But not all trashy reading bears such open and extraneous evidence of its character. Another equally vicious class of books appears in the outward form of good fiction, bound in boards, with attractive titles and covers, and sometimes written by authors of well-known reputations. They consist of stories that fascinate the boy with their thrills but inspire false ideals of life even though they do not always possess the fault of openly idealizing vice; the story of the cabin boy who advanced to captain through some impossible deed of heroism or adventitious circumstance, without the training or experience necessary to qualify him for the position; the story of the boy who achieved honor and distinction by trickery or sharp practice; the story of the hero who gained wealth by some get-rich-quick method, all are as vicious in their suggestion and influence as the “nickel library.” And the poison of such literature is as subtle as it is fatal. Mr. E. W. Mumford is authority for the following statement: “Many a parent, who would promptly take John out to the woodshed if he learned that the boy was collecting dime novels, himself frequently adds to John’s library a book quite as bad.” The author once requested a twelve-year-old boy friend to tell him about the best book he had ever read. Here is his reply: “It is a story about two boys who went to Florida in an aëroplane to explore the Everglades. They got lost in the swamps and jungles and were captured by a tribe of wild Indians. These Indians had also captured a little white girl who had wandered away from her parents. One night, the boys killed nearly all the Indians with tomahawks as they slept and escaped with the little girl in the aëroplane followed by a volley of poisoned arrows which just grazed ’em but didn’t hit ’em.” The impossibility of the situations, the false ideals presented, the mock heroics and the lack of literary quality in the story all were unnoticed by the boy. He saw only a youthful hero engaged in a thrilling adventure which culminated in a rescue of chivalric idealism. The danger from such books is even greater than from the “nickels” because, coming in the guise of good fiction, their appeal is more insidious. The average boy knows, either by intuition or by direct statement of the fact, that the “blood-and-thunder nickel” is prohibited by his parents; hence he reads them in the barn or in the privacy of his room and hides them meantime where they will be safe from the inquisitive eyes of spying parents.