Collecting old prints, stamps, and coins, is by no means a waste of time. Fads of this nature offer the additional inducement of an asset which may serve, in a material way, to banish worry in time of stress. To reap the full advantage of the collection fads one should take pains to acquire a knowledge of the geography and history with which they are associated. Few are so unfortunately placed that they have no access to information on these subjects. The encyclopædia, at least, is within general reach, though rarely consulted by those who most need its aid. Suppose one takes up history for an indoor fad. How shall he start in? Since he pursues this study only as a fad, he can commence almost anywhere. Let him decide to become familiar with the fifteenth century. The first step is to familiarize himself with the principal rulers and the principal battles of that time. Suppose he spends half an hour every evening upon the life of one or another ruler, as given in the encyclopædia or elsewhere. If he is sufficiently inventive to construct a pictorial or other plan in which to give each his place, so much the better. Having thus constructed a framework he can begin to fill in the details, and now the study begins to interest him. At any public library he can find a catalogue of historical fiction arranged according to centuries. Under the fifteenth century he will find Quentin Durward, The Broad Arrow, Anne of Geierstein, The Cloister and the Hearth, Every Inch a King, Marietta, The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, and other standard works, all of which he may have read before, but every page of which will have for him a new interest since he can now place the characters, appreciate the customs, and form a consistent picture of what was doing in different countries at this time. The next step is to acquire, in the same way, equal familiarity with the preceding and succeeding centuries, particularly with the interrelations of the different countries, old and new. The reader who has followed to this point will need no further hint. If he continues as he has begun, he will be surprised to find how soon he will be able to instruct, on one subject at least, the college graduate, unless that graduate has happily continued as a fad what he once perfunctorily acquired. Another way of commencing this study, and the one, I confess, which appeals more to me, is first to establish a framework which shall cover a long period of time, then study special epochs. An interesting way to start this method is to purchase Creasy's "Decisive Battles of the World," and familiarize one's self with its contents. This will furnish pegs on which to hang further items of information, and will impart a running familiarity with different nations involved in war from the time of the supremacy of Greece, down to the battle of Manila, in the recent edition,--in earlier editions to the time of Napoleon.