What will Ruskin as a teacher do for you, provided, of course, you have a mind open to receive and appreciate his teaching? He will inculcate upon you the beauty of absolute truth, uprightness, charity towards and care for your fellows. He will teach you, with many a charming hint and allurement by the way, the duty of storing, by the study of literature, your mind with the very best that has been thought and said in the world. He will open your eyes to the beauty that lies around you; for instance, to the changing pageant of the skies, at morn, at sunset, and at night—to the conformation of the tiny leaf, twig, or crystal as well as to the majesty of the everlasting hills, and the might of the torrent and the storm. He will guide you into sound ways of thinking, with regard to painting and architecture. He will show you something of the capacity of the English language as a vehicle of expression, and he cannot fail to add refinement and grace to your mode of thought. He will make the world a more beautiful place to you; and will make you more fit to live and work in the world. So much for this great “Master,” as he is still called by those who love and revere him. Two indispensable authors in the field of essays and criticism, are the Americans, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Emerson is a “prophet.” To many readers he puts into words what they may have long thought or felt, and they start to see their own unexpressed vague idea alive before them. “Trust thyself” is his counsel. The _Autocrat_, _Professor_, and _Poet of the Breakfast Table_, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, are graceful and charming books which must always be loved by the thoughtful reader. They can be obtained in the “Camelot Series” at 1s. each. Mazzini’s _Essays_, dealing chiefly with political and social questions, should be read by thoughtful young men and women. Thomas Carlyle has had much to do with the development of a feeling of individual responsibility. The essays of Charles Lamb, and the dialogues of Walter Savage Landor; the essays of Leigh Hunt, Augustine Birrell, Mrs. Meynell, and many others, will charm in one way and another, and repay reading. There are certain writers whose province it seems to inspire and stimulate. Such, to those on the threshold of life, are teachers of priceless worth. Ruskin, Emerson, Mazzini, Carlyle, all belong to this category. They make us feel that life is worth living, ideals are worth toil and aspiration; and recall the words of Matthew Arnold in _Rugby Chapel_: “Ye alight in our van! at your voice, Panic, despair, flee away. Ye move through the ranks, recall The stragglers, refresh the outworn, Praise, re-inspire the brave! Order, courage, return. Eyes rekindling, and prayers, Follow your steps as ye go. Ye fill up the gaps in our files, Strengthen the wavering line, Stablish, continue our march, On, to the bound of the waste, On, to the City of God.”