducing biographical and classical incidents, and employing illustrations from modern life and literature; to put his individuality into the work, so that teacher and pupils might be brought into friendly relations, and thus something of the animation and enthusiasm of the recitation room be enjoyed by solitary students. It is Dr. Wilkinson’s attempt to realize this idea that produces the impression upon one critic of the “uninstructive chattiness” of the author. To a man who has just spent eight years in the study of the classics, and who makes them a specialty, there may be some things in Dr. Wilkinson’s book which are not instructive; to people for whom the book was written, there is not an uninstructive page in the book. Perfection in the recitation room may not be possible. Qualities in the _viva voce_ teacher which attract and delight and benefit one student may not so favorably impress, and may sometimes almost annoy, another. A member of the Circle writes (in reference, no doubt, to Dr. Wilkinson’s book): “One author frequently converses, as it were, with the reader, telling him in a friendly way of the many things he will relate after a while.… The book has caused the Circle to be ridiculed, and I could not think it was not without cause.”