Children are easily led to observe nature, animate or inanimate, with interest, and there are many simple books illustrating the departments of natural science which mothers could make interesting to their children at the same time that they instructed themselves. Juvenile works on history abound, and through them the child may be led, as intelligence expands, to seek more extended and thorough treatises; and the sympathy of the mother should be ready to help him on his way. It is mere self-deception in those mothers who deny their mental capacity, or their command of time, to aid their children in their mental progress. It is a _moral_ want of their own, far more than everything else, that causes them to shrink from this most important responsibility. Those who have passed the period of childhood, who have taken upon themselves the responsibility of all that concerns their own minds, and who have any desire after upward progress, should remember that the books they love best are those which reflect their own characteristics. Every one looks up to his favorite books, and the tone of his mind is influenced by them in consequence. In our Companionship with our fellow- beings we may be governed to a great extent by our desire to stand well with the world, and therefore seek the society of those whom the world most admires rather than those we most enjoy. In the choice of our books there is much less influence of this kind exerted upon us. In the retirement of our homes we may daily consort with the low or the wicked, as they are delineated in books, and our standing with the world be in no way affected, while the poison we imbibe will work all the more surely that it works secretly. They whose ideas of right and wrong are dependent on the judgment of the world may need even this poor guide, and suffer from the want of it; for in doing what the world does not know, and therefore cannot condemn, they may encounter evil and danger from which even the love of the world would protect them, if the same things were to be exposed to the public eye. We have no more moral right to read bad books than to associate with bad men, and it would be well for us in selecting our books to be governed by much the same principles as in the selection of our associates; to feel that they are, in fact, companions and friends whose opinions cannot fail to exert a powerful influence upon us, and that we cannot associate with them indiscriminately without great danger to our characters.