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lullabies, and other entertaining and educational material enjoyable to
babies and little children; it reaches into and through the high-school
age. In fact, the BOOKSHELF, with its valuable scientific and
natural-history material, its information about inventions and
industries, and its literary treasures, is an asset to the library even
of an adult.

The BOOKSHELF is classified. In some libraries material upon an
unrelated variety of subjects may be found within the covers of a single
volume. This feature has been tried and found wanting. It means that
when the reader is on the trail of a given subject he never knows where
to look for it, and he is likely to have to hunt through several volumes
before he learns what he wants to know. The argument for an unclassified
library is that the child who is reading a story may happen at the end
of that story upon an article containing valuable information, and thus
be lured on to read it. Children are not so easily beguiled. The mental
distinction of being, as it were, forced to spring from one theme to
another certainly counterbalances any supposed advantage in the
scrapbook arrangement. "A place for everything, and everything in its
place," is as true an adage and as necessary to remember and to practise
to-day as it ever was.

In addition to classifying the contents of the BOOKSHELF, the Editors
have graded the material. Any collection that is purchased for a home
and leaves out the needs of the children of any given age is
disappointing to that home. There is also a Graded Index, which is an
enlargement upon the general plan.

On the very day of its birth a baby enters the child's garden of life.
In this beautiful place there are weeds as well as flowers, and father
and mother must guide the little adventurer so that only the good
flowers are developed, while the weeds are held in check and the
poisonous plants torn up and destroyed. Earnest parents feel this
responsibility very keenly. In "Fun and Thought for Little Folk" there
is a well-selected collection of jingles, stories, and play exercises
for babies up to about three or four years of age. It covers the
earliest informal education of a child, from finger-play days to the
alphabet period. It helps parents who wish to enjoy their little
children and who do not wish such enjoyment to be a mere matter of
chance. Trained kindergartners with the modern viewpoint had much to do
with this collection. Not only does it delight the little folk, but it
is also the first material for child-training.

Educators are making much nowadays of fairy stories and wonder-tales.
The imaginative man, they say, is the effective man, because he has the
mental vision which sees farther than the physical eye; and they urge
that all children should be the possessors of these nursery tales that
have made children happy for so many centuries. "Folk-lore, Fables, and
Fairy Tales" is the result of careful comparative study of all the
leading anthologies, with added research into sources that have not
otherwise been thoroughly explored.

The folk-lore of many races and times has been sifted, and wherever
necessary it has been retold so as to be suitable to modern tastes and
needs of modern children. Whatever was gruesome or morally undesirable
has been omitted, but the flavor and the language of the past have been
retained. Here are "Cinderella," "Tom Thumb," and all the other
favorites of our childhood days, together with the stories that are told
to the children in the four corners of the world. While these will be
read to our boys and girls before they are able to read for themselves,
they will turn back again and again to this department as they grow
older. There is perpetual youth in the tales evolved by a race in its
infancy.

From the fairy-tale and the folk-lore period, when beasts and trees and
all that is about them speak to them in words they can understand,
children develop into a stage where they want stories, or, as we say
when we are older, fiction. Both they and we mean tales that while
untrue yet would be possible of happening. At this age, also, children
desire to learn the habits of the animals they see on the farm, in the
zoo, and in the circus. The importance of giving children an early
acquaintance with good literature is unquestioned, but even the most
earnest parent has difficulty in making the selection, finding the
source in available form, and keeping out what is unworthy.

"Famous Tales and Nature Stories" has been made with care. Many of the
world's famous stories are collected here, and wherever possible they
are in the original language. The nature stories, about flowers and
trees, birds and insects, are not formal, but are planned to give the
child direct contact with nature and to assist the good habit of direct
and interested observation.

This division also includes a Primer and a First Reader, made according
to modern principles. Enough reading material is furnished in graded
form to enable the home teacher to help her little pupil master the
elements of reading, or the child will use it himself to supplement the
work of the teacher in school, if the mother is too busy with her other
tasks to permit her the enjoyment of teaching her child to read.

All modern kindergarten teaching to-day centers about the development of
the child's own impulses and interests. Of these the two most noticeable
are the tendency to play and the tendency to construct. Even if a mother
had no higher motive than to keep her little child out of mischief she
would welcome a treasury of devices that will always be at hand to
answer the question, "Mother, what shall I do now?" But most mothers
appreciate the value and importance of well directed play and work. In
"Things to Make and Things to Do" are given the directions for
elementary cooking, sewing, woodworking and other handicraft. Successful
teachers who are close to young children, and who kept home conditions
in mind in all their writing, prepared these sections. Educationally
they are sound, but, better than that, they are simple and explicit, and
within the reach of the resources of each home. Here, too, are the
suggestions for the directed and undirected play of the wee tots. The
material in this department, while complete in itself, will prepare the
way for and supplement all teaching in schools of these important
subjects. It is of the first importance that boys and girls recognize
the true nature of work and play. This department will help them in the
right direction.

As a child grows older he craves true stories. "Mother, did it really
happen?" "Father, was that make-believe or real?" These questions are
but the sign of mental and spiritual growing pains. If the child is
wisely aided, that poise which is so envied by the self-conscious person
will be his. The chief factor in poise is knowledge.

To be at home in many lands and times is the mark of a really educated
man or woman. Not all of us can actually travel, not all 

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