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the heads of the house.

Nothing can be more

miserable than when the mother's efforts are neutralized by the father's example, or when the faithful discipline of the father is counteracted by the indulgent softness of the mother. It should be the most earnest aim of both parents, not only to be of one mind as to the rules and methods to be adopted in the training of their family, but to avoid giving their children the slightest reason to suppose that they are not so. It does sometimes happen that a blessing crowns the extraordinary efforts and faith of one parent, even where the other is a drag and a hindrance. But, in general, it is as unlikely that a waggon will move smoothly along while its two horses are dragging opposite ways, as that a family will be well trained where the one parent is an absolute contrast to the other. Unity in the governing powers is an all but indispensable requisite for that unity in the household which is so highly extolled in the psalm :

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

It is like the precious ointment upon the head,

That ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard:
That went down to the skirts of his garments;

As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended
upon the mountains of Zion:

For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore."

CHAPTER IX.

READING AND RECREATION.

"Habits for occupying the idle hour, and interesting the vacant mind,—— methods for disciplining the attention, and training the understanding,—the laws at least of taste,--the elements at least of science,-the keys at least of the precious treasury of knowledge human and divine,-these we may hope to furnish to mankind at large, and they may become more valuable gifts than if we could convert them all into Miltons or Napoleons."

EARL OF CARLISLE.

AMONG the wonderful progeny of the steam-engine, cheap books hold perhaps the highest place. It is steam that has cheapened books, as it has cheapened travelling, and clothing, and a thousand other products of skill and industry. When steam labour began to be substituted for hand labour, it seemed to many a working man like the ringing of his knell. The change was doubtless attended at first with much suffering and misery to individuals, and the same thing will happen as often as methods are discovered of doing more quickly and surely by machinery, what it has hitherto been the custom to do by the hand. But in the end, society as a whole, and the masses in particular, are always benefited

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by these improvements. In the matter of books. they have been most signally benefited. The time was when books of the higher order were almost as far beyond their reach as a carriage or a country mansion. It is very different now. With a little care and judgment, a working man may now have as good a collection of books as an ordinary squire or professional gentleman could have had two centuries ago. The sums that many spend on snuff, tobacco, and spirits, if invested in books, would procure in a few years a library of large extent, and excellent quality. It is machinery that has made this possible. It is that same steam-engine that used to be regarded as such a mortal foe to labour and labourers. Unlike the prophet's book, this great invention has been bitter in the mouth, but sweet in the belly. In the many improvements and new enjoyments which it lays at his feet, the steam-engine is at length showing itself in its true character,--a substantial friend of the working man. In the flood of books and periodicals which it scatters freely among the masses; in the free access which it gives them to the choicest thoughts of the master spirits of other days; in the stores of information which it spreads before them; in the purifying, elevating, and transforming power which some at least of its productions are exerting on many of them, it is paying

back with compound interest to the children, the means and the comforts which it tore from their despairing fathers.

To those who have a taste for reading, books are a source of perennial and ever fresh enjoyment.

"The place that does contain

My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers,

And sometimes, for variety, I confer

With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels,
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,

Unto a strict account, and in my fancy

Defacing their ill-played statutes."

"Books," said a learned Englishman of the eleventh

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century, are masters who instruct us without rods and rules and wrath; if you go to consult them, they are never asleep; if you ask them questions, they don't run off; if you make blunders, they don't scold; if you are ignorant, they don't taunt you." This, we say, is the benefit of books to those, but only to those who have a taste for reading. And it is this that makes it such a matter of regret, that in the case of many young persons, their education is arrested before they have got a taste for reading. It is one thing to be able to read, another to enjoy reading; it is one thing to be able to spell your way painfully, step by step, through a collection

of words, hobbling along like a cripple; another to catch the ideas as easily as you catch the colours or figures of a painting, so that reading a book becomes as pleasant as looking on a picture or hearing a story. It is much to be desired that no young person be removed from school till he can read without effort, and enjoy what he reads.

But even when there is a taste for reading, it needs to be most carefully regulated, and most conscientiously controlled. Like other good gifts, the gift of books may be perverted and abused. That enemy who can never see wheat flourishing, without scattering tares by night over the field, is ever active in turning to his own purposes of evil the swarming literature of the day. A large proportion of the cheap books and papers which solicit the patronage of the working classes, are mere chaff, with hardly a grain of solid mental food. Another section is worse -it is poison. The adulteration of food, which is one of the scandals of the age, is not confined to the nutriment of the body. It goes on fearfully in that higher department which supplies food for the mind and soul. Our purpose in this chapter is to recommend healthy food; or more specifically, to lay down some principles in the first place, that may guide the working man in his choice of books; and

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